The room was dusty, the walls were black as soot and formed a rectangular cave like cube. A green tiger walked in to the room on two legs. A howler monkey swooped down from the ceiling and landed on the tiger's shoulder. The tiger opened his mouth to say something, but instead he was slapped repeatedly in the face.
"ROWR, what the fuck?" the tiger slammed the little howler monkey onto the floor. "We have to talk."
The howler monkey sat up unharmed and said, "He's mine!" and proceeded to take out a photograph and stare at it, while leaping about.
"No, that's the problem, he's gone," the tiger growled, glaring humorlessly at the monkey.
"Liar! I have him. Right. Here!" Out of the picture stepped a shadow of a man, almost a holograph. He was tall and round in all the right places; the monkey was momentarily fascinated with the man's back.
"Stop this right now! He's gone. You can't just... 'conjure' him like that." The holograph raised his eyebrow and folded his arms palms up. The howler monkey leapt up forcing the height of his jump to give him the illusion of being momentarily cradled and motionless.
"You're just hindering us," protested the green tiger.
"He. Is. Right. Here. 'sides, even you know he still cares."
Grinding teeth is hard for a carnivore, but that is exactly what was happening. "That's why he's okayed us to LIVE," whispered the tiger with poison on his breath.
The howler monkey allowed the hologram to disappear and swung from the ceiling shrieking 'mine' repeatedly. The Tiger proceeded into the corner and gnawed on his left hind leg, frustrated.
An animal keeper was cowering in another corner. A silvery knight walked in with a skeleton key at his side.
"It's done," the knight gloated to the keeper.
"You shouldn't have done that," claimed the keeper in a whimper.
The knight crooked his head at the keeper. "Honesty is the best policy", he chortled ending in a hearty deep laugh. A hollow metal banging sounded from down the hall.
"We all need the humor, she keeps us more or less united." The keeper was genuinely afraid and cursed his honesty.
"We have hidden things from the world too long!" Enraged the knight threw down his helmet, wishing for once it would scuff. A six foot hairy moth with feathered antennae fluttered into the room and perched. The stillness of death emanated from the moth and the howler monkey was compelled to switch from shrieking to a wordless moan. The tiger looked up from his bloody maimed leg. Without the humor that was locked up down the hall, none of them were sure how to deal with the Furry Moth of Fear.
"What. Is. It?" The softly spoken words were punctuated violently by the tiger. The fur of the moth twitched in sequence as though computer generated.
*whine* It was a high pitched sound of a man's neck being broken. "I can stop everything". The mandibles moved after the violent whine. The howler monkey above moved quietly towards the hall.
"And that is what you mean to do? Freeze us?" the keeper's words shook as he spoke them.
An antenna fluttered grotesquely. "I mean for us to respect the world," it croaked in a whine. The howler monkey moved quickly down the hall, approaching the cabinet of stuffed humor.
"I will see our course straight through." Everyone was beginning to become disoriented from the foully unnatural movements of the moth.
"You will see us unchanged," accused the green tiger. The howler monkey worked the lock, hoping a couple hairpins would be enough to defeat it. The lock clicked open.
"Yes," hissed the furry beast. "I will see our world return to us."
"You don't want to die," a forty year old lady called out in a thick Scottish brogue. She stood leaning at the door way, her arms folded. The howler monkey peeked around the doorway and she grinned at him. The moth started forward, the large wings flapping intermittently. As the monkey and the woman took up a playful game of pointless tag, the moth began to shrink. The keeper finally stood up from his corner, caught the normal two inch moth in a net, and replaced it in his butterfly garden.
"Howler I need that picture back," a confident keeper spoke. An embarrassed monkey approached him and slowly held out his photograph.
"I miss him," the howler monkey complained, before relinquishing the photograph. "Aye, we all do," she trilled the words out softly. And conjuring a warm fire in the center of the room, she sat down to tell her tales.