The Door Chronicles

"Back! Back fowl demons of deathly darkness!"

I was backed into a corner and I didn't know if I was going to make it. I've faced some pretty evil stuff in the past--talking starfish, squads of troops, hamster armies, a shark, and even Gordon Freeman himself. Oh...and this one time there were these crickets in my house....makes me just shudder thinking about the little buggers and their twitchy little antennae. But nothing...and I mean really nothing...prepared me for the doom that had me surrounded on every corner.

"Uppsie! Uppsie!"

That's right, no, no--don't try to comfort me--I was at a preschool surrounded with the source of all snot. Toddlers. At least, well I don't remember for sure so let's just make up a number--um 1,000 of them. That sounds realistic doesn't it? Hello? Anyone there? Okay so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it sure felt like there were a 1000 of them. All reaching out with their sticky little paws. The smell coming off them alone was enough to send me reeling against the chain link fence I'd been backed up against.

I thought for sure I was a goner.

"I want a piggy back ride!"

"Me too! "

"No! Me! Me!"

"MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Back I say! I know Kar-a-tay (spelling altered to get across my superior pronounciation)"

"Let's play battle!"

And like that they lept at me, at one another, even at a poor unsuspecting squirrel. They were indiscriminate in their blind battle enraged vision. I tried to protect myself, but they were like a force of nature--and forces of nature have a tendency to kick my booty all over the place.

"Kids? Come on guys time to go back inside! Hey? Are you fighting again? Stop that!"

I was saved! At long last saved! The teachers got out their lassos and brought sanity back to the world. But when the hoard was gone and I could again see the ever burning sun in the sky I realized that my salvation may have come far too late. There was gum in my hair and strange sticky paste that burned slightly all over my right arm. I don't even want to tell you what I found coating my pants. It wasn't a pretty sight. One of the teachers came over to check on me.

"Who the hell are you and what were you doing harassing those poor kids?"

"Water....water..." My throat felt like it was on fire and I could see black on the edge of my vision. Was this finally it for Ax23000?

"Fine. Don't answer. But I'm having the cops called. You can explain it all to them."

"Too late for me. Not going...to make...it much longer. You must...must find the doorway of doom! It is the only hope of the world...only hope."

The teacher backed off a few steps, her eyes wide with awe at my profound dying words. I had placed in her hands the greatest responsibility that anyone had ever been given. The only reason I had come here to this pit of death, destruction, and mucus--the mighty doorway of doom. Legend has it that every video game generation the door of doom opens and let's loose--oh whatever, it's a big old thing with bad stuff coming out of the door. I don't really feel like explaining, and besides I'll probably just end up contradicting it later.

The teacher continued to back up, into the sandbox now. Suddenly the sand gave way beneath her, sending her reeling down, down, down into the a dark hole that had opened up mysteriously. I jumped to my feet and knelt over to inspect the opening. The toddlers seemed to have covered it up in hopes of luring someone inside. I looked down, but saw only blackness.

This could be only one thing. The doorway of doom. Foretold and all that other stuff. My destiny. I shrugged off my once mortal wounds. Now was not the time for dying. That poor teacher had fallen into the doorway of doom and now only I, Ax23000, could rescue her from a fate worse than death.

I jumped into the hole.

When I awoke a blue face was staring down at me.

"Hey Dude, welcome to the planet that's as cool and blue as I am."

I blinked.

"Sonic the Hedgehog?!?"

To be continued next Friday...