Young Writers Society

Hev nodded and came to a landing in front of it, gently setting Will down. “And we’ve arrived.”

Pren

With the leftovers monster squelching behind him, Pren dove through the double doors and into the kitchen. He held a door open for Ki. “See any cherry stems anywhere? Or— wait. Your vocal cords are glued together. Right.” Pren looked at Ki worriedly.

Ki

Ki shook their head. Their vocal cords weren’t glued together. They’ve just spoken too much.

"No?" Pren frowned. He couldn't see any reason why Ki wouldn't talk, unless they were physically unable to... except, wait. Epidote sometimes gave him the silent treatment when he was being too clingy. "Oh dear. I'm awfully sorry if I'm annoying you. Okay, okay! I'll find those cherry stems and get that monster off our back, and hopefully that'll make up for it." Pren smiled, sure that that would fix everything. As the monster slopped closer to the door, Pren scanned the kitchen.

Ki waved their hands. Goodness, Pren didn't know how this worked. As soon as tomorrow rolled around and their wordcount reset, they would explain everything.

"Pots... pans... knives... half-prepared food..." Pren frowned. Were cherries kept in the refrigerator? He walked over to the nearest one and opened the door. "Aha! Cherries!" He took out a large carton of fruit.

Ki rushed to Pren’s side. Yes, those were indeed cherries. But now what? Could they just hand them to the creature as a sacrifice? Was there a ritual? They gestured to the cherries and shrugged.

“Yeah, I don’t know what to do either. Does the monster eat the cherries, or does it only like the stems?” Pren took out a few cherries and washed them in the sink. “Should we try giving some whole cherries to it?”

Ki shrugged. They weren’t trained with how to deal with creatures with a cherry obsession.

“I’ll take that as a ‘sure,’” Pren said. He grabbed a handful of cherries, then opened the kitchen doors a crack. The leftovers monster was a couple of feet away, sliming towards them. “Eat this!” Pren chucked the cherries at the monster.

The creature seemed to get excited at the cherries, picking one up with a slimy tentacle. It used another tentacle to try and pull the stem off, but it wasn’t exactly working. It let out a guttural cry of frustration.

“Oh no! Maybe it really does only like the stems. Quick, help me.” Pren started plucking the stems off a few cherries, then tossing the stems to the monster.

The leftovers monster picked up one stem with a tentacle made of limp spaghetti.

The creature made a very happy noise. Ki grabbed a cherry and carefully de-stemmed it. It felt wrong to touch such a luxury, but they ignored it and tossed the beast another stem.

“It’s working!” Pren cried, stating the obvious. He kept plucking off stems and tossing them to the monster.

The creature greedily accepted all of their stems, continuing to make a sound reminiscent of gargled purring.

Ki looked at their quickly depleting source of cherries. They glances at their companion, hoping their eyes asked the obvious question of “what happens once we run out of cherries?”