• It was raining outside the day that Nessi Mackledoon was asked to clean her room. Nessi was a messy girl. Her hair was shoulder length and black, and she only washed it once a week, so if she herself didn’t care for her bodily cleanliness, why her room? Her mother was a clean freak, and had always been an angry person, but when it rained, she just seemed to get angrier.

    “I swear to GOD Nessi!” When she swore by God that meant she was especially angry, “If you don’t clean your room today I will lock you in there FOREVER!”

    Her mother slammed the door shut, the sound of wood splitting echoed around the room. Nessi’s room really was a mess. Her bed was covered in dirty clothes; her floor, littered with sunflower seeds and straightening irons—most of which were broken.

    “What if I don’t feel like cleaning my room?” She retorted to the very broken door, which now had a crack all the way down the middle of it.
    The small black-haired girl lay down on her bed of dirty clothes. A bottle of blue Fanta sat open on her nightstand, plumes of smoke rising from it. Nessi felt suddenly sleepy, she curled up, and closed her eyes.

    ~

    “Nessi, clean your room,”

    “Blue Fanta Nessi, it’s all about the blue Fanta,”

    “Nessi,” She felt groggy, as if she had fallen asleep for a year and just woken up. The voice that whispered in her ear was shrill sounding, like her mother when she was especially angry. “Nessi, darling, it’s time to wake up.” Nessi’s eyes opened slowly, and she blew her black bangs out of her face. There, in front of her, was a very clean large sock. It had indents where its mouth and nose should have been, and black marker marks for eyes.

    “What the—” Nessi cut herself off, and she realized that there was not only one talking sock, but twenty, all varying in colour, and all very clean, unlike the socks that lay on the floor of her bedroom. She looked around some more, and realized that the floor of sock world was like a very large mattress. Where trees should have been there were T-Shirts, twisted into intricate patterns. Bushes were small glasses, not like the one’s her room that had some sort of mould growing on it, but actual clean glasses. All around there were random objects, just like the one’s her room only not rotting. Like apples, and fixed computer screens.

    “Where am I?” Nessi asked, standing up, her voice day-dreamy.

    “You’re in Sock World Nessi, a wondrous place where everything is clean and sparkly.” And everything truly was clean and sparkly; you just had to look around to see that.

    “How did I get here?”

    “Blue Fanta Nessi, that’s how everybody gets here.” The White Sock’s answer didn’t really make much sense, but what exactly here did?

    One of the glass bushes next to Nessi started to smoke green, plumes of it erupting above their heads, Nessi covered her head with her arms, while the sock people curled into themselves.

    “Mwhahaha!” Nessi removed her arms from her head, and stared at what must have been the equivalent to a witch in sock world. She was green, and instead of an indent for a nose, her sock became very floppy in the middle of her face, making it seem like she had warts or something. “I am the evil witch of detergent long past due. You,” She pointed at Nessi, “Nessi Mackledoon have failed to clean your room,” A loud uproar of gasps and murmurs came from the crowd of sock people, they had probably never heard of someone with a messy room before, everything here was clean after all. “And now,” She shook her sock finger, “You must face the consequences.”

    The evil sock witch waved her wand, which resembled a cheese-puff. Everything around them started to rot away, the socks started to scream, and as they screamed their voices grew crackly, like dead leaves when you step on them.

    The Sock witch waved her wand once more and in her hand appeared a “Tornado in a bottle”. Nessi remembered making one for a sixth grade science experiment, she didn’t win. The sock witch flipped the bottle, and the blue water in it started to fall slowly, like an hour glass. “Nessi, all is not lost yet. You must find the detergent, at the bottom of the lake of blue Fanta, before the last of the water falls. If you don’t, Nessi Mackledoon, you will be lost here forever.” And just like the sock witch had appeared, she disappeared, spinning reverse into the glass bush which was now covered in mould.

    Nessi turned around. Mr. White Sock wasn’t so white anymore. The stench from the twenty socks was disgusting, worse than the smell of her entire room.

    “Nessi, you have to save us.” It was White Sock, though his happy, high shrill voice was no longer, replaced by the crunching dead leaves.

    Nessi looked so lost, but she nodded slowly, “I guess I won’t be able to go home if I don’t.”

    ~

    Getting to Lake of Blue Fanta required a trek through the forest of Mouldy Apples and Soiled T-Shirts. The combination of the smells was just wonderful, mould mixed with body-odour. It was enough to make her puke.

    The sock people didn’t seem to notice though, they were too preoccupied with pulling more lose strings from their sock bodies. If they didn’t find the lake soon, more than half of them would unravel. She tried to stop them from time to time, but after the first ten warnings she just gave up.

    “We’re nearly there.” White sock said, as they passed through yet another grove of rotting t-shirt trees. ‘Finally’ Nessi thought to herself, they had been walking for nearly an hour now, and her feet we’re starting to hurt. Back home she had never been much of an athlete. She hated walks, and anything to do with physical activity.

    Nessi could hear a ringing sound; it gradually got louder, the socks around her started to curl into themselves again, so she must have not been the only one who heard it. She too, curled up, covering her ears as she did so.

    ~

    Mrs. Mackledoon was in a white room. Hooked up all around were life-support wires, and in the corner of the room sat the pulse monitor. On the bed lay her daughter Nessi, who had been asleep for six months. The doctors said that there was very little hope that she would ever wake up.

    “Mrs. Mackledoon, the decision is really yours to make.” A female doctor said. She wore a white coat, and her red hair was pulled back into a rather severe bun. She didn’t know why it seemed in all hospitals that the female doctors looked so scary.

    “Just… give me a few minutes okay?” She said, sitting down beside her daughter’s hospital bed. Her black hair had become streaked with grey over the past six months, and she brushed one of those grey locks behind her ear.

    “Whatever you say Mrs. Mackledoon”

    ~

    The ringing subsided. Nessi’s eyes were wet with tears as her ears had hurts much. The socks uncurled themselves, and all looked around in wonder.

    In front of them was a bubbling blue lake that seemed to go on forever. Just like that bottle in her room back home it had purple smoke rising from it.

    “I think we’re here.” Said Nessi, rubbing her eyes to get rid of the wetness.

    Far out in the middle of the lake, floated a bottle filled with detergent. It seemed to be floating magically above the lake.
    “That’s a little weird.” Nessi said, pointing at the floating detergent bottle.

    “What here isn’t Nessi?” She ignored White Sock’s sarcastic comment; it seemed that as they continued on their journey, White Sock got more and more sarcastic.

    A glass bush near the lake front started to smoke like it had before, this time though, she heart the ringing sound along with it. She covered her ears.

    The Sock-Witch precipitated into view. “I see you have finally made it Nessi.” The ringing got louder. Nessi, had to strain to hear the witch, wincing as she uncovered her ears.

    “I thought you said it would be at the bottom of the lake.” Nessi said, her voice strained, as she was now finding it hard to concentrate on the witch with the ringing in her ears.

    “Oh, it will be.” She waved her magic wand, and Nessi and the sock people watched as the detergent started to slowly sink out of sight. “Now, how do you plan to go get it? You only have so much time left.” She pointed to the tornado in a bottle, which a purple sock was holding. There was about one third left of the water in the top bottle.

    Nessi looked at her defiantly. Forgetting about the ringing noise in her ears, she started to wade into the blue Fanta, feeling the sticky water all around her, and smelling that artificial blue-raspberry. She took a deep breath, and ducked under the water.

    ~

    “Mrs. Mackledoon.” The severe looking female doctor was back, she stood in the door frame. Mrs. Mackledoon sat in a chair next to her daughter’s hospital bed, her head in her hands. “Mrs. Mackledoon, have you made your decision yet?”

    “Yes, I have.” Mrs. Mackledoon said, looking up with teary eyes.

    “And what is that?”

    “You can pull the plug.”

    ~

    Swimming in blue Fanta was similar to swimming in a much polluted lake, it was just stickier. There were pieces of mould growing in the Fanta, much like algae, or Lake Weed, it floated around, and it was rather slimy. Nessi was a strong swimmer; she was at the bottom of the Lake in no time, though she knew she only had a matter of minutes left till the water ran out in the tornado in a bottle.

    She looked around, finding it hard to see through all the blue. And then she saw it, the bottle of detergent. It was so close now. Her lungs started to burn, she was going to need air, and fast. She swam even faster now, wasting all of her energy and power in reaching that detergent bottle. The girl reached out and grabbed it, but by now she was exhausted. It was such a long swim to the top of the lake, could she make it?

    ~

    “Are you sure you want to be in here for this Mrs. Mackledoon? It’s not a pretty sight.”

    “I’m fine.” The doctor was starting to pull out all the wires not, taking them away piece by piece. She could already see her daughter starting to struggle for breath. Tears were falling from her eyes, and the doctor looked doubtful of her saying she would be fine.

    “Okay Mrs. Mackledoon.”

    ~

    She was so close, so close. She could see the sun reflecting on the top of the lake now, not like when she was close to the bottom. The ringing in her ears was distant. She needed to take a breath, needed to take one right now. Her lungs forced her too, they filled with the sweet blue Fanta, and she choked, her vision blurred. And then she did it again, and again, coughing more and more, as the light got farther and farther away. She wouldn’t make it, and the sock people would rot forever.

    Blue Fanta Nessi, that’s how everyone gets here.