Blizzard Blowout 64

CHAPTER 5

They were nowhere in sight, and when Akaman reached the summit hours later, somehow, someone suddenly attacked him.

*BAM!*

His ball broke all around him.

The guy tackled him and Akaman screamed as he struggled to fight back...

"HIYA! HIYA!" he shouted as the person blindfolded him, pinning him against the snow. "You shall never get the best of me, foul monster!"

But then, the man, tying him up, placed him next to his house.

He didn't want distractions from the thing he was making...

"Ignorant and naïve nincompoop," the bad guy would later say. "What does a snowman have that I don't?"

"Please!" Akaman yelled, kicking back and forth. "I don't like this... What do you want that I think I don't have?

"I mean the only thing I have is a tiny bed, a tiny table, and a tiny picture."

"Hmph!" and the guy grunted, slamming a hammer onto something concrete-sounding.

"Please." And Akaman begged. "I don't like ropes— I have this weird phobia of ropy situations.

"It's not a pun, by the way!"

The guy sighed, not caring about the snowman's linonophobia.

He knew it was an obvious trick, and as a trickster himself, the attacker knew he could easily outwit him.

* * * * *

Hours passed, and Akaman had fallen asleep.

A big drop of snow drool (drool that was made of snow) casually played on Akaman's lips.

He suddenly felt the ropes falling off, and he woke up excited, quickly pulled away the annoying blindfold.

"Ah," he said. "Thank you."

The man was armed with a flute, and Akaman seeing him, jumped back with fear, slowly trotting backwards as he shook, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Please." And he tried to reason with him.

"In the ball! On your right!"

"I have a phobia of terrible... being forced into claustrophobic areas, sir."

"Inside your hamster ball, snow-poop!"

"Okay; okay."

And the guy chuckled slightly. "Haha; further than that, I think you have music-phobia too."

"Yeah."

"Okay, alright! The joke stopped being funny eons ago," the guy said. "Get into the ball and have this over with, alright?

"I'd only like to show the world what happens to people who think like poop because everyone thinks like poop, I think," he said. "Selfish, spiteful, hateful.

"Everyone's a nincompoop.

"They are the ingredients of a hateful civilization."

"And?" Akaman asked.

"In the ball, miscreant!" the guy's teeth gnawed a little. He was getting tired of Akaman's constant disobedience.

His flute went up to his mouth...

"Alright."

Akaman squeezed himself in. Folded his body before he got in...

He pulled out a small chunk of snow from his body too as he realized he'd had a weird thing on top of his head.

"Oh, I placed a flower vase on your head when you were asleep," the villain explained. "So you would look less heroic, and more like a failing hero or something.

"This game is rigged, by the way. It has a lot of jumping pads and fake-outs."

"Game?" Akaman was puzzled.

"I call them blowouts. Blizzard Blowout 64—that's what I'm recording on my brand new Polaroid 64.

"I'll show it to the internet, and you people will be an example of selfishness gone wrong.

"Your friends are in those boxes in front of you, and are not expected to survive."

"Pardon?" Akaman was beyond baffled.

"Try to save them," he said. "Don't wait for my word."

Akaman's mouth shriveled in worry.

"Now!"

"Oh!"

Racing slowly towards the first box, Akaman was scared.

There was a single platform  holding up the box at the very end.

It was a long drop now from here to the bottom.

This one was easy...

He'd reached the box, expecting everything to collapse.

But instead, inertia was his enemy...

He hit the box, and it spun out of the ledge, out of control...

"Clear!" the guy shouted with what sounded to be a megaphone.

The box came bouncing up from a gigantic net below them...

"Oh!" Akaman's heart was racing fast. "I thought— um... erm..."

"You're a bigger monster than I am," the guy mouthed into the megaphone with a smile. "If it weren't for the net..."

"Hey, Akaman!" someone from the box shouted. "Thanks for saving us!"

Akaman smiled.

It'd been his crush, but she was too far away to talk to.

"You're welcome." He'd forced the deepest voice out of his mouth as much as he could muster. "And er... who lied to me about the bad guy being a wolf or something?"

A boy quickly raised his hand.

"Sorry," he said. "I thought he was an actual wolf in sheep's clothing when I first saw him!"

"Those are not sheep's clothing!" Akaman snapped, whispering, still with his deep voice.

"My friends have always called normal clothes sheep's clothing!" he said. "I had no other way to express my knowledge of garments in such a stressful situation!

"I was devoid of time, and wasn't thinking straight!"

"Well, you ought to write better, next time." And Akaman rolled back to the guy...

He tried to imagine the platform not falling, looking up at the clouds nearby with a dreadful look...

"Easy as pie," the guy said. "I have a few other dangerous platform toys up on my sleeve, however. I think they're--"

"Just show me what's next." Akaman was annoyed.

"Sure; sure..." the guy would nod. "But first."

He pull out a pair of scissors.

"You have to prevent me from cutting the net.