A Visit From An Unexpected Friend...
River, standing at 5'1" being 14 years old, he was proud of himself and could often be found boasting about himself. He didn't live a great life, but at least he had a life to begin with.
He was infamously (not for being mean or anything) known for his stupidity. A while back in 8th grade he was found watching a TV static screen very intently. These are the noises that could be heard from River, "hehehehhaarhee" he might've been stupid, or maybe he knew something we didn't. One thing we knew was that he wasn't making it to college, probably not even high school.
You know how I said River couldn't make it into high school? Well, I was wrong. Here we sat in class listening to Mr. Brown give off his usual yap session, "man was this ever going to end." Said River looking in my direction. "Man I don't know what to say, he's just going off on the most random stuff.." I said, speaking of which, Mr. Brown kept talking, "yackity yack my daughter is in college, River got a 9% oh, did I forget we have 2 pop quizzes today?" Like usual he kept on ranting about... wait WHAT! We have a quiz without notice again.
Well known around the school for being annoyingly bad at his teaching ethics, Mr. Brown (to no avail) was able to surprise us with yet another one of his "pop quizzes." "Man oh man.. can we just have a sub for one day?" I said to myself while I slouched back in my chair.
River was just as fed up as I was, saying how if Mr. Brown did another "pop quiz" again he would give Mr. Brown the "fun treatment".
Anyways, Mr. Brown kept on talking about how you should never forget to use the slope intercept form (whatever that was) and to not forget RINGGGG RINGGG RINGG there goes the school bell surprising us like always. "Make sure to submit your homework before 11:59." is what Mr. Brown said as we all shuffled out the door to head over to the busses.
---
"Yo Arlo what'd you get on the science test?" I said.
"Oh, I got a 94, so not too bad." said Arlo.
"Solid work man, solid work." I said.
Yeah, I knew Arlo since 6th grade, we are in the same boy scout troop, and we usually tried to find time to go to our local park every once in a while to hang out. A couple hours of hide n seek over the weekend was always fun.
"You still going to River's house tonight?" I said,
"Yep, how 'bout you?" Arlo said.
"I'm still going. I wonder if Danny and Blake are coming as well." I said.
"I hope so." said Arlo.
"Well this is my stop, see you tomorrow man." said Arlo as he grabbed his backpack and headed off the bus.
---
Back at my house I was just finishing up my school work when the doorbell rang. "Honey, someone is at the door." said my mom.
"I'll get it mom, don't worry"
I said as I quickly rushed over to the door to check who it was.
It was Arlo!
"Is it really that time already?" I said as I checked my watch [6:43].
"Yep, let's start heading over to River's, it's about to get dark soon." Arlo said as he quickly hopped on his bike.
"Give me a sec." I said as I struggled to get on my bike.
"All set, let's go!" I said
---
Late night rides were always fun, especially with Arlo. We would often find ourselves caught up talking about different bands, my favorite being Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Arlo's being some Nirvana mixed with some Led Zeppelin; a great combination!
---
We were nearing the woods; a sure sign River is just up ahead. As we arrived to River's house we noticed something coming from the attic, a light of some sort? Whatever it was, it didn't concern me. As we finally propped our bikes on River's porch we realized that Danny and Blake had already beat us to River's house.
"Man, how'd you guys get here so quickly?" Arlo said.
"You guys are just a bunch of slowpokes, what can I say?" Danny said mockingly.
We were all just joking around at this point, so we decided to head over to River's backyard. There, we saw River eating some marshmallows over his campfire which was blazing at the height of 2 meters!
"That's a big fire you got going there." said Arlo cheerfully.
"Yeah, but wanna see something that's even bigger." said River grinningly.
"Man, you're such a gooner River." said Danny as he tackled River to the ground.
River was our groups punching bag given how light and easy he was to pick on. River didn't mind it though, he often would like when we went full roughhousing mode on him. After all, who didn't like a couple of grass and some dirt stains on their brand new shirt?
"Well gents, how 'bout we get this night started." said Arlo in his usual gentleman manner.
"Well, lets do it!" said everyone else.
---
So far, it had been a great night. Roasted some s'mores, told campfire stories, talked about girls, and even did some lower body workouts.
We had multiple tents set up. Me, Arlo and Danny in one. As well as Blake and River in another. Arlo and Danny were already asleep, but I just kept on looking outside the tent and seeing that strange obscure light. I had asked River about it and he said how it was probably just some light he forgot to turn off upstairs. "Well whatever it was it didn't seem to cause any
*BOOM* the loud sound rang out
problems..." I finally finished saying.
"The boom came from the direction of that light." I said while grasping for air.
Arlo and Danny were already up from hearing that loud sound.
"You know what that was?" said Danny.
"Let's check it out." said Arlo curiously.
So, we opened our tent flap to see...
"A fish!?" we all said surprised at what we had just seen.
"What the hell is a fish doing making such a loud noise?" I said.
Blake and River finally made it out of their tent also in a similar shock to what we experienced a moment ago.
"What the heck, why is there a fish right here? Da heck?" said Blake.
We all were curious, so we went in for a closer look. It appeared to be sorta greenish with blue eyes. It seemed to be a normal fish, other than the fact we just heard it make that loud sound just a bit ago.
"Well gents, what should we name him?" said Arlo.
"Name him? We just found him, why would we do that?" I said.
"Might as well, we did find him after all." said Danny.
"I mean sure.. I guess." I said agreeing cautiously.
"How 'bout Hubert?" said Arlo.
"Funny name, but we need something better." said River.
"John Smith?" I suggested.
"White person type name but could work." said Blake.
"How does Ganglion sound guys?" said Danny.
"I like it how 'bout the rest of you guys?" I said agreeing to Danny's name choice.
"I like it." said Arlo.
"Sounds good to me." said River.
"Pretty cool name." said Blake.
"Alright so we all agreed, but now we gotta figure out where to put this thing." I said.
"We could put it in my tank, I got some extra room in there." said Arlo.
"That works." we said all agreeing.
"Alright now we agreed to that we should.." Danny stopped talking halfway.
"You guys might wanna take a look behind you.."
"He's right behind me isn't he..." we all said.
But Danny was telling the truth, there he was, Ganglion in the flesh glowing with a mysterious bluish-purple color.
"What is that?" Blake said in a scared tone.
"I don't care what it is, it looks cool." said River grinning like a goblin.
"DON'T DO IT RIVER." We all yelled.
It was no use. River had already grabbed Ganglion by his neck...
That's when Arlo fell to the ground.
"Arlo are you okay?" I said, starting to feel a bit sleepy.
The next thing I knew I saw Blake and Danny fall to the ground just like Arlo did. A few seconds went by and I started to feel a bit dizzy.
"What.. what is this.." I said faceplanting into the ground.