prompt
Prompt 7: You've seen the commercials, take a bite of a chocolate mint patty and feel a rush of so cold you feel like you're atop a frigid mountain? Now, imagine you found a cute little shop with a sweet grandmother selling cookies from a recipe passed down for generations. She was warm and friendly, and very good at selling her cookies. They look normal, taste normal--except when you take a bite, for a few seconds, your vision fades and is replaced by a glorious view. You're at the top of a mountain, watching the sun rise above the clouds. The sunset is beautiful and soft, and you can't even feel the absolutely frigid air despite the snowcapped mountains all around you. There is something otherworldly and timeless about the location, and even in the dark of winter it has the ability to fill you with some unshakeable hope. When you swallow, the illusion rapidly fades, and no subsequent bites guarantee any further illusion--but, maybe if you eat enough, you'll eventually find that magical bite again...
The food offerings in the barracks were... not ideal by Calaverite's standards. His tastes favored an extremely limited selection of meals that mostly consisted of chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, bagel bites, and Lunchables. Sometimes the cafeteria in the barraks offered something similar enough to what Cala enjoyed that he didn't mind nibbling at it.
But sometimes it was just sandwiches with lots of miscellaneous toppings on them. Or soups with bits of stuff floating in them.
There was no way Calaverite was going to eat something that had touched a morsel of something he didn't like. And because being so often confined to Negaspace meant that his options were limited, Cala found that sometimes he preferred to just not eat. When he was allowed to go to the city, he would steal a bag of frozen meals from the grocery store to bring back with him. But his bunk room was tiny with no freezer of refrigerator of his own. Things tended to go bad before he could eat them all.
His general said once he'd earned his upgrade, he could teleport back and forth on his own without waiting for permission. But until then, he had to stick with what was available to him.
And sometimes that was just Negaverse cafeteria food.
Calaverite warily peeked his head in the door, assessing first with his nose, and then with his eyes what may be available that day. Nothing smelled immediately horrible, but it rarely did. It was more like a kind of dull mash of scents, like he was in a school cafeteria again... A people-and-food-amalgamation that didn't really smell like anything else describable.
But there was something underneath the initial smell, something sharper and sweeter and maybe a little chocolatey? He did like chocolatey...
Calaverite wandered further into the cafeteria. His red gaze scraped assessingly over the few gathered there, judging the meals they had set before them. Looked like a spicy rice and vegetable mix with accompanying meat blobs. Cala liked rice... But there was a lot of other things going on there that he didn't think his taste buds could handle, and frankly, he wasn't bold enough to risk trying.
The chocolatey scent was obviously not coming from the rice and vegetables, but there was a little end table set up with small treat sacks for anyone to come and grab.
He remembered hearing that Axinite liked to give out cookies, even though Cala had never met him. Maybe the cookie packages were just some kind of treat picked up from somewhere in the city for the holidays. Even agents liked warm cookies on a chilly day, and sometimes being stuck in Negaspace could be a real drag. Cookies would make it better. And he certainly wasn't going to question someone giving him a treat.
Calaverite was all too happy to accept one of the treat sacks, and he was quick to squirrel away as he escaped the cafeteria and wandered back to his room, where no one would be able to take anything from him.
The treat bag was ripped open with barely a thought, and Cala snatched up the source of that warm, chocolatey smell: a dark chocolate cookie, peppered with chunks of mint candy. He gave it one more experimental sniff, and finding the result satisfying, popped a bit into his mouth. He didn't expect what happened next.
It was like he'd been pulled from Negaspace entirely to stand on the precipice of some great drop. Ahead of him was an endless expanse of sky, broken only by the mounds of other mountains where they framed a view dashed with vibrant pinks and luscious oranges. The light reflected off the snow all around him and at the tops of the other mountains, making everything appear bright and colorful and warm, despite the chill.
And then he wasn't there at all.
He was back in his room, sitting on his bed with a half eaten cookie in his hand.
And frankly, that was where he wanted to stay. Cala dropped the cookie in shock and repelled himself away from it. He liked treats. He sure would have liked to enjoy a bit of chocolate, but instead he'd been taken somewhere without his consent, and he didn't want it to happen again.
[WC: 717]
