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Chapter 5
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He remained motionless.
He, El Cadáver Tonto, barely-renowned wrestler extraordinaire, and professional charred skeletal corpse, was able to hold such a static pose that it seemed he was a statue, illuminated by the blinding flashes above him. The skeleton of this incredible figure should’ve been extremely hot to the touch, but Winger’s impulsive reaction to grab the decayed individual and drag him away from those bright flashes of light resulted in no charred fingers or melted skin.
“I reiterate my question from before.” Cordax grumbled as both he and Winger hid by the dumpster, the flashes of light overhead growing brighter. “What is going on?”
Two objects landed in the street, both glowing briefly before the glow faded. One of them stood up, its arm melted into a deformed curve, the elbow joint completely frozen. After a brief glance at the other, whose head had been melted into a point, the functional Dreamer ran and jumped up onto the roof of the building which the party hid under, his footsteps sounding through the building as he raced away.
“Would it hurt to second that?” Racie asked Cordax, still gripping her side. “I think the big glowing ball is fighting Dreamers now, which makes just about as much sense as anything else happening. Let me know when it ends and I get to wake up.” She turned and laid back down in the paper garbage.
Cordax frowned. “This would all be better if I just had my knife. I miss my knife. Where’s the comfort of stabbing something with just your fingers? Winger, this is called small talk, it’s to help me not think about how we’re all going to die horribly soon, please gimme something to work with here-”
“Hush.” Winger spoke, using the stone-like unmoving skin of the frozen skeleton’s shoulder to make scratches on a rather flat rock, which was then jammed into the side of the skeleton’s maw. “If my theory is correct, we’re going to have to be ready to move, and that little effort of dragging him over here threw my back even more.”
“So what, yo want me to carry her?” Cordax jabbed a thumb at Racie, who looked up from the edge of the dumpster with a glare. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly of a height best suited for things like manual lab-”
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” The skeleton roared, green flames pouring out of his eyes as he sprang to his feet and ducked behind the dumpster, plunging the group into absolute silence. Cordax coughed slightly, breaking the stillness of the moment and prompting Winger to inquire “You uh… You okay dude?”
“WHY AM I NAKED?!!” The skeleton screamed.
“Because you got your flesh melted off in a split second, and I don’t think your clothes were immune either?” Winger replied, forcing himself back up to his feet. “Look, can we deal with that later? There’s a lot going on right now.”
“Well okay, but… What was happening before that?” El Cadáver Tonto inquired, his skeletal head peeking out from behind the dumpster in terror. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Uh…” Cordax scratched his head, trying to ascertain how to process everything that just happened. “So you were crying and weeping on your knees and begging for mercy-”
“After that.” The skeleton glared.
“Something about illegal upgrades, really it would help if you got over this, you’re a skeleton.” Winger said, motioning for Racie to get out of the dumpster which was met with another glare as she flopped back on the mound of paper.
“OH!” El Cadáver Tonto started, feeling his head over. “Oh. Right. Skeleton. So it doesn’t exist anymore. And I paid so much money for that metal, too… Well, for my own self-respect,” he pulled a trash bag out from under Racie’s head, dumping the paper contents and pressing his head into it until he made a hole, turning it into a trash poncho. “Better than nothing, right?”
Winger was giving the evil eye to Racie during the skittish skeleton’s misadventures, but even though his helmet still hid his features, Racie eventually relented with a groan and struggled out of the dumpster on her own. “Perfect. Dandy. You said you knew where to get us medical help?”
“Oh yes!” El Cadáver Tonto replied cheerily. “I’ve got somebody who can help you out, he’s down here.” Pushing the dumpster aside, the skeleton lifted a manhole cover and motioned for the party to descend. “We’re only down here because the lease on my apartment ran out. Really, I would greatly prefer to live above-ground, but the prices in this city are insane! And yet I’m spending every hard-earned paycheck on air fresheners to fight back the stale, boggy air down there. It’s a real challenge most of the time to eat in an environment like that, either nauseatingly moist or nauseatingly fresh. You get what I’m getting at?”
At this point, the entire party was underground, and the manhole cover was replaced in time for the brightest flash of all - so bright the manhole glowed briefly with the orange radiance of extreme heat. “Hey, this thing’s stuck!” The skeleton thumped the manhole angrily. “Man, this was the only exit that doesn’t run into the functional sewers! How are we gonna get out now?”
Winger looked briefly at Cordax, who was helping Racie down from the metal rungs of the ladder adhered to the side of the manhole entrance. He seemed to share the expression of worry the small indigo-garbed gremlin possessed.
“Somehow,” He replied, “I don’t think that’s our biggest problem.”
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we live in a susiety 
