Lost in Translation: A Collaborative Story

Part Five: Spickerzocker

Rebecca woke shivering, her teeth clicking together. She didn't even feel cold, just a bone-deep shakiness.

Someone to her left said, "And I'm saying we should move her to the floor so I can do chest compressions!"

Davian. What a twat.

"Like hell we're moving her," came from her right, "and besides, her heart isn't stalled, you idiot, you'd kill her!"

Thank you, Mike. She wasn't quite dead, not yet.

Rebecca groaned and shifted, the metal of the table hard and unforgiving under her back.

"Rebecca!"

She opened her eyes and squinted around. They were still in the mess hall and not back in the cryo-chamber, the cavernous space unlit except by the faint daylight diffused by fog falling through the window.

The beam of light, healing or not, that Rebecca had sat in, was gone.

She propped herself up on her elbows and glared at Davian. "Don't do CPR on me, you asshole, even if you knew how to it would just hurt like shit."

Mike pointed at Davian and hollered, "Ha! Told you so, you fucking prep!"

"I am being oppressed," Davian complained.

"Preps deserve to be oppressed," said Rebecca, collecting a high-five from Mike.

Davian slumped onto the cafeteria bench next to him, crossed his arms and sulked in his little preppy outfit as Rebecca scraped herself off the table into a vaguely vertical position, arranged her legs into a tangle and pulled her striped armwarmers up her biceps.

"Ow," she said as her head throbbed.

"You okay?" asked Mike.

"Yeah, just-" Rebecca hissed through her teeth as the throbbing progressed to a sadistic goblin pounding on the inside of her forehead with a hammer. She clutched at her head.

"Will you just stop," she demanded.

The pain abruptly ceased.

Huh.

"Hey. Hey. Hey. Becky. Hey." Mike was pulling at one of Rebecca's teal highlights. She batted his hand away.

"You okay?" asked Davian.

Rebecca frowned. "I mean. Sorta? What happened anyway, did I pass out?"

Mike and Davian exchanged glances.

Rebecca said, "I don't like this, out with it."

Mike scratched behind his ear. "So we were running in the cryo chamber from these fog monsters, whatevers, right? And you inhaled one."

Rebecca nodded. "Like the phattest vape rip ever."

Davian sat up straight. "What, really?"

"Yeah, sure, it was rootbeer flavour- No, of course not, you idiot. It was fucking rancid that's what it was."

"Aw." He slumped back.

"Anyway," Mike continued, "we managed to get here and this weird light came down on you like you were some sort of holy figure."

"Ew, Christianity," said Rebecca.

"Yeah, I know, work with me here. Dave and I started talking about if there was food in the kitchen and then you went all wobbly, and the light went all wobbly too, and then you passed the fuck out. Just flat, face down on the table, big thunk. Dead to the world. We dragged you onto the table and Davian wanted to do CPR for some reason even though your heart was still beating and then you woke up."

Rebecca gnawed at the chipped black polish on her thumbnail. "No more fog monsters?"

"Not since we left the corridor, no."

"Wack. I could've sworn I saw one."

Rebecca's head hurt at her left temple like someone had missed the memo that ice pick lobotomies were done through the corner of the eye and tried to take a shortcut through her skull.

"Fucking ow. Can you stop doing that?"

The piercing pain receded.

Davian and Mike were staring at her like she had grown a second head.

"What?"

Mike pointed at his septum piercing. "You got a little..."

Rebecca swiped her sleeve under her nose, catching a trickle of fresh blood. Ignoring Davians horrified stare, she held her sleeve up to her nose to catch any more blood. Fuck him, she was punk as hell.

Rebecca cleared her throat and said, "so, about the one that I inhaled."

"What about it?" asked Davian.

"Yeah, I think it's still knocking about."

"Inside your head?"

"Yeah."

"Like you're possessed?"

"A-yup."

Davian and Mike spoke at the same time.

"We need to do an exorcism."

"That's goth as hell. Level up, man!"

The two boys stared at each other.

"What?"

"What."

Rebecca hummed. "Mmm, going off me being Jewish as all hell I'm gonna go with Mike."

"Do you reckon we can communicate with it?"

"Not until it learns to behave and not set off my migraines every time it moves, no."

"Aw beans." Mike wilted.

"Hey, speaking of beans, I could eat," Rebecca said, twirling her pink and teal highlights so they stuck up again. Much better.

"Okay, let's settle this democratically. Who here wants to check out the possibly haunted kitchen in search of food?" Davian asked.

Rebecca and Mike exchanged glances and raised their hands.

"Overruled!" crowed Rebecca and hopped off the table.

Mike stuck his tongue out at Davian and Rebecca stuck her hand into Mike's overstyled quiff and gave it a hearty scrub.

"Hey!" called Mike and pawed at the blue rat's nest on top of his head, hurrying after her.

"I hate democracy," complained Davian as he trailed behind them both.

"Last one to the kitchen is a rotten egg!" Rebecca laughed, her Chucks slapping on the floor as she took off running. 

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Written by El, general purpose Maker-Of-Things, speciality nerd, queer as in fuck you, local cryptid extraordinaire, occasionally existent.https://www.wattpad.com/user/spickerzocker