I was scrubbing the floor tiles, and God, I had a horrible crick in my back. But there I was anyway, scrub-scrub, using a toothbrush because that’s what gets best in between the cracks. Evil Cinemas is such a nasty joint, anyway. Why the hell am I cleaning the floor? What happens to the clean floors? Does someone come in every night just to ick it up again?!

“Yes,” Mr. Moody explained to me once. “See, most establishments have a cleaning crew, a janitorial team that sweeps through on weekends or who-has-it. Unfortunately for us, however, our maids get chased away by the Unclean Crew.”

“Every now and then, the rival theater down the street sends a gang of crooks and unbathed teenagers through our midst to spread dirt, knock over the displays, and in general put grime on everything they can lay their grubby hands on. It’s bad for our look, which is good for our competitor’s.”

I felt the bags multiply beneath my eyes as I stared at my boss. “You’re not serious.”

“As a matter of fact, that’s them right over there! Ossea, be a dear and go get them!” I turned to where the boss was pointing towards. A short rascal and a tall one with dust clouds chortling around ‘em both were rummaging through the garbage bins, spreading around the floors all the stale popcorn I’d just cleaned up. “H-hey,” I yelled as I ran and shot [GHOST WHIRL] chains at them, “get outta there!”

So yes, dirt is bad for our image. So yes, there I was on my knees with a toothbrush, knocking out all the specks and stains that’ll sure enough be right back there again tomorrow. So yes… awesome.

When I’d nearly made it halfway down the concessions booth cleaning, I heard music erupt from a small listening device behind me. Sounded like a static drum explosion. A weird, scratchy song.

“What is that…” I asked, feeling particularly hopeless and desolate now that the silence of my misery was interrupted. I turned my butt around. No one was there; huh, okay. So I turn back to my cleaning work, but now that I put my eyes back on the tiles in front of me, they’re all… good? They’re all clean? I didn’t toothbrush any of ‘em, yet.

“I thought I’d help you out a bit, Ossea.” I screamed and jumped away when I heard the voice next to me. Mitica sat there, on their knees, too, holding their own toothbrush. They smiled and stared at me with their wide freak-o eyes.

I’ve been getting a bit more used to them lately, though, so I ignored the freak-o-ness and just said, “Wow, thanks.” But then I had to go and ask, “What the hell is that music we’re listening to right now?”

“Well, this one is called ‘Life Home’ by Spine-Daisy. I really like this producer! Have you heard of her?”

I kept listening. It sounded like the vocals were gargling piss, they were so ugly. I said, “Dude I’ve never heard anything like this in my entire life.”

Mitica didn’t notice the complete, utter discontent in my voice; instead, they took my words as a compliment. “I know, right?! It’s great! V-Loid is typically pop, but it really has such a broad range of styles. This song for example is more grunge-y. And since it’s all done on technology, they can use so many different instruments, y’know? And, and—”

Steam went out my ears. I was unfamiliar with computer programs. I asked, “What’s V-Loid?”

“Ooh, you’ve never listened to this stuff before? Well then, we’ve got mu-u-uch to discuss~”

Proceeding that exchange encompassed TWO. WEEKS. of V-Loid crash course for Dummies. The new Devildog movie has been popular as hell, so Mitica and I would work together on those auditoriums. Popcorn-littered hallways, vomit, and a ton of ants gave us plenty to do, and plenty of grime that clean freak Mr. Moody^[1] would want to avoid. No boss around meant Mitica could play their MP3 player, specially made with built-in speakers, pretty much the whole shift. Every shift. Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever.

Eva says that a good conversationalist asks a person questions, so I’d been trying to do more of that lately. It ab-so-lute-ly backfired here, though.

“I like Sengoku Gomi! That’s one of the synthesizers, though. Did you mean my favorite producer? Those are who make the music.”

“Ah, well you see! I particularly enjoy Gaia Akumaya. I started listening to him before he hit 10k in sales, which is a huge deal, y’know? I’ve been around since the beginning. Anyway, I like him for how weird he is!”

“Well, actually, I think he’s fake weird. Like, Tatsugiri Furry for example is real weird. Gaia Akumaya will write something on the back of his CDs like, ‘Oh, I ate a bird for lunch today! Haha, just kidding! It was a chicken! Didn’t I say that weird? I’m so cra-a-azy!’ And then Tatsugiri Furry’s message will be, like, ‘I might need to stop eating batteries. My son is starting to copy me.’ And he doesn’t have a son, by the way.”

“That’s another producer! He on the other hand blah blah blah blah blah blah,” and look, I’d been tryna listen good! But I swear this V-Loid crap is a test from God. In that moment, I was thinking if I were trapped in a room with A) Mitica talking about V-Loid, and B) my horrible, no-good middle school Spanish teacher, and I only had ONE bullet…

[You shoot the teacher, then FOREVER BONE HELLFIRE the usherer 🙂.] Quote chimed into my thoughts.

No, I’d shoot myself and then hellfire myself, I responded in my head. I snuck a glance over at my muse, who spectated Mitica and I’s duties from the reflection of a movie poster’s glass framing.

[You should really try the V-Loid stuff, though. As a figment of imaginations, I personally re-e-a-ally support this sort of… imaginary music stuff.]

“Oh,” Mitica responded, “because none of the singers are real! They’re all robot voices.”

“Yes,” they responded intently. And then they began to explain how it’s actually a million little sounds sung by a person, all strung together by another person, and all this complicated stuff that sounds like Quote at 5PM on a Friday night.

“Uh-huh…” I couldn’t claim to understand it. I listened in on the track that played at the moment. The lyrics were borderline impossible to understand. But, I did listen…

I hummed the melody to myself as I mopped up some vomit from the women’s bathroom floor. I usually tried to stay quiet in the bathroom all stealth-like because it’s awkward to be noticed in a bathroom. But, I had a song stuck in my head.

I took a sip of my soda + seltzer water cocktail. “Uhh,” I responded, “just something they play on the commercials at work.” I didn’t want to admit it was something kinda nerdy.

“God, I hate Brittany Spears…” Miller muttered. He barked at the barmaid, “Turn that flippin’ TV off!”

“Umm, Ossea? Why are you humming right now?” She asked while I played Nintendo GameCube with her.

I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. “Oh, shoot, sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“Your mind not here right now?” she asked with an unreadable expression while we played Nintendo GameCube together.

“Dooo dododo dododooo hmm hmm dododo hmhmhmhmhm dododo do dododo dododooo dododoo hmhmhmm hmm hmm hmhmhmhmmm…”

I don’t even know what I was doing, man! I was just standing there, and I was humming, and I was enjoying myself! I believe I was mopping. Right, yeah, I was mopping. There had been a spill in auditorium 6, some kid’s Red had splashed all over the floor, so I had to soap up the place.

Suddenly, I felt hands on my shoulders. The hands yanked me backwards, out of the auditorium, out of the musical spell I was apparently in.

The light of the outside world blinded me. As my eyes adjusted to the theater hallway, I recognized Mitica in front of me. They said, “Ossea, you aren’t supposed to mop when there are customers watching a movie in there!”

“What?” I asked. “There weren’t any customers. Not that I noticed, at least.”

“Are… are you serious?” Mitica seemed even more confused than I was. “Look,” they gestured through the doorway. I peeked back in there; sure enough, a horde of people sat inside watching Devildog 2.

“You were humming in there, too.” Mitica narrowed their eyes at me. “You’ve been humming a lot, haven’t you? Hmm…”

They grabbed my arm and sprinted us away in a whirlwind. In one blink, I found myself in the breakroom down the hall. The movie posters on its walls had all been covered up by stained, dusty rags. The lights were off, candles flickered on the lunch table. The chair and sofa had been arranged next to each other like you’d find in a therapist’s office.

I laid there on the couch, my head on the sticky armrest and my shoes over the smelly armrest at the other end. Mitica sat in the chair. They clicked a pen, pulled out a notepad, and pushed their glasses up their nose. “So, Miss Velasquez,” they said very professionally. “What seems to be the issue today?”

“Well of course you would say that. Therapists make bank off of people with issues! You’re all frauds!”

“You like V-Loid, don’t you, Ossea!” My therapist smirked a pleased-as-punch smirk.

Mitica suddenly stood up and looked around. They said, “How did the bone demon conjure in this room? I covered all of the reflective surfaces.”

I responded, “It’s not really in the reflections. Or, actually, I think it is? But it’s also in my head. Covering up all the reflections doesn’t work^[2].” I learned this lesson the hard way during one of Eva and I’s Nintendo GameCube sessions.

Mitica had a light in their hand, like one of those weird lights a doctor shines in your eye. They shined the light in my eye. They said, “Yoo-hoo, bone demon?”

[Well,] it explained, which I reiterated to Mitica: [Ever since you showed Ossea that fake robot music, her head’s been su-u-uper crowded. Like, all the songs are jabbing into my sides, shoving me over, like I’m in the middle seat on a plane ride between John Candy and a mother of eight. It’s all jumbled up! Get ‘em the heck outta here!]

Mitica nodded their head. They put the doctor light away. “Alright. It sounds like my hypothesis is correct.”

The candles went out and the lights came back on. The room was arranged back to normal, with Mitica standing at its center. They raised their finger at me. “You, Ossea…”

The axe being pointed at me gave me trauma flashbacks to my interview, officially making this the worst therapy session ever. I stuttered out, “W-What—?!”

Mitica swung the axe clean through my skull, which is a shame because I was going on two weeks without dying. As my film sprayed out my mouth, something else happened…

The worm was neon pink, baby blue, and jagged on every edge and orifice. It had the stench of a thousand dirty socks and a mouth tunnel with the darkness of a thousand under-the-beds. The worm SCRE-E-E-ED at Mitica as it ploughed straight outta my skull, growing up to enormous size, destroying the wall of the breakroom.

“Earworm,” Mitica yelled! “It’s been inside you this whole time, Ossea!”

“Don’t think about it,” they stated as they lunged into action. My fight or flight reflexes kicked in, and naturally I turned hide and booted it out where the door used to be. Mitica whizzed by in a flash, though, grabbing me by my uniform’s shirt collar and flinging me back towards the worm. They said, “Bone time!”

“Aaa-aaa-aaa-aaah!” The next few minutes were very blurry, but I’ll try my best to explain how I saved the day:

First off, I blitzed a [HEREDITY] at the worm. Kaboom! But the worm had, like, an iron shell or something, so the fire did basically nothing. Y’know, when a dream demon gave me a literal fire murder death laser, I thought I’d have a bit better of a success rate with it.

So the fire didn’t do dog’s bologna to the thing. My next idea was to whip out [GHOST WHIRL], but when the chains manifested around my wrists, I kind of had a brain fart and just stood there and the worm got me again. I died; Mitica jumped to the rescue and yanked my film away before the worm could eat it. Have you ever regenerated inside a worm’s guts? Nasty stuff.

Then Mitica flung their axe at the guy, but it bounced right off its chrome dome.

Hitting it with fire didn’t work. Hitting it with chains didn’t work. Hitting it with axe didn’t work. “Hitting it isn’t gonna work!” I sputtered out.

“Process of elimination, good job,” Mitica responded sincerely. “What do we know about it?”

We started running down the hall trying to dodge the worm because it kept shooting electric daggers out its mouth at us. “Well,” I said, “it’s an ear worm. It got a song stuck in my head.”

That’s when I had the genius lightbulb moment. “Oh! You listen to another song to un-stick the first one!”

“That’s why you’re the brains, and I’m the brawn!” Mitica gave me a fist bump. “We must get to the usher cart,” they said. “My MP3 player!”

So there are two hallways in Evil Cinemas that form kind of an L shape, the lobby being where the bend is. We were in the left wing. I was being a lazy butt earlier and didn’t take the usher cart with me to mop that one theater, so the cart with the MP3 player on it was still in the supply closet—in the right wing. In order to get to the right wing:

“We have to double backwards and squeeze around^[3] our opponent,” Mitica stated. “Think you can brute force it?”

“Hm-hm, only one way to find out!” I skidded to a stop, rolled up my sleeves, and turned to face the ear worm.

“In the name of customer service!!” I screamed righteously, and booked it straight towards the thing. Immediately daggers were sent flying through my cranium, my film ejecting on impact. I respawned right away, made it another step or two—more daggers and more die. Rinse and repeat. This went on, like, holy $#!& probably a full minute straight, until I finally managed to reach the right position and angle my head just right so that my little flimsy reel of indestructible human soul shot out far enough beyond the enormous pest that I could get the heck outta there.

Cue more running, more dodging daggers, until soon enough I found myself at the supply closet. I flung the door open, shutting it behind me right as another wave of sharps whizzed past. I flicked on the lights, and there gleaming atop the usher cart was the beautiful, state-of-the-art, newest model, speaker-included MP3 player…

“C’mon, c’mon,” I said, fiddling around with it in my hands like a dork. I clicked it on. “Yes!”—Tatsugiri Furry’s newest EP poured out of the thing.

Just in time, too, because that’s when the door crashed open off its hinges. The enormous earworm thing screeched at me, backed me into the corner of the tight little supply closet, and scary moments like that are when my life starts flashing before my eyes. I turned my head and braced myself…

But death did not find me in that moment. I looked back at the bug, and it was recoiling in disgust. The music was working!

I took a step forward, it scrunched further away. I held the MP3 player out in front of me and walked towards the worm. It backed fully out of the supply closet, so then I was free.

Mitica was behind it. I said to them, “Look at this! The worm’s totally my dog, now!”

“Well done, usher,” they responded with a smile. The two of us hopped with joy and high-fived in the air. All was jolly. Hooray!

“Hey,” I said. “This is the song that’s been stuck in my head all wee—e… e… k……” I pooped myself mentally. “If other songs weaken the earworm, then does the song it likes, uhh…?”

Then the roof came toppling down over Mitica and I. They stood up out of the rubble; I died and regenerated because I’m a weak little piss baby. We turned to the earworm. As it listened to the Akumaya song, the thing was getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And turning red, and knives started growing out of its steely skin, and horns came out the top of its head, and it grew a second layer of teeth, and, and…

Mitica grabbed me and hopped up through the ceiling hole, taking us outside so we’d avoid any further collateral damage to the theater. I juggled the MP3 player in my sweaty hands—I’d managed to flick the song off before our opponent got even bigger, but I couldn’t figure out how to play a different song.

The worm followed us out to the rear parking lot. A Devildog showing had just let out, so there were customers flooding out the back doors into the danger zone. The worm squished one of them.

“Hey, you lousy bums,” the man shouted at Mitica and I when he regenerated. “You’ve got a real bug problem ‘ere! Do your jobs or ah’m leaving a dunce review!”

“Ah, crud.” That’s the local newspaper. A bad review would make Moody pissed. We’d be in real hot water if we didn’t take care of the thing right then and there.

Mitica realized this, too. They shared a glance with me. “I request another idea, brain.”

“Uhh… Quote,” I said, “help us out here!” I looked over at the glass door next to us.

[A worm is quite the trouble indeed,] it chirped. [I suggest a [HEREDITY] fire blast, or perhaps a [BONE IS AFRAID] transformation to really knock it outta here.]

I spat back at it, “[HEREDITY] didn’t work, and you made up that other thing.”

The earworm wouldn’t wait for Quote and I’s back-and-forth to finish. Once it was bored with trampling customers, it turned back towards us and let out a gurgled, hellish scream. It lunged at Mitica, trying to eat them. Mitica flipped [LOCKE BACK] out in front of themself; when the worm went to bite, they lodged the axe inside its mouth to prevent it from closing. Ho-o-oly crap, the pest did not like that!

Since it couldn’t take a chunk out of Mitica, it elected instead to reel back its head, grow two giant knives out its chin area, and swing itself down on top of my coworker. Mitica’s pretty durable, so instead of getting stabbed or becoming dead, their straight-postured body was pushed straight down into the ground like a hammered nail.

“Bone Eater,” they said with their head barely poking out the asphalt, “help me…”

“Ah— um.” I scrambled myself over there and stood in front of my coworker, arms spread out. I screamed at the worm, “Hey man, leave ‘em alone!”

It swung its knives-chin down on me, too, except I’m not durable at all so it just crumpled me like an accordion. As this happened, Mitica’s MP3 player that I’d shoved in my back pocket… was totally crushed.

Mitica noticed the bits and pieces of their prized little box fluttering out my corpse’s pocket. “That’s my music, isn’t it?” they asked.

Fueled by rage, they flexed their muscles, cracking the concrete cage around them. They hopped out of the ground, landing battle-ready at my side. “It seems Mr. Moody’ll get his licks in with you, too. He’s not going to be happy that we let a pest like this get away.”

“Thanks for letting it squish us a few more times before granting us your big reveal.”

“Yeah, no problem. It’s just…” I avoided eye contact. “… Embarrassing…”

“Well,” they said, “it can’t be worse than—” a wall of knives was hurtled towards us. I don’t know how Mitica dodged that one, but I was the only one flayed.

When I regenerated, I took a deep breath. “Y’know maybe we’re not paid enough to deal with—?”

“Ha-ha do your plan now ha-ha!” Mitica stared daggers at me sharper than the earworm’s. Maybe they really were a little pissed off about the music player… I think it’s a difference you notice between pros who never have to die too often, and chuds like me who eat curb for breakfast. When I’m always losing my own skin, gals like me can’t be too attached to worldly possessions. When I see Mitica blow a fuse over their gizmo, the most I really think is, It’s your fault! Should’ve left it at home!

My face was BEET-red, and I could NOT open my eyes, but the song hiccuped out my mouth like a pup in torn-up galoshes. We were in the parking lot and Eva’s car was close by, so I’d gotten up on the hood of it like a little personal stage. Mitica and a few of the customers looked over at me. The earworm did, too.

The worm reeled back to shoot its knives at me again, and I know Eva would be really mad if I totalled her ride! So, I did have to chump-block that attack with my body, which did put a pause on my singing. When I regenerated though I was right back at it, running up and down the street like a theater kid to dodge all the knives as I sang at the worm. It was working!

“Keep going,” Mitica shouted! They summoned [LOCKE BACK], flipped it over and started strumming it, making ‘neu neu neu neu’ air guitar sounds to back me up. A kid from the customer crowd ran up too, some foul-smelling geek tweenager with swirly glasses and a graphic t-shirt, and started ooh-aahing me a bassline.

Meanwhile, the worm was shrinking. The three of us surrounded it, stepping closer as it lost more and more power.

By the time I reached the end of the chorus, the earworm was… well, worm-sized.

“Eat $#!&, bug!” The tween stomped on the poor thing and smeared his shoe across the pavement. An eensy-weensy film sputtered out of the worm remains.

Mitica picked up the roll. “Well done, team. Thanks for the assist, kid!” They patted geek-o on the back.

“Hm-hm. Anything to help a fellow Tatsugiri Furry fan,” he responded. Then his mom came up and dragged him away by the ear, chastising him for talking to strangers. As they drove off, he yelled from the backseat, “I’ll see you guys Thursday night!”

“Hey—hey wait a second!” I yelled and started sprinting towards the car. “That’s one of the Unclean Crew boys! Get back here, you little^[4]—!”

I was unsuccessful in catching the brat. When I returned to the lot, I found Mitica standing over the bits and pieces of their device. They didn’t hide the tears coming out their eyes…

“Sorry about your music player,” I said, scratching my neck and looking away. Even though I didn’t understand the grief, I still felt real bad. Don’t tell them that Eva, Moody and I are pooling pay to get them a new one for their birthday next month.

“Mm.” They stood there for a minute, but eventually wiped their face and looked down at me. Their grin was back. “Look on the bright side. I can listen to my new favorite singer!”

A-a-and they were talking about me. “SHUT UP!!” I crawled into a hole in the road and willed myself to die.

They picked me up by the shirt collar. “Now that I know you know the words to the songs in my playlist, I think I have my MP3 player replacement for until I get a new one.” They smiled a hell evil demon devil hell smile at me, swung me over their shoulder, and headed back inside.

And sure, I did feel bad about seeing them cry. But the real reason I begged Eva and Moody to pitch in for the birthday gift is because HOLY $#!& I HAVE BEEN SITTING ON THE USHER CART SINGING AND HUMMING AND DO-DO-DOING MITICA’S V-LOID SONGS FOR THE PAST NINE SHIFTS NOW AND I NEED TO BE RELIEVED OF THIS DUTY OR ELSE I WILL KILL MYSELF A BILLION TIMES AND BLOW UP THE WORLD.

But, at least I’m not embarrassed of singing anymore? You kinda get over something after doing it long enough.

[1] Imagine the owner of Evil Cinemas, of all places, being a clean freak… I know, right? Ridiculous!

[2] [Quote here. The trick is to pull up on the reflective surface of her SMOOTH SHINY BRAIN LOOOOOL]

[3] I asked Mitica later why they didn’t just break through the walls to get around the worm. Apparently after my interview, Mr. Moody made a new company policy that employees can’t break theater property anymore. Which is %&!!$#!& because the worms be breaking all this $#!& anyway!!

[4] Read more about my war against the Unclean Crew in BONE EATER SIDE STORIES: “Ossea and Eva Get Arrested After Raiding a Fighting Game Tournament and Terrorizing Adolescents With Soap and Deodorant.”

Take me back

Take me back