Colour Pencils

Yay, Four Island’s up – and I have chosen to celebrate by posting the 9/10 page long monstrousity that is the story I have been working on during the holidays. It’s vaguely related to the True Falsities plot, and is rather… strange. Oh, and I just randomly added the colours.

So… presenting:

Welcome to TF Land

….

A bird flies overhead, tweeting. Somewhere in the distance, a car screeches to a halt. A little Fourie hops around at your feet, looking cute. You really could do with these things at the moment. These things are soothing, calming… unlike that death-machine-with-wings right behind. You turn to glare at the pilot, but he just waves at you.

“Oh, don’t worry, he’s new to the Island,” someone says behind you. You whirl around to see a girl. She’s wearing a shirt with some kind of pink thing on it and she has a friendly expression.

“Hi,” you say. You’re still kinda frazzled as you introduce yourself to the girl. Now, why did the pilot have to go so freaking fast? You knew you should have picked the boat trip.

“My name’s Starla Insigna and I’m the Lady Queen Mistress of Four Island,” she says with a big grin. “Welcome to Four Island!”

….

It had been a boring day. You were sitting at home, looking around on the Internet for something to do… when you came across an interesting site.

“Bored? Travel to metaphysical islands for some fun and adventures!”

After clicking around, you see a page detailing the so-called ‘Metaphysical Islands’. Hmm… The Isle of Sushi? The Archipelago of Ants? Most of these sound very… weird. Besides, how can you travel to a metaphysical island? Didn’t the word ‘metaphysical’ mean something that didn’t really exist? Who even cared?

As you go to click off the site, one link catches your eye. ‘Four Island’.

….

“What are we waiting for?” you ask. You and Starla are sitting on a bench outside the ‘airport’ and you’re getting bored. It was amazing how bored you got after that airplane ride…

“We’re waiting for the bus, and there it is!” A rather battered bus comes around the bend. It stops with a rattling shudder, the noise sending chills up your spine. And the wheels… were they covered in blood?

“All aboard!” The bus driver opens the door. He’s a teenager with a shirt with something that looks like a blue monkey on it. Why were they letting teenagers drive buses? Does he even have a driving license? You climb aboard and sit in a decaying seat. It makes a squishy sound as you sit down. Ick.

“This is Bluemonkey, Four Island’s resident bus driver!” Starla chirps. “Blu, don’t drive too fast, our guest-”

“You came on the plane?” Bluemonkey [what a strange name!] interrupts. “Ooh, Ozzyfrog can overdo the plane tricks at times.”

You ask if that’s the pilot’s name. If it is, no wonder he was wearing that frog shirt.

“Yes. He’s one of my friends and with Tamesis, we go out raiding for pantyh- oops!” Bluemonkey turns to the wheel and starts the bus. He ignores any further questions about pantyhosen and ninja hideouts and solely focuses on…

“Look out!” you shriek as a random passerby runs out in front of the bus. The bus does a sharp turn to avoid it and the vehicle leans to the side, the whole right side in the air.

Well, this was going to be a looong journey…

….

The office of the Metaphysical Travel Agency seems… weird. It’s got a strange atmosphere, that’s for sure. Like you’re breathing in lollipops.

“Sew, yu want too go too For Island?” The lady’s speech is very weird as well. It seems like she’s talking in homophones – words that sound alike.

You reply in the affirmative.

“Well, yu wheel have too syn dis fourm.” She pushes a piece of paper towards you and fixes you with a stare. “Hand eet back wen possible an we ken mek teh arrangement.”

You thank her and try not to inhale a lollipop as you exit the room.

….

As the bus draws to a stop, you stumble out of the bus and attempt to not to throw up. “Have a nice tour!” Bluemonkey says as he drives away, probably to disembowel another random passerby.

“Here we are!” Starla says happily as she skips ahead in front of you.

You look around and see a large building. It looks very ominous. All that barbed wire and locks! Timidly, you ask Starla where you are.

“We’re at the prison, where the majority of Four Island’s residents live. Well, most of them moved out recently…” She walks up to the guard and talks to him. A few seconds later, the gates open with a loud clang. You nervously walk inside, worried that something might jump out at you.

The first cell you see is heavily padded with a large lock. Starla opens the door and beckons you inside into a… this is weird.

The walls are papered with lots of pictures featuring some sort of anime. A lot of them feature this girl and a fluffy thing, and some have this girl and this guy… kissing?

“Umi umi umi umi umi umi!” A shout pierces your thoughts. You turn to see a boy staring at you. He’s holding a fistful of some sort of cards, and there’s something weird around the TV in the corner. “I am a dreamer, hisomu pawaa, watashi no sekai, yume to koi to fuande dekiteru, demo souzo omo shinai mono, kakure teru hazu!” he sings loudly. “Cardcaptor Sakura!” Then, he suddenly springs up and stares at you. “Do you like Cardcaptor Sakura?” he demands.

You stare at the insane boy for a second before saying that you don’t really know what it is.

“You’re insane! Cardcaptor Sakura is the best!” Before he can overwhelm you with more Cardcaptor Sakura goodness, you quickly say that you’re busy and you need to do… stuff. As you exit the room, you notice a man in the corner rocking backwards and forwards.

“Who’re they?” you ask Starla.

“Oh, that’s Timbo94 and Bob Michigan. The insane asylum needed to be renovated, so they were moved here. What do you think of Timbo94?” she asks, smiling.

“He was… rather obsessed with that… Cardcaptor Sakura thing?” And what a strange name, you think to yourself.

“He can be rather confronting, but he’s a sweet boy.” You notice a small smirk on Starla’s face as she says this, and you make a note of it.

The rest of the cells seem to be empty, except for quite a few. Starla opens another one and pushes you in, before mumbling something about “Lady Queen Mistress business” and running off.

“3.14159265358979323846… Do you like Pi? Ooh, the fourth dimension! You explode when you get there, you know! ”

Great. Another crazy.

….

Now, getting to the Metaphysical Airport/Dock was not such an easy task. The directions made no sense, either. “Get out of the car when you see the Mt. Rushmore Cats” “Bow down to the Spirits of the Darkness” “Dance the Dance of the Turkey” “You must defeat the Spirit Wolf”?! This was insane – if you weren’t so mindnumingly bored, you’d turn back home immediately.

Now… what was the next step? “Walk on Water”? This was insane…

….

“Doot, doot, doot, doot! Pi! 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230… ”

You’re still trapped in this cell with… this guy. He’s rather weird. He can say smileys and he keeps rambling on about weird stuff. After a while of his rambling, you fall asleep and you dream that you’re in front of a computer, looking at a website and…

“Hey, Smiley, did you send another one to sleep? Wake up, wake up, the tour isn’t over yet…” Something grabs your shoulder and shakes it violently. You open your eyes and see Starla looking at you.

Later, you and Starla have left Smiley’s cell and are walking down the corridor as Starla points out the various inmates.

“There’s fake Smiley, the lion that ate Drifty… I wonder if she’s eaten or not today? And that’s the postman who took bribes from Drifty!”

You wonder why Starla’s giving you a guided tour of the prison, but you can’t really complain.

“And here’s the guy who hacked into TimTam’s brain…”

A few minutes later, a door at the end of the prison opens and you run out into the bright sunlight. Finally, fresh air! Starla looks at you with a smile, and cheerfully exclaims, “Now I’m going to show you the neighbourhood! I wonder if TimTam’s still in house arrest?”

Now, who was this person named after a chocolate? After an hour of walking, you get your answer.

“TimTaaaaam!” Starla calls as she stops in front of a house on Lovely Links Street. Suddenly, a window opens and a person pokes his head out.

“Starla?” ‘TimTam’ asks, almost disbelievingly.

“We have a guest!” Starla says.

You’re just about to introduce yourself when something flashes across your vision. It has its arm outstretched and a finger extended in a… poke?

“TIIMTAAAAAM!” the girl shouts. She runs into the house, and just one second later you see her next to ‘TimTam’, poking him. Then, quick as a flash, she disappears.

And you’re just left there, gaping at how fast the girl was.

“Oh, Pyro…” Starla says, smiling. Suddenly, she grabs your arm and you’re dragged into the house, up the stairs and into TimTam’s room. In here, you can see a few computers, including some dissected ones. Lines of unreadable type scroll across the screen. TimTam must evidently be a computer person.

Starla darts across the room and pokes TimTam. He doesn’t seem to be very… bothered. In fact, he pokes her back.

You stare at them. This was… rather weird. Falteringly, you ask them why they poke each other, and why TimTam is in house arrest.

“My name’s actually Tamesis Lucien, but ever since Drifty called me TimTam…” The teenager smiles ruefully [Tamesis Lucien didn’t seem like a strange name, like Drifty]. “And…”

“He doesn’t want to talk about the Feedburner Fiasco,” Starla interrupts. “It was rather a fiasco, too. If he didn’t have such long legs, he’d have been in jail! Now, let’s continue the tour.”

“But why did… Pyro and yourself poke Tamesis?”

Starla shrugs, and with that you’re hustled out of the house.

….

Sometimes you feel you’re in a dream, other times a nightmare. You can see wolves lurking in the corner of your eyes, rats behind the walls, ghosts in the distance. A girl with a ribbon in her hair at her computer, her eyes smiling, sparkles around her. She clicks her finger and something happ-

Wait.

You’re hallucinating. You really need to get out more. Well, at least the Metaphysical Airport is in sight now.

….

“So we’ve seen TimTam in his house, Bluemonkey and Ozzyfrog are out, Atlantic Slamon only comes here once in a blue moon… And this is Lovely Links Street. Next we have Affiliating Avenue, then… hey, it’s JAL!”

A tall boy is standing in front of a bunch of closets. He salutes Starla, then notices you. “Hello random stranger! Want a closet? We have prime closets!”

“Uh…” you say helpfully.

“After Drifty and Smiley were locked in closets by evil people, I decided to do something to combat the closet locking phenomenon! So, with my Confidently Complete Closet Creators, I created Completely Comfortable Closets that can protect you from Cats, Cushions and Koalas!” He gives you two thumbs up and continues with his tirade.

“My closets store food for up to umpteen thousand days! No more Baby Food Ploopsies for Smiley. Also, they come with an emergency phone, extra batteries and a guarantee that if you like what we sell, you’ll get your money back! So, what do you think?” JAL looks at you expectantly.

You stare at him and attempt to explain that you really aren’t interested in his closets.

“But who can be? Here’s our number: 4 14 13 20 – 2 21 25 – 14 21 18 – 19 21 6 6!”

“JAL, we really need to be going now. I’m sure our guest will buy one of your closets soon,” Starla says quickly. She grabs your arm [again] and drags you away from JAL.

A few second later… “Hey, look, that’s Timbo94!”

The boy from the prison is walking around the cul-de-sac with a bunch of posters under his arm. You expect to see Cardcaptor Sakura stuff, but on closer inspection, you see that they’re of… a woman with blond hair? “Hey, what happened to Cardcaptor Sakura?”

“I now like… TAYLOR SWIFT! TAYLOR SWIFT!” He starts singing something… “But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts, She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers, Dreaming bout the day when you’ll wake up and find, That what you’re lookin for has been here the whole time.. “

You turn to Starla, but she’s singing along as well, and dancing! And as they dance, you’re wondering about how quickly Timbo could get released from prison.

“If you could see that I’m the one who understands you,
Been here all along so why can’t you see?
You belong with me,
You belong with me!”

It’s a good song, admittedly, but it’s kinda… weird that here, people just randomly break out into song.. and poke each other… and…

You’re just watching the two groove out when two shapes burst out of the bush. They’re dressed in ninja costumes and are Bluemonkey and Ozzyfrog.

“Desist, Taylor Swift fangirls!” Bluemonkey commands.

“Taylor Swift has been all over the island for days!” Ozzyfrog adds. “It’s time for something new!”

“Nooooooo! I WILL EAT YOU!” Suddenly, Starla starts singing something and Taylor Swift herself descends from the skies.

“Taylor Swift, we love you!” Timbo94 says. “Sammi, Pyro, switch on the sound system! Oh, and Bluemonkey? I AM NOT A GIRL!”

Two girls appear out of nowhere and set up a stage. At the same time, Ozzyfrog and Bluemonkey are setting up a stage of their own. As all this is going on, on the side you’re just standing there and looking extremely puzzled.

A girl walks up to you and stands there. “Are they fighting over Taylor Swift again?” she asks.

You say that you don’t really know.

“Ah, that’s why you’re not joining in. I like some Taylor Swift songs, but I don’t really want to join in… And you must be new, right?”

“Yeah, I’m new,” you say.

“Well, I’m Drifty, and… you’re new? Oh my god, run for your life!” A haunted look immediately appears in her eyes. “Run, before they get you!” And with that, she disappears, leaving you just standing there, bemused.

Taylor Swift strums a note on her guitar and all the fans sigh in unison. In contrast, the nonfans [which are just Ozzyfrog, Bluemonkey and… Smiley? How did he get out of prison?] start singing something else. All the Taylor Swift fans start booing, and all the nonfans huddle in a small group. After a while, the nonfans spread out in a group and summon some singers they consider good, like Joe Cocker, Avril Lavigne and others.

“THAT’S NOT FAIR!” yell all the Taylor Swift fans. “YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE AVRIL!” And with that, the entire group is launched into a Battle of the Bands type thing.

….

Walking into the Metaphysical Airport is a very surreal experience. The counter lady is a fish on two legs, a chimpanzee is chatting to an ostrich and three wise old men are staffing the McDonalds.

You wander around, until you bump into a woman dejectedly holding up a Four Island sign. After chatting a bit, the woman gives you two choices: by airplane or the boat trip.

“They only introduced the airplane option recently, as only recently they got a pilot,” the woman says. “The boat is rather established, but I personally wouldn’t go on it…”

“Why not?” you ask.

“The skipper is a weird person called Creepy Witch Dude. I have no idea who named him, but he’s rather… creepy.”

“Who’s the pilot?”

“I’m not sure. He’s rather new, apparently, and there’s this rule…”

“What rule?”

“Never say a word beginning with ‘Air’ to him.”

And this is how your story begins.

….

“So, what next?” Starla asks.

You’re still rather stunned from the impromptu Battle of the Bands. The oppositions played… fast. And rough. Wow. That completely blew you off – and Starla isn’t even worried about anything. The people are still packing up the stands, and all the singers have disappeared.

“What next? There’s only one more person to meet, and she’s coming this way… with bubbles!”

A girl with brown hair bounces up to you. She doesn’t say anything, just batting at the fluorescent bubbles circling her. With a giggle, Sammi9494 skips off with her bubbles.

“Okay, you’ve met all the Four Islanders. Do you want to go home now?” Starla asks.

“Uhh… I’m not sure I want to go by plane or by boat…” you say. “And that bus…”

Starla smiles mysteriously. “Then, you may not have to!” She clicks her fingers, and…

….

Everything suddenly swirls away. The sound of a click rings in your ears, and you’re sitting at a computer, looking at a website. The title ‘Four Island’ seems familiar to you… maybe it was from that freaky dream.

You must have fallen asleep while browsing the internet. You stand up and stretch, and in your mind’s eye you can see a girl laughing, a girl clicking her fingers with a bow in her hair…

But maybe it’s just your imagination.