A Bizarre Festival
Slop-slop-slop.
The three friends followed the toad, its large feet sloshing through puddles of goo.
“It’s so dark. I can’t see the stairs properly!” complained Chilli. “Eeeeek!” she squealed as she slipped on a pool of slime, almost losing her footing. She fumbled with the Hopejar, nearly dropping it.
“Careful!” warned Ty. “If we break the Bow or the Hopejar we may be stuck in Effluvia forever.” He suddenly stopped and sniffed the air suspiciously. “The air’s different down here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Chilli.
“Smell it,” Ty suggested. Chilli gave a quick sniff. She didn’t fancy taking another lungful of the gunky Effluvian air.
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Exactly” agreed Ty. “Remember what the air was like above ground? It stank. Now we can’t smell anything. The air’s clean down here.”
“I wonder why.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out” said Ty, relieved he could breathe properly again.
Chilli was distracted by something that caught her eye. “There’s a light!” she exclaimed.
A dim orange glow was coming from a large glass bowl hanging against the wall. It was filled with water and in it swam hundreds of glowing cuttlefish. They clearly weren’t happy about being kept imprisoned and were squabbling amongst each other, sending strobes of light up and down their bodies.
Murkslime and Wormrot had stopped at a box under the light, muttering to each other as they rooted around in it for something.
Next to the box, a sign proclaimed: ‘Warning. All citizens are instructimicated to wear breathstrainers when entering stadirenium. By Order of The Effluvian Departmentation of Healthiness’.
The toads finally found what they were looking for and pulled out two surgical masks.
“Hah!” said Murkslime, “this one seemly enwraps me.” He flung the fabric around his face, and tied a knot at the back of his head. Wormrot had to wait until Murkslime had finished before he could fit his own mask. It is, after all, not easy having two heads and only one pair of arms.
“Why are you wearing those?” asked Chilli.
“The airosphere lowdown here is polluminated, so we haved to be wearingd these breathstrainers. It also holds away that dreadfoul sniffbreath. Kraaaak, it’s ghastink!” The two heads gave a phleghmy cough of disgust at the smell of the “polluted” air.
“But the air down here is clean. The air up there is polluted!” said Ty pointing upwards. Obviously, the citizens of Effluvia didn’t know foul from fair.
The toad’s festering body starting quivering like a mound of dirty jelly. Then their heads erupted in the strangled sound of a crocodile choking on a piece of rotten meat. This is what passed as laughter for the toad.
“What’s so funny?” asked Chilli, bewildered.
“You bareskins are so ignorstupicated!” they replied together, gasping for air.
A pustule on their chest exploded, sending its slimy contents zipping towards Ty and Chilli’s heads. They quickly ducked and the blob splattered against the wall.
“What’s so funny?” Chilli insisted.
“We’ve been forelarmed by King Maximus that hairskins mindsmarts were scraddled. But it’s seemly that your snoutsniffs are malfaulted also. Just take a lungbreath.” The two heads took a deep breath through their masks making their chest expand to twice its size. This made their pustules bulge ominously, and Chilli and Ty watched warily for any more disgusting missiles. The toads exhaled with a lot of exaggerated coughing and hacking. Chilli rolled her eyes at the show.
“How stupid!” she exclaimed.
“King Maximus has entold us how enprivilucked we are to inhabituate a wonderliferous countland like Effluvia, kraaaak. He says that we have the toppest countland in the earthglobe. The airosphere down here is specificately polluticated to scarify our aggrenemies.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Even from your king,” Ty warned.
The two heads gasped at the suggestion that their king, their Most Exswellentest Malajesty, would lie to his subjects. It was unthinkable!
“Harrumph!” snorted the toads in disgust. “He carecuddles us! That’s why he progifted us with these breathstrainers. To proshield his companizens against the toxinoxic fumi-airs,” the toads chimed together. Abruptly they turned away and continued their climb down the stairs.
“You can followon if you yet want to. But we won’t be introductioning you to King Maximus,” they shouted over their shoulders. “He would have you all unheaded for what you did say about him. You’d befinely stay unbesighted if you want to stay headed.” With that, the toad disappeared down into the stairwell.
“Now we’ve done it! Any suggestions?” Chilli asked Ty.
“I think we should keep to our plan.”
“But we’ll be easily seen. And Murkslime and Wormrot may give us away now that we’ve ticked them off,” Chilli pointed out.
“I...” Ty’s words were drowned out by a loud roar from the crowd. It was followed by trumpet blasts that sounded more like a flock of strangled geese. A raspy voice boomed over the public address system.
“All hailness mately Effluvians.” The crowd went wild, yelling and clapping.
“Goodlycome to the anniversyearly Notional Exaltation Day celelibations where we give gratitudiation to His Most Sumpremiest Malajesty, King Maximus Destructium.”
Ty nodded to Chilli. They took the last flight of stairs down to the arena, their backs flat against the wall. A nervous Chilli tried to stop her knees from giving way underneath her. Ty and Oubaas weren’t doing well either. They knew they’d stick out in that crowd like a sore thumb. And who knew what Murkslime and Wormrot would do. That was one unhappy toad!
The friends didn’t know what they were going to face. Morbidius could be waiting for them below. And the Mutandii could be hunting them from above. Fear itself was stalking them, and it would find them wherever they hid.
Darkness may shield you from your enemies, but Fear can find you wherever you are. Whether you’re in the light or in the dark.