Eight Legs Too Many || ONC 2021 and 2022

Chapter 8: Shiori unwillingly takes a road trip

Shiori hadn't realized how much she relied on Yoko until her sister was gone.

Ever since their parents had died, they'd been inseparable—well, as inseparable as two sisters with diametrically opposed social interests could be. Yoko had friends by the bucketload, but she still made time for Shori. She served as a buffer for all sorts of social situations that normally tied Shiori's tongue in knots.

And that wasn't all. Yoko knew where the tastier cat food was, the stuff that could lure Mr. Tibbles into his carrier. She knew the number to the vet where they always boarded Mr. Tibbles when they went on vacation. And she knew how to stuff a recalcitrant Mr. Tibbles into a carrier without getting chunks of flesh torn out of her arms.

"You're caught on the left," Devland panted.

They had been trying to squash Mr. Tibbles into his carrier for the last half hour, but the cat was too strong. He would brace all four of his paws around the edges of the door, and they hadn't been able to get more than his head in successfully. So Devland had come up with the brilliant solution of wrapping Mr. Tibbles in a blanket burrito and stuffing the whole cat inside, blankets and all. Except they had wrapped him in too much blanket, and now the blanket was getting stuck on the metal prongs of the door.

Mr. Tibbles let out a pitiful meow. First Yoko had abandoned him, and now he was being cruelly burritoed and stuffed into a carrier. He probably thought the world was ending.

Shiori couldn't honestly say she blamed him.

Remorse shuddered through her.

The whole situation was her fault. If she'd agreed to Death's plan sooner, he wouldn't have taken Yoko captive. She hadn't taken Death seriously enough. She'd acted like a bratty teenager, treated Death's threats the same way she'd treated the pandemics and the bombings and the plagues—selfishly, superciliously, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad ever happened to her. And now Yoko was in the clutches of a madman—madwraith?—who'd openly admitted to having sociopathic tendencies a few hours earlier.

"...Shiori?" said Devland.

Shiori realized she was clutching Mr. Tibbles with such firmness, his eyes were bulging out. Hurriedly she stuffed him in the carrier and let go. Mr. Tibbles flopped on his side, the picture of desolation, and let out a devastated yowl.

"Well," said Devland, looking down at his arms—or what was left of them. They were really more scratches than skin. "That was an adventure."

Shiori nodded glumly.

"We should load the car," Devland prompted.

Silently, Shori picked up Mr. Tibbles' carrier and fished in her purse for the car key.

She'd been right about one thing, anyway. 

Devland hadn't been fully honest with her the day before. 

He'd made traveling to the land of the dead sound like a one and done deal, like waltzing into a grocery store to buy a cabbage. In a way, the analogy was accurate. Anyone could get into the land of the dead. All you had to do was to detach your soul from your body with your favorite murder weapon of choice, find a soul portal, and sweep on through.

But what Devland had neglected to explain until that morning—and what Shiori considered a rather gross oversight—was that there was a considerable amount of prep work that would be necessary if Shiori wanted to make it back from the underworld in one piece. Prep that was basically the equivalent of having to buy a car and learn how to drive it home from the store, while simultaneously juggling cabbages and balancing a rotisserie chicken on your head, in keeping with the grocery store analogy.