As tantalizing as the king's offer is -- and tantalize mightily it does -- you simply cannot be party to his plans. How on Earth are you to convince him to let you leave -- well, how on Mars are you to convince him? He's told you things nobody is supposed to know. He obviously finds you expendable. On top of that, where are you? I mean, where are you exactly? Anyone with brain-one would realize this is not a situation where refusal to cooperate is an option. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a brain at all.
"Have you ever heard of a Chinese finger trap?" There's an ever-expanding smirk of coy glee slinking its way across your face.
"A what?" His face is mangled with confusion.
"Never mind. You know, King, you turned this wall over here," you motion in the same general direction as he had before, "into a window, right?"
Befuddled, he responds, "Yes... Listen, I'm really going to need an ans--"
"Yeah, in a minute." A tiny monkey maniacally bangs two cymbals against one another in your head; you've clearly devised your master plan. "First, what does the adjoining wall behind you do?"
Forgetting for a moment the urgency of the situation, the king's interest has been piqued. Though the Martians have far surpassed humans in technological advancement, disease eradication, and general civility, humans still hold a monopoly in an area Martians cannot invent, discover, or unravel: cognitive dissonance.
"You know," he wobbles as he inspects the wall as if seeing it for the first time, "I've never really thought about it." His face no doubt recalls the one you wore only a few moments ago.
Coming to the realization that he doesn't particularly care what the wall does, he turns to confront you.
"HAAAAH!" You let loose a joyous grunt for the ages as you hurl the once innocuous data cube with all the might you can muster. Before the king can even know what hit him, the deceptively deadly crystal cube meets his spongy face. He falls to the floor with the cube snugly lodged in his brain as a pungent, viscous goo pools and quickly congeals on the floor.
"Looks like this pawn just knocked off the king," you gloat in your best action hero mannerism.
Little do you know that concealed in your victory is the checkmate of defeat. Your master plan failed to take into consideration the lack of doors this optical illusion of a room affords. That lapse in judgment notwithstanding, you should really take another look at his royal corpse.
His body appears to be ballooning. "Are you bigger than you were? Why are you bigger than you were?!"
You grab everything not bolted down and begin launching the items one-by-one into each successive wall. It's no use; nothing you can throw is having any effect on these walls-from-hell. You grab for his desk but are repelled by the sight of his bloody expanse having coagulated into the back of it.
"It's eating through shit!? What the hell are these things?!" You charge the opposing wall, pounding your fists. Over and over, you inflict absolutely no damage whatsoever to the wall, but your hands quickly become nothing more than sandbags of fractured bone. The pain is immense, but the panic has overtaken you. As the gelatinous mass nears, you're suddenly calm. You pivot to face your doombringer. This acceptance of finality is coupled only with a rueful disdain for your lack of forethought as you're unceremoniously devoured.
THE END
Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 9
Well done you gelatinous gaggle of preposterous periodicity!
ReplyDeleteAh dang. I guess that tiny monkey should've banged "two cymbals against one another in your head" a little harder. Nice death! =D
ReplyDeleteHey, my periodicity is proportionately practical.
ReplyDeleteThose monkeys never try hard enough.
Thanks guys.
My word, that's gross. :) Well done, sir.
ReplyDelete