[https://rom.ac/img/92RRnmore/100-01RR.jpg]

[https://rom.ac/img/92RRnmore/SNIPPINAVATAR.jpg]

"OKAY, LASSIE, NOW GIVE BACK MY DRINKING DEVICE!"

Zee Captain rose from the chair and began to walk forward, the ice cracking beneath heavy, black boots. With a crunchy sound, the chair behind Captain sank in the black water.

Ignoring this plain fact was my first mistake.

Captain reached out towards me with an obvious demand for the mug:

"IMPART!"

"No!" I shouted.

I brought the gun's muzzle towards the mug:

"This ends here, Captain!

For its treachery...

The mug must be destroyed, lest its evil plans come to fruition!"

A part of me was still hoping this was all a trick and that Captain would immediately henceforth confess that the whole talking mug business was just a stupid prank crafted to annoy me.

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"WHAT PLANS? Oh, you most silly Snipster! Put my bestie down before you get hurt!" Captain's goggles glittered in purple-shaded rainbows.

"Stop! I will end it!" I scrambled, threateningly shaking the mug.

"THAT IS AN INTERESTING FACTOID..." Captain started to ramble something completely incoherent, eventually pointing up into the sky.

I wasn't listening.

I had butterflies in my stomach that multiplied into a roller-coaster liftoff. Something terrible was coming.

The world suddenly turned in the wrong direction.

Things changed. The lighting? The atmosphere?

"Why do these things always happen to me?" I pondered, twisting my head and trying to keep my eyes on Captain at the same time.

All the things shifted.

It was as if all the air was suddenly sucked out of the atmosphere.

My inner ears exploded and my sense of balance vanished.

I was falling upwards into the sky. The sky was falling downwards towards me.

I struggled to inhale.

The ground dissolved beneath me, concrete boulders floating upwards as if they were made from dandelions.

The rocks splintered in the air, decaying into sparks and dust.

Everything that could have possibly gone wrong happened at the same time.