Best Friends Forever Club -- Nabs, Pi, & Chrys Party!

[Kinetic Dream]

I awoke today with a start. My dreams, haunted as they ever were, had left me particularly shaken. Despite the light creeping steadily through the window, a chill seized my body and drove me to dress. As I walked out the door, one thought hounded me.

Someone screwed up.

As I approached the hidden place, I broke into a run. The apartment building, nestled amongst a dozen others like it in a city of millions, glowed with a lingering heat, her windows destroyed. City fire officials milled about and said nothing as I leaped over their barriers and charged forward. It has been a long time since anyone saw fit to stop me on my holy mission.

Fear gave my feet wings, taking the steps three, five at a time. My chest burned from the exertion and the acrid taste of the smoke filled air. Upon arriving at the fifth floor, I hurled open the maintenance door. He slept upon the floor, curled up tight as you please. His tools littered around his prone form. Behind him, the gate to the Beyond churned.

I made a point to step on him as I walked past and stuck my head through the portal. Despite his sputtering, I pulled my upper body into the beyond, taking stock of the situation.

The Beyond is not a friendly place and I avoid it as much as possible. Every sane thing does. Which made it the perfect place to hide it. No one, no thing, would be willing to risk the crushing madness of the Beyond, and even if they did, the plane would sap them of their courage and memories before they could finish the task.

But, something had. Braving the madness and crushing despair of the Beyond, something had slipped by. Judging from the shattered remnants for the once mighty symbol, they had succeeded in their task. Before the madness could overtake me again, I pulled my head back and turned to the still stammering Scapegoat.

"Was it really that difficult?"

He glanced up and put on a silly smile. "Pardon?"

"You're practically chaos incarnate. I give you a job that's right up your alley, so 'you' that it should be impossible to screw up. All you had to do was ruin the mood and protect the symbol. You didn't even have to touch it! Just make sure that things never got amorous.

"Given your history with them, I thought it would be easy, that they would never suspect you. But no. No, you had to go and screw up screwing up.

"How do you even manage that anyway? You have managed to layer your mistakes in such a way that anything that happens is all your fault! You're a god damned ******** onion. Peal away the first layer of ********, and there's another one right beneath it!"

I could feel my shoulders heaving as his smile turned to a scowl. "Hey now, that's pretty rude."

"No, what's RUDE is that you just sparked the beginning of the end! You went and screwed up the 'Party Earth' for everybody!

"The Gator exists in a class beyond that of the World Killers. By allowing that seal to break, you've set into motion events for ANOTHER being to enter into that class. And where do you think it's going to get it's formative nutrition from?

"This world is rife with life of all shapes and sizes. And now we're going to have a ravenous post-world killer class infant, looking for meals multiple times every day!"

I remember walking out into the hall and gazing down at the city below. In my mind's eye, I saw her future. She would be engulfed in flames and the joyous, infectious laughter of a highly destructive infant.

"The end is upon us. The other eight seals will break, after which the caretakers will arise to tend to their gigantic child charge. And it's all your fault. You, the Scapegoat, the Horseman of Blame."

I wait now, observing the sky as it turns to night. While the rest of the world travels forward blindly, I know that I have seen the truth. We do not have many of these nights left, and I wish to enjoy them while I can.

Junior, will we finally meet at last? Or are you another precursor of things to come? I await the coming signs with a twisted sort of anticipation.

Show me Great Gator, what kind of world do you have planned next?