Chapter 2: Chapter The River

A couple of months later, I was strolling around the neighborhood with my confused looking Osiris, when a man with a long pointy hat suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

“This is madness!” he said, in dismay, as he looked around at all of the zombified people who were stumbling around, “They could’ve just destroyed all of the spaceships on this planet or something! I think that they just wanted to test out their zombie-gas!”

“Ummmmm, hello!” I called out to him, with a wave, “You’re the first person I’ve seen (besides my husband, and only for a minute with him) who can still talk and whatnot! And how did you appear out of thin air?”

“Whaaaa-?“ he gasped, “I can’t believe it! Their zombie-gas must not work as completely as they think it does! And you say that your husband became normal again for a bit?”

“It still impacted me,” I explained, “because I don’t need food or water to survive. I still consider myself to be a zombie. And, yes, Osiris went back to normal for a bit a couple of months ago.”

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed, and reached out his hand, which I shook in greeting as he said, “The name’s Whoosh!, and I’m a wizard. The wizard part is how I appeared out of thin air.”

I was pretty shocked to be meeting a real life wizard, and responded that, “My name’s Aakifa, and you’re certainly welcome to stay here as long as you want. I suppose that you don’t know of any way to reverse the zombie-gas’s effects?”

“No, no, no.” he replied, “And, unfortunately, none of the others on the Magicians League will be willing to help me out on this one. Zelly should be here before long, though! Be sure never to tell her that you dislike any of her food though, okay? If you’re even still able to eat at all.”

“I can eat, but don’t have any taste buds, and the food just passes through me in the same form that it entered my mouth in; which means that I don’t really eat or drink much. I’d love to try some of her food, if Osiris and I can get dezombified at some point, though!”

“Well,” Whoosh said, “I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high, but we’ll see what we can do!”

Then, suddenly!; I saw someone riding towards us on a broomstick, and figured that it must be Zelly.

“Zelly!” Whoosh greeted her, cheerfully, “I found someone who is a zombie but also retained her ability to talk and whatnot! She says that her husband also became like her at one point, but only for a minute or two.”

“Interesting!” Zelly mused, and then turned toward me, and asked, “Run into any others who can still talk?”

“Nope. I imagine that there must be more out there, but I haven’t encountered any of them.”

Zelly nodded, and then turned to Whoosh!, and said, “The Magician’s League informed me that we’ll become outlaws if we unzombify anybody. They said that maybe it’ll become legal to give it a go in a few years, but warned that doing it any time soon would have consequences.”

“Well, Fiddlestyx!” Whoosh! cursed, and then turned to me regretfully and said, “We can’t defy the Magician’s League right now, or we’ll get stopped dead in our tracks and not have a chance to help again later. We’ll have to wait until dust settles a bit. How about this, though; would you and your husband like to travel the universe with Zelly and I for a while? We promise that we’ll get back to trying to help all of the other zombies eventually.”

I considered his offer, and decided that I may as well, and so I told him, “I see no reason why not. Let’s do it!”

“Awesome!” Zelly said, cheerfully, and then asked, “You got a couple of broomsticks nearby? Actually, we need 3! Whoosh! could use one as well.”

I searched around, and eventually found 3 broomsticks; and Whoosh! and Zelly used some magic to make them into flying broomsticks!

“I’m going to link you and your husband’s broomsticks together,” Zelly explained, “so that his will follow wherever yours goes.

Also, I’ll put his broomstick into safety-mode whenever he rides it, which’ll mean that he won’t have to hold on or anything. It’ll keep him connected to it until I turn safety-mode off.”

Sounds good!” I said, excitedly; and the four of us were soon up, up, and away! on our magic broomsticks; and I happily enjoyed the thrill of the flight!, and eagerly wondered where we’d end up flying to first.

We sped upwards on our broomsticks for a while, and then I noticed that Whoosh! and Zelly looked as if they were performing a collaborative spell of some sort.

I wondered if they were working on doing some magic that would transport us all to another planet; and it turned out that this was indeed exactly what they were doing.

I saw a bunch of colors whirl all around me, and then suddenly! was flying over a very winding and spooky looking river.

“Hello, Styx!” Zelly called out, cheerfully, “We figured that we’d chill out here with our undead friends for a while!”

In response, a cool looking boat shot up from beneath the water, and the four of us all quickly flew towards it and then landed aboard it.

“Where the styx are we?!?” I suddenly heard Osiris gasp; and delight! flooded into me that my husband was back into lights-on mode!

I quickly (of course! Hey, like I said; gotta take these sorts of chances whenever they come up, okay?) kissed him passionately, and he merrily accepted my kiss and kissed me back too.

“Hmmm…” Zelly noted, as Osiris and I unabashedly continued our romantic kiss, “I wonder if all of the zombie-gassed humans from Earth would go into lights-on mode by visiting Styx. Very interesting…”

“We’ll have to try more once the Magician’s League loosens the rules a bit.” Whoosh! agreed, and Osiris and I reluctantly ended our very enjoyable kiss, and Osiris asked, “So, we’re on the River Styx now? I remember time flashing forward, and Aakifa explaining to me that Earth had gotten gassed; and now the same thing has apparently happened again, only we’re not even on Earth anymore!”

“I’m interested to find out whether you’re back to lights-on mode permanently, or whether it’s just a Styx thing.” Whoosh! said, interestedly, “Would you both be alright with transporting away from here real quick and seeing what might happen?”

Osiris and I agreed to give it a try, and Whoosh! and Zelly performed some sort of spell that poofed! us all into an open field that had rainbow colored grass all over it!

Zelly, Whoosh!, and I all turned our gazes over to Osiris, who was already confusedly meandering around the field in the same sort of way that he had so often meandered around on Earth.

“Must be a Styx thing.” I noted, and then added, “I only want to live and adventure at places where my husband can be in lights-on mode. Sooooooo, unless we can find any other places besides Styx where that can happen, I’d prefer to remain on the River Styx if that’s okay.”

“Of course, of course.” Zelly said, with a thoughtful expression, “We can maybe try some more places, but it’s only sensible that you would only want to live and adventure at places where your true love shares your lights-on zombie status.”

And, so, with that!; Zelly and Whoosh! both did another spell and transported us back to where we’d been on the River Styx, and Osiris asked, “I thought that we were going to transport? Did it not work or something?”

I lightly and playfully punched his shoulder, and explained to him that we had indeed transported, but that he’d gone straight back into lights-off mode at the place that we’d gone to.

“Ha!” he replied, “I guess that Styx seems to be the only consistent lights-on place for me at the moment. This is so weird…”

Suddenly!, Whoosh! got a worried look on his face, and said, “Ummmm, Zelly; I think that we’re nee-“ but she quickly cut him off, and responded, “I got the same message too! Time to skedaddle!” and both of them suddenly poofed! away from Osiris and I, which left us alone on the boat with the River Styx.

“Well…” I said, mischievously, “I think that some alone time means that we should make love before they come back!”

Osiris agreed, and the two of us made sweet sweet love, and hoped that nobody else who might be on the River would run into us as we happily enjoyed the best sex that we’d ever had during our entire marriage!

Unfortunately; it turns out that the longer that the love making lasts, the higher the odds that someone might stumble across the ecstatic lovers; and, after a few hours, our joyful bliss was interrupted by a voice saying, “Ever heard of getting a room-boat! Or, you could at least make a sheet-fort or something! Some people just have no decency!”

Osiris and I quickly got out of love-making mode, and I apologetically said, “Sorry! We didn’t think that anyone else was here!” and Osiris added, “Ummmm… Yeah!… We’ll build a sheet-fort or something on the boat next time…”

“Don’t worry, lol.” the voice laughed, “I heard you from a mile away, and called out to you without looking at you. I was only guessing that you didn’t have a sheet-fort or something up, because I figured that anyone who’d be so noisy about love-making would probably also not bother to cover up. Is it safe for me to row around the corner and over to where you are now?”

“For sure!” Osiris and I both said at the same time, and we interestedly watched to see what person (or persons) would soon row into sight.

The figure who soon emerged had two heads, and one of them appeared to be asleep but the other one appeared to be awake.

“Hmmm…” the awake head said, “Zombies, eh? How’d you end up here?”

I explained about how humans from Earth had tried to conquer another planet, and how the response from the aliens had been to blast our entire planet with zombie gas that only seemed to have affected humans; and then Osiris explained about how Styx appeared to be the only place where he could regularly be in lights-on mode, even though I had always remained in lights-on mode.

The other head had awakened while we’d been talking, and groggily asked if there was some sort of antidote that could get humanity on Earth back up and running again.

“I don’t know.” I said, with a shrug, “But idk if we even should or not, if there is one! After all, we not only wanted to conquer other planets, we’re destroying our own with pollution too! Humans being in this lights-off zombie mode might be the best thing that’s ever happened to Earth!”

Osiris frowned at me, and said, “Nonsense! Even if everything you’re saying is true, if we got some sort of crew together to remove all technology from Earth, then the pollution and threat to other planets part would be solved! Easy-peasy!”

“Well, perhaps that’s what we should to then!” I agreed, and the two-headed person nodded; and then the first head who’d spoken to us earlier said, “I’ll bet you anything that Styx has an antidote. We might be able to use it on you, and then we could recruit more Ettins to help you go around Earth and remove all technology from your planet.”

“Yeah!” the other head agreed, eagerly, “And then!, once we get rid of all of your technology, we can use the antidote on everyone!”

Osiris and I agreed that this seemed like a good idea, and then we saw another boat come up through the water! This boat had a bunch of antidotes on it, and Osiris and I each took one of them.

We didn’t stop being zombies, though…

“I thought that this was supposed to de-zombify us?” Osiris said, confusedly, but the first ettin head responded that, “These instructions here say that getting into permanent lights-on mode is immediate, but that you’ll still remain zombies for a few thousand years. That’ll stall y’all being able to do things like reproducing and enjoying food for quite a long time, but you’ll all be back to being human again eventually.”

The second ettin head frowned, and said that this seemed like a very strange venture to embark upon, but we all still ended up agreeing to do it.

We had to wait for Zelly and Whoosh! to get back, though; because they were our ticket over to the ettin homeworld, since none of us were able to transport away from the River Styx.

When Zelly and Whoosh! returned, they listened to our plan and immediately transported away with the antidotes!

“Oh no!” I wailed, “All of the technology on Earth was supposed to be destroyed first! At the very least, all of our nukes need to be destroyed! Are they going to just administer the antidotes without even destroying any technology at all!?!”

Whoosh! soon poofed! back over to us, and informed us that Osiris and I didn’t get to make decisions for the entirety of Earth’s humanity. Zelly and him were going to use the antidotes to get humanity on Earth back into lights-on mode (and onto the path to de-zombification) asap, and then decisions about how to proceed could be made by everyone.

Osiris seemed to like this idea, but I pleaded with Whoosh! to at least destroy the nukes first! It would be a disaster to just let everything resume, and the same problems would just repeat all over again! Actually, things would probably go even worse!, because people would be living for so long as lights-on-zombies before they returned to being in regular-human mode again!

Whoosh! responded that even the Magician’s League had given Zelly and him the thumbs up (because of the fact that de-zombification wouldn’t occur for thousands of years, which meant that humanity would still be zombified for quite a while) to use the antidotes, and again emphasized that Osiris and I didn’t get to make big decisions for our entire Earth-dwelling species.

I tried pleading with him again, but he wasn’t hearing any of it; and then he informed us that Zelly and him probably wouldn’t be back for a while, and he poofed! away to begin administering the antidotes with Zelly.

“Well, shucks!” the first ettin head said, “I’m with you that those nukes should at least have been destroyed before administering the antidote. Nobody should have those things! Nobody!

Ah, well. Water under the bridge, though; right? Oh!, and my name’s Griff by the way.”

“And I’m Juno!” the second head joined in, cheerfully, “And, yes; those antidotes are as good as administered by now, for better or for worse.”

“Can’t say we didn’t try!” Osiris said, with a shrug, “Oh, and nice to meet you. I’m Osiris, and wifey over here is Aakifa.” and he put his arm around my shoulder as he introduced me to them.

Feeling his arm around me and having a social experience with him again (after him having been in lights-off mode for so long) was really nice; and I happily put my arm around him too and gave him a little peck on the cheek, before joking to Juno and Griff that, “I hope that we aren’t being too couplish right now, lol.”

Juno didn’t seem to get the joke, and so Griff explained to her that Osiris and I had been a bit overly eager to enjoy romance together after all of the lights-off-for-him and lights-on-for-me zombie stuff. “Let’s just say that you’re lucky that you were asleep for it!” he added with a laugh.

“Sounds like it’s good that I was asleep, indeed.” Juno concurred, and then turned to Osiris and I and asked, “You two wanna travel along the River with us for a while? We promise that we won’t bite.”

“Speak for yourself!” Griff jokingly corrected, with a grin, “I ain’t some zombie who can’t taste food, but I’m not above finding out how a zombie who can’t taste food tastes!, if I get hungry enough!”

“Pay his humor no mind, lol.” Juno assured us, “We’re actually vegetarians. Vegetarians who are very happy that the River Styx accommodates our dietary needs, I might add!”

“Hmmm…” I mused, “Sounds like hanging out with you two will probably help prevent Osiris and I from getting eaten by some folks who AREN’T vegetarians, which means that I’m liking the idea of traveling together. Osiris?”

“I would follow you anywhere, my love!” he declared, “Even to the depths of the River Styx… Which we’re already at… Which means that I’ve already proved my loyalty!, doesn’t it?”

“Very good!” I said, happily, “I imagine that there has to be lots of interesting and exciting adventures just waiting to be enjoyed on this lovely River!”

“Oh, yes, there are indeed!” Juno agreed, though Griff was sure to add that, “There are many dangers though, too; and I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll be running into some of them before too long…”

It turned out that #1, Griff was correct about dangers being worth keeping an eye out for; and #2, we were no match for the first such danger that we rowed across.

To get more specific, the danger was someone who I soon found out was called the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper.

He had a scruffy beard, 20 arms, only one eye, 3 legs, an admittedly cool looking hat, and a VERY long tail that had a $#!+ton of doughnuts strung onto it like one would string beads onto a necklace.

Oh. And his boat could fly. Yeah, lots of fun for us…

“But,” you might ask, “would such a person actually be a threat to two lights-on zombies and an ettin?”

Ummmmm… it turned out that the answer to that question was a triple yes. Or, actually, make that a quadruple yes!

We were all merrily rowing along, when the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper suddenly began hurling doughnuts at all of us without us even realizing that he was right above us!

My first thought was, “It’s raining doughnuts? Weird.” but Griff and Juno began yelling that we were DOOMED because the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper had gotten us!

“Who tf is the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper?” I asked, as I tried to pull a doughnut off of me, but then realized that the doughnuts wouldn’t come off!

My dear sweet husband then verbalized what I had just discovered, and said, “Wow! These are some sticky doughnuts!”

“Muahahahahahahahaha!” the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper cackled in delight, “You will all be coming along with me to my doughnut factory ship, where you’ll do pretty much nothing other than make doughnuts for all of eternity!”

“You’ll never get away with this?” Griff managed to respond, in an uncertain sounding voice, and Juno more forcefully responded that, “You’re a moron, Droppy-poo!, because Zelly and Whoosh! will be coming back for us, and you won’t be any match for their magic; not by a longshot!”

“Nice!” the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper said, in a genuinely pleased sounding voice, “I’ve recently had new magic defenses added to my ship, and it’ll be good to test them out and see how effective they are! But, sure, I have to admit that there is a very tiny chance that your sorcerer friends will save you. All the more reason to crack that whip all the harder while I have you imprisoned! Even if you do get saved eventually, you’ll have made me lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of doughnuts before that unfortunateness could happen!”

As our annoying and aggravating foe droned on about how we’d have to make lots and lots of doughnuts, lots and lots of doughnuts continued to be hurled at us, and eventually we were unable to move at all because we were so encased in doughnuts.

This, naturally; enabled the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper to simply row his flying boat down to where we were, pick us up from where the doughnuts had stuck in place, and unceremoniously toss us out of our boats and into his!

“Muahahahahahahahahaha!” he gleefully cackled, “Zelly and Whoosh!, or no Zelly and Whoosh!, y’all are about to be in for quite a treat!; because your doughnut-making orientation will be beginning shortly!…”

We all yelled in protest!, as we were rowed through the air by the Dreaded Doughnut Dropper; but he had dropped us into a trunk of some sort that was on his boat, which meant that we weren’t sure if he could even hear our angry words or not.

Suddenly!, I felt the trunk that we were trapped inside of being lifted and then being tossed off of his flying boat!

We quickly hit the River Styx with a big ‘splash!’, and were all soon being slowly moved along by the River’s current.

All of us were still trapped inside of the trunk, though, and couldn’t figure out any way to break free from it!

“There aren’t any waterfalls on the River Styx, are there?” I asked, to which Juno replied that, “There are indeed. Usually, you just follow the signs and avoid the waterfalls as you row; but we could get sucked into a waterfall since we’re floating blind, and are thus unable to control which river paths we go down.”

“Would zombies and ettins be able to survive a fall like that?” Osiris asked, to which Griff responded, “Ettins would probably survive (seeing as we’re nearly indestructible), and zombies would technically survive, but would likely be splattered into many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many pieces. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Soooooooooo… you two could just put us back together again?” I asked, worriedly, to which Juno replied that, “We could collect all of your pieces together in bags easily enough, but only magicians like Zelly and Whoosh! could reassemble you, as far as I know.”

“We’ll take what we can get!” Osiris agreed, “We’d greatly appreciate it if you’d bag us up and wait for the magicians! Thank you!”

“It’s going to be quite a chore (if it happens), but I suppose that we’ll do it.” Griff begrudgingly promised, “But you’ll owe us one!”

We continued floating along, and I suggested that we all tell some stories to pass the time.

“Why not!” Juno agreed, and then asked, “Who wants to go first?”

“Oh, I suppose that I will.” Griff offered, and began to tell us a tale…