A lake. The colour of deep purple. The crystals above shone like the setting sun on a lavender field. Tucked away in an unnamed cave—the perfect spot for a romantic getaway.

A ripple broke the serene stillness. Something surfaced and bobbed like a bloated corpse. It was a human head.

The head had dark hair and pale skin. It had boyish features—a natural repellent against credit card promoters, senior corporate positions, and respect. But none of that mattered when you’re gasping for air.

Qale put his head in the air and took a big gulp. He wheezed and coughed. Some of the purple liquid were caught in his lungs. He needed more air. He needed land.

He wiped the purple liquid off his face and kicked for the shore. Echoes of frantic splashes and desperate gasps filled the cave. He kicked and kicked but progress was slow.

The purple pool was more like a vat of cough syrup. Thick, gooey, and tasted like shit. Qale was anything but thirsty when he reached the land.

He crawled onto his hands and knees, emptied his lungs, then his gut, and collapsed on the ground like a puppet without strings. The purple puke brought a nice contrast to the obsidian shore.

He rolled onto his back with a wet splat. He took deep breaths to cull the beating drum in his chest. He opened his weary eyes. Stars. Lots and lots of blinking stars.

Luminous crystals dotted the inky void like a starry night. Gentle waves sang soothing lullabies as they rolled onto the shore. Sweet lavender caressed his embattled body. He had never felt more at peace.

But peace was an illusion.

He sat up. The world around him tilted. He staggered to his knees. His head in his hands.

A concussion? His thoughts offered no insight.

Like a newborn fawn, he struggled to get on his feet. He eventually steadied himself upright and took in the scene. Bits of metal and shattered crystals littered the black beach. The crash site of the Psyful’s platform.

He turned his view upwards.

How far did I fall? Again, his thoughts offered no insight. It didn’t matter how far he fell. He was alive. Nothing can be gained by being paralysed by the past. Nothing was more important than returning to the surface.

On his left was a tunnel dotted with crystals the colour of the sea. On his right—another tunnel but with the glow of a magma field. It doesn’t take a genius to know which route to take.

He entered the tunnel on his left.

Little did he know the dangers in dungeons were colourblind.

Other than a few quick stops to admire the aquamarine beauties, the walk through the blue tunnel was uneventful. Though his legs ached from walking for over an hour, the spinning had stopped. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He was not cracked in the head, figuratively and literally.

The tunnel ended in a small chamber. Crystals were scarce. Holes the size of basketballs filled the chamber walls. Something had burrowed these holes. And that something was looking at him.

It was a ball. Not much bigger than a basketball. It had the striking pink of a flamingo. Six protruding gills, four tiny limbs, and two tiny dots that served as eyes.

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It was a creature that looked like a ball—an Axelotl. A very fat and round axelotl. The kind that makes you want to crush it in your arms as you smother it with adoration.

The axelotl made no sound as it approached Qale. Its gigantic head bobbed as it sauntered over on its tiny limbs.

Before Qale could pet it, the axelotl spat out a miniature axe.

It hit the ground with a wet splat.

The axolotl stood on its hind legs. It grabbed the axe with its remaining limbs and gave Qale a toothless grin.

“What the—” The axe came down with a whoosh. The sauveté took a step back in time but was mostly saved by the axelotl's T-rex arms.

Qale drew his right leg back and launched a kick. The tiny fucker almost amputated him!

The axelotl went flying in the air before hitting the wall with a squeak.

Pandemonium struck.

Dozens of multicoloured axelotls shot out of the chamber walls like paintballs. All were armed to the teeth. Toothpick spears, fork-sized tridents, and butter knife halberd.

It was a rainbow blitz of deadly squishiness.

The sauveté punched a blue axelotl that was flying towards his chest, he ducked a red one aiming for his face, backhanded a yellow, socked another blue, and slapped the motherfucking soul out of a green!

The little devils were harmless, but they were relentless. For every axelotl he incapacitated, two more joined. The chamber was starting to look like a gumball machine.

He needed a way to stop their reinforcements. The axelotls were flying out of the holes. He raised his right arm and caught a white one.

He smirked. Time for some dodgeball.

He took a pitcher stance and flung the squealing salamander. It entered one of the holes but more axelotl shot forth.

He needed a bigger plug.

Axelotls swarmed him like a whirlpool of oversized M&M’s. They came in all sizes and colours. They came in all sizes!

He grabbed the nearest red and felt its size. He aimed for a smaller target and hit bullseyes. With the cherry critter stuck fast to the wall, none came out of the sealed hole. Until someone dislodged the gigantic heads off the wall, it will have some time to reflect on its savagery.

After half an hour, flailing little limbs, wiggling baby butts, and muffled itty-bitty squeals filled the chamber walls.

Qale was on his back panting. His uniform clung to his heaving body. He didn’t even swat the amber amphibian choking on his left fist. He closed his eyes for a minute or two until he felt a presence.

It was the pink axelotl.

With the miniature axe in its hands raised, it grinned at Qale’s exposed neck. It reared its humongous head to raise the axe higher. Qale shut his eyes and waited for the final sigh.

But it never came.

He cracked open an eye to peep at his tiny executioner. The axelotl had lowered its axe. Its nose was up in the air. Qale raised a brow but took a whiff out of curiosity.

Sweet. Powdery. Floral. The scent of lavenders.

As if one, the flailing, wiggling, and squealing on the wall stopped. Save for the tiny buttholes puckering like the nostrils of a sniffing hound, all was quiet and still.

Until one of the axelotl farted.

And pandemonium struck again.

The flailing, wiggling, and squealing on the wall became frantic. The fallen axelotls on the ground miraculously come to. They ran for the walls and chomped on the wiggling bodies. The extra weight unstuck the gigantic heads from the walls with a pop.

His knees felt like jelly, so he settled for a crouch. A kaleidoscope of colours and bobbing heads went all around him. The panicked salamanders fled to the holes in droves. Many left their mini weapons in the rush.

A baby axelotl crying in the crowd.

A greying salamander struggling to run.

A black axelotl with a scar running down its left eye was crawling on the floor. It left a trail of blood from the loss of its hind legs. The pink axelotl left Qale and went over. It smacked the scarred salamander with one of its amputated limbs.

The black axelotl looked hurt, then gave its assaulter the side-eye. Picked up its limbs, stuck them back, and proceeded to walk away like it hadn’t bled out a moment ago.

Colours drained from the chamber as the lavender scent grew stronger. Qale, Baby Axelotl, Old Man Axelotl, and Pinky were the only ones left when it came.

Three hairy balls rolled into the chamber. Each ball was the size of a beach ball and the appearance of an old coconut. The fibres on its husk were the colours of topsoil.

The scent of lavender filled the confining chamber. Its sharp notes hit Qale’s nostrils like a bullet train. He felt dizzy from the lack of oxygen. The rustling began.

Large hairy arms emerged from the balls. Two each. The balls lifted themselves up with their fists on the ground like gorillas. Then it charged.

The pink axelotl dashed to defend the greying salamander. But the longer-limbed hairball was faster. It tackled the aging axelotl to the ground and a heartbeat later, a single-petalled flower bloomed, red and ruffed like beheaded body of Henry VIII's second wife.

No flailing. No wiggling. No squeal.

The old salamander was no more.