"Yi know..."

"Arrrgh!" Quaraun screamed and jumped and lost his balance and went tumbling to the ground.

"Yis such a klutz," BoomFuzzy said.

"WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT!"

"Talking?"

"Scaring me."

"Me talking is scaring ya?"

"You snuck up behind me in the dark."

"T'ain't my fault yis feard o ya own shadow."

"You pushed me off a cliff!"

"No. I kicked ya off a cliff. That different."

"How is it different?"

"One involves hand, de ot'er involves me foot."

"You could have killed me!"

"No. I t'oughts o dat. It were no far enough for ya to die. Ya barely fell thirty feet. Un most of it was incline. Ya could of walked down."

"You didn't give me a chance to find out I could that."

BoomFuzzy sat down beside Quaraun. "Ya gonna lay in de dirt un bitch?"

"Yes!"

"How come for?"

"I like bitching!"

"Aye. I noticed. Yis very good at it."

"I pushed me off a cliff."

"Nay. I kicked ya off wee hill."

"Why?"

"Because I knew ya would lay of de ground screaming for de next hour, un ya did exactly dat."

"What is wrong with you?"

"Being dead is boring."

"So you pushed me off a cliff?"

"Kicked. I kicked you."

"Why?

"I must liven up me dreary days. Kicking yi off cliff livened t'ings up a bit."

"If you are bored why you go haunt somebody?"

"What'cha t'ink I doing right now?"

"I meant go haunt somebody other than me."

"No one else is so much fun as haunting ya is."

"I..." Quaraun couldn't think of what else to say.

"Ya know, you should be glad I only haunts ya when ya is alone."

"I'm always alone."

"Perhaps I should start haunting ya in public, eh?"

"What difference would that make?"

"No one else can see me. Imagine, ya had one of ya screaming hootenannies in a marketplace because I kicked ya wee lil bahookie in de market square, eh? People already t'inks ya crazy as it is, without ya fighting with me in public."

"Why am I the only one who can see you?"

"Oh, ya ain't. Any one what Faerie Sighted can sees me, also necromancers, spirit mediums, physics, diviners, small children, any on who believes in Santa Claus, UFO crazies who t'inks dey been abducted by aliens..."

"Santa Claus?"

"Eh?"

"You said any one who believes in Satan Claus can see you."

"Aye."

"Why Santa Claus?"

"Oh, not just Santa Claus, also the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Satan..."

"Satan?"

"Satan is not real. Him were imagination of Humans. Azalea, him real. But people who believe in Azalea can no sees me. Only people who believe in Satan."

"So, what you are saying is, gullible people, to stupid to know the difference between reality and fantasy can see you?"

"Aye."

"Why?"

"Big brains full of science logic can no see Boogeymen."

"Are you a Boogeyman?"

"Eh, depends on who ya ask. We Phookas, we call ourselves Phookas, but Humans have many much names for us. Bogart. Kelpies. Unicorns. Harvey."

"Harvey?"

"Big white rabbit."

"What do you want?"

"'Cake!"

"Cake?"

"Gingerbread."

"Of course. What else would it be?"

"Can we has cake?"

"Why would we have cake here?"

"I don't know. Ya asked what I wanted un I said I wanted cake."

"Are you drunk?"

"Nope. I is Lich. Can no gets drunk."

"You can't eat either. Side effect of having no physical body."

"Aye. But I is hungry. Ever hungry. Never sated. Dreadful."

"I don't have any gingerbread cake for you."

"I don'a need gingerbread cake."

"You said..."

"Just cake."

"Just cake?"

"Aye. Just cake with frosting and strawberries and chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies."

"What kind of cake would you prefer?"

"Gingerbread. Wid strawberries."

"We had strawberries, but they're rotten so we can't have them."

"Ya know, I don't like chocolate clip cookies."

"You just said you wanted some."

"Chocolate chip is too bitter and crunchy and tastes like wet grass."

"Wet grass?"

"Cake wid vanilla ice cream. With lots un lots o sprinkles."

"Oh... oh yeah. Yeah, I bet there are tons of sprinkles in a store. Maybe we'll go look. After we are done being trapped in the bottom of a volcano that someone decided to throw me in. What toppings does your cake have?"

"I dunno. Just cake. Plain."

"That sounds really boring."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Oh no! But not boring enough to stop me from eating cake with you. I miss cooking. Not been able to cook since I done gone un become a Lich."

"No physical body."

"Aye."

"I'm trying to fix that you know?"

"Aye. I knows. Alright then!" BoomFuzzy jumped up. "Let's go ask some people where to get cake."

"Why? Who? Where? There's no cake or food anywhere on this cursed planet, and everyone but us seems to have disappeared."

BoomFuzzy sat back down.

"Your tummy is growling."

"Yes. I'm hungry."

"Why is me Elf hungry? Have not been eating?"

"No. I haven't. I don't have any food. And it doesn't matter for you. You're a Lich, you couldn't eat it even if I did have any."

"Ya has no food?"

"No. And I've not eaten in days."

"Why has ya no food?"

"I ran out. No markets nearby. I was on my way to Parsonsfield, where all the farms are. I was going to buy food. But, every town I went through was deserted. Not a soul in any one of them."

"Why does ya no just take what ya need?"

"Steal?"

"Aye. Steal."

"I'm not a thief."

"Oh. No! Of course not! Ya just a murderer and a drunk and a drug addict and y pocket every magic book book ya finds. But ya had to have morals somewhere, eh? Why draw de line at no stealing food?"

"I'm not a thief. And I'm not hungry enough yet to start stealing food from people who need it more than I do."

"Ya could just leave money in it place."

"I don't have any."

"No?"

"No."

"Ah. Un how exactly was ya planning to buy food in de market?"

"I trade. You know that. Where are we?"

"In Fire Mountain."

"No. That's not what I meant. Outside. We're encased in glass. We're trapped in a bottle aren't we?"

"Aye. Usually when I is in a bottle it you who put me dar."

"I didn't put you in this bottle. Nor your mountain. Nor me. There's strange magic in the air. We've been captured by someone. Or something. But not just us, the entire mountain is in here too. That's not any easy thing to do."

"We is in a trap."

"A trap? O Great Lich King, how did you allow this to happen to you?"

"Do no try to be sarcastic, Quaraun. Yis not good at it."

"So why would some stranger capture you and then me too? Let me think about that."

"While ya t'inks, ya can give me dat knife."

"Knife?"

"The one ya wished for what to cut yarself wid."

"Oh. I forgot I had it."

Quaraun handed the knife to BoomFuzzy, but the knife went no where but to fall through the dead ghostly Phooka's hand and land on the ground. Quaraun stared at the fallen knife.

"I'm sorry. I forgot you can't hold anything."

"Hmmm."

"Does that hurt?"

"Does what hurt?"

"When something falls through you like that."

"No. I does no feel a t'ing."

"Oh."

Quaraun sat silent for a few minutes.

"We're in a bottle," Quaraun said.

"Is we?"

"Yeah."

"How ya know dat?"

"The sky is made of glass."

"Ah! Aye. I had noticed de sky look strange. Yes. De sky being glass would account for what it be looking like."

"In an ocean."

"Ocean?"

"We're in a bottle, that's floating in the ocean."

"We in dair ocean?"

"Mmmm."

"How ya figure dat one?"

"Because I'm sea sick."

"Yis a JellyFish."

"So?"

"How is creature what supposed to live in ocean, get seasick?"

"I'm in the body of an Elf. The Elf gets seasick and nauseated."

"Does ya feel both what him fees un what yis feels?"

"Yeah. It's possible for us to both have a headache at the same time."

"Dat must be awful."

"It is."

"I don't know what that means. Oh! I forgot. By the way, was that you?"

"Was what me?"

"Back on the road, I found a Faerie stone. When I picked it up, it turned into a blue crystal skull. And than it started talking to me and then it turned into a little girl who was carrying a jellyfish and she killed it."

"I would no killith jellyfish, ya knows dat."

"Yes. I thought as much. I didn't think it was you. I figured that was you at the tower, when you couldn't keep up without speaking Gaelic."

"Elvish be difficult language."

"I know. In any case, we are in the ocean, in a bottle. Someone put us in a bottle and threw it in the ocean."

"I'll agree wid yas, dat we in a bottle, but I do no see ya logic for it being in ocean,. What deviance ya got of it?"

"None. None at all."

"Than why ya thinking it?"

"A hunch?"

"What kinda hunches ya got now?"

"That's a stupid question."

"How so?"

"It's a hunch that whoever put us here made a mistake."

"What kind of mistake?"

"Maybe the wrong kind of mistake."

"What makes yer t'inking dat?"

"When I was a child, there were many times I wanted my mother."

"But she were dead."

"Yes, I know. Mother's loving tentacles to hold me no more. But before she dies, she'd bring me things like a blanket or a doll. All covered with embroidery both. She loved to embroider. She taught me to embroider. She made them. It was she who taught me how to sew and embroider."

"I do no remember, ya mother."

"But then came a time, when I asked, she only brought me books, and then she went away. She was scared. Of ZooLock."

"ZooLock?"

"Yes. It was a long time ago, so I stopped asking."

"Me t'inks yis only speak half whats yar t'inking."

"But then the last year, the year she died, I finally asked her, and she said they would come for me."

"Who would?"

"The Di'Jinn. They would come and take me away and make me one of them. And they did. And I am one of them. It's why I started calling myself Quaraun."

BoomFuzzy looked confused.

"What's that mean, calling yarself Quaraun? Is not Quaraun ya name?"

"No. I can't remember the Elf's name and I didn't want to use my name."

"The jellyfish?"

"Yes. It's from a poem. The author calls himself Quaraun and says it's a word used in ancient Persia. It means 'at one with god' or 'I am god'. So, I decided to call myself that. And that is the mistake."

"Mistake?"

"Whoever put us here made a mistake. The little girl, whoever she is, she's the one who put us in here. She said, I was not a god. That is her mistake. She doesn't know how I got my name."

"I does no t'inks anyone knew dat, Quaraun. Yar over t'inking t'ings again."

"It's okay. No one does anyways. All that matters is getting out of here and finding her. "

"Who?"

"The girl named Death."

"Death?"

"Here." Quaraun handed BoomFuzzy the paper he had written earlier.

"What dis?"

"I wrote it back in the tent, just before all this weird shit started happening to me."

"Ya also writ it in Elvish."

"So?"

"I can'na read it."

"Oh."

Quaraun took the paper back and read it to the Phookan Lich.

"...a black mirror, a silver dagger, and a white feather. A white bird's wing, on its head, and a white cloth with black lines over it as a bandage for a wound.

A white dress, black feathers on top of each head, black clothes, and white boots.

A black crow carrying something in it's talons, feathers ruffled like they had been through wind. An empty cage, with its contents long gone.

The three children who had been playing with the ravens before, now standing beside him. They were no longer laughing or screaming as they used to, but their eyes seemed dull with grief and despair, tears running down their faces, hands shaking as they looked around at what was left of the forest they had once known so well.

There were trees and flowers everywhere, birds singing, animals running through the field, rabbits hopping from tree to tree, butterflies and butterflies flying in the air. The raven in front of them, though, was still just dead; nothing was alive anymore. There were no life, no movement, no life except for that one little, white feather floating in the air, drifting up and away until it could no longer be seen. He watched as it fluttered further away into the sky.

He felt like he should be angry or sad about this..."

"So yi has taken up writing?"

"No. I don't normally write at all. I write down notes for spells and magic, research for trying to get you a solid body again. Academic writing. Not this stuff. I don't where it came from. I just wrote it down, because I couldn't sleep."

"So?"

"So? Look at it!"

"I is un I is no seeing ya point."

"Everything that has been happening to me since I left the tent that night, is all stuff I wrote here on this paper first, before it happened."

"Yis saying yi writ yis own future?"

"I don't know."

"What about de t'ree younguns."

"What about them?"

"Ya seen them?"

"No."

"Why did ya write it?"

"I don't know. I think... I think it's connected to all of this somehow. But I can't figure it out. I'm not good at logical thinking you know?"

"Oh, I... I know dat. Yis not smart, dat for sure."