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Tsuki downs the
Chatterbox: Inkwell
Tsuki downs the
Tsuki downs the Coke that she bought in one gulp, and is about to tear open the Milky Way, when a somnolent wave of something that feels green crashes over her, and she blinks.
She's back, just outside the store. It's raining. She's cold.
---
Periwinkle's head is spinning, as they open the polka-dotted umbrella to step outside. The rain feels like acid, but they're sure it's just water. Why are they getting so dizzy?
A car rushes by, the bright headlights catching on the spray of water it sends. Droplets fall on Periwinkle's skin, and suddenly something in their head snaps, and then they're back on the bench of the park, just a block away from the store.
---
Wren shivers under her trench coat. It's cold. Only a couple minutes earlier, she was in the convenience store, but she'd stepped outside to get some air for a moment. Something prickles in her skin, and all of a sudden, it's not raining, it's not cold, and there's a faint hum of air conditioning.
She's back in the store.
---
Pancake is warm, and dry, as they sit, curled up in the blankets of their couch. They feel as if they might fall asleep any second, but the movie is almost over.
Their head droops, and it's loud, the rain drumming down on the concrete. Pancake is staring at her own reflection in a puddle, the paper taunting her from inside the water. They're back.
---
Pitter-pattering raindrops are falling from the sky. The world outside Willow's room is dark, gloomy, cold. The blinking lights of the alarm clock read 3:30 A.M. Willow sighs, the blankets of her bed pooling around her knees. She's tired, but she can't sleep.
Left of her is an empty bottle of melon soda, last night's homework, and the peeled off nametag she's saved from the first day of school.
Empty melon soda. Huh. She gets up, and glances into the box under her desk. There aren't any more.
Actually, she's been meaning to buy some pencils anyways. She can go to the convenience store. Stepping out into the rain, she opens up an umbrella. It's green. As soon as she steps out, something cracks in her umbrella, and it flutters away in the biting wind and rain.
She doesn't have another one. She'll have to run.
You want to change it? Fine. Write yourself in. Change it somehow. Get creative.
I'm watching.
And waiting.
And it will not change, no matter what you do. I'll stop you.
---
[Heya! If it wasn't clear already, now that you've written yourself in, you've got to change the loop somehow. Get creative! I, or the italicized being, will try to stop you, until you do something interesting enough. Again, if you want to join still, you can!]
submitted by Willow F.
(November 17, 2021 - 8:50 pm)
(November 17, 2021 - 8:50 pm)
I hurry out of the store, as the cashier looks like he really is about to call the police, and look at the setting sun. It casts beautiful colors onto the earth. It isn't even raining anymore. I really did it. I changed the loop. All because of the cashier. But why would he help me? Is this really just fun and games for him? Is Willow truly just an innocent girl who he's trapped, just for the entertainment of her cluelessness? Or maybe he didn't help me. Maybe he is the clueless one.
I bite my lip and hurry down the street. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. That's another matter.
Something stops me. A bright green umbrella, lying on the ground. And an empty can of melon soda.
My stomach jolts with fear for a moment. Willow's umbrella and her soda from the loop. She's still there, isn't she? The umbrella broke out of the loop! I lift the umrella and it revels a round door, wide open. It's the door to the sewage system. I don't really want to go down there, but something tells me that this is a hidden portal. A hidden answer.
I take the umbrella and the can, open the umbrella, and jump into the sewer like I'm Mary Poppins.
(November 20, 2021 - 8:47 am)
---
Why did he help you, I do wonder.
It's because there are two of us. We are two, and the same. Two faces of the same coin, two hands on a ticking watch.
Shut up. They're not supposed to know that.
Well now they do. By the way, I'm clearly the superior one! I know how to have fun, unlike this acerbic onion over here.
That doesn't even make sense. Please, focus on the mobius strip.
Whatever, whatever.
---
(November 20, 2021 - 11:58 am)
My head.
My head is pounding. The loop is resetting all over again, but it hasn't even completed its full circle- it's not raining anymore.
Why isn't it raining? It's warm, it's sunny.
I shiver anyway.
The time- it's all wrong. It should be three in the morning. Why...?
I run back into the store. I never did get to eat that Milky Way.
I pick up my chocolate and soda and head to the checkout. The strawberry-blonde cashier grins at me.
"Hey, uh... Mr. Umbrella Eyes? I... I, um..."
He smiles encouragingly at me.
"It's just-- why are you doing this? Why's Willow here? Why do me and Peri and Pancake and Wren have to save her? Why do you want to keep her here?"
I stuff my Milky Way into my mouth before the loop takes it off of me again.
(November 20, 2021 - 8:32 pm)
---
"Why, because it's fun, of course," the cashier says charmingly, with a jaunty grin.
Tsuki blinks–that was a far cry from what she had heard before. They begin to say something, when The cashier suddenly slams a drawer shut on his own fingers, letting out a hiss of pain. His voice switches, colder, and more reminiscent of rain.
"None of your business, mortal," he snaps.
Tsuki feels like they should go now. Every second she spends is another moment of the cashier staring at her intensely, his green eyes conflicting between hate and amusement.
Turning, Tsuki dashes out of the store, almost tripping into an uncovered sewer drain.
---
(November 20, 2021 - 10:25 pm)
---
I'm back in the store.
In the card aisle.
With no answers, save a strange statement about mobius strips and the gained knowledge that the green-eyed cashier is somehow involved in all this.
I sigh. I shouldn't have expected any answers anyway. And besides, I didn't need to know why I was in the loop - mobius strip. Whatever - in order to break it, did I?
I leave the store immediately this time, not stopping to talk to the girl or the cashier this time, and go out into the rain. I don't know where I'm going. Just away, I guess. I need to be somewhere that isn't that convenience store.
I stop abruptly when I come to a sewage hole in the road; strangely, it's missing its cover.
I crouch down. The hole is pitch black.
I don't know why I do what I do next. I just have a... feeling. I'm on red alert for anything strange, anything that might possibly help me, and this hole is certainly the former, if not the latter. And I'm in a loop, aren't I? Won't my actions, crazy as they are, just reset themselves after however-much time?
I have the feeling the cashier would disagree with my logic there, but I don't really care. I'll do anything to get out of this loop.
I stand and give the hole a long hard stare.
And then I jump.
---
(November 20, 2021 - 10:09 pm)
Is it possible to fall up?
(November 21, 2021 - 7:18 am)
===Pancake Yet Again Because I Really Want To Post Right Now===
"Should we go back and push Willow into her own world?" asks Periwinkle.
"I think we should. After all, I can give us as much time as we need," I say.
"How? I mean, I could only change a little bit. How can you just change it?" asks Peri.
"Yeah, I thought almost the exact same thing," said Wren.
I sigh and explain what happened. We talk for a while, trying to figure out a plan.
_______________________________________________________
Alright, that's all. By the way, I kinda feel like we are ending the story right now, but if we did, someone should make a sequel.
(November 21, 2021 - 12:15 pm)
---
Do it. I dare you.
Are you interacting with the mortals again?
Sorry, sorry, back to work.
---
(November 21, 2021 - 12:21 pm)
---
"How about we go through and wait by the drain until Willow passes on the way to the convenience store?" I suggest. "Then we can see if we can convince her to go through, and if that doesn't work, we can try to physically pull her in. Well, maybe." I look down at the drain. "The cashier, or whatever's possessing him or taking his form or whatever, is really powerful. I know he can reset the world at will, but I don't know how much he's aware of. We might be able to get Willow through without him knowing, but there's a lot we don't know about his powers." I look around at the others. "So, want to try it?"
---
(November 21, 2021 - 9:54 pm)
I trip.
I'm spiraling down, down into a dark pit. I scream, and I'm thrust back up, being spit out of the hole by some dark force. Then gravity returns, and I fall flat on my face, knocking over Peri.
Wren and Pancake stare at me.
"Oh," my face turns red. "Hi."
(November 22, 2021 - 11:23 am)
"Ow! Oh! Hi, Tsuki," I say. Tsuki's face is red, but mine's probably redder. I shouldn't have been standing in the way. "You're just in time. We were just planning how to get Willow to jump into a sewer hole. I don't know if we should even try. We've all met Willow, and she's... Oddly stubborn when it comes to getting that melon soda." We all share a grimace and nod.
"So... You're just gonna pull her into a sewer?!" Tsuki asks.
"Well, maybe," I say, shrugging. "I mean, it's for her own good. And you fell into the sewer, it doesn't hurt that much, right? So what do you say, guys? Should we sneak up on her and push her in?"
(November 22, 2021 - 6:28 pm)
---
"I guess I'm in," I say. Periwinkle's right; Willow doesn't seem to be able to get out of the loop on her own.
---
(November 22, 2021 - 7:05 pm)
"Sure," I say. "Why not?"
〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜
At that moment, a guy with a cheesy smile and blonde gelled hair comes up to me, holding a trophy. "Congratulations, Tsuki! You've won the award for the Shortest Post Ever!"
(November 22, 2021 - 7:03 pm)
Nope! this is the shortest post ever:
===Pancake===
"..."
1 word post. wait no, I shall change it! Not even one word. (I said "Yeah" befoe)
(November 22, 2021 - 8:09 pm)
---
We've all agreed on the plan. All that's left is its execution.
I pull my coat tight around my shoulders and jump into the drain. I hear, for an instant, the sound of someone jumping in after me, and then, somehow, I'm falling up into the looped world. I land on the road beside the drain.
I stumble out of the way as, one by one, Pancake, Tsuki, and Periwinkle fall through (up? down? into?) the drain to this other world and land next to the drain. It's a peculiar sight - it makes me glad no one was around to see us come through in the normal world.
Quick footsteps against wet asphalt - I turn, and see Willow in the distance, walking fast through the rain, a melon soda clutched in one hand.
Pancake, Tsuki, Periwinkle, and I step back and wait for her to pass the sewer drain. I feel a bit like some kind of criminal, waiting to ambush somebody and knock her down a sewer drain, for goodness sake, but I know that she's trapped and this is the way out.
---
(November 24, 2021 - 10:35 am)