Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter for the zombie of a fanfic: Hourglass!
Huh. Ever since the first chapter of The Glitch my introduction has been the same. And that was a long, long, long time ago. How time flies, right? *sad smile*
Hey, everybody. I dropped off randomly for the last one and a half months. I know I mentioned that I had created an animation channel and many of you have come to watch my videos, but...I didn't give a good, specific reason for why I disappeared so suddenly. Essentially, I was meeting more and more small animators across YouTube, building relationships, really working my way into the community, and all that. I haven't felt this way since I first uploaded on FanFiction 3.5 years ago. And I had a big project I was working on, "Mario's Switch Calamity," which took longer than expected; and THEN I wanted to make an animation as a birthday present for my girlfriend, which took me another couple weeks. Those two animations together have kept me away from FanFiction as long as I have been...and I apologize. Yet again.
Bleh...I've broken a lot of promises over the years when it comes to this book, but I think this last one I'm gonna keep no matter what; otherwise, it'll actually hurt ME not to. I'm going to finish Hourglass, which in turn will bring the "Divination of Dimensions"trilogy to an end, BEFORE 2017. I can't bear to hang onto this series any longer despite how much I love it. The nostalgia is deadly, let me tell you...
So, I've got a little bit of a longer chapter here. I'd say about seven more chapters are to come after this, making this a 55-chapter book altogether before it's all over. I hope you guys can stick around long enough to see the end! :)
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 48: A Lighthearted Stab to the Gut
The next six hours passed by at a snail's pace, absolutely torturing folks like Auconi and Norman. Others, like Adrian and the girls Sabrina and Carol, the day of pure freedom felt well-deserved and was actually quite rejuvenating; considering the week they'd just had, this break was desperately needed. Now, at six o'clock in the evening the seven of them sat together in their snug little home for a decent meal: juicy porkchop sandwiches and sweet, crunchy carrots! For the longest time, dinner proceeded with almost no talking whatsoever. That is, until Bailey summoned her inner mother and piped,
"So! How about we each give one of our up's and down's for the day?"
Carol unintentionally snorted into her sandwich as she was taking a bite, choking on a massive wad of meat. With the exception of Auconi, who kept his attention on his food, they all stared at Carol with looks of either concern or question. When she finally recovered, she set her half a sandwich on her bedpost and glanced over at Bailey, still smiling despite her ordeal.
"Are you joking?" she said, legitimately amused. "That's such a mom thing!"
Bailey gave her a smug little smirk in response, saying,
"Well, Carol! You seem pretty happy at the moment, so why don't you go first?"
Carol's smile dissolved in a matter of seconds as she realized her own insult had not given her an upper hand. She sighed audibly and leaned back against the wall, pushing a lock of loose hair back from her eye.
"Fine, whatever. I'll get it over with, I guess…" she muttered, crossing her arms. "Hm. What did I even do today besides sleep? Sleep and talk…"
Bailey raised an eyebrow, asking,
"Would you consider it an up?"
Carol glared over at her the next second, snapping,
"Sure! Whatever makes you happy! And I suppose my low for the day was having to play this game we're doin' now…next!"
She nudged Sabrina's side with her elbow, making her nearly spit out a piece of food from her mouth in surprise.
"Your turn, Sabrina."
Sabrina took a moment to both collect herself and swallow her mouthful. When she was ready to actually speak, she cleared her throat softly and sat up straight, going a little red in the face when she realized how many pairs of eyes were right on her.
"Uh, I…eh…" she murmured, glancing between the people around her and her toes. "My high for the, um…aw, no, I mean, um, my ups…up for the day was being able to sleep in. My low…down was, um…heh, I dunno. I didn't like getting chased by that s-spider when Carol and I w-went to the, uh…the woods."
Carol raised a finger, leaning forward one split second and shouting,
"You're right, how could I forget about that?! I'm changing my low to being attacked, too."
Suddenly, Norman's mouth morphed into a frown and he raised a finger, brow lowered.
"Actually, I was also attacked by a spider. Unlike last time I encountered glitched spiders, now they ALL move as fast as Tanglera. I'm impressed you two were able to fend it off at all! It caught me off guard and I've got years' worth more in experience monster-fighting. So, good job with not dying!"
Carol took a sharp intake of breath, replying,
"Ha! I'm not saying it didn't catch me off guard! Sabrina even wet herself, so…"
Sabrina jumped in place, the pink in her cheeks turning a deep red.
"N-no I didn't!" she sputtered, looking absolutely horrified for one moment.
Astrid snickered, barely trying to hide her laughter as she leaned back against the wall by the crafting tables and covered her mouth. Sabrina's pupils darted back and forth between the floor and her, her natural bashful nature turning her totally silent. For a few seconds, everybody felt the heavy veil of awkwardness in the room lift, small smiles and grins coming to all their faces. Besides Astrid, Adrian was beaming the biggest of all, and it was in this moment of levity that he had a devious idea. It wasn't usually like him to do this, but…
This was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
"Hey, Astrid!" he declared, poking her shoulder with the banjo in his hands. "How 'bout you go next, huh? You and I were talkin' about something reeeeeal interesting earlier today, right?"
Astrid's sniggering came to a halt immediately, her smile staying frozen as she turned her head oh-so subtly to glare at Adrian. She quickly erased this odd look from her face so she didn't look obviously suspicious and turned back to the group, who now all had their eyes on her. A few seconds' silence went by before Astrid could get a single word out. This was the first time in a long, long time she couldn't come up with something clever to say.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…" she groaned, her expression just as blank as her mind. "I was…crap, what was it we were talking about? I've got nothing! Heheh…"
Adrian glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow, his grin broadening evermore at her struggle to get her words out.
"Oh, you know! Come on, don't be shy!" he said, casually reaching to scratch his forehead and giving her a concealed wink.
"I…shit…" she whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear her curse. "I was just, like, I dunno…okay, so I maybe, kinda, sorta…wanna…"
Carol grumbled audibly and piped,
"Ahh, uhh, err—come on, Astrid! If this is you trying to sound shy on purpose, you're not doing a very good job. Or hell, I dunno if you actually are! What, did Adrian find out you had a secret crush or someth—"
"LET'S HAVE A FIGHTING TOURNAMENT!"
Several people in the room were greatly startled by Astrid's unexpected outbursts; Adrian, who was unfortunate enough to be sitting right next to her, fell sideways on top of the crafting bench and hit his head on the wall after failing to catch himself. While everyone was preoccupied with slowing their heartbeat back down, Auconi—the only one who wasn't caught off guard—turned just his head from where he sat to look at her across the room, muttering,
"What do you mean by that, exactly?"
Astrid was thankful for their recovery time, because it gave her a moment to catch her own breath and regain her composer. She caught his eye a couple seconds later, clearing her throat and changing her tone to something closer to her regular confidence.
"Y'know, I was just thinking…" she started, automatically feeling more sure of herself. "We've had so many casualties in the past. And even though we might actually be able to bring everyone back when the Glitch is gone, their deaths were still, just…it was really painful to watch. I think we need to sharpen our combat skills, honestly. If we're always prepared for a vigorous fight, the chances of all of us surviving is way higher, right? So, like, why don't we make this into a competition of sorts? This might actually be our last night of fun, let's be honest…yep."
They had all recentered their attention on Astrid at least by the middle of her explanation, so most of them had the gist of what she was trying to say; the entire up's and down's idea was chucked out the window at this point.
"And, uh, how are we going to do that? Format it?" asked Bailey, who was now legitimately curious with the idea.
Astrid paused for a moment, both eyebrows raised as she pounded her brain for the next thought. After almost ten seconds of silence, only touched by the light ticking of the ambient, sparkling glow of the Magic Hourglass on Norman's bedside, Astrid let herself smile again and gave all of them a look.
"Welllllll…"
Just a half hour later, Norman and company found themselves standing in front of a small arena built from several kinds of blocks, both summoned from their own powers as well as hand-gathered from the woods due a hundred blocks north. Floating dirt platforms, wooden pillars, walls of stone, and lava pits had been arranged around the pond out back of the house in a 50x50 area. Almost everyone was seated high off the ground on their own signature block—this was the first time Adrian got to learn how to turn his grass blocks solid—with just Astrid and Carol down in the actual arena; Astrid stood atop a grassy platform at one end of the lake while Carol stood on a similar one opposite of her.
"Remember the rules, Astrid?" Norman called down, his hands cupped to his mouth. "You know, the ones YOU made?"
Astrid nodded, tossing her diamond sword up into the air repeatedly as she bounced in place, every fiber of her being shaking with excitement.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it! One hit and the match is over!"
From across the playing field, Carol coughed loudly and then paused, only summoning her words a couple moments later.
"Hey, Norman?! Can you, like, put that protection on us first? I may joke about wanting to die all the time, but a sword through the middle isn't how I want it done!"
Norman stood up on his single cobweb, slightly embarrassed that he'd almost forgotten, and pointed Shatter directly at the person in question…and of question.
"Oh! Yeah, give me a second!"
He'd never used Shatter like this before, so it took him a few more seconds to charge up this new kind of magnetic wave. When he was ready, he shot a visible pulse of energy through the tip of his spade and landed a hit on Carol; however, instead of sending her flying, the magnetic waves wrapped around her and coated her in a similar fashion to that of a charged Creeper. He did this again to Astrid, who jumped a block and a half into the air from the buzz. While she was busy laughing at how weird it felt, Norman sat back down on his airborne seat and gazed from one confident competitor to her far less ecstatic opponent.
"Now, the charges will only block one hit, so as soon as your cover is off, put down your weapons! If I tried to make it any stronger, it would probably disintegrate both of you!"
Carol gave a sarcastic chuckle, crossing her arms and letting her own sword dangle; even though it was just iron, it didn't really make a difference in this scenario.
"You're funny!" she called, rolling her eyes.
"On the count of three, you two!" called Norman, raising a hand in the air.
Up in the air, the rest of the audience cheered and shouted words of encouragement at the two fighters. Adrian banged his knuckles on his frying pan and gave a whoop, exclaiming,
"GO ASTRID, AW YEAHHH!"
Astrid glanced up at him in one rapid flick, turning pink in the cheeks before returning her focus to the fight. Damn it, she couldn't get distracted now! The tournament was even her idea!
"Jesus, this is straight out of a romantic teen comedy. What the hell is wrong with me?" her own thoughts growled at her.
"One!" shouted Norman, tensing up his arm. "Two!"
Across the arena, Carol bounced from foot to foot, gritting her teeth and muttering,
"This is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, this is gonna—"
"THREE!" he declared, his arm flying down to his side in a blur.
At this, both Astrid and Carol rushed forward off their main platforms and started to make their way towards each other. Despite finally switching to regular Minecraftian boots, Carol was still having a trouble maneuvering the landscape. She hopped down from the first wooden pillar to the next, looking up suddenly to see Astrid quickly scaling the terrain—and not slowing down.
"Shhhhhit." she muttered, grimacing in fear and picking up the pace, hopping down to the next column.
Astrid kept her eye on the prize even as she jumped the next four blocks down to the icy path that awaited her, sliding just a little bit before getting her footing once again and bolting forward. She used the slipperiness of the frozen platform to increase her speed, jumping the very moment she ran out of path; her momentum carried her over the lava pit just below and landed her on the following cracked stone block. As she expected, it crumbled beneath her feet the moment she jumped to the next one, reminding her to stay on her toes.
"Hey, Carol!" she shouted, grinning at the look of terror that came into view as she jumped higher. "You better start running!"
Carol had finally gotten to the last wooden pillar, a chopped-up path of cracked stone blocks in front of her. She was just about to start making her way across when Astrid's dirty-blonde hair popped up into view no more than fifteen blocks away, followed quickly by her frightening expression.
"Heeeeeeeere's ASTRID!"
Carol screamed in legitimate fear, swaying awkwardly in place as she repositioned her feet. Just as Astrid was within stabbing reach, she used her lanky legs to launch herself off the post, falling many blocks before landing in the center ring of polished granite lined in a square of cobwebs. Carol scrambled around on the floor for a few seconds before she could get to her feet. Without warning, she heard a cry from behind that must have been Astrid hurtling towards her, sword raised. She screamed and whirled around, throwing out her hands instinctually; with closed eyes, she heard Astrid give a little choking sound and then go totally silent.
It was when she heard a bunch of loud breaths from the audience over her head that she actually reopened her eyes, startled with what was facing her; Astrid was caught right in the middle of a wall of cobwebs that had been raised out of the existing barrier, slowing her movement to a crawl as she descended with a look of shock frozen on her face.
"FanTASTIC job, Carol!" she heard, and she jerked her head up to the sky. "But the job's only half-done!"
Carol paused, raising an eyebrow at that last part. What in the Overworld did that mean? Thankfully, her eyes lit up about three seconds later when the realization finally hit.
"Ohhhh! Sorry, I've got not brain! …I'm just going to take care of thHNGAH!"
Unfortunately for her, Astrid had been given just enough time to make it out the other side of the webby wall and had knocked her in the back with the hilt of her sword, causing Carol to slip and fall on the ground. Before she could even defend herself, the shiny blue tip of the blade came down and struck the magnetic barrier coursing around Carol, dissolving it in a flash of light. Everyone up above with the exception of just a few erupted in applause.
"GO ASTRID!" shouted Adrian, shaking his fist.
Astrid, who was now basically on top of the severely-dazed Carol, jumped off of her in the most painful matter and landed triumphantly, her sword raised high over her head.
"HA-HAAA!" she declared, positively beaming. "None can defeat the magnificent Astrid the Magnificent!"
Up in the air, Norman chuckled at how terrible her self-proclaimed title was before jabbing Shatter down at her, surrounding her with its silver aura. It enveloped the immobile Carol as well, and seconds later lifted them up into the air and dropped them off on top of their respective floating seats. When Carol flopped down onto her block, she turned her head to look at a deeply concerned Sabrina, who sat atop a chilly cube of snow next to her.
"Hey."
"Hey…"
"…you looked cool, y'know."
Carol groaned, sitting herself up and raising her arms over her head to stretch herself out.
"I got my ass kicked, Sabrina."
"It was still cool, I think…anyway, I g-gotta…y'know…?"
Meanwhile, the next two fighters were getting themselves psyched up for the fight. This time, the audience—both in-story and out—would get to see Adrian and Sabrina duke it out. It was sure to be unpredictable considering both of them had mostly pacifistic attitudes. In fact, after being on their own platforms for less than ten seconds, Adrian gazed across the arena and caught Sabrina's distant gaze.
"Hey, er…SABRINA!" he called, waving his pan in the air. "How ya doin' over there?"
Sabrina froze for a moment, thinking of how to respond to the rather average question.
"I, uh…" she started, glancing around for a moment at the many dangling pairs of feet above them. "I-I'm pretty good."
On the other side of the field, Adrian waited for a response. When he didn't get one, he jumped up and waved again, unaware that she had already replied.
"HOW YA DOING?!"
Sabrina gulped, quickly realizing that he hadn't heard her, and got on her tippy toes so she could see him better.
"I-I'm doing good!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
High above, Norman merely rubbed his eyes and sighed, promptly twirling Shatter around and zapping the two of them with another set of magnetic armor.
"Are you ready to go?!" he cried, signaling for their attention.
While Norman and the contestants were busy trying to communicate, Bailey and Astrid couldn't stop laughing at the difficult situation. Eventually, however, Norman had gotten it all cleared up and was ready to start the next battle.
"One! Two!"
From Carol to Sabrina,
"Good luck, don't suck!"
THREE!" he declared, commencing the match.
Just like last time, one of the fighters scaled the landscape with relative ease while the other struggled to move at all. While Adrian didn't have the same zeal that made Astrid click, he was experienced enough where he was able to drop from one pillar to the next in just a second. Sabrina went about this twice as slow, reaching out cautiously with one chubby foot to touch the column, making next to no progress. By the time she reached the very first platform, Adrian had gotten to the center pitch and was sprinting across it, using his sword to slice a path through the surroundings cobwebs before jumping up onto the path of moving pistons.
Sabrina immediately realized that Adrian was maybe thirty seconds from catching her with a blade to the gut, so she instead decided to take a different approach. She came to a rigid halt, and as she regained her balance she focused hard on Adrian's mobile figure as he got closer and closer.
"I…I think I'm better long, uh…long-distance."
She raised a pair of shaking palms and faced them towards her opponent, trying to picture a solid wall of snow in her mind. While it was pretty easy to just imagine one, it was much harder to actually summon it; she'd only used her Block powers to make individual blocks before, so trying to summon all those at once was more or less the hardest thing she had ever attempted. Adrian kept getting nearer, meanwhile, and the anxiety in her chest was building up fast.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'monnnn…" she murmured, eyes darting from her hands to her target.
Just as Adrian was hopping onto the next difficult set of platforms, he glanced up and finally noticed that Sabrina was trying and failing to knock him back with snow blocks, so he promptly responded with his own Block powers and raised a solid platform of his usually non-solid grass beneath her feet, bumping her up into the air with a yelp. She only ascended a handful of blocks before dropping back down onto her wooden pillar, limp as a noodle.
"Owwww…" she murmured, wincing as she rose up into a sitting position.
The moment she had gotten back up, Adrian's frying pan swung into view just two blocks away, forcing a short, startled scream out of her. She reflexively curled into a ball—her natural response to challenge, of course—and tensed up. With her eyes closed, however, she didn't see the blocks of snow form around her into a protective sphere.
"Whoawhoawhoawhoa!" Adrian stuttered, skidding to a halt on the skinny Soulsand path; then the ball teetered atop the spire and fell in his direction, landing on the path and rolling straight towards him. "Oh God, no!"
He turned around and booked it across the Soulsand, trying his best to unstick his feet from the heavy, dragging sand below him. Unfortunately for him, the ball outpaced him very quickly and rolled right over him, pressing him face-first into the ground and breaking his magnetic shield. Seconds later, the giant snowball lost its momentum and fell to the left, plummeting thirty blocks before bursting open on the grassy earth and spitting Sabrina into it.
"Sabrina is the victor!" Norman declared, legitimate surprise in his voice.
Carol perked up instantly in her seat, her eyes wide as dinner plates as she shouted,
"HOLY SHIT! Sabrina, you WON!"
Carol jabbed five fingers at the ground far below her, summoning a skinny staircase of webs that she hurriedly descended. She skipped the last three and just jumped for it, landing in a patch of snow right next to Sabrina.
"Sabrina!" she shouted, grabbing her arm. "You actually won! …c'mon, get up out of the snow!"
With the help of her best friend, she shakily got to a standing position and leaned against Carol's arm for support.
"Y-yeah? …is it over, though?"
Norman felt a little bad about making Sabrina get all the way back up into her seat, so he gave Shatter a little twirl and magnetized them both, lifting the two up onto their respective blocks next to each other. Sabrina used the last of her energy to summon a second snow block beside her first one, allowing her to flop down on her back up in the air with her legs swung over Carol's bony lap—Carol got to use her knees as an armrest, so this was to a mutual benefit.
"I'm so damn tired now…" murmured Sabrina, staring sleepily at the starry sky.
"Are you still gonna watch the others fight?"
"…nah."
The first round was about to come to an end now that the last two fighters were being placed on their corresponding platforms. Somehow, Bailey's landing was far more graceful than Norman's despite the fact that he was the one controlling the magnetics. After he dissipated the wave that held him in the air, he fell on his side rather than on his feet, grunting in pain.
"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I always just propel myself through the air!" he shouted, trying to distract everyone from how stupid he probably looked.
From across the arena, Bailey waved her arms wildly to get Norman's attention, yelling,
"HEY, NORMAN! Think you'll feel a little vulnerable without your special magnet powers?"
Norman heard her every word despite the distance between them, and he promptly gave her a brief wave back, shouting,
"I think I'll be fine, Bailey! Especially since I'm going to be fighting someone with a fear of pigs!"
Bailey's smile turned halfway into a grimace and she replied,
"ZOMBIE pigs, Norman!"
They'd been friends long enough where a little trash talk was totally acceptable. High over their heads, however, Adrian banged his frying pan on his other hand, making a loud noise and saying,
"Get on with the fight, ya dorks!"
Norman and Bailey both laughed for a little bit before regaining their composure. Since Norman was supposed to be the one doing the countdown, he glanced back up at Adrian and shouted,
"Can you count us off, Adrian?"
Adrian heartily sighed and stood up on top of his block, raising his deadly culinary instrument over his head.
"Y'all ready?!" he cried, waving the pan around to get their attention.
Norman rolled his shoulders back, loosening up for a moment, and then gave an obvious nod. Bailey did the same, and glanced very briefly up at Adrian to say,
"Let's get this started!"
Adrian grinned in response, glancing between the two contestants on the playing field. After a few seconds, he tensed up his arm and got ready to swing.
"On the count'a three!" he shouted. "One! Two! THRRRRRRRREE!"
Norman leapt forward and pressed his feet into the bottom of his spade, using the Knockback II to bounce right across the heavy Soulsand and land on the path of moving pistons. Bailey got down on one knee and pulled back on Silence's string, almost instantly letting loose an arrow that made a beeline for Norman's head. He ducked to avoid it and jumped to the side, summoning a platform of cobwebs to stop him from falling. He used his Block powers once again to give himself a powerful shove through the air, sending him straight for Bailey. He had to deflect three more arrows just while he was airborne. Before he could give Bailey an uber-strong bonk to the head, she sidestepped the attack and whirled around, another arrow drawn and up against the side of his head. They both froze.
"Aha! I win!" she declared, grinning widely.
Amidst her very brief victory cry, Norman spun around from his crouched position and kick her ankle from below, tripping Bailey off the earthy platform and onto the first wooden spire. She looked up just in time to see Norman jump off the platform as well, his spade out and ready to stab. But thanks to the diamonds embedded across the length of her bow, she was able to deflect a hard jab from his weapon. The change in his momentum carried him to the next tower, which he glanced on his way down and fell to land painfully on the third. He instinctually raised his teal spade to cover his face, just blocking the diamond-tipped arrow that was about to cost him the win.
He awkwardly got to his knees and smacked the pillar in front of him with Shatter's tip, propelling him out of the way of—yet again—one of Bailey's arrows. He soared through the air for a few short seconds before landing less awkwardly in the center pit, right next to the lava. He reached out with one foot and touched the cobweb barrier surrounding him, quickly restoring his stamina, and proceeded to jump to his feet, deflecting more lethal projectiles.
"C'mon, Bailes!" he shouted, waving Shatter around in the air. "You're getting rusty!"
Bailey laughed out loud, leaping to the next wooden pillar to make her way down to his level.
"You're the one flopping and jumping around like a fish out of water!"
Up above, Astrid threw out her hands in excitement and screamed,
"OHHHHHHH! GET DESTROYED, COBWEB!"
Twenty-ish blocks to her left, Carol raised her head and glanced around swiftly.
"Huh, what?!" she stuttered.
Down below, Bailey unearthed three of her diamond arrows and lined them up in her hand atop the string, pulling them back and letting go a whole volley. Norman gasped and raised a hand, stopping the arrows in their tracks with more webs. Suddenly, he felt a foot embed itself in his back and he was kicked across the platform, skidding over the stone floor until he was at the corner of the lava pit. He gulped as a single hair was singed by a stray particle, promptly rolling out of the way to avoid being shot on the ground.
He—somehow—performed a backwards somersault and got to his feet once again, twirling in place to attack her from the side. She blocked the blow with her own weapon and advanced, swiping at him with the tip of her bow. For the next fifteen seconds the two remained engaged in a heated battle of hand-to-hand combat. Norman had forgotten that Bailey could use her bow as a sort of tonfa, so keeping up with her using a shovel felt pretty awkward.
Eventually, however, she recoiled after deflecting a particularly tough hit on the side, giving Norman the opportunity to jump forward and slam her in the chest with his elbow. It wasn't enough to destroy the magnetic barrier, but it did give him just enough time to make the final strike. Bailey fell onto her side instinctively, using her arm to cushion her fall onto the rocky floor. And before she could raise her bow to protect herself, Shatter's tip came down in a blur and smacked her over the head, the force of the attack absorbing into the shield which shattered in an explosion of white letters and numbers. There was a very brief moment of silence…
"I guess I win, then!" Norman breathed, positively beaming.
While many of their teammates were going nuts up above, Norman let out a relaxed sigh and extended a hand downward, offering it to Bailey, who immediately took it up. They both stood there for a couple seconds, breathless and smiling, just enjoying the atmosphere of the situation. For once, their battles had not ended in total loss, and they really had to be grateful for that.
"Wait, so…um…ugh…" panted Bailey, trying to get control of her breathing. "…what happens now? The tournament's not quite over, is it?"
Norman shook his head, slowly turning his head to look up at Astrid; she was standing up and cheering with unstoppable charisma, a big ol' grin on her face.
"I think Astrid mentioned there being a second and third round."
Nothing like a little friendly competition to get your mind off of the impending doom facing the universe, am I right? XD
Will Astrid be able to keep her feelings a secret for much longer? Will ADRIAN be able to keep them a secret, for that matter? And which of the three finalists, Sabrina, Astrid, and Norman, will succeed in the last few rounds?! Find out next chapter in Hourglass!
(Psst! I'm not setting any more due dates for myself, because that'll just stress me out even more. Just know that this will all be over before next year, kay? Thanks, everyone.)
(Double Psst! If you want to see me where I'm more active, I'd suggest you visit "Pasty's Bakery" on YouTube. I make animations! ...okay, thanks again!)
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 [~]