At the end of the world, the monsters stirred.

Sartorial sky scrapers and lost linen interstates littered the hallways of the hastily abandoned hotel. Gilt ridden curtains housed hordes of mad, miniature mothmen who lived their month long lives in haunted disbelief as their own and others fates flitted through their fleeting minds. The carpets which had once bounced beneath the feet and hooves and other pods of myriad creatures from so many cosmos now oozed with a strange slime mold which randomly replicated writing it had eaten. Froody watched as “Come See The Last Dragon,” was written on what remained of the rug drug out for special company.

There had been people here, once. Their will was wild in its insecure insistence on a ground to stand on. They came, the fever dreams of their infections coughing up from raw throats phlegmatic rainbows of toxic thoughts of their needing to be with ideas that there was a place of order and that the limbic sea was what was strange. They took the creatures of The Deep Could Being, wrapping them in gold chains and stapled them to marbled plinths. They brought paper and pen and said since 'you signed this, we own you,' and at first some thought it was a silly game but the people played so seriously that several species of quantum flowers died in disgust.

But now the people were gone. Well, all but Mike were gone. Mike was unlikely to go anywhere. Froody wasn’t sure whether Mike was still considered human in the state he was in but Mike insisted that he was.

It had taken Froody several weeks to climb out of where he worked. They had liked their job, mostly. The pay was plentiful and there were often interesting challenges. One memorable night, a fraternity of angels had cut loose in the establishment and ordered well beyond their means to pay or capacity to eat. So much food was sent down the shoot that night splashing into the space where Froody mostly lived. There the million mycelium cells Broody had back then began happily exploring the different ways to dissolve what was unwanted and incorporate it into their entangling tissues.

But now there were no more angels or humans. There were no more of whate of what those with power called peopleno more people to pretend that money was realwaste was inevitable and so his pay had stopped. Without the pay, Broody couldn’t feed Mike. They liked feeding Mike.

So, they had climbed out, or rather had gathered all the carbon variations they could into a mobile form and taught the fine entanglements what they could of the song they called themself. The form bloomed from one of the cracks they had long ago grown into so that he could see and taste and smell and feel what world it was that paid so well.

As their mobile form took shape and its firtstep, they felt sadness slosh about inside them as most of what they were fell dormant. It would die if they left themselves alone too long.

Froody shrugged. They had died before and doubtless they would die again.

“What’s a dragon?” Wondered Froody, wandering over and tickling the mold with hyphe of their own. The slime mold tried to eat them. Froody sighed and withdrew. They let their rolling squishy gate take them out of the doors and into the pool area.

Overhead, the sky blossomed in disconcerting blooms. Suns came into being and fell like snow which rose like ghosts and exploded into books which landed in flowery heaps that sighed their way out of existence.

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One of the heaps groaned and brushed the thoughts from itself. The shed suns fell away, revealing a squat head and a mouth that threatened to reach all the way around.

“Arf!” Called Froody.

Arf looked over at the wobbling mushroom. He had been involved with maintenance but had been let go for eating too many guests. Froody had seen him fixing things and swimming in the pool when guests were not around. Arf had never seen Froody, though. Very few people saw Froody. They saw his fruits or the flowers of mycellium he grew as he explored the hotel, but very few people saw Froody.

“Do I know you?” Asked Arf, scratching his slimy head with his webbed claws.

“I worked in waste reclamation. You worked in maintenance. They fired you after you ate that kid and you hid in the garden ponds after you killed the world turtle that was guarding it.”

Arf glowered. “That kid had it coming.”

“Ok.” said Froody. Despite breaking down and incorporating millions of half eaten desserts and at least one box of books, Froody had only a shadow of understanding of what was meant by words like ‘deserve’ and ‘fair’ and ‘had it coming’.

Arf looked at the pool that he had snuck into so often. “What’s your name?” He asked over his shoulder.

“My friends call me ‘Froody’.”

“Do they?”

“They do.” Said Froody, and willed it to be true.

“Alright Froody,” said Froody’s new friend, Arf. “What are you doing here?”

“I am looking for The Last Dragon.”

“I haven’t seen her since the people left.”

“Do you think they took her with them?”

Arf looked at them. “Do you not know what happened?”

“When they left, you mean?”

Arf nodded.

“There was noise and magic and the glass around Senerax shattered. Then there was screaming and the meat and fluids that selves ride around in covered the floors and I took apart some of the tissues but I found no selves within.”

Arf nodded. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. If people had the option, they would not have taken Sen with them.”

“Where did they go?”

“Away.”

“Which way?”

Arf shrugged. “Any way they could.” The long amphibian limbs began to stretch as Arf looked into his pool and prepared to dive. “They’ll be back, though, so if you have business here, you better get to it.”

Froody thought about what business he had while Arf swam deep into the black bottomed pool. “I don’t have a business, do I?” This worried Froody. If they needed to do business before the people returned, then he needed some business to do while he still had his chance.