Upside-Down

The summer solstice was a sunny day. My friends and I were playing Pictionary up in my room.

"Hey Jia, think! It's very easy," Kara said.

"Oh, is it? Well, the thing which Zumi drew looks like a monkey and that is not the answer!"

"Come on, my drawing isn't that bad," I said.

"Okay, please make it quick. Time's ticking. Or in the hourglass, dropping." Shania said.

"Stop this banter and let me concentrate, will you?"

Jia kept glancing at the hourglass and back to the picture, but it didn't look like she achieved anything. Suddenly, she gasped and pointed at the hourglass.

The sand in the hourglass was going up instead of down.

"Am I hallucinating? This is impossible!" exclaimed Shania.

"I guess not, unless people can hallucinate about the same thing altogether." I replied.

The sand kept moving faster and faster, and on the upper half of the hourglass, there formed bluish-black clouds along with the sand. The room started to move, slowly at first, then like a ceiling fan. 

Everything became purplish and blurry, and I could see the terrified faces of my friends as we fell into the dark, haunting abyss.

Everything was dark for a moment. Then I found myself hanging from a handle which was attached to something circular, made of cement or concrete. I looked down to see the most unexpected thing- the sky.

I was bewildered. How could we come here, of all places? I shook my head. Things had started going downhill since the hourglass incident. But whatever would happen, I had to go back home safely with my friends, assuming they were here.

I turned my head around and found them hanging from branches of a banyan tree. I found the sight funny and smiled, but from the looks of their faces, I was sure they found mine funnier. I crawled to them.

"Shania, what do you think this is?" I asked.

"I don't know, maybe a gravity failure?"

"Come on Ms.Scientific, that's completely impossible!"

"What if we are in some other dimension?" suggested Kara.

"Trust Kara to be our creative story teller in the most unexpected times. By the way, when did you switch to sci-fi?" Jia joked.

I chuckled, but Shania was impressed. "Yeah.. It may be possible."

"Okay, just forget about the possibilities. What are we going to do, hang like bats over here?" I asked.

" No.. But I have some chewing gum in my pocket..." Kara trailed off.

"What? No. I'd rather hang 'like a bat' than put that stuff on my shoes, if that's what you're suggesting." Jia said, her mouth puckered up in disgust.

" Just messing with you, Jia." Kara said, grinning.

Jia rolled her eyes and looked at Shania, who was looking down at something. I followed her gaze and saw the most terrifying thing - thousands of zombies approaching.

They looked pitiable-they were so frail that their bones were sticking out, they had burns, blisters, cuts and wounds, their faces were pinched with hunger and they had a rotten stench. Their leader was super-ugly, with a sword sticking out of his chest.

He came near our tree, grinning wickedly.

"Ho! Ho! We still have Zeromes, huh?"

What was he talking about?

"Well, never mind. It's time for some action!"

"A-action? What are you t-talking about?" Jia stammered.

"Who are you and why did you come here?Who are these?" I finally found the courage to ask.

"I'm Druyal Noehtozz, the leader of the Zovirax. Say goodbye to the world, 'cause this is gonna be doomsday!"

And as if on cue, the Zovirax rained on us.

They might have looked dangerous, but they had poor coordination. Most bumped into trees and buildings.

Whatever they touched turned into a magnet which made me remember about keeping many magnets and glue in my pocket. I had an idea. I equally distributed all the magnets and instructed them to put them on the soles with glue that would help them to walk. It worked! And when I saw the grateful faces, I thought," One problem off the list."

"So, what do we do? We are in another dimension, but is this mess happening in our world?"  Jia wondered.

"Depends. But the damage- yes," said a  voice. The speaker was a Zovirax, who was coming toward us. We became wary of ourselves.

He noticed that and said,"Hey, it's okay. I am Buona Volontà and I can help you against Druyal."

He explained to us that the sinners were made Zovirax as their penance and how they stayed in Edumbylier, about the dimensions, how cruel Druyal was, his aspiration to rule the world and his plans.

When he finished, Shania asked, "How do you know all this?"

"And why are you telling us?" Jia demanded.

"I am Duryal's right-hand man, but we don't see eye to eye. He wants to Turn all people into Zovirax and rule the Dark World. Everyone has goodness in them which has to be brought out. I don't want you Zeromes suffer the same awful fate as we. With a little help, I can lead the world towards light."

"True. But how can we defeat him?"

" The magic is concentrated on an enchanted snow globe. The spell is very dark, but breaking it is very easy- just do it the literal way."

As he said these words, his body gave a soft golden aura and disappeared. The trailing golden dust pointed toward a garden.

"Let's go to the garden and end this non-sense!" Kara said.

"Nice battle cry, Kara." I said.

Kara glared and started walking. We all followed.

The garden was a very old one- with rusty benches and rickety swings but still attracted many visitors. There was a little ivy around boundary and beside it was Druyal. We hid in the bushes some ten from him.

This was our chance to save the world. We couldn't afford to lose.
He was indeed holding a snow globe and uttering some gibberish, eyes closed. He looked like he was immersed. "Ssenkrad llahs ngier." 

Kara looked at him and narrowed her eyes. "Just focus on the words he's saying. Pay attention."

We strained our ears to hear from the distance. I thought they sounded familiar. Then it hit me- they were normal words spelled backwards. I translated in my head-" Darkness shall reign. Let this be my safe haven." Oh no.

Whatever he was doing, the globe becoming more and more luminous. It shined a dark, purple light. Looked scary.

"How to stop that? Buona mentioned something about destroying the spell." Kara mused.

"Yeah, he said that we could break the spell- literally." I scratched my head.

"Is it a glass that we can break it?! How can he give us some cryptic lines and then just disappear? So unfair." Shania said, frustrated.

"Hey, you yourself have the answer. The snow globe has the magic in it. So easy, we break it!" Jia figured.

We all stared at her, our mouths hanging open.

"The answer was so easy! I didn't think of that." Shania swallowed in wonder.

"Another reason why we're friends," Jia shrugged.

"I know. Let's do this," she replied.

We walked out of our hideout and stepped cautiously towards Druyal.

He opened his eyes and looked at us, an evil glint in his eye.

"Oh, discovered my secrets already? Well, that won't matter as I'll be winning anyways," he looked at the snow globe in his palm.

Then he closed his eyes, and a dreamy look fell over them. Shania seized the chance to grab the snow globe. His eyes snapped to attention and widened at the sight of Shania flinging the globe to the ground. The globe shattered and the purple light came out and Druyal and the others vanished. Just, poof! And then, the world tilted.

***

We were back in my room and we looked like nothing had happened, but the expressions on my friends faces suggested otherwise.
Jia said," That was weird."

I grinned," Understatement of the year, my friend.

the end.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash