CHAPTER 52: The Dangers
After Zomboss uttered what he thought would diss me, he dragged Peater, Elias and I out of our cell.
"Wait here, and no funny business." Zomboss growled as he left us and opened a small cabinet a few metres to our right. "WOULD THREE JACK IN THE BOX ZOMBIES REPORT TO THE CHRONOSIS ROOM AT ONCE!" he barked into a small microphone inside the cabinet.
After that was done, Zomboss proceeded to grab us yet again and march us down the hall, through a small door, and through a dark, dank passageway.
"Strange . . . you guys are usually very . . . pushy and stubborn. Now, what happened to all that, hmm?" he muttered.
"Saving our energy is what we're doing!" I replied.
"Not another word out of you lot, ya hear?" Zomboss snarled.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not like we care." I grumbled under my breath.
After a long process of being dragged left, right and center, we finally arrived at a staircase. From there, we experienced a bit more dragging through unreasonably clean hallways, until we arrived in room with the exact same machine that I saw on the projector.
"This, freaks of nature, is the Z-Chronic, as you have seen just a few hours ago. Unfortunately, the construction of this thing, and having it around for that matter, has caused the weather to change, and time to, ah . . . jump." Zomboss explained quickly.
Elias rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.
"A word of the wise ― never mess with time. Unless, of course, you want to destroy ―"
That was all he was able to say before Zomboss let out an ear-splitting scream.
"AAAHHHH! FOR THE LORD GOD'S SAKE! WHAT PART OF "SHUT UP" DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, YOU FREAKO?!"
Zomboss then dragged us so that we were at least ten metres away from the machine.
"All right. Jacki, why don't we start the engine?" Zomboss ordered, pointing at a zombie wearing a lab coat and black gloves, who nodded.
"Jacki turn on engine. Brainz . . ." he mumbled.
After fiddling with a couple of switches, Jacki stood back and let out a sigh of admiration as the machine powered on with several crackles and zaps.
"Now tell me, Elyssia. Would you like to turn back time, and correct your past mistakes?" I heard Ash whisper as he embraced me briefly from behind.
"Wh-where the hell did you come from, Ash?" I sputtered.
"And besides, I . . . don't want to go back. I don't want to add to the troubles that the whole of plantkind already has, thank you very much!"
Just then, I heard several popping noises to my left and right. And to my immense disgust and horror, I saw Mar and Scuttle.
"Oh no, Elyssia. No, no, no . . ." Peater whispered as he held my leaf.
"All right, your playtime's over, dear. Now . . . it's time for me to play with you and death!" Mar snarled as she unzipped the coat that she was wearing over her dress, which revealed many knives of different shapes and sizes.
"Yyesssss . . . perrrrfeect!" Scuttle mumbled from my right, the shapeless, floating blob that was her body glowing with excitement.
Snickering, Mar daintily pulled out a knife with a curved blade that glinted menacingly in the sunlight. I immediately schooled my face to show a look of determination, not a look of fear. Mar, meanwhile, had teleported right in front of my face and started cutting around my mouth. I did my best not to whimper in pain as the knife traced a bloody design around my face. After what seemed like decades of this, I spat a mouthful of blood out at Mar.
"Oh, bloody hell!" she screeched as she wiped the sticky, red liquid off her face and threw the knife at my head.
Needless to say, blood instantly started pouring down my face soon after the knife found home, some of it getting into my eye.
"Mar! I swear to God, if you do this to Elyssia one more time, I will grab that stupid head of yours, pull it right off, and stick it on a twig that I'll feed to the wolves!" Elias warned as he summoned a thorny club.
He then threatened to clobber the creepy old doll by waving it back and forth.
"Not so fast, Elias." Zomboss snarled as he grabbed the club and tossed it at another zombie.
"Oooh, pretty plant!" it cooed, before the club knocked its head off its neck.
"Oh well. You were always good for nothing little brute. Return to wherever you came from!" Zomboss muttered, before he turned to me.
"Well, looks like we'll have to put you and your little friends through this machine. From there, you shall meet your deaths!" he crowed.
"And sure as hell, there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it!" I gritted my teeth as more blood spouted out of my stab wound.
"You don't . . . *cough* have a . . . *cough* bloody right to carry out this . . . *gag* brainless crap!" I objected through coughs and gags.
Mar and Scuttle laughed hollow, humourless laughs as Zomboss grabbed Peater, Elias and I and tossed us into the Z-Chronic via a door that he made sure to lock with the press of a button on remote.
"Have fun dancing with death, my dearies! It was nice knowing you . . . NOT! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Mar cackled.
"Oh, shut your dang piehole, for God's sake!" Elias screamed as he pounded the seemingly unbreakable glass of the time machine.
"And let us out, you hell spawns!" Peater added, in a voice equally as loud as his father's.
I coughed and gagged, the loss of blood disorienting me.
"Oh darn! Elyssia . . . don't say you're dying!" Peater gasped as he ran right over to my side.
"Oh . . . I'm fine. . ." I mumbled as I stopped the bleeding with a wave of my leaf, although the pain still persisted.
"You better be, because you're the only one that can save us!" Peater exclaimed as he pulled me to my roots.
"All right, freaks of nature. See you when pigs fly!" Zomboss guffawed as he pressed a button on the outside of the Z-Chronic, which caused it to start flashing, buzzing and shaking.
"Holy . . . what the hell?!" I screeched as the machine started to heat up, and the glass started flashing in all different colours of the rainbow.
Although we had no idea as to what was happening, we knew one fact.
We were in some real serious crap.