Post by sgtyayap on Oct 15, 2009 15:42:18 GMT -5
This will probably be my last fanfiction, at least for a while; the ideas of this and Project Purge were being developed in my head for quite a long time.
Pain: a Monsters, Inc. Fanfiction
Chapter One
“No! No! Please! NOOOOOOOO!” he yelled.
“And he is OUTTA HERE!!”
“Ma! ‘Nuther gator in the house!”
“Nuther gator!? Gimme that shovel!”
The redneck woman approached him.
“Go, mama! Get that gator!”
A crack of the skull led to a scream, and Randall Boggs woke up. Nothing but darkness around him.
‘It’s all right,’ he tried to remind himself. ‘It was just a nightmare.’
Yet now he started to feel pain all over his body. He struggled to get one of his four arms to feel the top of his head. To his horror, he felt a major scar between his eyes, one of countless all over his body. Then he remembered: it was a memory he dreamed of.
A long time ago he was illegally banished into the Human World for reasons beyond his control by his greatest enemies. Just seeing the three of them smirking as he was being hurled through made him want to throw up. Which he did.
Upon recovering from the belch, he realized he was hungry. This made him even more upset: eating meant killing a nearby animal and letting the blood drip down his throat instead of the food already being dead and fresh. Desperately looking around the swamp, he tried to find something appealing. Nothing, as usual, as was typical outside of civilization. Finally, he spotted a frog, staring at him and croaking once every so often. He hated it, and yet he had to to survive.
Suddenly the frog started transforming. Randall recognized the shape immediately: one of his enemies, Mike Wazowski, a cyclops monster. Now it had burning demon wings, and its grin chilled Randall to the core.
‘C’mon, idiot!’ he tried to remind himself. ‘Grab on to reality!’
Yet the image persisted, and now it was talking.
“Hope you’re miserable, lizard-boy!” it taunted.
Finally, Randall succumbed. He leaped onto the figure and clamped his razor-sharp teeth deep into its eye. Upon its death, Randall’s eyes finally stopped playing games; it was a frog again, half-eaten now, blood spilling out of the waist and legs that were left. Reluctantly he gulped down the rest of the frog and lay back down.
This “meal” finally gave time for Randall to think. Why did he agree to work with a crab for his boss on something illegal? Why was he dumb enough to leave the kid’s door activated while he was gone? Either of those could easily have been prevented, yet he did not see the signs.
But now the worst part came into his head; his banishing by his rivals, with the kid cheerily witnessing the crime. In retrospect, he finally realized why that hairball and his eyeball lackey banished him: they were “protecting” the kid, which meant that they gave a crap about her. Randall had never been given such affection, even as a child.
Something wet was now trailing down the lizard monster’s face. He wiped it off and inspected it, with all the light there was. It was clear, yet it tasted salty.
He was crying.
Instinctively he wiped his tears off, but they just came back. Finally he gave up and cried himself to sleep.
‘It’s not like anyone’s going to notice, anyway,’ he thought.
Chapter Two
Kyle Voight and his mother drove home from middle school, an eerie silence between them.
Finally, his mother broke the silence. “What did you do this time?” she asked in a cold voice.
Kyle lay against the window, not turning to face her. “I punched a kid again.”
“For God’s sake!” his mother yelled. “Can’t you learn anything!? You can’t punch people! Ever!”
“Oh, and you can?” Kyle retorted.
The brakes slammed down and his mother turned to him.
“Any other wise-a** remarks!?”
Kyle remained silent. Having gotten no answer to her question, she resumed driving.
Kyle came to think about what had happened. Even in retrospect, he had no remorse for punching the jerk; he always tried to humiliate him whenever he could by shouting out things like, “Reptiles are s--t!” The worst part was that it was perfectly normal for the perpetrator to get away Scot-free at his high school.
Upon getting onto the driveway, the car halted, and Kyle dragged his feet out, looking down at the ground while heading inside. Such a posture was not unusual for this teenager.
He went up to his room and locked the door shut. He didn’t care whether his mother would scream at him to unlock it; he wasn’t going to budge before dinner time.
********************
Kyle was convinced that his own mother was dietarily opposed to everything he stood for. For instance, he had just thrown up in the bathroom from the broccoli and casserole she had served him and his sister. She did not seem to believe in nature in the sense that even Kyle knew that humans were omnivores, as she always served meatless dinners, usually vegetables that Kyle hated.
Kyle’s stomach felt very weak as he finally left. Heading back into his room, he lay on his bed. He slowly opened one of the drawers on the nearby night table, and pulled out a picture of his father, the only one he never hated.
It was not a new picture; the photo showed Kyle as well when he was only 5 years old. Many things had happened since then, most notably Mr. Voight’s death in a car accident.
Slowly he put the photo back, and he lay in his bed, waiting for the tears to form. For several hours he lay there looking out of the opposite window, knowing that nothing was ever going to change.
Yet, something did. Kyle saw something outside, even despite it was so dark out. Heading over to the window, he saw a long mass fall onto the grass of his backyard.
Sneaking by his mother’s room, he ran outside, armed only with a flashlight. He headed over to the object, where he dropped his flashlight in horror.
The object was an organism, approximately 11 feet long. Four pairs of limbs went down its body, a few of which having gashes. But the head was what Kyle was paying the most attention to: it had two eyes popping out of it, like a chameleon, and one of them had large scabs by its base. Three fronds extended above the eyes to the back, all looking very sickly in color.
Then the memories came flooding back. This was the monster that had scared him and his sister years ago. Later his sister had disappeared for 24 hours, and then the monster had permanently, until now.
Then the questions came about what to do. Should he rescue the thing? Kyle doubted it. Its characteristics alone convinced him that it would try to kill his family, even despite the injuries.
Yet he was also opposed to leaving it here. There would be a chance that it would die out here, and if so, he would be a murderer! On top of that, it was an anomaly, which meant that if any bystander found out it was here, he would be getting a fame he never wanted.
He stood there for what felt like an hour trying to decide what to do.
Chapter Three
The first thing Randall sensed was how soft the object he lay in was. It was not hard in any form of the word, unlike the things he was used to sleeping on at night.
Then his eyes slowly opened. To his horror, he was apparently in the bed of a human bedroom. What he presumed to be the main occupant was sitting in one of the corners opposite the bed, playing with an mp3 player.
Immediately he tried to burst out, only to scream in pain and fall back down. He had forgotten about the bone injuries in his body. The scream made the human teen turn his head around in surprise.
“Morning,” the teen said rhetorically, having taken out his earbuds.
“Get me out of here, now!”
This did not get the response the lizard monster intended. Rather, the human looked surprised.
“I SAID-”
“Shut up!” Kyle yelled, having found his voice again. “My mother’s in the house!”
“So what?” Randall asked, lowering his voice a little bit.
“So when she comes in here, she’s going to find out you exist and either kill you or turn you over to some paranormal scientists.”
Knowing that he did not want either thing to take place, Randall shut up upon the boy’s retort.
Randall stayed in the bed, and he now noted the bandages on some of his wounds. Then it all made sense.
“Why did you save me?” he asked the kid, a soft, sad quality to his voice.
Kyle turned to him. “Why are you here? I think that’s a better question to answer.”
Randall sighed. “You’re too young to understand.”
This threw Kyle off his rocker. “As in I don’t know anything!? I know what it’s like to lose at least one parent! And on top of that, I’m 13 years old. So don’t imply that I’m an idiot!”
Randall, upon getting over his host’s explosion, sighed in defeat.
“You know that I used to scare you?”
“Yes. I remember that. Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it for the sake of it, okay? It was my job! Monsters like me HAVE to scare kids like you in order to get energy for our world.
“As for why I’m here,” (he sighed again) “my scaring boss forced me into an offer I couldn’t refuse. It involved sucking the scream energy out of a kid.”
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?”
“Only in the sense of bringing a kid in for the prototype. Humans, for reasons beyond me, are considered fatally toxic by most monsters.
“Anyway, I spent several years on the machine used for sucking the energy, and, next thing I know, someone lets the kid loose in our world!”
The description rang a bell to Kyle, but he chose not to say anything.
“Turned out the people who did so were two of my worst enemies: my scaring rivals. One of them destroyed the machine, and I admit I tried to kill them, partially as a result of my rage, partially because my boss told me to. And I failed because the kid tried to rip my head off,” (he shuddered at the thought) “and they banished me here, hoping to kill me.”
Kyle sat there in silence, not certain of what to say to this monster. Perhaps he himself had it easy.
“I hated them, and not just for that,” he muttered.
“What else?” Kyle reluctantly asked.
Randall turned to him. “They had everything I always wanted. They had fame. They had money. But most of all, they had respect.
“I grew up in an orphanage, you know. It was so abusive I don’t even want to go further about it. And apparently I’m expendable, or else my boss wouldn’t have chosen me. And no one cares. Not even that kid did, and she didn’t even know me.”
Kyle felt tears starting to form. This monster definitely had it worse than him.
Randall noticed with contempt. “Don’t be sorry. I deserved it.”
Kyle didn’t know why he said it at the time, but in retrospect, it was essential. “No you didn’t.”
Randall turned to him, seemingly uncertain what expression to show.
For several minutes they stayed like that. Then Kyle broke the ice again.
“Name’s Kyle. Kyle Voight.”
The lizard monster hesitated. “Randall Boggs.”
Chapter Four
There was a knock on Kyle’s door. Kyle quickly turned to Randall.
“Hide,” he whispered. Yet as soon as he had finished, he saw only a depression on the bed. Clearly he had already gotten the message.
Reluctantly Kyle opened the door to see his 9-year-old sister standing there. Randall widened his eyes in horror: he recognized the girl immediately, even despite she no longer wore pigtails in her black hair. This proved a mistake, however, as the girl quickly took note of the eyes above her older brother’s bed.
“What?” Kyle asked, oblivious to Randall’s mistake.
At an unusual speed, Mary grabbed a nearby bat and threw it in the eyes’ direction. The bat hit inbetween them, right on a deep scar on the invisible monster’s head. Randall screamed in agony, revealing himself in the process.
Kyle then saw something he never saw his sister ever do: she started beating the lizard monster, obviously in order to kill him, the victim wailing in deep pain.
‘What are you DOING, idiot!?’ Kyle thought. ‘HELP HIM!’
Immediately Kyle hurled the bat out of his sister’s grasp and pinned her down. “What are you doing!?” he yelled at her.
Not too surprising to Randall, she spoke with a basic vocabulary now, “You LIKE that thing!? He tried to kill me!”
“That is a lie and you know it!” Randall retorted.
“You tried to kill me with that thing!!”
“How would I know!? Do you have ANY idea how much monster press you got JUST because you escaped!? Human children are thought of as dangerous inferiors!! No one is legally allowed to interact with them because they’re considered toxic!! That makes your chums criminals, combined with illegally banishing me!!”
“You tried to kill them!”
Randall hesitated. “I was only following orders from that crab for my boss, who I bet you befriended as well! I also bet your psycho friends blamed it ALL on ME! Besides, what would you do if you lost everything you had been working for for years!?”
The girl attempted to retort, but she only kept stammering. Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. She screamed in frustration, and she ran out of the room, leaving Kyle the only human left in the room.
Randall turned to him. “You knew it was she who escaped, didn’t you?” he asked coldly.
Kyle lowered his eyes in defeat. “It was Mary, yes.”
“You tricked me!” Randall concluded.
Kyle rapidly raised his head again, tears starting to form out of his eyes. “You want to know why I saved you!? Fine, I’ll tell you! I have no friends!! At school it’s cool to pick on me, the human defect!! I was hoping I could start all over again with you, and it turns out I’m also an idiot!!” Immediately Kyle broke down and sobbed next to the bed, curled up into a ball.
Randall’s look softened. This seemed all too familiar to him, somehow. Then he remembered: it was part of his own childhood. Yet his dignity was holding him back.
‘You’re beyond this, now, idiot,’ it said. ‘You don’t cry anymore! He’s just tricking you again!’
Then Randall remembered the night before: his uncaring side lied to him as well. Reluctantly he lowered a hand onto Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle looked up to the monster, tears streaming out.
“I’m sorry,” Randall said softly.
“Why?” Kyle asked, slowly getting up. “Why are you sorry? No one cares for me. No one.”
“I know what it’s like to have no one. I told you that earlier myself.”
Kyle sat there, uncertain to make of the message. Then he finally collapsed onto Randall’s scaly body, resuming his crying. The lizard monster’s dignity again told him to resist this, but he knew otherwise.
He lay another arm on the boy, letting him cry into him.
They stayed in that position for a long time.
Chapter Five
Much to Randall’s displeasure, he couldn’t move for another two days due to his injuries. Within a week he was able to walk normally again, but he had made it quite clear to Kyle that he didn’t want any help. In an additional week and a half he was able to climb walls, much to the kid’s amazement. For the sake of possibly being seen, he was to sleep under Kyle’s bed, something that, surprisingly, he did not hold much of a grudge over.
Then one night, Randall harnessed the courage to explore the house. He glanced at Kyle, sleeping peacefully nearby, and turned himself invisible.
His first destination was the bathroom, and nothing further needed to be said. Then he crawled along the ceiling to Mary’s room.
The first thing he noticed was the girl sleeping in a bed in the middle of the room. The room itself was all too familiar to him, but many things had changed. She had a desk by the window of the room, opposite the door. Instinctively Randall went to see what was laying on top.
The desk was covered with paper. So much, in fact, that the lizard monster wondered how she could find what she would be looking for. He skimmed through the papers, most of them drawings, but one quickly caught his eye.
It was of himself. Crudely drawn, yes, but it was still him.
Randall stood there, thinking. Why would she draw something she hated so much? It had to be for the sake of her parents knowing her fear. IT HAD to be.
The drawing right under that one showed something Randall never expected to see. It was a drawing of herself holding hands with Sullivan, the larger and hairier of his enemies. Randall stared, uncertain what to make of it. Then he realized: she trusted them. Them of all the creeps in the monster world. Wazowski had to have put on a good charade, as he usually did, or else it wouldn’t have been possible. As for Sullivan...Randall no longer knew what to think about him. Once when Randall was offered to “play fair” at scaring, he rudely declined. But now....did Sullivan really mean it?
Randall attempted to dismiss such thoughts, rolling his eyes in the process, and continued his exploration of their home. Now he had entered their mother’s room. Just looking at the woman made him feel uneasy. She was rampaging around the room, almost as if trying to find something to destroy. Finally she went to her closet, into which Randall followed. She reached for something on the floor and headed back out. Trying to see if there was anything else, the invisible lizard monster found another object like that which she picked up. As soon as he came to inspect it, he nearly dropped it on the floor.
It was a beer bottle.
A few hours later, Randall couldn’t take it anymore. He quickly woke up Kyle.
“What is it?” the kid moaned. He glanced up to see the lizard monster had a very serious face on.
“Your mother drinks,” he stated.
Kyle did not look the least bit surprised. “I’ve known for a while, actually.” He sighed. “You told me your story, so now I have to tell mine.
“When Mary disappeared, my father demanded a divorce due to being unable to find her. He thought that she was an irresponsible hag who could not do anything while he was gone; he had left for a business meeting. He literally said that. That was the beginning of the end.
“Mary came back, and they pretended that nothing had happened since she left. I was the only witness, and they didn’t even notice that I was there.
“Two years later, my father died. He was killed in a car accident. The perpetrator, ironically, was drunk. My mother became paranoid, probably convinced that my father was right about her not being able to take care of her children. She’s been drinking ever since.”
Both of them now stood in solemn silence for several minutes. This was soon interrupted by someone outside yelling, “YO, F---HEAD!!” There was then a shot fired.
Kyle’s eyes widened in fear. “It’s one of my school’s bullies.” he explained.
Chapter Six
Kyle stayed in place, pretending to ignore the person. Randall, however, turning invisible, looked outside the window anyway. Their mother lay dead on the driveway, and he was now aiming at Kyle!
The lizard monster immediately shoved Kyle out of the way just as the kid fired. The bullet impacted the wall. The punk now ran over to the house, bursting through the pierced window.
The three of them, Randall still invisible, heard Mary screaming in the next room, obviously from the scare. Kyle stared at the bully, then at the door. Then he burst through, the bully misfiring two more shots as he chased him into Mary’s room.
“Mary!” Kyle screamed. “”Get the h--- out of here!!”
Mary immediately attempted to do so.
This gave the bully a perfect opportunity. With as much force as he could, he smashed Kyle’s head into the floor. Kyle screamed in pain, feeling the blood coming out of his mouth.
Now the punk smirked and aimed the gun at his head. “Hope you loved life, f---head,” he taunted.
Suddenly, however, the smile was wiped off of his face, and he started gasping for air, his throat having been compressed.
“Randall,” Kyle realized.
Immediately the kid now re-aimed just past his head, and fired. Randall wailed and fell onto the floor, holding his chest.
The kid stared at his kill with some sort of psychotic interest. “AWESOME!!” he yelled. This proved a mistake, however, as Kyle now had the opportunity to snatch the gun and shoot him. The bullet went into his throat, and yet he did not show any sign of fear as he died.
Kyle ran to the body of Randall, and that was the last thing the lizard monster saw.
********************
“Kind of a premature death, don’t you think?” a voice said.
Randall saw nothing, and yet he knew someone was there.
“Not at all,” Randall retorted.
“You didn’t do it to save him. You did it as a form of suicide.”
“How would YOU know what I was thinking?”
“Because you’re dead, Randall.”
This silenced the lizard monster. Clearly this was some sort of supernatural force he was talking to.
“I had nothing worth living for! I don’t care what you’re going to say, but I stand by it!”
“I’m not going to say anything to that. All I’m going to do is show.”
Chapter Seven
Randall was now covered by a blinding light, dissolving into another monster’s apartment. But this was not just any other monster; it was his ex-scaring assistant, Fungus Oz, who was now laying near a fire, holding photographs.
“Fungus!?” Randall yelled in surprise.
The red, three-eyed geek made no indication of showing that his superior was there.
“FUNGUS!!”
Still no reaction.
Randall sighed in frustration. Apparently he had no sense of contact with life now.
The lizard monster diverted his attention to the photographs in his assistant’s hands. Walking behind Fungus, he saw that the photographs were of him, sometimes with Fungus also in the picture.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Fungus said to the pictures. “but I miss you. You gave me a sense of order to my life. I’m always such a wreck, and I can’t even do my job anymore.”
Fungus then, from out of the blue, slammed one of his fists down. “He’s not coming back!” he wailed. “EVER!!” In his rage he threw the photographs into the flames.
Now Randall was taken to the apartment of his enemies, Sullivan and Wazowski. Wazowski, as he predicted, had an eerily cheery face on. Yet, to his surprise, Sullivan had the exact opposite expression, his hands now covering his face.
“Something wrong, Sulley?” Mike asked, having finally figured it out.
“It’s been seven years, now.”
“Since what?”
Sullivan glared at him. “Since you tempted me to do it!”
“What are you talking about!? You yourself know that Boo was...” Mike now realized what he was referring to, and was now acting hysterically. “OH MY GOD!! You actually feel sorry for that creep!?”
“Mike-”
“He tried to kill us, Sulley! How can you not figure that out!?”
“We gave him a motive!!”
“Sulley, he was a creep! Always was, always will-”
Sullivan flipped the table over, which was now pinning Wazowski down. “Maybe I shouldn’t have befreinded a racist like you!! Look at you!! You hated him from day one!! H---, you’re probably the only reason he might have hated me!!”
Their voices kept getting louder until it was too much for Randall to handle. As if right on cue, he was now taken to his body, where Kyle lay, crying his eyes out.
“You can’t die on me!” he wailed. “You’re the only one who I never hated! I didn’t even hate you when you scared me! Heck, I loved seeing you do your thing!”
Kyle then turned to his sister, a burning rage in his eyes that Randall had never seen before. “I HOPE YOU’RE VERY HAPPY, BRAT!!”
Mary started crying as well.
“So certain you have nothing now, Randall?” the voice asked.
Randall stood there with mixed feelings. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you’re not yet ready for death. It is not your time yet.”
Randall looked at the tears in Kyle’s eyes, then recalled the fighting between his rival, and remembered his assistant’s anguish.
Randall’s dignity was finally defeated. “No. It isn’t my time.” he said softly.
Chapter Eight
He was blinded yet again, and he now lay on the floor, where his body was. He coughed out blood, causing Kyle and Mary to turn back to him.
“Randall?” Kyle’s voice trembled.
To everyone’s surprise, Mary’s closet doorknob was now turning, and in stepped Sullivan, all by himself. Upon seeing the blood everywhere, he took note of Randall and Mary.
“I thought you were different than this, Randall!” Sullivan roared.
“No! It’s not-”
“Mike was right all along!!” Sullivan now headed over to Randall and pinned him down.
Finally Kyle regained control of himself. “STOP IT!!” he screamed.
Sullivan turned to the boy in surprise. “What?”
“He didn’t kill anyone!!” He pointed to the body of his middle school enemy. “HE tried to kill us!!”
Sullivan’s grip on Randall softened. He turned to Mary. “Boo, is what he’s saying true?”
Boo stood there for a long time, uncertain of what to do. Kyle already knew what she was going to say: NO!! HE DID TRY TO KILL US!!
But she didn’t. To his surprise, she finally responded, “Yes....it’s true.”
Sullivan looked back at Randall. Somehow he looked so pathetic now, so helpless.
Finally he tightened his grip....only to help him up on his feet.
“Randall,” he said. “I know this is going to sound weird, given what I did to you, but...you can come back.”
Randall started to show hope in his eyes. “You can’t scare people though,” Sullivan continued, knowing Randall’s look of hope would be gone. “we’ve converted to Laugh energy. But I’m pretty sure we can work something out.”
Randall was speechless. He once would have never expected an enemy of his to do this. Finally, he gave a smile. Not a cold, mocking one like he usually gave, but, for the first time in a long time, a warm, genuine one.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Sullivan started to walk him through the closet door, just as police sirens were flaring outside.
As Kyle stood there, he realized something. “Wait!” he yelled. “Can we go with you?”
Sullivan turned to him. “No. Humans are considered toxic.”
“But we have no one else! Our mother’s now dead because of this creep!” He gestured toward the human body again, then fell down before them. “Please!” he begged.
Randall looked him in the eyes, uncertain what to do.
****************
The door burst down, and several officers came into Mary Voight’s room. The first thing they saw was the body of the young gunner.
“He’s dead,” concluded one officer.
“Any witnesses?”
“A woman saw him from across the street bursting into this room, but other than her, no one.”
Another party of officers came in. “Sir, there’s no one else in the building.”
“Then how did he die!? Someone had to have killed him, yet nobody saw anyone leave here!!”
Some officers merely shrugged.
Epilogue
“Mr. Boggs?” a voice said.
A young lizard monster intern turned to see a female, amoeba-like monster. “You wanted to talk with me?”
“Yeah. Um, you seem like a cool guy.”
Mr. Boggs’ skin changed from blue into a deep maroon. “Thanks,” he responded.
“I like that, too. How you can change your color.”
“Again, thanks.” Mr. Boggs now felt a little more confident in talking with this stranger.
“You know, my father owns a well-known fast food restaurant. Do you want to go there sometime?”
“Why not? You seem harmless.”
Now it was the amoeba’s turn to change color in embarrassment.
“Anyway, um, your...I mean the manager of engineering wants to speak with you.”
“Thanks. We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Of course!”
********************
Randall turned to Mr. Boggs. “I take it you’re enjoying the job, Kyle?”
“It’s great. I never expected people to be as cruel as....well, where I come from.”
Both made sure no one was watching them. Then they resumed their conversation.
“Kyle, I’ve been told that Fungus Oz is thinking of quitting his job as a laugher. So I’d like you to give him this.” Randall gave him an envelope. “It’s an apology for how edgy I used to act towards him.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to deliver this...” he looked around again, then resumed: “...my foster parent.”
Randall smiled back.
End
Pain: a Monsters, Inc. Fanfiction
Chapter One
“No! No! Please! NOOOOOOOO!” he yelled.
“And he is OUTTA HERE!!”
“Ma! ‘Nuther gator in the house!”
“Nuther gator!? Gimme that shovel!”
The redneck woman approached him.
“Go, mama! Get that gator!”
A crack of the skull led to a scream, and Randall Boggs woke up. Nothing but darkness around him.
‘It’s all right,’ he tried to remind himself. ‘It was just a nightmare.’
Yet now he started to feel pain all over his body. He struggled to get one of his four arms to feel the top of his head. To his horror, he felt a major scar between his eyes, one of countless all over his body. Then he remembered: it was a memory he dreamed of.
A long time ago he was illegally banished into the Human World for reasons beyond his control by his greatest enemies. Just seeing the three of them smirking as he was being hurled through made him want to throw up. Which he did.
Upon recovering from the belch, he realized he was hungry. This made him even more upset: eating meant killing a nearby animal and letting the blood drip down his throat instead of the food already being dead and fresh. Desperately looking around the swamp, he tried to find something appealing. Nothing, as usual, as was typical outside of civilization. Finally, he spotted a frog, staring at him and croaking once every so often. He hated it, and yet he had to to survive.
Suddenly the frog started transforming. Randall recognized the shape immediately: one of his enemies, Mike Wazowski, a cyclops monster. Now it had burning demon wings, and its grin chilled Randall to the core.
‘C’mon, idiot!’ he tried to remind himself. ‘Grab on to reality!’
Yet the image persisted, and now it was talking.
“Hope you’re miserable, lizard-boy!” it taunted.
Finally, Randall succumbed. He leaped onto the figure and clamped his razor-sharp teeth deep into its eye. Upon its death, Randall’s eyes finally stopped playing games; it was a frog again, half-eaten now, blood spilling out of the waist and legs that were left. Reluctantly he gulped down the rest of the frog and lay back down.
This “meal” finally gave time for Randall to think. Why did he agree to work with a crab for his boss on something illegal? Why was he dumb enough to leave the kid’s door activated while he was gone? Either of those could easily have been prevented, yet he did not see the signs.
But now the worst part came into his head; his banishing by his rivals, with the kid cheerily witnessing the crime. In retrospect, he finally realized why that hairball and his eyeball lackey banished him: they were “protecting” the kid, which meant that they gave a crap about her. Randall had never been given such affection, even as a child.
Something wet was now trailing down the lizard monster’s face. He wiped it off and inspected it, with all the light there was. It was clear, yet it tasted salty.
He was crying.
Instinctively he wiped his tears off, but they just came back. Finally he gave up and cried himself to sleep.
‘It’s not like anyone’s going to notice, anyway,’ he thought.
Chapter Two
Kyle Voight and his mother drove home from middle school, an eerie silence between them.
Finally, his mother broke the silence. “What did you do this time?” she asked in a cold voice.
Kyle lay against the window, not turning to face her. “I punched a kid again.”
“For God’s sake!” his mother yelled. “Can’t you learn anything!? You can’t punch people! Ever!”
“Oh, and you can?” Kyle retorted.
The brakes slammed down and his mother turned to him.
“Any other wise-a** remarks!?”
Kyle remained silent. Having gotten no answer to her question, she resumed driving.
Kyle came to think about what had happened. Even in retrospect, he had no remorse for punching the jerk; he always tried to humiliate him whenever he could by shouting out things like, “Reptiles are s--t!” The worst part was that it was perfectly normal for the perpetrator to get away Scot-free at his high school.
Upon getting onto the driveway, the car halted, and Kyle dragged his feet out, looking down at the ground while heading inside. Such a posture was not unusual for this teenager.
He went up to his room and locked the door shut. He didn’t care whether his mother would scream at him to unlock it; he wasn’t going to budge before dinner time.
********************
Kyle was convinced that his own mother was dietarily opposed to everything he stood for. For instance, he had just thrown up in the bathroom from the broccoli and casserole she had served him and his sister. She did not seem to believe in nature in the sense that even Kyle knew that humans were omnivores, as she always served meatless dinners, usually vegetables that Kyle hated.
Kyle’s stomach felt very weak as he finally left. Heading back into his room, he lay on his bed. He slowly opened one of the drawers on the nearby night table, and pulled out a picture of his father, the only one he never hated.
It was not a new picture; the photo showed Kyle as well when he was only 5 years old. Many things had happened since then, most notably Mr. Voight’s death in a car accident.
Slowly he put the photo back, and he lay in his bed, waiting for the tears to form. For several hours he lay there looking out of the opposite window, knowing that nothing was ever going to change.
Yet, something did. Kyle saw something outside, even despite it was so dark out. Heading over to the window, he saw a long mass fall onto the grass of his backyard.
Sneaking by his mother’s room, he ran outside, armed only with a flashlight. He headed over to the object, where he dropped his flashlight in horror.
The object was an organism, approximately 11 feet long. Four pairs of limbs went down its body, a few of which having gashes. But the head was what Kyle was paying the most attention to: it had two eyes popping out of it, like a chameleon, and one of them had large scabs by its base. Three fronds extended above the eyes to the back, all looking very sickly in color.
Then the memories came flooding back. This was the monster that had scared him and his sister years ago. Later his sister had disappeared for 24 hours, and then the monster had permanently, until now.
Then the questions came about what to do. Should he rescue the thing? Kyle doubted it. Its characteristics alone convinced him that it would try to kill his family, even despite the injuries.
Yet he was also opposed to leaving it here. There would be a chance that it would die out here, and if so, he would be a murderer! On top of that, it was an anomaly, which meant that if any bystander found out it was here, he would be getting a fame he never wanted.
He stood there for what felt like an hour trying to decide what to do.
Chapter Three
The first thing Randall sensed was how soft the object he lay in was. It was not hard in any form of the word, unlike the things he was used to sleeping on at night.
Then his eyes slowly opened. To his horror, he was apparently in the bed of a human bedroom. What he presumed to be the main occupant was sitting in one of the corners opposite the bed, playing with an mp3 player.
Immediately he tried to burst out, only to scream in pain and fall back down. He had forgotten about the bone injuries in his body. The scream made the human teen turn his head around in surprise.
“Morning,” the teen said rhetorically, having taken out his earbuds.
“Get me out of here, now!”
This did not get the response the lizard monster intended. Rather, the human looked surprised.
“I SAID-”
“Shut up!” Kyle yelled, having found his voice again. “My mother’s in the house!”
“So what?” Randall asked, lowering his voice a little bit.
“So when she comes in here, she’s going to find out you exist and either kill you or turn you over to some paranormal scientists.”
Knowing that he did not want either thing to take place, Randall shut up upon the boy’s retort.
Randall stayed in the bed, and he now noted the bandages on some of his wounds. Then it all made sense.
“Why did you save me?” he asked the kid, a soft, sad quality to his voice.
Kyle turned to him. “Why are you here? I think that’s a better question to answer.”
Randall sighed. “You’re too young to understand.”
This threw Kyle off his rocker. “As in I don’t know anything!? I know what it’s like to lose at least one parent! And on top of that, I’m 13 years old. So don’t imply that I’m an idiot!”
Randall, upon getting over his host’s explosion, sighed in defeat.
“You know that I used to scare you?”
“Yes. I remember that. Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it for the sake of it, okay? It was my job! Monsters like me HAVE to scare kids like you in order to get energy for our world.
“As for why I’m here,” (he sighed again) “my scaring boss forced me into an offer I couldn’t refuse. It involved sucking the scream energy out of a kid.”
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?”
“Only in the sense of bringing a kid in for the prototype. Humans, for reasons beyond me, are considered fatally toxic by most monsters.
“Anyway, I spent several years on the machine used for sucking the energy, and, next thing I know, someone lets the kid loose in our world!”
The description rang a bell to Kyle, but he chose not to say anything.
“Turned out the people who did so were two of my worst enemies: my scaring rivals. One of them destroyed the machine, and I admit I tried to kill them, partially as a result of my rage, partially because my boss told me to. And I failed because the kid tried to rip my head off,” (he shuddered at the thought) “and they banished me here, hoping to kill me.”
Kyle sat there in silence, not certain of what to say to this monster. Perhaps he himself had it easy.
“I hated them, and not just for that,” he muttered.
“What else?” Kyle reluctantly asked.
Randall turned to him. “They had everything I always wanted. They had fame. They had money. But most of all, they had respect.
“I grew up in an orphanage, you know. It was so abusive I don’t even want to go further about it. And apparently I’m expendable, or else my boss wouldn’t have chosen me. And no one cares. Not even that kid did, and she didn’t even know me.”
Kyle felt tears starting to form. This monster definitely had it worse than him.
Randall noticed with contempt. “Don’t be sorry. I deserved it.”
Kyle didn’t know why he said it at the time, but in retrospect, it was essential. “No you didn’t.”
Randall turned to him, seemingly uncertain what expression to show.
For several minutes they stayed like that. Then Kyle broke the ice again.
“Name’s Kyle. Kyle Voight.”
The lizard monster hesitated. “Randall Boggs.”
Chapter Four
There was a knock on Kyle’s door. Kyle quickly turned to Randall.
“Hide,” he whispered. Yet as soon as he had finished, he saw only a depression on the bed. Clearly he had already gotten the message.
Reluctantly Kyle opened the door to see his 9-year-old sister standing there. Randall widened his eyes in horror: he recognized the girl immediately, even despite she no longer wore pigtails in her black hair. This proved a mistake, however, as the girl quickly took note of the eyes above her older brother’s bed.
“What?” Kyle asked, oblivious to Randall’s mistake.
At an unusual speed, Mary grabbed a nearby bat and threw it in the eyes’ direction. The bat hit inbetween them, right on a deep scar on the invisible monster’s head. Randall screamed in agony, revealing himself in the process.
Kyle then saw something he never saw his sister ever do: she started beating the lizard monster, obviously in order to kill him, the victim wailing in deep pain.
‘What are you DOING, idiot!?’ Kyle thought. ‘HELP HIM!’
Immediately Kyle hurled the bat out of his sister’s grasp and pinned her down. “What are you doing!?” he yelled at her.
Not too surprising to Randall, she spoke with a basic vocabulary now, “You LIKE that thing!? He tried to kill me!”
“That is a lie and you know it!” Randall retorted.
“You tried to kill me with that thing!!”
“How would I know!? Do you have ANY idea how much monster press you got JUST because you escaped!? Human children are thought of as dangerous inferiors!! No one is legally allowed to interact with them because they’re considered toxic!! That makes your chums criminals, combined with illegally banishing me!!”
“You tried to kill them!”
Randall hesitated. “I was only following orders from that crab for my boss, who I bet you befriended as well! I also bet your psycho friends blamed it ALL on ME! Besides, what would you do if you lost everything you had been working for for years!?”
The girl attempted to retort, but she only kept stammering. Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. She screamed in frustration, and she ran out of the room, leaving Kyle the only human left in the room.
Randall turned to him. “You knew it was she who escaped, didn’t you?” he asked coldly.
Kyle lowered his eyes in defeat. “It was Mary, yes.”
“You tricked me!” Randall concluded.
Kyle rapidly raised his head again, tears starting to form out of his eyes. “You want to know why I saved you!? Fine, I’ll tell you! I have no friends!! At school it’s cool to pick on me, the human defect!! I was hoping I could start all over again with you, and it turns out I’m also an idiot!!” Immediately Kyle broke down and sobbed next to the bed, curled up into a ball.
Randall’s look softened. This seemed all too familiar to him, somehow. Then he remembered: it was part of his own childhood. Yet his dignity was holding him back.
‘You’re beyond this, now, idiot,’ it said. ‘You don’t cry anymore! He’s just tricking you again!’
Then Randall remembered the night before: his uncaring side lied to him as well. Reluctantly he lowered a hand onto Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle looked up to the monster, tears streaming out.
“I’m sorry,” Randall said softly.
“Why?” Kyle asked, slowly getting up. “Why are you sorry? No one cares for me. No one.”
“I know what it’s like to have no one. I told you that earlier myself.”
Kyle sat there, uncertain to make of the message. Then he finally collapsed onto Randall’s scaly body, resuming his crying. The lizard monster’s dignity again told him to resist this, but he knew otherwise.
He lay another arm on the boy, letting him cry into him.
They stayed in that position for a long time.
Chapter Five
Much to Randall’s displeasure, he couldn’t move for another two days due to his injuries. Within a week he was able to walk normally again, but he had made it quite clear to Kyle that he didn’t want any help. In an additional week and a half he was able to climb walls, much to the kid’s amazement. For the sake of possibly being seen, he was to sleep under Kyle’s bed, something that, surprisingly, he did not hold much of a grudge over.
Then one night, Randall harnessed the courage to explore the house. He glanced at Kyle, sleeping peacefully nearby, and turned himself invisible.
His first destination was the bathroom, and nothing further needed to be said. Then he crawled along the ceiling to Mary’s room.
The first thing he noticed was the girl sleeping in a bed in the middle of the room. The room itself was all too familiar to him, but many things had changed. She had a desk by the window of the room, opposite the door. Instinctively Randall went to see what was laying on top.
The desk was covered with paper. So much, in fact, that the lizard monster wondered how she could find what she would be looking for. He skimmed through the papers, most of them drawings, but one quickly caught his eye.
It was of himself. Crudely drawn, yes, but it was still him.
Randall stood there, thinking. Why would she draw something she hated so much? It had to be for the sake of her parents knowing her fear. IT HAD to be.
The drawing right under that one showed something Randall never expected to see. It was a drawing of herself holding hands with Sullivan, the larger and hairier of his enemies. Randall stared, uncertain what to make of it. Then he realized: she trusted them. Them of all the creeps in the monster world. Wazowski had to have put on a good charade, as he usually did, or else it wouldn’t have been possible. As for Sullivan...Randall no longer knew what to think about him. Once when Randall was offered to “play fair” at scaring, he rudely declined. But now....did Sullivan really mean it?
Randall attempted to dismiss such thoughts, rolling his eyes in the process, and continued his exploration of their home. Now he had entered their mother’s room. Just looking at the woman made him feel uneasy. She was rampaging around the room, almost as if trying to find something to destroy. Finally she went to her closet, into which Randall followed. She reached for something on the floor and headed back out. Trying to see if there was anything else, the invisible lizard monster found another object like that which she picked up. As soon as he came to inspect it, he nearly dropped it on the floor.
It was a beer bottle.
A few hours later, Randall couldn’t take it anymore. He quickly woke up Kyle.
“What is it?” the kid moaned. He glanced up to see the lizard monster had a very serious face on.
“Your mother drinks,” he stated.
Kyle did not look the least bit surprised. “I’ve known for a while, actually.” He sighed. “You told me your story, so now I have to tell mine.
“When Mary disappeared, my father demanded a divorce due to being unable to find her. He thought that she was an irresponsible hag who could not do anything while he was gone; he had left for a business meeting. He literally said that. That was the beginning of the end.
“Mary came back, and they pretended that nothing had happened since she left. I was the only witness, and they didn’t even notice that I was there.
“Two years later, my father died. He was killed in a car accident. The perpetrator, ironically, was drunk. My mother became paranoid, probably convinced that my father was right about her not being able to take care of her children. She’s been drinking ever since.”
Both of them now stood in solemn silence for several minutes. This was soon interrupted by someone outside yelling, “YO, F---HEAD!!” There was then a shot fired.
Kyle’s eyes widened in fear. “It’s one of my school’s bullies.” he explained.
Chapter Six
Kyle stayed in place, pretending to ignore the person. Randall, however, turning invisible, looked outside the window anyway. Their mother lay dead on the driveway, and he was now aiming at Kyle!
The lizard monster immediately shoved Kyle out of the way just as the kid fired. The bullet impacted the wall. The punk now ran over to the house, bursting through the pierced window.
The three of them, Randall still invisible, heard Mary screaming in the next room, obviously from the scare. Kyle stared at the bully, then at the door. Then he burst through, the bully misfiring two more shots as he chased him into Mary’s room.
“Mary!” Kyle screamed. “”Get the h--- out of here!!”
Mary immediately attempted to do so.
This gave the bully a perfect opportunity. With as much force as he could, he smashed Kyle’s head into the floor. Kyle screamed in pain, feeling the blood coming out of his mouth.
Now the punk smirked and aimed the gun at his head. “Hope you loved life, f---head,” he taunted.
Suddenly, however, the smile was wiped off of his face, and he started gasping for air, his throat having been compressed.
“Randall,” Kyle realized.
Immediately the kid now re-aimed just past his head, and fired. Randall wailed and fell onto the floor, holding his chest.
The kid stared at his kill with some sort of psychotic interest. “AWESOME!!” he yelled. This proved a mistake, however, as Kyle now had the opportunity to snatch the gun and shoot him. The bullet went into his throat, and yet he did not show any sign of fear as he died.
Kyle ran to the body of Randall, and that was the last thing the lizard monster saw.
********************
“Kind of a premature death, don’t you think?” a voice said.
Randall saw nothing, and yet he knew someone was there.
“Not at all,” Randall retorted.
“You didn’t do it to save him. You did it as a form of suicide.”
“How would YOU know what I was thinking?”
“Because you’re dead, Randall.”
This silenced the lizard monster. Clearly this was some sort of supernatural force he was talking to.
“I had nothing worth living for! I don’t care what you’re going to say, but I stand by it!”
“I’m not going to say anything to that. All I’m going to do is show.”
Chapter Seven
Randall was now covered by a blinding light, dissolving into another monster’s apartment. But this was not just any other monster; it was his ex-scaring assistant, Fungus Oz, who was now laying near a fire, holding photographs.
“Fungus!?” Randall yelled in surprise.
The red, three-eyed geek made no indication of showing that his superior was there.
“FUNGUS!!”
Still no reaction.
Randall sighed in frustration. Apparently he had no sense of contact with life now.
The lizard monster diverted his attention to the photographs in his assistant’s hands. Walking behind Fungus, he saw that the photographs were of him, sometimes with Fungus also in the picture.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Fungus said to the pictures. “but I miss you. You gave me a sense of order to my life. I’m always such a wreck, and I can’t even do my job anymore.”
Fungus then, from out of the blue, slammed one of his fists down. “He’s not coming back!” he wailed. “EVER!!” In his rage he threw the photographs into the flames.
Now Randall was taken to the apartment of his enemies, Sullivan and Wazowski. Wazowski, as he predicted, had an eerily cheery face on. Yet, to his surprise, Sullivan had the exact opposite expression, his hands now covering his face.
“Something wrong, Sulley?” Mike asked, having finally figured it out.
“It’s been seven years, now.”
“Since what?”
Sullivan glared at him. “Since you tempted me to do it!”
“What are you talking about!? You yourself know that Boo was...” Mike now realized what he was referring to, and was now acting hysterically. “OH MY GOD!! You actually feel sorry for that creep!?”
“Mike-”
“He tried to kill us, Sulley! How can you not figure that out!?”
“We gave him a motive!!”
“Sulley, he was a creep! Always was, always will-”
Sullivan flipped the table over, which was now pinning Wazowski down. “Maybe I shouldn’t have befreinded a racist like you!! Look at you!! You hated him from day one!! H---, you’re probably the only reason he might have hated me!!”
Their voices kept getting louder until it was too much for Randall to handle. As if right on cue, he was now taken to his body, where Kyle lay, crying his eyes out.
“You can’t die on me!” he wailed. “You’re the only one who I never hated! I didn’t even hate you when you scared me! Heck, I loved seeing you do your thing!”
Kyle then turned to his sister, a burning rage in his eyes that Randall had never seen before. “I HOPE YOU’RE VERY HAPPY, BRAT!!”
Mary started crying as well.
“So certain you have nothing now, Randall?” the voice asked.
Randall stood there with mixed feelings. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you’re not yet ready for death. It is not your time yet.”
Randall looked at the tears in Kyle’s eyes, then recalled the fighting between his rival, and remembered his assistant’s anguish.
Randall’s dignity was finally defeated. “No. It isn’t my time.” he said softly.
Chapter Eight
He was blinded yet again, and he now lay on the floor, where his body was. He coughed out blood, causing Kyle and Mary to turn back to him.
“Randall?” Kyle’s voice trembled.
To everyone’s surprise, Mary’s closet doorknob was now turning, and in stepped Sullivan, all by himself. Upon seeing the blood everywhere, he took note of Randall and Mary.
“I thought you were different than this, Randall!” Sullivan roared.
“No! It’s not-”
“Mike was right all along!!” Sullivan now headed over to Randall and pinned him down.
Finally Kyle regained control of himself. “STOP IT!!” he screamed.
Sullivan turned to the boy in surprise. “What?”
“He didn’t kill anyone!!” He pointed to the body of his middle school enemy. “HE tried to kill us!!”
Sullivan’s grip on Randall softened. He turned to Mary. “Boo, is what he’s saying true?”
Boo stood there for a long time, uncertain of what to do. Kyle already knew what she was going to say: NO!! HE DID TRY TO KILL US!!
But she didn’t. To his surprise, she finally responded, “Yes....it’s true.”
Sullivan looked back at Randall. Somehow he looked so pathetic now, so helpless.
Finally he tightened his grip....only to help him up on his feet.
“Randall,” he said. “I know this is going to sound weird, given what I did to you, but...you can come back.”
Randall started to show hope in his eyes. “You can’t scare people though,” Sullivan continued, knowing Randall’s look of hope would be gone. “we’ve converted to Laugh energy. But I’m pretty sure we can work something out.”
Randall was speechless. He once would have never expected an enemy of his to do this. Finally, he gave a smile. Not a cold, mocking one like he usually gave, but, for the first time in a long time, a warm, genuine one.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Sullivan started to walk him through the closet door, just as police sirens were flaring outside.
As Kyle stood there, he realized something. “Wait!” he yelled. “Can we go with you?”
Sullivan turned to him. “No. Humans are considered toxic.”
“But we have no one else! Our mother’s now dead because of this creep!” He gestured toward the human body again, then fell down before them. “Please!” he begged.
Randall looked him in the eyes, uncertain what to do.
****************
The door burst down, and several officers came into Mary Voight’s room. The first thing they saw was the body of the young gunner.
“He’s dead,” concluded one officer.
“Any witnesses?”
“A woman saw him from across the street bursting into this room, but other than her, no one.”
Another party of officers came in. “Sir, there’s no one else in the building.”
“Then how did he die!? Someone had to have killed him, yet nobody saw anyone leave here!!”
Some officers merely shrugged.
Epilogue
“Mr. Boggs?” a voice said.
A young lizard monster intern turned to see a female, amoeba-like monster. “You wanted to talk with me?”
“Yeah. Um, you seem like a cool guy.”
Mr. Boggs’ skin changed from blue into a deep maroon. “Thanks,” he responded.
“I like that, too. How you can change your color.”
“Again, thanks.” Mr. Boggs now felt a little more confident in talking with this stranger.
“You know, my father owns a well-known fast food restaurant. Do you want to go there sometime?”
“Why not? You seem harmless.”
Now it was the amoeba’s turn to change color in embarrassment.
“Anyway, um, your...I mean the manager of engineering wants to speak with you.”
“Thanks. We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Of course!”
********************
Randall turned to Mr. Boggs. “I take it you’re enjoying the job, Kyle?”
“It’s great. I never expected people to be as cruel as....well, where I come from.”
Both made sure no one was watching them. Then they resumed their conversation.
“Kyle, I’ve been told that Fungus Oz is thinking of quitting his job as a laugher. So I’d like you to give him this.” Randall gave him an envelope. “It’s an apology for how edgy I used to act towards him.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to deliver this...” he looked around again, then resumed: “...my foster parent.”
Randall smiled back.
End