Chapter 9 - Sydney Cohen Gets Shish-Kebabed

Chapter 9 Sydney Cohen Gets Shish-Kebabed

Sydney stared at the rip in space and time in front of her. A portal the size of a grown man hovered before them, and she could hear soft wind swishing around in it. Inside of the portal were millions of stars and planets, swirling eddies and black holes, simply existing with each other. The thought comforted her, and she wished she could be brought back into her headspace, where the only sounds and sights she could see were the cool, peaceful silence and the calm, whimsical wisps of colours.

“Whoa…” Ruthantasis marveled at the portal.

Krale gasped. “This is real. This is real. Ruthantasis, pinch me!”

Ruthantasis did so accordingly. “Ow! Why did you have to pinch me that hard? Are you trying to kill me?”

“You said to pinch you! That’s what I did!” Ruthantasis tried to remain calm, but his mouth was wide open and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of the rip in space and time before him. Sydney looked at the two talking Foods, pointing at the portal proudly as she let out a laugh.

“I did that!” she exclaimed.

“You did that!” Krale said, smiling.

“You did-did that!” Ruthantasis high fived her just as Sydney fell face-first onto her bed, kicking her legs excitedly. After she recovered, Sydney stood up straight and coughed into her fist, now with an adventurous gleam in her eyes.

“You guys ready for a ride?” She glanced at Ruth and Krale, a cheeky grin on her face. “It’s free.”

Ruthantasis puffed out his chest. Krale stood a little straighter, his fork held up high and mighty.

“Consider yourself my favourite Primitive gradana from now on,” Ruthantasis said. Sydney laughed.

Since her tote bag had disintegrated, Sydney quickly stuffed the maraca into her old, 4th grade backpack. The backpack was a dark, indigo blue, and had glow in the dark stars and a big rocket ship in front. Sydney thought it was incredibly fitting, considering how they were about to enter a rip in space and time. She smiled, then stuffed in a couple of snack bars and a bag of marshmallows she found in her room. She slipped on a pair of emergency sneakers she had stored deep in her closet and swung the backpack on. Krale stretched his arms and Ruthantasis cracked his neck.

“Alright folks, on three,” Krale said. “One…two…THREE!”

All at once, the three of them jumped.

The portal closed behind them with a familiar pop!

Travelling through a portal was over quicker than you could even utter the word “Bop!”. The moment Sydney jumped in, there was a quick whoosh! of wind, but when she blinked and her feet had touched the ground again, she was staring at a completely new place. The portal behind her had disappeared.

The ground beneath her was tightly packed with yellow-ish orange sand, and on the ground there were many rocky volcanoes scattered across the land. Some were as tall as three fully grown trees stacked on top of each other, and some were as small as kindergarteners. There were no signs of life at all, and when she stepped onto the land there was something that told her she was no longer on Earth anymore. Still, familiarity hung in the air, and it felt exactly just like what Sydney had experienced when she was in her headspace, with the boiling ground beneath her feet and the dusty air in her lungs.

Sydney kicked at the dry, cracked ground. Dust kicked up her nose. She coughed.

“This place is so dusty!” Sydney said, quickly covering her nose with her sweater sleeve.

Ruthantasis sniffed at the air, his bready nose twitching. “I don’t think it’s all that dusty.”

“You’re a sandwich,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t see your point.”

Krale sighed, bonking Ruthantasis on the head.

“Ow! Why is it always me? What about Sydney?” He pointed accusingly at her. She stuck out a tongue, before quickly shutting her mouth when she saw Krale raise a warning eyebrow at her. Ruthantasis huffed.

“That’s not the problem here, you dimwits,” Krale said. He looked up at Sydney. “This is not the place where Ruthantasis and I came from.”

Sydney’s eyes widened. “What? Are we not on Geveodu?” But she was so sure….

Krale looked ahead and squinted his eyes, as if it would help him see through the thick cloud of dust that fogged the area. “Oh, don’t worry. We’re in Geveodu, alright,” he said. Sydney heaved a sigh of relief. “But we’re probably in one of the deserted areas.”

Ruthantasis’s face immediately paled in alarm. “Aren’t the deserted areas at the literal edge of the Food realm?”

Krale didn’t answer, but it was obvious the answer was: yes. Yes they were.

Sydney swallowed. At the very least she had gotten them into the correct realm. It would’ve been a complete disaster if she had accidentally landed them in the Cheese realm, or something.

“It’s fine. We can just journey to the Volcanic Realm, right?” Ruthantasis asked.

Krale tsk-ed his tongue and shook his head. “The problem is we don’t have a map, and we can’t go anywhere without a map.”

Sydney pouted. “I’m sorry.”

“What? No, it’s not your fault,” Krale said. “Anyways, we better hurry. I think I see some green that way.” He pointed to their right. “We’re probably at the deserted area in Canopy Woods, then. It’d be best if we could go somewhere a little less…dry.” He started to march towards the small blotch of green in front of them, kicking all sorts of debris up and coughing into the air. When Krale was a good one metre in front of the both of them, Sydney bent down to whisper in Ruthantasis’s ears.

“See? This place is very dusty,” she said, smirking in victory.

“Yeah yeah.” Ruthantasis rolled his eyes. Suddenly, something bonked him on the head again. Ruthantasis fell backward.

“Ow! You old leaf, not again!”

Krale grunted. “It wasn’t me, you dimwit---!” The old salad bowl didn’t get to finish his sentence before he fell onto the ground. “Oof!”

Sydney didn’t have time to comprehend what was happening. Her legs were swiped from under her. She yelped, falling butt-first onto the ground. Quickly, she sprang back up onto her feet, only to get cocked in her shins. She howled in pain, both because pain shot up her knees and because her butt ached from the fall. Not a good combination of pain.

“What the---” Sydney stopped short when she saw what was in front of her. “Whoa…” she said, eyes widening at the incredibly sharp weapon being pointed at her neck. Slowly, she lifted her eyes off of the blade up to its wielder, who had a gas mask over his face, and wore a green sleeveless hoodie over a pair of cargo pants. Sydney didn’t know why she stopped and stared at the guy’s hoodie for so long, but she knew that fabric wasn’t common. It looked so silky and comfortable, and Sydney was a total sucker for comfy clothes. She literally needed one of those sleeveless hoodies in light blue. Still, she decided better than to ask where the guy got his hoodie from, considering, you know, she was being threatened with a weapon.

“Um…” Sydney started to say, just when the guy snapped.

“Don’t move!”

Sydney flinched. “I’m not movi---”

“Your mouth is moving.”

Sydney decided to shut her trap.

“Look, young man, I don’t know what we’ve ever done to you, but I promise we’re not the bad guys here,” Krale said, trying his best to sound calm. Sydney didn’t even need him to take off that gas mask to know he was glaring underneath it. And, now that she looked at him properly (and warily), he looked more like one of those ninth graders at her school than an adult. If she had to guess, she’d say he was around fifteen, but she knew better than to jump to conclusions. Sydney had once been reduced to a ten-year-old by a water park staff before and had been banned from all the cool waterslides. And that happened this year. She was thirteen. Thirteen. For the rest of the day, Sydney had made it her primary goal to silently glare at the worker each time they crossed paths. Sydney blinked herself back to reality.

Krale and the boy stared at each other. No one spoke a single word and the dusty air around them blew a couple dust moths into Sydney’s mouth. She tried not to cough. She didn’t want to get impaled by that blade. It would be a pathetic way to die.

Sydney Cohen, death by choking on dust.

Nuh-uh.

The staring contest was beginning to become so intense Sydney had begun putting her bets on who would win. Of course, her money was on the boy. Krale and his old grandpa-eyes probably couldn’t stare at something for longer than ten seconds before blinking again. Suddenly, a wave of sadness hit her and Sydney tried to push it down. Grandpa. She wanted to see him already. She wanted to see them all right now. 

But…right now wasn’t the time to miss her grandpa. It wasn’t the time to miss her family. Right now, she had to stay strong for them, and focus on getting out of here alive. Sydney blinked away her tears.

“Please, let her go, and we can go our separate ways, alright?” Ruthantasis said. His voice shook from fear. The boy remained silent, and somehow that was even scarier. A dark shadow casted over her as the sun’s rays hit the boy’s broad back. Sydney swallowed hard. Dying young was one of the first on her list of ways-to-never-die. The boy mumbled something under his breath, and for a split second Sydney thought he was finally going to let her go, but his grip on the double scimitar only tightened.

“Who are you?” he demanded. Then, he asked Sydney something she never thought he would, with a little uncertainty in his voice. “Would you consider yourself as ‘new’?”

Sydney blinked. She didn’t know what to do. If she answered him, he might accuse her of moving her mouth, and she’d get shish-kebabed by the boy’s blade. But, if she didn’t, she’d probably also get shish-kebabed for not answering. None of the options sounded appealing. Sydney tried not to throw up.

As if catching himself, the boy said, “Oh. Right. You can talk now.”

Sydney took a desperate breath in, forgetting that the air was filled with dust. She immediately hacked into the ground. The boy retracted his double scimitar on instinct.

“Thanks.” Sydney tried not to sound too much like a scared two-year-old when she said that. It seemed to catch the boy by surprise, but he remained silent. When he was about to raise his weapon to her neck again, Sydney immediately put her hands out and backed away. “Okay, okay! I’ll answer your questions! Just put that weapon down!”

Reluctantly, he put his blade down. He kept it unsheathed, though, to Sydney’s disappointment.

“You can’t run,” he told her.

Yeah, Sydney thought to herself. That’s obvious enough. Unless I want to get skewered by your unreasonably large weapon, I’m not going anywhere! She rolled her eyes. “I’m Sydney Cohen, and I guess I could be ‘new’, in a way.” Whatever that means. She thought that her chances of survival would be better if she was what the boy wanted her to be, even if she didn’t understand his intentions at all. After Sydney answered his question, he lapsed back into silence. He didn’t tell her his name in exchange, but Sydney didn’t expect him to. Instead, she had started calling him Severus Junior (for Severus Snape) in her mind since all he did was stare, glare, and say nothing all day. Suddenly, a jelly hand pinched her from behind.

“Ow! Ruth what are you---”

“Ask him how to get to the Volcanic Realm!” he said. Sydney’s eyes lit up and she grinned. She mouthed “Smarty-pants!” to him, but Ruthantasis only looked confused.

“I know I have gassy problems, but I’m not a farty ant!” he said, horrified.

Sydney almost laughed. “That’s not what I---”

Krale cleared his throat. The two of them shut their mouths. Krale looked up at the boy, taking a shaky step forward as he tried not to fall down. He cursed at his old bones. “Do you know the way to the Volcanic Realm, child?” he asked the boy.

The boy thought for a second, and then said, “I don’t, but I know someone who does.”

Sydney’s heart leaped in her chest. Hope bloomed on both Ruthantasis and Krale’s faces.

“Great!” Krale exclaimed. “Could you show us the---”

The boy cut him short by lifting his weapon up to Sydney’s neck once more. She froze on the spot. Ruthantasis and Krale tried not to gasp. Even from under that gas mask, Sydney could feel how intense his gaze was, searing through the black rubber itself.

“I’ll do that,” he said, his voice deep and convincing. “But first, everyone must come with me.” He looked from Ruthantasis to Krale, and finally, his piercing gaze landed on Sydney. “As prisoners.”

Author's Note

written: Dec 2024