Chapter #6Eric's Not-so Fantastic Misadventures by: Kilbil   A part - no, every part of him - couldn't believe that he had decided to go along with this.
The moment he squatted down to get a closer look at things, regret immediately came roaring down the ravine as the gale force generated by his descent caused strong downdraft winds that immediately got the attention of everyone in Maylah Park. It took everything that they could to not immediately get blown away by the sudden maelstrom, as everyone grabbed on to whatever was nailed down on the floor, paying little mind to the debris that was left flying around, though some still tried to salvage the food as it was blown off of the tables. Still, by a miracle, the worst that had occurred was that a couple of the banners had been blown away, and a few park-goers had tripped and fallen down on their rears.
Meanwhile, the entire festival was now taking place within Eric's all-consuming shadow, swallowing up thousands of innocent people in its wake, all for the sake of getting a closer look at a small patch of green that may as well have been a postage stamp. And he had absolutely no doubt that everyone was staring straight at the
It was typical of him, really, that he was bothering with doing something as inherently insane as trying to get an elephant to jump into an ant hole, all because he didn't know how to say no.
Eric suppressed the urge to sigh. He's already come this far, so he might as well make an earnest effort to participate. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
Eric squinted down at the ground, eyes focused squarely on the tiny park (idly, he tried not to think about whether or not he was at an angle where people could see up his nose...). Even squatting down as far as he could, he could barely see much of anything that was going on. To him, the park was just a particularly long and deformed green rectangle among the other green patches that were interspersed alongside the endless rows of grey squares and curved lines that made up the rest of his world.
Never mind, this was going to be worse than bad. Seriously, what the hell heck was he even doing?
In a lapse of focus, Eric sighed, the sudden blast of hot air from his mouth battering the now-prepared denizens of Maylah Park anew. How anyone expected him to participate in this festival made for ants to begin with was something he still couldn't even begin to grasp, no matter how many times adults tried explaining it to him in that annoying "You're just too young to understand" tone they always used with him.
As it stood, the alternative was to attempt to go down on his hands and knees to get an even closer view. And, well... Let's just say he didn't need an expert to tell him that doing so while there were still innocent homes around him that had yet to be stress-tested by mountain-sized limbs would be ill-advised.
Maybe it wasn't too late to tell the adults (at least, the ones he could make out from the dots down there) that he was sick, and couldn't stay?
Wait, no, he couldn't say that! They would have him committed and condemned somewhere far away in Antartica so his germs wouldn't cause a plague! Or worse, have his city-block sized phlegm cause all sorts of gross monstrosities and bugs and all kinds of magnified icky stuff to roam around and do who knows what! He wasn't gonna risk that, not on his life or anyone else's!
Eric looked down once more at the park. He supposed that mom would be happy to see him having fun with other kids his age. He had to admit that he'd been feeling pretty lonely lately. After all, who'd want to be friends with a giant freak who couldn't even interact with you properly? But maybe that could change. Maybe if he managed to actually get along with everyone at the Festival, she'd reward him with a lot of pats on that one sensitive spot on his scalp that made him feel nice and warm inside for, like, a week!
That would be nice.
But first, he had to figure out how he was going to begin doing that.
Eric turned his attention to the pie-eating contest. Or at least, he tried his best to, anyway. The entire park was practically a tiny little blip of green algae from his vantage point, so trying to find where the contest was felt more like trying to make out a needle in a haystack. As his eyes continued to dart around the tiny park to no avail, Eric began to wonder if he would every find the damn contest. It didn't help that everything was dark down there, thanks to the massive shadow that he cast over the entire district. The tip of his nose was probably already enough to cover most of the park in its shadow!
At least, that's what Eric thought, anyway.
Vainly, Eric tires to pull himself just a little bit closer towards the park without toppling himself over, squatting down more and more until he could bring his head about as close as he dared to without completely smothering the park altogether. However, all that ended up accomplishing was throwing the shade he cast in sharper relief, making it nigh-on pitch black in the park, and thus completely impossible for him to see anything at all.
How ironic.
What it did manage to do, aside from earning the ire of the park-goers who were forced to wander around blind in the dark, was put almost the entirety of Maylah Park directly under the looming presence of his nostrils. The effects were immediate, as the pull of the air flowing towards the two gaping black holes up above proved overwhelmingly voracious. With one single, casual inhale, massive gales of wind were already sucking in just about everything in sight. Benches, flyers, even a few people and small trees ended up getting caught in the unforgiving vacuum of his nose. Some only ended up getting stuck in the pockets of mucus that lined his nasal wall, while others were sent hurtling further into the great unknown, only just barely avoiding oblivion altogether by getting themselves tangled up within Eric's nose hairs. Worst of all, the pies that were set up for the pie-eating contest were sent hurtling away into the vortex.
They ultimately proved to by the park's salvation, though, as the moment that their unusually pungent smell registered in his brain, Eric realized what had happened, and abruptly tried to blow his nose. By a miracle, it worked, and everything ended up getting out in relative safety. No one was exactly happy about it though, as they were forced to wipe away the metric loads of snot that had ended up coating most of the park. As for the pie-eating contest, most of the tables that had been set up were overturned, and the pies were left spattered all over in a gooey, sticky mess of frustrated ambitions and broken dreams.
Somehow, Eric had a feeling that his input wouldn't be much appreciated right now.
Cheeks reddened, he pulled himself back up to his original position and hoped to God that he hadn't ruined his chances. In desperation, he turned his eyes towards the one place that had managed to be spared from most of the nasal carnage: the talent show.
Now there was something that he could do! As much as he tried to restrain himself (lord knows the last thing he needed was to freak people out even more), his eyes began to sparkle with glee as he began thinking of all the possibilities for what talents he could show off. He had these sculptures that he'd been doing that he'd done by carving up several of the mountains around where he lived, and oh, oh, there were these tree thickets that he'd been taking care of, plus he'd also gotten into deer collecting, and-
Before his train of thought could completely bolt from the station, the sound of collapsing wood brought him down to the harsh of reality. All of those things would require that he go out and actually show off what he's done to the others, and, well.
After what had happened to the park just because he learned a bit too closely, he didn't want to risk moving anywhere else anytime soon.
So then what else could he do instead that didn't require moving from where he already was? On this, Eric's mind went blank. He did have a bit of a thing for making weird faces, but...
Somehow, the thought of not showcasing a talent he was actually passionate about didn't sit right with him.
Oh well. It's not like he needed to actually participate in any activities in order to actually make friends. It wasn't ideal, but...
Even putting aside the unfortunate circumstances he had just subjected the park to, somehow, just the thought of trying to talk to a kid made an awful, fluttery feeling worm its way into his stomach. It felt like he was getting less air with every breath, and his hands were starting to get shaky and clammy, and was it just him, or was his heartbeat always this fast and andandandandand-!
Eric pinched himself back to reality. He had to calm down! He had to remember what mom always said: that he was way bigger than then, and they couldn't hurt him, so there wasn't no reason to be scared. They couldn't do anything to him, so he was free to take the first step without fear. He wouldn't know if he never tried.
All he had to do was ask them if they wanted to be his friend. If they did, that was great, and if they didn't, he could always move on. And hopefully, they'd like him enough to say yes!
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Now the question was, who would he choose?
Who would he subject to the burden of having to be friends with someone as hopeless as him?
Who would he force to take on the unenviable task of trying to make friends with someone who's little pinkie toe easily dwarfed over their house, in all of its calloused, grotesque glory? Who just recently covered the entire park in a think glaze of gross, sticky snot and mucus?
"Well," he said, bells of regret already beginning to chime in his mind, "sorry about this..."
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