Bad Dreams with Good Friends part 44

Mark hissed and blew on his fingers. The pain left him shaking and slightly more terrified. He could feel the eyes of the mannequin looking at him, adding to the terrible pain of his hands.

“Maaaaark!” he heard Felix called, just before the basket crashed.

Mark’s back slammed into a wall. He felt only biting pain as his body tensed from the impact. All of the muscles in his body clenched as the pain ran through him. It slowly subsided though, as shock hit him.

“Mark are you okay?” Felix quickly clambered over the edge of the basket.

“Uhh…” Mark hesitated, unsure of his current state.

His back was in severe pain. He was not sure if he broke anything or if he should even move. It was likely that if he stretched out, he might be able to loosen his muscles and help his body to not hurt worse later. But, he was not sure if he had broken anything, which could worsen if he moved.

“Why’d you do it man?” Felix asked, as he bent to check on Mark. He moved the mechanical piece out of the way, so that he could lay Mark flat on the bottom of the basket.

“I think I…I don’t know what I did…I might have broken everything,” Mark moaned.

“Mark! Why didn’t you wait for me?” Felix asked, “We could have worked together!”

“I just…we had to catch it,” Mark took a deep breath, as he rested on the floor of the basket.

“Well…this thing is broken,” Felix motioned to the mechanical parts, where the flames had already extinguished.

“It disconnected,” Mark replied, “So there’s probably a way to reattach it.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look,” Felix said, as he turned to investigate the parts. He hissed as he burned his fingers, “Ouch! Owie! That was uncalled for!”

“Yea, it’s hot. You might want to let it cool down. It’s been heated up by fire,” Mark explained.

“Alright…” Felix pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his hand.

He used the shirt to protect his hands as he grabbed the base. He lifted it with a loud grunt. He strained beneath the weight of it, as he raised it to the frame.

Mark shifted, noting the subsiding of the pain. He was probably in a lot of shock already, but it allowed him to move again. He rose to his feet and pulled off the suit jacket. He used it the way Felix used his shirt, grabbing onto the other side of the mechanics to aid in lifting it.

“Careful Mark! You took a hard hit!” Felix insisted, “Don’t hurt yourself!”

“I’ll be fine,” Mark insisted, as they set it into its frame.

“What do we do now?” Felix sighed with relief, as the whole thing fell nicely into its frame.

“What we need to do is get up,” Mark pointed towards the sky, “That way we can get a better view of things. Let’s figure out what these levers do.”

“What about this lever?” Felix asked, grabbing one of the levers.

“NO! Don’t touch that!” Mark exclaimed, “One of those causes it to drop!”

“So it was this one?” Felix asked.

“I…I don’t really know,” Mark paused, scratching his head, “I’m not sure which one it was.”

“Let’s try…” Felix rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Mark’s attention was turned to the mannequin sitting in the basket with them. It was staring directly at him, as if its head turned to keep his gaze. Its lifeless eyes held a dark yet subtle expression. He could only tremble with an eerie feeling of fear.

“Mark?” Felix called his attention.

“Ugh…I hate mannequins,” Mark said, taking a small step away from the mannequin.

“Why? It never did anything to you,” Felix said.

“They just give me an eerie feeling,” Mark shuddered, “My fans like to poke fun at my fear of them, especially with fan games. I just really don’t like them. It’s not that I’m legit scared…I’m just…creeped out.”

“I can understand being creeped out,” Felix replied, empathetically, “But Mark, let’s focus. We need to figure this out. Otherwise you hit…the…thing on the building…for nothing!”

Mark sighed, “Alright then…carrying on.”

Bad Dreams with Good Friends part 43

Mark bounced upwards as he ran. He was gaining more height. He figured if he could get up higher, he might be able to catch the balloon from one of the buildings.

“Mark slow down!” Felix called after him.

“Almost there!” Mark shouted, as he bounced up onto the side of a building.

The feeling of being up so high was a bit frightening, but the achievement was thrilling. He was starting to enjoy the thrill of bouncing so high, even if all of the muscles in his body were starting to ache again. He howled with enjoyment as he leaped to the next building.

He kept the momentum going, bounding from building to building. It was difficult to grab onto the building’s surface, but it was easy to bounce off of them. He could easily bounce from place to place with ease, and without injury.

The joyous feeling wore off as he finally hit the basket. He was surprised that he made it. He had not expected to actually catch up to the balloon. It had been a long shot to hope for. Now he was caught hanging onto the side of the balloon’s basket.

“I should proooobably climb in,” he muttered to himself.

He looked down at the ground below. He was higher up than he had expected. It made him a bit woozy.

He caught a glimpse of Felix trying to catch up. He was shouting something, but Mark could no longer hear his words. They were caught in the air and hung without ears to take them.

“Come on, Pewdie!” he called below.

He turned his attention to the basket, pulling himself up. As he clambered over the basket’s edge, a chill shivered its way up his spine. His eyes rose to the face of a mannequin, something plain and white, but as creepy as any life sized doll he had ever seen. Perhaps it was the dead black eyes that stared back at him. Or perhaps it was just the matter of it being a mannequin that creeped him out the most. Whatever it was, it caused him to freeze in place. He had to force his body to work for him again, clambering all the way inside.

He forced himself to keep his focus off of the mannequin. He still felt that eerie chill of his hackles being uplifted though. He could not get it fully off of his mind.

But, his attention turned back to Felix and he knew he had to slow the balloon down. He had to lower it if he could. He started studying the balloon’s mechanics, finding a few mechanics that did not look normal.

The only thing that looked familiar to him was the fire heating the balloon’s air. He was not sure what the rope or the two levers did. He needed to figure out what would quell the fire so that the balloon would move down.

“Mark! Mark!” Felix called to him.

“Hang on, Felix!” Mark bit his lip as he put a hand on each lever.

“Mark look out!” Felix called.

“I said, hang on!” Mark roared.

“But, Mark! The balloon!” Felix called to him.

Mark looked up to see a building looming nearer and nearer. Nothing was slowing the balloon down or causing it to go off to any other coarse. It would soon collide into the building.

“FUCK!” Mark exclaimed, as he pulled one of the levers in frightened reaction.

The entire part fell off its bracer. It hit the basket and the fire started burning a hole into the basket. Mark hopped out of the way before it could burn his feet.

“No! No no no no!” he exclaimed, as he reached down to move the fire off the basket.

He stood the mechanical pieces upright, so that the fire was no longer touching the basket. He successfully saved the basket from being deteriorated, but immediately burned his hands. He screamed with pain, as he dropped it.

Bad Dreams with Good Friends part 42

“This is fun!” Felix laughed as he bounced up and down, “Wheee!”

Mark laughed as his body flopped against the bouncy ground. It was like trying to walk in a bouncy castle, only he had shoes on. He had a strange desire to remove his shoes, if just for the sake of nostalgia. It brought back the fun of trampolines.

But, as he looked around, he realized that it was more than that. The whole world was bouncy. Even the slightest bounce he made echoed through this world, as buildings jiggled and swayed for miles around. Everything responded to the movements under his and Felix’s feet.

“I want an entire house like this!” Felix laughed.

Mark laughed again, “That would be awesome! This  is awesome! Look at this place! Everything bounces!”

“I wonder where the others are. They are totally missing out!” Felix exclaimed, overjoyed by the blissfulness of this world.

“I’ll admit, this is kinda fun,” Mark said, as he let himself bounce around, “But, I feel like we’re wasting time, when we need to be finding the others.”

“I know,” Felix said, “But while we’re at it, we might as well bounce around and look!”

“Okay,” Mark bounced after Felix, following him into what appeared to be a city.

The city was filled with odd things. There were no people, just random things. They were all soft and bouncy as well. There were cars that bounced around, making squeaky noises. A little blue and green mail box bounced around, honking like a bird.

“Look at that!” Felix pointed to the sky, as a large balloon started rising above the buildings’ rooftops.

“How do we get up there?” Mark stopped to look up at the balloon. It was moving slowly, so he started to wonder if they could catch it.

“I don’t know…but I wanna!” Felix sprinted down the street, causing everything to bounce around him.

“Wait for me!” Mark called, as he darted after Felix.

They hurried down the street, following after the balloon. It did not rise very far, making its way slowly upwards. It did not ascend as Mark had expected, but it did move up over the buildings, moving slowly away from them. It seemed to be headed towards a particular destination.

“Oh gawd,” Felix stopped in his tracks, panting heavily.

Mark darted past him, with his eyes set on the balloon. If they could reach the balloon, they could get a better view of the world. It could provide them with transportation as well. If anything, it could be a useful tool for finding the others.

“Wait up, Mark!” Felix called after him.

“Let’s catch that damn balloon!” Mark called over his shoulder.

Dorm Haze

Dorm Haze has officially been published in its new edition!

Available for free in eBook format and in Paperback format!

Thoughts to be Shared

Lots of things to be pondered...

I have discovered this site called Medium for example...

Though I apparently joined it some time ago and forgot all about it...

I don't even fully understand what it is for. It seems like a blogging site...

But...

I have blogger for that.

So, I don't think I really need it.

And...I have wix pages and those websites' blogs.

It feels like a lot more than it really is to ponder.

But worrying about where one's work is being published is important.

Obviously, being on blogger I use a more playful and loose format of writing, hopefully giving readers an easier set of words to read on the page.

It seems to be easier on the eyes when viewing a screen that has fewer blocks of paragraphs and rather smaller lines that have some separation.

And, while I thought about having the wix sites just showing this blog, making everything simpler, I made the separate sites for a reason.

Having one site seems rather simple. It gives reader a place to go and see stuff about me and my work.

However, I made each of the other sites for 2 reasons.

1) Wix doesn't do well with loading a lot of information on a single site, so I do not have much room for all of the information I wish to store on just one site.

2) The application for blogspot is limited and looks tacky. It does not allow for much within the actual app, not even new comments to be added.

3) I have various series. I feel that this is probably the most important reason.

I mean, it does not take a genius to figure out that a writer like me who is working on multiple things is going to have differences in projects. That means if you are drawn in by Red Dragon, you probably don't want to sift through information about Glastica, Dorm Haze, Obsessed or Sins of an Empire.

It makes everything simpler, so that even if you are following me, you have a way of just following the information that you want (for the most part).

And if you clicked any of the links above, you'll see for yourself that each gets its own (fairly dark) theme and its own set of pages. It has its own space, so to speak.

This is partially due to the fact that these projects (or as I call them Universes) are large scale, with smaller subseries within them that then harbor the books. It helps me to keep track of not just the story line I am working with, but also the structure.

In Caliri du Aspiratorg, there is no such thing as a werewolf, that is just a myth. But dragons are real. There are even half dragon half humans.

In World of Shadows though, you won't find any half dragons, as you would in the other. There are werewolves and were-dragons, but those aren't half dragons. You'll find instead vampires and werecats.

And in Destined Hearts...everything is a whole lot different. This series is coauthored by Andrew Gray, which makes the separate site all the easier, since readers can simply follow the site. It has its own lore, its own timeline and its own theme.



So...I'm not sure about the stuff at medium. Maybe I will try it out. Maybe I'll forget about it again, until I stumble upon it. Who knows.

For now, I have too much to juggle.