Lying Bushes (And Jumping Foxes)

Battle of The Stories (ROUND TWO) entry

warning; gore & blood (slight body horror? Not really sure- nothing you haven't seen on the wiki though)

“Are you there yet”

The wind brushed stray dust and dirt off of the forest’s green, silky locks. It was midday, the sun hanging in the sky like the mighty ball of fire it was. Its light was blinding, popping out drastically againced the dark background it hung off of. A perfect black-and-white contrast, but with more yellow than white and an essence of emptiness instead of black.

A shining sun during the black of night. Quite an alien thing to witness.

The fox questioned for a moment, for a fragment of a second (for a sixth of a millimetre to be precise) as to why the sky seemed so out of place; how could something so usual and familiar feel so uncomfortable in a different color? Why did the pitch-black in the sun’s presence look terrifying and disturbing? Why was a dark sky more uncomfortable than a brighter one?

But that moment, that fragment of a second (that sixth of a millimetre) passed as soon as it had come.

“Are you there yet”

The fox twitched an ear.

The animal was a few good meters in the air, the howling wind clogging its ears and nose.

Watching the shrubs and bushes scattered in-between the gigantic tree-tops was quite the view from above. They looked like tiny gremlins hiding shyly behind their parents, making them look almost innocent and harmless. Gentle, even.

The Fox knew that briars and brambles (as well as any other tiny, green or not green shrubs) were deceiving. They were vile and disgusting, tiny yet taunting. So full of life, yet so draining and cunning.

Bushes (and plants smaller than trees in general) should be cut into pieces, squashed and broken branch by branch, finger by finger, hand by hand, bone by bone-

“Are you there yet”

The Fox glared down at the treetops, and realised it had jumped a bit too high this time. The wind was cold and unforgiving as it brushed over the falling creature. The trees were like tiny mice now, the despicable bushes too teeny and insignificant to reach the Fox’s eye anymore. It felt its body reach the jump’s maximum height, while the freezing wind steadily assaulted the Fox’s face.

And then the creature started falling, something wet drenching its face (maybe rain, maybe tears) and then the plummeting feeling in its stomach came; it was comparable to the feeling you get when using an elevator, only increased by tenfold.

“Are you there yet”

The Fox growled as the forest zoomed in under it, the trees and bushes (the vile, inhumane, immoral, vulgar, revolting-) were now getting closer and closer as the creature was hastily closing the distance between itself and the ground.

The fall was so quick the Fox didn’t even notice that it hit the branches, tangling its limbs into the gorgeously breath-taking leaves before being slammed into the ground.

“Are you there yet”

The Fox took a second to count its broken bones and wonder how many more jumps its legs would be able to withstand.

“No, I’m twenty jumps away”

“Then hurry up, Happy”

Happy got up, his right hind leg bent at a weird angle while his front paws were on the verge of falling off, hanging onto his limbs by a few barely-there muscles and veins. The thin layer of skin and fur had already peeled off five jumps ago, leaving his wrists uncovered and vulnerable.

Happy pushed his hind legs againced the ground, and he wasn’t sure whether the crack that followed came from his foot or the ground. But he didn’t have the time to contemplate it for too long, because he was once again soaring through the branches and leaves, flying into the dark, dark sky above-

“Are you there yet?”

“No, I’m half a jump away”

“You just said you were twenty jumps away, Happy”

“I lied”

“You said you were twenty jumps away, Happy”

“…I’m a liar, Sir”

For a while the only sound was the wind screaming in his ears and the steady beat of a heart. Maybe it was Happy’s heart. Maybe it wasn’t. There were few people who knew whose heartbeat it was, and Happy wasn’t one of those people.

“You said you were twenty jumps away”

“I’m half a jump away”

“Twenty jumps away”

“Half a jump away”

“You said you were half a jump away”

The tipping point came again, and instead of steadily rising, Happy was falling back down. He could see the outer walls of the castle from here.

“Yes, I am half a jump away”

“You’re a disgraceful, lying shrub, Happy”

The Fox grimaced. He was most certainly not.

Before he could retort, he was once again hurled into the unforgiving ground, yet this time his fall wasn’t cushioned by leaves or branches.

He was finally on the outskirts of the forest.

He tried getting up, only to find it more troubling and trickier than before.

After trying to sit up for a third time, he realised that both of his right limbs were mangled and bent in unnatural directions. The sight of his paws, reduced to a bloody mush of muscle and bone, was downright revolting.

“Are you there yet”

The Fox mused over an answer.

“Yes, I’m here, Sir”

“Then why don’t I see you?”

Wrong answer. He always picked the wrong answers. Damn him.

“I lied, Sir”

Yet again the tell-tale sound of a heartbeat replaced the whispering winds. The ground seemed to be pulsing steadily, as if coaxing the Fox’s heart to follow its lead.

“Why did you lie, Happy?”

“I don’t know Sir. I’m not there. Not yet”

“When will you be here, Happy?”

Happy narrowed his eyes. To his right was the forest, to his left- a wall. It was low enough to crawl over, it’s tip only reaching the fox’s head, had he been standing. But as it currently was, Happy was kneeling over on the grass, legs sprawled out in a bloody puddle. The gory scenery of cracked bone peeking out from under a mess of rotting meat was a little too much for the Fox to handle.

His body managed to disgust him more than the scandalous shrubs and bushes.

“I’ll be there, Sir”

''“Good, Happy. You haven’t been to Jamaa in quite some time, have you?”''

Happy couldn’t feel his tongue anymore. The Fox couldn’t feel anything, actually. His current actions were just poorly executed sequences of muscle-memory he had managed to gather over the years. These visits were truly exhausting.

“No, I haven’t been in Jamaa for a while”

''“Good, good… It’s nice that you’re visiting your poor aunt and uncle again, isn’t it? You finally come to see us after neglecting us for so long”''

The Fox clenched his teeth- his words were now a jumbled mess produced by a numb tongue and half-there mind.

“I haven’t neglected you”

“You haven’t?”

Some words, some sentences, Happy has repeated many times. Enough times that even threw sloppy movements and mangled vocal cords he could repeat the same string of letters until his dying breath.

“I lied, Sir”

''“Good, good, you’re learning. You’re learning to admit to accept your terrible, terrible bush-like habits! That’s improvement!”''

The Fox realised he had to get to his aunt and uncle’s house eventually, so he forced himself to wiggle his body up to the firm brick wall.

It was barely high enough to keep anyone out, and Happy felt as if they’ve built it just to see him suffer.

Just to watch him drag himself on his knees, paws currently out of order. He had to pull himself over the structure with his teeth, using their blunt edges to dig into the stone barricade and pull himself over.

He heard something slushing behind him, the sound of goop being pushed around and thrown about. He glanced backwards only to regret it; the sight of his paws- now just discarded flesh- laying in the grass, claws shattered and cracked from the force of his previous jumps and falls.

He didn’t dare look down at what has become of his calves and thighs.

The sun continued to shine down on him, watching smugly from its perch on the night sky. The sun could have anything. The sun could own the day and the night (and it did), the sun could capture every planet and comet it had ever wanted (and it has). It could trap anything within its beautiful light. And yet, the sun still cried over a tiny moon that chose the land of Jamaa over the fiery and almighty star.

“Don’t stare at the sun, Happy, it’ll reduce your eyes to dust”

“I know”

“Do you really?”

“…No”

Happy tried to level his breathing, the ragged exhales leaving and entering his lungs too quickly for his brain to catch up.

“Don’t lie, Happy”

Happy was finally over the brick wall.

“I’m here”

His vision was fuzzy, unfocused. Someone was looming over him now, a dark silhouette blocking out the sun’s burning glare.

''“Are you really, Happy? Why don’t you come and see your aunt and uncle anymore, Happy? Why aren’t you here?”''

The stranger’s mouth was moving, soft sounds escaping it. The different tones, vowels and not-vowels, letters and more letters building structures of words and sentences- but Happy couldn’t make sense of them.

''“Come see us again, Happy. You miss us, Happy. Come back to Jamaa for us, you’ve been away for far too long”''

And then there was a thumping in his ears- it wasn’t his own heartbeat, because the two hearts were too out of sync; one was beating too quickly, the other too slowly. It was as if one was trying to calm the other, to steady it.

But the attempt was useless.

His body spasmed as it the two heartbeats started breaking apart the fox’s rhythm. His blood didn’t know what pace it should flow at, his lungs struggled to understand how to function again, Happy’s eyes were starting to burn and-



Then came the shrill scream of an alarm clock.

A fox woke up in its bead, cold sweat running down its back.

Happy lifted his (uncrushed, un-manged, fully intact-) paws to run them down his face. His breaths were short and measured, eyes wide as his heart beat quickly.

He’s been having these dreams for a while now.

And if his neighbours asked why he screamed at night, if his friends questioned his sunken-in eyes; he’d tell them he didn’t know why he couldn’t get any sleep.

But that was a lie; a half-lie, at least.

He could ramble on and on about weird dreams that had to do with his favourite ice-cream shop closing down, or his pet cat running away. Happy was good at making up dumb stories, and it was all the better when others actually believed them.

But Happy didn’t believe in them himself; the fox knew exactly what these dreams where. Happy knew these dreams weren’t pointless little tricks of the imagination, weren’t stupid little fantasies he’ll forget about in the morning.

They were invitations.

He hasn’t been to Jamaa in a while. Hasn’t been to visit ever since he moved out. Maybe, if he’d return, the nightmares would stop.

He should go see his aunt and uncle.

After cooling down, he took a deep breath- in, and out. He couldn’t spend his day wallowing in bed.

He made a mental note to go buy some candles and go visit Jamaa’s cemetery later this week. His visit was long overdue. He promised it to himself later that day, as he stared into his reflection in the bathroom mirror, toothbrush in-between his teeth

He promised himself he’d go. He promised.

But as everyone should know by now, Happy was a little lying shrub of a fox.

