MTB: When Parallel Planets Collide, Chapter Eight

Now, I don’t know how the hell Cyrus was able to get discharged from the hospital that night, but the doctors managed to discharge him. He was on his way home, from what I know for sure, and he wanted to cook himself up a nice big plate of dinner; however, just then— and like a thief in the night— something grabbed him, sweeping him off his feet as it flew away.

“Hey, what’s going on here?!” Cyrus screamed, trying to release himself from the vampire’s clutches. I’m pretty sure the vampire’s name was Adam Neilo, and, let me tell you, this guy is older than Methuselah! And then he looked at the dark castle that also happened to be a long ways ahead of him before he looked up to the vampire I knew at the time as Adam and he finally came to his senses.

“Oh, it’s you, Adam! How are you doing?”

“I’m in a festive mood tonight,” Adam said to him, smiling. “I figured you might want to come along for the party.”

“You did?” Cyrus wondered as his eyes went wide. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the only human I invited to the party.”

“So everyone else is a vampire?”

Adam paused for a minute, still going the distance in his flight to the dark castle.

“You could say that,” he eventually responded, still grinning. “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”

“So where are we going?” Cyrus asked him curiously.

“We’re going to my tower to celebrate my four-thousandth birthday. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Damn, that’s old!” Cyrus bellowed, shocked by what he had just heard.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Hang on tight!”

“I’ll try…”

So, when they got to the castle and all, looking at God knows what along the way, Adam brought Cyrus to a vertical base, or whatever the hell that means. I’ll just assume he brought him back to his two feet with his head in the clouds like it always is.

“So, Cyrus,” Adam asked him, “Are you ready to meet my friends?”

“Yeah!” he answered confidently. Then, with an unusual tone, he followed it up with, “I guess.”

“Alright, then,” he said to Cyrus, walking forward into the castle. “You follow me, and I’ll introduce you to them.”

“Okay.”

This Cyrus dude was real puzzled to find all these vampires in one tower, but those particular vampires were mainly vampires from the Candlelight, Animalia, Allow, and (my clan, the) Common clans. Well, hell. I say I’m a common, but I don’t know or care, so fuck it. The fact of the matter is this: Cyrus met all those vampires and Adam was going to introduce him to them.

“Cyrus,” Adam informed him, getting him face-to-face with a vampire for the first time in his life, “I want you to meet my friend, Brent. He’s an Animalia vampire who always brings his dog, Gumbo, along for the ride.”

And from there, Cyrus was left with this Brent dude as Adam made his way to the dinner table nearby to chat with an Allow vampire. I forget what her name was, but, damn, is she hot! Anyway, Brent’s dog Gumbo began to growl at Cyrus at first because the dog never saw human flesh before, but Brent knew what to do.

“Gumbo,” Brent warned his dog, who immediately shut himself up and barked to show that he knew what he meant. He then turned to Cyrus and spoke for himself.

“I’m sorry about that,” he told Cyrus. “My dog tends to be a bit overprotective. Do you want to sit down with me?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, “I’d be glad to.”

So they sat down. I’m pretty confident that this is when things started to get in gear.

“So, um, friend,” Cyrus asked him, “What’s your name?”

“The name’s Brent.”

“I’m Cyrus,” the man in the brown trench coat greeted, shaking his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, man, you too.”

Okay, so about two hours and a whole shit-load of small glasses of wine later, it became clear that Cyrus was really having a good time, and why not? The fucker was drunker than hell! Why not have good times every now and then? That’s the way I see it. So, anyway, Cyrus got the microphone from this woman whose name I can’t remember— I think she’s a lounge singer, if I’m not mistaken— and the crowd was a bit unwelcoming at first, but they listened.

“Hey, guys, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you folks about this person named Lizzy. Do you guys want to hear about her?”

Dead silence— I mean, not that they didn’t want to answer his question, but you know, whatever.

“Well, do you?”

“Yeah,” Brent shouted. He was all the way in the back, by the way. “Tell us about Lizzy!” Okay, cue the violins. This is probably going to be a sad story.

“Okay, cool. Whoa!”

And then, out of nowhere, Cyrus lost his balance, falling on his ass. He got back up shortly after, thank God.

“I think you’ve had a little too much to drink!” a voice in the crowd said to him.

“No, that’s fine! I can live with that.”

My God, was Cyrus drunk!

(I could shit out a better act than that, by the way.)

“Okay, so-so this Lizzy character was about four-feet-ten, a little less than a hundred pounds, and was very shy. And-and-and this woman was the greatest musician that ever lived! She composed and-and-and-and conducted her own music, gave concerts every week or so, and she… um, let me, let me think for a minute… um… she was shy. But this woman, my God! Let me tell you, this woman was also my wife!”

Some laughter, but not a whole hell of a lot. Clearly they weren’t exactly having as much fun as he did, but they were entertained so far.

“Are you, are you guys listening?” Cyrus struggled to say, getting a positive response from the crowd. “Okay, cool. I was just, I was just checking. So, um, me and my wife founded this hundred-person ensemble some thirty-three years ago called the Williams’ Syndrome Symphony. You guys ever heard of them?”

Everyone cheered upon hearing this because there simply wasn’t a person at the time that didn’t listen to this group of people. Yeah, I’ll admit it— the bitch sure had a lot of talent.

(I mean, Elizabeth, not Cyrus.)

“Alright, yay for everything! Woo-hoo! Okay, I, uh… I gotta… ah to hell with that! I’m fine! I don’t need to say anymore, I’m good.”

Again, the crowd got their chuckles in.

“No, no, seriously, though. My wife and I created the greatest musical force of all time! We traveled the world together, we performed in front of large and small crowds— oh, shit, we did it all! Man, was it crazy! And-and-and-and-and-and we made billions of dollars doing this, too! That’s the craziest part of all! Then, one day, my wife, my wife, my wife went into labor during her baby shower and had to be driven to the hospital and all. And do you know what happened? She died giving birth to my son, Riley! Isn’t that some shit?”

Some people laughed out of pure joy, and others groaned and felt sorry for Cyrus. I sure as hell don’t feel sorry for him, though. I had to help Cyrus raise Riley, and he’s the one that gets all the credit? Fuck him! Fuck him hard! That’s how I feel about it.

“So-so-so-so it’s me and my son and this ensemble of ours, just going all around the world like me and my wife used to, and we give concerts and shows and all, and it’s crazy! Okay, I’m gonna shut up now. Thank you, Dark Castle!”

The entire congregation of vampires stood up and applauded Cyrus, even as he fell to the ground and went out of consciousness. What a way to go out, in a blaze of glory, right? Yeah, but that’s not what killed him. When he woke up later that night, around one or two in the morning, Adam was standing in front of his drunken face.

“Huh?” Cyrus wondered, still stammering a bit as he looked at Adam drunkenly. “What the hell just happened?”

“You got completely hammered,” Adam informed him, grabbing his hands to help him up, “That’s what happened.”

As he finally got him back on his own two feet again, Cyrus could only wonder why he would make such an ass of himself in public like that.

“You know, Cyrus,” he said to him, “For someone who’s had a little too much, you sure held your own out there. You have my sincere congrats.”

“Yeah, man, thanks,” Cyrus replied, smiling. “I’m not used to getting that drunk, you know what I mean? I mean, I am used to getting drunk every month or so, so I figured it’s best to get it all out of my system.”

“You want another glass of wine, Cyrus?”

What a dumbass question.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll take one.”

So he fixed Cyrus a glass of wine from his wine fountain.

(So what? I could steal something more expensive than that. Phft.)

Anyway, as he went to Cyrus to give him the glass of wine, he was very glad to see him a little bit sober.

“You can stay if you want, Cyrus,” he reminded him.

“Yeah, I’ll stay. In fact, let me stay right here in this open space, can I?”

“Sure, man. I’ll be over there on the other side if you need me.”

So Adam went to the other side to take a few breathes of fresh air and reflect on his illustrious life. That’s where I believe Cyrus said his last words.

“You know,” he said to himself, looking at the sky, “I often look at the world and see that the whole world is just full of talent waiting to be seen. I look at the world and see tens of millions of people trying to make it just like I am, and you know what? It’s all good.” And as he decided to start sauntering, he disobeyed the golden rule, which was to walk where you walk. Just like that, he fell some four hundred feet to some spikes below where he would be impaled to death. And do you know what the funny part about it is? Adam never truly noticed until it was too late!

“Let me give this guy another glass of wine to ease his mind,” Adam said to himself, walking to what used to be his open space. “Cyrus! Cyrus, I’ve got some…” And then he looked and saw nothing. Kind of like something out of Scream, right? “What the hell?”

And sure enough, he looked down below and saw Cyrus’s impaled body. He was indeed devastated.

“Oh, God! Cyrus! Cyrus! OH, MY GOD!”

His screams could be heard for miles. Ambulances and cops would come in. Depression would ensue. In other words, there goes another one!