Quote:
The Leaves (4) : With the changing seasons, there are piles of leaves all around Destiny City. It’s a difficult job to try and keep up with them all, and sometimes the allure of these leaf piles is impossible to ignore. Who doesn’t want to relive the childish joys of their youth? And no one’s around to see, right? So why not jump into a pile of leaves? Oh–because, when you do, you jump through one pile and come out of another somewhere else across the city. The leaves all seem ordinary, but there’s a few odd seconds between when you jump into the leaves and when you jump out; it feels like falling, tumbling, somersaulting through the air. It’s not scary, just odd. You see walls of leaves–brown and orange and yellow and red–and they crunch magnificently. Overall, it doesn’t seem menacing, just a bit of trickster fun. If you try to jump in a pile of leaves again, you might wind up somewhere else entirely–or right back where you started.
Mira, listen: Gabi Esparza knew perfectly well that you had to watch yourself and watch your feet in Destiny City. That was good advice under any and all kinds of circumstances, at any time of year. It went at least double during any given holiday season and around the annual Star Festival. And most of the time, Gabi did her best to follow that advice, especially since she’d first powered up into Lete and learned that there were all kinds of things in the dark that you really didn’t want to get messed up in.
Things, for instance, like HOLY ******** ACTUAL FACTS CHAOS CANNONS!!!, BATMAN!!!!!! Holy s**t, how long had the Negaverse been working on that ******** thing? Where were they hiding it? What were they going to do with it? Did they disarm it after the fight with the Cantankerous Heartthrob or whatever? Probably not, she didn’t think! And most of the time, enough months had passed since April for Gabi to not really think too much about the fact that the Negaverse had a Chaos cannon just hanging out somewhere and chilling, ready for their Queen Lady to whip it out like Ooooh, mine is the biggest! whenever she felt sufficiently pissed off about something or somebody (which meant that she could turn it on the Court someday—)
It was a good thing that Gabi hadn’t had any classes today. She only had one today and her prof was off at a conference, so everybody had gotten the day to do as they would. Had Gabi needed to go into campus, she wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything, because the thoughts about the Negaverse’s Chaos cannon had returned with a vengeance and she hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. Going out for a walk had seemed like a good idea? Take in the crisp, cool autumn and clear her head? But even in the park near her and Leandro’s apartment, surrounded by fun Halloween decorations from the Department of Parks and Recreation, and a ton of people who seemed totally unassuming and probably really nice?
Even there, Gabi’s thoughts had drifted to the ******** whallop that the Negaverse was packing, keeping it on ice (probably) as a threat against Order and the Court and those weird pastel aliens who’d also been there to fight against the Herald of Andrastaclysm or whatever the lightning snake’s name was.
Even passing near a tree with a leaf pile beneath it and little cloth ghosties dangling from the branches, Gabi had caught herself wondering what the Court could do to get in good with Order because maybe they needed to do some kind of “enemy of my enemy” team-up against the Negaverse and their <******** CHAOS CANNON. Or looking around at passersby and wondering if any of them were the Mean Green Negaverse Queen, the one who had fired the <******** CHAOS CANNON. Sure, she radiated Bad b***h Energy when she had all that power behind her, but out in her civvies (assuming she had them), she could’ve been anybody, from some bright-eyed Miss Rachel-looking lady in a cardigan with jack-o-lantern buttons, to the middle-aged mom with two kids, to the goth babe inspecting the leaf pile beneath a different tree.
Or, for that matter, whoever rushed up behind Gabi, loudly ringing a bicycle bell.
Narrowly jumping out of the way in time, Gabi crashed into the pile of leaves beside her. Nice that it was there to break her fall……until she didn’t stop falling, anyway. Tumbling through something, all Gabi could see around her was red and yellow and orange, like the leaves. And when she finally emerged from the leaves……
Well.
She sure was somewhere.
Somewhere full of headstones, none of which struck her as familiar.
Uneasy, she pushed her way to her feet and sighed. “Ay, singada……” Fumbling in her coat pocket, she pulled out her phone. Right as she opened it, it decided to flash her a warning message:
10% Battery Life Remaining.
“Caaaaaraaaaajoooooooo, don’t ******** tell me thaaaaaaaat.”
Alas, whining at her phone did not change its mind.
“Y tu puta madre también, stupid little b***h boy,” she grumbled, and blew a raspberry at the stupid device.
So, like, fine, using her phone to get home was gonna be hard, and Gabi knew she didn’t have the extra cash for an Uber right now. Besides, who knew how far she was from the apartment or how much said Uber was gonna cost? Honestly, she probably could’ve begged Malory to pretty please float her the cash, but then she’d feel like she’d have to pay him back, and what if the Uber ended up being, like, $200 or something???
Ultimately, the answer was both simple and easy: texting her bestest and most favorite cousin.
[Leandrooooo 😭 Primo favorito por favooooooor 😭]
[😭 idk what happened i fell in some leaves at the parque and now i’m all tonté perdidé idek what part of town i’m in????]
[no $$$ for an uber and my phones about to die]
[i’m in some cemetery and the street signs say hamilton and reynolds]
[can u pls come help me get home??? 🥺]
genovianprince
