Ring of Storms [1]

32.

Yil

The engine of the automobile fired up to proceed out of the pack, just as it had done the first time Zena and I had travelled here. Its interior decor was one of black and beige leather upholstery to compliment its slick exterior metal covering together with the transparent glass panes that were automated and moved only when you deemed it fit. The invention was one of elegance and its accessories provided a suitable enclosure for we that harbored in it. Who needed portal travelling when you could journey in style?

Also how could one forget the monstrous audio system whose sound waves reverberated throughout the whole car in time to the very loud, overly-enthusiastic, musical singing of its inhabitants.

"So tell me what you want, what you really, really want!!" Lyod sang in a shrill tone.

"I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)," Dina replied with sass and some hand movements.

"I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah," Zena finished.

"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends....." they continued in unison, laughing and giggling their way through the song.

This was our seventh time hearing the same track.

Kiba had so luckily stumbled upon two padded pill-shaped things which he had subsequently plugged into his ears to block out the offensive assault of disarrayed musical notes while I had been left to the musical ministrations of three strangled cats. It sounded harsh but trust me you'd think the same if you were here.

"Kiba. Oy!" I hissed at him. He was oblivious to my calls and so I tapped him and motioned to his ears. He reluctantly pulled the padded ear lifesavers out and looked at me, impatient to put them back on.

"I order you to let me have them," I said with a stretch of my flattened palm and a quirked eyebrow. Maybe he'd take me seriously if I scowled.

"I'd have to go against that order, Princess. Just this once," he threw me an apologetic look and glancing momentarily at Lloyd, Zena and Dina who were still singing, oblivious to our pain, he shivered in sheer apprehension. "I can't really stand their singing," he whispered, lest they heard him.

"Okay okay we'll do a ten minute rotation," I hastily, negotiated. "I'll have it for ten minutes then I'll give it back once my time's up and vice versa hmm?" I pushed, looking at him with round, doe, green eyes.

"I can't even stand a second," he refused with a deep sigh. "But you've been listening to them for at least an hour, I'm sure you can power through the remaining minutes or better still join the ruckus," he reasoned, picking up the ear plugs in an attempt to re-wear them. "Princess fighting," he added, mimicking the numerous Korean dramas that we had watched over the weekend.

The nerve ugh!!

The track had changed to something more slow tempo and with it the loud singing had stopped to be replaced by soft musical notes as Dina and Zena raised their hands and swayed in time to the beat with Lloyd singing her heart out as she drove past numerous buildings. I peered at the words that flashed past on the display screen and deduced that the current track was a single by West Life, Queen of my heart. Thankfully it was much more pleasant to the hearing.

I looked back towards my window and noticed that the natural elements of the Black moon pack had soon given way to the modernity of a well-structured city. The streets were littered with cars such as the one we were inhabiting but with a whole, different allure albeit designed in similar fashions but with distinctive builds.

Nature acted as an accessory to the high-rise buildings that were much more architecturally advanced than the one's at the pack. The roads were extremely busy and the people much busier as they rushed about their business in groups or as solo travellers. Teenage girls and boys peddled on artistically painted bicycles and performed intricate tricks on skateboards.