Qoq Qagh

Chapter 6

 The four of them -- Esmeralda, Lasko, Pro and Darkling -- decided to go out and have fun during Darkling's time with her family. First, they went to the aquarium. Darkling took Pro to see some of the sea lion, stingray, horseshoe crab, dolphin and clownfish exhibits. Es and Lasko just did some exploring. Lasko seemed interested in all the life forms and Es was just watching him.

"It's fascinating!" Lasko exclaimed. "All these different species of one life form. I didn't even know about this!"
"You really like these fish, don't you?" Es asked, giggling at his childlike fascination for something as simple as aquatic life.
"Yeah!" Lasko answered. "There's so many different types of them and they all live freely." When he said this, he seemed to lose his energy. "I wish my time was like this." He frowned, placing his hands on the glass of the jellyfish exhibit. As he did that, tears started flowing down his cheeks. Es was slightly surprised.

"You're crying?" she asked as she hesitantly reached over to hug him. "I didn't know you could cry."
"Neither did I," Lasko replied, still sobbing. "I... I don't understand these feelings."
"It's okay, Lasko..." Es hugged Lasko tighter to comfort him. "These feelings are good. They mean you're actually human." She kept hugging him as Lasko kept uncontrollably crying. "It's okay."

After Lasko had calmed down a little bit, they all took a trip to the history museum. There were all sorts of exhibits there where they saw things about the histories of different countries, different cultures and different former presidents (which made Lasko a bit jumpy).

Lasko seemed intrigued. "I don't see anything about Donald Trump here," he said. "Where is he?"
"Probably sitting in his White House," Es mumbled which she followed up with a giggle. Lasko seemed confused so Es explained it to him. "It's 2017... Trump just became President a little under a year ago."
Suddenly Lasko seemed scared.

After all this, they headed home and just decided to get the deck of WA' cards out. As the four got in a circle, Darkling took the deck of cards and handed everyone seven cards which all had a number in between one and nine on them in one of four colors. There were also some special cards in there that could be used to alter the gameplay.

Es took one more card from the deck and placed it down next to the deck, revealing the card as a red number six, then Lasko, being left of the dealer (Darkling) went first. He put down one of his cards: a red number three.
Then, Pro put down a red "Draw Two" card, causing Es to draw two cards.
Well, it would have had they not been playing by the stacking rule which enabled Es to put down her own "Draw Two" card (which was blue). This caused Darkling to draw four, having no "Draw Two" or "Draw Four" cards.
Lasko then put down a Skip card which skipped Pro.

This went on for a while until Pro and Darkling had no cards left. Es and Lasko were now fighting for third place. Es had one card left while Lasko had six cards. Pro and Darkling were rooting for Es and Lasko had no support on his side of the field. The card was a yellow nine.

It was Lasko's turn, so quickly he came up with a plan.

He put down all six of his cards in a particular order!

He put down a Yellow "Skip" card.
He followed with a Blue "Skip" card.
Then, a Blue "Draw Two" card
Then, another Blue "Draw Two" card.
Then, a "Wild Draw Four" card, changing the color to green.
Then, a green Seven.

And with that he won.

Es laughed at how conveniently Lasko won using all of his cards as Es and Darkling clapped.

Strangely enough, though. Darkling's clapping seemed to be getting weaker as suddenly she fell backwards, struggling to breathe. The other three went over to her to see if she was okay.

"Looks like..." Darkling whispered in a hoarse voice. "I've reached my end."
"Darkling, no!" Es cried.
"It's been... fun..." With that, she closed her eyes as she exhaled one last time. Darkling was dead.

But just then, Lasko placed his hand on Darkling's head and whispered in a loud robotic voice: "SoHvaD yInmoHlaH jIH wItI'nISmo' jIHMej laH wej vIta' poStaHvIS reH alive SeH SoH Hegh Sumqu' lut plot progression vay'!"

Halfway through his sentence, his hand started to glow a bright green which caused Es and Pro to shield their eyes with their hands. Lasko also seemed to be turning pale, however it was hard to actually see it through the bright light.

When Lasko had finished, Darkling slowly began to breathe again and her eyes slowly fluttered open. Es and Pro couldn't believe their eyes! Darkling had been brought back to life.
"Darkling?" Es asked questioningly. "Is... that you?"
Darkling sat up and was clearly confused.
"What happened?" she asked.

Lasko intervened. "I brought you back to life," he said with a smile forming across his face.
Darkling seemed just as happy as he hugged Lasko so tightly that his metal almost started to get crushed within her grasp.

"Welcome home again, Darkling."