Sort of Dead

48 - Dear Reader, We Are Doomed

This is getting exhausting. First airsick, now water-sick. Life has never been generous to me, so it’s my own fault to accept any less (or should I say any more? Does it matter?).

We’ve run out of stock. All our food reserves, everything. We’d fetch some berries from the thick foliage on our either side, but Mr. Om fears they might be poisonous. Or something worse.

I do try to argue. With plain, coercive logic. Hear me out.

Let me eat the berries/fruits/whatever it is we’re about to try first, I say. If they’re not poisonous, well and good. If by happenstance they are – so what? I’ll die. I’ll go to the Void. I’ll come back.

No biggie. Slick like a magician’s trick.

But no. Mr. Om puts forth arguments of his own. ‘Mar, this is the Witches' domain,' is what he says. ‘The poison in the berries that grow here can slay even the coven, and I’m not willing to take that kind of risk with you.’

‘I think we all knew what risks we were taking when we set foot into your jet,' I say, stubborn.

‘Mar, I am the only one who’s been here before. I’ve . . . seen things. There are creatures out there far worse than in anyone’s worst nightmare. I’m sorry, but it’s a no from me.’

Pfft, Mr. Om, make your logic grow the arm you’re missing.

‘I agree,' Bee pops up. I look at her, shocked. She turns to me. ‘Mar, you don’t have to put your life at stake here. We’ll figure something out. Who knows? Maybe we’re already near our destination.’

‘And what if we’re not, Bee?’ I question. ‘What if it’s still days away and we starve to death? Aar, Aar, you talk some sense into them!’

He averts his eyes. ‘I mean, I don’t know, dude. None of us want you dead. Not permanently.’

I can detect the flashback of Gaba killing me playing like a reel inside his head. Still, this is unbelievable. ‘So what if I die? You’re gonna go to the witch and you’re gonna reverse all of this! That’s what we’re for! Let’s be optimistic, guys!’

But my lactiferous ducts betray me. Tears ooze out and . . . well, you know the rest. Sympathy. Hugs. Consolation. The things friends are there for.

Aar even tries cracking a joke, but it's way too dark for my taste: 'Even if we all die of hunger, you won’t, Mar. You can just suck our blood!’

Rolling my eyes.

Anyhow, this boating is getting tiring. I can’t even imagine how fatigued Es must be – she’s the one driving it, after all. Her multi-colored-marker outline is growing dimmer. She plays it off in laughter and cheery spirit (see what I did there? That’s called a pun, kids), but I know internally she’s dying to rest. (Hashtag Spirit Lives Matter, Y'all!)

Sometimes we go hours on end without speaking a word to each other. Just staring into the unusual depth of dark, dreary water that we sail on. On more than one occasion, I think of drinking the lake-water, but then I see a strange velociraptor-like skull or two just passively afloat in the lake and that thought is defenestrated right out the window.

Yesterday – or sometime like that, I don’t know – I saw this arboreal creature just leaping from tree to tree on our right. It was covered in brown hair all over, almost like an orangutan, and when it had turned to me, I’d seen it’s face. Only there was no face. Just an empty, charcoal slate where there’s supposed to be one.

I was scared to death, and so was the rest of my party once they discovered that the trees around us were full of these faceless, jumping jacks.

Guess what I named them? The “Ubiquitous Faceless Orangutans.”

Or UFOs, for short.

Which is fitting, because they’re as close to aliens as we’re ever going to see.

Pretty genius, eh? Eh? Eh?

Nevermind.

Anyhow, I’m hungry. My stomach rumbles without a break. I feel dizzy most of the time. Even in dreams all I see anymore is blood.

See's pretty hungry too. I’m guessing that from the way he’s been acting so grumpy and not even sleeping as much as he normally does. Bee just fed the goofball some of the last chocolate we have. Now we’re really all out.

Help us, dear reader, if you can. Then again, you don’t know where we are, do you?

Well, neither do I. No idea where the plane landed us. Probably on Jupiter, taking into account the environment of this place.

Whelps, we’re all going to die. This hunger and starvation has nailed it home for me. My permanent death, and the death of my friends, has been solidified in cement.

Goodbye, dear reader/assiduous listener.

I wish you well in life. I wish you never have to drink your father’s blood and die with the burden of that guilt on your chest.

I appreciate you staying with me for all this time. I thank you.

But I fear. I fear this might be the last you’re hearing from me.