Chapter 9:
Crystall and I - and sometimes Caen - went out shopping a lot. I know I should've been training but I need to have some kind of rest and time for myself and others around me. Now, you may think this is pretty random but me and Crystall ended up going to Ikea to buy him a new wardrobe. I kind of regretted wasting so much money on casual clothes and sportswear for him, but I did feel a bit nice for making Crystall happy. Either way, I didn't want to pick something for him, so I brought him with me. Boy, some crazy shit went down in that Ikea. Before you read any further, please remember: I was not drunk or high.
Crystall and I walked to that huge Ikea store; it wasn't actually that far from my house. The car park was full as usual, I wondered how much money the manager made off of this one shop. Anyway, we were about halfway through the car park when everyone started running out of the shop in a panic. Crystall looked really confused.
“Is this normal here?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Not really,” I replied, being quite confused myself. “I'm not sure whether we should go and see what happened. Let's just leave and come another da-”
“Wait,” Crystall grabbed me by the shoulder before I turned around to leave. “I sense a strange force in there.”
“Wait, you can do that?”
“Can’t you feel it?”
We went into silence for a while. I tried to feel something, yet I couldn't feel a thing.
"Nope," I replied. "Nothing."
"Oh, I guess it's a centaur thing then," Crystall said
“Jeez, there's too much you guys can do.”
“Coming from a figure skater who beat a world record by miles.”
“And a figure skater who lost to her rival by one point. Let's get going.”
We entered the store, the silence inside was really disturbing and almost terrifying. A small breeze passed through the corridors every so often. I looked around carefully and gestured to Crystall to follow me. We tip-toed up the stairs and into the main part of the shop.
The first section we encountered was the bedroom section. We looked around, carefully scanning the area like CCTV cameras. Suddenly, I noticed movement on my left. All that was there was a nice bedroom model. It had two sets of drawers on each side of a huge king-size bed with a beautiful rose pattern for the duvet and pillow. When I was about to turn my head back in the direction I was walking in, one of the small drawers moved again. I quickly wiped my eyes and questioned both my sanity and my sober-ness. I turned around again, but then - don't judge me on this - the drawer physically leaped on me. I could see it grew sharp fangs and had a huge mouth, ready to devour me. Of course, I grabbed the closest thing I had to hand, which just so happened to be a pillow. I fell onto the floor and covered my head with the pillow helplessly. Before the Monster Drawer even landed, Crystall ran in and laid a single punch on it, but it was definitely enough to smash it into a billion pieces.
At that moment, I realised how strong Crystall really was, despite how small he looked compared to Caen. Crystall helped me up gently. I swear, I could spend an eternity in his soft arms.
“Be more careful next time,” he said.
“I'll need a better weapon first,” I replied. “We need to get to the kitchen section, they've got knives there.”
Crystall raised his eyebrow.
“You're going to use kitchen knives against furniture. You humans get more and more interesting the longer I'm with you.”
I shook my head.
“I won't be attacking the furniture, I've got you to do that. I'll attack the person who's doing this with the knives.”
Crystall shrugged but complied. When I was about to turn around to lead us to the kitchen section, the pillow in my hand suddenly came to life. It grew a huge mouth, filled with fangs. Crystall had a faster reflex than I did, so he quickly grabbed it out of my hand and threw it to the other side of the room.
“I think it might be pointless to get those knives if they're going to turn against you like this,” he said.
“No shit Sherlock,” I was tempted to say, but I soon realised that wouldn't be the nicest thing to say when he's my only defence against the Monster Furniture (I must sound so mad right now).
Either way, we swiftly moved on to the fridge section, which stood in our way to the kitchen section. Crystall managed to save me quite a lot from more drawers and pillows.
I knew subconsciously that the fridge section will most likely be the death of me, but I needed to know what was going on. I was curious, ok? Besides, I had a strong centaur at my side, so I thought everything would be fine!
Anyways, when we creeped into the fridge section, Crystall said:
“You know, we can leave if you're scared.”
“Me?! Scared?!” I exclaimed. “Just what makes you think that?!”
“You're raising your voice and your hair is standing up a bit.”
I scowled at him.
“Stop. You're too overpowered.”
Suddenly, I felt something cold on my back. My eyes widened and I quickly grabbed Crystall’s arm.
“Crystall…” I whispered. “What's behind me…?”
“That thing you call a fridge, I think.” Crystall replied.
“Is it moving...?”
“No. It isn't now.”
I suddenly realised a correlation across all of the Monster Furniture.
“They only move with our backs to them! Am I a genius now?”
“Bravo, Einstein.”
“You don't even know who Einstein is!”
Crystall placed his hands on his hips.
“I don't. Caen and my great-grandmother do.”
“How the fuck does Caen know him?!”
“Caen is 29 in human years, bu he lives for much longer than that because of how we convert between Centaur and Human years.”
“Ok, we'll discuss this later. For now, I want you to knock this thing out, like, in a proper badass way.”
“Why?”
“It'll be fun, trust me.”
“Ok, I'll give it a try?”
Crystall moved backwards and suddenly turned into his centaur form. He charged at the fridge and I managed to just about jump out of the way. Crystall smashed into the fridge and into the wall behind it, sending the Monster Fridge tumbling down to the ground level.
Crystall returned to his human form and we carried on walking. This time, we walked back-to-back so we weren't surprised by any of the Monster Furniture. When there wasn't anything attacking us, there was this very eerie silence which seemed scarier than actually getting attacked.
We were almost out of the fridge section when another fridge attacked us. I must say though, the Monster Furniture made some proper retarded noises. Like, I wasn't fully sure what onomatopoeic word could describe the noises they made. Crystall quickly pushed me out of the way and jumped onto the fridge and held its doors with his hands and feet to stop it from eating us. Although I appreciated the help, he did push me into a wall, which hurt quite badly. I was fine though, I went through worse injuries. Like when I smashed my head on ice and nearly killed myself when I attempted my first Triple Lutz.
I quickly got up, although my head was pounding like someone smashed it with a hammer. I quickly grabbed what was closest to hand: a brush. A fucking brush. It wasn't even supposed to be there, someone probably forgot it. So I grabbed that brush and literally just threw it at the Monster Fridge. Obviously, that didn't do anything but bring its attention to me. Although I must say, the effect I got (un)intentionally was actually very nice. The fridge charged at me and I quickly moved out of the way as soon as it was in arm's reach. Now here's the good part: because the wall was already weakened from when Crystall smashed my head into it, the fridge fell straight through. Crystall managed to jump off it just in time.
“Nice one,” Crystall panted. “I'm guessing you predicted that would happen?”
“O- of course! That was so clearly going to happen so I just threw it because that was all I had to do to achieve the desired effect,” I replied. Crystall grinned, but didn't say anything.
We moved on to the kitchen section - still walking back-to-back - where I searched far and wide for any kind of weapons. I managed to get hold of a set of cutlery, I gave the set out equally between me and Crystall.
We passed by a kitchen model when I suddenly saw an oven move.
“Crystall…” I began.
“Hm?” Crystall replied.
“The oven’s moving.”
“Katrina, everything in here moves. Partially because everything in here is under the control of that strange force.”
“Well, where is this ‘strange force’ coming from?” I demanded, still staring at the oven. Crystall stayed silent for a while, before answering:
“To your left.”
I looked that way as instructed, my eyes widened at the sight I witnessed. Surrounded by a faint purple mist, a large centaur stood a few metres from us. He wasn't like Crystall. He didn't seem remotely alive. Though he was translucent like a ghost, I could tell he was dressed in black, white and purple tribal clothing, his head was covered by a horse skull. The horse part of his body was pitch black, yet smooth and mirror-like enough to be able to show me and Crystall in a reflection.
“W- who are you?!” I demanded, my heart raced as the centaur took a step forwards, his hooves
“Your doom,” the centaur replied. His voice was so deep I could barely hear him.
“Katrina, stay back,” Crystall pressed his hand to my stomach, pushing me back gently. The centaur raised his black hand and pointed at Crystall.
“Foolish son of Timoros, you are acting as if you actually stand a chance against me. Not even your father can equal with my power,” he boasted. I leaped out from behind Crystall and threw out a few knives. The real surprise came when he didn't try to stop them: they went straight through him, yet he was unharmed. My mouth gaped open,
“What the in the name of Jesus tapdancing Christ have I just witnessed?!” I yelled.
“A minute fraction of my power,” the black centaur replied. “Now you'll witness the full extent of it.”
Crystall pulled me back again, his grip was stronger this time.
“Stay behind me,” he said. “You haven’t witnessed the full extent of my power either.”
I felt the air around us getting colder, my heartbeat sped up rapidly. I quickly hid behind Crystall, as instructed. I didn't want to know where this would take us.
Author's Note: Beware the next time you enter an Ikea, the centaurs are watching you...
Thanks for reading this chapter and I hope you enjoyed it!
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