Chapter Text
I don’t know what I expected when our parents randomly shipped my cousin Chase and me off to our kooky great-uncle Ralph’s in some small town in the middle of nowhere called “Sugar Springs”…but it definitely wasn’t this.
According to Mom and Dad, the change of scenery would be a great opportunity for me to “study” over the summer, and for Chase to “possibly get a real job for once.”
Chase wasn’t so eager to leave at first—not if it meant being miles away from his mom, who’s been on bedrest for the past year and currently living at our place for an easy commute to the cancer center. But Aunt Myra insisted Chase go enjoy himself this summer instead of worrying about her, and joked that, who knows? he might even meet a boy there, so Chase reluctantly agreed.
And me? I was just happy to get away from my folks for once. I mean, this meant a whole summer without them watching over my shoulder like hawks to check that I’m actually studying for med school and not reading another romance novel they have yet to confiscate. Plus, however eccentric he may be, I’d heard that our great-uncle had a horse! I’ve always wanted a horse!
Despite being located in the middle of nowhere, Sugar Springs is actually fairly well-known for their desserts—hence the name—as well as being home to magical creatures. There’ve been numerous alleged fairy sightings (mostly from the lady across the street from our great-uncle who fittingly looks like she walked out of a fairytale). So naturally, I was prepared for this place to be a little strange, but the longer I stayed in this town, the more it began to feel too strange.
The first odd thing I noticed was all the missing posters plastered around town, which you’d assume would be for something like children, or pets, not for some weird antique possessions. Despite how vague they were, they offered a lot of reward money...way more than anyone in this small town should be able to spare.
Then there was the fact that whenever I walked through town, I swear I feel like I was being watched. And every once in a while, I’d catch a glimpse of suspicious masked figures dressed in maroon cloaks. But then they’d vanish into the crowd or around a bend just as quickly as they appeared, leaving me wondering if I’d made the whole thing up in my head.
When I tried bringing it up to Ralph, (or Grunkle Ralph, as Chase had named him, obsessed with combining words), the old man just brushed me off. Insisted all the “strange things” going on in this town were just local legend meant to attract tourists to businesses like Agatha Corduroy’s fairy-themed Bed & Breakfast across the street. And I tried to believe him, because I obviously don’t believe in magic… Or rather, I didn’t.
Not until that one fateful day when everything changed.
For context, Ralph has his own little business going. He’s repurposed the front rooms of his farmhouse to double as a bakery, which he runs alongside his two frankly incompetent employees: a 20-something surfer bro called Wave who once backflipped off the roof like it was a diving board and couldn’t come into work for a week, and a little girl named Prunella (Mrs. C’s daughter) who sometimes wanders off into the woods alone for a concerning amount of time before just materializing back in the house at random.
Upon our arrival, Ralph decontaminated the kitchen and revamped some recipes to make them celiac-safe for Chase. So on one of our first days there, because I lost at rock-paper-scissors, Ralph assigned me the role of putting up flyers for him around town. They read something like:
New GLUTEN-FREE menu at The Sugary Shack (not to be confused with Sugar Shack on Maple Street!!)
Like Sugar Shack, but BETTER! (Cuz we’re gluten free and they’re not ☺ )
My current stop was the library. I was searching for appropriate walls to hang the posters when something in the fantasy section happened to catch my eye.
It was an ordinary-looking book, save for the message ‘READ ME’ scrawled ominously over the spine in spiky penmanship. Inside, I found a sheet of yellowing parchment that seemed torn out from another book, along with a yellowish-brown antique key the length of my hand. The latter felt familiar somehow, like something from one of the missing posters, perhaps. Curiously, I began to read what the parchment said, something about character archetypes and…?
“HELLO!”
“AHH!” I jumped, slamming back into the bookshelf, as a mop of unruly blond waves swam into view. There stood my loud ray-of-sunshine of a cousin, wearing his teal, white, and blue-striped pride sweater and a smug grin.
“What’s that, Dorkin?” He nods at the stuff in my lap. “What dorky stuff are you reading now?”
Something, call it intuition, made me try to hide my findings behind my back. “Uhh…Nothing…?”
Like I really thought that was going to work. This is my cousin we’re talking about. He put on his best puppy dog eyes and pouted at me, whining, “Oh come on, you’re really not gonna tell me?”
Glancing over my shoulder as though some figure in a red cloak may appear around the bookshelf, I sighed. “Fine, just, let’s go somewhere more…private.”
We ended up in a quiet little nook at the back of the library, where I showed him the key and the torn out parchment paper (which I had to read aloud to him, as Chase will sooner dispose of all his skincare products than read a book.)
“'The 12 keys…Practical use of the archetype keys…restricted members of The Order…for the entering bodily works of fiction…Whosoever does possess a key can, when unlocking a book of fables or stories, take the place of a character therein.'”
“Omigod, the key!” Chase pointed fervently at the antique object in my hand. “They’re saying it’s magic! This is crazy amazing—I mean, cramazing!” (See? Combining words.)
Chase appeared to genuinely believe this suspicious text, while I remained skeptical for obvious reasons. Still, my gut was telling me that this town held strange secrets, and if this was the way to uncover them, then what the hell.
We decided to try it out, sneaking up to the attic above our room and testing this allegedly magical key on a random book.
“See?” I said flatly, turning to Chase as I pushed the key towards the front cover. “Nothing ha—”
The first thing that hit me was my cousin’s shocked expression—eyes bulging, jaw dropped to the floor—then the blinding flash of light, and before I could utter another word, the room was dissolving and the world was tilting and I was whisked away into a fantasy world beyond my wildest dreams.
When I got back, Chase was grabbing my shoulders, absolutely freaking out. “Deacon! Holy Boris! You, like, completely disappeared there for a minute! Like, poof! Gone!”
“I was… in the book,” is what I heard escape my lips, still dazed from getting to see a real-life medieval village and fantasy maidens right there in front of me, and it was my turn to grab his shoulders. “Chase, I was inside the book! Like, living it! As a character!!” My voice sounded ridiculous—I was practically squealing, but I didn’t even care. I could enter any book I wanted. This was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me!
Thud.
We would have ignored the small sound behind us, probably figuring it was the key or the book falling over, if it weren’t for a small, deep voice drawling warily, “…Where am I?”
Little did we know then just how much our lives were about to change.
↟ᯓ⭒﹖⛰︎👁️⃤ ↟
About a month has passed since the events mentioned above, and you would not believe what all we have gone through since then.
“Kids, check it out!” comes Ralph’s voice, and we all gather around the TV screen that’s playing an ad for the rival bakery in town, Diane’s Dough ’N’ Delights.
“Ugh, Diane.” I grimace at the name.
Diane Gleeful is Ralph’s arch nemesis. The two have been going head-to-head for decades, each ruling over their respective halves of the Springs’ elderly population like two rival gangs or something. They’re constantly trying to one-up each other through baked goods, bingo, yoga, even stealing each other’s parking spots. But ever since Ralph’s new gluten-free menu, Diane’s bakery has won over most of the town in comparison. Unfortunately, Chase and I have had the utter displeasure of making her acquaintance during our stay here.
“Remember when I helped organize that cooking competition and I refused to take a bribe and help her win and she blamed it on you and tried to kill you?” says Chase.
I crush an empty soda can tightly in my fist. “How. Could. I. Forget.”
“I once caught her stealing strawberries from our garden,” says Pru. “She’s lucky Mom is more the Disney princess type, or else she would have cursed her and kidnapped her children.”
“Diane has children?!” Chase gasps.
“I mean, probably? They’d be grown-ups, though, ’cause she’s so old.”
“She probably eats children.”
“And it’s our shared hatred for Diane that brings us together,” Wave chimes in good-naturedly, wrapping his arms around us in some attempt at a group hug. We laugh.
“Her new thing is trying to steal the Shack from me,” Ralph huffs. “Ever since she won over the town because ‘gluten-free recipes don’t taste as good ’,” he mocks, “it’s gone to her head. Now she thinks she owns all of the Springs.”
Chase quiets. “…So it’s my fault you’re losing business.”
“What? ’Course not, kiddo; everyone in this town’s just too picky,” snorts Ralph.
“Yeah, and they’re the type to think you’re gluten-free just to be pretentious!” I exclaim. “Or to lose weight or some crap! Don’t listen to them, Chase.”
“Come down to the Grand Re-opening of Diane’s Dough ’N’ Delights,” the reporter’s voice interrupts us. “At this location.” The screen displays a very fake video of our farmhouse getting demolished and replaced with Diane’s bakery.
“Screw you Diane, using AI against us,” Chase huffs.
“Uhh, should we be threatened by that?” I ask warily.
“Psh, naw. She’s bluffing,” Ralph assures me. “I mean, what is she going to do? Break in and steal my deed to the Shack?” He slaps his knee with a hearty chuckle.
CRASH!
We all freeze and stare at each other.
“…Aaand she just broke in to steal my deed to the Shack.”
We run downstairs to the source of the sound: the basement, and sure enough, who-but-Diane is there, in all her southern glory, crouching by Ralph’s safe and trying to input random numbers, glass shards from the broken window strewn across the floor.
Ralph narrows his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, Diane?”
“Hm?” The old lady finally notices us crowding the doorway and straightens, barely fazed by getting caught in the act. “Well, well, Ralph. Why, obtainin' the only thing stoppin’ me from beatin’ you once and for all, of course! You'll never stop me this ti—”
“Wave, pie,” orders Ralph, and before anyone can react, Wave has handed Ralph a freshly baked cream pie, which Ralph swings around, aiming for Diane’s face.
Diane screeches like a banshee, flailing around and running as fast as her elderly legs can carry her, all the while Ralph pursues her as Wave cheers him on and Pru films it.
Meanwhile, Chase and I exchange a look.
“We should check on them; they must be scared from the noise,” Chase whispers worriedly. I nod in agreement and together we race upstairs to the attic.
“Oh! Good morning, Chase!” a tiny voice greets when we poke our heads in.
“Greetings, Master Deacon!” says another.
“What was that loud noise?” asks the third.
We sigh in relief. Sure enough, three tiny metallic key people—keyple, as Chase calls them— are sitting cross-legged in a circle, looking perfectly calm.
“Just Diane and her shenanigans as usual,” Chase explains, pulling some snacks out of his hoodie pocket to present the keys with: Cheez-its, Reese’s cups and gummy bears, their respective favorites. “Ralph’s taking care of it. You guys okay?”
Our tiny friends nod, eagerly devouring their snacks.
You see, it turned out that key I found at the library that allowed me to enter books was only one of many, (12 to be exact), and they’re actually magical beings who can shapeshift between their key and people forms. When in key form, each of them represents a different character archetype—derived from the Jungian archetypes—allowing their user to fulfill that role when inserted into a book. When in people form, they’re five-to-six-inch-tall metallic beings who can talk and think and eat just like us. Especially that last one.
The little guy I found at the library is Bronze, the Helper key. Chase later found Silver, the Heroine, at some flea market in town, where Pru’s mother had also unknowingly bought Goldie, the Hero. We’ve been using our respective keys to enter books ever since.
With every book you complete, your key is filled with a shimmery teal substance known as narratonin. The keys informed us that once collected in full and combined with all 12 keys, narratonin can be used to grant any wish one desires. Chase wants to use it to cure Aunt Myra, and of course Wave, Prunella and I are more than on board. Pru and Wave take turns taking Goldie’s role so that someone can always stay back and watch the shack while we’re gone. So while our cover is helping out an old man with a bakery, that’s the real summer job we’ve secretly been up to all this time.
About an hour after the Diane scare, I sit behind the counter, flipping through a new pirate novel and waiting for customers to walk in, the keys hidden by the cash register as not to be seen. Pru is nowhere to be found, as usual; Wave’s gone out for food; Chase tagged along with him probably to try and flirt with the pizza guy again; and Ralph has retired to the couch to wallow after the cops refused to come here because there’s “no way in tarnation lovely ol’ Diane would do a thing like that” and he’s “just jealous her business is doing better.”
I barely look up when a customer finally does enter the Shack. “Hi, welcome to The—”
“Deacon! DEACONNN!”
Okay, not customers. The boys dash into the kitchen, out of breath, grocery bags left scattered and forgotten on the floor.
“Diane…Pineapple…Ralph’s mind…the Shack!” Chase gasps out, doubled over and wheezing.
“What?” I get to my feet. “Wait, slow down. What’s happening to Ralph?”
“He’s in danger!” cries Wave as he shovels popcorn anxiously into his mouth. “We just saw Diane making a deal with this creepy pineapple demon to invade Ralph’s mind and steal the deed!”
“…Pineapple demon?” I echo, then turn to the cash register, where three heads poke out from behind. “Do you guys know anything about thi—?”
I trail off, seeing that the keys have gone completely still, their eyes wide with terror. Even Goldie, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the guy not smiling before.
“What? What is it?” I say nervously, still getting no response. “Guys? Somebody talk, please, you’re freaking me out.”
“They…” Silver starts, looking up at us gravely. “They call themself Likenapple. No one knows his real name, but he was a former member. Of Ex Libris.”
So, let’s rewind for a sec. Remember “the Order” mentioned in that old parchment I found at the library? That’s Ex Libris, the secret society who created the keys. Kept them locked away their whole lives and only used them to collect narratonin, they tell us. Somehow, at some point, at least a few of the keys had escaped, but none of them can remember how it happened, as they’re unconscious while in key form. All they know is when they finally woke up, they were here. With us.
“They’re an unstable, unpredictable being,” Silver continues. “Not human anymore. They possess the powers of a god and can mold reality to their liking. If they’re after Ralph, then he is in terrible danger. The worst thing you can ever do is let it into your mind.”
Chase, Wave and I exchange a look of doom.
And run.
Wave goes to flip over the OPEN sign on the front door while Chase and I grab the keys, before we all reconvene in the living room doorway, poking our heads in. Inside, Ralph is dozed off on the couch, the TV playing some boring game show he likes, volume low and casting a dull blue glow over him. That’s all normal.
What isn’t is the unmistakably pineapple-shaped creature levitating above our heads, its back to us as it gradually drifts closer and closer to our sleeping uncle.
“Inside,” hisses Silver from Chase’s shoulder, and I finally tear my eyes away from the sight to glance at her. “You have to follow him in; that’s the only way to stop it!”
We all lunge towards the couch, but we’re too late. The pineapple’s form has begun dissolving at that very second. Ralph, still unconscious, lets out a shout, before going taut, his whole body emitting an awful glow. I groan, recoiling and shielding my eyes reflexively as we’re blinded by the glare.
When I look back, I see the demon has fully vanished, but in its wake, it’s left behind a red metal key… floating in mid-air and poking out of Ralph’s forehead.
My breath catches in my throat; Chase screams, his knees buckling and nearly falling over. I just barely catch him, unable to wrap my mind around the fact that there is a key and it is stuck in our uncle’s skin.
Meanwhile, all three keys climb down from us and rush forward, crying out, “Ruby!”
“…Ruby?” I echo a beat too late, turning to them in delayed surprise.
“Our brother,” says Silver shakily, pointing up at the key and looking both relieved and terrified at the same time. She turns to her siblings. “Oh, this is terrible. All this time, he’s been with…"
“Okay, wh-what the hell is going on here?!” Wave suddenly cries, gaining our attention. I turn to see he’s covered in spilled popcorn crumbs and shaking like a leaf and not chill for the first time in the month that I’ve known him. “How is a key inside of Ralph’s brain right now?? ’Cause last time I checked, Ralph isn’t a book!”
“No, but when Likenapple gained her powers, she unlocked a greater ability for keys,” Silver quickly explains. “When wielded by as powerful a being as them, we can be used not only to enter books…but also minds.”
Chase and I exchange a look of horror, the weight of that sinking in, making the air heavy.
“…So what do we do?” whispers Chase. “How do we save Grunkle Ralph? And the Shack?”
“What Silver said,” Bronze reiterates. “Enter his mind, using us.”
At a loss, Chase states exactly what I’m thinking: “But we don’t have godly powers.”
“No, but because Likenapple’s in there, he’s held a door open for you,” Silver insists. "So go, quickly! Before it’s too late!”
Without another word, the keys transform. We grab them up in our hands, hesitant to hold them close to Ralph’s head, but sure enough, the skin there goes soft like some sort of portal and the keys slide right through.
Chase’s eyes go wide, I gag, and: “Freaky,” Wave comments for all of us, before another blinding flash of light makes me squeeze my eyes shut once more. When I reopen them, I find myself in the middle of a…
Battleground?
The three of us stand on a field, grass turned brown and dead beneath our feet, everything covered in soot and a thick fog eclipsing our view of what lies in the distance. The area is lined with rows and rows of tents that I can hear voices coming out of, expecting them to belong to wounded soldiers or nurses tending to them, but when we peer inside, each interior displays a different scene of Ralph, of various events from his perspective. Him with his late wife before her passing, his little feuds with Diane, his actual time in the army…
“Woah, these are all of Ralph’s memories!” Chase realizes.
“Right. So all we have to do is find the code to the safe in one of these memories,” I assert.
“And look out for the pineapple guy,” Wave scream-whispers from beside me.
“Yes, gotta look out for the pineapple guy,” comes a voice from behind—speak of the devil.
We wheel around. A yellow, ovoid creature with spiky green leaves for hair floats several feet above our heads, grinning down at us with its beady black eyes and wearing a pink sash with their name across it.
“Ah, the Pineses. Always a pleasure.” Their voice is some twisted combination of childlike and demonic, with an unnerving and unnecessary echo to it.
“Hey!” Chase yells, pointing a finger at them. “You leave our uncle alone, you… you big ol’… fruit!”
Despite the dire circumstances, I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Woww, nice one, Chase. You really got ’em.”
“Shut up!” he hisses, smacking my shoulder.
“Astute observation there, Charlie; I am indeed a fruit,” the demon giggles cynically. “Would take one to know one, I guess!”
“Yeah yeah, we get it, I'm…” Chase begins to roll his eyes, then takes pause. “Wait. How do you know my name?”
“Well you see, Rose, Apple, Heart… That’s because I know everything. EV…ERY…THING.”
On that word, the pineapple’s voice grows deep and demonic and for a moment a film roll of different scenes all around the world like some sort of nature documentary appear in place of its body and I find myself in a trance, just absorbing all of the imagery, forgetting time and space, losing myself in the nonsense of it all, in the meaninglessness of existence, the endlessness of the universe…
Then, just like that, it’s all ripped away from me. I’m blinking wildly and recalling who I am and my life and why we’re here, trying to save our uncle, and the demon has returned to normal and his tone has gotten all cheery again. “Well, save for the code to your uncle’s deed…But I am going to acquire it for Diane in approximately 13 minutes, 30 seconds.”
“Not if we beat you to Ralph’s memory!” Wave objects.
“Yeah,” I agree, finally regaining my voice once reality sinks back in. “You may be some omniscient god, but we know our uncle better than you.”
“Hmm…You sure? Because I happen to have one thing you kids don’t. I am Likenapple, master of theft. I can steal any thought from anyone’s head and make it a reality. Even what you’re thinking right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” Chase challenges, because this kid has zero concept of danger whatsoever. “Then prove it!”
“Boom,” goes Likenapple, black eyes rounding on Chase, and in a flash of sparkles, the two men who’ve haunted my nightmares for the past three years materialize before us:
The leading guy in that godawful vampire series, Caspian Wolfsblood, and of course famous pop star Alastair from the boy band Star Brigade.
“Damn, boy,” says the latter after laying his eyes on Chase. "Are you a shooting star? ’Cause you just crashed right into my heart.”
I just know the mission’s toast the second my cousin lets out the most earsplitting, glass-shattering squeal in a frequency only dogs can hear and absolutely melts into the men’s arms as they shower him with the worst pick-up lines known to man.
When I turn back around, I see the pineapple has given himself a head start. Great.
Figuring we better get to it, we start checking tents, starting out as a group but eventually splitting up once I get tired of Chase’s useless companions being nothing but dead weight. The sight of my name on a sign up ahead piques my interest, making me forget all about the serious task I’m supposed to be focused on. I trudge up the hill to find a section of tents featuring all of Ralph’s memories of me: me trying to cook and Ralph having to get out the fire extinguisher; me trying to flirt with girls using Ralph’s advice and all of them walking away looking deeply disturbed; me trying to feed his horse Boris and Ralph having to bandage my arm after Boris took a bite out of it… Failure upon failure.
That’s all I’ve done this summer, or my whole life. Fail.
“Ugh, who am I kidding?” I mutter aloud to myself, kicking annoyedly at a pebble. “This mission was doomed from the start. Not because of those cardboard cutout hunks, but because of me. I’m no hero. All I can do is read about great heroes in books. I was a fool to think I could ever be one.”
“Neiiigh,” I hear from beside me, and turn to see Memory-Boris trampling on Deacon from a week ago, splashing Memory-Deacon with mud as he writhes and shouts. The horse’s mouth is upturned as if sneering at him—at me. Sneering at me, mocking me.
I’ve seen enough.
I trudge back the way I came, dejected. This whole thing is a bust. Wouldn’t be surprised if Chase and Wave are celebrating right now, having bested the demon guy and gotten the code and are already on their way back home. They didn’t need me. I shouldn’t have even tagged along.
“Noo!!” I hear Chase yell, and blink in confusion. Huh?
When I get there, things are nothing like I expected. The boys are all staring into the distance, looking hopeless.
“Deacon!” says Wave when he notices me. “Dude, you’re too late! The demon just grabbed the memory from us!”
Geez. So they didn’t save the day, after all. We all failed.
“Arrghh, I’m so stupid!” yells Chase, stamping his feet. “It obviously wasn’t you! I should have known!”
“Hey.” Wave lays a hand on his shoulder. "He’s a trickster, it’s what he does. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“This really bites, man,” sighs Caspian, Alastair wrapping an arm around him comfortingly.
“Come on, guys,” Wave insists. “If we hurry after it now, we still have a chance to save Ralph!”
“What’s the point?” Everyone turns to me. “Face it, guys. We’re not heroes. We’re not cut out for this. We’re up against an almighty being with superpowers. We were never going to win.”
“Deacon!” Wave hisses, glancing nervously at my enraged cousin.
“Oh, what? So you’re just going to give up?” Chase says darkly. “Don’t Ralph and the Shack mean anything to you?”
“It doesn’t matter what they mean to me!” I storm. “It doesn’t matter what I want, because the universe has made it crystal clear by now that it’s never going to let me have that! Okay? That’s the cold, hard reality of life, Chase. That sometimes, we have to realize when to quit, because our hopes and dreams are all just a delusional fantasy…” I stare down at the ground bitterly, thinking of all the times I’ve had to give up on things, even convince myself I never wanted them to begin with, so it would hurt less. “…And we are never going to get what we want.”
“Well, not with that grouchy attitude! Tch, some Helper you are," Chase spits. “Fine. If you want to whine on and on about how much you wish you were a Hero instead of just being one, be my guest.” Something about those words send a pang shooting through my chest. “Come on, Wave. We’ll save Ralph ourselves.” Chase and his bodyguards turn on their heel and march through the fog.
Wave hangs back for a sec to shake his head at me. “Look Deacon, you’re a cool dude…But that wasn’t cool, dude.” And he trails along behind them.
“Y-yeah? Well, at least I’m not marching into certain death!” I call after them despite no one hearing me but the fog. Humph. Who needs them?
I wander around aimlessly for a while, peeking boredly into random tents. This is pointless. I’m probably going in circles at this point. I start to grab my key and head home, before I hear a familiar neigh seeping out of my current tent and grimace at the scene unfolding before me. “Ugh, this again?”
Once again, I watch Memory-Boris trampling on me and forcing me to roll around in the mud. The stupid animal towers over my hunched figure, sneering down at me like I’m nothing.
That’s it.
“Why, you little…” I start to march up to the horse, when I hear a: “Hey, bad Boris!”, and the horse goes flying.
Literally.
Boris looks around, a confused little whinny escaping his mouth as he’s lifted away from Memory-me, left to dangle helplessly in the air. I quickly glance to my right, where the source of the magic stands, his hand outstretched and controlling his horse.
“G-Grunkle Ralph?! What’s going on? How are you doing that?”
Beside me, Memory-Ralph quirks an eyebrow at me like the answer should be obvious. “We’re in the mind, kid.” He taps his temple. “Anything is possible here. Just use your imagination.”
With that, he turns on his heel and marches back to the farmhouse, whistling as he goes.
“Huh,” I murmur to myself, watching an irritated Boris trying to get down but only succeeding in doing little backflips in the air. “Anything is possible…”
“AHHHH!”
“HELPPP!”
I freeze. Those were Chase and Wave’s voices, coming from a distance and joined by someone’s familiar cackling. I run to the front of the tent, squinting up through the fog to catch red beams flashing from somewhere in the sky like hellish lightning.
“They’re in trouble,” I realize. They’ve been captured. All while I was moping over how much my horse hates me and my life sucks, they were putting their lives on the line to fight for someone they care about and now they’ve been captured. “God, what am I doing? I gotta help them. I gotta…”
No. It’s time to put our silly little fight aside and heed Chase’s words. Be a hero.
I turn to Memory-Boris, narrowing my eyes and rolling up my sleeves. “Alright. Look, bucko. My family is in danger from some weird fruit-shaped eldritch creature, and I am going to save them, but I need your help. So for once, you are going to get your act together and stop tormenting me, and looking down on me, and disrespecting me, and start. being. A HORSE!”
I snap my fingers, willing him to return to the ground, and he does, snapping to attention. Seeing that he’s actually listening to me now, I hoist myself up and scramble onto Memory-Boris’ back. “Alright boy, giddyup!”
He whinnies, galloping out of the tent and through the field towards the source of the noise. It’s only as we approach that I realize it’s not just the red lightning that’s coming from up in the sky…It’s the others as well.
“Well, Boris?” I say, patting his back wryly. “It’s time to fly again~…”
“Neigh…” he says unenthusiastically.
Hundreds of feet up in the air, the others finally swim into view. They’re standing on a rocky platform in the middle of some fabricated solar system, getting terrorized by Likenapple’s powers. On one end of the arena, a giant, sentient toaster bellows: “TOOOASTEEER!” as it pursues Wave, snapping its bread racks up and down like teeth. “YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT’S GONNA POP!”
Wave clutches his head and screams in anguish as the toaster pops out a slice of bread, chucking it at him.
Meanwhile, on the other end: “Nooo, my precious skin!” Chase is wailing, kneeling on the ground. Likenapple has magicked him to be old and wrinkly and balding. “Now I’ll never be a teenage heartthrob! No, boys, don’t leave me!” he cries as Caspian and Alastair grimace at him in disgust.
“Chase,” sighs Alastair solemnly, taking Caspian’s hand in his, “it is with a heavy heart that I must confess, your new look just isn’t doing it for us. I’m afraid… we’re breaking up with you.”
“We’re going to go live happily ever after and have lots of little half-vampires without you,” declares Caspian. “Goodbye forever!” And the two leap off the platform, floating off into the cosmos together.
“So tragic,” Chase sobs, wiping at his eyes, “yet so beautiful!”
“Hey, Likey!” All eyes land on me as I come soaring in valiantly upon my noble steed. "Torturing my friends without me? I'm hurt! Don’t I get an invitation?”
“WHAAAT?” cries Likenapple, jolting in shock.
“Deacon!” the boys exclaim.
“Dude, you’re flying!” says Wave, grinning despite his awfully uncomfortable position of lying on his back while being pecked at by a flock of seagulls.
"Hell yeah, I am! Ohhh, ouch... I'll take care of that." I cast away the birds with a snap of my fingers and turn to the next victim.
“Hey Chasey, lovin' the new look,” I tease, basking in my cousin’s angry scowl for just a moment before showing him mercy. “Buuut, I think it was just a phase.” I wave my hand and, in a flash of sparkles, his skin smooths out and returns to normal.
He feels his face in awe. “Woah, Deacon, you’re magical! How did you do that?!”
“I was in a memory, and I learned that the sky’s the limit in here—As long as we’re in Ralph’s mind, all you need to do is use your imagination and you can make anything happen!”
“Really??” they gasp.
“What? NO!” Likenapple splutters. “Don’t listen to him!”
Wave turns to the toaster gaining on him, staring it down head-on as it snaps its bread racks and groans, “TOOOASTEEER… YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT’S GONNA—”
“Pop,” goes Wave with a snap of his fingers, and the monster vanishes with a poof!
And so, with our newfound powers, the battle begins.
Chase torments the pineapple with blinding star beams and painfully generic pop music, I get giant horses to trample on them, and Wave summons (fittingly) huge waves that drag them under. Then I craft a giant pirate ship atop Wave’s ocean, pull him aboard, and together we steer the ship straight into Likenapple’s eyes.
The demon reels back, roaring in anger. “That’s ENOUGH!”
On that word, all of our creations dissipate into dust. In the absence of the ship, Wave and I collide heavily with the ground, groaning in pain. The three of us stare up at the pineapple’s now colossal form. “Well, well. You know, you kids are resourceful, I’ll give you that. Learning how to bend the mindscape to your advantage. It's impressive. Your cleverness, your skill… It could definitely come in handy later. So I’ll let you off the hook for now, but don’t think you’ve seen the last of me. I’ll be watching you, mortals! I’ll be watching you…”
The demon vanishes in a flash of light and a wicked cackle.
“We…we did it!” cries Chase after a beat. “They’re gone!” We all celebrate and collapse into each other’s arms.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you, Deacon,” he continues. “Even after everything, you came back to save us. You were a real hero today, you know that?”
“I’m sorry too. What you did back there, that was totally tubular!" Wave punches me lightly in the shoulder. "You are a cool dude. The coolest.”
“Thanks, guys.” I smile at them, genuinely touched. “And I’m sorry I almost gave up on the Shack. And on you—on family."
“Alright, gang," says Chase, "I don’t know about you, but that was one hell of a day, and I'm gonna go sleep for ten years. Let’s get out of here.” We all laugh and grab hold of our keys.
Flash!
We land unceremoniously in a heap on the living room floor, the keys transforming back and landing on top of us. Boy, I am going to have a heck of a lot of bruises after today.
Above us, our uncle stirs, muttering gibberish. I look up, noticing the red key that pops out of his head, tumbling down. His siblings cry out his name, and I quickly reach out with both hands so their brother has a soft landing before hiding him behind my back, just as Ralph begins to rouse.
“Kids? What’s going on?” he says groggily. “What are you all doing on the floor?”
Chase, Wave and I sit side by side, so close we’re literally hugging each other, grinning wide and innocently at Ralph because there are definitely not four little metal people having a family reunion behind our backs.
“Uh….we…came here to tell you we stopped Diane!” Wave blurts, me and Chase nodding fervently along.
“Yeah! Everything’s good now.” Chase smiles at us. “I’d really hate to lose this place.”
BOOM!
We startle, wobbling as a horrible rattle reverberates through the house.
“…What was that?” Wave says nervously.
“Oh no, not again…” huffs Ralph, getting to his feet.
We (minus the keys) quickly scramble back down to the basement… Or what’s left of the basement.
We make our way through the ruins to find the room covered in soot and dying flames, the door to the safe blown off, and a dark figure standing there in the doorway, her eyes two glowing slits in the shadows.
“Diane?!” I gasp. “But…But we stopped Likenapple!”
“That useless demon failed me!” snarls Diane. “I was a fool to let someone else do the dirty work for me. Figured it’s time I take matters into my own hands…” She reaches in and grabs up a sheet of paper, holding it up to the light leaking in through the broken window.
“No, no, no…” Chase’s voice trembles, sounding close to tears. “After everything we did…”
“We’re too late,” Wave breathes.
“That’s right, Pineses.” The old lady grins something awful. “From this day on, The Sugary Shack belongs to me.”
We celebrated too soon. All that time we spent in Ralph’s mind, we were so focused on winning the battle...
We didn’t realize we had lost the war.