Királyházi Csaba EN

Terrifying Tale

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It was cold and dark when he woke up.

He couldn’t remember anything. Not even his name, and he didn’t even know if he had a name at all. Maybe he was just born.

Straining his senses, he looked around, but all he saw was bottomless darkness. He began to feel scared. Straining even more, this time he began to discern vague outlines. He was in a room. High walls surrounded him on all sides, and in the distance, strange shapes loomed above. As he grew accustomed to the dark and his vision improved, he noticed a beautiful shimmer on the gray walls. It was as if a mirror held a thousand stars within it. He stared breathlessly at the crystalline glow, feeling like he could never get enough of it. The room was built from regular shapes and elements. He couldn’t judge the purpose of the space, but it was enormous compared to him. It extended several floors upward and downward. The floors of the levels were made of rods of some strange artificial material, through which he could examine the contents of the levels above and below him. Interesting boxes, spheres, and cylinders alternated seemingly haphazardly, yet evidently according to some mysterious logic. And everything was covered in that sparkling shimmer. He became more and more calm and smiled. He looked over his own body. He was dressed in a paper-made garment that displayed interesting colors. It covered his entire body, from the tip of his single leg to the rounded top of his head. He didn’t know why he was clothed, as this thin layer provided no protection from the cold. In fact, he somehow felt no need to be protected from the cold. He felt good and didn’t long for a warmer place. He thought that he must have ended up here for a reason, and a long and happy existence awaited him, filled with countless wonders to be discovered. The garment was likely given to him for aesthetic reasons, though as he looked over his stocky, dark brown body and straight, flat leg, there was nothing to be ashamed of. He was still glad he had clothes because, without them, he might have been shy. Not that anyone could see him without clothes in the desolate room, but the knowledge that the colorful paper dress concealed him from curious eyes was comforting. He started examining his surroundings again. On the wall opposite him, there were huge cylinders visible in the distance. High up, strange rounded spheres lay on an extension. He couldn’t even imagine what those things around him were, but since they apparently posed no particular danger to him, he didn’t bother with them any longer.

He was just about to start naming the things around him when his fate was fulfilled.

It began with the floor made of long rods trembling beneath him. Then the entire room shook. The massive objects around him shook rhythmically. Strange tinkling and rattling sounds could be heard from all directions. The shaking intensified for a while, then stopped. He was terrified. He had no idea what was going to happen, but a terrible premonition took hold of him. Suddenly, a blinding, incredibly intense light flooded the area, and at the same time, a cacophony of clattering and roaring sounds accompanied the disappearance of one of the room’s gigantic walls. A monstrous force gripped and flung him up from where he lay. He had no time to recover before he plunged into the blinding brightness. The force squeezing his body did not release him, only tossing him back and forth in the vast, blinding emptiness. The pleasant cool air was replaced by scorching heat, which began to suffocate him through his clothes. He dared not move. He knew he was about to die and could do nothing about it. He tightly closed his eyes and endured. He decided he would face his end with pride, but panic quickly overwhelmed him when his colorful paper garment began to tear apart amidst terrifying crunching sounds. The intense light and heat immediately inflicted wounds on him where the remnants of the garment no longer protected his body. Tiny transparent liquid beads began to appear on his dark brown skin. He would have screamed, but no sound emerged from his throat, as suddenly his entire garment was stripped from him, and the burning pain made it impossible for him to breathe. Suddenly, a giant drooling mouth appeared, filled with shovel-sized teeth and a huge tongue, which inevitably began to approach him. He fainted. His last thought lingered on the unfair brevity of his existence. He didn’t feel the mouth’s dark interior swallow him, the massive lips latch onto his neck, or the corrosive, scalding saliva begin to dissolve his dark brown skin. The gleaming teeth slowly touched his skin, and after a moment of idle pressure, they snapped shut. Thus ended his short life. His soul was already departing when the chattering teeth methodically stripped his dead body of its dark brown skin and dug into his snow-white flesh. Slowly, the mouth savored what remained of him with relish. The tongue nimbly caught the body parts liquefied by the immense heat. After a while, only the straight leg and a few melted bits of flesh remained. Then, the force finally released him. While his essence soared upward into the light, his remains plummeted into the dark depths.

I lifted my foot off the pedal, and the trash can lid closed. I closed the little door under the sink and headed back towards the refrigerator. In this sweltering heat, it would be nice to wash down the sweet taste of a vanilla Magnum with a bottle of Heineken.

It was cold and dark when he woke up.

He stood in a narrow compartment, tightly pressed against several cylindrical companions. He didn’t know how he got there or what he was really doing there, but for the time being, he didn’t mind, wherever he was. He enjoyed his existence, the small bubbles that pleasantly tickled his insides, and his cute little cap that sat atop his long, green neck. He thought that he must have ended up here for a reason, and a long and happy existence awaited him, filled with countless wonders to be discovered…

The Conqueror

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In the spacetime tunnel, just as last time, there was complete silence.

Trgzyx didn’t mind this side effect of traveling between star systems, as he loved to immerse himself in long meditations. In his thoughts, he counted the conquered planets and enslaved their inhabitants, imagining the euphoric state after the latest expected successful invasion.

He glanced at the time indicator over his shoulder and clicked with satisfaction. Only a few light points remained, and he would reach his destination.

For now, he couldn’t know where that was, as according to the XORX law, invasion command ships had to randomly select their jump coordinates. The XORX had reached such an unprecedented level of development that there was no longer any need for a battle plan, strategy, or army. Trgzyx, like his other colleagues developed in the war factories, was a brilliant commander, an invincible army, and the invasion fleet itself. His task was simple and clear: to explore the inhabited star systems of the duoverse’s lower half, neutralize any possible resistance, and then notify the collection ships, which would strip the defenseless natives of their natural resources, technological devices, and ultimately their free will.

Trgzyx hated inferior creatures. He had already subjugated thousands of underdeveloped, suffering, weak species during his 120 xoraxian year shift, and according to his plans, the remaining eighty years until his rest would significantly increase this number.

The sharp purple light beam flashing on the top of the stasis chamber snapped him out of his thoughts. He moved slightly with difficulty, causing his matte black skin to squeak loudly against the stone-carved seat. His pale green eyes, devoid of iris and pupil, opened wide on his disproportionately large head, and three of the largest turned toward the complex instrument panel sprawling on the side of the chamber.

He had arrived.

A dull pop dispersed the wormhole in front of the spaceship, and suddenly various noises filled the cabin. The faintly flickering light grid beyond the window disappeared, replaced by tiny points of light from stars cast into solid darkness.

With a glance, Trgzyx identified the system of nearby planets and cautiously activated his spaceship’s weapons and other military equipment before searching for signs of life. The results of the first scans filled him with disappointment. He saw no signs of technology or civilized life in the approaching star system.

He didn’t understand. According to the selection generators, he was clearly headed towards an inhabited star system, but the lazily clicking and blinking instruments now indicated lifeless celestial bodies.

He ran a more thorough examination and noticed a small amount of radioactive gamma radiation coming from the third planet from the sun. Although he knew the phenomenon could be of natural origin, it was worth taking a closer look since he had come this far. He simply couldn’t accept that, for the first time since his activation, he had found an empty star system without subjugable, inferior peoples.

As he approached the strangely unnaturally blue and green planet, he grew more curious. There was no trace of the life-giving grayish-yellow ammonia oceans or the nourishing silicon deserts necessary for survival. The atmosphere lacked the xenon molecules necessary for air exchange. The surface was almost entirely covered in toxic hydrogen-containing oceans, and the bright blue, uninviting atmosphere consisted of unfriendly nitrogen and deadly oxygen.

Trgzyx had never seen such a terribly hostile planet before. The suction cups on the ends of his legs shuddered at the thought of intelligent life possibly emerging in such a desolate place.

The celestial body increasingly filled the protective sunshades of the windows, and he already noticed objects moving in multiple directions with his unaided sensors. He looked questioningly at his instruments, which still showed nothing detectable. According to them, there could be no life, movement, or technology on the blue planet, but the metallic-colored, glowing points flying in front of his eyes suggested something else, not to mention the unnaturally straight lines and city-like shapes that adorned the planet’s surface. He suspiciously sized up the multitude of instruments when, from the lowest, hidden part of the panel, one of his eyes noticed a flashing light. The emergency white light was mounted above a trembling, out-of-control indicator, and a single word was etched below: Radio Waves!

He had no idea what radio waves were, and this greatly disturbed him since, during his 500 years of training, he had been taught every astronomical, physical, chemical, mathematical, and quvological term known in the duoverse. For a few seconds, he blinked confusedly with two of his three largest eyes, while the third stared intently at the inscription above the out-of-control indicator. With one of his black, flexible tentacles, he reached under the pilot’s seat, and after a bit of searching, pulled out the operating manual attached to the spaceship, which he had last flipped through when he was a 140th invasion commando cadet. He found the term radio waves under the heading “assumed anomalies,” within the smallest-lettered informational section. He remembered his instructors saying that these should only be read in case of extreme boredom, but they would be better off dealing with more meaningful things instead.

In the book, about radio waves, only this much was written:

“Existence not proven, but in the Tetraglobe-2 laboratory, the necessary equipment for detection was developed with the help of some enthusiastic scientists who had questionable results. According to the group of scientists, radio waves could have a strong disturbing effect on xyro systems, such as detection, weaponry, navigation. The Tetraglobe-2 scientific group could not successfully present the proof of their assumptions within the specified deadline, so they received an honorable liquidation. There is no justifiable objection to their installation in the invasion spacecraft.”

With a sudden movement, he threw the manual into the corner and grabbed the spaceship’s steering horn. With a quick gesture of his third hand, he neutralized the shading surface surrounding the xyro cabin, which immediately made the spherical pilot cabin transparent, and now he could see out in all directions. In the next moment, the stomach acid in Trgzyx’s head froze.

The image of the planet completely filled the cabin’s glass, and from one-third of the directions, a primitive satellite-like shiny machinery was flying towards him unstoppably. The collision was now inevitable, and Trgzyx, hitting the buttons of the inoperative weapon system, watched wide-eyed as the foreign space object penetrated the inoperative energy shield and shaved off the engines of his ship, which he had thought to be invulnerable. The dull rumble and clicking of the equipment were mixed with the echoes of explosions, and then the emergency ejection system of the pilot cabin detached from the spacecraft’s hull, and Trgzyx began to plummet towards the planet’s surface and the venomous blue ocean with his cabin-turned-rock seat.

As he fell accelerating into the unknown, Trgzyx formulated an angry message with his telepathic brain, and with the help of communication-enhancing implants, he sent it towards the data transmitter of his disintegrating spaceship. However, the spacecraft had suffered too much damage, so the hastily composed report could not escape the vortex of radio waves into interplanetary space.

He didn’t give up.

In the last moment before the crash, the fact of defeat plunged him into an indescribably aggressive state of mind, which increased the iridium level in his body and multiplied the effectiveness of his telepathic abilities.

The thought fragments of his last message burst out of the planet’s poisonous atmosphere like a furious and desperate mental scream towards the stars and the XORX empire.

A few micro-time units later, the xyrocabin crashed into the ocean at a terrifying speed. The super-strong guamitrate alloy did protect Trgzyx’s life from the impact’s force, but the poisonous, hydrogen-containing liquid immediately began to corrode the cabin’s wall.

Trgzyx helplessly watched the terrifying darkness below him, into which he was sinking along with the disintegrating wreckage.

A hundred million light-years and two cascade points away, at the armed XorX relay station on the edge of the upper duoverse, a rather surprised-looking telepathic XorX caught the following message fragment: “…MAY ALL THE VERMIN OF KBARIA’S SALT MINES DEVOUR THE BRAIN COVER OF THE FCXTN WHO HONORABLY EXECUTED THE TETRAGLOBE LAB SCIENTISTS!!!”

Nylon Wasp and the Blood Hamster

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There was a Wasp.

Not just any Wasp, but a rare and dangerous Nylon Wasp. The boastful bipedal beings of the 21st century would probably have laughed at its name, but of course, everyone knew that those beings had gone extinct millennia ago and were now only heard of in legends and stories for larvae. The Nylon Wasp didn’t really believe they ever existed. Mind you, if they had existed and laughed at its name, the Nylon Wasp would have certainly made sure it was their last funny moment in this life. It was not the kind of Wasp one could laugh at. It was the Nylon Wasp.

The royal blue stripes on its orange abdomen shone threateningly as the scorching southern sun penetrated the ozone layer-free atmosphere, casting ultraviolet rays upon them. Its name came from the synthetic membrane stretched on a micro-steel-ceramic frame of its wings, which after centuries of technological refinement, only slightly resembled the original transparent plastic mined in nature. It barely remembered the painful surgery that finally rid it of its original, fragile, and vestigial wings. However, it vividly remembered receiving the three pure titanium barbs protruding from its abdomen during the initiation ceremony, which were attached to the cell wall-embedded nerve poison capsules. Chuck Norris would have immediately thrown in the towel if he had to poison the Nylon Wasp, but fortunately, Chuck Norris had completely moved out of this dimension by the third millennium, and the Nylon Wasp couldn’t care less who the heck Chuck Norris was. It was a brutal Wasp. With its poison, it could have knocked down a mountain of elezrafs in an instant, although it’s true that the massive, gentle herbivores were still at such a low level of mutant evolution that, contrary to their size, they proved completely harmless to every advanced insect species. They grazed peacefully, paying no attention to the Dung Fly squadrons patrolling around their solid, trunk-like heads ending in long necks. So the Nylon Wasp didn’t take down any elezrafs. Moreover, it didn’t even consider the huge balikans as worthy opponents, which, seemingly defying gravity, sailed majestically on the warm air currents above the mountains with their tens of thousands of millimeters wingspan and millions of grams weight, filtering pollen from the air with their sharp beaks. No. The Nylon Wasp only killed on command.

Who commanded the Nylon Wasp?

Currently, no one, but the Nylon Wasp couldn’t know that. It didn’t know because it was on a mission. It had set out at dawn from the Number Two Elite Deep Reconnaissance Hive Command Center in the Zuzmara Base, shortly before a swarm of Virtual Techno-Sparrows arrived unexpectedly from a parallel dimension, picking off the Elite Command with all its officers and officer candidates. In other words, the Nylon Wasp on the mission was the last of its kind, genetically engineered and enhanced with augmentation implants. Of course, it didn’t know that, just as it didn’t know that it was both the most influential and the lowest-ranking soldier on the command ladder. It still followed the command it had been given when it set out on its peculiar mission: to penetrate the heart of the Black Feathered Forest and find the strange structure that last week’s rains had washed out and which one of the Prowling Spider Hunters’ detachments had made a high-resolution web diagram of for the command.

He was almost directly above the target, but all he could see with his compound eyes were the rounded, grayish feathers of the trees. Suddenly, a light green patch stood out from the black and gray undergrowth. He immediately switched to a dive, closed his ceramic-reinforced nylon wings on his armored-scaled back, and bent his hind legs in an unnatural pose to form horizontal control surfaces, as he had learned during conditioning. As he approached the green object, the high-performance computer built into his thorax continuously analyzed the data from his head feeler sensors and created a three-dimensional model of the green concrete building. Nylon Wasp instantly recognized the Pyramoid. This inverted pyramid shape cannot occur naturally; it must be the result of some artificial intervention. He flew down to the base of the formation, and although he could not detect any damage or entrance on the flat surface, he noticed that the roots of a nearby feathered pine tree had been washed away by the bluish-yellow rainwater, revealing a cave leading to the Pyramoid.

He immediately activated his communication systems to request instructions for penetration from the center. He positioned his mandibles and began chanting an encrypted message.

‘Beep… pang… bzzz… bzz… tobozzz… fitty… fütty… nyikk… fütty… nyakk… csup… pitty… beep…’

The two-legged beings of the 21st century would probably have laughed in tears upon hearing this radio message, squeezing out comments like “Look at that, the lame bug talks like Donald Duck trying to read a plant identification book in bird language!” Donald Duck would have certainly been offended by this, but Nylon Wasp wouldn’t, because his fury would have been so great upon hearing such a remark that the plasma launchers surgically implanted in place of his front legs would have fired automatically. Fortunately, Nylon Wasp heard nothing like this through his implanted communication device, although he didn’t hear a response to his earlier report either. He found this odd for only a short time, as the captions displayed on the visor placed in front of his compound eye clearly indicated that electronic jamming signals were being emitted from the strange cave found beneath the giant Feathered Pine tree’s roots. He sent another quick encrypted message to the nonexistent center and entered the dark entrance with a menacing buzz.

He activated the secondary functions of his compound eyes, and so he saw almost as perfectly in the lightless cave as if he were flying in a sunny meadow. Within the first few hundred centimeters, he noticed that his intuition was right. The root network that crisscrossed the walls of the cave was slowly replaced by the cold geometric structure of the greenish reinforced concrete. He noticed inscriptions on the walls written in an ancient, unknown language. A blinding light flashed from the ends of the implanted twin feelers bulging on his forehead as the implanted visual recorder captured the wall drawings for the archive. He only had to fly a few hundred meters before he reached the first obstacle, which, based on the data projected in front of his eyes, proved to be an impenetrable steel door. Of course, the statement “impenetrable” immediately prompted him to disprove it with one of his powerful built-in weapons or implants. After some thought, he chose the twin-blade laser scythe, originally designed for cutting through giant dandelion trunks, and there was no material on Earth that could resist it for long, although it required continuous and large amounts of energy. Nylon Wasp did not think about why such an exceptional tool was used for simple harvesting tasks. During his life, he had become accustomed to the fact that things – in a Wasp-like manner – had to be over-secured two or three hundred times. By the time he thought about how he would cut through the thick security door, the sizable laser scythe had already protruded from the lower part of his abdomen, and its cells began to charge from the personal nuclear reactor that powered Wasp’s implants. As the energy level icon turned green on the display, he growled and attacked. However, at the very moment when the glowing blade would have reached its target, sharp sirens sounded, and the door slowly began to open. With his artificially enhanced reflexes, Nylon Wasp pulled out two repeating photon weapons, a DD-7 disintegrator, a ZZZIPPO-IX type flamethrower, and aimed in 6 directions with the plasma launchers implanted in place of his front legs, waiting to see what the depths of the concrete bunker held.

‘Don’t be afraid, Wasp,’ said a voice from the other side of the door.

‘BZZBZBBBZBZBBZZZ,’ replied Nylon Wasp, and to emphasize his threat, he also lined up the laser scythe next to the other weapons.

‘Come in and talk some more, please, so I can tune the translator device to your dialect,’ the voice said, and Wasp entered the door with a smoldering gaze and his weapons at the ready.

He entered a small room that was crammed with machines and instruments, switches and monitors from floor to ceiling. A strange figure stood in front of one of the consoles, twisting various brightly colored buttons.

‘BZZBBZ… how the… BZZZBBZ… doesn’t reach the wall and already… BZZZ… with your blood!!’

‘Thank you,’ said the strange creature, then looked at the Wasp and the muzzles of his six weapons. He didn’t seem too scared of the sight of the destructive arsenal. Nylon Wasp directed all his scanners at the creature and thoroughly examined it, which looked like a mixture of a bird and a rodent. However, despite forwarding the results to the computer, the database provided no information.

‘I’m a Bloodhamster,’ said the Bloodhamster.

‘I would have figured it out,’ Nylon Wasp retorted nonchalantly. ‘Uh!… What are you???’

‘Bloodhamster,’ sighed the Bloodhamster. ‘I don’t blame you for not recognizing my species, as we lived on Earth a very, very, very long time ago.’

‘Are you the legendary bipeds that nursery tales talk about?’ asked Wasp incredulously.

‘Not at all,’ said the Bloodhamster gently. ‘Our species lived and ruled Earth 5,000 years ago. The species you know as bipeds, otherwise known as “hambers,” condemned themselves to extinction a few thousand years before us due to some nuclear catastrophe. We learned a lot about them from historical documents uncovered during excavations and were aware of the hambers’ mistakes, yet we did not learn from them. The war between the Bloodhamsters and the Knee-Cap-Sucking Hare-Rats escalated to the point that we exterminated each other with quantum weapons. Moreover, we weakened the structure of our own dimension, and wormholes and dimensional gates opened to distant worlds everywhere. I wouldn’t have been surprised if all sorts of alien species had started coming here to collect radioactive isotopes. We couldn’t even think about discoveries. The handful of survivors moved into underground pyramids and hibernated, waiting for the peaceful, tranquil eras to return.’

‘Bbbzzzzzzz… are you saying that there are more disgusting creatures like you living in these tunnels?’ buzzed Nylon Wasp, and he would have snarled threateningly if he had a mandible and dentures with saliva duct supplements, but he wouldn’t receive those upgrades until next week, so he could only convey his snarl through his tone.

‘You don’t need to snarl…,’ the Bloodhamster tried to calm Wasp down. ‘I wish I could say that millions of Bloodhamsters besides me are sleeping safely behind my back. Unfortunately, a few minutes after waking up, I learned from one of the still flickering terminals that the entire remaining population had perished two days ago. The system could only save me, and I’ve been wandering around here ever since.’

‘So, are you the most important member of this ancient civilization? The leader?’

‘No,’ replied the Bloodhamster, scratching his bird-like legs with his brown, furry wings, while trying to look anywhere with a very embarrassed expression. ‘Actually, I’m a plumber. The floodwater filled the burrows and flooded the hibernation chambers. Everyone drowned, but the computer saved me because it detected a malfunction in the water supply of the cocoa dispenser in the lounge. My species has always loved cocoa. The cocoa dispenser is the highest priority in all the bunker’s systems. Now there’s cocoa, but no Bloodhamster species. Stupid situation.’

‘A plumber?’ asked Nylon Wasp incredulously, lowering one of his plasma throwers a few inches in astonishment. ‘A plumber????… buzz… buzz… buzz… buzz…’

After the question, the Last Bloodhamster mistook the following sounds for laughter and stepped toward the Wasp, offended. Nylon Wasp stopped imitating the short-circuiting coffee maker’s laughter and, with the help of the reflex enhancer generator implanted in his right hemisphere, instantly pointed all his weapons back at the Bloodhamster. Just to be safe, he also armed and positioned a mini nuclear missile behind the silo door on top of his abdomen. He achieved the desired effect because the Last Bloodhamster sadly stepped back.

‘What the heck is cocoa?’ asked Nylon Wasp.

‘You shouldn’t worry about that right now,’ the Last Bloodhamster nervously scratched his beak. ‘With the bunker’s remaining operational systems, I’ve been scanning the entire continent for the past two days, and…’

‘We scan the entire planet in an instant from the center,’ buzzed Wasp proudly.

‘That’s what I wanted to talk about. It seems that this morning, Wasp Central was attacked and destroyed. According to my scanner, you are the last Nylon Wasp.’

For a moment, Nylon Wasp was taken aback, but then the computer came to his aid and determined with 67.2% certainty that the Last Bloodhamster was trying to deceive him for some unknown reason.

‘Of course… Wasp Central is completely indestructible.’

‘And how do you explain the fact that you didn’t receive a response to your report when you arrived here?’ asked the Bloodhamster. ‘Anyway… there’s footage of the event. You can see it with your own… uh… eyes… or whatever.’

‘Show me!’ snapped Wasp, pushing the Last Bloodhamster roughly aside and squeezing himself in front of the monitor. A few seconds later, he was convinced that the Last Bloodhamster was telling the truth.

‘This horror cries out for vengeance!!!’ Nylon Wasp screamed, and nerve poison began to drip from the dart-like chrome appendage that emerged from the end of his abdomen.

‘Wait a minute,’ the Bloodhamster tried to calm him down. ‘Now you’re the last representative of your species, just like I am of mine. This is a serious responsibility, and you can’t just charge headfirst into a wall.’

‘They must perish!!!!’ buzzed Wasp nervously.

‘Please, calm down! You need to relax! Otherwise, your entire species will fall prey to oblivion, and nothing will remain but forgetfulness.’

It seemed that the arguments were slowly starting to have an effect on Nylon Wasp.

‘You’re right!’ – he growled. – ‘Revenge will be sweetest served cold! I need to collect the reserve implants from the hiding places and upgrade myself to become the Super Nylon Wasp. Then every intruder will perish!’

‘You don’t understand, my friend! You need to strive for a peaceful solution. War and conflict have already caused the extinction of two species on this world. Yours was the third. We need to join forces. We can’t let the same fate befall those who come after us.’

‘We… must… not… allow…’ panted the Wasp as the words tried to make an impact on his mind.

‘We must preserve the traces of our existence, the achievements of our cultures, for future generations. Peace must prevail on Earth in the future. It’s our task to lay the foundations for this, my arthropod friend! Yours and mine!’

‘Your mother is an arthropod!!’ – interrupted the Nylon Wasp, and with a single swipe of his laser scythe, he cut off the Last Bloodhamster’s head.

‘By the way, what the heck is peace?’ – he said to the slowly falling, blood-splattering torso.

The Nylon Wasp slowly flew out of the pyramid that had turned into a crypt. Outside in the fresh air, he pondered that the Bloodhamster, or whatever he was called, had not such a bad idea. What a shame they couldn’t talk about it a little more. True, his bloodlust level was too high for pleasant conversation at the time, but he wasn’t a brutal animal otherwise. He was intelligent and understanding. And now that he had killed that unfortunate creature, he wasn’t as wild and bloodthirsty as that certain unfortunate one probably would have thought. But since they can’t talk anymore, he’ll pay tribute to the Bloodhamster generation that he alone knew about in the whole world. Yes! That’s how it’ll be. Alongside the obituary of his own species, he’ll preserve the history of the Bloodhamsters for posterity.

He had reached this point in his train of thought when the red flashing caption appeared on his compound eye’s built-in display: BATTERY LOW

‘Damn it! I left the laser scythe outside!’ – he exclaimed, then sparked a few times with a jerk and fell to the ground.

THE END

(fortunately)

The innocent

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I curled up in the warm, soft darkness, as always when I woke up from a deep sleep. My cozy nest swayed gently, as it did every time I felt like moving around. This time it rocked a bit more, which startled me from my peaceful rest. I looked around curiously, but I was still surrounded by the usual blurry darkness. Well, well… nothing special – I thought, and stretched my long, slender legs. – Hmm… that felt good. But lately, I definitely feel my home is getting cramped. I remember it being frighteningly spacious at first. I could hardly see from one wall to the other. Now, with every move, I bump into something. It’s unfair!

This constant rocking, too. I almost get nauseous from all this swaying. Hey!… I’m not sleepy anymore. Hmm… no answer – I poked the soft wall of my room as a test, and the world started shaking even more. So much movement became almost scary. – Ouch… Le…ave…me…alo…one. – Look, I don’t even understand my own thoughts. The sounds coming through the wall became deeper in tone and louder, while the shaking intensified to an uncomfortable level. I got a little scared. This was definitely something new. The fear and the jolting were both new things to me. I didn’t know what to make of them, but a new curiosity soon distracted me. A bubble appeared in front of my nose. It wasn’t big. Just an ordinary-sized bubble. – What on earth is this madness? And what is it doing in my room? – Then another bubble appeared just below the previous one, and they both started moving upward calmly. The strangest thing about it was that while the room around me shook without stopping, these two air globes moved evenly and peacefully upward, as if they were not in this world but were visible from some parallel dimension. The monotonous sounds filtering in from outside became sharp and filled with pain. It was almost as if the whole wall was producing the sound. Of course, I could feel it coming from the ceiling. – My…head…is…killing me. I want silence!! – Suddenly, alongside the previous sound, I heard a strange popping sound. It was definitely excited, which brought some variety next to the painful screeching. The shaking of my room was becoming more and more annoying. It might collapse on my head in the end. – Help! – what will happen to me now?

The answer came quickly and proved to be terrifying. A whole bunch of bubbles started floating upwards. They just kept coming and coming, unstoppably. And they were getting bigger and bigger. The only problem was that they didn’t go away but started to gather on the ceiling, right above my head. Moreover, as more and more bubbles appeared, the existing ones began to merge into a large whole. – Oh dear. This something is getting bigger as the bubbles grow it. AAAAAA. And there’s less and less room for my head because of it. – I was really scared. I had been living peacefully in this room until now. No one asked for this change. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I was definitely against it. Meanwhile, the shaking turned into pushing without any transition. The wall behind me made a move and hit me with tremendous force. – Leave me alone! – I yelled at the wall, but of course, I had no effect. The wall just kept pushing, and the bubbles kept coming. From one side the wall, and from above my head, all those bubbles. – This is a conspiracy!!! – I got angry. Then I noticed that the bubbles were coming through a large gap in the floor, which I hadn’t noticed before because of my legs.

Oh!… Don’t hurt me!! – I shouted in a trembling voice, full of fear. – I am innocent!…

…A lamb born today.

The Mother

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The Mother sits on the lakeshore and watches her children play among the waves. The book she brought for her own entertainment to the beach rests untouched in her lap. The sun’s rays are increasingly burning her arm and shoulder, yet she doesn’t reach for the sunscreen in the basket lying next to her camping chair. She doesn’t take her eyes off her son and daughter, who are frolicking carefree in the waves, laughing and squealing. How small and fragile they are. Despite the water reaching only to an adult’s knees, the Mother constantly worries about the children. She can’t tear her gaze away from them, even though deep down she knows they can’t come to any harm. But doubt is always there. What if she doesn’t pay attention for just a moment? What if that moment is when something bad happens? Something terrible that leads to tragedy. Despite the sweltering midday sun, she shudders. They’re just playing! Don’t worry! The mother tries to reassure herself. You can’t always be with them! Look how happy they are! Enjoy their joy! The Mother suppresses the soothing thoughts. She cannot rest while there is any danger of an accidental mishap. What is play for them is a dangerous activity for me. A cheerful adventure for them, a frightening peril for me. I surround their carefree spirits with my vigilance. This is what I must do. The Mother relaxes but doesn’t take her eyes off the splashing children. She smiles as she watches the boy and girl play.

‘Mom! Mom, look!’ the boy’s cheerful laughter rings out. ‘I caught an eel! It was swimming by my feet, and I caught it!’

‘Ew, it’s so slimy and disgusting!’ the girl shrieks. ‘Take it away!’

The Mother shakes her head when she sees the elongated fish wriggling in the boy’s hands. She would rather cringe, but instead she speaks encouragingly.

‘Well done! Hurry, go show Dad quickly!’

The boy runs out of the water and dashes towards the bungalows. The girl also walks out of the lake and collapses onto her towel, wringing the water from her long hair. The Mother reaches for the sunscreen, rubs it into her aching arms, then leans back calmly and starts to read slowly.

A mosquito buzzes above the pillow as the Mother kisses her sleeping daughter’s forehead. She adjusts the blanket a little and brushes a stray lock of hair from the sweet, round face.

The boy is half-asleep as well. The exhaustion from a day of playing and running around finally catches up with him.

‘Did you see the beautiful fish I caught, Mom? Dad… praised me!’ His eyes are already closed, and his words have become an almost inaudible mumble, yet the Mother understands.

‘I’m proud of you, my boy,’ she whispers and smiles. The boy doesn’t hear her; he falls asleep so quickly.

For a moment, the Mother stands in the middle of the children’s room and watches her sleeping children. The sight of the peacefully resting siblings fills her with new energy for tomorrow. She knows that a part of her soul spends the night here, guarding her most precious treasures.

‘Good night!’ she says softly and slowly closes the door behind her.

Fox taming

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‘Hi there!’ said the fox.

‘Oh, you scared me!’ said the fox girl and turned around. ‘Why were you sneaking up behind me?’

‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ said the fox. ‘I’m sorry. What are you doing?’

‘I’m looking at the stars. They’re so beautiful!’ said the fox girl.

‘Oh, I haven’t looked at them in a long time.’ said the fox. ‘But they really are beautiful.’

‘What do you think the stars actually are?’ asked the fox girl with shining eyes. ‘I think they are lots and lots of little fireflies in a big, big black lake.’

‘Lots and lots of huge planets. Like the one we live on, but so far away that they only appear as tiny points,’ answered the fox.

‘How do you know?’ asked the fox girl suspiciously, because she was bothered that this random fox didn’t share her brand-new theory.

‘I had a friend who came from one of those planets.’ said the fox and got a little sad as he remembered the Little Prince.

‘Your friend?’ asked the fox girl in amazement. ‘You were tamed by an alien?’

‘Yes, but then he went back to his rose.’ said the fox. ‘But I’m still glad, because it’s much better to be a tamed fox. And at least I often think of him when he was still here with me. And I’m also glad that he’s with his rose, because at least he’s happy.’

‘And it doesn’t bother you that you’re not happy without him?’ asked the fox girl and sat a little closer to the fox.

‘No, because my friend’s happiness is more important to me.’ said the fox.

‘You know, because of that many people would consider you foolish.’ said the fox girl.

‘And do you think I’m foolish?’ asked the fox, and he was a little afraid of the answer because he didn’t want the fox girl to think he was foolish.

‘I think you’re adorable.’ said the fox girl and put her paw on the fox’s head for a moment.

‘Have you ever been tamed by someone?’ asked the fox curiously, because the fox girl was so friendly with him, just as friendly as only a tamed fox girl could be.

‘Indeed, I have.’ answered the fox girl with a sigh and started looking at the stars again. ‘Many times. Maybe more times than I should have.’

‘I was only tamed once.’ said the fox, looking wide-eyed. ‘I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be tamed many times.’

‘I can help you imagine it.’ answered the fox girl. ‘Did your heart hurt when your friend went back to his rose?’

‘Yes.’ said the fox, looking down. ‘I cried, too.’

‘Now imagine that after every taming, another farewell follows and another dose of pain is added to the previous one.’

The fox imagined it and really didn’t like the feeling.

‘Auuuuuuuu.’ howled the fox. ‘That’s terrible. If it’s so awful to be tamed many times, then why did you let it happen?’

‘You know, it’s the law of life,’ answered the fox girl and tried to comfort the fox with her paw, who was still trembling from the imagined situation. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with it. Everything that begins must eventually come to an end. And every farewell carries the seeds of a new beginning. If I’m tamed many times, it means that many people come as close to me as no one has before. And no one gets closer to me than the previous one who tamed me, just somewhere else. Because everyone is different, and unique. And no one is better or worse than the other, but just as I first met them.’

‘And did you always cry at every farewell?’ asked the fox and suddenly began to admire the strength of this fox girl who could endure so many farewells.

‘Always,’ answered the fox girl. ‘It never gets easier, but each time I become richer in values inside, because once someone enters my heart, they cannot leave without leaving a trace. And these tiny marks will always be inside me, for me to remember. And these memories make up for all the pain that came with the farewells. Because I know I will never be alone again.’

‘Tell me about every time you were tamed!’ asked the fox, because he suddenly became very curious about this fox girl, who had the imprints of so many tamings inside her that she would never feel alone again.

And the fox girl began to tell her stories, while the fox listened quietly. And he felt his world expanding through the stories she told. The many stories carried many memories and many strange feelings within them, and the fox thirsted for the fox girl’s words, and he too began to desire to be tamed many times, regardless of the pain of so many farewells, to have many friends and never be alone again.

Indian camp

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Whispering Feather crept slowly through the tall grass. He crouched down, trying to peek through the vivid blades without being seen by anyone. He supported his palm in front of him and carefully inched forward. Suddenly, he hissed in pain when he touched a thistle and it pricked his hand. Cautiously, he wiped his sore fingers on his loincloth and began to closely examine the wound for any splinters. Just as he removed a tiny thorn, he felt someone touch his ankle for a moment. Startled, he turned around and stared into the blue eyes of a blonde girl.

‘Did you hurt your hand?’ asked Grinning Hair with a smile.

‘Shh!’ Whispering Feather hissed. ‘Because of you, they’ll hear us coming!’

Without a word, he gestured for his younger sister to follow him silently. Now the two of them crept through the towering, fat blades of grass. They moved almost noiselessly. They could clearly hear the birds chirping above their heads and the cool afternoon wind whistling as it fluttered the flowers around them. Whispering Feather heard some rustling from the thick vegetation on his right. He stopped and held up his hand to alert his cautiously approaching sister. They stood motionless, waiting for the faint rustle to repeat itself. After a few moments, a beautiful, colorful bird flew up a few meters from them with a loud squawk. Grinning Hair watched the bird with wide eyes.

‘Wow… look at that!’ she exclaimed in awe.

‘That was close,’ replied Whispering Feather, and then turned forward again to continue creeping through the grass. Almost immediately, he froze in fear because a long brown snout and a pair of large brown eyes stared at him through the tufts of grass. A few moments later, a mouth full of sharp teeth opened, and before Whispering Feather could even shout, a big red tongue licked his face.

‘Ugh!’ Whispering Feather grimaced and fell back onto the soft grass. The brown, furry dog needed no further invitation, wagging its tail and rolling the boy on the ground, all the while licking his face with its tongue.

‘Cone won! Cone won!’ shouted Grinning Hair.

‘But only because I was watching the pheasant. I’ll catch it next time,’ the boy resigned himself to defeat and scratched the base of the dog’s drooping ear. He got up and straightened the feathers tucked in his hair.

‘Come on, let’s go down to the stream,’ he said to Grinning Hair.

‘At least you can wash off all that drool,’ the girl giggled. They ran down the hill one after the other, with Cone-dog running around them, barking happily. They reached the foot of the hill, where the undergrowth and bushes had long overgrown the once-used path. Dense bushes lined both sides of the path, into which – both of them knew well – one could only crawl with great difficulty. Grinning Hair slowed down and pointed into the bushes.

‘Do you see those white things?’ she asked Whispering Feather, who also stopped at the sound of his sister’s voice. He walked back and looked in the indicated direction. Deep beyond the bushes, at the edge of the forest, round and snow-white objects stood out from the dark-colored forest floor.

‘It looks like skulls scattered under the trees,’ the boy guessed.

‘Oh, don’t say that!’ Grinning Hair grimaced. She elbowed her brother in the side. ‘Are you going to see what it is, or just stand around here?’

‘Get higher!’ Grinning Hair instructed. ‘Don’t be so clumsy!’

‘How about you don’t boss me around?!’ Whispering Feather snapped back and tried to climb higher on the long pole that held the gate separating the wooden fence. He gripped tightly with his legs while holding the terrifying skull they had just found with one hand, and tried to adjust his partially slipped loincloth with the other.

‘Your butt is showing!’ the girl laughed, not caring about her brother’s glaring look.

‘Don’t wait for me to come down, or I’ll chase you all the way to Star Forest!’ the boy threatened, but his eyes also twinkled with amusement as he thought about the ridiculous situation. He reached up and firmly placed the colorful, painted skull on top of the pole. ‘There, it’s done!’ he happily exclaimed and jumped off the top of the pole.

‘Just in time. The pale-faced man is coming with his cart. Quick, let’s hide!’ she urged and rushed inside the gate towards the safety of the Indian tent. Whispering Feather followed with a semi-successful war cry.

/

Dad turned onto the bumpy road leading to the farm. He drove slowly, knowing that the little dog would have heard him approaching from miles away in the old Skoda. The dog would always run ahead and bark alongside the car for the last few hundred meters. When he reached the gate and noticed the painted skull on top of the pole, he was only mildly surprised. He knew his children and was aware that they could be quite mischievous, especially here in the peaceful countryside where nobody disturbed them in their natural surroundings.

He got out of the car and saw Mom walking towards him, smiling, from the summer kitchen’s terrace.

‘I’m guessing they’re playing Indians again,’ he said, then gave Mom a kiss on the cheek. ‘Tough week?’

‘You have no idea,’ Mom sighed tiredly. ‘They sprayed the pasture next to the house, so now the grass is waist-high. The kids love playing in it, but by evening they both get rashes from the chemicals.’

‘And the skull on the gate? Where did they get that?’

‘You won’t believe it, but giant puffball mushrooms are growing along the old road next to the stream,’ Mom said, tilting her head slightly, knowing about Dad’s passion for mushroom collecting.

Dad’s eyes sparkled, and it was clear that if he weren’t tired from the long journey, he’d already be rushing for his mushroom classification book and exploring the whole forest with the kids again. Dad’s fatigue won, and he began to unload the trunk of the car instead.

‘The main thing is that they had a good time,’ he said, looking towards the camping tent set up in the back of the property, where the two children had already forgotten about the Indian totem pole and started building a Lego city. Their joy wouldn’t be dampened by evening fatigue, as they knew that the cool adobe room and the warm down comforter awaited them, from which they would wake up to another world full of wonders the next day.

Stubborn Rooster and the Zombie Girl

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Pancsi was the most beautiful zombie girl on Saw Street. Her blonde hair showed only traces of graying here and there, and it didn’t fall in ugly clumps like the other undead. Her pale, faded skin was only occasionally covered in greenish, decaying spots, and best of all: she had all her limbs intact.

Without a doubt, Pancsi was the most beautiful zombie girl not only on Saw Street but in the entire district of Zugló.

Not that she knew what beauty was, or what kind of street she was on, or even how big Zugló itself was, because like all proper zombies, she didn’t have higher brain functions. She could only walk around clumsily, swaying, and eat. She did that constantly, until she was stuffed.

She was always hungry, which was not surprising since the only feeling left in zombies was hunger, and it took the place of all the others and tortured them with multiplied strength, non-stop. She felt hunger instead of everything else. If she was cold, she became hungry, and if she was hot, too. If beautiful music played somewhere, hunger immediately gnawed at her, just like when scary noises came from the basement and didn’t let her sleep. If she thought of an old schoolmate from before her zombification, she would have loved to bite into them out of nostalgia, and if she thought of her recently deceased puppy, Fifi, she would have killed for a bite of her in her sadness. Only hunger existed for her.

However, in the neighborhood, all the food had long been consumed, since eating was the favorite pastime of the zombie neighbors, just like Pancsi. They searched the streets in groups for something to eat, whether sweet or salty, bitter or sour, living or dead. They forgot about everything else and didn’t care about anything else.

Poor orphan Pancsi was no exception.

She had been left to her own devices for a long time now, as her father lay lifeless on the comfortable couch in the living room with a sports newspaper in his lap, and instead of the lottery results in his incomplete head, the pellets fired from last week’s zombie hunter soldier’s gun rattled. Her mother was still there for her, but she accidentally turned into a faulty zombie, and instead of feeling hunger, the desire to iron filled all her thoughts. Day and night, she was in the kitchen, her skeleton-thin body bent over the ironing board.

So the zombie girl had to take care of herself.

After all the food had run out of the pantry and refrigerator, she had to look for another source of nutrition. For a while, she eyed her mother’s pipe-thin leg, but since there was no meat left on it by then, she started munching on her father instead. The fatherly sustenance didn’t last very long, at least not the parts she could reach, so she began to search the apartment hungrily again.

It was only by chance that her eyes began to wander in that direction, and she saw the Rooster on top of the living room cabinet.

The rooster was dead. Very dead, but this didn’t bother Pancsi, the little zombie girl, in the slightest. She wobbled in the middle of the living room and stared intently, licking the corners of her mouth. The rooster was up high, and Pancsi was just a small zombie girl, not exactly tall. Somehow, she still had to get it down or climb up to it, at least within biting distance. She started to think. Or rather, pretended to think since she didn’t have much to think with. After recognizing this – again, it’s not clear how – she decided to switch to the subjunctive mode.

‘If I had a brain, I could think of something,’ she thought, and with the help of the subjunctive mode, she immediately figured out how to get to the Rooster. If she had a brain, she could speak too.

‘Come down!’ she would have shouted at the Rooster, who, being very dead, couldn’t answer, but the subjunctive mode helped a little here too.

‘Why should I?’ the Rooster would have shouted down, of course only if roosters could speak and if it hadn’t been very dead at the moment.

‘So I can eat you, you fool!’ Pancsi would have protested indignantly. ‘Can’t you see I’m a zombie girl?’

Then, thinking she was too loud and not wanting to anger her dead father and ironing mother with imaginary chatter, she would have continued more quietly.

‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt!’

‘Are you sure?’ the Rooster would have asked with no small amount of uncertainty in its voice. It wouldn’t have trusted the zombie girl, even if it were alive.

‘Yes, I’m sure! Come down!’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m dead, you dummy! Besides, I can’t feel my legs or wings. They’re probably gone,’ the Rooster would have said timidly, not even realizing it couldn’t feel anything.

‘Then I’ll have to think of something,’ Pancsi would have said and got to work.

She went to the television, which had been on for weeks because the family loved watching the regular half-hour news since the appearance of the zombie phenomenon. These news broadcasts were initially alarming, but after a certain point, they merely provided pleasant background noise for the zombified family’s life. Or death.

During the news break, they broadcast the only show that still had high ratings during the zombie crisis: the light version of the Wheel of Fortune, a TV quiz show modified for the crisis. Pancsika plopped down in front of this and began to stare intently.

‘We’re looking for a five-letter object, the first letter is L, the last is A, and we can climb it to reach higher places. What is it?’ asked Kasza Tibi.

‘Ladder!’ answered the Correct Solver.

‘Ladder!’ the zombie girl would have echoed and remembered the device leaning against the wardrobe that her mother used to hang and unhang curtains before and after ironing. After a brief struggle to get up, she wobbled towards the ladder.

‘What are you doing now?’ the Rooster would have asked from the top of the wardrobe with a worried but completely glassy-eyed gaze.

‘Well, if the zombie doesn’t go to the Moss Mountain, then I’ll go to the Necked Rooster!’ the zombie girl would have recited the peculiarly adapted proverb, which was, of course, a completely absurd assumption from a brain-dead eating machine.

A few moments later, she was already climbing up the ladder toward the Rooster, saliva flowing like a thick stream from the corners of her mouth.

‘Help!’ the Rooster would have cried. ‘A nasty zombie wants to eat me!’

‘You’re already dead, so be quiet!’ Pancsi would have snapped, which frightened the subjunctive mode so much that it no longer supported the story.

The zombie girl reached the top of the wardrobe, grabbed the Necked Rooster’s slippery, glass-like hardened body, and yanked it down along with some other decorative and useful items that noisily clattered to the ground next to the ladder. Paying no attention to anything else, Pancsi plopped down onto the wreckage and began to ferociously tear apart the Rooster. First, she peeled off the rattling, cellophane-like dried thin layer of skin from its head, then plunged a sharp spine she found into the flat skull’s center and eagerly began to twist it around the spine’s axis, causing cold but sweet blood to gush forth like a fountain.

Pancsi, the zombie girl, sucked the dead Rooster’s bodily fluids like a terrifying monster, making satisfied gurgling noises as she did.

‘What’s that horrible sound? I really hope you didn’t break anything, girl! Oh my God, what’s going on here! Damn it! Can’t you stay quiet for half an hour? I just stepped out of the room ten minutes ago, and you’ve already turned the apartment into a battlefield! Jesus! Look at yourself! What’s this green stuff on you? Grease paint? Yuck! This is yesterday’s spinach! Your hair is filthy! Now get in the bath before I give you a good spanking! What’s that in your hand? Jesus, your father will kill you when he sees what you’ve done to his cherished bottle of wine! Did you drink from it too? Pancsi, you’re only seven years old, for goodness sake! Hey! What are you doing? Don’t bite, you little devil! I’ll slap you so hard your head will fall off! You were sneaking around again while your father was watching horror movies! Now get out of my sight and into the garden! Gabor! Wake up, damn it! You should be more careful when you watch your stupid movies! Can you hear what I’m saying? Oh, you half-witted jailer! I wish you’d never been born. Just look at yourself! How can you sleep so deeply that you don’t notice this! She even smeared your leg with mustard! Wake up already!’

Pancsi, the Zombie Girl, eyed the little puppy sniffing peacefully at the end of the garden with hunger.

‘Come here, let me eat you,’ she would have said to the dog.

‘You’re stupiiiiiiid…’ the dog would have barked back, but instead, it leaped over the fence and ran far away.

Excursion and lemonade

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In the morning, still rubbing my sleepy eyes, I put some lemon juice and sugar into an empty cola bottle, then cheerfully set off on my way with it stuffed in my snack bag. We were already halfway through the Rám Gorge when I first became thirsty. I looked at the syrup swishing around at the bottom of the bottle with some puzzlement, and the feeling came over me that maybe I hadn’t just forgotten small things that morning, like how to make lemonade. Of course, Kovács immediately appeared beside me.

‘What’s this? You only have this much drinking liquid left?’ Kovács was hopelessly addicted to canteen expressions.

‘No, I just forgot to put water in it.’ I answered in a slightly more pensive tone than average, trying to recall the state of our household appliances that morning. Did I turn off the gas? Or did I cook anything at all? Hardly. I can’t cook.

‘And what are you going to do with it now? Look for a tap?’

‘I guess I’ll look.’ I replied, and then something came to mind. ‘Hey, Janó! I have a little grapefruit juice left, but I’m not thirsty anymore and I don’t want to carry it. Do you want it?’

In an instant, Janó squeezed through the double row to reach us.

‘Sure! Bring it on!’ said the always ravenous kid, snatching the bottle from my hand.

‘But when it’s empty, you have to throw away the trash!’

‘Alright! I’ll just shove it into Mr.Lajos’s suitcase. Thanks!’ he disappeared to the back.

‘He didn’t even seem thirsty.’ Kovács grinned beside me.

‘Well, he will be.’ I winked at him. ‘Very thirsty!’