2011 words

Rated PG; violence, blood, unsettling imagery

Prompt: Write about someone who’s spent a whole year planning a big prank, and now they’re finally ready to pull it off.

Author's note: I am not dead, so apologies if you got your hopes up.

Disclaimer: The conversations concerning organisms from other planets, solar systems, and existences in this story have been translated.

Kamusta shakes hir heads.

“Please, don’t. I don’t think I can handle you doing this again.”

“You are overreacting.”

Hir hand rises above hir. It’s a beacon, attracting lightning that hides in the sky. The streaks chase one another like puppies in their eagerness to get to their hand. They leap over each other--moving like animals chasing after their prey. They leap off the exosphere, with claws out. The jagged, yellow line hits Kamusta's hand. 

Hir eyes light up. Zie has pure light streaming from them. A cackle of thunder rings in the air and shoves itself in my ear and sets my mind on fire with its unbelievable volume. I sigh.

“I rest my case. You do not have to threaten to blow me out of existence over a silly prank.”

Kamusta releases the lightning--who scamper up into space for any future instances when they’ll be needed--and rests hir heads against an invisible wall zie just made. I float over to hir, and shrug.

“You can not expect that trick to work every time.”

“I won’t apologize for trying to stop you from getting erased. But fine, go to Doud. You won’t be saved by me, or Haigh, or Coucou.”

“I do not need to be saved.”

Kamusta narrows hir eyes. If zie were Coucou, zie would talk about all the times I have needed to be saved, and then douse me in water for acting stupid. This is Kamusta, though. Intimidation is hir main strategy. 

“Tell me about your prank.” Zie finally says.

“I am following April Fool’s Day. It is. . .”

Kamusta gives me an annoyed grunt.

“I know what April fool’s Day is. I have been to a few habitable planets.”

Kamusta completely glosses over the fact that zie has been to the worst earth. I will ask hir about it later, though. 

“So, on April 1st, using that human calendar, I could make Hae accidentally end up in the universe 426*7.”

Kamusta contemplates how such a feat could be done. Zie lifts hir heads. One of them slowly leans over to me with an elongated neck. Hir feathers ruffle.

“Why, you’d have to own the spear. The one that, the last time I checked, belongs to Szia.”

“I promised them that they could participate.” I snap.

The head goes back to its original position.

“Interesting endeavor. So, whose blood will you be using?”

“My own. I will be the one stabbing Hae.”

Kamusta’s heads share a single facial expression as all of them stretch out to get a better look at me. The reason behind it might be to try to trap me in this position, so I don’t carry out the plan.

“Your blood? Do you have a death wish?”

“I might.”

Kamusta doesn’t give me a response. At least, not verbally. Below us, I hear the clouds that overlook this planet start rumbling. I can feel the water slipping through the puffs in the air and starting its long descent. Zie hasn’t shown any signs of creating the storm, other than a slight twitch in one of the necks reaching away from hir body like spiky branches.

“You know what, do what you want, I won’t miss you.”

Kamusta is getting better at lying. Zie closes all of hir eyes. 

“Try not to die.”

Zie disappears with an elongated ding pulled from the depths of the worst hell imaginable. It scratches into my ears. The sound pulls my molecules apart. I have to manually push them back together with a north wind. Zie’s been so dramatic lately.

The acid rain is killing the residents on the stars below. I listen to the screams to soothe myself. Kamusta has no idea what zie’s talking about. It’s a prank. Hae will find his way back eventually. Maybe a hundred years at most?

I let my existence fade away. It’s relaxing. Let the fun begin.

[]

I swear to The Ones, please allow Szia to fall in the volcano. They have not stopped talking about the spear. Even while we are trying to fly over a monster that spits lava to make it to Hae’s lair, even while we almost cease to be here nearly half a dozen times, even while our skills are shut down and we have to walk, they will not stop talking.

“If you would just let me hold it.”

“No.”

The moons blink down at us. The green night sky stretches over us in judgment. Or maybe they are just as fed up as I am with all the chattering Szia has been doing. 

Over the impossibly wide volcano, I see Hae’s house. It is a triangle suspended in the air. It has sleek black walls. It is two-dimensional until you enter it. Then you are flooded with the light of the earth disco. The door only appears after a specific knock. Hae was never a flashy person.

“Do you know how to do the ritual properly?” Szia is again pestering me.

“I should not have let you come.”

Szia stops walking along the tightrope suspended above the volcano. Their fur is painted in red light. I have been relying on the motion of their claws touching the weaved knots stretched across this deadly lava spewer. I trip without the feeling of their motion.

I turn around to see Szia--who is very angry.

“You’re right. I’ll leave and go back home. But I will be taking the spear with me.”

“Szia, I-”

She doesn’t want to hear the end of my sentence. Instead, she leaps forward and tackles me. This action pushes us both off the tightrope and falling towards the lava below. 

“We are going to die now!”

Szia clamps her talons over my mouth to quiet me. They are too hard. Blood is leaving a trail as we fall ever closer to fiery nonexistence.

“We aren’t. Listen closely.”

I can’t do anything else, so there’s no harm, I suppose. I shut my eyes roughly. I open the flaps of my ears. There’s something that may be a drumbeat in the distance. That distance is getting closer. I can now hear it properly. It’s the beating of hearts. I open my eyes and see who they belong to. Hae.

[]

He sleeps in clear lava. I did not know that. He is directly beneath the surface. His silhouette is very peaceful. It is curled up like a bipedal child in the womb. The serenity is interrupted by two beings crashing into him.

Hae groans as he bounces off of him and into the cool lava. It must have been a nice spell he put on it. It is behaving so nicely. 

Hae sits up in the lava and turns to see who interrupted his sleep.

“Szia?” He squints.

Szia nods at him calmly. They must keep their relationship with him purely professional.

“Hello Hae.”

He then sees me. He is not put off by the injuries on my face.

“Oh, good evening. Is there any way I can assist you?”

The plan was not this. I keep my composure and ask the question I usually would.

“Why are our skills not working in this crater?”

Hae makes a realization.

“Oh. I apologize for that. I don’t like to be disturbed in slumber by things that are not important. The lack of skill wards off any messages.”

“I understand. But you can use your skills, right?” 

Szia pokes me with a claw. I ignore it.

“Yes. it would be very difficult to rise from this if I had to do it by climbing.”

“Could you please take us out of the volcano, then? I do not want to visit you and not use my skills.”

Hae shakes his head. 

“I don’t think that will be best. I can raise you after you speak with me.”

The spear has been hidden behind my body. I can feel its point digging into my back. Having skills would have certainly helped, but the chant will work with or without them. Szia will have to tackle him with the same enthusiasm they had for me.

“That is fine. Do you have any plans for tomorrow? Coucou wanted to know if you would like to join us for a field trip.”

I start pushing the weapon into my body. I focus on Szia. I give them a facial expression. They understand me and don’t waste time trying to distract Hae.

“Yes, I will be joining them.” They say.

I know by their tone of voice that the statement is true. I’ll have to deal with them tomorrow, too. The annoyance pushes away the pain of stabbing myself. The whole blade has to be inside my form.

“You will?” Hae is about as surprised as I would be normally.

“We have overcome our differences. Kamusta suggested it.” Szia lies with more confidence than I expected.

“What?”

Hae was still partially asleep. He was leaning back on a wall he made for himself. His lower half was still submerged. His eyes were relaxed. He seemed kind of frustrated that we woke him up--otherwise, he was friendly enough. 

That is not true now. He’s risen from the lava and has his eyebrows pulled together in confusion and anger. Light tentacles spread out from behind him. I don’t grimace at his form. I grimace because the knife part is fully inside me. 

“Kamusta will be there?”

Szia knows they did something to get him upset.

“No,” Szia says casually. “Zie said there was something zie had to do. Why does that matter?”

“Zie said zie would be on an important mission all week. From The Ones.”

Kamusta didn’t tell me that. As slow as possible, the knife comes out of me.

“It was that reason,” Szia replies.

The spear is just about out of my form.

“Oh. Well, should I come with you to your field trip?”

“I think you will be busy.” Szia’s signal to me.

“No, I won’t. Where did you get that idea?”

The knife comes out.

“In the universe 426*7.”

I jump and throw the wet spear towards his form. It spins so quickly it looks like it’s a drill. Hae gasps and curses. Trusting me was a mistake. He tries to block the weapon. The attempt is unsuccessful. The spear still gets under his scales. 

He screams in haunting agony. His eyes are covered with black ink. Blood pours out of them, slimy and orange. The drips make worms that dig into his body. They rip at his flesh. They eat away at him.

Where the spear entered is wilting. It looks like a dead plant. The whole area is brown. It is cracked and dry. It spreads and melts his being. The sound is unholy. It comes from the demon soul trapped inside all of his molecules. Each one escapes with a billow of grey smoke.

Hae keeps rising. He is now just a green blob. He is crying and sobbing. His wails kill any grass that grows on him. He is pleading with the world to not be so cruel to him. He is staring down at us and hissing. He is trying to curse us in his final moments.

He explodes. His world is now gone. He is trapped in a world that celebrates death. Ones with savages that will try to set him on fire if he doesn’t first. His whole existence will be nothing but fleeing for years. Hae is, for the moment, no longer with us.

Szia and I burst into laughter. We bark and tumble through the air. With him gone, our skills are back. We giggle and chuckle at the same time. We roll around and point to where he was before he went boom. We can’t talk because the hilarity has suspended our ability.

“Wow,” Szia manages to say. “You were right. That was hilarious.”

“I know.” I choke out. “He’s going to be so embarrassed when he gets back."