The Ferret Universe

Chapter 9

The cycle happened again— I found myself with wings, flying with a winged Lula through golden clouds, both of us energized by a strong, lifegiving presence.

Then I was riding my motorcycle while she rode her mattress, chasing after the Soul Bandit as he appeared and disappeared at various portions of the Universe.

Somehow, I knew that we were on day 7 of our Mission. We decided to make a rest stop at one of the planets at Galaxy D. As we landed in a quiet town, there were three moons in the dark sky that cast dim lights over us.

But we got no rest that night. We were beside a broken streetlight pole, standing stiff as we faced a coin fountain with four ferret statues. Lyla was curled up into a fetal position by the fountain, sobbing.

Her face had that wide-eyed, crazed look, but tears were streaming down her eyes. She was letting out forceful groans and moans.

"Ohhhhhhhh the flagship dilly wall set the steer on high! UUUUUGHHHH NOOOOO!" Lyla buried her face in her knees and began rolling left and right.

She bumped against the fountain and instantly shot up to her feet in panic. Her clouded eyes met ours.

"GYAHAFA!" Lyla pointed at us with a look of hurt and desperation. "Rake!" She panted rapidly. "MINGLING TAPER WHOPPERS OF THE PACIFIC SPIN!" She swiped at the air in our direction— a frying pain merged with a machete materialized beside her paw and quickly tumbled our way.

Lula and I jumped to opposite sides as the pan-machete struck the pole between us.

Soon, we were racing through the city, evading the sobbing ferret as she swerved haphazardly through the air, delivering sloppy thrusts with her paws and tail and causing broken or merged objects to crash-land around us.

Lula and I were soon cornered in a dark alley. We gasped, turning around with dread.

To our surprise, Lyla dropped to the ground with a harsh thud, as if she had purposely thrust herself against the ground.

I winced at the site. Lyla twitched and flopped around, letting out loud, abrupt cries. Then she got up to rapidly bang her head against the building wall to her side, before resuming her rolling around on the ground, thrashing and sobbing.

She got up again to bang her head against the building wall on her other side, then tore out a chunk of her fur from her cheeks. She rolled around again, twitching and flopping, then shot up to her feet, panting heavily. Blood was leaking from her eyes and ears, while spilling from various portions of her body where she had torn chunks of her fur.

She staggered around, pointing at us. Her voice was passionately mournful. "You doyly fooder-pins, spickle span yada-yada, yak-yak-yak!" She made her way toward us, raising her arms as if about to do a sloppy slithery dance to summon more objects at us.

But then she paused. Her eyes lifted. A look of fear and panic came over her face.

Lula and I turned to follow her gaze—fear and panic also came over our faces.

Standing in the building behind us was a jet-black unclothed figure with ice-blue eyeballs.

Eyeballs that were wiggling ever so slightly left and right.

"The Soul Bandit," I gasped.

"BIYAHAHAHA!" Lyla's hands tore out a huge chunk of fur from her temples. She turned to dash away in a blur, crashing into a bunch of buildings and cars along the way, causing each one to explode into glitching fragments.

A large wheel zoomed in our direction, hitting me on the head.

I shot my head up again, panting. I found myself back at the banquet.