Chompy (ONC 2021)

~5~

"No, no, this can't be right. I glooped? But how? And why did you bring me here? What happened back at Mt. Helleron?"

Chompy held up a strip of gauze. "Hey, slow down with the questions, Isa. I'll answer everything you're curious about, bur first, we need to treat your knee. You scraped it up after glooping."

The one thing that will forever keep me from becoming a doctor is my fear of blood. I hate everything about it–the smell, the slight ooze of it. I spared one glance down at my knee and felt my nausea return.

"Yeah, you need to work on your landings," Chompy shook his head. "Let's start with your first question. Technically, you didn't gloop yourself. After holding onto your hand, I willed myself to not only transport me but also you. The same way I transported my granola bar the other night when I got hungry. But it consumes way more energy than I expected."

I glanced down at my hands and legs, surprised everything was still intact. From the way I felt earlier, I was sure I would pop like a kernel of popcorn. To think I'd have to go through that again to return to my world. Speaking of, where was Monstruo City?

"Monstruo City isn't a place," Chompy read my mind. "It's more like a pocket in space where we live. We can come and go as we please, but we're not tethered to a planet. It's a realm connected to everything and anything via portals. Make sense?"

"Uhh, sure," I winced as Chompy tightened the gauze around my knee. "So what happened? Why did the fog get so bad all of a sudden?"

The monster turned around to grab another bandaid for a stray scratch on my arm, and I ducked to avoid being taken out by his tail.

"See, usually monsters haunt at night. But the Nightcrawlers are a different type of elite. They don't care what time of day it is. They'll haunt when they want to. A couple days ago, there was a board meeting where we discussed your class field trip to Mt. Helleron. The monster haunting your friend Evie spilled the beans, and the next thing you know, the Nightcrawlers went crazy. It's been ages since such a big group has passed through, and they've been starving for some action."

"And?" I urged him to continue.

"And monsters always pick the weakest link in a pack to scare. Are things starting to make more sense now?" Chompy asked gently.

I hated how I was slowly able to understand. "So you're telling me that the monsters singled Evie and me out as the weakest. One of us was injured, the other just plain old weak."

Chompy nodded hesitantly. "I tried to stop them and convince them that it wouldn't be fun, but they told me I was 'just a kid' and that I 'didn't understand.' I mean, then why even invite me to the board meeting to begin with? They only keep me around because I'm a descendant of the Nightcrawler family."

I felt sorry for the poor thing but didn't have the energy to reach out and pat his shoulder. Instead, I fell backwards and collapsed on the squishy, jello-like bed behind me. The more I tried to wrap my mind around the situation, the more questions stopped me. Why did monsters haunt in the first place? What did they get out of scaring innocent people? Why was Monstruo City just a small pocket in the universe and not a place on our planet? What was the solar system? What was life? Geez, this was the stuff they needed to be teaching us in science class.

"Get some rest. I'll go get some ingredients for a soup dish. My mom always made it for me when I was learning to gloop. It works wonders," Chompy patted my head.

Instantly, I fell asleep into a strange land of dreams. I saw monsters crawling all over the place, each one ferocious and terrifying. I dreamt of my first glooping experience and woke up screaming at the feeling of my voice being ripped from my throat.