Saving Primary Sanders | A Sander Sides Book

I - Assemblification

Welcome to the first chapter of my new book! If you are here, you're probably reading my other book Bonded by the Blues, and glad to have you on board with this too! If not, do go check it out!

Shout out to WhoIsThisAgain for the lovely colour popping cover and coming up with the name Dignitary Defense Division. 

Have fun!

Let me set the scene.

It's 3.00 am in the night.

You got one job to do, moon. Look mysterious and forbidding, peeping out in between clouds of darkness. No wait, the sky was dark, except for the pinprick of stars, so I guess the clouds were whatever the colour clouds are at night. Alright, we got the sky sorted out, let's look down.

We are on Dionysus Boulevard, which the richest and greatest of actors and movie moguls call their home. Anyone who was someone in the Biz has ended up in one or another of the white portico flanked houses for an awards ceremony after party or an interview swept under the rug.

At this time of the night, only the flickering yellow lamplights kept the shadows at bay. You could not hear even the loudest snore of a celebrity, except for one overbred poor little pug that lived in the house in the corner. Alone. The pug had its own home. Its mistress lived across the road.

Oh look, there's a figure slouching down the road. He is in black, of course. Sneaking glances at the golden letters on every gate post. The fact that the package in his hand is wrapped in brown paper and string alone was enough to prove that he most certainly did NOT belong here, as what denizen of Dionysus Boulevard would stoop down to the level of brown paper, when Swarovski crystal encrusted wrapping paper would do?

He stops in front of a house. Now this house is important to us, so listen carefully. It has a more modest and simple design than the rest, but it makes up for that by having walls in every colour of the rainbow and looks as if made of tiers of icing. This big gay cake house belongs to a certain Thomas Sanders, acting extraordinaire, angelic of voice, and all-round ray of sunshine.

Our mysterious visitor – no, intruder – climbs over the gate and creeps up to the front door. It has a wreath of holly and a jack o' lantern hanging above all year round, either because the owner of the house has an absurd fascination with both holidays, or he was just too lazy to take the decorations down. The man shoves the package through the slot for letters and newspapers and hightails it back to the street.

He turns around to face the house. His swallow features twist into a grimace of glee as he raises his hands dramatically, looking like a demented scarecrow in a fourth-grade production of The Wizard of Oz. He cackled.

"Bwahahaha, now I got you –"

The front of the house explodes.

He is abruptly cut off and thrown across the road from the shock wave from the blast.

He lies there stunned for a second, whiles sirens start blaring up and down the boulevard, because if there's one thing its residents cared for besides fame, it was the fear of being safe in their beds at night. Dammit, plan foiled, he thinks, wishing he set the timer on the bomb for a minute or two longer.

But, true cape swirling moustache twirling villain he is, he simply could not leave without a speech.

"BWAHA – CRRRRRK"

The heat off the flare left him with a parched throat. He is turning out to be as buffoonish as a cartoon villain. But cartoon villains were notoriously good at fleeing the scene of crime, and that's what he does. He is annoyed that he doesn't have supersonic shoes, an invisible jet or an underground drilling machine thingy to escape on but running was good enough for now.