reinstating_the_king

Day 93

Another day!

But let me tell you - I’m feeling it. My shoulder is pretty messed up and I swear I’m still greasy from the ball pit. At this point I’m not sure if I can wash it off or if it’s seeping out of my pores. The mountain of celebratory nuggets I housed after everything went down got my guts acting a different way.

Let’s see if I can remember everything here:

It was very early morning when Sandra found me outside of the comic shop. So early, in fact, that I was surprised to even see a customer walking around the mall at all. Time these days isn’t what it used to be. I was just outside of Mino’s threshold doing my morning stretches and calisthenics. Touching my toes. Blessing the sun, the whole thing. I have to keep things limber and loose if I plan on helping anyone around here. Tom Brady, etc. I tightened my belt by a notch and prepared for a downward facing dog when Sandra appeared in a huff. Sandra is Ralph’s mother, and Ralph was missing.

Out of breath, as if she just sprinted here, she said “Hello! Sir. Can you please help me? My son Ralph is missing. He’s in the food court.”

“I sure can, ma’am! I can help you.”

“You can? Sir! Thank you!”

“So you say you last saw him in the food court? Any ideas about what could have happened? Any hunches? Or should I say... lunches?”

Sandra did not laugh. Weird. Whatever, lady. That huge space rift thing is messing with people’s senses of humor too, apparently. Her reaction really changed the vibe and suddenly I was annoyed that she interrupted my yoga stuff. I collected myself and straightened my posture.

“Ahem… Sorry ma’am. Yes, of course I can help. Please tell me what you can about where you lost your son and what he looks like so that I can more easily identify him.”

As I said this I snapped open the clasp of the notebook holster attached to my utility belt and grabbed the mini-golf pencil from behind my ear to begin my note-taking. I’ve been using this little blue pencil I got from Monster Moon Mini Golf ever since that round I sank four aces. This thing is good luck but it’s getting pretty short. I slid the spiral notebook out of its pocket, and with a wrist-flick the notebook opened and the front cover lay draped across the ridge of my hand with fresh pages exposed in my palm ready for important notes. It was cool. It always is. There’s no way she wasn’t impressed.

“So - about your son.” I winked.

“Was that a wink?”

“No.”

“Um.. okay. My little Ralphie and I were at the food court where I bought him a Glad Meal at Mark Donalds.”

“A Glad Meal at this time of day? Cheeseburgers for breakfast huh? This Ralph kid already seems kinda wild. What toy did he get?”

“Excuse me?”

“The toy, ma’am. What toy did he get? Glad meals come with a toy. T-O-Y.”

“Oh. Well… I think it was some sort of small action figure? Does it really matter-”

“Yeah, obviously he got an action figure. It’s the Galactic Warriors promotional set. Which one was it? Glimdore? Flarp?”

“It was blue? And it made a noise when he pressed a-”

“Woah! He got Captain Blorky?! Unbelievable! Lucky son of a… Hold on one second ma’am.”

I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe it. This little snot-nose got Captain Blorky in the promotional Mark Donald toy set. I ran back inside Mino’s, past the counter and dashed into the back room to grab my satchel. I stuffed it with as many Flarps, Glimdores, and Ms. Pip figures as would fit, clicked the strap around my waist and headed back out to Sandra.

“Sorry about that. We have no time to waste. Now tell me, where is your son?”

“The food court!”

“Oh. Yes. Right, right.”

I was still pretty flustered. With the twist of a key, I pulled my chariot out of its closet and zipped straight to the food court. Without even looking back I yelled to the woman to tell her to meet me there.

Normally, this stallion totes me around at a smooth Sunday-drive pace, but in that moment I tilted as far forward as she would let me tilt to see what she could do. The two parallel rubber wheels peeled and the squeal echoed down the corridor in each direction. Before I knew it I was going - I kid you not - at least 15 miles per hour. My eyes were watering and it felt like the skin was about to rip clean off of my face. It was a good thing I remembered to clasp my helmet. As my wheels raced, so did my mind. I was going to find this kid and trade everything I had for that prize. He probably had no idea what he even had. I knew exactly what he had and I deserved to have it more. I’m not saying I was going to rip the kid off - I had plenty of things here that were worth an even trade. My mind tingled at the thought of completing the collection.

I was so giddy with anticipation that I cruised right past the food court and had to backtrack. Sandra was waiting for me by the Mark Donalds register at the back of the food court. I navigated through the tables and chairs, still on horseback. It was still early and there were only a few patrons seated at various tables.

“Sandra, how did you get here before me?”

“I just walked. As soon as you panicked and got on top of that Segway, you zipped off in the entirely wrong direction.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I know these halls like the back of my hand. I assure you my route was the most optimal and efficient.”

“But I walked here… and got here before-”

“Hey the only thing that matters is that we’re both here right now, ready to find your son. Now tell me what he’s wearing.”

“Just some blue jeans and a plain red t-shirt. He’s got messy brown hair.”

“Alright, now where did you see him last?”

Sandra pointed over my shoulder.

“He took his toy and went in there.”

I twisted my handlebars and rotated to see the Mark Donalds Play Place; a shadowy plastic tube labyrinth set in dull primary colors with a single greasy entrance and one steep exit slide aimed at a shallow ball pit positioned to catch the ragdolled bodies of children as they hurl themselves from the top. It was a purgatory filled with static electricity and steamy cheeseburger breath. I’ve been in one of those before. I shuddered.

“You’re saying you want me to go in there and find your son?” I gulped.

“Please! Oh, please! I’ve been yelling and screaming for him but he’s not answering. I’ll do anything to get him back. I’m so scared.”

She wrung her hands with her eyes fixed on that horrid Play Place. What if I went in there and couldn’t find my way out? What if I got stuck? What if I ran out of oxygen? I could feel the cold sweat starting to condense on my back.

“Okay. Okay, ma’am. Just… just wait here. I’ll go get him”

What was I doing? I heard the words come from my mouth but it could not have been me who uttered them. Like so many times before, I was watching myself make a huge mistake. This could end up worse than the mashed potato bar fiasco. The horror...

“Thank you! Thank you so much. I will stay right here.” She hugged me. It was a long, tight hug. Okay, lady...

I stepped off of my ride and walked towards the wretched construct. Approaching it, I realized that I underestimated its size. It loomed over me. Scratched, eye-like, bulbous windows clumsily bolted onto the sides of the tubes stared through me. The mouth of the entrance breathed its hot breath across my ankles. I patted my fanny pack that was filled with tradeable collectibles. They were talismans of luck, and they were my tickets to that promo set holy grail currently owned by Ralph. Captain James T. Blorky. It was worth it.

I leaned over and placed my hands on the inside of the tube. Despite every part of my body screaming to turn away, I crawled ahead. Each heavy clunk of my knees shook the structure and redistributed my weight, instigasting unsettling creaks. The outside sounds of the mall faded away only to be replaced with my own heavy breathing and the hammering of my heart as it bounced off of the tube walls that stood an inch from each of my ears. My mouth dried and I gulped sandpaper. I really hated it in there. It sucked so much. I came to an intersection of tubes - a crossroads with three options. I didn’t know what to do, so I shouted for Ralph.

My shout reverberated off the tight tube walls and into my own ears. I was yelling at myself, and it was loud. No response. I yelled again.
That time, I heard a noise. I snapped my head to the left and saw a small shadow dart across the tube, followed by an echoing giggle. I turned immediately and crawl-sprinted. It’s one of the few things you can do that’s more awkward than running while wearing a backpack or chasing a bouncing ping-pong ball. I made it to where I saw the shadow and turned to follow its path. When I turned the corner I was shocked to see that there was nowhere to go. It was just a window - a dead end. Confused, I stuck my head into the convex bubble and looked out. I looked out upon my greatest fear. It was horrible; an incomprehensible web of tubes. I could not see the end. I could not see the roof, the floor, the walls. It was tubes. Tubes forever. From this perspective it looked like it had to be larger than the entire food court, at least. My heart stuttered and adrenaline flushed through my body.
I turned back around. I needed to get out. Immediately. I crawled back in the direction from which I came… But there was no left turn. Maybe it wasn’t a left? There was an intersection, right? Or left, right? Were the tubes getting more narrow? My shoulders were being squeezed. Things were not in the same place that they were a minute before.

I got lost. I was panicking. My hands were slick with sweat and I was slipping, struggling to push myself forward. I started to lose control. My body let a fart go and it was trapped with me. It stayed. Even my attempts to control my breathing were poisoned by my own doing. I had to keep crawling, so I did.

I crawled and crawled. My head bumped against the top of the tube. Another window! I had been crawling for so long and I was so exhausted that my panic no longer compelled me and I decided to look out from one of those foggy windows again. My intention was to take a moment to catch my breath but what I saw caught that breath in my throat. I could not believe what was past that gross bubble window. There was still a seemingly infinite mess of tubes out there, but in that second viewing I noticed that they were moving. Moving! The tubes were attaching and reattaching to each other at random. I watched a red tube disconnect from a yellow, move across to a blue tube, and fasten itself. No wonder I got lost so quickly. The spectacle before me was as mesmerizing as it was disturbing. My panic started to build again and I backed away from the window. I backed right into a slide. Apparently, without me even hearing it, the path behind me was replaced with a tube that headed almost straight down. I was glistening with sweat and stood absolutely no chance at catching myself from falling down that slide. I was lubricated.

My wet, scared body careened down that tube at mach speed. In what felt like half a second my trajectory was redirected as I hit a bend in the slide and I was launched into empty air. I had no sense of what was up or down. The top of my head clipped the lip of the slide as I was flung out, spinning my body like a frisbee into the air, my limbs helplessly outstretched by the centrifugal force. I arced and landed with a painless crash into a ball pit. The clattering of every plastic ball colliding with every other ball as I scrambled to reorient myself abused my ears. Was I out? Was I in the ball pit exit that I saw when I climbed in?
I got my head above water and saw a clown sitting cross-legged on a throne on top of a mountain of plastic balls.
Nope. Not at the exit. That was a clown.

I looked around to discover that the ball pit stretched at least 50 yards square. Black nets served as walls and those ever-shifting tubes were a canopy above. Seeping through them was that disturbing blue and purple glow that I was way too familiar with these days.

I looked up at the clown on the throne and he was staring right back down at me. The facepaint made it impossible to catch what he was thinking. He donned a crown that was too small for his big rainbow puff of hair.

I said hi.

“Hello?”, he said. “Which one are you? I don’t think I know you. You definitely smell of spent youth. I most certainly do not know you. How did you get in here?”

I mean… damn. Pretty deep cut from the clown right off the jump.

“Sorry to barge in uninvited like this but I’m looking for a young boy named Ralph. Blue shirt? Probably had a Captain Blorky figure with him?”

The clown stood up. He extended to his full height, and even from my perspective, still neck-deep in the ball pit, I could tell he was extremely tall. My guess was close to seven feet. His yellow and red striped suit draped around his huge frame like a parachute and he had a comically large blue flower pinned to the right side of his chest. He started to step down the dais towards the ball pit that surrounded him. As he approached the surface of the ocean of plastic balls he planted one giant shoe onto it and he was supported by it. His ridiculous clown shoes were spreading out his weight so much that he could walk across this pool like Clown Jesus himself. My Nike Air Monarchs didn’t really help me in the same way when I flipped head first into the pit a moment prior. He proceeded to walk towards me and I really started to sweat.

“Ralph? Of course I know Ralph! Oh, Ralphie! Come on out Ralphie, someone is here to see you!”, he said, as he continued his smooth walk towards me.

I spotted someone creeping out from behind the throne in my peripheral vision. It was definitely not Ralph. That was a whole grown dude. In a red shirt.… holding a Captain Blorky figure. Oh.

Oh, no.

I screamed in his direction. “What did you do with Ralph! Where is Ralph! I know Chris Hansen, I went to high school with him! Hey!”

“How does he know my name, Ronald?”, the guy said, fidgeting with the toy in his hands.

“What a very good question, Ralphie. Perhaps he has an answer for us.”, the clown spoke as he closed the distance even more.

What?

My head really spun. I was dizzy and sweaty and confused. That guy’s name was also Ralphie? The huge lanky weird clown was practically on top of me by that point so I was also panicking. I couldn’t make a move in any direction because the balls surrounding me gave way whenever I tried to make a push. I was stuck in colorful plastic quicksand. He crouched down above me and moved his hand up to the flower on his shirt to position it right near my face. I smelled stale apple pie. Hot apple pie. Was he really going to spray seltzer water? I convulsed my face and braced for the incoming stream, but it never came. After a few seconds I opened one eye to see the truth about the flower. It was not going to spray me with water. What I think it was going to do, however, was use the dozens of razor-sharp teeth poised about in its center to latch onto my head. Wiggling stamen stretched out and caressed my face, tasting it. It was freaky and it was weird. My vision started to tunnel.
Just as I was about to lose my last bit of consciousness, I felt something grab hold of my ankle and drag me straight down into the deepness of the ball pit.

The roar of clashing plastic balls crashing against my speeding torpedo of a body was the last thing I remember before completely passing out.

When I came to, things just got weirder. I was flat on my back when I finally opened my eyes and I saw that I was in a dark cave-like room with a claustrophobic rocky ceiling. It wasn’t actually rocky, of course; it was just more plastic balls. I sat up and saw a cloaked corpse draped over a pile of balls a dozen feet away and a small figure shaking things free from a bag. The space was dimly illuminated by green glow-sticks and the blue light of various toys. LED Laser guns, police cars, spaceships, etc. I took a closer look at the woman emptying the bag. Figurines poured out and bounced off the foam ground. One ricocheted towards me and I noticed that it was a Glimdore action figure. I reached down to my fanny pack. It wasn’t there.

“Hey! These are collectibles! They’re also mine! Stop!” I shouted at her as I stood up.

I marched over to her with my Glimdore in hand, ready to wrestle my bag free from her. As I got close, she snapped her face towards me. She was old, gaunt, and angry. Her red hair was braided into two thin ropes that whipped across her far shoulder when she looked at me.

“You.” She hissed. “What were you doing up there? What is wrong with you? Are you stupid?”

She squared her body towards me and dashed a Ms. Pip to the ground. I saw an arm pop off. That hurt. The sound of a weak cough emanated from the corpse in the corner.

“Now you’ve done it. You’ve woken him! As weak as he is!”

Okay so it wasn’t a corpse, it was just a really, really, very old skeleton of a man wearing a cape. She turned from me and went to him and changed into a much more gentle woman. I immediately took the opportunity to gather up the collectibles that she dumped on the ground.

Kneeling down by the old man, she placed one hand on his forehead. She whispered to him and he whispered back. I looked around the cave and saw a couple of tube entrances and a massive pile of what looked like fur in the corner. Toy parts were strewn about. I approached the furry mass in the corner.

“For the love of all that is good would you please not touch anything? Get away from there!” She shouted at me.

“Sorry. What’s this old guy’s problem?”, I said as I approached the two of them.

“Show some respect! This is the Hamburger King!”

“No it’s not. I know what the Hamburger King looks like. He looks awful, by the way.”

“I admit, he has looked better. But he is still the King. And I think he is handsome, still.”

She said that and smiled down at him and he returned a weak smile.

“Okay well where’s his crown then?”, I asked.

“I’m sure you saw it perched up on that monstrous clown’s head up above.”

“I did, actually, now that you mention it. That guy who stole Ralphie called him Ronald. He’s not-”

She continued, “That man who you think stole the child named Ralphie did not steal Ralphie. That was Ralphie himself, I am sorry to say.”

“Sorry? I guess I feel sorry for him too. A guy that age has his mother take him to Mark Donalds to get a toy and then he get lost in the Play Place. Pretty sad.”

Wanda looked up at me then down at the collectibles in my arms. She made her point without even saying it. Fair enough.

“Okay, listen. Whether or not Ralphie is 4 or 40 I need to get him back to his mother. Can you help me get him and get us out of here?”, I asked.

Wanda sighed, patted the gray crownless head, and stood up. She asked me to follow her. I went with her through a straight dark tube and into another dimly lit room. It was much larger and it was full of people.

“There is a lot you don’t understand”, she said to me as we walked deeper into the center of the room.

Everyone in that second cave was listless and did not look up at us when we entered. Some were playing with kids toys but none of them were actually children. In fact, nobody in the room looked like they were even below 30 years of age. She continued talking.

"You see them all... they weren't always like this. Ever since the cataclysm blurred our worlds, Ronald has grown strong."

"The clown is strong?"

"Indeed. That is Ronald Donald, the Mark Donald’s mascot. That man back there, dying, is the Hamburger King. And I am Wanda."

I could barely believe what I was hearing. The three most popular fast-food mascots were living and breathing (for the most part) right there in the Play Place. Well, the caves of it.

“Ronald took the crown. Once, he ruled only Markdonaldia, but now he claims all the kingdoms."

We walked along and she patted the tufted head of a hunched woman who was loosely playing with a broken toy. Dozens of other people, scattered around he steamy plastic cave-room, slumped on the ground. The room smelled like burnt fryer grease mixed with gym sock. Whatever this place was, it was out of my jurisdiction.

“Listen, Wanda. I’m sorry that your boyfriend is old and Ronald the clown stole his crown. How do I get out of here?”, I asked.

“Again, there is much you do not understand. The cataclysm settled us all out in a way that has put Ronald as ruler over all. Every kingdom. Not just our three, but every kingdom in our universe. Hundreds. Trapped among the infinite tubes you saw above you. He controls all.”

“Okay, well you have an army of weird sad people down here. Can’t you just go up there and kick his ass? He is just a clown.”

“He is more than a clown now.”

She stopped in front of an older man sitting on the ground with his head drooped to his chest. He pushed a toy car back and forth along the ground. Leaning over, she tousled his hair.

She said, “This is little Andy. It was his 5th birthday yesterday. His parents brought him to Mark Donalds to get a burger and a toy from the Galactic Warriors set. They let him play in the Play Place and he wound up in that same mess you did. Unfortunately we were not there to save him in as quickly a fashion as we did for you.”

She didn’t say which toy he got. Maybe he was hiding a Captain Blorky somewhere and I could trade with him and get the absolute hell out of there. She continued talking as I scanned the room for toys.

“Well, you see, Ronald ate his youth.”

I stopped scanning for toys and tried to process what she meant. Eating youth. There wasn't really any other way to receive that information besides exactly what she said. Like, soul eating, basically. Right? Was she serious? Compared to the teens I busted loitering outside of the food court yesterday, this seemed... decidedly worse.

“He what.”

“Ronald ate Andy’s childhood. It is what he does. With each new childhood eaten, he gains power. With a mere thought he will twist a tube into that den of his and dump whoever may be on the other side right onto his dinner plate. You are looking for a child named Ralphie. It is almost a certainty that he has suffered at the hands of the clown already.”

I looked around at everyone in that room and realized that they must all have been children who had the life squeezed out of them by Ronald. That demon flower on the clown’s chest must be the thing that does it. Why did he want me?

“So you’re saying there is absolutely nothing you can do? You basically have an army of toddlers that have the physical strength of grown men and women. In my opinion that is way scarier than any trans-universal energy consuming god-clown.”

“These poor young ones have no will to fight. Nor will I make them fight. We do have one small hope, though. Follow me.”

We returned back to the smaller room with her wrinkly boyfriend and giant lump of fur in the corner. She took me to it and gestured to it.

“This. It is the reason I was rummaging through your belongings after I rescued you. I was hoping to find something to make the final repair necessary”

I asked what we were talking about. It looked like a giant ball of fuzz.

“Ever since the cataclysm that caused your universe to transpierce through so many others, we have been here. It seems as though the shadow of our universe exists in yours as ‘fast food chains’.” She used her fingers to air-quote that last piece.

“We lived in peace before. Ronald controlled the whimsical land of Markdonaldia. My kingdom of Wandal was magical and warm. It was summer year-round if you can believe it. My people would laugh and lounge in the sun all day and I would walk among them. The Hamburger King -...” Her voice wavered when she got to his name.

“We were to wed. Our kingdoms would be one. We were.. we are… in love. But now…”

Honestly I really did not care about any of that. Way above my pay grade anyway. Kingdoms and whatever else she was going on about? Why was she telling me any of it? I wanted to tell her I didn't care about medieval fast food politics, but the way her voice shook, I figured it mattered. To her, at least. I kept my mouth shut.

“This is the remains of the animatronic Ricotta R. Ratt. You may know him as yet another mascot for a child’s restaurant, but in your world he is the reflection of our sentinel. He was our protector when Ronald attacked decades before the cataclysm. Ricotta was our guardian and the only force able to fend off the clown’s advance. He saved both of our kingdoms from his forces and now he lays here in waste.”

She lifted a section of fur to reveal Ricky R. Ratt’s face. It was the same one that I knew when I was a kid. A sewn-on, wide-eyed grin and one of those little multicolored hats with a propellor on top. One time, my mom took me to Ricky R. Ratt’s and I bit some kid in the forehead because he was hogging the whack-a-mole game. Ricotta saw me do it and kicked me and my mom out. I still have a bunch of prize tickets but I’m not even sure if I’m allowed back there.

“Okay, so if we can just get this old boy up and running we can get out of here? What do you need to get it going?”

“Resources are scarce here, of course, but we have managed to repair most of him with the scraps of the toys and items the children have brought with them. I had searched your belongings hoping to find any sort of technological device with a memory chip. During the trip across universes, the board responsible for controlling his cache was fried. Anything that can store and return data might be enough to bring him back to life. You don’t have anything like that on you, do you?”

“No I don’t. I only brought these action figures with me so that I could trade Ralphie for his Captain Blorky toy.”, I said.

“The children really are excited about that specific toy. What makes it so special?”

“Well, besides his importance to the overall lore and history around the series, they only produced about a dozen of them in total. It’s very rare.”

“Interesting.”

“Also, unlike any of the other collectibles, it’s got voice lines if you push a button…”

Wanda and I had the realization at the same time. It had a memory chip. Captain James T. Blorky held the key to our escape. Ugh. Giut punch.

She paced back and forth and could barely speak fast enough to keep up with her scheming brain. She went on and on, but the plan was basically for me to go back up there and distract the clown while Wanda kidnapped Ralph. I gave her an enthusiastic ‘hell yeah’ before it really landed with me that my job was to be the bait. I was worried but after a moment of thinking about it I remembered that it was definitely not the first time I was chosen as bait, and I’m almost positive it will happen again. Honestly, it happens a lot. Like a weird amount.

We weren’t wasting any time. She took me to the tube we hadn’t been through yet and once we were in there we ascended a rope ladder. There was a slide that corkscrewed around the ladder and I realized that it was both the only exit and only entrance to that small cave system. At the top there was a small landing with a very short ceiling and some overlapping rubber flaps that held out the sea of ball pit balls. Wanda turned to me.

“Your job is simple. Attract the clown’s attention and make sure Ralph comes out of hiding, wherever he is. I will grab him and take him back here. Try to make it back yourself. Take this.”

Wanda handed me a gun.

“Is this a pistol? I thought I was a distraction! That being said, I always did see myself as the John Wick type. I will not let you down.”

“Have you ever seen a handgun in real life? They look nothing like this. You’re holding a grappling gun. Hence the giant boxy frame and hooks sticking out of it. We constructed it out of spare toy parts down below. It will have to be how you travel up there. Just aim it upwards and pull the trigger. You will be pulled through the balls. When you’re ready to leave, just shoot it downwards and I will fetch you.”

“I always did see myself as the Batman type. I will not let you down.”

Without another word, Wanda parted the exit flaps and swam through the plastic ocean away from me. I followed her in. I did not know how to swim through the stuff so I pointed the grappling gun upwards and pulled the trigger. The large plastic box in my hand recoiled and, since I couldn’t see anything besides blurry splotches of color, I had to pray that the hook was cruising upwards. I gripped the handle with both hands, waiting to get yanked upwards. I waited.

And then I got yanked. I have no idea how they made that thing out of spare toy parts but I was flying through that ball pit at a terrifying speed. Plastic was smashing against my head and arms as I flew upwards. I broke through the surface and zipped straight up to one of the overhanging tubes. I looked up to see that the grappling hook had looped around a tube and hooked back onto the rope. I looked down to see my feet dangling dozens of feet above the ocean of plastic balls and to also see Ronald Donald sitting on the throne looking up at me.

“Hello, again.” He said.

I swung a leg up over the tube that held me and shimmied the rest of my body on top. I untangled the grappling rope and put it back together. I pushed myself up and got into one of those three-point superhero squats. I was on my toes and lifted my free arm behind me to assume a full Batman stance. I was looking so badass. It was so cool. I looked down at him with the blue glow from above illuminating me.

“Where is he?”, I growled.

“Who?”

“Where is he?”, I growled again.

“This kid?”

The clown pointed to Ralph, who was peeking out from behind the throne.

“You can have him. I don’t need him anymore.”

I was not expecting that. In my confusion I didn’t say anything. Ronald kept talking.

“Yeah, I really don’t. You, though. I know you’re working with Wanda and the wannabe King down there under my ocean.”

“You don’t have any youth to drain from me! Nice try, though!”, I shouted.

“I know. I smelled it on you when you showed up. Sad. I can’t have you helping Wanda, so I’m going to kill you instead. Haha!”

He honked his nose and jumped up from his seat. It startled me and I lost my footing on the overhanging tube. I slipped off and landed hard on another one just below me. The impact was so great that it cracked and it bent into a sharp angle. Two children who had been in the tube at the time shot out of the new hole I made and landed with a splash into the ball pit. Oops.

I was holding onto the broken pipe with one hand as I watched below. Ronald’s flower began to flutter and his attention had shifted towards the two children upside-down in the pit. I spotted Wanda approaching the throne from behind with all the stealth of an alligator. I made a Batman move.

As soon as I saw Wanda grab Ralph, I let go of my grip and dropped into the pit in between the children. Ronald laughed again.

“Making it easy! Haha! I was annoyed that I’d have to go all the way up there just to kill you!”

He showed his huge yellow teeth and continued his slow walk towards us. I was close enough to the two children’s feet sprouting up from the ball pit to grab them. I collected both legs into my left hand and with my right hand I shot the grapple gun straight downwards. It hooked onto the bottom, and we were lurched downwards. The kids were screaming, Ronald was screaming, I was screaming. We were all screaming.

We had regrouped in the cave. I sat across from Wanda and the Hamburger King while Ralph and the two new children sat in the other room with all of the other ‘kids’. I was barely done catching my breath when Wanda asked when I was going to trade for Captain Blorky. She was very pushy, but I guess I would be too if my universe depended on it. I went into the next room and sat down next to Ralph.

“Hey Ralph. That’s a really cool action figure you’ve got there.”

Ralph didn’t even look up. I kept talking.

“What if I told you that I would trade all five of these really cool action figures for that one. Isn’t that an awesome deal?”, I said as I nudged him with my elbow.

“I like this one.”

“Sure, but what about all of these? This one has a cool jetpack. It would mean a lot to me if I could trade with you.”

“This is the toy from my birthday lunch. It’s from mom.”

As soon as he said the word “mom” he started sobbing. Big manly sobs. I have no idea what to do with crying kids, let alone kid/adult things. He was curled up into a ball wailing away while Captain Blorky lay at his side.

Listen, I did what I had to do. I traded with him when he wasn’t looking. There were cosmic implications. Universes were at stake! If it was really up to my negotiation skills vs that of a kindergartener then I’m not so sure anybody would have made it out like we did. So what. I yoinked the Blorky and dumped the Pips and Glimdores. He’d thank me later.

I headed back to Wanda clutching that collectible. I finally had it in my hands and I had to just give it up like that. It was so stupid. My collection was complete at that moment. I had the crown jewel. I crawled back through the tube cherishing every moment I had. Before I exited the tube I paused, took a breath, and pressed the voice-line button. His lights lit up and the speakers activated.

“BLORK!”

Nice.

I went to Wanda and handed it over. She thanked me immediately and scurried away to dissect the poor thing. She might as well be dissecting me, it hurt so much. She left me alone with the Hamburger King, which was pretty uncomfortable. Was I supposed to make small talk or something? He looked like he was dead, but he kept trying to make eye contact with me. I bailed and went into the room with all the ‘kids’ and sat down at the other end of the room from Ralph. All of that action took a toll on me and I realized that I could use a little snooze, so I nodded my head and did just that.

I woke up in what could have been 5 minutes or 5 hours - there were no clocks and there was no sun down there so it was impossible to tell. I stood up and headed back towards the first room to see how the repairs were going. I crawled into the tube and made it about halfway when I heard Wanda saying something. I slowed my crawl and got closer.

“Please, just try to eat, my love.” She said. I squinted and saw her in the room with the Hamburger King and the two children I just saved from the ball pit. I was starving, why didn’t they invite me in for some food? Extremely rude. I have been such a good helper. I got closer and saw the bone-chilling truth. Both of the children were completely unconscious. The King’s limp hand rested on one of the child’s heads. Wanda held the other one by the shoulders with both arms and her red braids were latched onto the eye sockets. I could see the braids pulsing and the child was visibly aging before my eyes. Wanda’s eyes began to roll back into her head.
Hell no. No. I immediately reverse-crawled out of there and sprinted back into my original sleeping spot and feigned a nap. I might have looked like I was sleeping but my heart was beating out of my chest.

My mind raced. How did I not see that coming? Why would it only be Ronald from that universe who thrived by consuming youth? My allies were as messed up as my enemy.

If they really were as messed up as my enemy, maybe they actually had no interest in going back to their universe? Maybe they just want to replace Ronald with themselves so they can live forever like this? I did not want to be there forever. I didn’t want to be there for one more second. I needed to find a way out of there.

Wanda eventually emerged from her room and began to patrol the kids room. As she drew nearer I faked a yawn and a stretch.

“Wow! What a great, long, solid nap. I fell asleep a while ago and woke up right now! I must have been out for a number of consecutive hours! Consecutive! Didn’t wake up once. Boy do I feel so well rested. Hey, Wanda!”

She definitely bought it. She came over to me and I asked her how the repairs were going. She brought me over to the Ricky R. Ratt suit and said things were ready to go.

“Wow, so the Blorky chip was everything you needed?” I asked her.

“Indeed. However, that small cache chip can only hold so much. Ricotta will not have his entire arsenal of combat techniques. To compensate, I retrofitted him in a way that will allow me to pilot it from the inside. My military training should be more than sufficient to conquer our enemy above.”

“Wow. That’s so exciting. So tell me, when you defeat him, what happens next?”

She hesitated.

“Well the fine people of our universe will no longer be under the control of his ruthless gloved fist.”, she said.

“Yes, I get that. But then what happens? The Hamburger King gets his crown back and you… go back to your universe?”

“He will absolutely regain his rightful title and crown, yes.”

“And then you go home.”

“Well… I…”

“Right?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, and how do we do that? How exactly do we reverse a quantum tear between our universes?”

“The details aren’t important. I’ll take care of it. There’s no need to ask any more questions about it.”

She abroptly left the room, leaving me alone with this weird old zombie of a man yet again. It was getting very annoying. I didn’t even try to be social with him that time and decided to leave as well. Before I made it to the tube, he spoke. Well, he tried to speak. It was more like a weak gasp. I turned around and got closer to him.

“What did you say? You said something, right? That wasn’t a final breath or anything?”

“S..s…i…phon…”

“I have an Android, sorry”

“No. Like…s….siphon.”

“A siphon?

“Chain… reac… tion…”

Whatever, I was sick of it. I just got up and walked away from him. Weird dude.

Back in the larger chamber Wanda was pacing. I called out to her.

“Wanda! So when is this whole thing going down?”

“Now.”

She took a deep breath and walked through the room past me towards the tube. Before she crawled in, she said,

“Just stay here. I’ll come get you all when I’m done with the clown.”

I did as she asked and stayed put. After a few minutes I heard some mechanical noises coming from that other room. Noises grew louder until they began to shake the ground. I looked up to see some of the plastic balls that comprised the cave roof were shaken free. They bounced onto the ground around me. Eventually the cacophony became so deafening that I held my hands to my ears. As soon as I did, there was an explosive noise that shook all of us in the room to the ground. Ricotta R. Ratt must have launched upwards towards the clown for the fight.

I did not feel good about it. What did it matter to me or any of these people if it was a clown or some cowgirl eating up their souls? I thought there was nothing I could do. How was I supposed to reverse some trans-universal mess? Who would even know how to do that? Nobody here had ever traveled from one to other besides Wanda, Ronald, and the Hamburger King. In that moment it clicked. The Hamburger King was trying to tell me how to reverse all of this! He wasn’t just rambling or senile. I tried to remember what he said to me; it was something about a siphon. A domino effect. I rushed over to the other room to ask him more questions.

Before I got to him I had already figured it out.

I slid through the tube into the King’s room. The wall separating that room from the vertical exit was utterly destroyed. It was smashed to pieces and plastic balls were trickling down all the way up along the new chasm. I picked up the Hamburger King and positioned him in the fireman’s carry method that we were taught in mall cop academy. I held onto his limbs, stepped into the vertical exit by the now destroyed ladder, and shot the grappling gun straight upwards.

The King and I flew up and I closed my eyes as we crashed into the sea of plastic balls. We continued zipping upwards and we eventually broke through the ocean and into the clear air.

As we climbed higher towards the tubes above, what I saw before me was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

The Ricotta R. Ratt animatronic mech suit was piloted by Wendy and it must have been thirty feet tall. It stood in the ball pit up to its waist as it swiped at Ronald who was dodging the strikes with the agility of a god. A giant rat paw swung down at him, but he flashed away with more than enough time to save him from the strike. The mech’s paw smashed into the balls, sending an explosive spray of plastic in every direction. After losing track of him, I spotted the clown on the opposite wall, bounding off of it and towards the back of the mech’s head. He landed on the fur of its back, plunged a gloved hand into the exoskeleton, and ripped out a cluster of wires. The Ricotta R. Ratt robot roared and spun around, clawing at the clown. The propeller on its hat began to spin, lifting the two of them into the air. After gaining enough height to reveal the true size of the machine, the propeller stopped. The animatronic rat was top-heavy and it began to tip upside down as it made its descent into the ball pit. The two of them entered with a crash.

“This is insane. Are you seeing this?”, I asked the Hamburger King. He didn't respond.

He didn’t respond because I was so caught up in the fight that I let go of him. I dangled from the grapple and looked below me to see him face down on the surface of the ball pit. Not great. I scrambled up to the tube supporting me and unhooked the grapple. The two fighters were still below the surface and out of sight. There was no doubt in my mind that there was some really sick combat going on underneath there.

I could barely make out any sounds of the fight at that point. I prepared myself to jump off the tube and get a hold of the King again. Before I could make the jump, I noticed some of the plastic balls around the King starting to pulse. It was not a good sign.

The giant mechanical rat and the superpowered clown blasted through the surface of the ball pit right below the King, flinging him upwards. I watched him cartwheel through the air, clank off of a tube mere feet away from me, and start to fall back down. While still in mid-fall, Ronald darted through the air, grabbed him by the leg, and landed on the throne.

“Haha! Lookie here!”, the clown shouted as he held the King’s limp body out like a sack of potatoes.

The Ricky R. Ratt machine stopped in its tracked and opened up at the chest, revealing the pilot, Wanda.

“No! Put him down!”, she screamed.

Again, I didn’t care about any of that drama. My problem was that the King was my way out of here and he was down there being shaken around by the ridiculously powerful god-clown. I was running out of options. I thought maybe I could just do something cool, instead. I put the clown in my crosshairs and decided to leap from the tube that was at least 30 feet over his head and deliver a flying karate kick to his face. I have a green belt. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is one of my favorite movies. I leapt from the tube and began my primal scream. Ronald grabbed me by the leg just like he did with the King. It seems like it was almost easier for him to grab me than it was to grab the unconscious old corpse. He dropped us onto the throne.

“Your precious little King is mine now! You lose! Embarrassing! Hahaha! Power the suit down and get out if you want him to live.” Ronald shouted over to Wanda.

The suit powered down and she hung her head.

“Please. Please don’t hurt him. I…love him. I…”, she began softly.

I was laying there next to what was probably a dead old man. I was about to be dead as well, but I chose to save the day instead.

I unclipped my fanny pack and fed the strap through the trigger guard of the grapple gun. I ran the other side of the strap through the King’s belt and clipped the two ends together. I then aimed the gun straight at the shining blue light above and let it rip. The hook made its way through all of the tubes above and into the brightest area of the light. I had to look away.

To my shock, the slack hook line tightened. It caught onto something on the other side of the light. As quickly as I noticed it, the unconscious body of the King was being zipped away by the seat of his pants. He ascended into the light quicker than Ronald or Wanda had time to react. He vanished into the light and the light reacted with a flash.

“NO!” Wanda and Ronald shouted in unison.

The ball pit balls began to vibrate. Ronald and Wanda held their hands up to their heads in pain. One green ball lifted off of the surface in front of me and then shot off into the blue light. Then another. Eventually the ball pit was raining upwards into the glow above. Ronald was lifted from his feet and began to float towards the light as well. Tubes above began to crane towards it. The Hamburger King was trying to tell me to start the siphon. All I had to do was send one person from that universe back over the portal and all of the others would be dragged along with them. A domino effect.

I scrambled off of the throne and watched the entire Play Place lose gravity and float up towards the glow. I sank lower into the ball pit as it dissipated. I saw people being lifted up through the cloud of floating plastic as I went down.

Eventually it all came to rest and I stood facing a single tube. I crawled in and slid down into a shallow ball pit in the food court. I stood up, brushed myself off, and stepped into the cafeteria to sit down at a table. My segway was still there.

“Where is he?”, a voice chimed from behind me.

Sandra. What was I going to say to Sandra?

“I’m here mommy”, I heard a voice say. Oof.

I turned around to watch Sandra pass out and collapse on the ground.

“She’s fine, Ralph. Do you want me to buy you some nuggets from Mark Donalds while your mom naps?”

**](<writing/mall_cop **

Day 93

Another day!

Let’s see if I can remember everything here:

Out of breath, as if she just sprinted here, she said “Hello! Sir. Can you please help me? My son Ralph is missing. He’s in the food court.”

“I sure can, ma’am! I can help you. You say you last saw him in the food court? Any ideas about what could have happened? Any hunches? Or should I say... lunches?”

“Ahem… Sorry ma’am. Yes, of course I can help. Please tell me what you can about where you lost your son and what he looks like so that I can more easily identify him.”

“So - about your son.” I winked.

“Was that a wink?”

“No.”

“Um.. okay. My little Ralphie and I were at the food court where I bought him a Glad Meal at Mark Donalds.”

“A Glad Meal at this time of day? Cheeseburgers for breakfast huh? This Ralph kid already seems kinda wild. What toy did he get?”

“Excuse me?”

“The toy, ma’am. What toy did he get? Glad meals come with a toy. T-O-Y.”

“Oh. Well… I think it was some sort of small action figure? Does it really matter-”

“Yeah, obviously he got an action figure. It’s the Galactic Warriors promotional set. Which one was it? Glimdore? Flarp?”

“It was blue? And it made a noise when he pressed a-”

“Woah! He got Captain Blorky?! Unbelievable! Lucky son of a… Hold on one second ma’am.”

“Sorry about that. We have no time to waste. Now tell me, where is your son?”

“The food court!”

“Oh. Yes. Right, right.”

I was still pretty flustered. With the twist of a key, I pulled my chariot out of its closet and zipped straight to the food court. Without even looking back I yelled to the woman to meet me there.

Normally, this stallion totes me around at a smooth Sunday-drive pace, but in that moment I tilted as far forward as she would let me tilt to see what she could do. The two parallel rubber wheels peeled and the squeal echoed down the corridor in each direction. Before I knew it I was going - I kid you not - at least 15 miles per hour. My eyes were watering and it felt like the skin was about to rip clean off of my face. It was a good thing I remembered to clasp my helmet. As my wheels raced, so did my mind. I was going to find this kid and trade everything I had for that prize. He probably had no idea what he even had. I, however, knew exactly what he had and I deserved to have it more. I’m not saying I was going to rip the kid off - I had plenty of things here that were worth an even trade. My mind tingled at the thought of completing the collection.

“Sandra, how did you get here before me?”

“I just walked. As soon as you panicked and got on top of that Segway, you zipped off in the entirely wrong direction.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I know these halls like the back of my hand. I assure you my route was the most optimal and efficient.”

“But I walked here… and got here before-”

“Hey the only thing that matters is that we’re both here right now, ready to find your son. Now tell me what he’s wearing.”

“Just some blue jeans and a plain red t-shirt. He’s got messy brown hair.”

“Alright, now where did you see him last?”

Sandra pointed over my shoulder.

“He took his toy and went in there.”

I twisted my handlebars and rotated to see the Mark Donalds Play Place; a shadowy plastic tube labyrinth set in dull primary colors with a single greasy entrance and one steep exit slide aimed at a shallow ball pit positioned to catch the ragdolled bodies of children who hurled themselves from the top. It was a purgatory filled with static electricity and steamy cheeseburger breath. I’ve been in one of those before. I shuddered.

“You’re saying you want me to go in there and find your son?” I gulped.

“Please! Oh, please! I’ve been yelling and screaming for him but he’s not answering. I’ll do anything to get him back. I’m so scared.”

“Okay. Okay, ma’am. Just… just wait here. I’ll go get him”

“Thank you! Thank you so much. I will stay right here.” She hugged me. It was a long, tight hug. Okay, lady...

I leaned over and placed my hands on the inside of the tube. Despite every part of my body screaming to turn away, I crawled ahead. Each heavy clunk of my knees shook the structure and redistributed my weight, instigating unsettling creaks. The outside sounds of the mall faded away, only to be replaced with my own heavy breathing and the hammering of my heart that bounced off of the tube walls standing an inch from each of my ears. My mouth dried and I gulped sandpaper. I really hated it in there. It sucked so much. Crawling along, I came to an intersection of tubes - a crossroads with three options. I shouted for Ralph.

My shout reverberated off the tight tube walls and back into my own ears. I was yelling at myself, and it was loud. No response. I yelled again.
That time, I heard a noise. I snapped my head to the left and saw a small shadow dart across the tube, followed by an echoing giggle. I turned immediately and crawl-sprinted. It’s one of the few things you can do that’s more awkward than running while wearing a backpack or chasing a bouncing ping-pong ball. I made it to where I saw the shadow and turned to follow its path. When I turned the corner I was shocked to see that there was nowhere to go. It was just a window - a dead end. Confused, I stuck my head into the convex bubble and looked out. I looked out upon my greatest fear. It was horrible; an incomprehensible web of tubes. I could not see the end. I could not see the roof, the floor, the walls. It was tubes. Tubes forever. From this perspective it looked like it had to be larger than the entire food court, at least. My heart stuttered and adrenaline flushed through my body.
I turned back around. I needed to get out. Immediately. I crawled back in the direction from which I came… But there was no left turn. Maybe it wasn’t a left? There was an intersection, right? Or left, right? Were the tubes getting more narrow? My shoulders were being squeezed. Things were not in the same place that they were a minute before.

I got lost. I began to panic. My hands were slick with sweat and I was slipping, struggling to push myself forward. I started losing control. My body let a fart go and it was trapped with me. It stayed. Even my attempts to control my breathing were poisoned by my own doing. I had to keep crawling, so I did.

I said hi.

“Hello?”, he said. “Which one are you? I don’t think I know you. You definitely smell of spent youth. I most certainly do not know you. How did you get in here?”

I mean… damn. Pretty deep cut from the clown right off the jump.

“Sorry to barge in uninvited like this but I’m looking for a young boy named Ralph. Blue shirt? Probably had a Captain Blorky figure with him?”

“Ralph? Of course I know Ralph! Oh, Ralphie! Come on out Ralphie, someone is here to see you!”, he said, as he continued his smooth walk towards me.

I spotted someone creeping out from behind the throne in my peripheral vision. It was definitely not Ralph. That was a whole grown dude. In a red shirt.… holding a Captain Blorky figure. Oh.

Oh, no.

I screamed in his direction. “What did you do with Ralph! Where is Ralph! I know Chris Hansen, I went to high school with him! Hey!”

“How does he know my name, Ronald?”, the guy said, fidgeting with the toy in his hands.

“What a very good question, Ralphie. Perhaps he has an answer for us.”, the clown spoke as he closed the distance even more.

What?

My head really spun. I was dizzy and sweaty and confused. That guy’s name was also Ralphie? The huge lanky weird clown was practically on top of me by that point so I was also panicking. I couldn’t make a move in any direction because the balls surrounding me gave way whenever I tried to make a push. I was stuck in colorful plastic quicksand. He crouched down above me and moved his hand up to the flower on his shirt to position it right near my face. I smelled stale apple pie. Hot stale apple pie. Was he really going to spray seltzer water? I convulsed my face and braced for the incoming stream, but it never came. After a few seconds I opened one eye to see the truth about the flower. It was not going to spray me with water. What I think it was going to do, however, was use the dozens of razor-sharp teeth poised about in its center to latch onto my head. Wiggling stamen stretched out and caressed my face, tasting it. It was freaky and it was weird. My vision started to tunnel.
Just as I was about to lose my last bit of consciousness, I felt something grab hold of my ankle and drag me straight down into the deepness of the ball pit.

The roar of clashing plastic balls crashing against my speeding torpedo of a body was the last thing I remember before completely passing out.

“Hey! These are collectibles! They’re also mine! Stop!” I shouted at her as I stood up.

“You.” She hissed. “What were you doing up there? What is wrong with you? Are you stupid?”

She squared her body towards me and dashed a Ms. Pip to the ground. I saw an arm pop off. That hurt. The sound of a weak cough emanated from the corpse in the corner.

“Now you’ve done it. You’ve woken him! As weak as he is!”

“For the love of all that is good would you please not touch anything? Get away from there!” She shouted at me.

“Sorry. What’s this old guy’s problem?”, I said as I approached the two of them.

“Show some respect! This is the Hamburger King!”

“No it’s not. I know what the Hamburger King looks like. He looks awful, by the way.”

“I admit, he has looked better. But he is still the King. And I think he is handsome, still.”

She said that and smiled down at him and he returned a weak smile.

“Okay well where’s his crown then?”, I asked.

“I’m sure you saw it perched up on that monstrous clown’s head up above.”

“I did, actually, now that you mention it. That guy who stole Ralphie called him Ronald. He’s not-”

She continued, “That man who you think stole the child named Ralphie did not steal Ralphie. That was Ralphie himself, I am sorry to say.”

“Sorry? I guess I feel sorry for him too. A guy that age has his mother take him to Mark Donalds to get a toy and then he gets lost in the Play Place. Pretty sad.”

Wanda looked up at me then down at the collectibles in my arms. She made her point without even saying it. Fair enough.

“Okay, listen. Whether or not Ralphie is 4 or 40 I need to get him back to his mother. Can you help me get him and get us out of here?”, I asked.

“There is a lot you don’t understand”, she said to me as we walked deeper into the center of the room.

"You see them all... they weren't always like this. Ever since the cataclysm blurred our worlds, Ronald has grown strong."

"The clown is strong?"

"Indeed. That is Ronald Donald, the Mark Donald’s mascot. That man back there, dying, is the Hamburger King. And I am Wanda."

I could barely believe what I was hearing. The three most popular fast-food mascots were living and breathing (for the most part) right there in the Play Place. Well, the underground caves of it.

“Ronald took the crown. Once, he ruled only Markdonaldia, but now he claims all the kingdoms."

We walked along and she patted the tufted head of a hunched woman who was loosely playing with a broken toy. Dozens of other people, scattered around the steamy plastic cave-room, slumped on the ground. The room smelled like burnt fryer grease mixed with gym sock. Whatever this place was, it was out of my jurisdiction.

“Listen, Wanda. I’m sorry that your boyfriend is old and Ronald the clown stole his crown. How do I get out of here?”, I asked.

“Okay, well you have an army of weird sad people down here. Can’t you just go up there and kick his ass? He is just a clown.”

“He is more than a clown now.”

She stopped in front of an older man sitting on the ground with his head drooped to his chest. He pushed a toy car back and forth along the ground. Leaning over, she tousled his hair.

“You see, Ronald ate his youth.”

I stopped scanning for toys and tried to process what she meant. Eating youth. There wasn't really any other way to receive that information besides in exactly the way she said. Like, soul eating, basically. Right? Was she serious? Compared to the teens I busted loitering outside of the food court yesterday, it seemed... decidedly worse.