Enter a strange and amazing new world you've never seen before, but you most likely already live inside. Follow Theodore, a lonely kid who has to Travel through the 7 Layers of Space in order to find a brick and probably save the universe. Unfortuna...
Forty-eight seconds is a very long time if one is experiencing something truly terrifying.
***
At the Buddy Bot's insistence, Theodore ran from the Time Ghosts.
Rain tore at Theodore's face as he moved forward blindly, hoping his often wonky inner compass was somewhat true and that he hadn't stumbled off the path. His rib ached and his clothes clung to his skin as he tripped forward. Off balance with The Buddy Bot in his arms again, he slipped, skidded, almost fell on his dripping face, and felt the world teeter as his stomach turned. He was unable to see anything, but he could sense something close move quickly through the sheets of rain. He knew that if he fell and stopped, it would be upon them.
The strange music had now swelled to a dissonant orchestral clamor, many songs all at once, a drill in his aching ears. The impossibly loud sound filled his head and his teeth, it somehow felt as if it were one with the water, crawling up and over his skin. He slipped again and felt fear rising as more shadowy figures approached and receded like a wind, testing him. Or playing with him.
He found his feet and ran as hard as he could, fueled by terror. Dimly, he perceived a change in his balance as he struggled to keep ahold of the robot. A long antennae that functioned as an impromptu lance had emerged from The Buddy Bot's slick whirring chest. He tried to yell, "What are you doing?" over the cacophony, but couldn't hear his own words, his mouth simply moved.
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A frozen finger grazed his exposed calf and he tried to scream, pain coursing up his spine like a slow giant spider.
As if from nowhere, a huge building emerged from the sheets of rain, and he would have slammed headlong into its big red front door if the Buddy Bot hadn't extended the weird lance. Acting as both a kind of key and a tool, it pushed one of two enormous doors open just enough for the two of them to rocket-slide through, slamming shut with an echo behind them.
The shock of the prod connecting with the door sent Theodore's teeth into a chatter, and the sudden shift in speed knocked the breath from him as they hurtled inside.
After forty-seven seconds of terrified running in the rain, the boy and his robot clattered to the floor, echoing wildly. A puddle settled around Theodore and he sat up, shocked at the sudden silence and lack of pounding rain, rubbing at his ears and shaking like a dog. Before he could look around, his view was blocked again as a giant blanket fell and covered them with a dull thud.
"Don't be alarmed, dumb dumbs!" a shrill voice yelled from above, "They can't follow you in. Standard quarantine procedure, we don't want to get Time Ghost all over the carpet! Also note that there is no carpet!" Theodore clawed his way from beneath what appeared to be an enormous white bathing towel.
"I have no idea why they make those towels white. They get filthy!" the voice yelled again, somehow at an even higher pitch. Whoever it was, they sounded deeply angered by this towel design flaw. Theodore looked around for the source, freeing himself and using a corner of the cumbersome towel to dry his hair and arms, then offering help to the dripping robot.
He and the Buddy Bot sat in a cavernous circular room whose walls and floors were made up of white marble, peppered by dozens of lean onyx pillars reaching upward, separating dark flickering hallways. A singular stout black marble podium stood directly across from the doors they had fallen through, looking like a kind of ancient reception desk. A tiny green head popped up from behind it, and yelled, "Welcome welcome welcome, wet ones, to The Temple of the Hanging Foot!" followed by a long, self-satisfied cackle.
Terrycloth Green had been waiting for them.
***
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