The Unknown Tales: A Collection of Short Stories, One Shots, and More

The Story of My Morning Sprint for My Life (and Bill's too)

Hi! Gale here again. No. I'm not dead this time. This has nothing to do with my giant snake lady sister. Just me and Bill out for an early morning jog that quickly turned into an early morning sprint for our lives!

My name is Dollar.

Not this again! Just because mom and dad named you that doesn't mean I'm going to call you something as stupid as Dollar.

Humph!

Whatever. I'm Gale Christian for those of you who don't know blah blah blah FBI Agent blah blah blah read all about how I died in The Story of How I Died (and my brother Bill). Anyway! We were running through the forest behind our house. Actually more accurately it was across the state from our house. I'll explain later.

Why not now?

Because I don't want to! Okay? Okay. Before I go on there's something you need to know about this particular forest. It's old. Like Fangorn old. It's also filled with annoying magical creatures that will eat you if they see you.

How is that annoying?

Because I don't want to spend the morning being digested by a unicorn! Do you know how uncomfortable that is?

No.

Then shut up. Fortunately we didn't see any bloodthirsty unicorns on our run but we did see hundreds of tiny gnomes.

I hate gnomes.

So do I. And chickens. Vile creatures forged in the fires of Mount Doom and can only be destroyed by cutting their heads off with a machete and consuming their meat.

Are you done?

Yes. Moving from the chickens. I didn't take much notice of the gnomes at first. There's always one following us whenever we run through that forest. It was a few minutes later when I saw five more following us. Five's not to bad but Bill was starting to look a little worried. Naturally I wasn't.

That's because you can teleport wherever you want!

Actually I can't. It's a very complicated process that takes at least five minutes.

Oh yeah? What about the time we were being chased by chickens riding llamas? You teleported pretty quick then.

Umm, yeah.... Well... Enough of that! I almost died!

I almost did too when you left me behind!

I panicked! Okay?

Whatever.

M'kay, back to the story. Pretty soon they multiplied into a couple hundred. By then I was worried.

You started panicking when seven were following us.

Hey! Don't blame me! Remember seven ate nine?

Oh, yeah. That was disgusting. We spent a whole year trying to fix the numbering system. I really hate math now.

My point exactly. By the time there were seven gnomes I knew they were going to try to eat us. We picked up speed a little hoping to shake them off our tail.

I don't have a tail...

It's a bloody figure of speech, Bill!

Oh.

Yeah. Oh. Back to the gnomes again. A couple hundred turned into four hundred. Four hundred turned into eight hundred and so on until we had thousands of little vicious gnomes waddling after us with their fangs bared and snarls coming from deep inside their hideous fungus covered chests! We rounded a bend and suddenly there were thousands more! They were all around us! Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands...

Gale! Focus!

Eh hem, sorry. Thousands upon thousands of gnomes! Enough to cover your house in a sea of little garden monsters! By far the second most dangerous creature I have ever encountered!

What was the first?

A smiling woman sitting in silence.

Yikes!

Indeed. When we saw all those thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of gnomes Bill and I screamed. I'm pretty you could hear it in T.A.H.I.T.I.

Tahiti?

You know alien investigation. Coulson.

Oh, that Tahiti.

We ran for the trees but they were there too! So. Many. Gnomes!

It was like Gnomeo and Juliet all over again!

With no other options to come blazing out of the sky in a ball of fire from a Roman oranger we ran. I don't really remember how long we ran for, time tends to not matter when running for your life. We rounded a bend and suddenly before us stood the Mother of All Gnomes! She was twelve feet tall with huge... things dangling from her skin all over her body. Not real sure what they were but it was disgusting! She kind of reminded me of Kida... But less scaly and not quite as huge. I wish I could say I wasn't so scared that I may or may not have had nightmares about it for the next month, but I can't.

I still have nightmares.

We were stopped in our tracks with no place left to go but up. But since neither of us can fly that wasn't an option. We would have to fight. Now that I think about it... We probably could have just given them a potted plant and they would've been happy.

We didn't have one with us, Gale.

Oh, right. So, Giant Gnome Lady came stopping at us screaming,

"Fe fi fo fum! I smell the blood of a..." We never got to hear what she was going to say next because Bill shot her with a flare gun that I had tweaked a little until it was more like a fire-grenade-throwing-balista. She shattered under the impact and went in a thousand different directions. Before any Giant Gnome Lady shards could hit us I created an impenetrable barrier of solid air that protected us from the death shards. Her little gnome minions stared at us like we'd done something unforgivable. Then they began to cry. It was awful. Then they chased us.

That was the worst.

So yeah, mid morning sprint for our lives until we found the nearest gas station and hid out until I could teleport us home gnome-free.

There's one on your back.

What?

There is a gnome on your back.

Where?

There.

Get it off! GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!!!

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Contest Entry

Comedy

Contest Judges

BananaBam03

GadSul

Ithildaeforever

I went 14 words over. Is that okay? I think it is...