Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter for Hourglass. And EYYYYYY, APRIL FOOLS! I'm not going to leave this thing hanging for several months like I usually do! Aren't ya surprised? Yes, it's true. I'm legit spending time on Hourglassnow. I've finally narrowed down my creative energy to this and my animation channel on YouTube that I'm starting up. So, that means I'll be putting out one chapter a month at least now!
What I'm scared of now is not being able to finish the story before all of you grow up and leave this trilogy in the back of your minds as a tragically abandoned memory...depressing, I know, and this isn't to fish for pity comments because it's just reality. I'm pulling up my britches and getting to WORK on this baby! I. AM. DOING. THIS.
P.S. I apologize for the late update, but I just HAD to get this out on April 1st. XD
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 27: A Dream Come False
Adrian walked slowly through a field of daisies, smiling broadly as he stared up at the blue sky above. The squeak of his boots was muffled by the flowers he strolled over, though considering how many there were in the area he didn't feel too bad.
When he lowered his gaze to the horizon, he spotted a house barely a hundred feet from where he stood. It looked rather familiar, but for a moment he wasn't sure why. Then, when he spotted the bronze rooster-shaped weather vane that stuck from its roof, his grin widened. That was his home, alright!
He picked up the pace in a moment's notice, jogging through the gilded meadow on his way back to the house. He passed several more well-known spots—of course, well-known to him. There was the massive crabapple tree that he would climb on when he was a kid, that one shrub line that he always buried his gold coins in when he used to think the apocalypse was coming, and a couple other familiar sights.
With his athleticism, Adrian didn't take much time to reach the squat home. Its siding was splintery and the paint was peeling, but what did he care? It was still his house! He scaled the steps to the porch and stopped at the front door, baring his knuckles to rap on the wood. When he did so, the door opened by itself.
"Creepy!" he said jokingly, walking inside.
The lights were left on by whoever was in the house last, so he was able to find his way quite easily to the kitchen. He opened up the cupboards, looking for some grub, and found himself the peanut butter and Wonder Bread. A minute later, he had himself a plain pb-minus-the-j sandwich, which he dropped on a plate and took to the living room. He parked himself in the rocking chair in front of their 18x27 TV and let out a content sigh.
It had been almost two months since he was ripped from his home and he was so glad to finally be able to return. As he munched on his simple but satisfying lunch, he tried to remember how he got back in the first place. For some odd reason, he wasn't able to do so. In his mind it seemed like he'd never actually been taken away and it was just a dream all along.
Just a sad, scary, occasionally wonderful dream…
He took another bite of his peanut butter sandwich.
Kenneth panted heavily as his legs churned beneath him, propelling him through the forest. The aggressive sounds from his attacker followed closely behind. He darted past a tall birch tree; a looming shadow ripped through the same one.
"COMMANDBLOOOOOCK!" it shrieked, slashing tree trunks of all lengths to the side.
Kenneth tried to concentrate as hard as he could, but in his panic he couldn't get the commands in his head fast enough.
"/jump boost [player: Kenneth]! /strength boost [player: Kenneth]! /speed boost [player: Kenneth]!"
He felt the code begin to flow through his system, empowering him once again. The dark figure behind him was right on his tail, just a few blocks away now. It lifted a human hand, though from it grew long claws of pitch black.
"NGH!" Kenneth grunted, leaping high into the air as the talons sliced through the dirt beneath his feet with a thunderclap.
His body started to descend back to the surface when a burning hot something wrapped itself around his ankle and ripped him out of the sky. He screamed and plummeted downward, smashing into the ground with a powerful thud. Rolling onto his back, he saw a monster's clawed hand curling into a fist above him.
"/tp [player: Kenneth] to [tree – ID: 78]!" he thought again.
Kenneth disappeared and reassembled in an instant under the leaves of another birch tree forty-ish blocks away. He scrambled to his feet and stuck his foot into the ground hard, taking off with a burst of speed. Oaks and birches alike flew by him as he sped through the woods. He glanced for only a split second behind him to look for the black beast, but he saw only his own shadow.
He turned his head forward again and slammed face-first into a long wall of trees. He stared in horror at the barrier, recognizing instantly the Chiller lines of code present in the plants, twisting and turning in impossible routes. Suddenly, the sound of electricity crackling pounded his ears from behind and he whirled around.
There it stood. At its very core it was humanoid, but the massive claws, the forked tongue, and those ghastly, icy blue eyes turned it into something else. Something he only saw in his nightmares before now.
"/tp [player: Kenneth] to [player: Cobweb]…" he said silently, his entire body trembling with fear.
The character lifted its warped fingers and extended them, each trembling. Kenneth gasped in pain as his head exploded, pulsing rapidly. He choked, struggling for breath as it grew worse and worse. Seconds later, a line of white letters flew into his view, ripped right from out of his forehead. It was the command. His command. It floated now, hovering there in between the two.
Each claw on the monster's hand extended suddenly, closing around the command and crushing it in one motion. Kenneth's blood froze solid at the sight of the white letters falling out from in between its fingers in a fine dust.
"You don't have permission to use this command." spoke the shadowy figure.
Kenneth's heart skipped more than just one beat in that moment. He backed up further against the tree, everything shaking.
"Y…Y…You aren't Adrian…what d-did you do with Adrian…?" he whimpered.
The nightmarish Adrian puppet took a step forward, making him jump.
"He's still inside," the silhouette of muttered, grinning with a bare blue smile."He thinks he's dreaming, in fact. He's having a snack at home right about now, it looks like…"
"H-have you been controlling him this ent-tire time?" Kenneth croaked, afraid to hear the truth.
"Not entirely." it replied, raising a twisted hand."Only when Lord Glitch saw that he was too hesitant to complete a task…blowing up Norman's wife was my absolute favorite by far since I was allowed to give him a little extra push."
"Y…you mean Lizzy? Lizzy Cake? Er…Cobweb?"
"Yes, Liz. It's unusual, however, that all that happened when I killed her was the toughening of Mr. Cobweb's skin. And speaking of Lord Glitch, the moment I laid eyes on you I knew you would cause some trouble. Once you spotted what lays beneath your new friend's skin, it was time to eliminate you. Just as a standard precaution…"
It lifted its claw, which grew once again to twice the previous size and began to crackle with black electricity. It curled and opened repeatedly, primed to crush Kenneth off the face of the Overworld. The boy was in too much shock and terror to say a single word. All he could do was sit and fear.
"It's alright, though. The audience thought you were a FILLER character, anyway…"
And in a flash of black, the clawed hand showed its blades and slashed Kenneth through the chest, dissolving him in a swirling blaze of code.
Serisdo's wing grazed the silvery surface of one of the larger hourglasses in the room that held infinitely more. He continued to examine one in particular, the one with the icy blue powder and cobalt metal. Each individual speck was stuck in place, together forming a falling stream that appeared frozen in time. It was as though time had once been flowing in this dimension but was now at a halt.
"The Glitch…it hasn't claimed the Logic Sword yet, has it? It must think it is unnecessary for its plans. And yet I distinctly recall its second in command mentioning the weapon."
No matter how long he chose to stare at the immobilized sand stream, Serisdo did not see it continue on its original path.
"If the Ultra Hero cannot convince Sycallion in the end, then it may be time to unearth the blade one more time." he murmured, lowering his mellifluous head to face the floor.
At that moment, he heard the glowing double doors burst open behind him. He flipped himself entirely to see who'd come in to see Thorvon the Third gliding towards him at an alarming rate.
"Serisdo! It happened again!" he cried, raising his waving his effervescent wings frantically.
"Another temporary hero's life has been claimed." he declared, providing an answer for himself. "Yes, I had another flashforward just an hour ago and I am perfectly aware of what would, AND what has, happened."
Thorvon and Serisdo appeared to be polar opposites at the moment. Of course, being the creator of emotions and the creator of knowledge could often make them this way, though there seemed to be an even greater distance between their minds at the moment. This was even so despite them being twins. Thorvon slowed to a halt in front of Serisdo as he turned around to face the wall once again.
"You…you seem to be much less phased than when Elizabeth was claimed by the Glitch. Is something, besides the obvious wounds to our situation, wrong?"
Serisdo stared intensely at the duo-chromatic hourglass. He lifted his wing to it a second time and stroked it with the ribbony tip of his wing.
"At this present moment I can only seem to think about Phil. Do you think, and I mean is it in your personal opinion, that he will be willing to give Norman Cobweb the Logic Sword if the need for it appears in the near future? If it truly is our only option left, will he allow it to be wielded by someone other than him for another time?"
Thorvon folded his wings and hummed softly, thinking hard. In his head he assessed all the emotions ever given off and processed by the dimensional repairman. There was a lot of anger, that was certain. Thoughts of murdering Deadpool.
"The Wall Hammer, a tool capable of healing any damage, and the Logic Sword, a weapon easily capable of destroying the existence of everything in fiction and nonfiction: our world, the Author's…he covets his hammer far more than the latter, but even so I can see that if the time ever comes where he should need to give up the sword of mass destruction, he will protect it with to the highest of his ability. Force would be needed to take it from him if this became the case."
Thorvon's head lifted upward suddenly and he eyed the hourglass through Serisdo's translucent figure.
"I see the Glitch hasn't decided to take it for its own yet. Do you think it will in the future?"
Serisdo slowly shook his head and replied,
"Of course not. In the virus's twisted thought process, its plan to swallow the universe in darkness is completely flawless. It thinks it has no need for the weapon and has decided not to pay any mind to it. Do you recall what emotions were displayed by his measly partner Jacque?"
"Confusion, disbelief, and paranoia. Much paranoia indeed." Thorvon breathed, gradually descending towards the ground."The Glitch made a mistake by giving any of member of its army the capability of independent thought. Jacque will not be the first one to be mentally revitalized on this situation; I believe that there is a great possibility for even Ben's redemption provided he does not become discovered…Farixz told me what he has done in the minutes past."
Serisdo swished back around to face Thorvon, who had his head lowered. He floated down to his spiritual sibling's level and the sets of dead white eyes locked.
"I have just remembered," he muttered, his tone as serious as ever."Froace will be arriving in precisely two hours. Farixz will need to put another mental barrier on me as I fear that the actions I may perform upon his return will not be pleasant or appropriate to any degree."
Thorvon quickly surveyed the emotions that had suddenly expanded inside of Serisdo's infinite mind. His oval eyes widened and he floated backwards a ways.
"Of course, brother. I can…tell him now."
He lifted both his wings and wrapped them around his body, spinning into the air and vanishing in a shower of silver mist. Serisdo watched it dissipate in the clean white air for a moment before returning his gaze to the hourglass in front of him.
"The 4,444th Dimension is already an imbalanced one," he murmured, glaring at the timekeeper of blue."but it should not be to such a degree that it imbalances me."
Adrian rocked back and forth in the wooden chair for a few minutes of complete quiet. The crumbs of the sandwich sat on the plate, sliding this way and that as he wobbled in his seat.
"Hm."
He stood up from his seat after another few seconds of this, feeling suddenly restless in the peaceful setting. He walked back to the kitchen and rinsed off his dish, setting it in their puny excuse for a dishwasher. When he shut the machine, he was met with stunning silence. Usually, whenever he closed the dishwasher, his crazy dog Zelda came running down the stairs to bark at it.
And yet, everything was still.
Adrian made his way out onto the front porch of his home and leaned over the brittle white paint of the railing. The sun stood suspended high in the sky, shining bright for the entire field. The breeze was pleasant on his skin and the sight of the forest trees standing still and beautiful in line gave him an odd sense of security.
He smiled, the unusual feeling in his stomach easing a little as he soaked in his peaceful surroundings.
"Ahhhh…" he breathed, closing his eyes.
…
…
…
"Wait."
His eyes shot back open in an instant and he leaned further over the porch rail. He stared hard at the trees in the distance. There was something unnatural about the way they stood completely still. He again noticed the light wind brushing rustling the hair under his cowboy hat.
"Wait a second!" he lifted his hand to his head and grasped the soft fabric of his hat. "My hat…?"
Hadn't he lost his hat a little while ago? In that cave with…with…
"Norman, Bailey, that Auconi bloke…Kelsey, too!" he ran through the names.
Adrian's feet hit the stairs fast and he quickly descended onto the long grass. He only ran about twenty feet out from the house before turning back around and gazing up at the roof. The weather vane atop it was frozen in place, unmoving in the breeze.
"Ahhh no..." he muttered, whirling around and changing his line of vision to the oak trees ahead.
He sprinted straight at the trees, not noticing all the hundreds of daisies being crushed under his leather boots. The closer he got, the more he noticed that the sky above was beginning to warp in a strange way, almost curving high above his head. He'd been staring at it for far too long, however, and smashed full-speed into a solid wall.
"Oomph!" he grunted, falling back onto his butt in the most painful way—less painful than when he looked up to see what he'd hit. "Oh my Lord…"
The trees themselves were not even real trees, but rather a supermassive painting of oaks that stretched for miles beyond his sight. Adrian stared in horror at the complex canvas, pupils shaking on their whites.
"N-no!" he whispered, getting trembling to his feet. "Yer not serious!"
He lifted a fist and pounded the wall, knocking it with all the force in his muscles. When that didn't work, he unhooked his iron frying pan from his belt and smacked it as hard as possible. The sound was a metal on metal clang, one that shrunk Adrian's hopes tenfold when he realized he couldn't break out.
He was trapped inside his own mind again!
He whirled around and threw his fists to the earth, lifting his head high and screaming,
"BEN! GET DOWN HERE, YA WORTHLESS BLACK BASTARD! WHAT THE HELL'RE YOU DOING NOW?! …BEN! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
But there came no answer.
Only a distant slicing sound was heard.
What a terrible fate it must be to be stuck inside your own brain with no way out or understanding of the going-ons of the outside world. What could Adrian be possibly thinking lies ahead of him for when he wakes up inside his own body in the future? What exactly is the Logic Sword? And will the other heroes notice when Kenneth is flat out missing? Guess you'll just have to wait for the next chapter of Hourglass to have these answers and more revealed!
This is Pastrinator64, your fellow writer and reader, signing out!
*throws sugar bomb and disappears behind its cloud of fine white sugar*
...Goodbye for now...
~Pastrinator64 [~]