Chapter 5: Trivia, Bone-drills, and Puke

When: Some time ago…

Where: …that damned field

“Eyes, dude, eyes!”

“Yeah, yeah, Tess,” I said. “I know now, OK?”

“Ha! How dumb can you be, Book?” Tess had been ribbing me. This from Steve was a whole different tone. “You said ears, man. You think every baby born looks like freakin’ Dumbo?! Heh, dumb-Dumbo.”

Like he had known the answer. I distinctly remember him muttering that everybody knew eyes could grow. Mikasa Ackerman’s eyes did it all the time. It made her even more hot!

Who was the dumb-Dumbo?

I wanted to say something, I really did. Maybe along the lines of, you're the one who confuses Anime with real life, or Anime eyes aren’t real. It wasn’t the best of burns, especially as I lurked some of the same fan sites as the jock did. I knew the big-eyed girls were idealized and not sitting around at an as-yet-undiscovered sorority somewhere. Instead of Alpha Kappa Alpha, it would be Iota Sanpaku Iota. Also, at least I tried answering the trivia questions, instead of just sitting there with my hand creeping lower and lower down Tess’s back. Steve was a lump. A hugely muscled lump, so, you know, I kept my mouth shut.

“Dumb-Dumbo-o-o-o,” singsonged the girl Carmen had dragged from the bar with us. Couldn’t remember her name. Nicky? Kitty? No.

“Aw, babe, don’t.” Carmen pulled the girl in close, the two stumbling together as we trekked across the uneven ground of the convenient, open field. The giggling blonde had sworn to us that this was a shortcut back to campus. Their staggering was most definitely aided along by the booze we’d been ordering non-stop. You can’t do trivia night without much beer. The bar tab was so big, that if Carmen hadn’t offered to cover it, I would’ve had to beg my Dad for help with next month’s rent. Carmen was a real go-to person.

“Book’s one of the good ones, babe,” Carmen said. That was two ‘babes’ in a row. Guess they were a bit fuzzy on the whole name thing, too.

“Yay, good book,” ‘Babe’ replied, still in that annoying sing-song. “I read a good book once! Hehehe!”

Yeah, never heard that one before. I would be surprised if the girl had read more than one book in her life. OK, not nice. In my defense, I was the only one here that wasn’t paired up tonight. Steve and Tess had been a couple since the first year of college. They’d met at some orientation for sports-type people. I was…busy, that night. Ahem. As for Carmen, well, was the term player still used?

Tess and I knew each other from high school, but never like that. Too bad, from my point of view. We’d been in all of the same honors classes together, so when we ran into each other during freshman orientation, we bonded over that history. Familiarity breeds comfortability. Not an accurate quote, but I liked mine better. We'd been hanging out since. When Steve started coming around too, I just smiled and endured. I actually introduced the big guy to some Anime. Not my fault he went down the rabbit hole and started losing himself to it. I’d heard his obsession had even started to affect his performance on the field. For a kid here on a football scholarship, that could be a real problem. But not my problem. No guilt.

Nope, none at all.

Carmen just appeared one day, attached to us, and never went away. A trust-fund baby, so no complaints here.

“’What is the only part of the human body that is full grown from birth?’ Slayed by basic anatomy…”

“Not to mention common sense..” Tess inserted with a grin.

“…this humble book has been truly burnt.” I shook my head, the remorse only partially faked.

“Book, and book burnings, ahaha…” Yeah, Steve. We all got the joke. “Better stay away from those censoring fanatics!”

Like I wouldn’t anyway. Books bordered on the sacred for me. That was probably my best-loved trait that I’d picked up from my Dad. Not just his den, but the whole house was a dedicated shrine. He even claims to have read every single book kept in the house. Anyone who saw his shelves should be suitably impressed by that. My collection was smaller, but I had great hopes for its future growth. If Dad ever had the chance to place one written by myself on those revered shelves, we’d both be fit to shed some tears. More than a few, in truth.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Unh…unh..” Babe stopped stumbling and froze in place, bent over. Carmen let go of her and backed off so fast I don’t think I actually saw him move. He was arm-in-arm with Babe, then six feet away and out of the splash zone. There was no in-between.

“Yarrhgg..” Babe lost it. I still couldn’t put a name to her, I’m embarrassed to admit.

We all stood stock still, afraid to move. The littlest unbalance, and we’d all be yaking next to the unfortunate girl. Me especially. That gagging noise could really get to m…urk!

I dropped to the ground, bruising my knee and tearing a hole in my jeans. There I go, a human hydrant. After a moment, I felt a hand on my back, rubbing it in small circles. Tess. Had to be her. I could see Carmen finally inching over to Babe, obligation written largely in every movement. And that booming laugh echoing in time with the throbbing in my head, that had to be Steve. Add in the high-pitched whine coming out of nowhere, and I wanted to die.

In fact, the whine was escalating something fierce. I turned my head, trying to find it, the sudden motion causing the world to spin. I saw flashes all around me, a constant motion that added to my sickness.

Grunts joined the screeching whine, little staccato barks. It sounded almost like language, but nothing I’d ever encountered before. Tess clutched me, going to the ground by my side. I spit the sick out of my mouth, clutching her back. The barking grunts got louder, closing in on us.

“J-Jasper,” Tess whispered, her tone low and afraid. She never used my given name. Not a good sign.

I blinked hard, trying to clear the involuntary tears from losing my dinner, and a lot of beer. I wasn’t much of a drinker.

My vision was fuzzy, and the ever-increasing whine, akin to tinnitus on steroids, pierced through me. More than the alcohol sloshing in a stomach squarely in the throes of a sympathetic response (you puke, I puke) was making me sick. Vertigo threatened to take me down completely.

My vision was moments from going to full-on shutdown mode, blacking out from the edges on in. It threatened to take my hearing along for the ride, too. Before the pair of senses could desert me, I heard a ragged cry, then a scream and a thud. I twisted our bodies around, Tess still clinging to me. Steve was on the ground a few yards away, clutching a busted arm to his chest. It bent in way too many directions.

The linebacker had bounced off the creature standing over him. The thing had to top Steve by half a foot at least, its muscles bulging at the seams of a tight, silver suit. A bald head, covered in muddy green skin, sported over-sized ears and jutting tusks. It held a pistol of sorts, the barrel flaring into a small saucer on the end with a parabolic antenna sticking out. I couldn’t focus on anything else. It was too much.

An Orc in a spacesuit, holding a Flash Gordon ray gun and standing over a downed football player. Next, Queen was going to start playing in the background.

What…the…fu…?”

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Weightlessness took hold first, Tess slowly drifting apart from me. Steve floated in the near distance. Not too far away, but not too close. I don’t why that mattered to me. Nonsensical. Carmen and the puking girl, they were there too. Vomit trailed the poor woman. Huh, that should be funny. Shouldn’t it? I couldn’t laugh.

Stars spun above me, constellations circling the drain of the heavens’ like bubbles in a bathtub. Or the swirl of the Milky Way. A great shadow, blacker than the night sky, hove into view. It obliterated all around it as it grew to encompass my whole vision. The fires of the stars blinked out, one by one, extinguished by the heavy solidness of the shadow. Everything turned black.

White. The whole world was white. The seams of the walls melted together, no sharp angles visible anywhere. The white of a padded room, soft, bouncy floors. Clouds? No, what was that word…nonsensical. One spot of red, so vivid it fixated me. A bloody knee. Where were my newly torn jeans? They had been expensive. Was I naked?

Impressions of faces, green and snaggle-toothed. Warm hands, clad in smooth and slick latex. Or rubber. Bare skin? Screams echoed off of the now silver walls. Every angle was sharp and angry, ready to slice. Was I screaming? I think so. Mine was the middle-range scream. Not too low, not too high. That mattered to me, but I don’t know why. It shouldn’t be funny. I laughed.

Consciousness came in jagged fits and starts. Flashes of bright lights blinded me, the feel of cold, bare steel kissing my naked skin. Pain in my head. Oh my God, the pain! Something was boring a hole through my skull, and not figuratively. I heard the spinning whine of a drill, its bit throwing off fine bone dust that clogged my sinuses. I could smell the friction heat. Hot liquid dribbled down the slope of my nose, pooling in the corner of my eye before tracing past my lips. I tasted it; salt and iron.

I couldn’t move anything, couldn’t even blink my eyelids to clear the blood. Complete paralysis. There was no air in my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I can’t breathe… can’t breathe!

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I woke. Tess slept in the circle of my arms, her breathing slow and regular. My heart was pounding, the dregs of my dream still flowing through my body. Slow, just slow down. I focused on my surroundings, cataloging what I could see, and feel. The fabric of the second-hand couch that had come with the apartment. The off-white paint on the walls, with a mystery stain high up in one corner. I saw a rabbit’s head, and Tess saw a butterfly. The tiny kitchen with magically artificed appliances mimicking those I grew up with.

The pleasant weight of another human—the only other human—resting on me like a weighted blanket. A patch of bare skin, brown and silky smooth, where her shirt had risen slightly at the waist.

My heartbeat stepped up a beat faster.

A warm shaft of sunlight bathed the two of us, doing its best to take away some of the bone-deep chill that had followed me from the nightmare of remembrance. Starting to get poetic, again. Fear and longing would do that to a person.

Ricki. Her name, ‘Babe’, was Ricki. I’ll never forget it.

“We never should have crossed that damn field.”