Science Fiction and Fantasy Box Set 1: The Squishies Series

by Claire Chilton

  “They could cause trouble,” Lord Foamy grumbled.

  “Nonsense!” Lady Foamy said. “They’re from Derobmi. They know how to behave at this type of event.”

  Her husband scowled at her, muttering under his breath as they entered a large cavernous chamber.

  Parklon struggled in the guards grasp as he and Bob were dragged into the chamber behind the Foamys.

  The chamber was situated directly under the center of Foamy Mansion, and it was empty but for a small altar at its center. The altar was encircled by gold tiles, which were embedded in the floor.

  Parklon grunted as he was shoved into a dark corner of the room by the guards, who were trying to bind his wrists and keep him quiet at the same time. A rough hand covered his mouth, and another held him by the throat.

  His heart hammered when Carla walked into the room with Krellin. She failed to notice him and Bob, who were struggling, gagged and surrounded by guards in the darkest corner of the chamber.

  Parklon struggled more urgently.

  She needs to get the hell out of here!

  He groaned helplessly when she smiled pleasantly at Krellin’s parents.

  “Hello, dear,” Lady Foamy said, shaking Carla’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. After this ceremony, we must have a chat about how you two met.”

  Carla was overjoyed that Lady Foamy appeared to like her. “It’s great to meet you, too,” she said.

  Lord Foamy kept his distance. He was regal and aloof-looking. He kept rubbing his eyes and looking away.

  He wiped his eyes with his hand again. “Welcome to the family,” he said, glancing at the entrance.

  She noticed that his eyes were reddening, and there was a contact lens on his hand, but she decided it was best not to tell him.

  Poor thing, he seems a bit nervous.

  Krellin took her hand and squeezed it, and then he led her to the center of the circle.

  “I hope I do this right. It’s all a bit new to me.” She let out a nervous laugh.

  Krellin smiled. “You kneel here,” he said, pointing to the cavernous floor.

  She smiled and glanced down. It was a bit dirty, and she had a white dress on.

  “Do I have to? It looks kind of dirty.”

  He ground his teeth. “Yes, you do. Now, kneel down,” he snapped.

  She frowned at him. An integral part of her didn’t want to kneel down there for several reasons. Her Derobmi side was telling her to clean it up first, her rebellious nature was telling her never to kneel in front of anyone, and her lovestruck side was beginning to wear off.

  “No, I—” She paused when she was interrupted by shouting in the tunnel.

  “Get your grubby hands off me, you oaf!”

  Carla turned to stare at the chamber entrance. The voice sounded just like her mother. She was about to walk over and have a look when Krellin took her in his arms and turned her to face him.

  “Come on, darling. We have to do this. You know I love you.”

  He’d never said that before. She smiled at him, and the rest of the world melted away.

  She knelt on the floor in front of the altar, and Krellin stood behind it. She felt a pull on her heart-strings. No, not her heart, something was tugging at her soul.

  In an instant, she saw her mom in the room, fighting with a burly guard to get to her. She was fighting beside a purple man that Carla had never seen before.

  The purple man was knocked unconscious by the guard holding him.

  Lady Foamy’s eyes widened in shock, and Lord Foamy started to look red-eyed. His eyes were glowing red, not just bloodshot red, but thick and gloopy blood-red.

  Carla thought she saw Bob in the corner with Parklon, but how could they be there?

  Standing silently like a statue amidst the chaos was Joe. While a crazy world broke out around him, he stood serenely in the doorway.

  She locked eyes with Joe, and he looked back. For a second, they were connected to each other outside of the craziness.

  She realized she was frozen to the spot, and it was getting colder. She helplessly peered up at Krellin. He knelt beside her, smiling.

  “I need your help,” she whispered.

  He kissed her forehead. “Oh no, it’s you who’s going to help me,” he said. “You’re not so tough after all. You’re just like any other girl.” He shrugged. “Tough on the outside with a gooey center. I’m disappointed. I expected more.” He looked lost for a second as if he hadn’t meant to say any of that, and then his expression cleared, and he looked like an evil stranger.

  She felt weak as she stared down at the muddy water of the cavern floor soaking into her dress. Tears splashed from her eyes and mingled with the water.

  She wasn’t anyone special after all. Krellin didn’t love her, and she didn’t feel as if she belonged here anymore.

  All was lost, and the room was dark and cold. She couldn’t move from the spot where she knelt, and there was an ache in the place where she imagined her heart to be.

  The constant noise from outside the circle she knelt in was swirling around her and making no sense. She heard her mother’s screams, and shouts from Bob and Parklon mingling into one constant noise.

  The voices screamed in her head, and a spectrum of eyes were all looking at her; blue eyes of sorrow, amber eyes of fear, purple ones of loss, green ones of disbelief, and a pair of evil red eyes looking at her from the back of the room with a knowing smirk—Lord Foamy’s eyes. They were glowing red, and they stood out more than any others did.

  She looked up to the big green eyes that she’d looked into the most in the last twenty-four hours, and they held her stare as they always had. Murky depths of seaweed green glowed at her with warmth and a cold hidden darkness that she’d never noticed before.

  They’d looked so clear once, so pure and right, but now, she didn’t know what thoughts were behind those eyes. They were not the eyes of someone who would watch over her. They were not the eyes of someone who loved her.

  The world seemed so dark. She was surrounded by chaos, and she felt even more alone, always alone and shrouded in darkness. Her body hurt. It ached painfully, and she wanted to stand up, but she couldn’t.

  It had all been a lie, and now she was helpless under the false veil of love.

  The real world began to fade away as a light left her eyes. It glowed so brightly in the darkness as it was pulled from deep inside her and passed into Krellin.

  She felt a tug again on her soul and instinctively knew that the light was hers, and it was being taken away. She couldn’t get it back as it streamed into his seaweed eyes.

  The purple beam was leaving her and going into her captor, her villain, her lover of the lying eyes and empty heart.

  The voices in her head told her to fight, but what fight could she win now? Whose eyes could she trust?

  Parklon struggled on the sidelines with a massive guard, and then something inside him snapped.

  Zoolaf tempers were legendary, and his had just reached boiling point. He growled and head-butted the guard, the force of it sent the guard crashing into a wall, and his body slumped to the ground. Parklon spun around, snarling.

  Now this is more like home.

  He took in the scene of Lady Foamy and a prim green woman wrestling near the entrance to the cave. The prim green woman was definitely going to win.

  There was a purple man out cold on the floor, and a red-eyed, green-skinned man standing next to him, looking smug.

  Lord Foamy.

  Parklon frowned and glanced at Bob. He was biting a guard on the arm and kicking him. The guard wasn’t fighting back very much because he was unconscious. He assumed his orange friend had the situation well under control.

  Parklon’s eyes turned to the center of the room. Carla was collapsed on the floor with her head facing up and a bright purple beam coming from her eyes, connecting her to Krellin.

  She looked so small and pale, barely breathing.

  Where is the warrior n
ow?

  She wasn’t going to make it, and Parklon couldn’t bear to watch it. He scowled at Krellin with a burning hatred, letting out a growl as he leapt at the Derobmi in a rage. He’d save her. He was going to get her back.

  Parklon’s body neared the central circle in the room with all the fire of a Zoolaf fighter propelling him at his target. Then something happened. He hit a wall, an invisible wall around them. Some unseen force slammed him backwards onto the ground, knocking the air out of him.

  He slumped against the cavernous rock, panting before he prepared to run at the center of the room again.

  There was a chuckling sound to his left. He spun around. Lord Foamy—the red-eyed monster—was watching him and laughing.

  “Only a Rhecknaw can get in there, you oaf. Give it up. The girl’s served her purpose, and a fool like you won’t save her,” said a cold voice he recognized.

  Parklon looked at the grinning lord, who had the same voice he’d heard once coming from an orange car window, the voice of the killer.

  He scanned the room for the Rhecknaw man who’d come in with the prim Derobmi lady. He found him lying unconscious on the floor.

  No help there.

  Parklon helplessly glanced at Carla. She looked even paler now. She was fading away fast, and there was no one to help her.

  He tried to think of something, there had to be a way. He slumped against the wall, bruised and battered with no idea what to do. The thought that he’d have to sit and watch his friend die was just too overwhelming.

  He heard the familiar chuckling to his left again. He growled. Someone was going to pay for this. He launched himself at Lord Foamy in a flurry of fists and knocked the red-eyed murderer to the ground—doing as all Zoolafs do when backed into a corner—embracing his rage.

  “You let her go,” he roared while slamming punches into the face of the killer who had haunted his every moment in Derobmi.

  “You let her go now, or I’ll kill you!”

  Lord Foamy laughed as red blood bubbled out of his mouth.

  “Too late for that now, unless you can get to her. Not too bright, are you?”

  Parklon snarled and slammed a fist into Lord Foamy’s face again. Lord Foamy caught it and pushed him off with a strength that Parklon hadn’t realized he had.

  Lord Foamy jumped up and kicked Parklon’s legs out from under him.

  Parklon landed on the hard floor and felt something crack. Lord Foamy continued kicking him while he was down.

  He was worn out by the fighting, and a feeling of hopelessness washed over him while Lord Foamy continued to kick him.

  He was certain that his ribs were broken, but something else was broken, his will.

  He looked across the chaos to the small circle, where Carla lay. His vision got blurry. She was ebbing away, and there were so many things he’d wanted to say to her, so many important things, but he just couldn’t reach her.

  Then something miraculous happened. A green shoe stepped into Parklon’s line of vision and walked to the center of the room.

  He looked up at the body, which the shoe was attached to, meeting a pair of familiar green eyes. They were like Carla’s eyes. The face was green and belonged to a boy with a simple smile and honest eyes. Parklon smiled back. The boy stepped through the circle and winked at Parklon.

  All this time Carla’s brother, Joe, had stood silently at the side-lines of the fighting, watching everything and hearing everything. No one had noticed him standing there, but—Parklon realized—Joe had noticed them.

  Lord Foamy stopped kicking Parklon and roared in rage when he saw the Derobmi enter the circle.

  He headed toward Joe, but Parklon wasn’t quite done yet. He grabbed the lord’s foot and pulled him to the ground. Then he bounced his head off the floor until he was unconscious.

  “More fiery than bright,” Parklon said. “It’s not over yet.”

  Her heart hurt, her eyes hurt, and this pain was not real. It was more painful for it because unreal pain couldn’t heal.

  She stared up at Krellin.

  How could he do this to me, why would he?

  Something small and white fluttered near her knees. She glanced down, picked up a small white flower, and carefully held the daisy in her hands.

  A person she had always known sat beside her on the grimy cave floor. She peered into the pair of pale green eyes she knew the best, the same pale green eyes she’d always been able to trust, which still glowed with a distant light of innocence.

  The pains of lost love shifted, and time itself stood still for a moment. The weakening of her body ceased, and the voices became even more distant.

  Joe smiled simply while the scene around them was frozen.

  “It’s so pretty, Joe.” She told her lost brother.

  “All things that grow are. They never fade. They just change. That’s what makes them beautiful,” Joe said.

  She looked at the flower, her eyes widening when she saw purple buds burst from its thin green stem. She watched in awe as it grew into a bouquet of exotic purple roses.

  “It’s magic,” she whispered as the white petals fell away and thorns grew on the stems.

  “It’s your magic,” Joe said. “A rose would cut anyone who tried to hurt it,” he added as a thorn pricked her finger, and a drop of deep red blood splashed onto her white dress.

  She let go of the flowers and stared at the stain on her dress.

  “But I’m just a daisy, Joe, not a rose.”

  Joe frowned at her. “Is that what they told you?”

  She smiled at Joe. “What do you think I am?”

  Joe smiled back. “You’re whoever you want to be. You always were.”

  Some kind of force seemed to flow from Joe into her. She couldn’t describe it, but she could feel it. It was warm, powerful and primal.

  She suddenly felt strong. She felt like Carla again, and Carla was angry with Krellin. He was going to pay for what he’d done to her.

  She didn’t know how time had stopped or how the roses had grown, but she knew how to handle mean boys. Krellin’s hold over her had gone. Somehow, Joe had given her back her heart, as if he’d been keeping it safe for her all this time.

  The power of who she really was had returned and with it, time had also returned.

  The loud shouting surrounded her again, and she saw her mother wrestling with Lady Foamy, which was quite a sight to see.

  Parklon and Bob were like a multicolored tag team in the corner, knocking down guards. Lord Foamy had been knocked out, and both he and the purple stranger were lying side by side, unconscious. Then there was Joe, who was standing serenely by her side.

  She turned to look at Krellin, this time with eyes of fire. He was smirking, but not for long.

  Her eyes connected with his, filled with the venom of a woman betrayed, and he suddenly looked as if he’d been hit in the face by an invisible fist.

  There was no thought in her actions, just instinct and fiery anger. Someone had tried to hurt her, and by the Gods, she was going to hurt them back!

  She looked into the seaweed eyes of her betrayer and sent fire into them with her mind.

  His smile slipped away to a grimace, and the purple beam pulled back and began to turn green. He cried out and swayed while she rose from her kneeling position and stood tall.

  She felt her body fill with her essence and something else, there was something new there, and it was powerful.

  He crumpled to his knees, and lights shot around the room, which were coming from her. She glanced down at her arms as they glowed electric blue while the air around her crackled with static.

  A blast of cold wind shot through the caves with such force that the walls crumbled away like dominos behind her until they revealed the ocean.

  She stared down at her arms as a turquoise glow emitted from her skin, and she felt Krellin’s life ebbing away while hers expanded.

  Something snapped inside her, and a force stronger than time itself shot through
the planet’s core, changing the world from the inside. Something had changed. Something new had occurred, and something very old and evil had just been broken.

  The rush of power calmed like a storm ending, and although part of her craved all his power and part of her craved revenge, another part of her saw her brother Joe frown, and part of her saw Krellin looking helpless.

  She let the thread of his existence go. The blast of wind settled. Most people got up off the floor and stared around in awe, except for Krellin. She glanced down at him. He lay on the ground barely breathing.

  Electricity still crackled in her hair, which wildly flew around her. The forces of nature bubbled up inside her, leaving part of their power behind when they left.

  Her glow settled with the wind, and she began to feel like herself again. She knelt beside Krellin and peered at his face. He was dying. She could feel it. She could feel many things now that she had never felt before.

  She scanned the chamber in panic when voices seemed to come from the inside of the cave.

  What’s that noise?

  Then it dawned on her that she could hear thoughts. The voices she’d heard were thoughts.

  Krellin had fleeting thoughts. He was drifting away. She studied him as if he were an interesting bug.

  He hadn’t known about this, not until it was too late. The curse of Karin had infected both of them, making one the victim and one the villain. It was only tradition that had decided on the gender of the villain.

  How do I know that?

  She glanced around the caves, feeling vibrations from the walls, and the voices of the past talking to her, telling her their secrets.

  Her eyes settled on the now open red eyes of Lord Foamy. He knew he’d lost something, but he didn’t know she could read minds now. He didn’t know that Krellin had been able to since he was twelve years old.

  The funny thing was that Krellin hadn’t understood his power. He’d thought he had to get it from a cave when it was inside him all along.

  Krellin was dying, and she couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t love him, but she couldn’t let him die either.

  She knelt down and softly kissed his lips. A tiny glow of green light passed from her to him. She released him, and peered down at him.