Red Flame Lily

With every swish of the paddle, they get closer to the edge and discover what weightlessness feels like and are clinging to their seats to prevent themselves from floating off into space, just as the old man had predicted. But there was nothing in the scrolls read by the smart one to explain why the earth's gravity was getting weaker with every swish of their paddles. It's hard to believe but Alphonso who had never kissed a girl in his life had fallen in love with a girl he'd never met and who for all he knew was just a figment of the delirious old castaway's imagination. To make things more complicated he was still dreaming of her even though he'd tethered himself to his seat on the raft. He'd found himself as the only one left who could paddle as the other three lads responsible for paddling had begun to panic as their bums lifted from their seats and let their paddles fly away in the chaos that ensued. Alvarez's bonds had come loose, and he was hanging upside-down clinging like a limpet to the pilot's seat at the raft's stern, if it weren't so scary all the other boys would have burst out laughing.

It wasn't as if they should have been surprised, for the old man had warned them repeatedly about the nature of the zero-gravity effect as they approached the outer edge. They wondered how much more they might have learned had he not choked to death on a prickly pear, which was amongst the food that little Marius, the youngest and smallest had stolen from the kitchen, who now found himself little more than a spectator, for his safety he'd been tied to the foot of the mast throughout the journey. Little Marius was not to know the prickly pear was not found in the other world and it's not as if he would have given it a second thought that someone in their right mind would pop it in his mouth without first removing its outer skin, which was laden with a coat of short stiff prickles. Anchored in his throat it didn't matter how much he coughed it wasn't going to come out, however, it is unlikely that he would have recovered from the gunshot wounds he'd received from the commando-like soldiers he encountered patrolling the outer edge during his escape from the inbetweeners.

Julius said that the lack of gravity would go some way toward explaining the infinite cloud that the delirious old man had been prattling on about. Julius was the smart one, with an intellect that had earned him a job working in the Scroll Library, where in secret since the old man's arrival he'd become a bookworm, studying all there was to know about the flat earth and its outer edge. But it was clear from the look on the other kid's faces that they didn't know what the hell he was talking about and neither did Alphonso, who was frantically paddling the raft weaving a crazy zig-zag course toward the outer edge. But unperturbed Julius continued to explain the effect zero or near zero gravity would have on the ocean at the outer edge, but unaware of what was going on behind him, he'd unknowingly lost their attention and might as well have been talking to the old man's corpse they were staring at, which was floating above his head at the end of a length of rope.

They hadn't planned for their journey to the outer edge to be a race, but the cook had noticed little Marius pilfering food from the kitchen and dutifully reported it to the clerics. They were a wily bunch full of suspicion and rightly thought there was more to this than met the eye. So, not to arouse suspicion they secretly watched his every move, the poor lad didn't have a clue. The ease with which he was able to steal food from the kitchen made him sloppy and overconfident, so failed to notice he was being followed by two huge obese clerics who would have stood out like sore thumbs, dressed in their bright Red Flame Lilly robes they looked like a couple of over-ripe tomatoes.

The clerics were unable to make the precarious journey down the pathway so had to make do with watching from above as the lads slowly assembled a raft on the beach. They assumed the children were planning to escape by sailing along the coast, this suited the clerics and in preparation to thwart the escape readied a boat, which was more like a floating palace, it required six oarsmen, just to move at a snail's pace, while they lay reclined upon couches like bloated pigs.

The clerics had expected a chase along the coast but instead found themselves locked in a snail's race to the outer edge but having got within forty metres of the boy's raft things suddenly went from the sublime to the ridiculous. The six obese clerics began to swell inside their Red Flame Lily robes and like six large red balloons floated into the sky, suddenly the children's chatter was silenced by the loud repeated noise of guns firing and the clerics' bloated bodies exploded filling the sky with Spaghetti Bolognese like confetti. They looked around and found they were being chased by what looked like a couple of the commandos the old man had desperately tried to describe, warning them that these heartless war-mongering monsters might be patrolling the outer edge. With mechanical eyes protruding from masked faces they were dressed in camouflaged uniforms and rode on boats that looked like the insect water skimmers you see sliding across the surface of a pond, and just like the raft they are making use of the cohesive force of the water's surface tension to overcome the lack of gravity, each foot of the craft's six legs had a huge surface area.

The old man's body was the only thing left in the pursuing commando's sights as the raft slid over the outer edge and was remotely targeted by a Bluetooth link emitted between their mechanical eyes and weapons, then with perfect precision they unceremoniously blew his corpse to smithereens. This was a sad end of a man who had left his ageing wife the love of his life to warn the passive worlds of a secret war that was being planned by another more aggressive and technologically advanced world. The old man had no idea that he'd unintentionally led a successful covert mission across the great inter-phasis although in truth he was no more than the bait his old military colleagues at the IBF (Inbetweener's Force) had used to lure the boys into a trap. He died believing his task was an abysmal failure due to his injuries and the onset of end-of-life delirium. But in truth, it was worse than he thought as he'd only succeeded in putting the lives of six innocent children in harm's way by encouraging them to chase after the same fantasy he'd pursued as a child. Alphonso was heading on a pathway of bitter disappointment for the imaginary girl he'd fallen in love with was the old man's wife as a young girl.

Alphonso looked on in shock as the old man's neck crashed onto the raft's deck, it was only then he noticed that it was scarred by the same glowing Red Flame Lily brand as did his and the other boy's necks revealing to him that the old man was once an Oblate at the same cathedral. Then with no more than a whisper what remained of the old man's corpse vanished into the mist along with the raft and the boys, but appearing like they were running on autopilot the commandoes knew instinctively not to enter the mist, and abruptly turned tail to spin away, whilst departing they flattened covertly merging as one with the surface of the ocean, leaving only a trail of devastation in their wake, as the raft, and the boys followed their destiny.

Word Count: 1346 - Microsoft Word Count

Running Total: 1937

Footnote:

Although I have no idea what Round 1.2 or its prompts have in store for us this hasn't stopped me from beginning preparations for the next chapter which has led me to the conclusion that an update of Round 1.1 was required, that's been made with approximately 200 additional words. I would like to thank you in advance, anticipating that you will read and comment on the amended chapter.

Even though amended this chapter remains true to the Qualifying story's theme of Flat Earth and captures the essence of the three photos, Old Love and Red Flame Lily the Commando's link to @WattpadMilitaryFiction.

Steve