Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Chapter Ten: Down With the Space Sickness.

"--uck?"

Cosmo blinked. Everyone was staring at him.

"Umm... what just happened?"

"I think you finally went insane."

"Ah. Well. That explains it." Cosmo smiled serenely at Squid and the tall robed figures. They were looking at him as if he was wearing his undies on his head.[1] He checked, just in case. He wasn't.

"So... now what?"

"Now we find the ... space ship!" Jeff paused meaningfully, but the invisible orchestra had gone for lunch.

Cosmo peered at the map he was still holding. "Where are we on this thing, then?"

Squid looked over his shoulder. "According to Jeff, we're exactly ... here-ish." He pointed vaguely at the lower half of the map.

"Exactly?"

Squid nodded firmly.

"Oh good."

"We need to go that way." Jeff waved a robed hand, encompassing at least three entirely different directions. "Ish," he added.

Cosmo sighed. "Tell me. How long have you been looking for this treasure?"

"Before you got here?" Jeff glanced at his wrist. "Fifteen years. Give or take."

Cosmo nodded. He was beginning to see why. He also suspected he would come to regret all this before long; in fact he suspected he already was.

Then again, what did he and Squid have to lose? Nothing but their sanity, self-respect, dignity, hopes, dreams, lives, and trousers.

"Let's go," he said.


Ten minutes later they'd all climbed out of the hole Cosmo had fallen into a few chapters back, and were looking at Jeff expectantly.

Jeff stared hard at the map for a while. Then he turned it the right way up and stared a bit longer. Finally he looked up and nodded. "It's this way." He pointed to the right, walked off to the left, and fell into the hole they'd just climbed out of.

When they'd helped him out again, one of the other two interchangeable tall robed figures took the map from him, muttered something Cosmo didn't catch, and walked off. The rest of the group exchanged slightly puzzled looks, shrugged their collective shoulders and followed.


They walked for what felt like hours, until the sun went down half an hour later and it became too dark to go on. Cosmo looked around. They were in a dark, ominous-looking forest, full of tall, foreboding trees and very creepy background music.

Jeff looked around, hands on his hips. "Perfect! We'll rest here tonight!" From somewhere behind him came a long, mournful howl, followed by ominous rumbling and a flash of lightning. Jeff caught Cosmo's look, and gave him a thumbs-up. Something was trying to crawl into Cosmo's left shoe.


Cosmo had trouble sleeping that night. Whenever he closed his eyes, he felt as though he was surrounded by hundreds of glowing eyes, watching him in the darkness. Whenever he opened his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by hundreds[2] of glowing eyes, watching him in the darkness. He finally gave up on sleep altogether when he found Greg sitting on his chest, drooling noisily.

He pushed the (probably) dog off his chest and sat up. The forest around them was very dark, and very quiet. Oh, except for the rustling footsteps and heavy breathing he could hear nearby.

Being a brave intergalactic space hero who laughs in the face of danger[3], Cosmo decided to get up and investigate. For lack of a torch, he grabbed the small robed dog and pointed his eyes in the direction of the noise. The footsteps stopped, then started again, very slowly, away from Cosmo. He followed, gently swinging Greg from side to side like a searchlight. The only things this revealed to him were, firstly, that they were surrounded by trees, which he had in fact known before, secondly, that dogs don't like being swung around like a searchlight, and finally, that Greg contained a surprising amount of vomit for a dog his size.

Cosmo cursed quietly, dropped Greg, and ... froze. Just for the fraction of a second, before the dog dashed away somewhere, his glowing eyes had illuminated a pale face between the trees. A face that was a little too transparent and contained somewhat more teeth than faces generally should. It sent a shiver down Cosmo's back. He did the only sensible thing you can do in this sort of situation.

"Oi, you there!"

There was a loud hiss somewhere in front of him. He headed towards the noise, waving his arms and shouting. "Hello! Is anybody there?!"

The hiss stopped, right in front of him.

Something leapt out of the darkness.

--
[1] Again.

[2] Okay, eight. But they're very bright.

[3] Even though it sounds like screaming sometimes.