Dashing into the night with the strange cat-butterfly creature resting on my head, I felt relief at escaping from my apartment; behind was the dead bodies of monstrous donut-men and I wanted nothing to do with them or the memories of fighting them. It was still too early to tell, but it didn’t take a psychologist to know that I was running on fumes and action.

Twirling off from my building’s entrance and into the grass green just beyond the tenant parking, I stopped to get some fresh air and breathe in and out with my hands on my knees, like an action movie hero. Looking around at the little apartment complex that I called home— the few clustered buildings all connected by a desperate concrete driveway in desperate need of repaving— everything looked the same. Except for the colors . . .

Wait, colors, and additional wait: who said that? I was confused. Colors? Somewhere in my internal thought-process, my inner voice was interrupted by another inner voice that did not belong to me and they were talking about colors; which, now that I bothered to look, I did in fact see what they meant— the whole world appeared more significantly colored, as if the natural shades of the world were now richer, deeper, more vibrant.

On your head . . . the voice called to me.

Wait, The cat-butterfly? That was who was talking to me?

Yes. Yes and we must flee now, homeboy, or we will be skewered like your meat in your hands after a failed Friday night club-slog.

I did pump my legs to move— somewhere— but was not sure how I felt about this creature criticizing my sex life. As if sex was something to even criticize anyway; what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their own homes was, as far as I was concerned, impossible to criticize. Fucking cat-butterflies and their immature ideas of intercourse.

Oh, sorry, I must have touched a nerve with my attempt to relate to you humans via negging. I am sorry. Now will you please pick up the speed? The creature spoke these words in what I thought was a genuine tone of voice, but couldn’t be sure completely. But for my own sanity and for not wanting to dwell on the irrelevant, I let it slide and decided that its tone was honest. And then I ran.

Trouble was, though, I did not know where I was running to or why. I had run into the street, through someone’s lawn, where I then jumped a fence, and sprinted through a tiny tree patch, before barreling into some side alley next to the center of my sleep town. I was tired and had to stop to catch my breath.

Good. We are putting distance between us and— crap, how did they find us?!

I jerked around and saw in the distance more of the donut-men. Like their brothers at my apartment, they carried sugary spears . . . or at least I think they did judging from my poor-ass vantage point behind some fucking alley dumpster. Okay, wait, they haven’t seen us, not yet, they are just scouring the area for us. Good.

Good? What part of this was good? I was hiding in some back-alley behind a dumpster, surprised I hadn’t come across two guys shagging each other, as a talking cat-fly monster made a nest of my head. What damn part of this was good? The fact that the donut death squad hadn’t found us? Bullshit.

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Donut death squad. Hehe. That is a good one, human. Real good.

Oh, yeah, I had forgotten. That was the part I left out. With a cat-fly monster that could read my freaking mind. Oh, yeah, today was perfect.

You think ‘mind reading’ as if it is a dirty power. Surely knowing what others think is far better than this verbiage game you and others of your kind play where they are supposed to know what you are thinking the entire time and then get angry with them when they can’t read your mind? Or does mind reading take the fun out of moving your lips?

I was being, perhaps unwisely, sassy, but I instantly thought: well, I guess it would take the fun out of being a wise-ass . . .

Funny. We will get along just fine, human. Now run over to that tree!

For some reason, I instantly obeyed without thinking; ‘cause, yeah, who and what else was going to help me out of this pickle other than the creature that got me into the jam?

Watch out FOR the tree, jeez! the creature said seconds before I tripped over myself stupidly— and again— and knocked myself into the tree. But righting myself, I pressed my body close and awaited the creature’s next words.

Okay: move to that other tree. Good. Now dash behind that car and then crouch next to those garbage cans— crawl, crawl! Yes, excellent, no— stop moving! Wait for these death squaders to pass. Move. Move. Stop, now move . . .

And on and on the creature went giving me orders as I slowly— and I do mean slowly— inched my way deeper into the heart of my local suburbs. Even with the enhanced colors, vibrancy aside, the hue of the time was one of darker tones since it was midnight. As such, it was difficult to feel my way around at times with only my iffy nightvision kicking in and the soft illumination from the occasional streetlamp and porch light.

Don’t worry, my man, we are almost there. Almost to— just keep going ahead and we should be home safe.

Should be . . . sure. Fucking should. How do you hate that word? Weirdo.

Should. I DO hate that word, alright? Should— gah! And I always hated it, ever since childhood: ‘daddy should be home around five;’ ‘if the scholarship clears, you should be able to transfer to that fine arts alternative high school;’ ‘grandma should be willing to give you a small car loan, considering everything you’ve done for her;’ and my personal favorite, ‘given everything you’ve contributed to your place of employment, there is no reason why they shouldn’t give you that raise!’ Should, doesn’t mean anything. IT is a placeholder curse until the universe finds the exact language on how to represent the fucking it is going to give you. So, yeah, excuse me if I am bitter about hearing it.

Well, wow . . . shit on me, then, human, for randomly using a word that most people wouldn’t have an issue with. Damn. Sorry, I guess.

No, it is fine. I apologize for going off like that. I didn’t mean my words directed at you, I get emotional and— wait, no, we aren’t doing this right now, where am I walking to, cat-thing?

Feeling the creature’s claws sink into my scalp, it thought instantly: someplace with trees.

So, I kept up my pace, and tried my best to reach this tree-place that the creature was pushing me toward, but it was for naught, as I thought. The creature suddenly yelled at me mentally and told me to dash to the side of the street; foolishly, I was walking close to the sidewalk, mostly on some dude’s lawn, when the creature yelled and I jerked myself flat on the ground, bruising something— muscle, bone, flesh?— in the process.

Look ahead. A whole ghoulish sweet treat!

I looked ahead as demanded of me and saw maybe a couple dozen or so donut-men. It was a scary sight considering what only a few were capable of back in my apartment; but I was more concerned with whether “sweet treat” was like a “bakers dozen” and signified a group classification; sort of like how a ‘flock’ designates birds?

FOCUS, MAN, FOCUS! . . . but yes, your intellectual wanderings are correct: to be precise, a ‘Sweet Treat’ refers to anything more than two dozen of the creatures you call ‘donut-men.’ But back to the problem: our way to the tree area is blocked and we are fucked.