Blinx's Christmas Trip
Blinx stood on the moving floor of the large corridor, where the portals to other worlds are housed. The tall walls with giant, repeating screens had rows of tinsel hanging the whole length. Festive musak kept the corridor placid and calm. The images of the operator reading announcements matched with the screens. Between each news reel, a little jingle followed by a cheery 'Happy Christmas from the factory!' Would follow.
Blinx, amongst a sparse crowd of sweepers, all stood on the conveyer belts in the middle. Blinx was holding an envelope in his hand, it only had his name printed on the front, he found himself looking to and from the envelope in an excited sense of curiosity. The urge would eventually grow too great, he held the envelope in both hands and rustled the glued flap open. In anticipation, he peeked inside.
The envelope appeared empty. Blinx fiddled with the envelope walls to see if anything was actually there, but, confusingly, it still appeared empty. In a last ditch attempt to see if anything was truly inside, Blinx tipped the envelope over his head, using the bright lights around him to shine through any paper that could happen to be there.
Instead of paper that his eyes met, it was a blue-ish white powder. It stung like salt, and was fine as sherbert, Blinx groaned in pain as he rubbed his eyes in reflex. The powder dissolved in the fluids of his eyes, and once the immediate pain died down, he felt a dull ache on both eyeballs, a feeling of lightheadedness, and a bout of disorientation.
Looking into the distance, Blinx noticed the corridor ahead slowly start to warp and rotate clockwise. Blinx frantically blinked in hope to see the distortion stop, yet it did not. He slowly started to walk backwards, still watching the corridor warp more and more. The curving getting harsher and harsher. Blinx couldn't bear to be caught in the spiral, so turned around, and started to run.
Almost immediately, Blinx collided with another sweeper: the peachy-orange furred, yellow jacketed Pelon. 'Hey! Watch where you're going Blinx!' Blinx looked back at Pelon, with his ears drooped in panic, his pupils widened and his mouth opened a slight amount, he was visibly shaking. Pelon looked at Blinx with concern. 'Hey, are you okay?' Pelon blinked, his eyes disappearing when the eyelids dropped completely. As his eyelids rose again, Pelon's eyes had infact turned into a pair of smaller mouths, speaking in unison with his original mouth. 'You don't look too good, you need me to help you home?' Pelon politely offered. But Blinx subtly shook his head, slowly backing away. He watched as Pelon's eyes dropped synchronisation and started to act independently. His left eye-mouth licking its bottom lip slowly and his right clinking its teeth together. Blinx darted to the opposite conveyer and straight into the doorway to a gate room.
Inside the gate room, Blinx saw the entire space filled with Christmas decorations. On the giant platform in the centre, high above the rest of the floor, was a large, red, wooden sleigh. With a large, red sack on the top. Down on the floor to the left of the platform, sat a nativity scene, with NecoJi and Catherine bunched together, facing away from Blinx and staring into the manger. Blinx stood still, taking in the surroundings before slowly approaching the scene. Once he dropped down from the platform and onto the floor, NecoJi and Catherine turned around and walked away, handing hands and laughing. Their faces seemed upside down, yet their lips were the right way up. Blinx stared at the pair walking past with a worried confusion, before refocusing on the manger. His view of the inside got clearer as he approached. Something was in there.
Once he reached the manger, he saw a white linen wrap, roughly the size of a sweeper kitten. Blinx smiled, he didn't know NecoJi and Catherine had a child, and now was the chance to see what it looked like. He pulled the top part of the linen away. Beneath, was a sleeping baby sweeper, golden brown all over, still and silent. Blinx's smile widened.
His smile was interrupted by a low pitch laughter. The echoey laugh frightened him, and he turned to face the source of the sound. To which, he found the CEO, dressed in a red and white fluffy suit, and a santa hat. 'Blinx! What a pleasant surprise, we were just about to have Christmas dinner.' Blinx smiled and nodded nervously. 'Come, you must see this!'
Blinx followed the CEO up the stairs to the high platform, the floor beneath them stretching as his stomach seemed to fall through the bottom of his torso. Finally at the top, the CEO ushers Blinx into the sleigh, before climbing on himself. The CEO picked up a set of reins and flapped them. The sleigh moved forward a slight bit and started to tilt. Blinx leant back in his seat, whilst the CEO started to laugh in a deep, low note. The sleigh tipped forward and started to careen down the stairs. Blinx let out a loud, high pitched scream. The journey down the stairs felt never ending, the stairs thrashing the sleigh left, then right, then left again. Each time banking the sleigh in a nearly uncontrollable manner. Finally the sleigh came to a halt, just in front of the exit door. Blinx immediately jumped out, looking back to the stairs that nearly killed him. the staircase shrunk back down to its regular size, the banking and turns smoothing out.
His left ear twitched as he heard the CEO start talking to someone about an electric knife. Blinx turned to look at who the CEO was talking to; it was, in his usual green suit, Aniki. Aniki seemed normal in terms of his body, although his head had been completely replaced by a large hand. fingers lined side by side, and bent over to touch the thumb. The closed hand-head nodded at the CEO asking about the knife before his regular arm-hands pulled an off-white electric knife from behind his back. The CEO asked one last time if the knife was working again, and Aniki's head contorted. The fingers rolling in on themselves, the thumb pulling all the way out to the side, and the whole thing rotated, pointing the thumb upward. The CEO turned to Blinx. 'Blinx, would you like to carve for our dinner?', he asked. Blinx nodded anxiously in response.
Soon enough, a pop-up table had been set up, placemats laid, plates and cutlery arranged, and vegetable dishes formed in a row down the middle of the table. The CEO and Aniki sat on one side of the table, and Blinx sat at its head. Necoji and Catherine re-entered the gate room, still smiling. At least, it looked like smiling. 'Ah! you two!' The CEO announced. 'You have our meat, yes?' he asked whilst holding their attention. Catherine and NecoJi looked at each other and burst into laughter, as they approach the manger in the nativity scene, and pulled the linen wrapped child out. The CEO erupted in laughter himself, and Aniki tapped his head-fingers against his head-palm. Catherine placed the now unwrapped child in front of Blinx, before sitting opposite the CEO and Aniki. Blinx rose, looking at the others at the table around him, all watching with anticipation. Blinx looked back down at the golden brown child, still laid silent and fast asleep.
Blinx looked up one last time. Everyone still stared, mouths almost watering. Blinx took in one last huff of air, turned on the knife, and started to sink it into the infant. He gnashed his teeth, he thought this would hurt him mentally, but he's feeling a pain that's almost a little too real coming from his hands. He proceeded to cut regardless. The child stayed still, and motionless. But still carved, and bled, in an almost too expected way.
Almost immediately, all four of the others at the table gasped. Aniki uncurled his head-fingers, and scrunched them in on themselves in a cringed expression. Catherine violently gagged repeatedly, saying over and over again the word No. The CEO looked in horror, simply saying 'By the Goddesses', and NecoJi shouted at the top of his lungs for a first aid kit.
Blinx looked back at the CEO with a confused and flustered expression. 'You were all telling me to cut the infant, I felt I had no choice!'
'Infant?' The CEO asked with a shocked look on his face. 'That's a chicken. We wanted you to carve the chicken. We're panicked because you've just sliced your fingers off.'
Blinx looked at the hand he didn't use to hold the electric knife, and in place of fingers was four stubs near his knuckles, each rushing blood at an alarming pace. 'Oh...c-calm down guys'. Shortly after Blinx muttered his assurance, he fell backwards and fainted.