"Don't Be Next!"

- Chapter 8 -

FWhip woke to the sounds of fighting. He felt someone else moving beside him and saw his sister. He scrambled to his feet and toppled over backwards. "Oww..." He groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head. Everyone's attention turned to him. 

"Um. Hi?" FWhip shrugged.

Pearl's face was very pale, Lizzie's eyes were wide with fear and everyone else just looked confused.

Gem heard a loud thump and a voice. That voice. That was- "FWhip?" She murmured, sitting up. Her brother. Alive, sitting right in front of her. 

"Gem!" FWhip's entire face lit up, and Gem felt hers do the same. The two siblings hugged for a long moment. FWhip let go of his twin. "Hey," He said softly, brushing away the tears in Gem's eyes. "You know it's not your fault, right?"

Gem shook her head. "N-no- it- it was my fault and I understand if you hate me now and-"

FWhip pulled Gem into another hug.

- about 15 minutes earlier -

Cookies. It had to be cookies. A hermit with any sense would know that a plate of chocolate-chip cookies sitting strangely on the dinning table was most definitely a trap for a certain someone. Apparently, a hermit with two brain cells had no sense. 

It had all seemed perfectly fine. Grian didn't see or sense any danger, so he took a cookie.

Mumbo arrived to watch his friend hold up the cookie. As Grian was about to take a bite, Mumbo remembered something. Chocolate was poisonous for parrots. "GRIAN, NO!" Mumbo yelped, running forward, tripping, slapping the cookie out of Grian's hands, and falling flat on his face. 

Grian grabbed more cookies from the plate with surprising speed and flew up into the air. "You'll never catch me alive, Mumbo!" He yelled jokingly. The parrot boi flew out of the room as Mumbo yelled: "You're part parrot!"

Grian flew up and landed on the refrigerator.  He frowned at the dust and blew it away with a beat of his wings. Guarding the cookies carefully, he held them in his palms. There they sat, delicious looking. Grian wanted to eat them. He did want to. But something about what Mumbo had done rang a bell in the depths of his mind. Meh. Probably nothing. Grian stuffed the cookies in his mouth happily. The reaction was almost instant. Grian cried a squawky shout of pain, and he saw the world starting to disappear around him. 

"Not again..." He whispered to himself, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I don't want to die again..." 

A strange figure seemed to grab him, but it was so blurry. Grian saw a flash of purple, some white cloth, and then everything turned black.