|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- THE WATERALLIDGE EDGE--CUP 1--"GIRLS" --------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  The Waterallidge Edge  ||  -------> (Cup SRwe001, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Three men were falling and drifting, whipped around in the caprice of a chaotic gravity, the outskirts of the city all around them, the place lost and destroyed, and they knew every minute could be their last. Like leaves in a blizzard, the three felt the terror of uncontrol, the nighttime landscape a sickening nightmare in their current plight. A light drizzle drenched them, and it was the slashes of yellow light in the sky, persistent, not lightning, not sun, not moon, that horrified them. They all wanted to talk, to say SOMETHING in the midst of the likely end of their days, but they couldn't manage it in the terrible weather. Then the mischief of nature gone awry slammed them into a mansion, and all three had a tenuous grasp on a slick, time-worn marble banister. "Can someone get a grip!" yelled Pearce Monancahol, a huge man whose yellow hair was matted with moisture, covering his eyes and most of his face. "Use your fingernails... anything... if one of us can get a grip... the others can hold onto him!" They all groped for some hold, but the banister was totally smooth, with no possible place to grab onto. They were flailing wildly, and if not for the temporarily lack of gravity--which they knew could run out any second--they would have been sure to fall off, either to their death on the ground below, or back into the air, to face certain death eventually. This slick banister was their best hope on life. "No good! No! No!" Duncer-Haxun moaned. He was thin, with dark skin and oily black hair, which he risked falling by wiping away from his face. "Wrap your limbs around it!" shouted Perspective Quartz Mahoney, who was hugging the banister with all his might. He was bald with sunglasses, and had a huge nose. "If you can hold on... it would work even without friction... like chains... like links..." All three did as Mahoney suggested, and they managed to get a relatively firm hold on the banister. And then, the weather let up for a moment--a little more gravity, but not too much, and a drying wave of dry heat. "Just hold on!" Mahoney wailed. "Whoever lives here--they're bound to see us sooner or later!" But he peered into the lighted windows and saw, in rooms with orange-brown, run-down walls, that the place was deserted. "All gone!" said Duncer-Haxun. "They must have evacuated--wherever we are, it must be really bad here." "Dammit!" Mahoney screamed, and the weather whipped up again, drenching them with wave of blackish water, a weak antigravity tugging them upward. "Girls!" yelled Mahoney, and all of a sudden his sunglasses, Darnalt Knocking Salt, flew off from his face. At the same time, Pearce's belt, Challen-67, undid itself and met the sunglasses in midair. And, from out of Duncer-Haxun's jacket pocket, his lighter, Prefer Joanie Hugging, zoomed out and met the belt and the sunglasses. The three items linked together--the belt wrapping around the stems of the sunglasses, the lighter snapping shut on the belt. The belt was in a loop now. In a swift motion, the three items flew among the men, and they all caught hold of the belt. In the blink of an eye, they were carried up to a balcony and dropped there, as the three items, spent of energy, clattered to the ground. "Pick 'em up and let's get inside!" Mahoney yelled in panic. Each man desperately grabbed his item, fearing that the weather might act up worse, and scrambled into the mansion, through a broken door frame. "Let's get away from this opening!" Pearce said, and they all ran into the hallway, starkly lit with electric light. They spotted another door, looked in and saw that it had no windows, so they raced into it. The room was dark, the only light coming from the hallway. But they slammed the door shut as soon as they entered, and were in total darkness. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----