A Watery Death for the Chocolately Possessed

“Fuck you and your mother too!” Johnny screamed.

Brenda could hear the party downstairs as she lay in bed, far from sleeping. She licked some creamy, buttercream icing off the cupcake in her hand. There is nothing quite as luxurious as eating a cupcake in bed, she thought to herself, as she ploughed through bite after bite. A glob of icing smeared onto her septum piercing. Brenda licked it off with her long, serpentine tongue.

Downstairs, Johnny was having a heated debate about the fate of the world.

“Nah brother, I reckon zombies will hit us before the Earth turns into a giant ball of fire. My mum’s friend works in a science lab and she reckons that’s like totally legit”, he mused over his eighteenth beer.

His best friend, Rico, shook his head.

“Bro, you’ve lost it. It’ll be aliens not zombies. That’s how the world is gonna end, the aliens are gonna come down and want our resources. I saw it on the news the other day.”

“You don’t watch the news.”

“Um, yes I do. You don’t know what I do at home.”

“I know exactly what you do at home, and it’s not watching the news.”

“Fuck off, you slimy prick.”

Rico sculled the last of his warm, cheap beer. Johnny joined him.

“We need more beer!” they exclaimed in unison.

“BRENDA!!!”

Brenda heard her name being called from downstairs. Fuck. She chucked her half-eaten cupcake onto her bedside table, switched off her lamp, and rolled over in bed, feigning sleep. Before long Johnny’s swollen fists began banging on her door.

“BRENDA!!! We need more beer!”

Brenda didn’t answer.

“BRENDA!!! We need more beer! BRENDA!!!”

Johnny began shaking the door handle. Brenda leapt out of bed and over to the door, swinging it open angrily.

“What did I say about trying to open my door?”

“I know, sorry,” Johnny whispered meekly, “We need more beer.”

“Cool. Not my problem.”

“Brenda, please!”

“Dude, I’m already letting you have a party here. Don’t push it.”

Johnny paused for a moment, thinking.

“I’ll give you an extra twenty bucks?”

Brenda exhaled.

“Fuck. Fine.”

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but for Mildred, her's was chocolate. Her long fingernails slid open the metallic casing of a chocolate moon cake and she extracted it gently from it’s pink wrappings. Holding the cake up with two fingers towards the light, she smiled, baring her brace-born teeth. Mildred brought the cake up to her lips, and gently licked the end of the sweet treat, before taking a generous bite. The rich icing, fluffy sponge and chewy caramel swum about in her mouth. Often a chunk of caramel got stuck in Mildred’s braces, but she didn’t mind. She could save it there for a little snack later.

“Hi. Excuse me,” Brenda interrupted Mildred’s intimate moment with her moon cake. She chucked a slab of beers onto the liquor store counter, smushing the empty wrapper beneath them.

“Hi,” Mildred exclaimed in her soft, child-like voice, “Do you have any identification?”

Brenda flopped her ID onto the table. Mildred held it up to the light, and swayed side to side to a tune only she could hear.

"Brenda Roman...are you related to Johnny Roman?"

"Yeah, I'm his sister."

"Okay."

Brenda glared at Mildred expectedly. Mildred stared off into some distant world in the space above Brenda's head. Before long, she made contact with her golden eyes.

“Oh, sorry! I keep seeming to get lost in my thoughts today. That will be $39.50.”

Brenda handed over the money, scooped up the beers, and went on her pissed off way.

“Wait!” Mildred chimed after her, “Take these for Johnny. I owe him some.”

Mildred held out a handful of chocolate moon cakes in pink and purple wrappers. Brenda, perplexed, threw them on top of the slab.

“Cool.”

She re-entered her car, beers on the passenger seat. Brenda reached for one of the cakes, unwrapped it hastily, and took a ravenous bite.

Johnny owes me, she thought to herself. Brenda began to drive home.

Inside the store, Mildred was snacking on the leftover caramel stuck in her braces, still swaying to a silent song. A burly teenager with wildly red cheeks entered the store.

"Millie!" he exclaimed loudly, "I like your pigtails."

Mildred's head was in outer space. The boy continued talking.

"Have you got any of the dosed cakes left? Anything infused really."

Mildred snapped out of her vagueness for a second.

"Sorry, I just offloaded the last ones. I'll have some more in a few days."

The red-cheeked teenager puffed out his chest and let out a loud "huff" sound. He turned and left the store.

Mildred snapped back into to her drug-induced stupor. Soon enough she had floated to the back of the store, eyes widening when she caught sight of the refrigerator in the furthest corner.

“You’re here,” she gasped, “I knew I could find you again.”

A gentle male voice echoed from the refrigerator.

“Come inside.”

Mildred entered the frosty room, and as soon as she did, her body ceased to respond to the rules of gravity. Her feet lifted from the ground and she began floating, up, up, and away! She gazed at the glistening beer bottles behind glass doors below. They giggled, as if they knew a secret she wasn’t privy to. Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.

Brenda’s usual route home felt unusual. Rhythmic vibrations coursed through her body, beating at her blood. Brenda soon began to notice little rainbow pinwheels on her windshield, dancing along to a song she could distantly hear. The streets she once knew so well felt like strangers.

“What’s taking her so long?” Rico nagged at Johnny.

“Chill out, dude. Go buy them yourself if you’re that impatient."

“You know what happens to me, if I don’t keep topping up I sober up!”

The party had grown significantly since Brenda left. The living room carpet was smushed under a sea of teenage toes. Johnny decided he had better call Brenda to warn her of the extra bodies.

A melodic ringtone had begun singing from Brenda’s passenger seat, but she barely heard it. She had stopped at the side of the road, alongside the winding river that surrounded the outskirts of town. Even though it was dark outside and hard to see, she could’ve sworn the water had been replaced with chocolate. Brenda pressed her forehead to her window, breathing condensation onto the glass. She was chewing at her second moon cake; frenzied.

I need to be in that river, she thought to herself. I need to see where it leads. Why is there no moon tonight? I think it’s in the river too. The moon and I, she mused, sweet and sticky! In our chocolate river together, sharing the secrets of the world!

Mildred’s body suddenly remembered what gravity was, and yanked her down to the floor. After dusting herself off, she giggled, and skipped back out into the store. A couple of customers were milled about the counter.

“Hi, sorry!” she cooed to them, “I was just floating about!”

Johnny tried calling Brenda for a third time. It was extremely odd for her to not pick up the phone, especially when it was him calling. He had started to worry, and Rico’s nonstop nagging was not helping.

“Bro, I’m like seriously sober now. I need to top up to bop up!”

Johnny let out a deep exhale.

“Dude, if you don’t stop talking I swear to god I will punch you in the face.”

Brenda had exited her car, and her feet had exited the rules of the Earth. She floated towards the river; the wind warm and welcoming around her body. The breeze soon subsided, and Brenda drifted down into the water. It was as snug as a blanket, and, just as she had suspected: filled with chocolate. Brenda had widened her mouth, and let the sticky sweetness in. She looked up, and noticed that the moon was back in it’s place in the sky. That can’t be right, she thought. It was meant to be the moon and I!

Mildred closed up shop for the night, counting the shiny coins in the till. After locking the door behind her, she had glanced up at the night sky.

That’s strange, she thought. Where is the moon tonight?