Gristrift

"Rise and fucking shine, man."

John's eyes opened. Dave leaned over him, his pale hair and skin offset by his oversize sunglasses. "What time is it?" asked John.

"Six o'clock and time to rock. The sick beats of the day aren't going to slam themselves. We're late."

"Before any rocking or beat slamming is done, I really need to get some new clothes on. Do you know where I can find some?"

"Nah. Clothes are for chumps. Do you want to be a chump? I didn't think so. We all practice in the nude. It prepares us for real life, where I have to fight the eternal battle of getting girls away from my crotch dachshund long enough to eat a decent meal or take a piss."

"Do we really?" His power had made his clothes disappear.

"Just messing with you. You can borrow some of mine for now and then put them on the list for when Condelle has another grocery battle. Hate to be the cucumber to cross her path."

"Alright, then. What do we do? Just go out and wait for Condelle to teach us?"

"Today's Saturday, so it's a rift day, not a practice day, so I guess we should head on down. It takes a while to get there. Condelle never got introduced to the wonders of elevators." He started off and John followed. Rose and Jade had already left. Would he ever meet them? As he exited, he peeked into their side of the divider. A large terrarium sat behind one of the beds.

"Do either of the girls who live with us have a pet?" asked John.

"Oh, yeah, Rose has a salamander. Viceroy Bubbles von Salamancer. For all the talk she does about the Freudian implications of others' behavior, she sure keeps that giant dildo well taken care of."

The two went out into the large recreational room and through another door, which led to a curving metal staircase.

"What's this place called? Like, not this staircase, but this big old building underneath the factory. How did it even get so big?" asked John.

"We call it Skaia Institute, when we're not going all 'that place where the legendary Dave Strider lives.' Though who or what Skaia is, nobody knows. An unsolved mystery for the ages. I say it has to do with aliens, because if you're an avid watcher of the History Channel, you just know that when an unsolved mystery rears its head, aliens are behind it some way or another. It isn't really a proper unsolved mystery unless we got some alien involvement."

"You are kind of silly, Dave. Would you like to be friends?" asked John nervously. After being ignored and ridiculed at school, it felt good to be talked to by somebody his own age.

"Well shit, man, you don't just go up and ask people like that. I guess you're supposed to chat a while first, like I was doing. Take some time. Make a few ironic macaroni necklaces. Trade sandwiches at lunch. Beat each other up."

"Beat each other up?"

"Oh, sure. Dirk and I do it all the time. I grab a shitton of shitty swords, he grabs a puppet or two, he gets a few cuts and I get traumatized for life. It all works out."

"I guess," said John. "That sounds kind of dumb. Whoa, what is that?"

A few drops of oil stuck to one of the steps. John had to windmill his arms to keep from stepping on it. Oil completely coated the next stair and all of the ones after it. Drops fell between the steps, which had no risers. John wondered why Skaia Institute had to be so weird and gross all the time.

"That's not normal," said Dave. His expression didn't change, but then again his expression never changed.

"Do we have to walk through that stuff? I don't want to get all this slime all over my Dad's shoes," said John.

"Nah man, no need to muss up your old man's shoes. We can't get them all oil-colored. Might mesh poorly with their natural charcoal coloring. Tell you what, this oil might be a sign of somebody doing shit they aren't supposed to do, and my trick is getting rid of evidence."

"Wow, that sounds great for pranks. You must be some kind of pranking master, like Colonel Sassacre."

"Colonel Sassacre?" asked Dave.

"You don't know who Colonel Sassacre is? Holy crap. I will have to tell you. He was this guy and he lived basically forever ago and when-"

"Hold it right there," said Dave, "I need to focus on getting this oil to go away. Not that listening for hours about old dudes who give out trick cans of peanuts isn't my sole reason for living." He squatted down and pulled his arms over his head, waving them in tiny circles. Then he kicked out and spun around twice. His shoulders shook up and down. The oil vibrated and then disappeared.

"So we're going to learn these weird movements to make our powers work better?" asked John.

"Rad dance moves make anything better, whether they're strictly needed or not. It's an undeniable truth about the workings of the universe. Before God said 'let there be light,' he WAS all 'everybody who can pop and lock with solid skill gets automatic cool points.' The oil went away, which means someone was up to no good. Probably Horuss or Equius with their beautiful and erotic machinery."

"Beautiful and..." said John.

"Eeee-raaawt-iiic," said Dave. "Now let's head down."

They walked for a long time. The air smelled moldy and stuffy in the depths. The lights on the walls got brighter as if to compensate for being so far away from the sun. "Wow, it is going to suck coming back up here later. Does somebody have the power to transport everybody up a ginormous set of stairs?" asked John.

"You just gotta pump the ol' muscles. I guess I should warn you know: if you fall while you're on these stairs you are in for a nonstop blitzkrieg of hurt."

"Consider me sufficiently warned about the stairs," said John.

They made it to the bottom of the stairs where most of the other clones and Condelle already waited for them. Everybody but Condelle wore a hazmat suit. The room looked enormous, big enough to fit a stack of football stadiums. Everything was bright and painted pink, though multicolored stains coated the floor and lower walls. Along the opposite wall from the staircase rested a group of bulky, white hazmat suits and two doors marked with a girl in a skirt and a guy in a tuxedo. A figure wearing a hazmat suit stepped out of the girls' door.

None of that warranted much notice, however. What drew John's eye was the giant crack that dominated an entire wall. It took the general shape of a mouth wide open and filled with sharp teeth. The jagged edges were lined with a white, crumbling rock that powdered the nearby floor. He found it hard to see inside because the air in it was foggy and yellow, but he thought he could make out red hills, leafless trees, and movement. Staring at it made him feel small. It could eat him up and not even realize it.

"Pretty Freudian, right? Rose is totally in love with it. She's ready to say her vows and she's sent out all the invitations."

"That is a really big... whatever it is. Is that the gristrift? That is the biggest thing I have ever seen in my entire life, and I have seen some big things. For example, I saw the Statue of Liberty on a vacation once. It could fit in there sideways no problem."

"C'mon, let's go get changed. We eat breakfast in these separate kitchens in the locker rooms so nobody has to move the grist up all those stairs."

"Can't we skip breakfast? I mean, it looks like we are already a bit late."

"No. In here, when they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, they aren't trying to get little kids to stop failing so much in school. I don't even know how those two things correlate. It's like parents are grasping onto anything so they don't have to realize that those F's mean little Timmy is actually stupid. I don't think a healthy serving of eggs and bacon's going to stop him from sniffing all the glue he can get his hands on."

John followed him across the colossal room. Was there a bigger room in all of existence? If so, then that room was just plain way too big. He grabbed a hazmat suit and entered the boys' locker room behind Dave.