Bubblegum Universe

Chapter 2

We walked around in silence, this place gave me the creeps. Everything here was different. I looked around taking notes of everything weird and different here. From the triangular shapes of the vehicles, to the weird looking people on the streets. The animals too seemed to be a part of this deceit. I saw a cat once that looked like my pet Jasmine, only this time her white was stained with something red that was undoubtedly blood and just too much to even be a rat's blood.
I avoided talking to Kenneth as we walked, but I knew it wouldn't last for a long time and it didn't.
"Can we talk?" He asked.
"Hmm?"
"I want us to talk."
"About?"
"About yesterday."
"No I do not wish to talk to you or talk about yesterday." I said very formally like he was a stranger.
"You are already talking to me." He raised his hand up.
"Then well I better stop." I couldn't help but think back to that day in school, the day he had approached me while I was alone. How I wanted to leave him there he dragged me back and once more, I fell into his trap. He sweet talked me, told me how he wasn't going to ever leave or hurt me again and as stupid as I was, I believed him only for me to get hurt a week after, for me to be left alone. Deep down, I hated myself for being a fool, for falling so hard for a boy that cared only about himself. But when it came to the surface, I pushed all of my hate to him.
"Please Tonia just listen to me" he called out. I was brought out of my thoughts, but my focus wasn't on him but what laid ahead of us. I was swiftly turned by an invincible force and he bumped into me, but neither of us minded that.
"Listen to me" he said "give me your attention."
"You are sick. I should give you my attention?" I shook my head. "Never mind that, are you even paying attention?" He looked at me confused and I pointed to what was now behind me.
There was a kind of rocky  pavement that went high from the ground and stopped the solid ground we had been walking on. After that was what scared the hell out of me. It looked like different colors of tangled yarn, that was joined together to form a road. At each side of this crazy road, was empty space only filled with grey smoke and surely a fall from there led to ones death. As we watched this road skeptically, a man passed by us and I couldn't help but draw him back.
"Sorry is there another route to Salami street?" He looked at me like I was some weird kid before walking into the road of yarn.
Kenneth made an attempt to go in with the man, but I drew him back.
"What the hell are you doing here? Hmm you trying to get yourself killed?"
"No, I'm trying to get home" he smirked. Was he that dumb? I thought to myself I mean Kenneth wasn't dumb but was he that dumb? Hadn't he already realised that this wasn't our world, this wasn't home. Yet here he was saying he just wanted to go home.
"It's not funny" I said to him "you could die."
"Don't you see the people walking on it? Are they dying?."
"We are not from this world remember?"
He ignored my warnings and said as he slowly walked into the yarn road. "Why are you bothered, you are not supposed to care about me remember?"
"And I don't I just don't want to be left roaming a strange world al..." I was interrupted by his scream. "Ahhh "
"Kenneth!!!" I screamed back my hand stretched forth to try catch him but to no avail. Just as quick as that, his stupid laughter invaded my hearing while he rose up from his knees to face me. Tears stung my eyes, that was the problem with him, he was always being insensitive and there was no way that I was going to walk on yarn. I was going to find another way, or better still I would begin to live in this world as a homeless girl as a matter of fact, I had always wanted to be homeless.
"Tonia come on please it's safe"
"No"
"You are wasting time" I swung my head the other way, my folded arms on my chest.
"Just trust me on this one."
"No" Kenneth telling me to trust me was really absurd. I was already turning around to begin my life of homelessness.
"Stop behaving like a child for crying out loud, Tonia give me your hand"
"I'm acting like a child? What do you call what you did few minutes ago? Pretending to fall acting so insensitive."
He breathed out"just please give me your hand, you won't fall I promise."
I gave in, and put my hand in his already held out hand. I climbed on the pavement and was really hesitant to leave,  with one leg stretched out in front of me and the other, firmly on the rocky pavement. I slowly and carefully began to venture into putting the outstretched leg on the road of yarn, but then before I could say Spongebob Squarepants, he pulled me down onto the road. I screamed, waiting to just keep falling until I had reached rock bottom and my brain, skull and blood splatter around hot volcanic stones. But nothing happened, well of course something happened but nothing as gruesome as I had pictured. As a matter of fact, nothing gruesome did happen. Instead of my head to be burst open, I found my legs sinking in what was a very comfortable texture as we walked one gentle step at a time, my heart still beating really quick. The road stuck to our feet when we lifted it up and when we brought it down, it sank right back in. It was elastic, felt almost as if we were walking on bubblegum, already chewed bubblegum.
As we began to walk, this weird road became thicker under my feet. No!! My feet became firmer on this weird road. I found myself ignoring the looks on the faces of the smiling people, I just jumped around and happily making sure to sink my foot deeper into that road any time I landed. A little part of me kept on saying that this bubblegum floor would give way for my leg and I will fall right through it but I ignored that warning and soon enough, Kenneth joined me in my ecstasy. It was quite weird, finding so much happiness in a world that scared me no matter how short lived it was going to be. After about 15 minutes of joy, we were back on rocky ground and sure enough, we were back to our usual self. Grumpy and distant. After a few steps maybe not a few, but not so much either, we got to Salami Street and there stood Chimamanda's house in all of it's glory.
I didn't quite understand what Tobi meant by big because in this universe, almost all the houses in Salami street were big, huge even.
"Even in this universe, Tobi seems to be dumb." Kenneth remarked and I quickly came to his defence.
" He said the first big house after Chimamanda's house"
"He also said after five houses." Kenneth was right, he did say after five houses and the first big house after Chimamanda's house was not after five houses, It was immediately after her house. But a thought came to my mind, what if Chimamanda's house wasn't the one we were standing in front of, what if we were staring at the wrong house. It wouldn't hurt to try I thought to myself.
"Let's just go to Chimamanda's house." I finally suggested.
The house we were about to go into looked exactly like Chimamanda's house in my universe. It was a very big 3 storey building, that was painted yellow. Her gate was black like almost every other gate was painted only that it was humongous. The only prayer that ran through my mind was that she actually lived here.

------
How's it going peeps. I hope you are as interested in this story as I am.
Don't forget to COMMENT, VOTE, SHARE😁