Hi guys!
Here`s my new chapter – difficult to write, but I hope the result is good.
As I said, this chapter includes Randall`s sister. She is a character created by me, although she looks very similar to her brother – who is definitely not my creation!
I got a question about Rex a couple of days ago, on who he is and whether he`s "real" or not – so I`m going to introduce him briefly to you all: Rex is Randall`s nephew, and he is NOT a fan-made character – he`s real! Somewhat real, at least... He makes an appearance in Monsters Inc. Storybook Collection, in a story called Dayscare – were Mike and Sulley have to take care of the children in the company`s day(s)care program. Rex is referred to as Randall`s nephew Rex twice, and just like his uncle, he can camouflage and disappear – in the book he uses his skills when playing hide-and-sneak, and Mike and Sulley have a hard time finding him.
He`s such a cutie; he`s orange and looks like a baby Randall - google him and see for yourselves:)
That`s all I have to say in this round, I hope you will enjoy chapter 3! :)
Chapter 3: A Dreaded Day
A gentle wind was blowing through the streets of Monstropolis, and the growing moon was casting its light on the rooftops. It was night-time, and the city was nearly empty – except from a few monsters who were working different night shifts, and one or five shifty-looking guys here and there. The rest of the city`s population were sound asleep in their beds.
In one of the city`s many apartments, there was one citizen who appeared to sleep deeper than the rest; a purple monster resembling a lizard was sleeping heavily beneath warm covers, one of his four arms gripping the sheets loosely in a room that was dark and silent. His head was placed directly on the mattress, even though there were three big pillows right next to it – it appeared that the monster had simply fallen onto his bed while half asleep, without bothering lifting his head.
He looked peaceful yet exhausted, laying perfectly still in a curved position - it was as if his body didn`t have the strength to make another move before it was re-charged. The only movement showing was the soft rising and lowering of his breast and the only sound in the room was the sound of him breathing. If anyone had been around to see him, they would probably have said he looked peaceful. Blissful. As if he hadn`t slept in years, and now finally was given the gift of rest.
A gift he would probably never take for granted ever again.
The day had come. Sulley had been dreading and postponing it for weeks, but now that things had somewhat settled at Monsters Inc., the new CEO had decided it was finally time for him to perform a difficult task; a task he had felt hanging over him like a personal raincloud for way too long.
It was only his second day at work since the factory had re-opened, but Sulley already felt tired; over the last month, he had participated in an endless number of meetings and seminars. He had re-hired most of his old co-workers and then hired Mike as a coach to help them transform from scarers to entertainers. They had spent countless of hours practising, and luckily it had been quite a success – the days had all been filled with smiles and laughter. Everybody seemed very pleased, especially Mike. Sulley`s best friend had been wearing an ear-to-ear grin for days now, and the blue monster could often hear him sing to himself – not just in the shower, but everywhere; more often than he had ever done before.
Sulley had also given interview after interview with all the newspapers, radio- and TV-stations imaginable. He had been taking leading courses, computer classes, a cooking class (Mike had convinced him that he needed a hobby) and helped transform all the scare-floors into laugh-floors (although that hadn`t been the biggest time stealer, his effort had mainly just been blowing up some balloons).
He had even hired a replacement for Roz, who was (obviously) no longer going to be working undercover for the CDA. The new girl, Terrie, was Terry and Terri Perry`s sister. She looked just like them, except from the fact that there was only one head on her shoulders. She also had hair and two eyes, but she had the same double set of arms as her brothers, as well as a horn on the top of her head and tentacles instead of legs. It was Terri who had recommended her for the job. Terry had been more of a sceptic as usual, but in the end, she had impressed Sulley with an excellent résumé – and so the job was hers.
Yes, Sulley had indeed been busy during the last month – and he had used that as a frequent excuse for postponing the task he didn`t really want to do; but he figured that today had to be the day, he had kept the other part waiting for far too long. Besides, he had to face this sooner or later anyway, and thought it would be better if he could just get it over with.
By now, Sulley was in his new office, waiting for the monster he had arranged to meet. He felt uncomfortable, and couldn`t figure out where to put his hands; so he picked up a pencil and drummed it towards his desk. Eventually he almost drew himself insane with the sound he was producing, so he stopped - and grabbed a piece of paper so that he could pretend he was brainstorming for new ideas instead. His sheet remained blank, though.
He thought about getting some coffee, but realized that he probably didn`t have the time; what if his visitor would show up while he was away? For a minute, he actually considered calling Mike up over the speaker system in the factory, but he decided that would make him sound a little too desperate – although he really was yearning for something to drink. Or eat. Maybe he should get some chocolate?
A sudden knock on the door made him drop his pencil and all the ideas of retrieving a snack. He sat up, and it took a few seconds before he even knew what to say;
"C-come in!" He tried to sound as normal as possible, but his voice came out a little higher than usual.
The handle on the door was turned around, and the door was slowly opened, as if the person on the other side hesitated. In a weird way, that actually made Sulley relax a bit and lower his shoulders – maybe his guest was nervous as well?
After the door had been fully opened, a deep blue monster entered through it, and just as Sulley had guessed from how slowly she had opened the door, she looked a little nervous too. She moved in an insecure manner and didn`t seem to know where to place her eyes.
Her eyes were big and in a deep shade of brown. Then she had two sets of arms and legs, a tail, and the top of her back and tail was a lighter shade of blue than the rest of her body; somewhere it almost resembled light purple. On the top of her head, she had four fronds. She really looked quite similar to her brother.
"Hi!" Sulley said to the girl, regretting it straight away – he would have wanted to sound a bit more professional, and as he went on, he tried to speak slower and in a more serious tone;
"I`m really glad you could make it! Sorry about the mess, I meant to clean up in here, but I never found the time, I`m normally not this untidy, I… I… I`m sorry." So much for being professional.
The female monster only looked at him, still with an insecure look in her eyes.
"I`m sorry", he continued;
"Do you want to take a seat?"
The blue monster`s facial expression made Sulley unsure – it was as if she tried to ask him a question with her eyes. And why didn`t she sit herself down?
That was when he realized there was only one chair in the room, and that was his own. Blushing beneath his fur, he hurried out through the office door and grabbed the first chair he could find; then he quickly dragged it with him back into his office, placing it by the desk.
"I`m sorry", he repeated, "Now, do you want to sit down?"
The girl smiled at him before she sat herself down on the chair - which broke.
After helping the blue-scaled monster back up on her feet and into the CEO`s chair, Sulley apologised again and threw the broken chair out through the door. As he followed it, he ran into George Sanderson and his assistant;
"Hey Sulley, have you seen a – oh, there it is!"
It took a moment before Sulley realized George was talking about the broken chair, but the striped monster didn`t seem to notice that;
"I`m going to use it in a gig, children love it when you fall over! Do you want to see my act? I can show you, just wait a second, and I`ll -"
Sulley gave George a quick smile and a pat on the shoulder as he kindly turned down his offer. Then he turned around and headed back for his office, but once he got back inside he realized that he still hadn`t found his guest a real chair; and so he ran right back out again, only to meet George and his assistant once more.
"Do you have a chair? Not that one." Sulley pointed to the broken chair as he spoke, trying to keep up with his own breath.
After around ten minutes, an embarrassed CEO made it back to his office with a chair found by George`s assistant.
"I`m sorry", was the only thing he could think about saying; "About everything - I`m really sorry. But I think we`re good to go now, Miss Boggs!"
Sophie Boggs sat in a chair facing her boss, James P. Sullivan. She was nervous about this meeting. Sullivan had first called her up around a month ago, to inform her that her brother had been banished to the human world for various reasons. It hadn`t surprised her. Randall had his share of problems, and she had known for years that he was the kind of person who could suddenly tip over the edge.
During the phone call, Sullivan had mentioned that he wanted to meet her to talk things over and explain exactly what had happened when Randall was banished. She had agreed. It would be nice to have somebody to talk to, someone who would listen – after all she loved her brother even though she had hardly seen him in three years; and of course she was sad when she heard about his terrible faith.
But Sullivan never called her back. She understood; he was probably very busy with the re-opening of Monsters Inc. It had to take a lot of effort to change a scare-factory into a laugh-factory, especially for the CEO. She was impressed he even had thought about calling her up in the first place.
Sophie used to work at Monsters Inc, too. Not as a scarer or scaring assistant, but in the company`s mailroom. So when she read in the paper that the factory was going back in business and that all of the former employees could get their jobs back, she had called Sullivan up herself, and asked him about it. He said it was okay, and that all she had to do was show up and fill out some applications.
The good tone between them on the phone had encouraged Sophie to mention the meeting about Randall as well, just in case the other part had forgotten it. That had caused Sulley to start coughing; he said he was very busy at the moment, and once again she told him that she understood.
Then another couple of weeks went by, and Sophie began to give up on the whole meeting. But then, a couple of days before her first day back at work, Sulley had called her back. He excused himself for being busy, and said he could meet her to talk about Randall on Wednesday - and now she was here, facing him.
"As I said… I`m sorry…" Sulley started, "...about me being a busy jerk, about the waiting I`ve put you through - the whole package... And about Randall; about your brother. Have you heard about what happened?"
"Only the rumours," Sophie said; "That he helped Mr Waternoose in his plot and kidnapped a human child..?"
"Yeah, that basically it", Sulley admitted; "He helped Mr Waternoose build that machine, kidnapped a little girl, and…"
Sophie held up her hand as an interruption; "I don`t need all the details on what he did".
Sulley felt sorry for her. As an attempt to comfort her, he continued to talk; "To be honest, I don`t know whether Randall was forced to help Waternoose, or if he did it out of his own choice. I actually… Believe he was talked into it – Waternoose is a very convincing and likeable man".
Sophie looked sad; "You said you wanted to see me. A month ago, on the phone. Why was that?"
"I just wanted to sort things out", Sulley explained;
"You see – I was there. I was the one throwing Randall through the door. He had tried to kill me, but as I said, I don`t know if he did it out of his own choice or… But he did really try to kill me. I just wanted to tell you. I`m normally not the kind of person who would do something like that, but I had to; he wasn`t in his right mind. I know that it`s really the authorities` job to decide who`s supposed to get banished and all that, but if I hadn`t done it – he could have hurt someone".
Sulley felt the feeling of guilt take over his mind; of course he should have talked it over with someone before the whole throw-through-a-door-thing, he had been told so by the authorities afterwards. He could see why; what Randall had done was illegal, sure, but… Who was he to take the law in his own hands? It almost made him feel nauseous, and it didn`t help to see Sophie`s face on the opposite side of the desk.
Sophie looked at him, and Sulley noticed that her face was very similar to Randall`s – the only big difference, except from the colours of their scales, were their eyes; Sophie`s were brown and open, while Randall`s were bright emerald green and always squinting.
"Thanks for telling me..." Sophie said eventually; "I understand you. My brother was – is… difficult. Maybe this was for the better; for him, too".
Sulley`s shoulders dropped even further down. He felt relieved that Sophie didn`t carry a grudge:
"Look -" he said, lifting a cardboard box up from the floor; "I have some of Randall`s belongings here – we found them when we cleaned out his locker". He handed the box over to Sophie, who studied it closely.
"Can I open it?" she held her hands on its lid, eyes facing Sulley.
"Yeah, of course!" Sulley said, "I guess it belongs to you now, so you can do whatever you want with it."
Sophie opened the box; It held a couple of odorants, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pair of extra reading glasses, a newspaper, an energy-bar, a book and a folded piece of paper. She was about to unfold it, when Sulley interrupted her: "Oh; and then there was this", he said, handing her a key.
"That`s the key to his apartment", Sophie said, receiving the key from Sulley. She fell quiet for a little while before she spoke again: "How does that work when someone is banished? Is the apartment mine now, or… Someone else`s?"
"I… actually don`t know", Sulley said. "My guess is that it`s yours".
Sophie held the key in her hand, and laid the piece of paper, still folded, back in the box. "I would like to visit the apartment", she said, very low, as if she was talking to herself.
"Okay", Sulley answered her, having nothing better to say.
"Randall was my brother; well, he is my brother, and I think visiting his home would do me good", Sophie continued.
"Okay", Sulley said again.
"I don`t know – I don`t think – I don`t think that I want to go there on my own".
"Okay", Sulley said for the third time, not liking where this was going.
"Mr Sullivan-", Sophie looked directly at him – "would you please come with me to see Randall`s apartment? It would mean a lot to me, since you were the last one to see him before he… Please?"
"Okay". Sulley had never felt that stupid before in his entire life.
The two blue monsters made a deal; they would meet during the lunch-break that same day, eat together in the factory`s cafeteria and then leave work early to go visit Randall`s home together. Sulley didn`t like the fact that he had to leave early on his second day as CEO after the re-opening, but Mike assured him that everything was perfectly alright; he would be more than happy to cover for the boss that afternoon – that could have something to do with the fact that another television team was coming over to visit the factory that afternoon, but Sulley accepted Mike`s offer and chose to give him this opportunity to shine.
As Sulley left the factory with Sophie, he could hear Mike sing in the locker room; Sulley wished he could get only a small percentage of his best friend`s good mood; as for himself, he felt straight out terrible. He didn`t feel like going to Randall`s home with Randall`s sister – it felt weird, but he figured he owed it to Sophie; it was really the least he could do after banishing one of her closest family members without permission, keeping her waiting for more than a month and then finally placing her in George Sanderson`s broken chair. Oh yes, this was well deserved – well deserved indeed.
…aaaand that`s it! Well? What do you think? About Sulley? Sophie? Sleeping Randall? When I wrote the first scene in this chapter I was dead tired myself, after two nights of very little sleep (I forget about the time because I`m so busy writing this story!), so I chose myself as the inspiration XD
I`ve changed this chapter many times, but I`m pleased with the way it looks now – I wanted it to be a bit longer though, but I didn`t want to add scenes just to fill it up either. There will be longer chapters later.
I`m going to stop now, I have to make myself some breakfast. It`s early morning here (7AM) and I have to leave for work in like an hour. Please review the chapter and tell me what you think, and make sure you come back to read the next one! My guess is that it`s ready on Monday:) Enjoy your weekend, see ya!