We were presented with an absolute cacophony of sights and sounds.
Hoots, hollers, and bright lights assaulted the senses, and it was a good moment before I could properly take in what I was seeing.
I was astonished (and rightly so) to see something I hadn’t realized I’d missed: other humans.
Most wore suits, a couple wore rags, but they were all milling about and chatting with one another, with a few gremlins gremling about among them.
The atmosphere was charged, in an exciting and volatile way, and the noise was so loud I had to shout to be heard.
“What is this?” I asked Grungleby.
“It’s a Glorbo Nest!” I heard it say.
“A what?”
“What?” it shouted.
“What’s a Glorbo Nest?”
“A what?”
“A Glorbo Nest!”
“A Glorbo Nest?”
“Yeah!”
“What about it?”
“What?”
“What?”
“Didn’t you say…” I pointed at Grungleby and mimed speaking,
“...that this…” I gestured around me,
“...is a Glorbo Nest?” I shouted into its ear.
Grungleby realized the confusion, took a step back, shook its head and shouted,
“No!”
“Oh,” I said.
“I said…” it mimed speaking,
“...that this…” it gestured around itself,
“...is Torture Fest!” it made a gesture that looked vaguely like chopping an ax.
I looked around.
“Torture Fest?” I shouted.
“Yeah!”
“What’s that?”
Grungleby opened his mouth in response, but was cut short by a booming voice from the crowd.
“You!” it yelled.
I froze.
I didn’t see who had said it, or who they were pointing at when they did, but I instinctively knew it was directed against me.
I turned.
A large, threatening man was pushing his way through the crowd towards me.
I remained frozen.
As he drew closer, I was, again, astonished to realize that I knew him.
He stopped and wagged his finger at me.
“Aren’t I supposed to be flagellating you right now?” he asked accusingly.
I was speechless.
Well, not entirely speechless, I was able to get some speech out. It sounded something like this:
“Uh- d- m-”
He laughed.
“I’m just messing with you, dude!" he clapped me on the back, "it’s Torture Fest!”
I looked at him, and then looked around again.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
This time, I was truly speechless.
“Hey, nice suit!” he looked at me, “how are you enjoying it, by the way?”
I stared at him in disbelief.
I managed to open my mouth.
“Torture Fest!” he gestured around, “Have you tried the fried Glorbo Nests?”
I had to take a seat.
I sat on the ground.
“Are you feeling okay?” my flagellator asked, concerned.
“Yeah- yeah, I’m fine.” I managed, “it’s just a lot.
He looked around.
“Yeah, I guess it is. This your first one?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I was flagellating you for all the other ones, huh.”
“Yeah.”
He squatted next to me.
“So, anyway, how’s it been? What have you been up to?”
“Just walking around, I guess.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it like out there?”
“Out where?”
“The Torture Labyrinth,” he said reverently.
“It’s cool," I shrugged.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Got any cool stories?”
I thought about it.
“I talked to a bug,” I said.
“Wow,” he said breathlessly, “that’s amazing.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged again, “I guess it is.”
“So-”
I stopped him. I looked around.
“Where’s Grungleby?”
“Who?”
“Grungleby. The gremlin I was with.”
“Oh, the little green dude? I think I saw it wandering over that way,” he pointed in the crowd.
I didn’t see Grungleby.
I looked where we had walked in from, and I didn’t see the door either.
I stood up, and began to walk towards where the flagellator had pointed.
He stopped me.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked genuinely.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Really? You just look kind of small, is all.”
“Small?”
“You know, not your usual size, and all that.”
“Oh...”
“And kind of green, too, now that I look at you.”
I stopped.
“But, hey, you’re still human!”
He looked at me again, and made a gesture with his head that vaguely translated to, “Eh.”
“Excuse me, I have to go.”
“Hey, no worries at all, enjoy Torture Fest!”
“Thanks.”
I pushed past him and into the crowd.
“And hey!” he said sharply.
I stopped and turned.
“I’ll getcha!” he laughed, “Whu-psh!”
I kept pushing.
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Torture Fest was everything you would expect from a torture-themed festival, in that even amidst the random acts of torture, one couldn’t help but have a good time.
The crowd was buzzing with an infectious energy; even the screams, while agonized, were tinged with a sense of frivolity.
There were dunk tanks that inverted the classic notion of dropping someone into a bucket of water, there was a ferris wheel connected to a stretching rack, and there were fried Glorbo Nests.
A passerby (wearing only a black hood and matching loincloth) was kind enough to purchase one for me.
“It’s Torture Fest!” he said, “you gotta try one! Besides, it’s only three gorblucks…”
It was like nothing else I had ever tried before, and nothing else I’ve tried since.
I can’t even begin to explain their taste or texture, and so I won’t.
But I will say that upon trying it, I was very much surprised by its strange taste and unusual texture. Even now, writing this, I can still taste its strangeness and feel its unusualness in my mouth.
Truly, I say, the endless years of flagellation may just be worth it, if only for one fried Glorbo Nest.
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I still couldn’t find Grungleby.
I kept pushing my way through the crowd of people, eliciting a few quickly ameliorated hostilities.
Some appeared to be torturers, some appeared to be torturees, but all were joking and laughing with each other.
I overheard a conversation between two men that appeared to be flagellators.
“...and so I’m flagellating the dude, and he’s all screaming, ‘HELP ME! PLEASE STOP!’”
“Oh, that’s the best.”
“...and I’m like, ‘Shut up! I’m totally flagellating you right now!’”
“Oh, I love doing that.”
“Yeah, it’s the best. One time I was flagellating this other guy…”
Their conversation faded as I sidled past.
There were gremlins galore, running through the legs of the festivants and occasionally tying their shoelaces together, but there was still no sign of Grungleby.
I decided to let the matter go for the moment, and tried to enjoy myself.
I mingled, meandered, and generally mucked about.
----------------------------------------
I eventually saw a crowd of cheering people in the distance, and walked over.
As I pushed my way through the outer ring, I was only mildly surprised by what I found on the inside.
In the center, jeered on by the crowd, was a small group of humans kicking a small creature.
As I looked closer, I noticed that it bore a vague resemblance to the Keith-creature I had met earlier.
“Get him!” a member of the crowd shouted.
“Yeah,” another member yelled, “kick him!”
“Rngh!” a member of the kicking group grunted between breaths, “I’m… totally… kicking you… right now!”
The creature said nothing. It was limp.
After another couple minutes of kicking, the crowd lost interest and the group stopped kicking.
They laughed and high fived as they walked away.
“Dude, I totally saw that one kick…” one said to another.
I stayed behind.
The creature looked dead.
After another couple minutes of lying on the ground, it began to twitch.
"Urgh…” it groaned.
I kept quiet.
It winced at the lights, and then flinched at the sight of me.
I stayed still.
It seemed to weigh me in its head. Then it looked deep into my face, and scampered away into the shadows.
It skulked there.
I stood up, and kept looking for Grungleby.
----------------------------------------
I found it at what appeared to be the Torture Fest equivalent of a bar.
It was sitting alone, with a glass of strange, dark liquid that, by the looks of it, was half empty.
“Grungleby?” I asked as I sat down next to it.
It turned.
“Do you have any idea how insulting that is?” it asked dourly.
“Yes,” I sighed.
It turned back to its glass.
“No you don’t,” it said sourly.
I said nothing.
“How was your conversation with Captain Flagellator?”
“What?”
“You know who I’m talking about. The hunk who was all over you.”
“Oh- no, Grungleby, it’s not like that-”
“Whatever,” it drank its drink, “I don’t care.”
I said nothing.
It was obvious it cared.
Grungleby said nothing for some time.
Then, it spoke.
“How’s Torture Fest going?”
“Oh- it’s nice, I suppose.”
“That’s good,” it said, “I always enjoy Torture Fest.”
“Yeah, I can see why,” I looked around.
It seemed to lighten up.
“What am I doing?” it laughed, “you can’t have a bad time at Torture Fest!”
I smiled.
It looked at me excitedly.
“Have you tried the fried-”
Grungleby was again cut short by a piercing voice from the crowd.
“You!” it cried.
I felt the same instinctive fear I did the first time.
I turned.
It was Gary.