Short Story: The Sweet and Sour of the Real World

snakegore999

This short story was inspired by a few YouTube clips from the official Candy Crush Saga channel about one of three characters (Mr. Yeti, Olivia and Minty) from the game entering the real world through someone's smartphone or tablet. For reference, please watch the clips below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Z86sLWghA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmOKmAsHhAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-aTj7WvJPc

In the vein of these videos, this short story will explore what would happen if yet another particular character were to enter our world through someone's smartphone.

On one hot summer, somewhere in the United States of America, the Lins were on a vacation to a wooded national park of sorts. It was a long road trip, but the Lins' lone 12 year-old daughter, Bella, already knew of a way to kill some time before they reached the destination as she sat behind her parents in the van: a game of Candy Crush Saga!

She was just getting into the game on her tablet, and the next level was 21. She started the level and a cutscene began to play: Tiffi is visiting Lemonade Lake...or what seemed to be it as it was in the midst of a drought. The towering Denize sat in a puddle of lemonade, quietly crying.

Tiffi began to ask Denize what was wrong and why she was crying. And the obvious answer was, "Sob...the lake is out of lemonade!"

Ooh...a dragon, just like the ones Mom and Dad showed me! Bella thought as she watched the cutscene and tapped through it. This looks interesting! She then continued playing through the level as usual and beat it as usual. Several levels later, however, her dad, Mark, told her to put the tablet away, because they were almost there. Bella quietly obeyed.

The Lins then entered the park and set up camp with a tent. It was then time for the family to take a long walk on a nature trail. Bella left her tablet outside, hoping that she could resume play at the next opportunity for some downtime.

Several minutes later, long after the family had gone, Denize then somehow climbed out of Bella's tablet. As patient of a dragon she was, she could not wait too long for Bella to clear level 35, where the lake problem would be resolved, and she sought to look around for a place to swim. The first thing she saw was the Lins' campsite, tents and all. They looked a bit small as she stood terrifyingly tall.

After taking in the view of this whole new world, including the abundant trees of the surrounding area, Denize then set out to find some place to swim and bathe in, and made for the woods quickly, unwilling to imagine what would happen if one of us happened to spot her. While she knew that such a new world would probably not have a Lemonade Lake, she knew that as long as she could find some place to rest and float in water, she'd be feeling fine.

Denize carefully made her way through the woods, pushing aside tall trees she brushed aside. Several rocks and stones on the ground were instantly crushed into powder as her tough, yet tender-toed feet descended upon them. She breathed the fresh air and quietly admired to herself how peaceful the area looked...aside from the smaller animals, like birds and squirrels, fleeing from her imposing frame wherever she walked. After several minutes of calm walking in one direction, however, she then suddenly tripped on something and fell, but quickly managed to hug a tree to stop her fall. She was relieved and fortunate to do so, as she was already aware that falling down could be dangerous for a tall, snakelike dragon that walked on two short legs, particularly in how it would break a few or several ribs. She then quickly regained her composure and pressed on.

After walking through the woods for several more minutes, she felt a thin, dry and sticky substance across her chest and arms. She then began to feel a tiny tickling sensation creeping up her scaly skin. Whatever it was, it wasn't quite pleasant, and she flailed her arms a little to try and get whatever was bothering her off. After apparently succeeding in doing so, she pressed on deeper into the woods, but experienced the same feeling again. And she responded by brushing it all off. Evidently, the forest she was in had a good amount of spiderwebs and a few spiders, but fortunately, none had the nerve to bite her.

After briefly crossing a dirtpath, she continued further into the woods, which became somewhat less dense. Then, she heard a buzzing noise as a cloud of flies swarmed around her neck and chest. Though they were less dangerous than the spiders, they were all the more annoying. But a big dragon with little arms isn't going to have much luck repelling these annoying pests, and she had to have sheer determination to press on in spite of the clouds. Eventually, they went away after several minutes of long walking through the woods.

After walking for some time, Denize then began to feel quite tired. She then gently laid down her long, serpentine body onto the forest floor and dreamed of seeing Tiffi finally fix the Lemonade Lake problem. Minutes later, however, she woke up to a terrifying growl. As she struggled to get back on her feet, she looked around, swinging her long neck frantically to see where the growl was, and traced it to a huge female black bear roaring at her. She was apparently growling at her for seemingly trespassing her territory. Denize was fortunate that the bear was not going to go after her, especially after seeing how tall she was, and she quietly backed away and continued journeying through the woods.

She eventually came across a clearing. Then she began to feel something irritating on her lips. This time, however, there weren't any bugs or whatsoever that were causing it. And then she realized that yes, since she's one big reptile, she needs to shed her skin. She rubbed her narrow front lips across the trunk of a tree and her old skin began to peel off, starting from the jaws and going all the way down to the neck. Then the skin began to fragment around her chest and arms. Pieces of it fluttered down to the forest floor.

Denize then used her claws to keep peeling the old skin away below her shoulders and did whatever she could to keep peeling it away down to her hips. The old skin would once again fragment there. She then rubbed more pieces of the old skin off of her legs and feet, before finally peeling away the last of her skin from her tail. The whole process took several minutes and she was itching a bit all over when it was all said and done.

Denize then continued further into the woods. By this point however, she could not have wanted a body of water to float in any more badly, because her long trek through the woods left her fairly dirty and not even her ecdysis could clean everything off, leaving her irritated as she got used to her new skin. Right now, every scale on her skin was desperate to get wet with whatever she could find.

Finally, the trees finally gave way to a pristine, sparkling blue lake, with a mountain range off in the distance. Relieved, Denize stepped into the water and took a bath, and was pleased to see that it was deep enough for her to float with her entire lower body underwater. Immediately, it began to feel like home again, as if there was something in her that felt so good about floating and swimming. As she washed herself in the lake and frolicked around, however, she ultimately realized that even Earth's cleanest lakes could not compare to the Candy Kingdom's Lemonade Lake, and it might get dangerous if she stayed around in our world for too long. Especially when she now had no guarantee of getting back into Bella's tablet undetected, or at all, but would certainly be stuck here forever if she did not even try to do so.

The only way of knowing the way back was to follow her own footprints. She singled them out on the forest floor and spent a few hours following them backwards all the way to the Lins' camp, just as the sun was beginning to set. Fortunately, they were not at home at the camp yet, and Bella's tablet was still laying around out in the open on a tree stump. Unsure of how much time she had before she was spotted by the family, she quickly jumped back into the tablet and back into the game.

Minutes later, the Lins finally came back to the camp after their long hike to cook some dinner from their icebox. However, the keen-eyed Bella, who also happened to be a Girl Scout, suddenly noticed Denize's big three-toed footprints on the grass and realized that no animal on our planet could have made them upon a closer look. Unable to follow where they went, due to warnings from authorities not to stray from trails, she told her parents that she found tracks that belong to some sort of monster, unaware that they were all from Denize, since the game didn't show Bella what her feet would have looked like. Bella's parents dismissed the possibility, but admired how interested she was already becoming in nature and the wilderness, despite her growing addiction to the Candy Crush game. She had no idea about Denize being able to escape the game, or how close she truly was to actually meeting her. Before bedtime, she continued playing the game and finished level 35, watching Tiffi fix the Lemonade Lake spigot so that the lake could be full of lemonade again.