Lava Death Twister

“Ah, darn it… where are we?”

Light shone through the hole in the treeline made by the crashed airship. Shibu picked herself up amongst the ruins, and Tantan cleared dust off his pants.

“It will take ages to get there on foot! What should we do?” Tantan said.

Shibu pressed the button on the radio.

“Hey, can you hear us?”

Static.

“We can’t reach them from here… We have to just keep walking.”

The sky darkened the further they walked into the woods, until all that remained was a dark blue haze. The cold moist air coated their skin. Sounds of birds, bugs, and flowing water. They walked for hours and hours, the forest seemingly endless, until their path was blocked by a set of huge glowing rocks the size of a monument; their glow giving the air its blue tint.

“What is that?”

They walked closer. On the rock were inscriptions.

“The Temple of The Boot of Time, all who are not friends of The Boot will perish,” Shibu read out loud. “Friends of the boot? What does that mean?”

“That which it means…” a robotic voice sounded from behind, “I get to decide.”

A spider-like robotic creature with sixteen legs, its head shaped like a heart; a line across its center splitting the heart into two.

“Who are you?” Tantan said, gripping the hilt of his sword.

“I am known as The Hex. And I was sent here to destroy troublesome heroes on behalf of STEAMPUNKLORD Kaine. I’ve been looking for them all day since shooting down their airship.”

The Hex vroomed as its head turned, showing the cannons attached to each side of the heart.

Shibu and Tantan glanced at each other. Tantan’s grip on the handle tightened.

“So it was you,” The Hex said. “Attracted to the glowing stones like flies to a gaslamp. Did not expect more from mere servants of the King.”

“You’re going to pay for crashing Zeppelina!” Tantan said as he unsheathed his sword.

The Hex laughed. “What a primitive toy. Let me show you the wonders of steam technology.”

A cloud of steam poured from the heart’s center. The Hex split in two. Two spiders, eight legs each.

“Begone!” Cannons shot from the spiders’ bodies.

Tantan dashed between the shots. His sword bounced uselessly off their armor. A cannon shot exploded at point blank, sending Tantan flying and rolling.

“Bulletproof glass, the cutting edge of armaments. A sword is nothing for it,” The Hex said.

Tantan, bleeding heavily, worked his way back to his feet.

Come on… Show them what you can do! Shibu thought.

But as he got up, one of the Hex got behind him. Boom. The blast sent Tantan flying. Another caught him with another shot. The two Hex shot him back and forth like a tennis ball, and Tantan could do nothing. His face contorted in pain.

“Come on… do something to them!” Shibu said, almost inaudible over the constant explosions.

Tantan was smeared across the ground, covered in blood.

“I’m not… done yet…” he said, barely able to lift himself to his elbows.

“Tantan…”

Shibu clenched her fist as she pointed at The Hex. “Hey! You better stop ganging up on him! It’s not fair to fight two on one!”

“Oh? And what are you going to do about it?” The Hex said.

“I… There’s no choice.” Shibu pointed her hand at the rightmost Hex like a pistol. “It’s time for my… new-and-not-overpowered-but-a-bit-overengineered-because-I-felt-like-it weapon!”

A rainbow-colored laser shot from her finger. Bang. The right Hex stood on a platform opposite to Shibu, surrounded by lava.

“We will play a random game out of 100 modified party games! The loser dies!”

A bar rolled above them until it stopped.

LAVA DEATH TWISTER.

A calm narrator’s voice emerged: “The same as Twister, only that every used circle drops into the lava.”

“Darn it… It has eight legs. Twister is a bad matchup.”

LEFT HAND, GREEN.

The spider nonchalantly moved its limb.

RIGHT FOOT, YELLOW.

Shibu kept moving her hands and legs as each platform fell one after another.

“A pointless effort.”

RIGHT HAND, GREEN.

She twisted and balanced herself again and again until only two circles remained, for the foot and hand.

The spider stood in complete balance.

“What? Do you think you won?” Shibu said, shaking.

LEFT FOOT, DISCARD.

Shibu’s leg thrust upwards as she stood on one hand.

“Unfortunately for you… I’m pretty good at… handstands!”

The Hex’s limb started shaking. “Error. Unable to stabilize mass. Error…” it said, before slipping into the lava.

Panting, grass in her hand, the spider gone, and the other with a sword stuck inside the side of its head.

“Shibu! That was awesome!” Tantan’s voice called behind her. “How did you learn to do that?”

Shibu cartwheeled back to her feet. “Just… some practice.”

“Oh… your hat is gone,” Tantan said.

She grasped at her head. Hair. She looked around and it was nowhere to be found.

“Must’ve fallen into the lava…”

Calming wind on their skin. The sound of birds chirping came back.

“Is it over?” Tantan said.

“I think so. Wait… what’s that?!”

The ground shook. A gigantic, dark figure pulled apart the treeline. Its eyes and mouth glowed as its voice echoed:

“DINNER… IS READY!”

They both gasped before they found themselves back in the yard.

“I saw you two playing so nicely, I didn’t want to interrupt. But it’s getting late,” Tantan’s Mom said.

“Oh, hi Mom…” Tantan said.

“I’ll just be heading out, I don’t want to impose…” Shibu said.

“You’re staying and that’s not up for debate!” Tantan’s Mom said.

Since that day, Shibu kept going to Tantan’s house once a week. Then three times a week. And soon after, almost every day.

***

January, 2011

“But… What if they don’t want me to come!? They’re probably comfortable having less students in the class now!” Tantan said as his heels dragged on the ground.

“Shut up! Everyone wants you to come back!” Shibu said as she physically pushed him into the classroom.

The door opened and everyone stared at him. His face reddened. “H-hello…” he spoke to the air.

Laughs and whispers as he went to his marked seat. Shibu entered right after.

“Hey, isn’t this the shut-in?”

“Seriously? I didn’t think he’d ever come back.”

“Doesn’t he kind of smell?”

“I completely forgot about him…”

“Shut-ins are so creepy…”

Shibu went to her seat at the left front and turned to him. He was shaking and tense. It wasn’t going to be easy, but at least he came back, right? She gave him a thumbs up. And he returned a smile.

***

April, 2026

“That’s right, he even came back to school. So why?” Shibu said.

Shibu opened her laptop and had FindJobsCo open, no messages, no replies for the three applications sent. I can do that later, she told herself. She opened social media instead and looked for Tantan.

“Hey, I know this is kind of sudden but… You see, I remember we used to be good friends when we were kids, but I don’t remember why we broke up? No, that’s dumb… Hey, this is Shibu, remember me? No, no…”

She kept drafting, erasing messages one after another before coming up with the simple: “Hey. This is Shibu. We used to be childhood friends a long time ago, would you be interested in meeting up?”

Sent. She didn’t know how long it would take, they weren’t even following each other, and it was pretty late…

But three minutes later the response came:

“Hey Shibu 🙂 It’s good to hear from you. I’ll be leaving the country in two days, so it might not work. Are you still around Denovere?”

“I am. And I could probably make it work. Are you?”

“Yes. I could maybe squeeze half an hour tomorrow at 15:30. Does that work?”

“Sure!”

***

Two cups of coffee steaming in the old street cafe.

“You look different,” Shibu said.

“Really? For some reason, you look almost the same to me.”

“Have I at least grown a little?”

“Maybe a little.” Tato laughed.

“How are you doing these days?” Shibu said.

“Great, actually. I’m moving abroad with my fiancée for my new job. We’re going to have our wedding abroad and invite everyone in a few months.”

“Impressive. I can’t wait for my boyfriend to propose already…” She leaned on her palm.

“Don’t worry, it will come in time,” he said. “So… what did you want to talk about?”

Shibu leaned forward before speaking. “I found my old drawings of our adventures.” She smiled. “There were so many of them. It just made me think… Why did we break up?”

Tato smiled. “Hah… Do you really not remember?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s…” He crossed his arms.

“What?” She raised an eyebrow.

“That’s surprising. That you’d forget that part.”

“Just remind me then so I can be surprised?”

“Alright then.”