Clyve's Important Mission (Part 1)

The man whimpered pathetically as he tripped down the steps in front of the plain looking building. He dropped his bag, which was an old dirty paper sack from Gurche’s Grocery. It ripped open as it tumbled down the steps, sending the contents spilling all over the dirty bricks. As he crouched over to gather his excessive collection of the book “Don't Forget to Breath: A Collection of Useless Life Reminders That You Already Know”, of which he had at least 6 battered copies of that he carried around daily, his nemesis Stive Krillson happened to walk out of the building.

“Nice work, CLYVE. You better hurry home before I burn your house down! HA!”

“Leave me alone, Stive! I'm only trying to make a buck for good fortune!” Clyde pleaded. But it was too late, the damage had been done. Clyde's feelings had been crushed. He carried his books in his arms, dropping them every few steps and picking them up again. He also kept losing his glasses, which only had one earpiece left, as the other side had melted in a fire, the fuel for which was his former cat Roxy.

The night came on quickly, as the smog in the sky covers up Celari, the dim blue sun that provides most of the daylight. This left Clyve stumbling home in the dark along unlit alleys and shit-covered sidewalks. He cried in dry sobs the whole way there.

When he finally reached his house, he reached in his pocket for his keys. However, he failed to remember that his only pair of pants, which were stitched together out of uncountable types of fabric, had a large hole in the pocket. He always put his house key in that pocket, but as he reached for the key his eyes widened as he realized for the 30th day in a row that it was not there. Damn! He would have to stay up all night sculpting another one out of scrap metal.

Clyve's Pants

Clyve closed his eyes and pathetically punched at the glass in the front door, which he had to keep replacing because he always broke it to get into his house. Glass was expensive around these parts; he had to hop the fence to get into the Black market down at the pier and buy it from Gretta, the only glass dealer he knew of. He generally spent his entire paycheck from the check firm, where he worked 4 days a week from 3-3:30pm, on replacing the glass to his front door. It would probably be more cost effective to just buy a new pair of pants with a quality pocket, but he just never got around to it.

As he walked over the pile of broken glass in the doorway, which consisted of 30 days of glass that he had not yet cleaned up,his mother yelled from the other room.

“Who’s there! I have a police!” she threatened.

“It’s just me, mother!” Clyve said. There was a pause for a moment.

“I don’t know any me! You got 6 seconds to get the hell outta here!” she shouted. Clyve ignored her and walked into the sofa room, where his mother sat stationary on the dirty sofa. She said nothing as she stared blankly at the dark wall. Large flies with human faces buzzed around the ceiling.

In the kitchen, Clyve searched for some food. He opened the stained cold box that had long ago lost its function to keep anything cold. A large insect with a shriveled human head growing on its back ran out from inside and under the counter.

The only scrap of food he could find was an old army ration cracker on the floor. He wondered how many soldiers’ pockets it had gone through to get here as he nearly broke his teeth trying to chew it. After he had finished his meal, he curled up on the kitchen table and cried himself to sleep.

He woke up 3 hours later to the daylight pouring in through the windows, despite being covered in newspaper. (It is important to note that Clyve’s watch has never functioned properly so this is only an estimate of time. It might have been less than 3 hours.)

He didn’t have to go into the check firm today to work, so he just walked outside. The heat was already visibly radiating off of the cracked pavement with weed showing out of it. Clyve groaned dramatically. Even though this was the typical weather around these parts, he acted like it was the worst thing ever. He turned around and went back inside the doorway to grab his radiation goggles. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the shards of broken glass that littered the ground.

“Lookin’ sharp, Clyve!” he said aloud, to no one in particular.

Outside, a place filled with corpses and radiation

Clyve walked down the street. He passed by many abandoned houses with holes in the roofs and boarded up windows. Nobody else lived on this street. He didn’t blame them, it wasn’t a very pleasant place to live.

At the end of the street, Clyve took a left. He didn’t know what the name of this street was, as the sign had been beaten to the ground and painted over many times. He stopped for a moment on the corner to admire the view. There wasn’t much to see except for some burnt down houses and dead plants. The air smelled strangely like rotting meat. It was a completely normal day.

As he stood on the sizzling pavement, Clyve noticed an unpleasant sizzling sensation in his feet. He lifted his foot to take a look, and observed that the ground had burnt right through his shoe! Angrily, he ran to a nearby house that looked like it hadn't been completely destroyed yet. The way he ran was similar to that of a one legged kangaroo on steroids.

The door was boarded shut, so Clyve took a few steps backwards and stomped his foot in the dirt a few times like an angry bull. Then, he ran full speed towards the door.

A house, in relatively good condition as far as the standards go in these parts

It didn't work out like he had planned in his head. He made contact with the door and bounced backwards 15 feet like a chunk of brain hitting an electric fan, landing in the dirt. As he tried to catch his breath, he heard the door creak open.

“Who there” said a creepy voice. Clyve looked up suddenly, startled as he was used to being alone all the time. He said nothing as he stared open-mouthed up towards the dark figure that peered out of the cracked doorway. As he lay there, the door opened a bit wider and four tiny figures scurried out. They ran over to him, each one lifting a corner of his body to carry him inside the house. He squirmed around as he realized what was happening, but was unable to escape. This was likely due to his lack of any muscular mass and years of malnutrition.

The tiny figures, dressed in dark robes without any obvious facial features, carried Clyve into the doorway then dropped him suddenly on the hard wooden floor. They ran in a single line into a small hole in one of the walls, disappearing from view.

“Well then, what do we have here?” said the same raspy voice he had heard before. Glass crunched as the hooded figure stepped into view above Clyve, who was still lying on the ground. This person looked exactly the same as the little things that had carried him in here, only in regular person size.

The figure before him wore a baggy black robe with an oversized hood that concealed his entire face. He stood above Clyve motionless without saying a word.

“Greetings” muttered Clyve, it seemed like the appropriate thing to say in this particular situation. The hooded menace still said nothing. He reached into a pocket on his robe, fumbled around for a bit, then whipped out a small vial filled with some sort of concoction. He slowly screwed open the vial without diverting his gaze away from Clyve, then dumped the contents directly into Clyde's mouth. It tasted horribly bitter for several moments until he felt very relaxed and fell into a deep coma-like slumber.

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Clyve was woken by a tingling sensation on the tip of his nose. It was horribly unpleasant, sort of like an extendable hairbrush tickling his nose. He opened his eyes groggily to find the hooded menace from before tickling his nose with an extendable hairbrush.

     “Would you please stop tickling my nose with that extendable hairbrush?” pleaded Clyve. He tried to raise his hands to deflect the unpleasant tickling, but realized that his arms were tied to a chair. They weren't even in a comfortable position to be tied in, his left arm was tied facing upright to the the opposite handle on the chair and his right arm was tightly secured to the back of the chair.

The man continued to tickle his nose for a few moments as if he was gaining some sort of demented pleasure out of the task. Then, he dropped the extendable hairbrush and in one motion dropped his hood to reveal his face.

The man beneath the hood was not at all what Clyve was expecting. He usually tries not to build up expectations about new people so as not to feel disappointed at any point, but he couldn't help but imagine an image of the face of his mysterious dark hooded abductor beforehand.

The man was small, much smaller than his oversized robe originally made him appear. His skin was pale, nearly transparent. His head was void of any hair, save for one uncomfortably long strand of wirey silver growing off of the right half of his face. His nose was a perfectly pointed triangle shape.

“My name”, he grumbled in a gargled tone, “is Boozok”. He followed this with an awkward bow as if Clyve was supposed to be impressed or something. Clyve stared at the strange man in silence. After a moment, Boozok cleared his throat.

“Why have you disturbed my secret lair, young heathen?” he asked.

“Uh. . . the ground was hot” Clyve answered. Boozok considered this for a moment, then:

“Unacceptable!” he shouted, growing suddenly angry. He walked to a nearby table, picked up a small plastic cup, and threw it on the floor as hard as he could. It was admittedly not very intimidating at all.

“Wha.. what are you gonna do to me?” Clyve whimpered.

“I will have to consult my wife on this matter” replied Boozok. “Shelly, what do you propose?” Clyve craned his neck as far as he was able in his uncomfortable position, but failed to spot anyone else in the room. In fact, the only other visible living creature was a potted plant with brown leaves in the corner.

“Hmm, interesting thought, my dear.” Boozok said. It was clear now that he was addressing the plant. He looked back at Clyve, then back at the plant.

“Oh, how rude of me! Prisoner, this is Shelly, my beautiful wife” Bookzok gestured to the plant in the corner. Clyve did not know how to respond, so he just stayed silent.

“How dare you disrespect my wife!” shouted Boozok. He reached for the extendable hairbrush.

“Oh, I uh, It’s a pleasure to meet you, plant!”

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO MY WIFE IN THAT TONE!” Boozok was furious. He kicked the wall, but yelped in pain and grabbed his foot.

"Shelly"

After a sorry moment, Boozok collected himself and addressed Clyve.

“How would you like to be in charge of an important- mission?” he asked.

Clyve’s face lit up.

“What kind of important mission?”
"A VERY important mission, one that only someone such as yourself can complete"
"How important is the mission?"
"Very VERY important" said Boozok, beginning to sound frustrated.
"Yes, but how-"
"Shut up!" Boozok exclaimed, then cleared his throat. It sounded like a broken garbage disposal. "Will you accept this very important mission?"
"Well, let me think. . ." Clyve proceeded to zone out for about 10 minutes as he thought.

"I've decided that I have nothing more important to do, so I will accept your very important mission!" said Clyve.
"Very excellent. . " Boozok said in a devious sort of tone, "First, you must deliver this important message” Boozok said as he reached into his robe and held out a yellowed envelope. It was dripping some sort of sticky looking liquid onto the floor. He held it out towards Clyve with a smug grin on his face.

“TAKE IT!” Boozok demanded. Clyve attempted to take the disgusting message, but his arms were still tied to the chair. “Oh, right, sorry” he said as he untied Clyve and handed him the envelope.

“Where do I take it to?” asked Clyve.

“Travel to the west outskirts of the abandoned waterfront. From there, you will receive further instructions.” at the conclusion of this sentence, Boozok pulled a small brown sack out of his pocket and poured some sort of powder into his hand. He threw the powder on the ground, creating a small cloud of dust. The cloud settled in seconds as Boozok ran into the other room. The cloud was probably supposed to conceal his movement, but it was admittedly not very mysterious at all.

Clyve still stood in place with the envelope in his hand. Boozok peered out from around the corner.

“I’m counting on you, young apprentice, do not fail me!” Boozok said. Clyve felt invigorated for the first time in his life with a sense of purpose.

“And do not, I say, DO NOT, look at the contents of the message!” he said. “Now GO!”

Clyve slowly turned around and walked out of the door.

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The abandoned waterfront, contrary to its name, was nowhere near any sort of water. There may have once been some sort of small pond, but these days water came only from brief rainstorms that lasted up to a minute at a time. Clyve trotted along the cracked road in the general direction of the waterfront, hopping around as the scalding dirt continued to burn his exposed foot.

Clyve wondered excitedly what sort of mission he had gotten himself wrapped up in. The hooded menace, Boozok, was clearly some sort of elemental mastermind with spells and chemicals and other things of the sort. He’d heard of this sort of thing by overhearing conversations at Turche’s Tavern, a small decaying shack that served as a drink place. Supposedly, there were mysterious men that spent their lives hiding in the dark and practicing strange ceremonies in solitude.

He looked a the strange letter he was carrying. It was shrouded in mystery, and Clyve wanted very badly to open it. He knew this would be a very terrible idea, so he dismissed it immediately, carefully sliding the letter into his pocket.

Once he reached the waterfront, he looked around for.. well, anything. He was supposed to receive “further instructions”, whatever that meant. All around him were the hollow shells of tall buildings, once busy centers for all kinds of activity like fraudulent schemes and excessive eating. Now they were home only to terrifying creatures with human faces that should not have human faces. He shifted around uncomfortably as the scalding ground sizzled beneath his feet.

Very tall buildings of a once thriving civilization, former centers of fraudulent schemes and excessive eating

Suddenly Clyve could hear some kind of distant high pitched whistling noise over the sound of his skin sizzling from the heat. He looked around, but saw no sign of any other living creature. The noise continued to grow louder every second.

The noise became clearer as some sort of deranged scream. Clyve looked up towards one of the buildings, shielding his eyes from the scorching blue sun. A small black speck was rapidly falling towards the ground.

Within seconds, the black speck had reached the ground level, hitting the ground with a loud crunch. It left a smoldering crater in the dry dirt.

Clyve walked over to the crater and peered down into it. To his bewilderment, there was nothing at the bottom. He felt a tug on his pants at the ankle. He looked down to see one of Boozok’s tiny hooded minions gazing up at him. It offered him a small envelope.

He reached down to take the envelope. As he took it the minion scurried away quickly. He watched the small hooded minion run away, noting that the strange little creature could move surprisingly swift for a small hooded minion. He looked at the envelope he had received. Written in bold red letters on the front was some strange word he had never heard of before. He stared at it in bewilderment for a good couple minutes before realizing that it was upside down. He flipped it over and sounded out the word “OPEN”.

He tore the envelope in half. Inside was a crumpled up slice of paper with a message written in cut out magazine letters glued to the page.

“CLyVE,” it read, “congratulations on making it this far. Yet this is only the first of your many tests. You must now travel to floor 178 of this very tall building. Good luck.”

Then, at the bottom of the sheet, “Love, Boozok” followed by some very unevenly drawn little hearts. Clyve shuddered at this.

Clyve looked up towards the very tall building. He had heard stories of men that had gone into those very tall buildings, never to be seen again. They had presumably been destroyed or decapitated by the strange creatures with human faces that should not have human faces. He walked towards the front door of the very tall building. He had no idea what to expect, or if he would even be alive at the conclusion of this very important mission.

To be continued. . .