Mofu

“Welcome back to the land of consciousness sleepy head,” Griselda teases. I pull my face back from hers, only a few inches were separating the two. “So how’d you do that?”

“Izard scale. Guess I hit 30,” I inform. I struggle to keep my eyes open as I try to rise to my feet. I try to prop myself up with my left arm before immediately falling to my back, knocking me out of consciousness again.

_________________________________________

“Mofu, get up, you’re late,” A voice demands. My eyes bolt open, a rush of panic filling my veins. I fly out of my bed, throwing on my hoodie and shoes before racing after my late savior.

“You couldn’t get me up earlier Maria?” I ask as we rush through crowds of people.

“What do I look like, your mother? Making sure you’re up isn’t my job, and it would actively make me more late,” Maria responds.

“We literally share a room, what are you talking about?” I fire back. Our discussion is interrupted by Maria’s hand gripping my shirt, preventing me from walking forward. A large crater is what she protected me from stumbling into.

“What in the fuck is this?” Maria asks. Confusion is in her stance as we teeter on the edge of a fatal fall.

“A truly terrible way to go,” I say. My attempt to make light of the bizarre situation falls on deaf ears as I look around out of embarrassment. “Hey, Maria. Where did everyone go?” Maria spins her head around as chills crawl up my spine, every hair on my body slowly raising. A horrid creak echoes through the air as a shift in the very ground we stand on occurs.

“Holy shit, the hole has a mouth!” Maria exclaims. She points towards a giant black spot at the center of the pit. A black spot sporting what looks like millions of perfectly white teeth. If the fall doesn’t kill you, whatever is at the bottom surely will. A truly hellish creature surely can’t be put on this planet for anything good.

“If it makes you feel any better, it doesn’t look particularly picky about what it’s eating, because it’s literally eating the ground right now. We should probably run,” I explain before grabbing Maria’s hand and breaking into a full sprint, tearing through the city. More of these living holes suck the ground out in seconds, turning the city into swiss cheese, forcing Maria and I to play a game of predict the unpredictable and dodge the almost undodgeable, a game I’ve gotten very good at. I can feel the ground my foot slams into fall, the feeling of weightlessness causing my stomach to turn. I pull Maria in my arms before returning to my sprint on the falling pavement, racing towards the edge of the hole. I take the leap of faith, throwing Maria back onto the ground. My arms reach for the edge of the crater, my fingers barely latching on. My body slams into the wall of the crater. Dirt flies everywhere as the devilish creature continues to eat. Its mouth is like a blackhole, sucking up anything that gets too close. Maria grabs my wrist and helps me back up. I rise back to my feet to see hundreds of these aliens ravaging everything around us. Buildings disappear into the walls of one of the holes in an instant. Every time I blink, more and more disappears, almost as if I was traveling back in time. A horrid sound erupts in the air. Loud laughter bounces throughout the city, the sound of approval that instills the fear of god into atheists. The sound of encouragement that reinvigorates even the most stubborn of people to keep going. The sound I dread hearing more than anything else in this world. The one who created the sound slowly descends in front of us, tossing and turning in the air, holding her sides as she laughs.

“Oh you really fucked it this time, huh Mofu? Really kicked the chicken on this one,” The Genie taunts. Her movements are unnatural, jerking in every direction with every sentence, her expressions otherworldly.

“Mofu, do you know her?” Maria asks.

“Oh, sweetie. He knows me all too well. I am his mother after all, he better know me,” The Genie exclaims. “Tell me sweetheart, what would your name be?” Maria hides behind me as The Genie slowly inches closer. Every instinct I have is telling me to run, to escape before she does this again. To move my feet and get far far away, but I’m planted right where I am. It’s as if my body is filled with concrete, too heavy for any movement. The Genie snatches Maria from behind me, lifting her off her feet as her terrified screams fill the air. She grips onto my hoodie like her life depended on it. “Don’t be scared, I just want to get a good look at you.” The Genie overpowers Maria, who is now floating directly across from The Genie.

“Please don’t kill me,” Maria whispers, tears falling from her eyes.

“Kill you? Who said anything about that? I don’t kill people honey, Mofu here is a prime example of that. I may put him in positions to die, but whether or not he actually does is entirely in his control. Why would you be any different?” The Genie asks. She lifts Maria’s chin in the air, their eyes locking onto each other. “Don’t cry sweetie, tears don’t compliment your pretty face.”

“Please, just let us go,” Maria pleads.

“What do you think Mofu, should I let you two go? Would I be a good mother by letting you and your little friend go back into the world unsupervised? Have I ever left you unsupervised Mofu?” The Genie asks. “I would never. I love my children too much to simply ‘let them go’. I will compromise, however. Maria, I like you. You’ll come with me, I’ll take you home when we’re finished. Mofu, you better be back home when it gets dark. Bye bye my son~.” The Genie flies off with Maria as the holes plateau, the carnage coming to an end. I just stand there, my eyes as wide as they can be behind my mask. Time just stops, freezing to comprehend what just happened. It feels like even god has been caught off guard. Not even he could’ve prepared for this.

_________________________________________

“There he is, back awake I see,” Agatha congratulates.

“So granny taught me what the Izard scale is while you were out, and I just need to ask. Those birds made you that mad?” Griselda questions.

“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” I mutter. I sit up and stretch as my back cracks, causing a loud sound to emit from it.

“You woke up yesterday and went right back to sleep, so you’ve been out two days in a row,” Griselda informs.

“Well I would hope to be asleep for that long, I removed an entire forest at the least. My arm hurts like hell,” I say, wincing as I move my left arm.

“Well it’s not broken, your skin just got burned. Nothing a little cleric can’t fix,” Agatha says.

“Great, let’s get back on the road, Just one question. Does anyone have my water?” I ask.

“Yeah, we found some of the raven's remains and mixed their blood in with it, so you should be relieved of blood craze,” Agatha informs, handing me the bottle as she does. I dump the water down my throat, my dry throat praising god. I let out a loud sigh as I close the bottle and give it back to Agatha, getting back on my feet.

“Alright, onwards team!” Griselda yells. Agatha and I follow the command, silently laughing to ourselves as we begin walking again. Days pass as we walk, traveling farther and farther south.

“Well, we are officially about to cross the border. We are leaving Mezu, the northern and most popular country in Sipha, and entering Naetera, the southern and most beautiful country of Sipha,” Agatha announces. We all eagerly run across the invisible line, marking two major milestones in our adventure. We are officially in a new country, and more importantly, the same country two of my friends are. It doesn’t take long for things to go awry, however. Looking around, what should be a scenery that only gets greener is losing all its color, breeding a melancholy mood to set in. What should be trees filled with blue leaves are nothing more than brown stakes in the ground, dead grass and flowers crunching under our feet. Southern Sipha is known for its natural beauty, and yet it’s a shell of its former glory now.

“Well, we’ve arrived at Dandriville,” Agatha announces, a depressing mood filling our bodies. The town known as the most beautiful place in the most beautiful part of the most beautiful country on the continent of Sipha, is now a gray wasteland. We enter the vacant town and make our way to a motel. Nobody is seen while walking to the motel. There is no receptionist and all the room doors are wide open. It’s almost as if every resident just got up and left the town. The entire place feels like a twilight zone.

“I guess we can take any room we want,” Griselda says, trying to lighten up the mood.

“Yeah, but let’s stick together. This is giving me a really bad feeling,” Agatha responds. We all walk into room 601. We place our stuff down and leap onto the two beds, the softness being a pleasant contrast to the hard ground we’ve been sleeping on for the past week or so. “You two get some rest, I’ll stay up in case anyone comes by.” Griselda and I both agree hurriedly, scrambling under the covers and quickly falling asleep.