Laurel Dunes Pt2: Morning Routine

Louis sleeps and he sleeps to dream. He dreams of cessation, he dreams of himself and he dreams of a distinct crackling sound. The crisp slap of burning wood assails him as he sits amidst nothing. The sky is an endless nothing of white as is the rest of this place, all around him exists blankness with no promise of end or being. Simply him and the little fire he sits beside. The film is minuscule waning with every passing moment. The flame bats about like a dead rat in the paws of a cat.

He feels sympathy for some reason, some indescribable part of him wants to keep the fire going but he has no way to do so. The fire begs him for sustenance and he feels pity that he can’t supply it. Pity that he can’t keep this little spark going. Shame that he has nothing to offer. Worry of what will happen to him if the fire goes out. This is a dream but dreams run on a logic all their own, worrying about a flame is a sane thing to do. He searches the white expanse and finds nothing to burn, the same as each and every other time he’s looked for something to keep the fire going.

He reflects that he could have only worried about keeping the fire going tonight as this is, to his recollection, the only time he has ever slept and the only time he has ever dreamed. Still in this single dream he has attempted to feed the fire a thousand times over without finding a way to do so.

Please

The fire seems to speak and that’s fine because this is a dream. Louis leans close to listen to the waning flame. He holds his breath as he leans close afraid that even exhaling could kill the tiny flame once and for all.

Burn something

“I’ve nothing to burn,” he whispers tenderly to the flame, placing a hand over his mouth as he speaks to the ragged embers that remain, “I’ve nothing to give you.” He paused. “Sorry,” he wasn’t sure why he should apologise to the flame but this was a dream and they had a logic all their own, or so he had read somewhere recently.

I don’t need much

Some hair

Some fingernails

A finger

The fire had gone decidedly sinister rather quickly. Though, Louis supposed, this was a dream and they were want to turn into nightmares at the very slightest of provocations. The flame was no Calcifer and he was no Howl but if the fire wanted fuel he could scarcely refuse the thing after all what would happen when that spark went out? HE didn’t want to know so he gave the fire a gift. This was a dream after all so he could give it a macabre gift without a second thought.

“I suppose,” Louis said to the flame, “I could give you the left hand, hardly use it,” he entertained the notion flexing the fingers for a moment as his brain reeled at how preposterous this was and at the same time continued to beat out that this was a dream. So with a tug Louis left hand came free, still moving some as he held it by the middle finger. He was shaky for a moment before he threw the hand on the fire.

He thought he might have done something very stupid but at the end of the day this was a dream after all so it hardly mattered much. The flame accepted the hand, greedily it began to glut itself on the raw material that would give it size and substance. The flame danced around the pale flesh of his hand for a moment as though deciding where best to sink its fangs into first, which finger looked the most delicious, what was the best form of attack for this situation? Then it got bored and simply sprang atop the pale limb.

The conflagration that followed was almost enough to take Louis eyebrows off. He scuttled back crablike to avoid the flame that towered to the firmament above, stretching into the great white sky without any sign of stopping. Louis was aware that while this was a dream that may not have excused the fact that he may have just done something stupid.

---

He awoke then to the sound of a siren and the quiet yelps of someone trying in vain to be quiet in the morning. Something was burning, that brought a small grin to his sharp features. He sat up from the couch, which had served as his ad-hoc bedding for the night, to witness his host in the kitchen busying about a toaster.

He’d been given, that’s a charitable way of told, that he could, would, sleep on the couch for the night. To ensure he wasn’t going to leave the woman formed one gloved hand into a manacle and clapped it about his leg. She informed him that if it felt like he went too far it would quite easily snap him back to her. Louis entertained the notion she was either insane or one of those viciously kinky Hollywood stars that surely exist, the former seemed more likely to his immense disappointment. At some ungodly hour he made the assessment that he could not escape, there was no lock on his manacle to pick and while loping the offending limb, hers not his, off she would likely recover fast enough to cause him yet more grief. So he had simply set himself down and tried in vain to remember who he was.

The effort of trying to remember himself caused him to lapse into a slumber until he was rudely awakened by the almost certain failure that was to be breakfast. His host, or warden, seemed unchanged from yesterday. She looked almost shiny under the light like some freshly polished gemstone. Her hand was still locked about his ankle but it seemed to have extended slightly. From the thick ring locked about his ankle sprouted a long tube which went off into the kitchen to find it’s owner. There it busied about with the rest of her as she tried to waft away the toaster smoke with a hand shaped like a fan, not a simple one either but one with spinning blades and some serious momentum.

Cel was not a chef, she was an actress, and as such anything harder to operate than a toaster confused her. That said even the toaster had it’s moments of befuddlement, she’d opted for an older model of toaster that required you to time your own toast and pop it up after a time of your choosing. For that distinctive toasted bread aficionado who knew JUST how they liked their toasted bread, normally she had no issues with it but this morning she was in a rush.

First there was calling her previous agent, a Tony something he’s not an actor so he’s not important, and snagging what little of her schedule he was able to keep up with. It was an incomplete list, certainly, Cel had thought as she poured over the details and she was quite certain she didn’t remember signing up to do half of these contracts- “Honestly I agreed to advertise tires!?”- and she was even more aware of the various contracts missing from the list.

Cel would likely never tell you she was somewhat spotty in her mental faculties, she came from a different more classic walk of life after all, but anyone in conversation with her for more than five seconds would see the tell tale smiles. The inability to pay full attention to the topic at hand, eyes scanning for something more interesting to her and the fact that she was often to ask “Wait what?” when you asked her if she was listening.

With that in mind know that it was with absolutely no malice that Cel had no idea what all of her contracts were or even when they were to be filmed or WHEN they were due. She was an actress after all they weren’t supposed to keep track of this kind of thing, there were people for that. It just so happened that Cel tended to drive those people insane when she stopped to sign autographs for six hours, accepted thirty new contracts in a day and on the odd occasion ran off for no apparent reason other than to run off.

As such Cel’s frankensteined list of contracts due and events scheduled looked like a total mess of names and locations to her. As such she scrubbed out the ones that didn’t seem important and locked in the ones she knew she was required for, those films being made over at Ink-Will and a few commercial spots all over the city. She no idea who to call for these or even if they were still happening but hey that was her agent’s job. She was an actress not an agent there is a very clear difference therein. Actors acted and agents….did...stuff. Cel had no idea what agents were good for save turning English into gibberish and badgering her into action when she’d much rather do something else.

“What’s on fire?” Louis inquired as he decided to make himself known. Cel turned to look at him, simply pivoting on her waist as though she were a screw, and indicated with a large arrow shaped hand the toaster. Louis managed a dry chuckle before flopping back onto the couch and trying to will himself into a coma. He closed his eyes counted to three and opened them to find the pale face of his captor above him, he narrowed his eyes at her baleful optimism.

“No time for sleep, wakey wakey,” she said as she grabbed at his shoulders and dragged him back into a sitting position, “ I need to seize the day and my day can’t properly be seized without you there,” she declared causing Louis’ face to lock into a leer.

“My dear I think you’re rushing our relationship,” he began, “I mean we’ve already been fairly intimate I admit,”

“What?” She blocked clumsily and Louis set up for a verbal lunge.

“I’m referring my dear to our closeness in proximity, previously,” he said vaguely going for a feint to keep her on her toes. He left the couch and ducked under the torso of the woman, which had flowed from her waist out into her sitting room to have this conversation. As he made his way to the toaster she reeled herself in to match his pace.

“What?” She repeated falling directly into the trap he had set for her. He pitied her for a moment, and himself because  this really was a poor level of humour to be adopting even for his captor.

“I’m referring to the fact that we’ve been rather speedy in our relationship is all. I’ve already been inside you, you know,” a terrible sex is always the absolute best way to make the worst first impression of yourself. That said his first impression had been, apparently, exploding out of this woman’s torso last night so getting to vulgarities was something of a set up he supposed.

Her brain churned, Louis swore he could hear the gears going, as she tried to make heads or tails of that statement. “Yes,” she said simply, “you have been?” She looked quite confused and Louis realised that while he was fencing she still in the opposite room suiting up, she’d yet to join this battle of wits- vulgar wit true but that passes as wit for people awakened by toaster fires.

“Right,” Louis said shaking his head dislodging the grog and sleep from his mind, “I’ll be wanting a shower before I have my,” he looked at the toast as Cel tugged it from the steel maw of the machine, “charcoal.”

“Sure, sure,” Cel piped up as she chomped into a piece of toast, several of her teeth shattering into tiny fragments as she did so, “I’ll jussht be whaithing here, with yersh cloathesh,” she said through empty gums. She looked at Louis expectantly raising her red and blue eyebrows at him, up and down like an engine piston. He didn’t laugh and walked into the bathroom. “Everybodshy ah critic,” she said as her teeth simply dinged back into place with a loud clack.

Louis had a look at himself in the mirror and finally got to see what exactly he looked like. He found it strange that he didn’t know but he reasoned that everything about him was rather strange, he only came into existence yesterday yet knew the names of things and places and how they worked. He was also maybe twenty five despite being a day old, something told him he should get used to mystery and just roll with the punches until he was free of his slave-driver. He turned to the large glass box in the corner and opened the doors. He turned the tiny number dials as far to the right as he could and delighted in the number of heat settings this shower had, entirely certain that he loved his showers scaldingly hot.

The water hit the tiled floor and then a moment later so did he, the air was knocked from his lungs as he heard an audible shriek. He turned to face the door to find his manacle slithering away under the door leaving a fine trail of white ruin as it went. Wholly confused Louis dragged himself up, hissing at the pain he felt welling up in his chest- there’d be a bruise there for sure. He pushed the door open to find his host clear as far away from him and the bathroom door as possible.

He was ready to berate her for slamming him to the ground, no doubt because she hates him or some such nonsense or she JUST got the vulgarities from earlier but he stopped when he saw her face. The woman was terrified eyes wide as plates, though not literally as she could no doubt manage, and constantly darting about the room. She was sat atop a small table, it’s contents spilled onto the floor with wild abandon and her knees were drawn up to her chest. She seemed to wordlessly trying to scream out.

“What’s wrong, did something happen?” Louis chanced walking into the room, his eyes scanning about for some intruder. The minute he took a step she held up a hand and wailed.

“No! STOP! No closer! Are you trying to kill me looking like that!?” She back up further if that was possible her body moulding into the wall as though she were a piece of wallpaper design. Louis stopped in place, he wasn’t sure if this was a game or his captor was crazy but he stopped regardless.

“Alright,” he said backing up into the bathroom doorway, hands held up to keep the woman calm, “I’ll just, do you need help?” He asked sincerely. She just shook her head frantically and stabbed a finger at him.

“No, no, go shower, dry off, go get do that!” She declared and Louis sensing the fraying nature of his host did so. The moment the door was closed Cel slid along the wall, the floor might be tainted, the floor might be harmful. She edged along the tiny wooden outcroppings that split her wallpaper with feet as thin as a razors edge until she was able to slink over to the kitchen where she detached herself from the wall with a faint tearing sound. She tugged open a cabinet and removed a little green first-aid box from within. She raised her hand, the one that until a moment ago was secured around the blonde man’s ankle, and she winced at the look of it. A finger had been removed, only a small dripping stump remained in its place.

Her hand was full of tiny spotted holes, little ragged mouthed empties that allowed her to see the floor below. She took a deep breath, he didn’t know she reasoned, it was an accident she told herself, it’s not the usual kind of thing people have to worry about, it was fine. Her brain reeled and she bit down on her lower lip to hold back the scream she wanted to let out. Water was a problem for her.

Cel was a thing made of ink and as such she and water got on like well.. water and ink. The slightest touch of the stuff was catastrophic to her. The splashes from the shower starting was enough to almost take off her whole hand, she flexed it weakly to ensure that it still worked and thankfully it did. After calming down, a few more deep breaths and a quick look at the rest of her body she decided everything was alright. She upended the first aid kit and stationary tumbled out. A pair of thick bottomed bottles of black ink, a dozen or more biro cartridges of a dozen shades and a slim collection of highlighter pens. It was more a pencil case than an emergency kit.

She plucked up one of the larger bottles of ink and pulled out the large stopper within. From there she placed a small dropper into the bottle and squeezed the bulb at its base sucking up some of the ink. She held the dropper above each of the affected areas and delicately squeezed out a small drop or two. The ink landed and was seemingly made animate it dragged itself over the holes in her form and sat there until it suffused with the material already present. Soon enough her hand was back to normal save for the missing digit.

The black ink turned quickly to white as the rest of her hand flowed over the patchwork wounds to make it look good as new. Next came the finger loss. She plucked a thin steel pen cartridge from the pile she had, turning it over in her five fingered hand, weighing it slightly and putting it through a mess of invisible tests that only she could explain before nodding soundly.

She placed the steel cylinder against her stump, the side intended for the nib of the pen directly into the affected area and then she concentrated. It took a smattering of effort to do the things she did, there were strange new organs and muscles in Cel’s body- things man would never evolve but cartoons could not function without. She inhaled and worked some of those strange unnatural, to man at least, muscles and got to work. She could feel the ink in the nib, thick flowing wonderful life giving stuff.

Mankind had the fires of creation or what-have-you but her people had ink to thank for life. It was their skin, it was their blood it was their everything and Cel could feel the stuff around her most of the time, when it was close enough with a smattering of effort should could move it. The ink in the container slid out or more accurately was dragged out by think wispy tendrils. Cel felt the tiny micro-additions to her body as it slid into her being, absorbed and being re-purposed for her needs. It went from lifeless black gunk to sleek animated living material she couldn’t explain how it worked only that she knew it would and so it did. It’s how she explained most things, it worked because it was supposed to work and that’s that.

The white of her hand climbed up the outside of the steel cylinder, slowly tangling about itself like ivy swallowing up a castle. Inch by inch her finger returned to her until it was as if nothing had ever happened, she was fine, all was well there was nothing to worry about. She flexed the digit and found it rigid at first, uncooperative until she heard a faint snap. She’d crushed the cylinder away and now her hand was back to normal. The fingers danced about and with a twitch of muscle she was able to form each finger into a separate little version of herself that held up exaggeratedly large thumbs to tell her that everything was A-OKAY!

She let out a sigh of relief and went about packing away her emergency kit. Dropped dripped dry into her bottle, pens all arrayed into neat little rows and the dropped placed back in it’s little socket. She plucked open the cabinet and placed the little green box back within. That was certainly a close one, it was rare she had guests- rarer still they stayed the night. So she’d almost forgotten she owned a shower, or a bathroom, lord knows she never needed to use it. It came with the place really and it seemed an effort to get rid of it for when she did have guests.

“You umm, okay?”

Cel jumped with a start and turned to face the man who would be her agent. Shirtless, blonde hair slicked back with water, little runnels of the stuff sliding down the back of his neck and down his shoulders. Making tracks across his slim chest before tumbling to the floor at his feet. It was enough to make Cel scream again. Before the drenched blonde could reply she slapped seemed to grab herself at the waist and pulled up.

Her head bumped against the ceiling but that didn’t bother her any, her hands slid down to the middle of her extended taffy like torso, one on either side, and pulled. Her body was now twice as wide as it was tall. Louis was a baffled by the proceedings and continued to just drip onto the floor. Cel clenched with effort, a series of changes took place in her body as the flat disk that was her torso segmented into three distinct flat ellipses like shapes.

Louis tilted his head slightly as he realised what he was looking at. The shapes began to turn in the circle, slowly at first before picking up to almost blinding speeds. She’d turned herself into some sort of giant fan.

“GET DRY!” She wailed as Louis was slapped with a blast of air. He clung to the couch for security, sliding back slightly on his own damp feet. His hair shot back and the air stung at his eyes. He held up a hand to steady himself but really all this succeeded in doing was having him slap himself in the face due to the velocity of wind Cel was putting out. He tried to yell for her to stop but he wasn’t making headway over the wind, pieces of furniture shot back across the apartment and the couch pivoted in front of him before sliding toward him.

It was with alien effort that he dodged it. His left hand bracing against the couch flexed and dragged him forward, he slipped on his own sodden feet and tumbled forward. But with his singular hand he steadied himself and elevated into a vertical single-handed handstand before vaulting over the couch in a simple languid push. He was amazed ,startled even, then he landed in the damp mess on the floor and butchered the landing.

He smacked down flat with a slap before the force of the living fan blasted him into the neighbouring room, dragging harshly across the wet floor. Ear over elbow until he collided with the plush surface of the couch. He grumbled under his breath as he realised that today hadn’t even started yet and he’d smacked into the ground at least twice now. Today was sure to be hellish.

---

It was a sold ten minutes before tornado Cel stopped her blowing. Louis emerged from the next room over, towel about his waist, and his hair ruined in it’s entirety into some shape resembling a bullet or a tear drop. He wrestled with it as he wobbled into the room. “What? Was that!?” He inquired loudly stopping before Cel who had flopped back to her original shape and herself had just seen the damage she’d done to her lodging.

“I don’t like water,” she said simply, nodding once and crossing her arms across her chest, “I don’t like it getting everywhere. You tracked in water, don’t like making a mess,” she noticed him indicate the rest of the upended room. “I don’t like water damage,” she amended scanning a cautious pink eye over his form. He was certainly dry now, blow dryer treatment had seen to that.

“A little teensy amount of warning would have been great,” Louis hissed as he managed to get his hair to stop sticking up at the back. He had just about had it and the day had only just begun, his toast had likely been lost in that onslaught.

“I’m sorry,” Cel managed unable to make eye contact with him, “I know how to cheer you up though, I’ve got your clothes ready. Come here,” she reached out for him and he took a step back reflexively. “You don’t trust me?”

“In a word no. In two absolutely not.” Louis said as the the woman took another small step forward and he took another small step back, the world’s worst tango partners had just met. She frowned at him, eye’s narrowing down on him. She turned her back to him and sighed.

“Fine, fine,” she said shrugging her bulbous shoulders, “it’s not like I need to SNEAK ATTACK!”

Her form rippled for a moment bending forward at the waist before snapping back toward him, rising over him like a great wave. He was able to mutter something disparaging before it crashed down over him. Cel chuckled at the shape of the man jutting from the middle of her body, flailing about and stretching out various sections of her inky form with his pointless flailing. Her body rose again lifting his legs from the ground where they pedalled in the air uselessly but he was held fast by the rest of her body, trapped as though in quicksand. With a twitch of effort a pair of small black lashes shot out from her back and dragged his milling legs into her inky black form as well effectively trapping the man.

Her body returned to a normal shape, albeit she was slightly taller than she had been a moment ago and her body seemed to be constantly wiggling in place as it tried to contain it’s now thrashing contents. Cel coughed once or twice when a particularly painful blow was struck against her innards. A hand rose out around her shoulders and flailed about until with a quick clench of her teeth and some muscles she sucked it back into her form. He was so bad at this. She gave her hips a quick shake, swaying madly from side to side, and chuckling slightly at the feeling of her passenger rebounding off her sides until at last she stopped.

“There we go!” She grabbed one of her shoulders and jerked backward as she herself took a step backward. As she stepped back she left Louis standing where she once was. He looked rather disoriented his vision swimming with stars, blue and red ones she had provided no doubt to complete this schtick, but the biggest change to his look was the rather bright blue suit he’d been crammed into.

A blue suit jacket and matching trousers that he had to say looked garish on him, that was being kind as he could have said much more horrible things were his mind not reeling from being dunked in darkness a moment ago. His collar was a mismatched blue and red affair to mimic the hair of his host and the sleeves of his outfit terminated in a similar blue and red combo, as too did the shoes he found his feet planted in. The thing wasn’t made of anything he’d worn before, limited true but it was still strange, it felt more like he was wearing some kind of sleek body sock than a suit and it rather appeared to be shiny again much like his host.

“What fresh hell is this?” He asked, “I look like a bloody magician in this get up,” he looked down at himself and noticed the bulbous tie, also red and blue, and that almost gave him a heart attack. His host appeared at his back and threw her arms around his waist giving him a harsh squeeze.

“It’s the one of a kind super special ultra rare CEL suit!” She said as though that meant anything to him. He just looked at her, his expression flat and tempered. “Hurray?” She grinned at him but his gaze remained steely so she slunk back on long legs.

“I’m not wearing this,” he said and when he tried to reach for the buttons he found none. He tugged at the material and rather than have any resistance it stretched with his tugs. “Oh god it won’t come off,” he grunted as he tugged at the sleeve and watched the elastic felt like substance stretch accommodatingly.  “What is this?”

“That’s the Cel suit made from 100% Cel brand Cel!” She boasted proudly placing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest some. “It’s almost as stretchy and flexible as me and best of all it IS me! So I know where you are as long as you wear it and it has handy dandy anti-runaway feature lookit!” She tighten her body and seemed to clench something in effort, hands balling into dull spheres and then he felt the tug.

The suit’s lapels moved toward her then so too did the shoes and the shirt and the pants, it was less that stretching resistance he felt, and a straight up tractor beam like pull of epic proportions. His feet almost left the ground as he was dragged across the floor to the woman where they collided rather firmly. Cel’s arm then looped around Louis’ shoulders and continued circling until they reached his shins at which point he rather firmly accepted he was trapped.

“See besties!” Cel said eagerly mashing her cheek against his, “We stick together all day for the next three days because if you try and run; you go to the police!” She said in almost eagerly. She caught Louis look. “Hey you broke in her mister,” she poked him on the nose, “I won’t take any guff from you. I’m 100% guff proof right now, guff guarded and all that.” She puffed out her cheeks in an attempt to look menacing and serious and pouty but it really did nothing.

Louis just groaned. “Fine, of course, next three days I’ll help you out. What do I need to do?” He asked and she let him go, her arm unravelling and spinning him in-place. Ever desperate for the classics Cel couldn’t have refused doing that even in a semi serious situation such as this. She stepped off on a long leg into the kitchen head remaining beside Louis as the rest of her departed.

“Okay so there’s a little sheet of paper by the,” she stopped, “oh man I blew it away...so there’s a little sheet of blue paper somewhere with my schedule written on it your first agent job is to FIND it.” She said in a banner that inferred that this quest was tantamount to finding the grail before letting her head whip back to join her body. “How do you like your toast!?”

Louis skirted around the room on his gummy soles as he tried to hunt out the find this fabled paper, “Lightly toasted maybe a minute or two, just warm bread,” he said automatically not sure if he actually DID like that or if it just sounded right to him. This being mysterious thing was very annoying he really did need to figure out what his deal was and quite quickly. He had no memories to speak of save a scant few strange recurring phrases and thoughts that likely meant nothing.

He was able to find the paper ducked beneath a pillow. The whole thing was an eclectic little list of places and names he didn’t recognise. That was it. Top of the list was “Stunt Work- Ink Will- ‘Adventures of Lucy Lastique 2: Return of Sunspot’” and that meant less than nothing to him. He scanned the list and similarly there was no contact numbers no locations, nothing that he really needed to know. Simply a name and a production.

“Cel is it?” Louis said as he folded the piece of paper up and jammed it into his pocket, “I’m missing plenty of details here, I have no idea where any of these places are,” a plate of toast was thrust before him, “thank you,” he took the bread and bit into it.

“Well,” Cel said tapping a thin finger against her lips, “the car has a GPS thingy it’s probably got the locations in it somewhere or you can search for them on there. I’m pretty sure that we can,” the phone went off and Cel spun in one quick movement, pivoting on her waist in a full circle to pluck the phone from it’s cradle and turning back to Louis in a moment before answering with a smile. “Helloooooo,” she pulled the phone away from her ear with a squeak and lobbed it at Louis, “for you!”

He dropped the plate he was holding from his hand and caught the phone, his mind reeled at what he had done when his other hand snapped out and caught the plate mid-fall. He had good reflexes at least. He held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“The fuck are ye!” A gruff voice belted over the phone, a borough so thick it was soupy, “ye’re late ye great eejit!” Louis looked at Cel and she held up her hands, with the words written on it ‘You’re the AGENT, agent him!’. Louis grumbled silently and sighed.

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir. I’m a new agent so I was just getting to grips with the-”

“I dinnae gae a toss mate!” the other man roared, “Get over here naow ye great galoot! We’re shooting here! You’ve got ten minutes or I’m commin tae get ye!” The phone hung up and Louis placed down the phone and his plate.

“So we’ve ten minutes to get down there or some loud guy with a bad accent will come here to fetch us,” Louis clapped his hands and made his way to the door. “So let’s go. Where’s this car thing?” Louis became aware that when Cel joined him that he had no IDEA what a car was or how one worked. But he was hoping some memories would come to him soonish to remind him what it was or if he knew what it was.

“Follow me!” Cel declared opening the door to reveal a large corridor at the end of which was an elevator. As they made their way down the hall briskly Louis silently willed himself to know everything he could possibly know about cars and how they worked. Nothing popped up right away but he had a whole elevator ride to worry about that.

“Who was that on the phone?” Louis asked over the chippy tune.

“Gary, he’s the director, he’s a bit crazy for schedules.” She said.

“Oh, that bad?”

“Before he was a director he was a super villain who could summon volcanoes.”

“Super bad.”

“Super bad.” Cel agreed with a nod. Louis swallowed as the door opened and he was faced with the mysterious car upon seeing it he thought ‘oh that’s a car? I know what a car is and can probably drive that!’ But he had his doubts. Cel threw him a set of keys that she had kept….somewhere on her, it was a cartoon thing he thought simply and popped open his door as Cel simply slid through a tiny gap between the window and the car’s body to get inside.

“Show off,” Louis rumbled as he gripped the wheel and thumbed at the GPS device, pleased as could be when he saw Ink-Will Studios in the things memory. He tapped it and the little box started to calculate his route. Louis nodded and sat there for a moment, a moment more and then a third moment that stretched on into a fourth.

“Why aren't we going?” Cel asked head poking into the front to look at Louis.

“Oh sorry, got caught up thinking about junk,” Louis said hoping he didn’t look as scared as he felt. “Just getting ready to go,” he said as he put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car purred to life and he adjusted the rear view mirror to look at Cel who just smiled oblivious of his rising terror.

This couldn't be that hard. Right?