[M] A Gloomy Town

[Deadpool]

A Gloomy Town

The two of them—Deadpool and Gingy—soared through the other side of the mossy gray-stone portal, spat out from its rippling liquid center. Their descent through the aging orange sky of late evening was short, and as soon as they were ejected from the other side of the portal the two were sent tumbling down a long trail of cobblestone steps.

Deadpool tried to conjure up a joke while bouncing down the steps, but that all ceased when he and Gingy cleared a narrow cobblestone road and suddenly slammed into the side of a stone building. ”Argh, that hurt,” he whimpered, a sprinkle of debris—from the building’s dry mortar, that jointed its stones together—drizzling upon his crown as he landed in an upright position, on his ass.

He looked over to see Gingy lying on the ground next to him, on top of a small grassy patch in the facture of a cobblestone, and it did not take the mercenary long to realize that the gingerbread was unconscious. Search his pockets, a voice from within his head seemed to beckon; he complied, reaching out a hand to search the unconscious pastry’s person.

”Serves you right to be knocked out, lil’ bastard,” the mercenary muttered after briefly patting the gingerbread’s front-side down, and then flipped him over. He ripped the lollipop from the pastry’s back and tucked it between his belt and tight pants, but as he did, something caught his eye—a smartphone taped to the gingerbread man’s undecorated back. ”I’ll take this as my ‘thank you’ for saving your life.” He snatched the phone from the pastry and stuffed it into a compartment located on a strap, wrapped around his right thigh.

Something was missing; thankfully, this new world was not much different than the white plains, when it came to creative freedom—if one had the power, it seemed one could manifest any thought into being. As soon as the mercenary pictured a marker in his mind, the thought became real, and a Sharpie marker pixelated itself into reality, right in Deadpool’s hand. He flipped the gingerbread man back face-up, and with a few waves of the marker across Gingy’s forehead, the mercenary had to restrain a schoolgirl giggle.

===D

“A-are you . . . o-okay?” a voice stammered.

Deadpool brought his attention front and center to see a forty-something year old man standing before him. As the mercenary gazed at the man, he could see a trickle of sweat running down from his receding hairline to a jungle of unkempt black and gray hairs that made up a thick beard. The man probably was not accustomed to dealing with outsiders every day, and it showed with his nervousness.

Behind the man, there was a small crowd of peasants—people of all genders and ages, garmented in ragged clothing—that had formed on the far side of the narrow cobblestone road. Some of the people grumbled, while others were left speechless; the facial expressions that wavered amongst them said enough—a mixture of mildly suppressed fear and curiosity. One fearful middle-aged woman reached out a boney arm and clenched the shoulder of her young son, withdrawing the boy partially behind her long, stain-blotched dress (she could not pull him any further; his head poked out from behind her hip—he was a curious one).

Deadpool slid the marker into a slot between some compartments on his thigh. ”Yeah,” Deadpool finally replied, ”I’m good. He pushed off of the building that he had been propped up against and rose to his feet. As he did, he noticed the man hop back a few steps. ”Relax, I’m just getting up. Not like I flashed the crowd or anything . . .” yet.

He stole a glance back down at Gingy and saw that the gingerbread man was still out cold. ”Where’s the local hotel, or whatever? Me and my buddy here have had a long day. Right, Gingy?” The mercenary creased a smile across his mask as he bantered the incapacitated pastry, then quickly brought his attention back to the peasant man.

The man furrowed a brow. “A-a hotel?” He took a moment to gather his thoughts, and then asked, “Did you mean somewhere you can stay for the night?”

”Yeah, one of those.” Deadpool guessed a word like hotel was too advanced for a civilization like this (if they were more advanced, maybe some of the women amongst the crowd would have something besides oil build-up and dirt to fix their faces up). ’Y’know, somewhere you would take a ‘lady of the night’.” He then took his hand and balled it into a fist, reached down to near his man region; a rapid succession of jerking motions then followed.

The peasant nodded embarrassingly, even shutting his eyes as he did so. He then threw up a finger that pointed to the left. “There’s an inn only a couple houses down the road,” he said with a pinch of shame in his voice. “It will have a sign above the doorway. Plush Inn, it’ll say.”

Ooohhh! italicized text! the mercenary though to himself. Maybe somewhere interesting?

He gave the man a nod in return, and then brought his attention back to Gingy.”You’re coming with me,” he murmured as he reached down and yanked the gingerbread man off of the ground.

Okay, see ya later poor people! Deadpool shouted out for everyone in the crowd to hear. He waved a hand to them, then without further ado, left down the narrow cobblestone road. The crowd behind him slowly dispersed to go about the rest of their day; all with a look of whatthefuck that they could not quite ease from their visages.

Under the dim light of an oil-lit lamppost, Deadpool—unconscious Gingy still in-hand—made the turn around a corner where the road became a wide intersection. Plush Inn, the sign above the door of the corner building read, still visible in the purpling sky. It had been engraved into a wood board, taking up the entire space available. Where the P in Plush began and the ‘n’ at the end of Inn ended, the wood had begin to show its age—it split harshly in several places, from years of weathering.