AFTERLAND and The Cryptic Prophecy

12: The Watchmen and The Sandwich

Red velvet cloth covered their whole body. They wore black boots, red gloves, a red hood and a silver mask that glittered with floral patterns. A memory dove into my head. They were the ones I saw from the mortal world, the red creatures flying with skateboards. The skateboard they were riding looked like hover boards with an aircraft turbine at the back.

"Guys, behind you!" I warned.

"What a creepy face!" said Diordin, but she sounded more annoyed than frightened. She even clenched her jaw.

We sped up to escape from those red people, but they seemed more skillful in flying. We had a hard time getting away from their sights.

"I have a plan!" Harris shouted, with voice filtered by the wind.

"What is it?!" I asked aloud.

Harris explained his plan within thirty seconds. I wasn't sure if it would help us, but we were lack of choices. We split up, Diordin to the east direction, Harris and Franco to the west, and I headed the north. I started counting from one to twenty.

The two red people followed me. Others chased Harris and Diordin in their respective directions. I sped even more as they were already four meters away from me.

I recalled how these red creatures made me look like an idiot and a prey of mockery in school. The will to take revenge on them was brewing inside me. They would surely love the taste of my sweet vengeance.

Like what we planned, I did a U-turn in my twentieth count. As expected, the red creatures followed me. I flew at all speeds, then I saw Dior and Harris from afar. I prepared myself to follow the last part of the plan, and to create a powerful impact.

We accelerated up when the three of us were in proximity, so fast I almost let go of my hand from the flying broomstick. The fools chasing after us collided with one another. They propelled away the Hangret Woods and with that impact, I was sure they lost consciousness. Sleeping birds flew overhead to where they fell.

"Yes!" Harris celebrated.

"Nice tactic," I said, and he smiled at me. If I could only stitch his mouth to make him stop from smiling, I would definitely do it!

The red people disappeared from our sight. Yep! I called them red people because that's the only decent term I could use to call them. It would be too lengthy to refer to them as red-masked-creatures-riding-a-skateboard. I thought the problem was over, but it wasn't. Our broomsticks started creating noise, an irritating one.

"Oh gosh! The gas is empty!" Diordin exclaimed.

"Gas?" I muttered. "It has a gas?" I checked the button and below showed a long glass monitor stated empty. Gas powered and operated the broomstick, but was already empty.

The silence broke by our screams. We couldn't do anything because the gravity was already pulling us down into the woods. We continued screaming until we reached the ground. You probably thought I died, but no! Killing me would be the end of this story.

"That was fast," Dior said, looking at her flying broomstick destroyed from falling. We fell into a clump of dried leaves.

"But it was fun," Franco cracked, catching our attentions.

"Oh. The pelican looks okay now, huh?" Diordin said sarcastically.

"Thanks for the amazing ride." Franco tapped Harris on his shoulder.

"No problem." He smiled -again! Apologies for being overacting, but I couldn't really stand his way of smiling.

"Alright!" I snapped. "We have to decide now our next move before the other red people find us," I suggested.