Dear Catherine...
If you are reading this, then it is too late. There is nothing you can do. Leave! Leave while you still can! I've made a terrible, terrible mistake, but there is no need for you to get yourself caught up in this. I can hear him searching for me. Oh why did I ever think this was a good idea?
I do not have much time, so I will keep this brief. Catherine, if you have forgotten - or, dear reader if you are in fact NOT Catherine - then I suppose the time for secrecy is long since over. I should start from the beginning. My name is Stone, and yesterday, I tried to take over Neopia... |
Author: catchinglights
Date: Jul 24th
|
After ten long years of blood, sweat, and tears, I unveiled my creation! You are well aware of my affinity for creation - when we were kids, I figured out how to imbue life into the carcass of any carbon skeleton. Hodge podges of hamburgers, vegetables, fishes, or leftover dinner I could bring to life using my developed technique.
Well, after creating many harmless petpets and petpetpets from our scraps, I got to thinking. With this power, I could imbue life into a chimeric giant! The terror he would instill upon all the leaders of Neopia would ensure my influence would span the world.
That was ten years ago. Based on my personal fear of Lupes, I fashioned a monstrous form. Red, watery eyes, rotting smile, towering form.
I was so excited over the prospects of world domination that this horrendous monster was in my eyes a genial baby. I labored over every hair, pursuing perfection.
And yesterday, all my dreams were realized. Every atom in place, I brought my monster to life. O the horror! The moment I finished, I saw my monster for the first time. The lupe, blinking its yellow, jaundiced eyes, made me scream in terror.
I realized - I cannot control my own creation. I rushed out my laboratory, too panicked to confront the lupe.
A few hours later, I calmed down. I went back to the room. Maybe I could hide it in isolated hut on Kreludor, far from the gaze of mainland Neopia.
The room was empty. It has escaped! All today I've been having fevered delusions, vivid visions of him stalking me...
Dear Catherine, our close relation would make you a target as well. Please, while he is preoccupied with me, flee to safety...
| Author: juliakare Date: Jul 24th |
Thank you for remaining my friend for all of these years, Catherine. I will miss you dearly. Please remember me always.
Signed,
Stone
Catherine closed the message on her computer screen. She had not seen Stone in years, and this was the set of circumstances in which she regained contact with him?
They had been childhood friends, inseparable for years. Catherine had watched Stone's skills for creation grow before her very eyes. They had often spent their evenings gathering spare scraps to use for his future projects. But as they grew older, Stone had developed a greater and greater obsession in creation, and secured a job as laboratory scientist. Pursuing his passion, he had left their hometown in a rural area of Neovia, leaving Catherine behind.
Catherine had not spoken to him in twenty years.
She could not help but wonder why Stone had contacted her, of everyone he must know. For that reason, though, she must be related to this situation in some way. Or that Stone was relying on her, somehow, to fix this mess.
"Stone, why did you involve me in this?" Catherine muttered aloud as she quickly packed up sack of essentials and started on her way to his laboratory...
| Author: milkshakes004 Date: Jul 24th |
A low rumble of thunder echoed from outside the moment Catherine opened the door. It was an unusual time of year for a storm, but she chalked it up to the ever-present threat of Neopian Warming. Swollen clouds had turned the sky prematurely dark this evening.
Catherine trotted through the woods at a decent speed, concerned only with covering as much ground possible before the rain began to fall. She moved without fear or trepidation, having traveled this same path dozens of times in their youth.
It was minutes before the thunder came again, and when it did, Catherine felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle. Not from electricity - the lightning was too far away, for now - but with a sense of alarm. That rumble was the only sound she'd heard for half a mile. Not one crunched leaf, not a screeching batterfly, not even a psimouse made a peep.
Catherine stopped in her tracks and held her breath. Skeletal trees surrounded her on all sides, save for the opening in front of her, which led so deep into the woods that the darkness seemed to swallow the path whole. She strained her ears, and somewhere behind her the silence was broken...
| Author: skullfeather Date: Jul 25th |
with another loud crash of thunder.
Catherine decided to ignore the storm and move faster to get to Stone's laboratory. She began to run but, was careful on her journey, she stayed in the shadows. She was not fully aware of what was going on, or how she was involved, but she knew it was very bad. Catherine did not want anyone to see her, just in case.
****
After several hours, Catherine finally made it to stones laboratory. Everything was so familiar, she used to spend so much time here with him. Catherine typed in an all familiar code 04-22, the day they became friends.
The door to the laboratory swung open and Catherine gasped when she saw the sight that awaited her. All of Stones work was thrown everywhere, the entire place was trashed. It looked like a tornado had flown through the laboratory.
"Stone!" Catherine called out, but there was no answer.
Catherine turned to leave when she noticed a piece of paper laying on an overturned table. She went over and grabbed the paper. Catherine gasped when she realized that it was...
| Author: she_chose_love Date: Jul 25th |
... actually an intricate map of The Haunted Woods, so crinkled and yellowed with age as if someone used the page for many years and travels. Despite the material it was printed on, the ink was very black and pristine, with a shiny tinge that gave a mystical feel to the map itself.
The first thing that caught Catherine's eyes were the gnarled branches of an ancient and distinguished tree located dead center of the map.
"That must be The Brain Tree." Catherine thought to herself as she turned the page about to catch the different angles and glimmering details of decrepit tombstones and eerie landmarks of The Haunted Woods so painfully etched onto the paper.
"But what business would Stone have with the likes of the majestic Brain Trees who is forever seeking answers itself? And what would this have to do with his creation?"
So many questions swirled through Catherine's mind, she didn't seem to take any notice to the sinister shadow creeping up behind her.
| Author: xvermillion_justicex Date: Jul 25th |
Instead of a horrible beast, it was her friend, Stone.
“Catherine!” He yelped, rushing over to her. “What are you doing here? I told you to rush to safety!”
“But Stone-”
“What if that, that, monster, got you?” He began to check her. “Are you hurt? Did you trip?”
Catherine stepped away from the Chia. “I’m fine!” She said. “I’m worried about you!”
“Catherine, there’s not much time, you must go and get to safety,” He begged. “Please, go, Catherine.”
“I don’t want to leave you here for some Lupe to eat you,” The kacheek said. “You’re my best friend!”
“I must stay here and find a way to stop that thing,” He said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Not without me, we’re in this together!”
“This is no time for arguing!”
Suddenly a horrid screech resounded in the air, and the two friends stopped dead.
| Author: ditzydoo95 Date: Jul 26th |
"Was that him?" Asked Catherine with a look of terror in her eyes.
"Yes," replied Stone, "we must hurry and get out of here."
Before Catherine could respond, another horrid screech broke the silence. This time it sounded closer, and more angry.
"Come on," Stone said, grabbing Catherine and heading for the front door. "We have to leave-NOW!"
When stone opened the front door, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Standing no more than 20 feet away was the beast, and he was staring right at Catherine and Stone...
| Author: she_chose_love Date: Jul 26th |
Stone quickly pulled the heavy wooden door shut again and slammed the bolt home just as the terrifying creature slammed into the massive door.
"This way!" cried Stone frantically as he turned to flee. He grabbed Catherine's wrist and dragged her down a dimly lit corridor, heading away from the deafening thumping at the door.
Catherine allowed herself to be dragged along while her mind raced through possible solutions. How could this monster be stopped? Overhead, the thunder roared, and flashes of lightning caused shadows to dance around the dimly lit corridor.
Stone led Catherine into a small room off the corridor. He shut the door and bolted it once they were both safely inside. Stone began checking for other entry points, when suddenly the lights flickered. The pair gasped in surprise, but the electricity stayed on, and Stone continued his check of the perimeter.
The flickering lights had drawn Catherine's attention upward, and she stared intently at the light fixture for a minute, then turned her gaze to the window, where she could see the lightning flashing. As she looked out the window, the beginnings of an outlandish plan began to form in her head...
| Author: a_ramsell Date: Jul 26th |
"Stone," Catherine urged. "How would one of your creations react to electricity?"
"I don't think the carbon skeleton would react to it well at all..." Stone pondered. "Why do you ask?"
Catherine turned back to the window just as a bolt of lightning flashed before her eyes. Then she looked back at Stone. "I have an idea. But we need to get out of here and back outside."
Stone stared at her, shocked. "But Catherine, we're safe in here! There's no way he can reach us here."
"Stone, if we don't stop this thing here and now, when? Will we just let it ravage through Neopia forever?" Catherine went to the door and unbolted it. "Is there a back way out of here?"
Sighing, Stone gave in. "Yes, follow me." Stone led them out of the room down a connecting corridor to a heavy stone door with a keypad embedded into it. He typed in "8324" and the door unlocked, revealing the pounding rain and pitch-black sky outside.
"We need to lure the Lupe back outside, and corner it," Catherine said. "I have a plan..."
| Author: milkshakes004 Date: Jul 27th |
"... But I need you to trust me on this, Stone. Just like when we were little. Remember playing Marco Kiko?"
Stone smiled at the cheerful memory that lit up their desolate surroundings.
"The Lupe is gonna be Kiko, and we are going to be Marco of course." Catherine began to explain as she hugged her best friend tightly. "But we have to go in different directions."
Stone hugged her back, slowly understanding the direction of the plan, suddenly wishing not to let her go from the embrace.
Catherine smiled sweetly up at her friend, letting go. Before Stone could do anything and realizing it was too late, he watched her dash back to the door.
| Author: xvermillion_justicex Date: Jul 27th |
“Come on!” Catherine urged Stone to follow her.
The two friends lurked outside of the lab, standing beside the front entrance. The deadly lupe was in the foyer, sniffing at the ground and snarling at the air.
“Ready?” Catherine looked at Stone.
He stood there for several heartbeats, looking Catherine in her eyes. Then he nodded, “Yes, let’s do this.”
Catherine jumped into the front doorway. “Marco!” She yelled. “Marco! Marco!”
The lupe stopped sniffing and whipped his head around at Catherine’s voice, he growls, stepping towards her.
“Go go go!” Catherine signaled Stone.
As the beast began to quicken his pace, the two neopets began to lead the lupe onto a path in the Haunted Woods. The rain pattered into their fur, and thunder rolled from above.
“The path stops here!” Stone puffed. “Zigzag through the trees!”
The monster was catching up to them, his yellow eyes blazing in anger. The two friends split up into the trees just before the path ended, and the lupe skidded to a halt, sniffing in confusion.
How will the story end...
| Author: ditzydoo95 Date: Jul 28th |
The two friends were safe in the closed woods. However, Stone knew he could not leave his own creature free, causing problems to the other Neopets. He had to do something.
Again, a thunder echoed in distance. At that moment, Stone turned his head in the direction of the noise and had an idea. "Edna's tower," he shouted at her friend, who sat on a muddy stone trying to catch her breath. "I'll get the lupe there!"
Catherine shuddered to hear of this place, because of the stories they told her as a child. Before she could challenge Stone's idea, his friend was already hurrying toward the tower, which was constantly lit up, such was the amount of lightning it was attracting.
"Marco, Marco!" He shouted. He didn’t remember running that much in his life. The chia already saw the castle in front of him, when he felt a strong impact on his back and fell to the ground. He saw the monstrous figure just above him, about to take a fatal bite, when a lightning cracked a tree just beside it, which fell on lupe's paws.
Stone walked away quickly, thinking of running away, when he began to hear the animal's shrill sob. That sound broke his heart, for he realized that just as those sharp teeth and those giant and dangerous paws were made by him, the tears that flowed from the monster's yellow eyes were also his creation.
Stone turned to the creature and approached it slowly until he touched its hair. Lupe was frightened, but gradually he calmed down. Stone then began to force the piece of trunk up, until he was able to pull it off Lupe's paws. The creature bellowed, got up quickly, and started running toward the forest. Before fading through the trees, however, he cast a glance over the Chia, as a way of thanking him for saving his life.
At that moment, on the other side, a panting Catherine arrived to see the free animal entering the forest. She walked over to Stone without understanding what had happened, but before she could say anything, her friend would explain: "In life, Catherine, there's so much more than good and evil. Things do not follow this perfect dichotomy. I wanted to change Neopia, but I think that a much more efficient way than creating a monster for this, is starting seeing the good where there seems to be no more hope."
The two still-mourned and slightly injured friends took the direction back to safety, while Catherine proudly watched her friend, thinking how he had changed in the last few years.
The End.
| Author: labigu Date: Jul 31st |