CANDY LAND /

Image created by @azbeen

“Officer, she took a left turn” The officer’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie. “Are you in position?”

I ducked behind a trash can and tried to catch my breath. “Yes, I am in position.”

“She’s all yours officer.”

Footsteps came closer. Someone ran past me, I shot her with my water gun. She turned towards me but the water started to solidify, trapping her.

“In the name of Candy Land, you are under arrest!”

“No, please I don’t want to go back there. Please! I want to be a child again”

Officer James and LeBron ran up to me. Officer LeBron took hold of my captive. “We’ll take it from here.” .

Five minutes later, she was carted away in a police van and I was getting pats on the back for a job well done.

“Keep working well like this and you could get promoted to senior officer “Officer James shook my hand.

“Peter”

“You are late again Officer Mary” I turned to look at my partner

“I’m sorry. I had to get braces and my mother kept checking up on me”

“Well you missed he action. I caught an adult” I puffed my chest with pride.

She clapped “Yay. So sad I missed that. These adults are coming to candy land a lot nowadays aren’t they? I mean Pubertris can’t be that bad”

“Well I only get payed to catch them” I turned to her and smiled “That new doughnut shop is open, why don’t we go grab a few”

“Or a whole box” Mary giggled as we walked down the street.

It was another fine day in Candyland. In case you are all wondering Candy Land is one of the Age lands. Candy land is a land for kids ages 1 - 12 and everybody works together to keep the place running. There are teachers, cooks, magicians, lawyers and of course officers like me.

Candy Land exists parallel to the real world and we all come here from the real world whenever we want, without our parents finding out of course.
Most days its peaceful, there is hardly any crime in candy land but sometimes the rules get broken. You must not go to another land with a lower or higher age group than yours, that’s the most important rule.

The girl I caught was from Pubetris, an age land for ages 12 – 25. A lot of them had been coming over to this side recently. I would be going to Pubetris in two years.

I could smell the doughnuts before we got to the shop. Mum never let me have sweet things in the real world but here I could eat and get fat peacefully.

My walkie-talkie hummed.

“There is an incident at Lela School. Someone broke in. We need officers at the scene, I repeat we need officers at the scene.”

“We are a block away. The doughnuts can wait.”

Mary nodded and we brought out our water guns and sprinted towards the school. The school was in a small building that looked like it had been shoved in between two larger buildings.
The front door was open, I crawled in. Lela and her students were sitting in a corner.

“Oh Thank God. “Lela said.

I put a finger to my lips to tell her to quiet down while Mary stood guard outside.

“Where is the person who broke in?”

“In the store. He went straight there after threatening us. He had a gun, a real gun.”

“What? Real guns don’t exist in Candy Land”

“I saw it, I was here teaching the younger kids how to make mud pies and he just burst in and started waving the gun around asking for my jewelry box. He called himself the Reversetron” Lela cuddled one of the kids.

Mary peeked in “Everything okay, James?”

“Yes, take the teacher and her students to a safe place”

“Okay, will you be fine on your own?”

“He has a gun. I’m going to call it in and we will wait for backup” Mary left with Lela and her students.

But before I could call it in, he burst out of the room. I ducked behind a desk. He ran to the back door and out into the backyard. I ran after him.

“Officer Peter, what is your status?” Officer LeBron's voice crackled through the walkie-talkie.

“I have eyes on him, In pursuit. He has a gun sir”

“Stand down, we will let the older ones take care of him”

“He is heading towards the barrier gate, he will get away”

“Stand down. Do not engage”

I ducked behind a bin to avoid being spotted.

“I’m just going to follow him, so we will know his exact location”

He got to the void before the barrier gate and jumped in. I followed and rubbed some breathing putty on my face, took off my lucky shirt and dove in.

It took a moment for my eyes to readjust. I couldn’t see him anymore, I turned and he was right behind me. I pointed my water gun at him.

“Put it down” he said. He had a gun, so I had to put mine down.

He was wearing a green sweater and brown pants and was holding a large watch in his hands. He sat on top of a purple catcireps (a magic cat). He was grinning from ear to ear but he looked familiar.

“Got you officer. You can’t catch me” He said as he adjusted his small purple hat.

“Now put your hands up, nice and slow” Then he chuckled. I knew that chuckle.

“Tom?” I whispered

He froze then started laughing maniacally.

“Yes I used to be called tom. I think, but not anymore, I am the reversetron”

“Tom, didn’t you go to Pubretries five years ago.” He still looked as small as he was when he was still in candy land. He had been an outstanding officer in his time and I had looked up to him.

“Yes. But that place is terrible. No fun, so I found this magic wristwatch that reverses time for you. It reverses your age you see. But it did things to me, to my brain and to my ears. But who cares, I don’t want to grow up. It didn’t have enough power so I came to steal this more powerful wristwatch. I will turn all the adults and teenagers into kids again. We can all be happy in candy land” he licked his lips and stared at me.

“But that would disrupt the natural order of things. Pubetris can’t be that bad, I mean you should be 17 yrs old. You can do whatever you want, watch Scary movies, eat all the candy you want, buy all the games you want, learn level 3 magic and stuff”

“You know nothing” He screamed and I stumbled back. “Why don’t I show you?”
He brought the watch close to my face.

“You don’t have to do that. We were friends, friends don’t hurt each other”

“I’m not going to hurt you. I will just open your eyes; don’t you want to see what it is like in Pubetris? It won’t hurt at all”

I rubbed the remaining putty I had on my hand.

“I’m lying. It will hurt a lot” He turned the knob on the watch.

There was a sharp burning pain and then nothing.

The last thing I remember was being happy that at least I had put some tracking putty on the watch and on his clothes. Mary would find me and together we could stop crazy Tom.

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This is my entry for art writing prompt contest run by @gmuxx . Thanks to the people at the writers block for helping me make my story better although I wasn't able to apply all the advice I was given due to time.
Thanks for reading.