A Hopeless Situation
“Ow, watchit! You big bug!” yelled Chilli. The cockroaches were dangling her and Ty by their belts like pieces of meat.
Below them, the crowd booed and hissed as the children passed overhead. But throwing insults wasn’t satisfying enough for the Effluvians, and they started hurling missiles at the dreaded hairskins. An empty soda can nearly cracked Chilli on the head.
“Hey! Stop that you idiot!” she yelled at the culprit.
Ty, on the other hand, wasn’t worrying about the crowd or his belt cutting into his waist. He was using the bizarre flight to look for an escape route. We’re in deep trouble he thought, we’ll never make it to the exit doors. He was sure that he and Chilli would lose some important body parts if the bloodthirsty Effluvians got hold of them.
The citizens took up just about every seat in the grand stadium. They were clearly too loyal, or too stupid, to notice that the arena was everything that Effluvia was not. The stadium had been constructed of gleaming white marble, and the tiers of seats were splendidly decorated with gold leaf. Above them, massive crystal chandeliers were suspended from the roof girders by velvet-covered chains. Above the yelling and screaming, Ty could make out the thrumming of generators as they pumped clean, lavender-infused air into the arena. That explained why Morbidius wasn’t wearing a mask. He couldn’t stand the polluted atmosphere of Effluvia and had a clean supply shipped in and perfumed for his royal pleasure.
The audience was made up of every kind of hairless creature that crawled, slithered or hopped. However, all of them were malformed in some way or another. Like Murkslime and Wormrot, there were those with two heads; or even three or four. Many had more than four legs, while some snakes had a tortoise’s shell perched on their heads like some weird hat. A poor creature in the front row had the body of a frog and two snake heads sprouting out of his body. And they were all wearing surgical masks. There was something very wrong in Effluvia.
Vvrrrrrrrr! The giant cockroachs’ wings droned loudly as they swooped towards Morbidius. They hovered briefly above the platform before releasing their grip on Chilli and Ty.
“Oof!” cried Chilli as she landed on her stomach with an unceremonious thud.
“You guys are a piece of work!” she yelled at them angrily. But rough handling by Detritus was the least of their worries. Their biggest worry was standing over them – Morbidius.
“Welcome to my Kingdom, brats!” Morbidius whispered to the children. “This is going to give me even more pleasure than the nasty death of that stupid whale.”
“Just wait until the Effluvians find out who you really are!” Chilli spat back.
“That, you dim child, is not going to happen. Severed heads cannot speak! And yours may not be connected to your bodies for much longer” he hissed. The cobra’s tongue flickered from between shrunken scaly lips. Chilli ducked as his tongue nearly touched the top of her head.
Morbidius straightened up and threw his head back in a dramatic gesture of victory. His subjects, who had never seen anything as exciting as this, roared their approval of their mighty king’s triumphant capture of the foul hairskins.
“Fellow Effluvians, behoooold the enemyyyy!” Morbidius thundered. “As your benevolent sovereign who always has his subjects’ best interests at heart, I would ask you this question: What would you have me do with these despicable hairskins?”
All fired up, the crowd leapt to their feet and began chanting “un-em-bowel them, un-em-bowel them, un-em-bowel them”.
“I hear your calls for justice my people” Morbidius continued, “but do you not think that that is too noble a death for those who dare wish to destroy us on our most cherished of national holidays, our Day of National Exaltatation? Do you not think that we should rather use them to benefit our Kingdom? Do you not think it would be fitting to let their bodies become one with our beloved land?”
Morbidius’s rousing words whipped the crowd into a crazed fervour and they screamed, croaked, yelled and grunted their approval at his words.
“Very well my beloved people, it is done,” Morbidius continued. “Tomorrow at dawn we shall throw the hairskins into the Bottomless Pit of Despair. There, their bodies shall be drained of their life force. Drop by drop, Effluvia shall be rejuvenated by the energy leeched from them.”
This grisly suggestion was met by another loud roar from the audience. Chilli stared grimly at Ty. Things were looking pretty dismal in the staying alive department.
“Lieutenant” Morbidius ordered, “remove these pestilences from my sight and lock them in the Crypt of All Fears.”
Morbidius turned to the children and whispered: “I will see you two tomorrow.”
They were powerless and Chilli knew it. So she did the only thing she could – she pulled a tongue at Morbidius.
Ssssssssssss! Morbidius hissed at her angrily. Then he spun around and grabbed the microphone. “Descendis!” he roared.
“Eeeek!” Chilli squealed, as the floor beneath them began to drop away.
“You and your friend” Morbidius snarled, “are going down!” He watched them, his snake lips in a maniacal grin, until the floor swallowed them up.
“It... it’s dark down here,” shivered Chilli as a lid slid over their heads, sealing the entrance to the arena. But it wasn’t the dark that frightened her the most; it was the fear of the unknown. What was Morbidius going to do to them?
The stench wafting from Detritus and his sergeant-at-arms reminded Ty they weren’t alone. He lowered his voice and whispered encouragement to his friend. “Hang onto me Chilli. Remember the sign in the Museum – ‘where there’s life there’s hope’. We’re not dead yet!”
“Maybe, but Morbidius wants to change that,” Chilli argued.
The platform jolted as it came to a sudden halt, making them bump clumsily into one another. Detritus grabbed Ty’s arm and squeezed it hard. Now that the giant cockroach was alone with the children, he wanted to punish them for betraying him.
“Ouch! Your father must be very proud of you Stanley! Especially seeing as your father is Morbidius!” Ty couldn’t resist taking a dig at Detritus.
This made Detritus angrier. He twisted Ty’s arm in his claw, saying “Come with usssss.”
“Slick move Ty,” Chilli remarked sarcastically.
“Sssssergeant, pick up the girl. We ssssshall carry the insssssurgentssss to the Crypt,” said Detritus. Chilli gagged as she was enveloped by the smell of decay from the cockroach’s body as he scooped her up.
“Eeeuw” exclaimed Ty, “I wish you’d use cologne Stanley. Your B.O. is awful! I’ll give you a bottle for your next birthday.” In reply, Detritus gave him a painful squeeze.
“You’re a slow learner Ty,” remarked Chilli.
Ty ignored his friend. Insults were all he had to make himself feel powerful. “Where are you taking us?” he demanded to know from Detritus.
“We are taking you to the Crypt to be incarcccccerated until tomorrow morning. But I ssssshall not ssssspeak to you again. The lassssst time I did ssssso, you betrayed me and I wasssss almossssst ssssstripped of my rank. Now, be quiet!”
“But...” began Ty.
“Ssssilencccce!” Detritus commanded.
“Yes sir, lieutenant, sir. Hey Chilli, are you okay there with sergeant whose-a-mabody?”
“Oof, I’m f... fine” she managed to answer, as she was jolted up and down. “’N you?”
“Strong. Hang in there.”
“I’m oof... I’m hanging in all right. “
The friends were unceremoniusly lugged down a passage until they came to a solid stone wall. Without hesitating, Detritus walked up to the rockface and stuck his feelers into two holes bored into it. There was the grating sound of rock on rock as the wall began to split in two to reveal a small room. Groan thought Chilli, another prison cell.
“Heeeere we go again, Stanley,” taunted Ty. “Haven’t you and your daddy figured out that we can escape from anything?”
“Sssshut up you insssignificant ssspeccccies!” hissed Stanley. “Thisssssss time it’ssssss for good!” He and his fellow cockroach roughly pushed the children into the Crypt, sending them flying to the ground.
“Hey! Steady on Stanley! Your mother should put you on the naughty step! Oops, sorry, I forgot, you don’t have a mother! Morbidius bred you in a testube!” Chilli mocked. She wasn’t going to let Morbidius or Detritus break her spirit. If this was going to be her last night, she might as well have a laugh at their expense. But Detritus didn’t take the bait this time and ignored her.
“Thissss issss where you will ssssspend the night. Ssssstrange dreamsssss,” Detritus hissed. With that, the wall slid shut again.
“We’re in trouble Chills,” exclaimed Ty. “The Crypt’s been chopped out of solid rock. It’s like a tomb. There’s no way out of here. This time we’re really trapped!”
Chilli threw herself glumly onto the ground, her back propped up against the wall.
Determined not to give up, Ty started rapping his knuckles against the walls, listening for any weaknesses. But there was no answering echo. Finally, realising the situation was hopeless; he sat down next to Chilli, defeated.
“We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow,” he muttered.
It was too much for Chilli. They’d been through so much and now they were trapped. She sniffed miserably as tears trickled down her cheeks and landed on the dirt floor.
“It’s no use...” she began. She stopped as the ground started to tremble.
“It’s an earthquake!” shouted Ty.
“Get away from the wall! It’s going to collapse!” warned Ty. He grabbed Chilli’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
“Sssssssssooooooo ssssssssssaaaaaad” came a wail from behind the wall.
“The wall! It’s starting to crack!” yelled Chilli.
“Wow! Look at that!” Ty cried.
A wide crack began splitting the wall in two, the two halves shaking and shuddering as they opened wider until they came to a stop.
“A way out!” Ty cried hopefully.
“Nope. There’s just another wall behind it” said Chilli in disgust.
“No, it’s not just a wall. Come and look at this!”
The wall was lined with smooth stone slabs arranged like a Wall of Remembrance at a cemetery. A steel ring had been riveted into each of the slabs; a sort of floor-to-ceiling chest of stone drawers. A string of words had been carved above the slabs. It read: ‘The Essence of All Fears Resides in these Tears’.
“Tears? It must’ve been your tears that made this happen Chills,” suggested Ty.
“Could be” replied Chilli, more interested in inspecting the carvings on the slabs. “Look at this. The labels say: ‘Pain’, ‘Suffering’ and ‘Heartache’. I can’t read those up there, there’s not enough light.” She pointed to a row higher up.
“What do you think this Crypt is for?” Ty wondered.
“With Morbidius? Nothing good, that’s for sure.”
“Let’s look inside one of these drawers” Chilli suggested, tugging on one of the handles.
“Don’t touch anything. It could be poison” Ty warned.
“I’m only going to have a look” Chilli retorted, pulling out the drawer marked ‘Pain’ and carefully placing it on the ground. “Check this out Ty.”
Neatly packed into the drawer were thousands of little phials of clear liquid, each sealed with a tiny cork. Chilli carefully pulled out one of them.
“Each test tube’s also been labelled. This one says ‘Abandonment’.” Ty pulled out another.
“And this one’s ‘Infidelity’,” Ty observed. They lifted out more tubes, reading the labels out loud as they did so.
“There are too many to count. What does it mean?” wondered Chilli.
“Uhm...” Ty hesitated, “Snap! I know!” he exclaimed, “They’re tears!” he exclaimed.
“Tears?” It all sounded a bit crazy to Chilli.
“Look at the sign” said Ty, ‘The Essence of all Fears Resides in These Tears’.”
“So, you think these test tubes are filled with tears?”
“Yup. Aaaand... they could be a way out of this mess,” Ty mused.
“How?”
“Maybe we can stall Morbidius if we give him some of his own medicine” Ty suggested.
“Pardon?”
“Like I said, we give Morbidius a taste of his own medicine!” repeated Ty.
“Do you think those... those tears will have any affect on him?” Chilli asked hopefully. As crazy as her friend’s idea had sounded at first, it was starting to make sense to her.
“I don’t know, Chills. But it’s all we’ve got.”
“So... you’re saying we should use these tears against Morbidius?”
“Exactly! We give Morbidius some of his own pain back. It could just work. Help me choose one. We’ll have to smuggle it out of here.” Ty grabbed a drawer marked ‘Remorse’. “I think what we need is in here.”
They started to sift through the test tubes. “What goes around comes around, and what’s coming around to Morbidius is going to freak him out!” chuckled Ty.
“I’m worried about Oubaas” Chilli remarked, picking up another phial. The safety of their friend had been at the back of her mind, like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
“Don’t worry about him” Ty reassured her, “that old baboon may seem like a coward, but you should’ve seen what he did to a feral dog that attacked me.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s just say nobody will have to dock that dog’s tail,” chuckled Ty.
“What about the Bow? I hope Morbidius hasn’t gotten hold of it.”
“Let’s just do what we can do right now” Ty reasoned, “we’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”
“S’pose you’re right,” said Chilli peering at a label. She looked up at her friend and smiled. “I think I’ve found what we’ve been looking for” she said, showing it to Ty. He read the sticker and patted Chilli on her back.
“Perfect Chills! This time Morbidius will be hit where it hurts most. C’mon, let’s put the drawer back where we found it. Stanley mustn’t see what we’ve done.”
They carefully wedged the drawer back in its place and the rock automatically slid back into position.
“High five!” Chilli grinned, holding up her hand.
Ty was just about to congratulate her when a small panel opened in the wall and Detritus’s beady eyes appeared.
“Sssssilenccce you two! Ssssstop talking and go to sssssleep!” the cockroached ordered.
“Sure, Stanley. We don’t want you to get into trouble with daddy,” Chilli sneered. Detritus let out a disgusted hiss and slammed the vent shut.
Ty handed the phial to Chilli saying: “Keep it ready in your shirt pocket. We don’t know when we’re going to need it. There’s nothing else we can do now, so we might as well get some sleep.” Ty’s eyes had started to droop and he realised how tired he was.
“Good idea. I’m knackered,” yawned Chilli.
“So, are you going to sleep on the floor or... on the floor?” Ty asked, smiling.
“Uhm, I think I’ll sleep on the floor” Chilli answered, grinning back at her friend.
The two friends lay down on the hard ground and stared up at the crypt’s craggy roof.
“G’night, Chills.”
“G’night” replied Chilli.
That was all the friends could manage to say before their tired bodies took over and pulled them into a deep sleep. Which was just as well. They would need all the rest they could get to face Morbidius the next morning.