The Ferret Universe

Chapter 10

My moment of intense rage and vehemence was short-lived. As I stared up in the sky where Lula and the Soul Bandit had disappeared, I started to feel a mixed wave of numbness and distraught.

I could barely process what just happened.

I stood there with a blank look on my face, despite experiencing a tumultuous wave of thoughts, emotions... and vivid images of Lula sitting behind that Bandit, her arms wrapped around his waist while she snuggled her cheek against his back.

I clenched my teeth and felt my eyes start to cloud. I couldn't tell if I was more mortified by the fact that Lula had been whisked away by the Soul Bandit, or the fact that Lula had looked so happy to be with him.

Or was she happy? That look in her eyes...it was like she had been under some kind of spell.

Either way...she still looked so happy with him.

I wanted to tear my fur out. I mean...Lula and I...we were never in any official relationship. But still...

"GAHHHHHHAAAHAAHA!"

The earsplitting scream again— it snapped me out of my trance.

My head slowly turned to see a white hole hovering nearby. Above it, a gray, scrawny figure was clasping the wall, near the junction between the wall and the ceiling.

Lyla.

The scraggly-furred gray ferret was whipping her head around. Her face was making all sorts of weird contortions, displaying many disturbing expressions rather quickly.

Then her rapidly-moving head did a 180 and was gazing straight at me.

"Girash nibah ralaha," she muttered.

I blinked. It sounded strange to hear her speaking so quietly.

And it felt surreal to see her in this current moment rather than...in whatever you could call those other moments I'd seen her.

Lyla was a blur as she leapt down from the wall-ceiling junction and zoomed up to me—she stopped and stood with her face inches in front of mine.

Her eyes now had a dazed look to them. She was looking at me, but it seemed like she was looking through me. She tilted her head slowly and slightly, her eyes looking me up and down. She then flicked her tail, causing my robe to disappear.

I stood still, gazing at her with a slight look of surprise. If I wasn't still traumatized by what I had just seen, I would've reacted. But instead, I stood there with a blank stare, watching as Lyla slowly hovered around me. She maintained an unreadable, wild-eyed expression as she gazed at my long, lean figure. When she was hovering in front of me again, she quickly reached forward to grab my cheeks.

She began murmuring something under her breath—I couldn't tell if she was saying any words or not. Then her head twitched. Her face did those strange contortions again. A flurry of weird expressions alternated on her face— eventually, a crazed, panic-stricken gaze landed on her face.

"Uhhhhh!" Lyla squealed. "Shibbla ponada HUNGALANDUM!" Her hands squeezed my cheeks so tightly that I felt my jaws crack.

"Ack—!" I was about to yowl in pain, but in a split second, Lyla was shaking me up and down, shouting and wailing a series of incomprehensible sentences.

Everything was a painful, rapid blur as I felt myself being shaken up and down, then tossed aside. I grunted as I tumbled a few feet down the hall. After flicking my tail and quickly healing myself, I stumbled to my feet, a little dizzy. As my vision cleared, I saw that Lyla was now on the floor. The gray ferret was thrashing around, punching herself in the face, banging her head against the floor and the wall, shouting all sorts of nonsensical words.

"Lyla..." I croaked, staggering to my feet.

Lyla instantly stopped, looked up at me with her teary eyes, then zoomed at me, crashing into me.

Everything went black.