Contributing Author: rachasudd

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Streaks of dirty light zig zagged out of the sky: pinkish brown, thin yellow, grey blue, a stinkier brown. The light struck the ground around Food and congealed with a brilliance that made Trey wince.

When he could see, his heart sank.

Standing amongst the rubble in five various ninja related poses were the Frugal Five.

“Frugal Five Ultra Formation Form Go!”

They touched the tips of their fingers and the light returned, dazzling. People screamed, they ran, stumbling over each other as chaos descended from the bright blue sky. The Frugal Five shimmered as their bodies fused together into a horrific amalgamation of flesh and faded lyrca.

Trey could not call it a human, only an abomination. It towered above him.

“Shame,” it screeched, rearing its head, moaning with a far-too-wide mouth. “Do you not feel the shame of keeping yourself from your community?”

Trey really hoped a magic talking space bug would show up to save him, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t learned anything from Ryzm. With his hands outstretched in a pose of mock karate, he shouted with all his worth.

“You’re the one scaring everyone away! You’re the monster!”

His words splashed off the creature like rain against a cliff.

“No,” a different mouth, this one near the monstrosity’s calf, tittered and giggled. “We see you as the monster. We all see you as the stranger in our midst.”

Silence pressed in on him, and Trey staggered back, spinning slowly, dizzy with the truth. Silence?

No screaming from the fleeing citizens of New City, for they did not flee. They stood. Watching, staring, judging with eyes of dirty light.

“We see you stranger,” the masses intoned, voices overlapping, ringing loud as any stadium chant, flat monotone, a sound creeping through Trey’s bones. “You give nothing and yet you leach like a weed. That is what you worship isn’t it? A weed?”

“No! I don’t worship anything! And I love my community, sometimes I… I–” Trey stumbled over his words, struggled to think of an answer.

“Fitting,” said the amalgamation of flesh as it strode toward him on legs that squished. “So, so, fitting that a parasite such as you would become infested in turn. That is all the weed and its aphids desire, to feed upon people such as you and to destroy the projects of our master.”

“I don’t want any of this. I didn’t ask for this!”

Trey felt tears falling down his grime-covered cheeks. What had happened to his life? He hadn’t exactly been happy, but he’d been slowly working to change himself, hadn’t he?

No. That wasn’t right. He’d been stuck before last night. He’d been in a rut. The aphids had pulled him out of it and into all of this, and at first, he’d felt like a hero. But that was wrong, too. He wasn’t a hero. He was just a puppet, thankful for its strings.

A hand made out five arms with a face in its palm, grinning with rotted teeth, extended toward him.

“Do not give in to despair. Just because you give nothing does not mean you have nothing to give. Our master sees so much in you. So much that you can give…”

The face in the palm blinked at him with bleary, bloodshot eyes, staring at him through its piss yellow half-mask. “Just take my hand and our master will show you exactly what you are worth.”

The pressure of anvils, the weight of the solemn, lifeless crowd’s expectations, lifted from his shoulders. Trey could move, he could reach up, he could take the offered hand.

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If he had accepted one cosmic offer, why not another? Who was to say that the aphids were right?

Something sniffed inside his mind like a sick man pulling back phlegm.

Hey, sorry I’m late, but, sniff, I didn’t want to be here.

“You’re too late to help, whoever you are.”

Trey looked up at the smiling, inviting hand. In front of all these witnesses, how could he continue the masquerade that he was some kind of hero?

I don’t want to help you. This whole mission thing is so tedious, but, you know, can’t disappoint mum.

Trey frowned. The sniffling voice was a change of pace.

“Aren’t you gonna give me a superpower?”

Nah. Just not gonna let you take their hand.

“Well, if you aren’t going to help, I’ll take their offer.”

Trey reached up to the monstrous invitation. He felt no fear. This was his choice. He could give back to his community. He didn’t need to be a leach. Part of being frugal was finding a way to return a favor.

He was melting.

Fingers dripping like wax under a flame. Skin and bone and blood dribbled down his wrist, down his arm, as his whole body began to liquify.

Sorry big guy, sniff, can’t let you do that.

“What are you..” his tongue melted and rand down his throat. “Urgh! Ggglgggd!”

The Frugal Ultra Formation grasped for him, snatching, a predatory glint in its eyes, but its fingers only passed into the puddle that was Trey.

He wanted to scream, but he had no way of voicing his pain, his frustration.

Nah man, you got me, and isn’t friendship the most important thing?

Trey bubbled.

Yeah, I hate me too.

“What are you doing you fools?” Yelled the mouths of the Frugal monstrosity. “Scoop him up!”

The hundred watching drones raced toward Trey. Their cupped hands outstretched. Water bottles were emptied. Spoons grabbed from lunch boxes. Anything and everything to scoop him up.

But the ground was not even and, as liquids are wont to do, Trey flowed. He yelled, and little bubbles popped and burst as he trickled through the grate of the nearest storm drain.

Hands and containers passed through him, but he poured right back out. It reminded him, in a not unerotica fashion, of his experimental ex-girlfriend. He suppressed a shiver as he slipped away from the street and the cloying hands of the brainwashed and flowed into the sewer like a puddle of puke.

Who’s this ex? She fun?

Trey didn’t want to think about it. He dripped into a river of sordid filth and joined the current.

You know, sniff, this is a great opportunity for you. So many species admire water, the way it flows and molds itself to any situation, I think you could stand to, sniff, be a little more fluid yourself.

The wet phlegm filled cackle that filled Trey’s mind made him want to claw out his ears, if he had them.

I’m not joking. Look how quickly you retreated before the attacks of the Frugal Five. You’re lucky, sniff, that I was here to save you.

But wasn’t listening to each side being fluid?

Nah, nah, nah, water don’t compress, sniff, like at all. You squeezed down under pressure like a little fart. Is that your name, fart?

His name wasn’t fart!

The trickling stream reached a fork. With a sickening pop, Trey found himself face down in the retched water. He gasped, spat, and pulled himself out of the current and onto a ledge of slimy bricks. A featureless door sat in the wall in front of him.

“I’m not a fart,” Trey spat. “And I’m not a coward, I just…”

Yeah, nah, I didn’t say you were a coward, did I? That’s all you maestro. Now go through that door, it leads to a warehouse where the fuel we need is located. Chop, sniff, chop, Mr. Fart.

“Stop calling me that.”

The voice blew a raspberry inside his brain. It made him want to turn inside out. But he stepped across the trickling stream as a block of feces sailed past and he opened the door. Stairs led up into the darkness.

“What do I do now?”

Guess.

Trey grumbled as he climbed the steps. The rusted metal squeaked under his weight, and he tried to sneak up into the dim shadows. The sounds of industrial machinery came through the concrete walls. Ahead he could make out another door at the top of the stairs. Bright light streamed out from underneath it, flickering.

Trey hesitated, still filled with some of the doubt the Frugal Ultra Formation had pressed into him. Should he keep going? Was he really up for all of this?

This fuel we need is important. Time to be a big boy, Trey. If you’re so worried about giving to the community, this is your chance to, sniff, actually matter for once.

“Why are you being so mean?”

Cos this is your first day being a hero, Trey, and, sniff, you’re a fucking loser.

“I’m not.”

Sniff, prove it. Open that door. Inside you’ll see a red container. It has the fuel. We don’t need the whole container, just one of the vials. Think you can, sniff, manage that?

Trey gritted his teeth. He might be going crazy, he might be the chosen one, he might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t going to be the guy who let a bug inside his head call him a loser.

He gripped the door handle, and–

“It’s locked.”

The voice sighed.

Trey gasped as his hand melted and seeped into the keyhole. There was a click, and the door unlocked.

“Thanks, I guess,” Trey said as his hand reformed. “Um, what do I call you by the way?”

You don’t.

“Huh, the others had names?”

My turn’s up. If I never speak to you again it will be too soon. Good luck, don’t, sniff, doom the universe like you doomed your last relationship.

There was the sound of tiny feet pattering across a squishy surface, and then a door closing. Trey stood with an emptiness in his mind and his hands on the doorknob. His heart pounded. Sweat dripped from every pore. The grin on his face was equal parts pants shitting terror and manic conviction.

He could do this.

He would do this.

He gripped the door handle again, pushed away his uncertainty, and entered the warehouse.