The Playground Wars

Chapter Eight

I look around. I see nothing but an endless gray field. When I look behind me, I see Cuddles. She staring at me, but in a different way I've never seen before. She looks.... mad.

"You said you would come," she says. I'm confused but then I realize what she means.

"Cuddles, I'm going to save you and Wacky Dog," I tell her. She still looks mad, which worries me.

"It's too late," she says. "You're too late, Oswald."

I begin to walk towards her. Suddenly, she starts screaming in pain. Everywhere around me explodes. Fire begins to rise up. The fire begins to crawl towards me and I back away. I bump into Cuddles and I accidentally push her into the deadly fire. I clasp my hands over my mouth. Slowly she starts burning and fading to ashes.

"You have caused too many deaths, Oswald," she tells me. "It's too late." I bend down to my knees and I start crying. She's right.

"I'm....I'm sorry," I say, but she's gone. Only her ashes are left. And then, all of the exploding and burning stops. I look around, and I only just see the endless gray field again. What did she mean when she said that I was too late? Am I too late to save her? I'm so confused.

"You still haven't figured out who the real enemy is, huh?" a voice says. It's the voice I heard several times before. I heard it in my dream before and in the HQ. I turn around, but nothing is there.

"Whoever you are, come out!" I yell. I'm tired of this voice haunting me ever since Squad 13 was captured.

"Your wrong, Oswald. Why don't you come out so that I can see you?" the voice says.

"I'm already out."

"No you stupid, ignorant toon. You really are weak, aren't you? If you want to save your friends, then why don't you stop running from our forces and fight back? But you wouldn't because you're a weak coward. If your gonna save them, stop dreaming and actually do it."

"Who are you?"

"That, my friend, is what you have to figure out yourself."

"You know what? You're a coward for not revealing yourself."

"Nice try, Oswald, but that's not gonna make me come out." I stop for a moment. I know who the voice. Maybe after the explosion in Minnie's Melodyland, I forgot who the voice's host is. But something uncomfortable about what he says still scares me.

"How do you know my name?" I ask. If he knows my name, then I probably know him. Then again, I'm wanted by Flippy and word probably spread.

"How do I know your name? Well, I know you," the voice replies.

I want to ask it more questions but a bright light shines down on me. I can't see anything. It's too bright. But the voice said that this was a dream. I'm probably waking up......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oswald?" someone asks me. Crackers. He's looking down at me. I smile at the sight of him. He's alive and I'm happy. I'd rather die than witness Crackers die. I hear footsteps coming towards me. Chloe and Gary come to observe me.

"You alright?" Chloe asks.

"Yeah, I guess so," I reply to her. Gary touches my forehead and lays his hand on there for 30 seconds.

"No fever so far," he tells me. I feel good enough to rise out of my bed. I look around and I notice that we are in a shop that the shopkeepers used to rest in. My "bed" was actually just the desk. I remember the shopkeepers standing behind here all the time. Good memories....

"Where are we?" I ask. I look at Drake for a moment. He doesn't care about what I'm saying because he's covering his ears. I don't care, I'm used to it.

"Donald's Dock. Specifically, Seaweed Street. I don't know what building, the letters are scratched off," Gary replies to me. I nod to him.

"Oswald," Drake says, "what's this?" He holds up the wanted poster of me in front of everyone. Crackers has his jaw wide open.

"When were you going to tell us that you are a criminal?" Gary asks me. I stare at the poster, eyes wide open.

"Remember back at Toonbot HQ? After your "death" I escaped by jumping over the fence. Apparently, a camera caught me doing it," I tell them. "Maybe all of Toontown will turn against me." I look at the poster one more time and I notice something I didn't see when I saw it in the woods: the prize for my capture. I stare at it in awe. Flippy and Donald's Dreamland are offering a new playground to the HQ with my body, plus over 500 weapons and an alliance with the cogs. Am I really that valuable?

"Oh god, now you're wanted? Seriously, Oswald, be more careful next time!" Gary yells at me. I'm not going to just stand here with him yelling at me.

"How can I be careful, huh?" I ask. "I, I mean we, were in Toonbot HQ! They had cameras everywhere!" Drake just stares at my conversation with a sick grin in his face. Gary scratches his head, then looks at the ground and then back at me. He looks very scared, like he has never experienced something like this before.

"From now on, we are going to have to be more careful and even more aware," he tells us. Chloe sits on a couch against the wall with her face buried in her hands. I lay my hand on the back of my neck. General Linda once told me that this was a sign of stress and being nervous.

"Well," Drake begins to say, "we can all thank the great Oswald for this!" Everyone then stares at me, like I'm some kind of criminal.

"If you guys hadn't left me in the crate room, none of this would've happened!" I yell back at Drake.

Gary steps in between Drake and me and says, "Oswald, you weren't supposed to come at the cogs. I had a different plan in mind."

"Well, you could've told me the plan and I wouldn't have done it!"

"You know what? Just shut up. I don't want to deal with your whining on the rest of this trip." Gary looks straight into my eyes.

"Trip? What trip? No one told me anything about a stupid trip!" I scream at him. Drake looks at me with the same evil grin. He likes seeing me mad. That little jerk. "See, this is what your problem is. You expect everyone to know where we are going when we actually don't! I spent days in those woods, waiting for death to come at me! I saw a dead toon! My friend almost killed me!" I scream and I lose it. I start breaking down into tears. I lay my head face onto the desk and I kneel.

"Oh my god, Oswald, you're such a drama queen," Drake commented, and I immediately lose it. He doesn't know what love is. He doesn't know what I saw because he was with them. I get up and I slap him in the face. His face turns an angry red, but Gary comes between us before any further action is done.

"What the heck is wrong with both of you," he says. Well Drake started it, I say in my mind. I don't want to anger Gary further.

Drake begins to yell, "Well every time I see him he is always freaking crying!" I look up from the ground to Gary. I'm tired of putting up with Drake. He just wants to hurt me. If he wants me gone, he can have it.

"I'm leaving," I say calmly. Everyone but Drake, as expected, stares at me in shock. It's not the first time I received this look. I begin to walk towards the door when Gary grabs my arm, not allowing me to walk any further.

"You're so crazy, Oswald," Gary starts saying, "You're wanted. Remember? You go out there and you won't stand a chance against Flippy's forces." I'm afraid to admit that Gary is right. I barely survived in the woods. Heck, I could've died if I haven't met Joey. Speaking of Joey, I haven't seen him in so long. I'm afraid that he's....... dead? No, I can't start putting these thoughts in my head or I'll start to cry more.

"Fine," I tell him, tugging away my arm. Gary lets out a sigh and looks at Chloe. She gives a shrug, and Gary starts talking again.

"We're going to head to Chip and Dale's Acorn Acres, and don't you dare say anything, Oswald," he says and looks at me. I guess he knows that I'll ask him about my captured friends. I've been bugging about it since I've met them, and I guess it stuck into their minds ever since. I nod at him because I know we will save my friends, but later.

"Let's move out!" He yells. I grab my backpack and my fedora, and then we head off to go into Donald's Dock.

The sky is gray and gloomy, as it has always been. There are no cogs in sight so far, to my relief. We kept on walking until we heard a noise above us. We haven't even made it halfway through the street because we were all so exhausted. I looked up and I saw a helicopter with a bucket. I looked at the bucket closely, but I got distracted when I saw more helicopters some.

After a minute, the whole sky was full of helicopters. The side of the aerial vehicle had the Bossbot emblem. I turn my attention back at the bucket, and it opens. I expected a whole wave of dip, but instead, little drops came falling down. I then find myself staring at a drop of green liquid falling towards my face. I remember back in spring when I used to rain a lot. My memories of spring fade away once the drop hits my cheek, and it burns so bad, I start screaming.
"Run!" Drake yells at the top of his lungs. I hear Chloe scream, and Drake start to moan. This is the first time dip has been used to create a deadly rainy effect. I feel the other drops of dip hit my back and burn. I scream and I slip on a puddle of dip.

Great. Now my legs are dipped. I have never felt the dip's wrath ever before until now. I scream for help, and I start coughing blood. My vision gets blurry. I see a blue figure walk towards me. Drake? Why is he saving me? I thought he hated me... He carries me and starts running into a building. Once inside the building, I see Gary pulling out a stick of some sort, and he hands it to Chloe.
Gary starts reading jokes from some book, and I laugh a little. Laughter. I have never felt this way before in a long time. Four years to be exact. My vision gets clearer and clearer when Gary tells a joke.

"What did the moon say to earth?" Gary asked me. I shrugged weakly.

"Hey, can you give me some space!" I burst out laughing, and I feel better, but the scar of me slipping on floor of dip still hurts.

"I guess I don't need this anymore," Chloe tells Gary as she hands him a lipstick. Lipsticks used to be a toon up gag, and I guess it still can be used.

"Good, because this is only one out of two lipsticks I have for emergencies," Gary says. We all start laughing, even Gary. I don't want to cry tears of happiness to ruin this fine moment. A moment that I will hold in my heart forever.