//-------------------------------------------------------// Journey -by AvidSeason- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// The Meeting //-------------------------------------------------------// The Meeting Darkness. It avoided me as I walked to the meeting place. Looking around I saw just a few benches, a fountain, and a pool table. Good. They didn't change anything. It was always a hassle if they changed anything. It usually took me a few hours of my precious time here cleaning up after them. Manipulating my thoughts is definitely harder when they added entire landscapes into them. Now all I have to do is wait for them to appear. It must've been a very good reason for them to mind shout at me to get in there. I had to miss my Netflix reruns of my favorite show. MLP. Now I know what you're thinking, "Mark what are you doing watching My Little Pony?" I was watching it because it's a very good show. I mean it hasn't aired another episode in about a year, but it's still an amazing show that is made by the most imaginative people, with awesome stories and lessons that can touch a lot of people's hearts. I've also been a fan of this show for a long time now. It would be very bad of me not to see at least a little bit of it every now and then. Anyway I'm getting off topic. I wondered why they would want me to come here before our weekly meeting. Seriously, if these guys just came out of their places just to chat they should at least stick to the damn schedule. Seconds passes, maybe minutes or hours. I looked down at my wrist only for a watch to materialize. The watch's face displayed the current time at 1:45 a.m. I sighed. It would definitely be better to speed up my thinking process, or else time will probably skip by. Or.... I could wait. I know that dreams don't technically have an ending unless you either get hurt or you get messed up by an outside force, so I decided to patiently wait for the damn idiots taking their own sweet time. Eventually I heard something in the far blackness. I think that it might be Fuzz. Eventually I began to make the details out as I finally saw the shape moving out of the black fog. It was square-ish in nature muck like a parade float, but that is where those similarities end. A pillar was on it with a spiraling stair case going into the blank sky. Buttons, switches, and slides adorned the sides. As it moved closer I could make out a lone figure messing with them. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7pSp1B3O-Y) Instantly I knew that it was Fuzz up there messing with the switches to perform his entrance. Who could ever mistake that blue and purple Mohawk of his. I saw that he had kept his Beats headphones, but everything else had changed. His shirt was a plain black hoodie with orange sleeves and his shorts were cut jeans. As he moved down the whole of the staircase had began to shrink until he was standing atop his float with a keyboard around his shoulder and a small raised platform behind him. He stepped off of his float making it vanish without a trace. He ran over to me ,away from the far off darkness, and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Mark!!! What's up?!? How's life been treating you?" I looked at him, startled that he didn't even know why I was called here. I waited for him to sit next to me on the bench until I started to speak with him. "Fuzz, don't you know why we were called here?" He looked at me and replied," Dude, you know I don't like that nickname you gave me. Anyway I thought this was the weekly meeting." Great... guess I have to wait for Dingbat to show up and explain the situation. He came over, but as he was about to sit down a loud shout came sharp through the darkness. "WHO'S READY TO ROCK?!?!?!?! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3soskkvYBgM)" Heh. Speak of the devil and he shall answer. We looked over towards a suddenly noticeable dull, red glow coming from the blackness. There he stood with his trademark electric guitar playing out the now noticeable song. He has also changed a lot since last week. His hair is noticeably shorter and his shirt and jacket combo changed from a suede jacket and white shirt to a leather one with a Lead Zeppelin shirt.  I had to admit he has gotten better ever since I read an advanced book on playing the guitar. Sure I couldn't play that thing worth a damn, but the way that Dingbat was playing made him seem like a rock n' roll god. When he finally finished he stepped out of the red glow into the bright spot of the meeting place. His guitar disappeared as he leaned against the pool table. "Duuuuude....Nice." Fuzz high fived Dingbat as they both started to rocking imaginary guitars, both making noises and bobbing their heads. I shook my head at their antics. They were party animals at heart and nothing would change that. "Hey Dingbat! Why are we here earlier than the scheduled meeting? Seriously. All I could hear were you guys screaming into my head to get the fuck here." Dingbat looked over at me with a surprised expression on his face. He ran towards me, grabbed my shoulders, shaking them in the process. "Bro!", he exclaimed, "I nearly forgot why we were here in the first place." He released his grab on me and motioned Fuzz to come over here. Fuzz strode into our little huddle.  Dingbat then began to explain. "Okay, so Despair was walking along doing her own thing in her part of the consciousness right. Well she came across a.... how should I put this.... a 'disturbance'. Anyway she of course immediately blames either me or Fuzz and tried to will it away. It didn't go away." Now this was a serious problem. Normally if whatever anyone else did was willed away it usually vanished from the mind until the person brought it up next meeting to find out who intruded on his or her own space. So if anything couldn't be created or destroyed then.... "How long has it been there?", I asked. Dingbat answered," It appeared merely a few hours ago. We've tried everything we could think of to get rid of it. It won't budge." I sigh as I realize that have to be called in here to deal with it. After all I am the most powerful one here. "Alright...bring me to it. I'll do what none of you can." I reply. He nodded and waved me along into the darkness. Fuzz groaned as he shuffled with us into the inky blackness. "Just to be clear, I'm only coming with you guys because it's the only damn thing interesting going on here." Fuzz said. We continued on the path until the light could not be seen from the meeting place. Then the darkness swallowed us. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eventually I noticed a bright light in the distance. As it walked closer to the light I noticed that no one was near me anymore. I began to hear voices. It seems that they got here before me somehow. As I approached I began to make out a structure of some sort. It was a yellow dome about 2 stories high. I approached it and tried to find an entrance. Suddenly giant sliding doors appeared in front of me and opened. in front of me was Despair. Wow..... She's changed a lot since I last saw her. Instead of her plain black T-shirt and pants she was now wearing gray everything. She has also gotten her hair to turn purple. "Heeeey Mark. How's it going?" she said in a kind of gloomy, Fluttershy manner. Then I noticed it. Right behind her in the empty space of the dome stood the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It was like there was a tear in my mind. Light was streaming out of it, and it kept going back and forth in a wave-like motion. Slowly I approached it. "Alright... I'll just stay quiet....Watcha doin' anyway?" I stopped approaching, turned around, and replied," Sorry, Despair. I was just kind of caught in the moment of this.....thing." I motioned towards the "rift" and she nodded. She then walked over to it. "The real surprise is what's thru it." Wait...thru it. I walked over to her side and peered in. "WHHHHHOOOOOOAAAA." I exclaimed. Thru it I could see a freakin' lot compared to what was over here. Mountains towered towards the impeccable star filled sky. Forests littered the ground and faint roars could be heard of monsters roaming them. Clouds filled my vision as I stared at it all. "Wow, this is beyond our capabilities. I don't think we could get rid of this if we tried." I felt a hand grab my shoulder and squeeze slightly. "Well  let's just go now and see what's in this thing." Fuzz's voice stated. I turned around and saw that the rest of the party had finally arrived. "Well why don't we?" Everyone turned around surprised that Despair actually said this. Usually she's so....introverted. I looked around at everyone. Dingbat gave me an affirmative and Fuzz gave a thumbs up. Huh. Guess we all finally agree on something. "Alright gang, let's get to it!" I yelled. Everyone stared at me for a second before Dingbat stated," Dude.......We're not a frickin' gang. We're more like a posse than anything." everyone nodded to his statement before I conceded. "Fine... Let's go posse! Heh it just doesn't have the same ring to it." "So how are we going about this? Do we all go in one of a time or do we just jump in?" ,Fuzz asked. I stared at the portal thinking very carefully about this next suggestion. "On 3 Okay?" Everyone nodded. "Okay... 1 2 3!" We all jumped into the tear. Nausea instantly hit me. Instead of the sky I was expecting to fall into swirling colors greeted my vision in the form of a kaleidoscope. I saw the others around me, their forms twisted and half-hazard. Screams filled my ears. I don't even know if they were mine or anyone elses. They got closer to me until they touched my skin. Burning pain surrounded me on all sides. They were literally going inside my body. The various and painful sensations were too much. I passed out.