Three days passed.
Three gloriously weird, duck-free, mostly drama-free days.
We'd camped near Chronoglass Lake. By now, Kevin had a full marshmallow ranking chart. Mortax had finished Peace and Quiet (A Myth) and declared it "unrealistic but charming." Grubnuk had built a throne of pinecones and declared himself "King of Naps."
Even Plotbert had chilled out, now mostly floating in slow spirals while humming the Jeopardy theme in Latin.
We needed it. We laughed. We rested.
But peace never lasts in this universe.
On the morning of the fourth day, the sky blinked. Not metaphorically. It literally blinked.
Kevin, who was barefoot for reasons unknown, stepped on a flower that screamed.
> "OW! WHO WALKS ON FLOWERS?!" the flower yelled.
Then the earth trembled. The air folded sideways. And a deep voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere:
> "HEY! WHO TOOK MY LEFT SHOE?!"
Arc bolted upright.
> "Oh no. Not him."
> "Who's him?" I asked.
> "The Collector."
A portal opened. A massive hand reached through, wearing only one sandal. It flailed blindly. Plotbert screamed, "MULTIVERSAL VIOLATION IN PROGRESS!" and zipped into someone's backpack.
The Collector—an ancient entity who apparently hoards extremely specific objects—was having a cosmic tantrum.
> "RETURN THE SHOE, MORTALS!"
> "We don't have your shoe!" Lyria shouted.
> "Then suffer the consequence of UNMATCHED FOOTWEAR!"
With a wave of his disembodied fingers, reality wobbled.
Suddenly:
Kevin's pants were backwards.
Arc was made entirely of rubber ducks.
Grubnuk gained the ability to speak only in rhyming riddles.
And I… I was now wearing the missing left shoe.
> "Why me?!" I screamed.
> "Because you asked," the universe replied smugly.
Mortax, finally bored of the cosmic shoe drama, emerged from the trees in a tank top. He squinted at the sky.
> "Hey! Collector!" he yelled. "You dropped that shoe on me three years ago during a sandstorm plot hole."
He reached into a side pouch and pulled out a nearly identical—but shinier—left sandal.
> "I bedazzled it. You're welcome."
The hand froze. Then slowly reached down and took it.
> "Oh… thank you."
And just like that, the sky zipped shut. The flowers sighed in relief. Grubnuk tried to rhyme "existential dread" with "banana bread."
Plotbert emerged, confused and slightly gooey.
> "That… resolved faster than expected," it said.
Arc, still rubber duck-shaped, bobbed and muttered.
> "I need a reboot."
> "Let's not touch anything else today," Lyria groaned.
We agreed.
---
End of Chapter 46 (Peace interrupted. Shoes reclaimed. Ducks temporarily in charge.)