The Rainbow Friends: Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Meet Blue

I woke up soon after the tragic coach crash. I opened my eyes, but I was unable to see much due to my vision being blurry. I could tell that everything was completely and utterly still. I moved my hands to wipe my eyes to see if that could help with my sight. My hearing was fine. I could hear people around me.

"Is Sam dead?" a familiar voice rang out. It was Dan! My vision gradually cleared, revealing a dimly lit room with a dark grey ceiling and black-and-white checkered flooring. The walls were painted white but covered in a brown substance resembling mud. It was a confining space with no visible means of escape. Determined to find answers, I rose to my feet and hurried towards Dan.

“Oh good. You’re not dead,” Dan says looking very relieved.

“I’m not dead Dan. Where are we?” I ask Dan.

“I don’t know,” Dan replies. We start scanning our surroundings for any sign of a teacher. Disappointingly, there was no teacher in sight, not even my favourite teacher, Mr Cunningham. I wished he were there with us. Luckily, we found Noah and Nat.

“Hello. Are you to okay?” Noah questions us worriedly.

“I’m fine,” I replied to him.

“I’m good,” Dan replied.

Nat stands there awkwardly, not wanting anything to do with the conversation. Then, they start looking around for something or someone. Afterwards, they looked at the floor sadly with a few tears trickling down their cheek.

Suddenly, a voice emanated from a damaged gray speaker nearby, sending chills down our spines.

"Welcome, everyone... I need your help," the mysterious voice spoke. A section of the wall next to the speaker opened, revealing a large TV screen that extended outward.

The TV screen gleamed with a shimmering display, encased in black plastic. It showed another room within the confines of our captivity. In the center of the frame stood a red wooden table adorned with 24 colorful blocks, each bearing a letter. Surrounding the table were flattened wooden crates and torn red curtains. In the background, a red sofa and a curtain added to the scene.

The lights suddenly turn off in the block housing room and something happens… the blocks disappear nowhere to be seen at all.

“My blocks… fell over… All you must do is find them and put them back,” the mysterious person speaks.

“I mean if this person says so,” Dan says to me.

“Good luck everyone. You’ll need it…” the person lastly says before vanishing.

“Oh. Thank you for the good luck,” Dan finally replies, “such a nice guy even if he kidnapped us.”

Before us, a seemingly solid wall split into two, revealing the world we were trapped in. As the door opened, a cold breeze and a blinding flash of light overwhelmed my senses. After a moment, I could finally see again, and what lay before me was astonishing. Dan stood there, waiting patiently as he always did.

We ventured forward together, exploring the first room. The sight was peculiar, with a floor covered in fake grass and a stone path splitting into two directions. One path led to an oak door, while the other crossed a wooden bridge over a flowing river, complete with tree trunk log flumes. On the right, a small shop with decaying wood and empty shelves caught our attention. Two trees stood near the oak door, and a table rested on the other side of the bridge.

The most peculiar thing in the room, however, is a cardboard mascot sign featuring a tall blue monster. This monster has a golden crown on its head and stands upright, with a pink tongue sticking out from its black mouth. Its large eyes stand out on its head, completing the strange yet intriguing image.

“Riverride Through Hemlock Woods,” Dan reads out looking at a sign.

“What place is this? Why are we even here?” I ask myself but Dan kindly responded to my question.

“It looks like this person took us here for well… safety after the coach crash maybe.”

I stand in the ‘Hemlock Woods’ area next to a wooden door and my face starts to show unbearable pain as I clutch my right arm tightly. Without warning, a surge of agony courses through my body, causing me to crumble to the ground. Tears stream down my face as I cry out in anguish.

“It hurts... Oh God, it hurts so much...” I say to myself

The sound of my cries reaches the ears of Dan and Noah, who are nearby. They immediately rush to my side, their faces filled with worry and concern.

“What happened? Can you hear me?” Dan questions me.

I struggle to respond, my voice choked with tears and pain. I can only manage to shake my head weakly, my suffering rendering me unable to form words. I see that Dan and Noah exchange glances, their expressions reflecting the urgency of the situation.

“We need to call for help right away,” Noah says to Dan whilst I lay on the floor in immense pain.

“We can’t. We don’t know where we are,” Dan panics. Then, with the pain getting worse, my ears block out every sound in the background.

I see that Nat stands there, their eyes filled with a mix of empathy and uncertainty. They desperately want to reach out and offer support, but their social hesitations hold them back, leaving them unsure of how to assist me.

I then see them rummaging through my bag, throwing my things into the water apart from my phone. Suddenly, they running towards me and screams, “Where are they?!”

“I forgot them,” I say awkwardly.

“I reminded you!” Nat screams at me, making me feel worse.

Noah and Dan stops Nat from screaming at me so Nat backs away. Noah looks back at Nat with understanding and compassion.

Dan takes me back into the room we woke up in and then Noah sits by my side, holding my hand and providing words of reassurance when my hearing works again.

Nat approaches me cautiously this time, taking a seat nearby. They gently reach out, placing a trembling hand on my back, offering a silent but supportive presence.

The pain goes away eventually and we all split up. Me and Dan, Nat and Noah.
What would I do with out them, especially Dan and Noah.

In the corner of my eye, I catch one of my class peers running around the place looking for blocks but he didn’t have any from what I could see. Me and Dan decide to follow him to where ever he was going so we weren't the only ones who weren’t doing anything at all. We decide to follow our peer, not knowing what we were doing in the slightest

Dan looks up at the back of the person’s head and exclaims randomly, “This guy is tall. All our peers used to be small like us, it’s kind of wild that they’re taller than us. We’re tiny…” I could tell Dan was embarrassed about his height and I could agree with him one hundred percent though. Our height is small, very small compared to some of our school peers.

We continue our adventure through the new building we are in and we walk through another oak door into a windy, long corridor. We walk through the door and we are greeted with a moving cardboard box… it was one of my peers. I thought to myself, “Why is he hiding in a box?”

Dan laughs at the stupid sight of a person in a box and says, “No no. We’re not going to find you. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay bacon hair looking person.” The person lifts the box off their body and runs away with me and Dan in pursuit with him since we still had no clue what we were doing.

Me and my greatest friend ran up a wooden ramp to be greeted by a block with a thick red outline and a letter on all sides.

“Ooo. I found one. Gimme gimme,” Dan says enthusiastically, “where do we have to bring them back to again?” I facepalm my face in Dan’s stupidity.
I like Dan. My best friend in the entire world but sometimes he’s so childish. I like that about him though.

“This looks like a good place to put them,” Dan says. Out from a nearby wall, another TV extends out. The TV flickers on and it reads, “Blocks Found: 1/24”

“Yes there we go, see. Oh yes!” My friend says sounding accomplished. We run out of another exit/entrance to the block place and we turn down a corner that leads up another ramp.

“I’ve gone from not helping the team to…” Dan gets cut off by him seeing something mysterious suddenly. We peek around the corner and I see a glimpse of a big figure.

“Chonky boy. What are you?" Dan questions me and himself, his voice not trembling with fear in the slightest, "Let's go investigate that... weird blue thing."

“Why Dan? It could kill us,” I say to him but he ignores me.

We hesitantly ascend a decaying ramp, our footsteps echoing ominously through the air. As we reach the top, a chilling breeze sends shivers down our spines. Standing before us are two unsettling sights—a rotting oak door and another sinister ramp veering off to the left.

"Let's go up the ramp. I saw the thing go up that way," I exclaimed, trying to mask my unease with false confidence.

"I mean, we should probably..." Dan nervously begins, but his words are abruptly cut short as a bone-chilling screech pierces the silence. We whirl around to see the blue monster, its presence looming like a nightmare incarnate. Our fight-or-flight instinct kicks in, and we scramble away from the creature in sheer panic, our hearts pounding in our chests.

We hide behind a large, rusted metal tube, its cold surface offering little solace from the horrors that surround us. Gasping for breath, we realize the gravity of our close encounter.

We look back at the blue monster but it didn't appear inherently vicious.

The creature abruptly ceases its chase, turning to face us. It wasn’t chasing us it was just looking at us. However, this time we could see its full self.

A single, monstrous eye dominates the right side of its disfigured visage, while a sewn-on white button adorns the left. A crown, tarnished and dripping with blood, rests precariously upon its head, a chilling symbol of its unholy authority. Its entire body is enveloped in a sickly dark blue hue, accentuating its repulsive form. Its elongated arms extend menacingly, dwarfing its short and stubby legs. An open mouth oozes a viscous, light blue drool, defying the laws of gravity as it hangs in mid-air. Its devilish eye locks onto ours, a gaze that seems to pierce through our very souls.

The beast stops staring at us and starts to chases us to the block housing area.

However, yet even in the face of this abomination, Dan's fear gives way to a strange, twisted amusement. He starts to walk backward, a hysterical laughter bubbling from his lips.

"Hey, you're kind of funny. I like you. I like you a lot," he taunts the monstrous entity, his voice laced with a mix of madness and sheer terror. Pointing a finger in my direction, he adds, "Look at his little dribble, he looks like the Cookie Monster, but way worse."

The blue monster’s eyes gleam with a malevolent hunger, and a chilling growl reverberates from deep within its grotesque form.

We quickly run past another person in a box. I could see she was beginning to get out of it. We run and reach the block housing room and the first ramp encountered. We hide behind some uncovered pipes and hope that the blue thing had lost us. He loose us but he got the other person we just saw…

I look back at our peer was inside of the cardboard box.

A horrifying scene unfolds before our horrified gaze, plunging us into a chilling mixture of terror and sorrow. The Blue monster suddenly picks her up with an unnatural speed, seizing her delicate frame in its monstrous claws. With a sickening, bone-crushing force, it tears her apart, shattering bones and rending flesh in a gruesome display of violence.

As the Blue monster drops her dismembered remains to the cold, unforgiving floor, an eerie smile stretches across its face, a sinister grin that sends shivers down our spines. It relishes in the macabre act it has committed, basking in the sadistic pleasure it derives from the pain and suffering it inflicts upon its helpless victim. The monster walks off leaving our peer to die.

We stand frozen in terror and disbelief, unable to tear our eyes away from the gruesome scene that unfolds before us.

The life drains from the girl's eyes, leaving them hauntingly vacant. The air is filled with the echoes of her agonised and dying screams, a haunting melody that pierces our souls and etches itself into our darkest nightmares.

Her lifeless body lies discarded, sprawled in a grotesque tableau of horror. A pool of her own blood forms beneath her, a crimson testament to the brutality of her demise. And in her eyes, rolled back in a final act of desperation, only the bloodshot sclera remains, a chilling reminder of the terror she endured.

Haunted by this nightmarish spectacle, we are left with a profound sadness that taints our hearts. The tragedy of her fate engulfs us, making us feel ever so guilty in every way.

“Did we just sacrifice someone…” Dan guilty says, “I feel a little bit bad actually. I think she just came out of her box and… wait Josh?”

“Oh my if it isn’t DanTDM and his friend, SamTDM. I found one of the blocks and I’m going to put it back over there,” Josh exclaims his plan confidently, “Oh, I almost forgot. I found two spare boxes and I thought to myself: does Dan and Sam have one? I can now clearly see that you two do not. I’ll give them to you two. You’ll need them to survive.”

We go into the box and we stand completely still. The box had eye holes so we could see out of them but we could see Josh wasn’t doing a very good job at being sneaky.

“Josh, Josh! Be careful! Your not doing a very good job. You okay Josh?” Dan asks himself since Josh couldn’t hear him. Josh runs back to us, the blue creature chasing behind. He instantly puts a box on and doesn’t move an inch.

“Oh come on. He just saw you put the box on. It’s so obvious we’re here now,” Dan exclaims. The blue creature walks past us, clueless that three of his prey was in front of him. He walks past dumbly, swaying his arms and body as he walks.

“Ay you know what? At least he’s dumb,” Dan laughs.

Josh gets out of his box and says, “I’ll see you two later okay. It’s time to get more blocks!”

“Bye Josh,” I shout to him as he runs off. He hears and waves back to me.

I smile at Josh as he starts to run away. I could tell he was a good person and he made my day a little bit better.

Me and my best friend get out the box and then Dan hears something.

“I think… I think he might be coming back,” Dan confusedly says, “he sounds pretty close just putting that out there Sam.” We go into the blocks room and we read the TV again.

“Alright Dan. Out of all the blocks we have found… 7 out of 24…” I disappointedly inform my great friend. 

“Doesn’t sound like we’re doing to well to be honest,” Dan exclaims. We do some more adventuring in our new prison. We were both hoping to find some more coloured blocks so we could potentially escape the new place we were taken inside of. We run up a brown staircase leading to another hallway that splits two ways.

“More blocks must be found!” Dan exclaims to himself.

“I agree Dan. I want to escape,” I answer back.

In the background, I see Josh run into a room in front of us.

“Good job Josh. Wait… how can we pick up more than one at once?” Dan asks as well as telling Josh good job. We run into the same room Josh was inside and we scan the perimeter for blocks.

“No. There’s really none inside of here?” Dan disappointedly says, “what even is this place? This place is weird.”

We carry on running around the place cluelessly.

“Sam. We haven’t exactly talked about how the bus driver just.. he wasn’t even going fast down the ramp and managed to flip the coach and cause it to implode and knock everyone out,” Dan tells me as we walk into a new area of the place.

I listen to what Dan had said. Nothing good had happened. My heart is still in pieces. We wanted a trip to Odd World and we got this, wondering why it was us and if the other coach made it to odd world. I couldn’t forgot what had happened.

The room was made up of one huge castle made up of stone bricks stuck together by concrete. The floor was the same fake grass as the first room and also had a wooden bridge going over a fake river that leaded no where. The room was covered with beautifully lit lanterns hung up by wooden posts in the ground.

Dan runs up a staircase and is greeted with a fake door. I could tell it was fake since it looked like it was drawn with a crayon. On a different wall nearby, are some words that look like they were written by a two-year-old. The words read, “you only slowed my down.”

“You ain’t slowing no one down and you ain’t slowing me down…” Dan pauses to think, “actually you are. I can’t find any more blocks! I’m actually useless.”

“Dan. Do you think this looks like a Disney toy shop factory thing?” I question him, feeling upset in a way.

“It really does. I can agree with you 100%” Dan answers me, sounding optimistic.

We run back down the steps and into various types of rooms. Me and Dan decide to split up and find blocks. I went one way and he goes the other. I run back into the block housing room and I look at the block counter. ‘20/24’

“Everyone. If you have a block bring it back to the theatre,” the mysterious person tells us.

“That would have been helpful when we weren’t 20 blocks in,” I say to myself, thinking my best friend was there with me.

Suddenly, out of complete nowhere, I was knocked out, unconscious once again...