24 April 2012
'AAAAGHJESUSFUCKHELPHELPHELPHELP!!!' Exclaimed Johnny, blood gushing through his heart at the speed of blood, eyes streaming, and nose running like all manner of clappers.
The centipede had retreated now, and the blurs that the poor earthling assumed to be other, and probably nastier, giant centipedes, shifted where they stood, gazing at him.
Johnny kicked furtively at the glass of the container, thumped with all his fists and willpower at the grizzly fate that he knew awaited him. Finally, after almost five minutes of pure thumpage, he stopped, exhausted, hands tired of the feel of the cylindrical prison that he had awoke in.
'He's very loud'
Came a voice, female, absent minded, and self assured, from outside the Walls of his medical unit.
'Funny. He seemed so quiet when we docked.' Pondered the centipede from before, it's hazy image moving further into the White.
'Maybe he came on a whizzer. Those can do fucked up things to your head, man.' came a third
'Can't have. We'd have picked up the signal. And anyway, He's not got any tagging devices, and his clothes looked REALLY old. '
'Fancy dress party gone wrong?'
'Nash, Boots, please could you, like, step out for a sec. Just so I can get some sense out of him'
'Why?
'Just please. Now. Out there. Go. Shoo'
'Okay. Bye Gella!'
'bye bye, Boots'
A long pause sounded, right in the middle of the room.
'are the- are the things gone?' Whispered johnny, after two minutes, barely squeaking through his parched throat, as the liquid drained out of the container with a loud CLUNK.
'Things?' Said Gella, blurred by the glass, reaching up to her head in a casual arc of motion.
'yeah. The... Things. You know. The- giant- um... Monsters'
'Monsters?'
'THE BIG CENTIPEDES!'
'The Fatragrates?'
'The whats?'
'Fatragrates.'
'Them. Are they gone?'
'Yes. They're gone.'
'Can I come out...
...Gella?'
'Don't call me that'
'Okay then... Ma'm. Can I come out, ma'm '
'Yes.' She said, bluntly, pulling on the handle at the top of the frame, which let out a series of small bips as the hinge turned.
The air in the room was petrifyingly clean, like mint and disinfectant, and all furnishings were colour coded to match the white metal and White padding of the four walls, on which an array of medical equipment was strung.
The first thing you notice about Gella McCanister when you meet her is not that she is five foot six tall, or that she has deep, brown eyes, or that she always wears a pair of chunky yellow dungarees, or, even, that she has a small scar In the shape of a crescent Moon on her temple: it Is that her skin is a darkish shade of green. This, funnily enough, is the first thing johnny noticed about her, aside her stunning beauty.
'You're green' Was the first thing he said. The first thing he thought, however, is 'don't say she's green'.
'Yes, my skin is green.'
'Why is it green?'
'I dyed it'
'Are those... Fff- ffatragates going to eat me?'
'Oh fucking jesus christ. This is just like first contact all over again. Why can't they understand we can't process meat?' Came a muffled outburst from the fatragrate in the outside corridor.
'Nash! Zip it!' Hissed Gella, shooting a stern look out of the doorway.
Small clicking sounds erupted from the centipede-creature's mouth, as it garbled and clacked it's jaws in disarray. (Fun fact #2: Fatragrates are extremely sensitive to angry brainwaves. One good whiff of hatred could seriously damage their frontal lobe. It is therefore important never, ever, to shoot it a look too strongly dosed with malice. Fortunately, the look neatly missed the Fatragrate's head, and bounced off the wall behind them, fizzling out halfway down the darkened corridor).
'Let's get some food,' prompted the green lady, ushering the dazed johnny out of the neat White doorway, and into an even more bewildering and annoying labyrinth that he could ever have dreamed of, in any sort of wild dream (even wilder, perhaps, than a particularly 'graphic' scene he unconsciously envisioned at the tender age of thirteen. This particular dream taught him two things: that bedsheets are really far too thin, and that he could never watch baywatch In the same way ever, ever again)...
The Misadventures Of Johnny Foreigner Part 2 • Opuss № I