Chapter 4

REBELS:

So, where was I? Oh yeah, Neospect's party. Migue was at the party, not really doing much. He went to the bathroom just for a couple minutes to... well, you should know. When he washed his hands and went out, none of them were there. He then saw something that made his heart stop.

Bubbles. Everywhere.

I later learned this happened around the time Reddit was banned. He looked for them everywhere, in the attic, in the basement. He even looked in the closets and ovens. But he couldn't find any of them.


Devastated, he ran out and quit the tribe house and spent most of the month aimlessly wandering Transformice, right until he found me. We banded together and explored Transformice. I'll admit I only did it to capture the awe and wonder I experienced while going with Reddit, but no matter how much we tried, it just wasn't... there. It was all spoiled by the anger and depression we felt after our tribe had disappeared. So many questions were going on in the back of our head. Why were they banned? What did they do? They weren't exactly innocent, but they weren't trolls who only got pleasure from the misery of others. They were normal mice, just like you and I.

One day, we heard about this great party going on at room reddit. Reddit parties on TFM were legendary and could reach in excess of 300+ mice. They also had minigames exclusive to that room. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, we embarked on a fantastical journey towards the wonderful realm of reddit.

When I say 'fantastical journey', I mean hours and hours of walking with the occasional anvil god every half-hour. We finally realized that we were lost, and tried going back. Unfortunately, we ended up in the one room we never wanted to be.

While reddit usually frowns on randoms like us, v kicks them out within a blink of an eye. Anticipating a quick trip to the chaos of *bad girls, we closed our eyes. But... nothing happened. We eventually opened our eyes and found ourselves face to face with this girl. Apparently, she was the only one in the room. She had this weird rainbow hair along with black eye shadow. She said, "Hey, are you guys from Neospect?"

After a couple seconds of silence, she said, "Hey, I don't bite." We quietly nodded. She suddenly hugged us tightly. Definitely not what we were expecting. After a few more awkward seconds, he told us to come with her, and we did so reluctantly. After a couple more hours of walking, we found ourselves at this hill with a tiny dashboard. She pushed some buttons, causing a door to open. She said, "Welcome to The Four Cloves. Come in!"

Things just became stranger. It was this bustling tribe house filled with a lot of equipment. She explained that this tribe wasn't really a tribe. It had been forcefully disbanded a couple months ago due to 'unlawful activities', whatever that meant. Well, I guess I could understand why the staff would do that. Their ultimate plan was to replace the staff with more just people. While it sounded radical, in my heart, I knew this had to be done. So, we joined and here I am writing this down in my diary. We took a few tests to see what department we'd be most skilled in. Migue is a pretty wordy guy, so he got placed in the Propaganda department. My job is a bit more interesting. Apparently, I'm great at combat, so they placed me in their version of the military. While I love the dual-wield pistols to death, they only give it to the top ranking members, so I'm stuck with this lousy battleaxe. It does fine and all, but I prefer bullets a lot more than swinging stuff.

We just recently held meetings at room v. We've convinced so many more to join The Four Cloves and am getting ready for the final battle. I guess in a week, all our hard work will finally be worth it.


Chapter 5

ADVENTURERS:

We said our goodbyes today.

My mother held her birthday party in her favorite map. It was one of the first constructed. She loved it because it seemed... perfect. It was a giant maze. It had mechanics which even now, no one could figure out. There were spinning platforms and walls which bounced you back. There were floating floors. It was the best adventure you could get in this monotonous place.

She first held this race to see who could get to the exit first. My friend Mae won. For a wallflower, she is an extremely good racer. She got this extremely huge bowl of seaweed ice cream. I think it was larger than her head. Somehow, she managed to finish it within half an hour. After that, my mom revealed this eat-all-you-can buffet. Even when our stomachs should've exploded, we just kept on eating. Overall, it was one of the best parties I'd ever been at. And probably one of the last.

I was chosen by my mom to give the closing speech. It didn't go on so well.

"OK, so this is my closing speech. I'm actually kind of nervous. I've never spoken in front of this many people before. First, I wanna give a toast to my dad for gathering the money needed to hold this party!" I saw several of my father's friends high-five him. My father had such a wide smile on. "Also, I want to give a toast to everyone here for showing up." Everyone applauded raucously. It made me tear up. "But I need to get this out. I want everyone to know. Hello? HELLO?!" They suddenly turned silent.

"Do you guys remember Tigrounette?" I could hear some murmuring, probably trying to figure out what the heck I was trying to say. "As many of you know, he was a rather close friend of mine... or better yet, a close friend of everyone. He was the founder of this land of ours."


The tension was so sharp you could cut it with a knife.

I was having trouble spitting it out. "I-I-I am leaving today to find him."

Chapter 6

ADVENTURERS:

Everyone became silent. No one could speak. My childhood friends held their heads in their hands. My mother cried in my father's shoulders. Others looked like they just saw a ghost. It was a nightmare.

I went off the podium for a while. I tried comforting them and told them every lie from the book. "I'll come back." "It's for the best." "Don't cry, it's not like I'll be gone forever." The thing was I wasn't sure of anything I was saying. But I couldn't leave on a bad note.

I introduced all my companions. Then, we went from table to table to talk to all the friends we would leave behind. All the former classmates, teachers, relatives, doctors, librarians, politicians, and shop owners got to talk to us at least for a minute just to say their last words to us. We revealed secrets, played games and even buried the hatchet with some former enemies. But there was still so much more to say. So much more to do. But there simply wasn’t enough time.

The last people I spoke to were my parents.

“Don’t leave”, my mother said. “Please change your mind.” “You can stay here. Tigrounette will come back by himself”, my father said. I just reassured them yet again and promised that I’d be back. They then hugged me for so long I thought that they were trying to make me stay here by force. Eventually, they let go and I waved goodbye to them for the last time.

Peakot, being the only one to actually go outside the borders, became the leader of our group for the meanwhile. She explained that if we went far enough outside the borders of Fish, we’d go into different lands and become different beings.

If we went too far south, we’d grow four limbs and walk on our hinds. We’d also be able to breath without water and would have smooth skin. We would find ourselves in this maze littered with bombs.

If we went too far east, we’d start crawling and also find ourselves breathing without gills. We’d also grow this seaweed-like thing all over our body and have improved eyesight. There, it’s a battlefield in what appears to be a labyrinth of kitchens.

If we went too far west, we’d become beings like the ones in the bomb-filled maze. But there’d be platforms that would suddenly appear. They’d disappear after a while. Also, every now and then an infection would start.

No one ever found out what would happen if you go too far north, and since Peak had gone to every land without seeing Tig, north was the only option. After drifting for several hours across multiple deleted maps, we came across this hill. It was huge and seemed to extend for miles across both directions. The oddest thing was... it touched the sky.

"Here it is", Peak announced. "There's something like this on all sides of Fish. Once you cross it, you enter a new land. Well, who goes first?"

I went first. I went past the sky, expecting to start gasping for air any second but... I was still breathing normally. I looked down and noticed many things. There was brown seaweed-like... things all over me. I had also grown 5 times larger. My hearing had suddenly improved. Also, I grew these limbs with sharp stuff on the edges. But the most important thing I noticed was... there was no sea under me. There was this sign in the ancient language the elders spoke.


POISSON


Poisson c'est fini
Il reviendra peut être un jour
é_è



I was frantic and started screaming when I literally saw Apato come out of the ground.

"Apato, what DOES THIS MEAN!?!" He was shocked by how freaked out I sounded. He patted me on the back and said, "Dude, calm down. I know this language. The sign says... Fish is finished. It will be back one day. That last thing is an emoticon which looks like it's worried."

I started hyperventilating. "Bu-but I said I would come back I can't leave them behind I'm supposed to come back to my mom and dad and everything will be OK and gosh please tell me this is a nightmare please please..."

Mae, Conf, Peak, and Ashen walked past the ground and walked in on me having a mental breakdown. They looked down and just... stood there. Mae had gasped and was covering her mouth. Conf and Ashen were just standing there, gaping at the ground. Peak walked towards me and tried to explain. "It's not supposed to be like this. When I went to the other places, there was a sea. How come here... oh gosh."

They tried to calm me down for around... 30 minutes? After I finally started to breathe normally, we looked around at our surroundings. It was so cold. The sky and ground was completely white. Peak explained to me that the white stuff on the ground was called snow. More of it was falling from the sky now. I exhaled and saw my breath come out as a puff.

In the sky, there was this huge platform off in the north. It was floating, but there was this tube that protruded from it. It went all the way down to the ground. In the distance, there were multiple beings like us jumping around in the air. They were shouting and seemed to have fun when one of them pointed towards us and seemed to alert the others. They started running towards us at full speed.


Mae said under her breath, "Oh shi-"