A collection of short stories featuring miscellaneous adventures in the Universe of Ferretopia
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Strange, nonliving entities known as the Nulls have leaked into the Universe of Ferretopia, threatening to rewrite the Reality Worldline.
While Lester...
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Sherwin gave Lester his sly grin. "Go for it, bro!" He held the side of his glasses and turned slightly aside, raising a shoulder against his cheek. "Prove me wrong."
Lester swatted a hand in his direction, giving a cool laugh. "Be careful watcha ask for." He took a swig of his drink and tossed it at Sherwin—Sherwin instantly jerked his head aside and summoned a black hole to swallow it. Meanwhile, Lester was already hovering over to a bulky-looking dark-brown ferret. As he struck a conversation with the other ferret, Sherwin's sly grin morphed into a look of unease. He looked over his booth, stiffening as he saw the Altered-Null of himself swirling through the shadows by the window at the far end of the restaurant. As it turned to face him, he saw its glitchy face—it alternated between faceless and showing his typical sly grin.
Without realizing it, Sherwin was entertaining a flurry of images in his head.
Images from the Ex-Lula Would-Be Worldline.
He saw himself cackling as he made contorted dances around a flurry of shadows—shadows of monstrous, jaw-snapping ferrets.
A wild, eerie cackle echoed around him—it alternated with nonsensical shouts. Though it was all gibberish, the words somehow sent chills running down his spine. He felt nothing like the identical Altered-Null form of himself that swirled through the flurry of shadows, cackling with that eerie voice.
Sherwin snapped out of the image, giving a quick grunt and whipping his head away.
"Dammit..." he whipped his paw down and whirled around, staring ahead with his teeth clenched. His lower eyelid twitched as he tried to fight back intrusive images of the scenes in that nonexistent Worldline. He swished his tail, summoning a wall of Spectrum Zero—its silver light shone on his Null and caused it to disappear.
The images still kept intruding his head, however. He could still hear that eerie cackle and incomprehensible—yet disturbing—words.
He shot up to his feet and raced to the bathroom. He flung the door open and let out a yowl. There was another Altered-Null of himself sitting in the urinal, swinging its legs. Its face blinked and glitched, alternating from faceless to his identical face, fixing him with his own identical, sly grin.
Sherwin's head was filled with more images again.
Images from the Ex-Lester Would-Be Worldline.
He saw himself—or rather, his identical Altered-Null—swirling through a botanical garden. He was giving a calm, yet sinister smile as he held a bouquet of roses against his chest.
He swirled around the garden to watch as two Mutant ferrets—one with three eyes and two tails, and another with five eyes and eight legs, swirling around each other. They were smiling at each other. Even when spikes emerged from their respective flanks, causing them to slice each other in strands as they swirled around each other.
Sherwin gave a smooth chortle and inhaled the roses— they smelled nice with the scent of their blood.
Another smooth laugh echoed around him, alternating with nonsensical murmurs—it sounded like the eerie cackle from his previous vision, except much more mellow.
Sherwin snapped out of the images. Somehow, that was more disturbing than the first vision. He felt almost too disturbed to move.
But as the images tried to invade his mind again, he gave a glare and did a quick, slithery dance. Spectrum Zero appeared again—its silver light caused the Null on the urinal to disappear.
Sherwin barged out of the bathroom, not knowing where he was going to run to.
He bumped into someone as soon as he stepped out.
"Ugh..." Miriana stumbled back, wincing.
"Shit!" Sherwin flinched, widening his eyes at her. "Sorry, babe..." he flicked his tail and caused the Z-Phone she had dropped to hover back into her purse.
The half-pink, half-purple ferret lifted her eyes to watch him turn and take a seat at one of the tables, away from the dancing crowd. There was a perceptive flicker in Miriana's narrowed eyes as she watched Sherwin summon tiny robot ferrets to hover above his table. He swirled his tail and caused them behead each other and stab each other— a habit he had whenever he was under stress.
Miriana's serious, narrow-eyed frown morphed into a small smile. She hovered up to his table. "Hey, nerdface," she murmured, flicking her tail and causing his glasses to straighten. "You know those Worldlines won't ever exist."
Sherwin made the robots slow to a pause. He forced his smirk to return. "Hah. I know that! I just wish I knew how to them out." He gave a wry smile. "Welp. The price you pay for having such a wild imagination like mine. Nulls from all sorts of Would-Be Worldlines are just dying to share their shit in my head."
"Yeah..." there was a teasing flicker in Miriana's eyes. Then she yawned and turned, stretching her arms to the side. "Anyway, I gotta get going... running late to my midnight photoshoot. See ya..."
She was about to leave, but then felt a paw clasp her wrist. She raised an eyebrow as she gave a calm look over her shoulder—Sherwin was holding her wrist and giving her what seemed to be a forced smirk.
"Heh. Forget your midnight junk," said Sherwin with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He yanked her back so that she was sitting on his lap. "Just stay here and soothe my soul."
Miriana gave a sultry laugh and flicked his glasses off.
Sherwin quickly turned to catch them—in doing so, he released her and Miriana rapidly swirled off his lap. As Sherwin put his glasses back on, he turned to see that Miriana was already horizontally swirling toward the exit. She looked over her shoulder and gave him a quick, calm smile, then disappeared around the hallway.
