The Calm After Hurricane Mel

Corey and Oats in…
The Calm After Hurricane Mel
NOTE: This is the story that took place before ‘Piff’s Big Comeback Special’ and is the one after ‘The Day Mel Lost A Computer Companion’ and as such it is a much nicer and lighter story to reflect the tone of the day
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The period in which Mel was trying to adjust to Hyacinth had been a rough one at the start, mainly because she didn’t know how to cope - her previous computer companion Lenora had been with her for a really long time and had accompanied her on her adventures and stored so many memories on there, she distinctly remembered it was a Monday, she had a relatively good day when she went out with Belinda and adopted a squishmallow whale named Jamill and even had some lovely food for lunch and dinner and they all had a lovely evening together.

Lenora had been in relatively good point until near bedtime when she had started to feel weaker and weaker, when she was powered up and the next morning she underwent a process known as the ‘decay’ state which is when a humanoid computer breaks down and dies, basically they get weaker and weaker as they feel like they have their energy sucked out of them and their body parts fall apart in a manner that is akin to a body horror movie, comparable to turning into a zombie in some way.

She did not suffer any symptoms of it prior to that evening, in fact she did not seem like the type to end up getting that exact process happening to her - most of the previous computer companions just underwent an extended hibernation which lead to them going into ‘departure’ mode where they would be transported to the magic virtual heaven dimension, Redrika very much had that procedure done. Lenora had been brought back so many times due to her own close near death experiences and had come out fine, up until that not-so-fateful night and the following morning.

The process was not only horrific to watch with her body parts falling off and all but also heart-breaking, the sight of it even made Oats throw up which is something a horse normally would not be able to do, and even worried Piff and Tangie. And the funeral was the big send off, Mel could not even bear to think of life without her, and even a professional resurrector could not get out of the decay state and as such, Lenora was no more.

Left with no other choice Jahna and Jill agreed to hire a replacement, which made Mel roll her eyes - she didn’t care for what she and Jahna was saying, she wasn’t in the best mood and she only cheered up once she saw the squishmallows greeting her in the store. Squishmallows appealed to her, hey were her comfort friends.

So they hired Hyacinth, who Mel was looking forward to becoming friends with at first because she figured she could transfer Lenora’s memories into her so she could carry on from where she was left off, however after several failed attempts to log in due to password related problems, Hyacinth locked her out and the two of them became enemies for a brief time.

The day after Hyacinth locked her out she turned into a rampaging monster and tried to hurt her, acting like she was being horrible to her and she almost hurt Jahna in the process, she lashed out in art form depicting Jill as a nagging demon with a speech bubble that said ‘bla bla bla if you’re not careful you are going to lose that laptop, you’d be screwed without one, bla bla bla’ and an angry Piff yelling ‘I WANT LENORA!’.

Luckily though she calmed down later and did some colorful art of Piff which came to life, the following day - which was a Thursday, she got up, her composure had radically shifted - she wasn’t as aggressive or emotional, she had calmed herself and that morning she brought some picture folders to look at with her friends.

They all spent a lovely time looking at pictures after breakfast and even decided to make up their own adventures, Piff used some magic to open up a magic slide tunnel which he and all the others used to take Mel to places she loved including Alton Towers and Kelly Tarlton’s, which was followed by morning tea and a very calm session together.

Hyacinth was in ‘lock out’ mode all through the day but was waiting for Mel, she knew Mel did not mean to hurt her or do all those things and she felt that it was also her own fault, she was new…she had not been told about the process of importing memories yet, because there had been talks of importing Lenora’s memories into another humanoid computer for months and yet Mel did not know how to do that even though she had been given out a memory transfer technique from Andrea.

Mel walked around for a bit, going for a little bit for a walk with the gang around the house before having a singing session in front of the tv - she did not think she would be able to use the remote because it was so different than the keyboard but she was able to use it to find the songs she was looking for on Youtube and had a karaoke session with her friends.

The songs she chose were a variety of favorites including some songs that not even Belinda knew of, songs that were considered 80s rarities and songs from 80s movies such as ‘Back on The Street’ by 3 Speed (which was from Oats’s favorite camp musical Voyage of the Rock Aliens), ‘Once Bitten’ (which brought back memories of when Mel first got into vampire movies), ‘One Good Lover’ ‘Room To Move’ ‘Walk On’ (by Lorraine Devon) just to name a few.

She specifically got hyped up about performing Once Bitten, because that movie was one of her first vampire movie memories. When she lived with Jill in Rosemary Avenue, when they had Sky on TV way back in the late 2010s and when Oats and Ratty were the only supporting characters in her group of friends along with Eucalyptus and Soo, there was a movie channel known as the MGM channel (MGM of course stood for Metro Golwyn Meyer) that one year, in September aired a vampire movie marathon.

Piff listened to Mel as he explained the story of this discovery…’So this channel aired vampire movies one time? And that is what got you interested?’ ‘Oh yes, it was that one red-head vampire in the Sky magazine that drew me in’, that red-head vampire of course was Amy Peterson (the love interest of Charlie Brewster in Fright Night) who was wearing a white dress and had curly red hair and had a fierce expression on her face, this picture of course was from a scene in the movie where she is seduced and bitten by the villain and turned into a vampire.

“So this vampire movie got you interested in horror?”

“Oh yes, of course I had been hooked on Big Wolf On Campus and Buffy as well.”

“Now I see why you like vampires so much.”

‘The vampire movie marathon consisted of Scream Blacula Scream, Love At First Bite, Once Bitten and Fright Night - all of which are amazing. But I had not seen Fright Night up until that point. I had seen Once Bitten several times, heck that was one of the first times I discovered Jim Carrey.’ ‘It was?’ ‘Yes, prior to that it was the live action Grinch adaptation.’ ‘And it’s very fitting that it was one of your first experiences seeing him considering it was his first movie as a leading actor.’ ‘Oh yes, it was. I was obsessed with the soundtrack and in a time before Spotify, it was difficult to find soundtracks like that anywhere.’

Mel even played ‘Original Sin’ by Taylor Dayne which was the theme from the movie adaptation of The Shadow starring Alec Baldwin - she pointed out that the song was written by Jim Steinman (a famous song-writer who wrote many songs and worked with Air Supply, Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf) and that Meat Loaf did a version on his ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ album.

She even sat and watched videos of Piff on the big screen, and Piff was amazed at how good he looked on TV, and they all had afternoon tea together. He even suggested some other songs and they had a song and dance party throughout the afternoon, which was followed by the appearance of Jeemo for some fun and games and musical fun in general.

The fun did not end there as they all gathered together and looked at some of Mel’s pictures and called Jill to tell them that everything was alright and that Mel had gotten better, they all gathered together for dinner and had some delicious food and after dinner they played games for a little bit.

They told Jill that everything was better and they all gathered together for a karaoke session and some more fun as Piff and Tangie went fishing and caught a lot of fish, this was followed by a relaxing session together. When it was time for them to go to bed they all got ready at the same time with Corey putting on his bat pajamas and Oats putting on his pink night-gown as they all said goodnight, thanked Mel and brushed their teeth.

Mel went into the bedroom and looked over at Hyacinth, she apologized to her and hugged her as all the friends jumped into bed and snuggled up together. She had expressed the only reason she was so angry the previous day was that she not only had not expected Lenora to die but also because she felt that Hyacinth hated her - Hyacinth responded…’I didn’t go into lock out mode on purpose, Mel. It was an accident, I am new and I did not know that you were still grieving the loss of your friend Lenora. I wanted to go ahead with the memory transferral process too.’ ‘’You do?’ ‘Oh yes, I want to know of all the things that Lenora had in her memory that I too can use.’ ‘I’m so glad you’re okay.’ ‘You’re not mad at me?’ ‘Why would I stay mad at you? You’re my friend, you’re new but you’re still a friend and I care about you.’

‘I guess there is a lot more to learn about this home, tell me all the things that your previous computer companion did with you and I can learn from you.’ ‘We can do that.’ They all jumped into bed and snuggled up as Mel hugged Hyacinth, they all drifted off as Anglo turned off the light and they all had sweet dreams, Mel’s mood having been changed from how she was the day before and she was happier because of it.

Of course the day after Jahna was able to wake Hyacinth out of lock out mode and was able to get her back to normal so she and Mel could reconcile and get to know each-other again, this time she even helped her adjust. She made temporary secondary online universe forms to use while waiting to be able to get her regular ones back, and informed her friends online that she was okay, as Piff even joined in with an idea.

Piff made an elaborate series of videos with a cryptic theme, depicting a graveyard with a series of candles and a message in flames that read ‘5 Days’, even depicting himself sleeping in a coffin like a vampire - which got Suku’s attention and made him curious as to what the video was about. ‘Huh…my pufferfish pal and favorite funny fish is doing a fake funeral theme for his video, I wonder why he chose a funeral setting’, he looked at the teaser and saw a sign that said ‘Piff’s not dead’, ‘Piff’s not dead? Does that mean this is going to be an elaborate prank? If so, count me in.’

On the Sunday after the next day they all went to Sunnynook and adopted a new squishmallow friend (see ‘The Sunday Shopping Adventure in Sunnynook’ for that adventure) and had a lovely time, as Piff made his special preview event video for all to see (see ‘Piff Is Not Dead: A Sneak Preview Event) and got a lot of attention. Over the course of the following week Piff began to increase in popularity as everyone began to wonder what he’d do next.

Of course the biggest surprise of all came the following week when on Wednesday evening of that week, Mel decided to have one more go at trying to do the transferral process with Hyacinth - and this time, she was allowed in to all of her existing online universe profiles and was able to transfer all the memories from Lenora into Hyacinth, and thus she now was able to carry on the adventures she had with Lenora with her new computer companion. She did not think she was able to get in but somehow, she was and she was back in business, and once again very happy.

The first thing Piff did was a huge comeback special video with all of his friends, and he was amazed that the channel (the NathanForester5993 channel) the videos had been posted on had gone up to over 30,000 views and that it was getting close to 200 subscribers, of course those two would be big adventures in themselves (see ‘Piff’s Big Comeback Special’ and ‘200 subscribers Special’ for those adventures), and thus came the end of what was the roughest period in Mel’s life to date.

And thus their adventure had come to an end but many more are coming up, so stay tuned.