Nonsense!



*Chapter 25: Threads*

Lori groaned and sat up. Her head felt like it had been split in two, and that was a real possibility, she could taste blood in her mouth and a tentative touch revealed that her face was splattered with it. There was the smell of burnt fur and a dull ache in her left leg; it had been rather badly burnt, but the damage was mainly cosmetic. Indeed a brief checkover showed just how lucky she had been; apart from feeling like hell, nothing was broken, torn or missing and she'd narrowly missed hitting a rather nasty pile of rock by mere inches. She groaned from exhaustion and relief. "Somebody up there must like me." she said bitterly.

It was about then she noticed the dull flickering quality of the light and the quiet crackling noise that had been in the background all the while. For the first time since awakening she took a proper look at her surroundings. She relaxed and drew her blaster, slightly singed but still working. She was in hell, ho-hum; no doubt Devan was here somewhere.

* * *

Schrock didn't bother to stare; he didn't bother to gape, or to ask himself how, or why; he'd had far too many shocks already, his system had overloaded and all he could do was dully analyze what was happening. Whereas he had, just a few minutes earlier been standing on the green grass and relatively familiar buildings of Carrotus, now the ground beneath his feet was charred and rock hard, cracked and blistered by the ever present heat, the air was bone dry, oven hot and tasted of sulfur and tin. Overhead the sky was sheer darkness. Not the tame cold darkness of the night sky; but a hot, old darkness, not lit by any star, giving a sense of age, and infinity and endless heat. Yet there was light; a strange, flickering, worn out light. It came from nowhere and everywhere, as if trapped in this horrid place. And yet, in some unexplainable way, this was Carrotus; out of the corner of his eye, at the edge of his vision Schrock saw flashes of green and blue.

And he felt great. His mind was currently curled up in a corner sobbing to itself, but his body was, quite literally, doing cartwheels. The heat had done wonders the air was strangely invigorating, and it was beautify quiet, no noise at all except the sounds of three beings trudging ever onward in the desolate landscape, following Erst's determined stride, heading who knew where.

After a while he became aware that he was being watched; with surprising stealth a rather short red rabbit had managed to appear beside him. Looking slightly unkempt and more than a bit unusual, especially as he had a bird almost his size perched upon his shoulder, the rabbit had fixed him with a piercing glare of good natured curiosity. After a few minutes of walking in tandem their gazes matched [And despite Schrock stubbing his toes multiple times upon various unseen rocs.] Schrock decided to break the impasse "So; would you mind if I asked who, where why and how?" The strange rabbit stared at him for a few minutes as the question was digested, before speaking. "I'm Spaz, and I'm here because I was rabbitnapped by this stupid dingbat!" He glared at the bird, which preened itself and pretended not to have heard.

Schrock nodded, recognizing a kindred spirit. "I got dragged here by two nitwits whom I only followed because one was my brother, frankly I'd rather have colon surgery than be here right now, but what can I do? Nobody ever listens!" They walked on further. "Yeah, brother's suck; Jazz always took all the cake!" An irrelevant tangent perhaps, but it summed both of their feelings nicely.

* * *

Lori trudged slightly dazedly through the strange landscape panting with the heat, not knowing where she was going, or why. Any sensible person would have sat down, cooled off and thought about where thy were going. And Lori had always been sensible; one brother a lunatic, the other a mercenary [Whose claim to fame was inventing the nonlethal suicide bomb.] while she'd gone to law school and got a degree. And what had happened? Jazz had become a galactic hero and married a princess. Spaz, admittedly was still a lunatic, but he got free room and board, and was head of the guard for chrissake!

None of this had anything to do with the situation in hand of course, but for some strange reason Lori couldn't get her thoughts in order; every time she tried to settle her mind and think things through another memory arose from the depths and bedeviled any attempt at reasoning. It was amazing how every log table had one incorrect entry randomly placed in it, so that copyright fraud could be more easily detected. Or what about her third birthday party, where she'd got stuck in the air conditioning vents for a week? Or...

Her random wandering had led her to a small craggy rise, over which she could see a small group of people walking determinedly onwards. Closer inspection revealed one of them to be Spaz, chatting idly to a turtle. Lori also recognized the dammed bird that had given her the bandaged hand and thought of saving Spaz the effort of roasting it. [He'd be bound to take a bite out of it eventually, it'd taken enough out of him.] In the end she decided to join them; they were probably very stupidly heading into a trap from which they'd need rescuing, and she was just the brave, capable girl needed to do so. After all, Spaz had had his chance.

A brief ramble, followed by a prolonged tumble down a scree slope and a bit of fast limping bought her level with Spaz and his companion who seemed rather depressed in her opinion. He directed her to the front of the group; apparently his brother was leading the expedition, yet they had no idea where they were going. For a brief moment Lori's sensibilities ganged up on her to point out that she and several others had by coincidence managed to band together and were all heading into what was most likely certain death or at least severe inconvenience, but Kira took care of the situation by letting out a gleeful shriek and lunging for her throat. Spaz watched the situation with glee. "Awww! She remembers you!"

After disentangling herself from he psychotic bird Lori approached the two leading figures, a somewhat frazzled rabbit and a surprisingly large tur- Lori paused, then looked twice; she'd spent her life around makeup, ever since she'd broken into her father's mascara. [The family didn't like to talk about it.] and had developed quite a sharp eye when it came to disguises, appearances, cosmetics and enhancement, indeed since she'd managed to stockpile a rather large hoard of treasure during her adventures she'd had chance to try a number of procedures herself. [Of course she'd never admit this, no matter what the papers said.]

What was standing in front of her was a rabbit that had somehow accrued such an air of turtlity that you'd hardly notice; the fur was cut short and his ears folded tightly over his head as to be barely distinguishable, he wore a large [and very realistic] fiberglass shell and held a long, sharp looking sword that flared an disturbing shade of fluorescent blue. Lori smiled and held out a hand. "Sol that's your brother back there is it?" The rabbit turned and fixed here with a simple, determined gaze, the kind she'd seen on Spaz when he wanted the last biscuit. "Oh yes, he's all mad for some reason." Lori sniffed; the air here was getting on her nerves. "Well, err I can really see the family resemblance. Say, where are we going anyway?" The rabbit turned away and continued striding forward, he took exceptionally large steps, so you had to jog slightly to keep up. "Oh I'm adopted, we're going to save the world I think. My name's Erst!"

Lori smiled wickedly and pulled out her blaster. [It wouldn't be wise to enquire where in her skimpy outfit she'd been storing it.] i]This[/i] was more like it! This was what she'd been born to do; battered, bloody, but determined Lori strode forth with the same confidence as the leader. Because she was heading into battle of course, she was highly stung enough that a sudden pat on the back would have made her wet herself.

* * *

It would be stupid to say it had broken loose, or was going to, or was; hell didn't work like that. It wasn't a reservoir of evil any more than heaven was a font of goodness, true evil and destruction lay in the world, waiting to be used. Hell was simply leaking into a small part of the multiverse, and that took time. But it was almost complete, almost. It rode the thread watching the characters move together, so perfectly calculated, in meticulous detail. It giggled to Itself gleefully, this was what it had worked for, it had made an ending, now to watch Its plans unfold!

And of course the thread demanded certain things, they had to be done correctly, clichés were, after all, simply events that had burned themselves so deeply into the fabric of existence that they drew other events to mimic them, to repeat them, over and over. They were small threads in the tapestry of life. And thus, so it was that at the very instant the group rounded the last hill, was the same instant Vernon finished his chant, a moment of perfect balance that demanded the inevitable event,

all hell broke loose.

.