This game is for and ded­i­cated to the RABIES 5 crowd, with­out whom we would not have found nearly as much crap in those bushes. I sort of recall promis­ing a one-shot game, so here’s my lunchtime’s worth of brain-spaff.

Through­out the after­noon they dragged item after item out of the hedge — traf­fic cones, shop­ping trol­leys, chairs, every­thing up to and includ­ing a kitchen sink. They laughed and joked as they ven­tured fur­ther through the wilder­ness beyond their gar­den, find­ing more and more lost things.

At long last, after fight­ing through under­growth and fol­low­ing twist­ing half-formed paths, they made it to the river. Do not for a moment imag­ine any mighty water­course — this was noth­ing but a tiny stream, barely more than a flow­ing pud­dle. But still, it was run­ning water. And for rea­sons long for­got­ten by human­ity, run­ning water was Important.

They jumped the river eas­ily, but as they touched the oppo­site bank, the world lurched. Not to the side, nor for­ward or back­ward, but some­how through. Some­one whacked reality’s con­trast set­ting up to max­i­mum, light­ing the evening sky up a lurid pur­ple and turn­ing leaves a colour of green that did not belong in any moral and upstand­ing elec­tro­mag­netic spectrum.

And no longer were they alone in the for­est beyond the hedge. All around them stood hideous crea­tures, three feet tall at most, and what they lacked in height they made up for in length of nose, evil­ness of grin, and sharp­ness of axe.

“They’re here!” shouted one, and an eerie cack­ling sound started up amongst the other creatures.

“Finally!” said another, tighen­ing his grip on his axe.

“Well then, humans,” said the one with the red cap, which they sup­posed prob­a­bly made him the leader. “Here’s the deal. You’ve taken our stuff, and debts must be repaid. We’ll take you!”

The cack­ling and laugh­ing reached a crescendo.

“We’ll eat human flesh toni-” Thunk.

Way back in the crowd, the crea­ture who had spo­ken top­pled for­ward slowly. The shaft of a sil­ver arrow pro­truded from his back.

Silence fell, and was shortly fol­lowed by three more arrows, felling crea­tures ever nearer to the red-hatted one. A horn called out in the dis­tance. Then, the panic began.

“Shit!” shouted the leader. “Hunt!”

The crea­tures scat­tered, div­ing into bushes and dash­ing down bur­rows and climb­ing over one another, and within but a few sec­onds they had all but disappeared.

A minute passed in stunned silence before into the clear­ing came a woman dressed all in green, rid­ing a pale doe. A silver-embossed bow and quiver hung over each of her shoul­ders, neatly solv­ing that ques­tion. She glared at the group for a moment, and sighed.

“Humans,” she said, in a voice that ought to have belonged to a farmer’s wife twice her size. “Well well well. It’s been a while. Thompson!”

A voice responded from amid the trees. “Yes?”

“Inform her lady­ship. We’ll be return­ing to the castle.”

“Cer­tainly.”

The woman seemed to address the group again, despite never hav­ing shifted her gaze from them.

“Humans, you will fol­low me.”

“Um.” One of the group found the courage to speak up. “I mean, thanks for sav­ing us and all, but we’d really bet­ter be head­ing back, so…”

He turned, ready to jump back across the stream. But no longer was it a stream — it was a river, wide and fast-flowing as the Ama­zon. On the oppo­site bank, a cou­ple of gob­lins pat­ted their axes and shook their heads.

“Oh.”

“Exactly. Now, follow.”

“Not like we’ve got a lot of choice.”

“See? Now you understand.”

“You can call me Rosie, by the way,” the woman said as she led the humans into the for­est. “You can save your intro­duc­tions for when you meet Her Ladyship.”