Book Bound

The Mongrifier woke up and he knew instantly that something was wrong with him. 

He could not move. Not a blink. Not a muscle. Everything was locked down. Numb. 

With immense effort that would have broken mountains, he raised an eyelid. All he saw was pages. Pages torn from books all over him. Whoever had done this had also used book glue to paste the pages on his hide. From his nose to tail to his paws to his claws, everything was covered in words.

He could not move, it was so fucking relaxing. Like dipping into a pool of hot water after a cold day, or digging into a feel-good book that is just so good. So good.

Mongrifer's thoughts swam away from him in a pool of blue on some beach as palm trees swung in the slow breeze overhead and the sun set in the bosom of the sea, painting everything in pink, blue, and orange colors.

He was trapped in a period romance novel. Of all kinds of fiction that could have been, they had to entrap him in a romance novel!

It was a hazy existence at best and he slowly and groggily started to chew his way to consciousness out of the book. The plot was stale and formulaic, and some of the characters tasted of cardboard.

But there was the voice of the black card whispering at the back of his mind that he needed to get the people who were trying to separate the black card from its owner. He needed to kill them and rip their limbs from their bodies in the most painful way.

In his sleep, the Mongrifier chewed and chewed till his gums bled. He groaned and moaned as but he still ate through the story. The plot of the book turned into itself, characters lived, died and fornicated with each other and just when it was all about to end, there was a cliffhanger.

With a growing horror, he realized that he was eating through a trilogy.

This was going to take some time.

--

All this ends on 31st October. Stay with me on this.

Unleashed

As the Mongrifier loomed behind Lisa, Jester knew something was wrong. A strange keening sound issued from the Mongrifier's throat and a rush of adrenaline jolted Jester's heart as he knew it was time for round two. He was going to skin this son of a bitch right this time. He flicked his arm and the knife fell into his waiting palm.

“Lisa,” he said as he ran towards her, “duck!”

He jumped over Lisa, the knife in his outstretched hand and the Mongrifier lunged for him in full stride. The two crashed into each other and rolled to the ground in a heap of flashing blades and claws.

Lisa also knew something was wrong and she started looking through her satchel for the book she needed, but it was nowhere to be found. If any one of those killed the other, her work to find her primary bag of books would be in vain. If only that fucking pervert had not scratched her leg in that bus.

The sounds of fighting increased in volume behind her as the two cut and slashed each other up like psycho monkeys. This would not last very long till one of them was deader than a brick. She had to stop this, and she had to stop this now. But where was her book?

Fuck this, she said to herself and took out two small paperbacks from her bag. If not a hardcover, then the paperbacks will have to do. She held the paperbacks together and flipped their pages into each other creating a single massive book in her hands.

“Hey, puppy! Smell this!” She slammed the jammed together books on the ground raising dust and attracting the attention of the Mongrifier. The smell of old books that rose from the pages was like cocaine to the senses of the beast. At once disinterested in Jester, he swatted aside the man, and made his way for the books. He sat down near the books and opened the front page with a sharp claw. Behind him, Jester picked himself up from the ground and dusted his clothes and saw the Mongrifier eating the pages from the books like he was feasting on some exotic delicacy.

Lisa stood behind the Mongrifier, frozen in fear and she looked at Jester and mouthed, “the big book” at him. Jester knew where he had thrown the book before the Mongrifier appeared. He slowly stepped back and found the book lying behind some bushes.

“Bash him on the head!” Lisa mouthed at him.

“Gladly,” thought Jester and slammed the book as hard as he could on the Mongrifier's head. Mongrifier looked at Jester once, then his eyes rolled back in his skull and he fell to the ground, with a book's page still stuck in his teeth.

“Did I kill him?” Jester asked, unable to mask the hope in his voice.

“Thankfully, no, you sick man,” Lisa said. “He is only stunned, but he will wake up soon. We need a way to restraint him or we're done for.”

--

This is chapter 16 according to my count. I have written down three more chapters and the story is going along at a good clip. 

The Lost Book

Jester pushed the book away from his face. Lisa looked at him like he was some kind of alien piece of shit. Which was not far from truth, but what of it?

“You want to know why I don't read books?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Because books are full of useless imagined things of others and real life is much weirder than anything, anyone can imagine. Every time you bury your nose in a book, you're peeling yourself away from reality and living in a make-believe world that doesn't do anyone any good except the people who are making money off the books that you're reading. You're not even creating your own world, you're living in someone else's borrowed and diseased imagination that is created by tropes and formulas to make you feel at home, to make you feel things that can be hundred times magnified but you choose to ignore that. You choose to ignore your life and your purpose, and keep reading book after book after book because real life, is fucking terrible in all its beauty.”

Then Jester did something horrible. He took the book from Lisa's hand and threw it away as hard as it could.

Lisa's eyes went wide and lower lip quivered.

“That was extremely rude of you, Mr. J. I wish I could unhear those words but they'll stay with me till the day I die.”

Jester simply rolled his eyes. “It's just books, why'd get your emotions in a tangle over a bunch of words on paper.”

“Because to some of us, those words are life!”

“Life? Life is not in the books! Life is outside the books! You're living second hand through the books. Burn your books today and get out of the house and do non book things! Live, for fuck's sake!”

“I don't believe a single word you say. You're not going to convince me to whatever is on your mind. I need my books and I am going to get them one way or the other. Once the Mongrifier gets the card from that perverted man, I'll be on my way and we'll never see each other again.”

“Who the hell said I wanted to see you again, you deluded woman.”

“Oh, you would when one day you need to read a book and there is no one you know who'd tell you the right book to read. You'll be crawling on your knees to the steps of my library and I'd tell you to shut the fuck up and crawl back to whichever hole you dropped from.”

Jester was about to retort when the air behind Lisa blurred and the large form of the Mongrifier emerged from the blurring air. 

“Ah, I see the puppy is back.” Jester smiled at the shape.

Would You Still Love Me

The steel door opened just a wink and the Mongrifier was upon the door in a flash. From the semblance of sleep to a lightening quick blur, he was inside the door climbing over the prone form of whoever had dared to open the door. The corridor inside was dimly lit and it stank of stale beer and piss. The Mongrifier was not used to the smells and he wanted to be out of there as soon as possible. But the overpowering stink of the man was there too. He was there to get that man.

The low corridor lead to another door that he simply pushed open. It opened into a large, dimly lit room where tables were placed at random. Somewhere in the room, some music was playing and the soft murmur of illegal conversations swam in the smoky air like bad memories.

Mongrifier focused on the stench of the man they called Kosmos. He slowly walked through the room, the people didn't give him much notice, they were too lost in their miseries to notice the wolf beast walking through them. The man though noticed the presence of the Mongrifier.

He turned around on his stool and looked at the Mongrifier right in the eyes.

“Hey, puppy, I've got a job for you.” The man flashed his black card and he became a blurred thing in front of the Mongrifier's eyes. His voice boomed in his ears and the words sounded sweet like honey and lover's sighs.

“You need to go back and kill the grey man. He's giving me a bit of a bother. Oh, and while you're at it, bring me my bag of knives from the girl. If she resists, off her too.”

Something about the orders sounded weird to the Mongrifier, but the voice was so convincing he just had to do what it said. He turned around and walked back the way he had come.

Mr. Kosmos ordered another beer and sipped it slow and cool like a villain. He was turning out to be one and he liked it a lot.

Jester sat with Lisa and listened to her talk about books. She was a reader and he felt that no matter how many books she'd read, she was boring as fuck. But they were here and there was nothing to do but wait so he pretended to listen and hmm and haww at the right moments. Maybe I should just kill her right here and right now and no one would know. He thought about the wolf thing, and felt he could take care of it too.

Long shot. He'd have trouble finding the black card without these two. His experience with shifting time lines was not so good. It made him sick as fuck and he felt horrible for months. He was locked into this and he didn't feel too good about it.

She was talking about long books and characters that meant little to him. She just could not fathom that the man might not be interested in her jabbering about the things she was interested in. He took out the knife from his sleeve and started to dig through his nails. She didn't take the hint and kept on talking. Then she took out a book from her bag and started to flip through the pages.

She pushed the page in Jester's face and he had to push it away a bit to see what was on the page.

It was then that Jester realized that he didn't know how to read.

---

Apologies are in order. 

I've been slacking in posting these updates. But no more. We finish this story by 1st of november so I can dig into the Nanowrimo.