Narrated by Kevin Coffey
Hey everyone. I finally have all of the new media I wanted to put in one collective place. Forgive my fumbling with the voiceover quality, but we’ll get there. Soon. Let me know how this sounds compared to my older recordings as I’m very close to podcasting.
As for the story: This chapter is one of my all-time favorites for concept. Hopefully original, it resonates, and you will remember it. Sometimes my imagination is on the abyssal plane while everyone else is firmly planted on Earth—I need to know these things!
As always, please let me know your thoughts. Will work for feedback!
As a reminder to my new subscribers, you are my “test readers” before the story gets wrestled to the ground by a professional editor and becomes permanent. Enjoy!
-KC
NOW:
The noise was unbearable, sounding like the world was crumbling and coming to an end like falling Jenga blocks.
Floss curled up into a ball, anticipating the worst as the living maze came at him like an open mouth.
Sllluuuurrrrp!!
However, the Lurking Horror, whatever it was, did not devour Floss. To his surprise, the commotion that had threatened to be his end suddenly ceased just after the pecu- liar sound.
Floss lifted his head and found the monster had vanished. Furthermore, the un- bearable chill had lifted, and there was no trace of wind either.
Floss stood up. Had the monster from the backpack eaten another one again?
Floss discovered Lorem Ipsum standing motionless at the end of the haphazard maze, surrounded by the wreckage of obliterated frozen trees. It looked as if someone had dumped heaps of ice cubes in preparation for an event that never took place.
“Lorem?” Floss approached the still figure with caution, feeling unsure about why Lorem was unresponsive. “You okay?”
Nothing.
Floss waved his hand in front of the fencing mask. There was no response. Not a peep from his weird new friend.
Floss’s first impulse was to attempt to pull off Lorem’s mask but thought better of it.
He considered it impolite, and a tad unsettling, despite his worries about Lorem’s current state.
Suddenly, the backpack Lorem always wore began to fidget violently as if it had a mind of its own and was rebelling against its owner, twitching from side to side until it pitched and fell sideways.
The straps slid right off of the statuesque Lorem Ipsum’s shoulders, and the back- pack hit the ground with a loud thud, creating a small crater on the disturbed earth.
Floss instinctively backed up a few steps, as a suffocating kind of terror seized his limbs and draped over him. He was worried that the creature inside Lorem’s backpack might come out.
And yet...
There was also a very illogical curiosity about what was in the bag bubbling up above the fear as if his conscience was daring him to look.
Lorem Ipsum remained stationary, showing no sign of life, not the slightest twitch, flinch, hiccup, or sneeze.
The backpack on the ground let out a growl that sounded like it was coming from a secret subterranean lair.
“Ewww-Aarrr-ahh!” Said the thing in the backpack. It continued to curdle, “ooh...”
For a long while the unknown monster carried on in this manner until a possible rational explanation came to Floss.
“Do you have a stomach ache?” Floss questioned the noisy thing in the backpack. The dramatic sounds stopped at once.
“It would make sense. I mean... that was a really gigantic monster you swallow—
YEAGHH!” Floss let out a bloodcurdling scream as Lorem Ipsum’s fencing mask slipped off and smacked the ground, scaring the wits out of him.
Years later, even as an adult, Floss couldn’t quite recall the events of that peculiar day. First, there was Lorem Ipsum the man standing as if petrified, then there was no Lorem, just his mask cast face down on the sandy soil.
But Floss wasn’t alone anymore.
Dozens of children surrounded him, curiously inspecting him with warm smiles and contagious bouts of giggling. Some looked at him with awed expressions, as if Floss was a celebrity.
“Wh-what?” Was all Floss could say, staring at the multitude of young, beaming faces in all directions. “What is this? Where did Lorem go? Who are you?”
“Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua,” The children spoke in unison.
And somehow, Floss understood every word of the gibberish language and heard:
“Together, we are Lorem Ipsum. And while we are afraid to pursue the monsters that might hurt or kill us, it pleases us to know our suffering will help the innocent.”
Floss was sure this was all some kind of elaborate prank. Some of the kids began to laugh before speaking again as one. “It’s okay. You really do understand us. Lorem Ipsum is a group of kids who believe in monsters. And only those who truly believe can control the monster that devours the fiends that scare us, and only children pos- sess such hopeful innocence.”
Floss was amazed as he walked among the children who had made up Lorem Ip- sum. There were kids of all shapes, sizes, and skin tones, and they all seemed to be under the age of twelve. However, not a single one of them looked cruel, menacing, or calculating. They all had shining, happy, confident, and hopeful eyes. They knew who they were and were content.
“How does this work?” Floss asked, feeling a lot confused yet dazzled all the same. “How do all of you make up one person?”
Lorem Ipsum, or the group of children that acted as a single entity, took their time before answering in unison, "Does it not require many drops of water to form a single lake?" The voices that responded in perfect harmony had the same positive tone as before.
“I guess so,” Floss said, “but it’s still pretty trippy. Why did you sound like a man before?”
“All of us speaking through a mask comes out as more muffled and deep. It’s an honest mistake by the listener.”
Lorem’s multiple voices were unsettling but also somewhat calming. Floss put his hand to his rapidly beating chest.
“Am I... am I one of the... drops?”
“Of course! You passed the test, helping us defeat the monster in the maze. You can sense them, find them, draw them in—just like us!”
“Then, how do I—you know—join?”
And then, as if choreographed, the children moved, snaking into a single line, and greeted him individually.
The first child recited “Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amen,” and gently laid a hand upon Floss’s cheek. Startled, Floss yelled out in surprise as the kid gleefully pinched his cheek. Then, all the other children followed suit, repeating the same passage and per- forming the same action, with a cheeky pinch. Floss’s cheek was left sore and bruised after the odd ritual.
When all forty-nine—Floss had counted each child as they approached—had greet- ed him in this way, they formed a complete circle around him.
“What now?” Floss asked, feeling genuinely intrigued (yet also kind of scared.) “Pick up the mask. silly. It’s your turn to wear it.”
“And what will happen then?”
“You’ll see. And don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt—it’s thrilling!”
Floss nodded, and working up his courage, with some reluctance, stooped, snatching up the mask.
With both hands trembling, Floss carefully placed the fencing helmet over his head. The happy children staring at him vanished the instant the screen lowered over his eyes.
At first, Floss couldn’t see anything. Yet he felt a sharp, painful burning sensation in his stomach as if he had eaten something that didn’t agree with him.
He felt cramped, standing shoulder to shoulder with 49 new friends. And he could see. But he quickly became they.
And they knew the most wonderful things about how each child had come to join together as the being called Lorem Ipsum.
They came to Floss as memories:
A little girl followed Lorem Ipsum into a thicket in the sand dunes while on a beach vacation with her family. Together, they tracked a monster that dwelled there.
Another girl had been camping with her mother and brother and was awakened by strange shadows of what appeared to be a person wrestling with something made of sentient cobwebs.
There was the boy that started it all by discovering a frightful cave, freeing a wretched thing from its despicable cage.
Thwarting death, the creature became Mr. Snatchum, the Gobbler of Fiends. And with each passing year, he had gathered an army of children more than willing to help him hunt.
At present, the gobbler was growing restless again in the backpack.
Floss could sense the monster was starving and he shared the ravenous feeling of needing to eat soon.
Floss joined the chorus of children as they began to speak.
“We are now complete. The monsters will no longer send lone assassins to hunt us down. They will attack us in hordes.”
“How can we beat them?” Floss asked, feeling uncertain. “Ambush,” the voices purred.
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