There Is Something In My Closet And It Is Roaring!

            It was an early evening in Shenkuu. My friends, Jeulienna the Yellow Lenny and Manigolaia the Cloud Ruki and I, Zannidda, a Starry Xweetok, had just enjoyed a mouth-watering dinner together of Pirate Lupe pasta with Cheesy Onion sticks. The discussion on the table was about our favorite games from the Daily Dare, mine being Top Chip, Manigolaia's was Ice Cream Machine and Jeulienna's favorite was Carnival of Terror, loving the prizes we had earned from the Dare.

      We then started taking guesses on the upcoming Altador Cup. All of us had different teams we were supporting and were challenging each other on who would make it to the All-Star level first. Which team would become victorious was our main discussion, especially because I was from Shenkuu and my friends were from Terror Mountain, and we would cling to our homelands.

      After the big talk had its curfew, I stood up and went back to the kitchen and pulled out three giant, berries and sprinkles covered sundaes for dessert. We finished them in a rush until the last bite of each. If we sat any longer we would have fallen asleep at the table, so we decided we needed a brisk walk around the neighborhood before cleaning up the mess our friendly hang out had made in the dining room.

      The night was gorgeously sparkled with stars all over the deep blue skies, as Shenkuu's nights had always been. We made a quick stop out of curiosity at the Lunar Temple, where the wise old Gnorbu tested us on guessing correctly the phase of Kreludor. I was the only one who guessed right, winning some Soothing Stones, that I thought would fit right nicely inside of my tote bag up in my closet.

      After a while, it started getting colder and colder outside, so we made our way back to my house and they stayed over to help me clean. We cleaned the table and washed the dishes, and I only needed to sweep the crumbs off the floor.

      Let me do it for you!" - Jeulienna said.

      Oh no, it's ok," - I replied. "You have done enough. Let me take care of it."

      I argued back, trying to prevent them from seeing the disarray in the small closet at the back of my kitchen, where the broom was. I was a little lazy when it came to cleaning, and that closet seemed to have collected all of the stuff I would be soon lacking and making a mess out of my room trying to find them. I could recall some of the items that were hanging there for who knows when. Clothes hanging off the rods, empty bottles of water all around the floor, a dusty emergency kit, some green Origami Chairs, even an inflatable Kiko Lake bed along with pillows! But most importantly, my tote bags, filled with all kinds of goodies. It would often need a good cleaning and this was the right time for it.

      I love tote bags. How else could I organize all of my stuff so perfectly? And what was inside those bags? All kinds of stuff, like Altador Teams pompoms, notebooks, pens, bottles of sand, seashells, and totems. You never know when those things come in handy!

      When I first moved into my little house. It wasn't that far away from my old neighborhood, but I was ready to start living on my own. The rooms were so empty and clean, they echoed when you'd whisper, even with the closet doors opened. The main closet was meant to be for cleaning supplies stocking, but that didn't last long. I soon started running out of space in my bedroom closet, attaching extra rods to hang old clothes and new clothes, most of them weren't worn often, but I couldn't pass up a sale.

      I remembered my friends Jeulienna and Manigolaia came over to visit during winter time here in Shenkuu a few months after I received my house and had moved all of my stuff from my old home. We were all surprised after getting caught by a heavy snowstorm and they were stuck with me here for days, and they had to sleep on the floor because I didn't have any other bed for them to sleep on. That's where the inflatable Kiko Lake bed came from.

      After the storm finally vanished away and the weather cleared, one of my neighbors decided that they have had enough of Shenkuu's weather and moved out. I stopped by them getting their boxes out of their house when they approached me and asked me if I needed some furniture they were throwing away anyway. There were a couple of mirrors and dusty chairs unboxed, so I accepted and kept them in case I would feel like redecorating my house. That's how those things ended up there.

      I kept the full-length mirror against the wall of my closet. It was hard to lift and hang in that small place, but I managed to shove it through the chairs onto the other wall, but there was something in the way.

      What is this?" - I wondered.

      I tried pushing it a little further but I heard a noise. I panicked and tried remembering if I ever left the house's door open and someone might be there. As I would try to sneakily push a little more, the noise would appear again. I would often leave the backyard's door open on summer nights. One time I had a family of Noils visiting every now and then my backyard, scratching the garbage can and the door.

      Would there be a Noil there? How do I get those wild things out of my house? I could get bitten!" - I said to myself. I didn't want my friends to panic.

      There was no light in the closet, so I had to think fast. I sneaked back to the kitchen to grab a candle to light up the closet, but my friends noticed the worry on my face and came along with me to see what the noise was all about. My heart was beating fast, my knees were trembling, and the three of us were holding hands. I lighted up the closet with the candle and couldn't help but to let out a little screech. We found a colorful Niptor in a Box. It was lying on the floor, squished between the closet wall and one of my tote bags.

      I must have wedged the mirror on it a few minutes ago and that's why it must have squeezed." - I said to my friends. "But this Niptor toy is really familiar to me. "

      Although it would only make a loud roar when it would pop out, I think being squished between the wall and the tote bags had made the roar constant." - Manigolaia said.

      Jeulienna had given it to me back then when they came to visit me during the snowstorm. We had a lot of fun twisting the handle and making it pop out. It was the center of attention and no one could resist giving it a try. After being used too much, the Niptor in a Box stopped working and needed repairs and expensive things I always ended up procrastinating. I think after a while I just put it in the closet and forgot it was there in the first place.

      I felt silly screeching over an old toy, but I had become so frightened about the noise being a wild petpet I think my nerves got the best of me. "Poor thing", Jeulienna said, reminiscing about the times we would play with it.

      The three of us had a really good laugh and we started brainstorming about what could we do about it. Just for the old times, I twisted the handle and it popped up making a loud roar. This was pure joy- and somehow all those jabs from the mirror had fixed it, and it was working good as new. Manigolaia laughed so hard, surprised at the roar, that she started snorting and Jeulienna and I just couldn't hold our laughs back. We were little kids again.

      Before Manigolaia and Jeulienna would make their way back home to Terror Mountain, we spent almost half hour just talking and remembering back in the day when we were young and we would be so amazed by that little Niptor toy. We had a warm cup of Borovan and Jeulienna suggested that we should do this again in a couple of weeks, especially to clean that closet of mine, which they now had seen the mess it became.

      I don't want you to be all by yourself here being scared of things in your clothes without us being there to laugh at them being nothing!" - Jeulienna said. "Yeah, and we could also give some use to that inflatable bed you bought! What about a pajama party? -Manigolaia said. "I saw you have some pillows and blankets there too!"

      If I ever had another broken toy hanging there on the floor, I could just ask them to send it to Donny's Toy Repair Shop, back where they live.

      The Niptor in a Box is a delight! I would like you to meet her someday (and yes, her!) to play around with for a while and maybe we will find something new in my closet that will keep us awake for hours. Nothing a warm cup of Borovan can't fix!

      The End.