Fabian's Fables

Chapter 9

The alien stuck one tentacle in the roof of the carrier and made a hole in it. All the oxygen began spewing out of the hole. The boys reached for their emergency breathing masks in the drawer in front of them. They were doomed, close to suffocation, and dying in a fictional tale.

“What happens if we die in one of your stories, Fabian?”

“The same thing that happens when I lose my notebook. I won’t be able to write anything anymore to get us out of here,” Fabian explained, strangely calmly.

“Then we can’t go home?”

“No. And I won’t be able to write new stories anymore.”

Charlie stared at his best friend, on the verge of tears. Fabian wanted to hug him, but his seat belt held him in place. They held hands, took a deep breath and closed their eyes, preparing for the worst. The alien tore through the last of the carrier and swallowed them whole.

When Fabian thought it was all over, he opened his eyes. A jelly-like semi-fluid mass of blood vessels, cells and organs laid out in front of him. He was inside the alien, and he could see Earth some distance away from him through its translucent membrane. Charlie was lying nearby, still in one piece but semi-conscious, next to what Fabian thought looked like a liver.

Fabian decided that as long as he and Charlie are still alive in one of his stories, it shall not end the way he doesn’t want it to. He checked that his four limbs were still attached and working. Check. He swam towards Charlie and tried to nudge him awake. Every movement he made was slowed down inside the thick mass lump of jelly inside the alien. He felt that he was suspended in a floating chamber where everything moves in slow-motion. If Fabian weren’t so disgusted by the alien parts squishing and sludging around him, he felt he could eat the alien from the inside and give it instant karma.

As Fabian kept nudging Charlie to budge, he spotted something in another corner of the alien. His backpack! Hoping for the best, he swam towards it and opened it. Sure enough, his notebook was there, not a tear or smudge in its pages. Apparently the alien had eaten everything in the rocket first thinking its prey were still in there, before coming after the emergency carrier. Fabian jumped for joy. He could only bounce so high inside an extraterrestrial, but he didn’t care. All he had to do now was grab his stuff, wake Charlie up, put their hands on the notebook, and go home!

Charlie slowly regained his consciousness from Fabian’s nudging and shaking. He looked up at his best friend with half-opened eyes.

“Fabian, can you not write stories about gangsters from jerk-land, two-faced mermaid people, and human-eating aliens anymore? Or any story with a villain inspired by somebody who picked on you?” Charlie’s voice sounded muffled, like he was talking underwater.

Fabian smiled. “You can’t stop writer from writing ‘bout whatever he wants. But the next time I take you on another adventure I’ll make sure it’s a much safer one.”

Charlie smiled back. “I’ve had enough adventure and excitement in my life that can last me a whole book series, man!”

Fabian grabbed his backpack and put it in front of Charlie. He put his and Charlie’s hand on it. The pages began to glow. In a matter of seconds, the whole alien was filled with bright light and the boys vanished from its very slow digestive system, leaving it strangely hungry again despite just having had lunch.