by GR Griffin
And then, out of nowhere, in a move that scared the ever-loving bejebus out of Fleck, he took the handle by both hands and swung the axe straight into his own chest. Just like before, he sputtered as the blade sank in.
“I stand corrected,” he grunted before collapsing next to the pile of dust already there.
And then there were two piles of grey littering the room.
A third Vail strolled in from the other side and inspected the ashy remains.
He shook his head. “No way am I cleaning up this mess.” And then he grabbed the tool, swung it into his chest, collapsed and crumbled to dust, adding his own to the growing stacks. The tool remained upwards, the point facing the ceiling.
A fourth Vail stepped in, looking around obliviously.
“Whoa, what is going on around—” He tripped on one of the piles and landed on the axe head. He rolled over, revealing it lodged in his chest. “Pro tip…” he said with his dying breath, “Always watch where you’re going…”
Vail the fourth crumbled.
Vail number five stepped up.
“I’ve heard the phrase: ‘if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you?’ But this is ridiculous,” he said. “Alright, enough fooling around.”
He snatched up the axe. Fleck thought he was going to drive it into his own sternum for the fifth time, but instead, he took it by both ends and bent it just how Superman would. The metal groaned as it concaved. When he was finished, the ice axe was twisted into a knot; it landed before his feet with a thud.
“You can’t win here, Fleck. I had already won before you even set foot on this island.”
Vail darted before Fleck who was still on their knees. He placed his index finger on their forehead and applied pressure, and that tiny amount was enough. Fleck was sent flying back, skidding to a halt alongside the sofa and the two frozen monsters on it.
Fleck clambered back on their heels and elbows, distancing themself as far from their opponent as they could. Running did not work; hiding was useless; not even death could stop him: everything they tried was futile.
They shuffled behind the couch. What Fleck needed was a plan, and a darned good one at that.
It was like being back in the throne room, backing away from Emperor Zeus after discovering that they could no longer reach their save file. Instead of formulating a plan, their mind wandered to everything in sight.
They did the same thing as they lay there, out of Vail’s all seeing gaze. There was the front door a short distance over. There was the back of the couch. There was a small gap between the couch and the floor…
A knocking came from the door.
“Ah, those must be my friends.” Vail could be heard saying. “Come in!”
The door opened and in poured a wave of monsters of all shapes and sizes – all under his control. Stuck in their blissful fantasylands.
“I’ll let you know, Fleck, that wasn’t smart what you did back there before the mirror. You denied my gift to you and that made me angrier than I’ve ever been in my life, and I hate being angry.”
The monsters approached Fleck from all sides, leaving them with no direction in which to escape. The group grabbed the human, first by the arms before moving to their legs. Fleck fought against them, but merely delayed the inevitable that the komodo dragon had in store.
Fleck was carried around the seat and over to the sharply-dressed Vail. “But I’m a forgiving monster, and I believe that some people deserve a second chance. You are the first person ever to make it to my domain, after all. You’ve more than earned your second bite of the cherry.”
He reached behind his back and pulled out a huge fragment of glass that was wider than he was. The rough, jagged edges looked painful to hold; how he did so without hurting himself was a mystery.
A piece of the gigantic mirror.
Fleck made one last ditch effort to break free. They tugged with all their might, and the monsters held with all their might plus extra.
Vail took slow steps forward with the mirror pressed against his chest. “Look who’s still waiting for you, Fleck.”
Another pair of hands seized Fleck by the head, one under the chin and the other on their forehead, and forced them to look into the reflective surface.
At first, a human child met their own gaze. The reflection twirled, just like it did before, and it settled to form the one they left behind, still bearing that eager smile. Asriel Dreemurr’s happy face did not get easier to see the second time around.
“You going to keep him hanging?” Vail asked, playfully slanting the glass side to side.
Those holding their right arm pulled it toward the glass. Fleck pulled against it, threatening to rip their muscles from their ligaments. All they were doing was stalling for time.
Their hand touched the glass.
In that moment, there was a mixture of electricity, adrenalin, and light that poured through their brain. A sensation truly bizarre. Fleck forgot where they were, what they were doing, and why. All previous memories were drowned out, and all ties and connections were severed.
Before they knew it, the light faded, and they were in the arms of the young Prince Asriel, in the warmest, cosiest living room imaginable. The fireplace burned a perfect temperature and the window portrayed the perfect day with perfect weather.
Fleck felt nothing but pure happiness.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Fleck,” Asriel said as he pulled away, fuzzy hands on their shoulders. “You don’t understand how happy this makes me.”
Seeing him so happy automatically made them happy too. Everything was so happy.
The weather made them happy. The fire made them happy. Their home made them happy.
Asriel made them happy.
“So, Fleck,” Asriel continued, smiling, “school’s out forever, summer’s in forever, and we’re both together. We got all the time in the world to do all the things we want to do.”
He took Fleck by the hand and led them through the kitchen, the playroom, the bigger playroom, and outside into the garden. It was bigger than from what they remembered. Much bigger. Like, the size of five football fields bigger. How could they forget such a luxurious garden such as theirs, with massive redwood trees and teaming with flowers of every kind?
“It’s another beautiful day!” Asriel announced. “The first of many.”
Every question that Fleck wanted to ask was gone. There no question to why they were there or what had happened, nothing but sweet acceptance.
Nothing but uninterrupted bliss awaited both he and them, and Fleck did not want to take a single second for granted. They were unable to swipe the smile from their face.
Asriel’s soft eyes, sparkling in the sunshine, gazed upon his sibling. “What should we do today, Fleck?” he asked. “I was thinking we could spend this morning seeing who can bake the biggest cake, then race to see who can eat it fastest, then we could go to the movies and see any movie we want.” Each suggestion made the human child hop up and down in excitement. “Then we can celebrate our birthdays and play in the garden, and—”
A cool speck landed on Fleck’s head, soaking into their hair. They instinctively reached for it and felt a drop of water. Rain?
Asriel was still going, rattling off every great and fun activity they could do, about how they could celebrate Christmas tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, but Fleck wasn’t listening. They looked up, finding no clouds anywhere, and received another drop in the eye.
They rubbed the drop away. All of a sudden, their perfect day wasn’t so perfect anymore.
The trees, the green hills, and the blue sky all began to run and smear like turpentine on a painting. More droplets landed on Fleck and further the colours drooped, mixing into pools.
The prince was looking around. His happy demeanour was gone. “Wh—what’s happening? No. No!”
All of a sudden, Fleck remembered.
Asriel cried out at the top of his lungs. “No! No! It can’t be!” W
ith every scream, his voice deepened. “No! No!”
Fleck rubbed their eyes. Asriel’s voice was no longer Asriel’s but someone else’s. They were standing in the room coated with ice, except there was one major difference: it was raining.
Vail clutched his head. The large fragment of glass was in pieces on the ground before him and the ceiling was melting, dripping water down on them all. “My beautiful room! What’s happening to it?”
All around them, the hypnotised monsters were snapping out of their trances. Rubbing their faces and wondering where they were.
“What did you do?” Vail glared at the human, and they responded by glancing at the double sofa.
As he clambered through the stunned crowds in that direction, shoving monsters aside, something very strange started happening to Vail.
He began to – for lack of a better term – glitch.
His entire body fizzled, jumped, and shuddered in a marvellous display of colour and static like he was turning into a blue screen of death. The same screeching noises of a 56k modem buzzed off his body.
He grabbed the couch from the gap, threw it aside, and found a small, square piece of plastic with vents and a small set of button lying under it.
Now it was Fleck’s turn to grin.
The handy-dandy portable radiator, just as Birgir the Supplier eloquently put it: “This is some fancy tech, hot off the press. Interacts with the magic all around us, turn this environmentally-friendly baby on in any enclosed space and in a minute or two you’ll be nice and toasty.”
The flickering outline grabbed his hair. “N—No—Y—ou–uined e—thing!” He yelled in-between buzzes, beeps, and static.
Just then, those trapped within the ice cubes came to life, and one by one, they pushed against the weakened ice, breaking it apart. The cube on the lounge chair cracked open first, and out emerged Kenny. He rolled out and landed on his knees on the slippery ground.
“What… happened…?” He looked up and found the child, the one he ran into in the woods; all the other monsters; and the malfunctioning frame of this island’s terror, approaching the child in a menacing manner. Kenny fought to protect the kid back then, he would do it again now. With a burst of energy, he shot forward and threw himself before the two, facing Vail down. “Back off!”
Vail did not heed his warning, instead venturing forward, stuttering and twitching uncontrollably. There was nothing remotely left that resembled the well-dressed, slicked hair, smug grinned komodo dragon that they all knew and feared, but a screeching, sparkling mess.
He took another step and that was enough for Kenny. He reared his head back, inhaled a deep breath until his lungs hit their threshold, and let it all out with a powerful quack. The burst of magic slammed into the figure, punching them back with the force of a speeding train. Vail flew backwards, screaming a piercing siren before exploding into the wall. The wall of ice immediately shattered and collapsed.
Wait a minute…
Behind the newly formed hole lay a separate room. Fleck and Kenny approached with some of the freed monsters close behind.
Inside the hole lay another room. Dark, the only illumination came from the thousands of monitors that eclipsed the ceiling. The far wall was layered with a huge computer terminal and machines, all whirling and clicking away. The floor was littered with junk food packages. It smelled bad in there, a mixture of stale food and body odour.
Between them and the machine, in a green circle in the centre, stood a single figure. A lizard monster dressed in a tight t-shirt that failed to conceal his flabby belly button, beige shorts, and socks and sandals. He had a headset on that concealed the top half of his face, along with blue gloves and a pair of blue ankle straps, all wired up to the machine behind him.
The stranger brusquely tore the headset off to glare at the intruders, most noticeably Fleck. “You insect – you’ve ruined everything,” he shrieked in a nasally voice, then proceeded to tear off his blue gloves.
It was here where Fleck saw his face. A komodo dragon with dull red and yellow eyes and brown hair that formed a crown, leaving the plat as shiny as a cue ball. A patchy beard blemished his chin and his back was hunched forward in what looked like a permanent fashion.
Fleck realised who this was.
This was Vail. The real Vail. In the flesh.
He took one of the ankle straps off as he lurched forward. It wasn’t until the other yanked his foot back did he need to undo that one. “All these years of work, of hardship, of sweat and toil, all down the drain!” The fat around his neck jiggled. His face went red as he stepped forward as if that short distance, coupled with his yelling, was already more than his endurance could take. “And it’s all your fault!”
The real Vail had his fists clenched, most likely to hurt the child, but nobody would allow that. Two of the monster stepped forward and shoved Vail back, no need for magic. He fell back onto his portly backside.
Fleck studied the monitors above, captured in their black and white glow. They made out some of the places they visited: the woods; the mine entrance; the room with the three fountains; the tunnels; the chasm; the melting box outside. They found Johnny, Mika, and Lena, still playing air-guitar, blowing into the air, and punching and kicking in that order. There was Versa on the next monitor, still holding off the soldiers, but it was a losing battle. Fleck found Roy on another, no longer battling a giant monster, but wrestling with a bunch of monster who all wanted to use him as they own cuddly toy. All over the screens, monsters were jumping and laughing and shouting and whistling and dancing and singing and all sorts.
Kenny stepped over and past the downed Vail. His focus was dead-set on the computer terminal.
Vail rolled over and reached out. “Wait! Don’t touch that!”
The duck monster took a single look back. “This ends now.” He inhaled sharply, faced the computer, and unleashed a quake. The shockwave slammed into the terminal, smashing it into pieces. With a dropping drone, the machine went silent and died.
All eyes were up on the screens. Monsters everywhere were waking up. Johnny stopped waving his hands; Mika and Lena looked around confused. The guards attacking Versa stopped. Roy was released from the monsters’ grasp.
All eyes were back down to the disgraced and defeated Vail, sat among his own garbage.
“What to do with him?” one of the monsters asked. There was a long wait as everyone assessed their options.
At long last, Kenny spoke. “He wanted this island all to himself, I say he can have it. The rest of us? Let’s get out of here.”
Vail looked like he was about to cry. “Please, don’t go. I just wanted… to make everyone happy…”
“We’ll make our own happiness.”
Everyone marched out, Fleck trailing on behind. For some reason, they couldn’t take their eyes off Vail, who lay sat where he was, in the green circle, surrounded by junk.
Above him, the monitors were empty. All those under his control free and gone.
He was whispering to himself. “It’s over… I’m finished… Ruined…” He sat up and held his head in his hands. “All I’ve ever wanted was to make people happy, to have someone I can call a friend… Now I’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing…”
They were now all alone. No friends.
And yet, there felt like there was still someone there.
Vail looked up and saw Fleck standing right in front of him.
Every inch of them looked worse for the wear with their winter clothes dirty and damaged, and the exertion smeared across their face. They had every reason to hate him, to want to beat him up, to knock his lights out.
The child stepped forward and gave him a gentle pat on the head, saying that they would be his friend.
Vail was as still as a rock. “You… after everything, you want to be… my friend?”
Through all the pain and misery, Fleck found it in their determination to smile. Not a condescending smile, but a true smile from the heart.
Va
il’s look once more hit the ground. “I…” He crawled over to the broken computer at the back of the room. “I… I really want to be alone now… Go. You can go now. I can’t stop you anyway…”
Fleck was about to say something, but Vail only told them to leave.
Such a sight the broken komodo dragon was, hunched over like a lost puppy. The same creature who tormented their every step through these mines. However, it was not hate that they felt for him. It was pity. Pity for a person who hated his true self, and hid his perfect persona to make himself feel better.
Fleck backed away until they reached the threshold. They turned to leave then stopped: one more question burned within their oesophagus. Fleck twisted their head back and let it loose.
Did he have a real name?
Vail croaked a sigh, remaining silent. His name? Would a person like him even remember? His jaw was open, but nothing came out except more disgruntled sighs.
It became clear that Fleck would get no such answer. They went to leave.
“Geoffrey.” Vail called out, stopping Fleck for one moment. “It’s Geoffrey…”
Fleck faced him once more and smiled. They told him before they left that Geoffrey was a nice name.
* * *
Running. Fleck was running now. All around them were monsters, all those who were lost to the once great Vail’s illusions. Some were ahead of them, others behind, funnelling out from separate tunnels.
“This way,” one cried before a corner.
“Keep going that way,” another shouted, pointing forward.
“We’re almost there,” someone else cried. “I can taste fresh air!”
Fleck thought it was a term of phrase, but they could not deny it either. They inhaled through their nose and noticed how cool and clean it was; they could also taste it on the tip of their tongue. Fresh air. The surface. They were almost there.
Everyone banked another turn. There it was, up a slight incline. Light shone at the end of the tunnel.
