//------------------------------//
// Prologue: Here Comes Garfield 
// Story: Garfield: Friendship is a Big, Fat, Hairy Deal 
// by wingdingaling 
//------------------------------//


Prologue

Here Comes Garfield


It was a beautiful afternoon in the forest wilderness beyond Muncie, Indiana. The wind carried the petals of flowers across the land as the days' last rays of light passed through the conifer pines, making a theatrical display of shadows not seen by city folk. It was a sight to be held in awe of anybody.

"AAAAARRRRRGGGHH!!!"

Anyone besides a certain fat, lazy, orange, striped cat with a hunger streak a mile wide that is. To him this escape from society was just that: an escape from society. From TV, from a warm bed, from central heating and air conditioning, from coffee. And most of all: from Pooky.
"I can't stand it anymore! Lost in the wilderness, miles from the nearest slushie machine! And Pooky! Will I ever hold my precious Pooky again?!" Garfield wailed.
"Garfield, we've only been out here half a day," Jon chided his pet as they walked along the hiking path.
The whole trip had been Jon's idea in the first  place. Somehow, he once again got it in his pathetic, barely-functioning head that there was something magical about communing with Mother Nature. However, every time that happened, Jon was chased by squirrels with tiny weed whackers, or Garfield would get dragged away by giant spiders, or it would rain until they packed up the car and went home.
"It's good to get away from society every once in awhile to get back in touch with the natural world," Jon continued.
Garfield could not believe what he heard. The idea of leaving behind the civilized world for this horrible place was one that couldn't be held by anyone. Not even that lobotomy patient Jon dated a while back.
"Yeah, it's a good thing! If you get tired of indoor plumbing, and want to get mauled by Bigfoot!" Garfield retorted. "I'm not even going to bother saying 'it can't possibly get worse!' It always does when you do!"
As if on cue, Garfield was suddenly showered by water, but oddly, Jon wasn't. Garfield turned to see that the source of the downpour was  the excessive panting and drooling of his yellow-furred canine companion, Odie. In his mouth, the dog held his ever present dingleball.
"Nevermind. I forgot we brought the dog," Garfield sighed, with his face in his hand.
Odie barked happily at the mention of himself, almost dropping his dingleball. The thing about Odie was that he always liked attention, good or bad. He even once returned a snowball to Garfield that he missed throwing at him.
"What do you want now? I already threw your dingle ball five times. It's not like I'm getting paid to do it," Garfield said, annoyed.
Odie dropped the ball on the ground and nosed it towards Garfield, asking him wordlessly to throw it again.
Garfield picked it up and heaved a sigh.
"Alright," Garfield wound up for a throw that would easily get anyone a quarterback position. "I'm really letting this one fly, Odie!"
Garfield threw the dingleball deep into the woods to the side of the trail.
Odie ran after it with blinding speed, and disappeared into the thicket.
"That'll keep him busy," Garfield thought, "Or get him eaten. Whichever."



Jon and Garfield returned to their campsite, much to Garfield's relief. Just as Garfield sat down to rest, Jon put Garfield to work.
"Garfield, I forgot to pack bottled water. Could you go down to the river to get some water for coffee?" Jon requested.
Garfield couldn't believe it. First the hike, and now forced labor! It was an outrage! Garfield stood up and hunched his back like a mad scientist's assistant, then grabbed the coffee pot for Jon.
"Yes master! I do as I am told master," the cat hissed, before he lurched off towards the river.
Jon got out the can of decaf coffee grounds from the duffel bag. Decaf for two reasons: the first was it was almost nighttime and the second was that Garfield wouldn't drink it. He looked through the bag for some sugar packets, but couldn't seem to find any.
"Odie, could you look through the other bag for some sweetener packets?" He looked around and noticed that Odie was nowhere to be seen. "Odie?" Jon immediately became frustrated. He knew exactly who was responsible for his dog disappearing. "Garfield!!!"
Garfield came lurching back with a coffee pot full of water. With an evil grin, he placed the pot of water on a tree stump.
"Here is the water you desired master," Garfield hissed.
"Knock it off, Garfield! Where's Odie," Jon demanded.
"I don't know. Maybe he went to make friends with a bear trap," Garfield said, dropping the Igor impression.
"Garfield, bring him back now!"
Next to camping, finding Odie was the lowest thing on Garfield's list of priorities. Instead, he grabbed a pack of hot dogs to tear open and devour.
"Relax, Jon. If he knows what's good for him, he'll hitch a ride back to the house," Garfield answered.
Jon wasn't usually authoritative, but even he had his limits, and getting Odie lost in the woods was well past them. In one lightning quick movement, he snatched both the pack of hot dogs and the hot dog Garfield was about to eat out of his hands before he had a single bite.
"Hey!" Garfield said.
"You're not having anything to eat until you bring Odie back," Jon ordered.
"Wasn't starvation a torture used by the Spanish Inquisition?!" Garfield responded incredulously.
"No arguments! Now go," Jon pointed towards the woods.
Garfield was fuming at the idea of going back into the woods, but he sarcastically gave Jon a military salute and marched forward like a soldier.
Jon shook his head and sighed as his cat left.



Half an hour passed, and Garfield still couldn't find Odie. The sun had gone down, but it was still sufficiently light out to continue his search.
"I don't believe this," Garfield said, as he stepped over a log, "As soon as I find Odie, I'm starting a workers' union against Jon. I'll make him give me a mandatory twelve hour nap time. And a mandatory twenty-four hour lunch break."
This motivated him to find Odie more. After all, he had better odds when it was two against one. He called Odie's name for what must have been the hundredth time.
"O-diiiiiieeee!"
But still no answer.
He wandered deeper into the woods, as the light of day slowly faded.
"I've gone too far. I couldn't possibly have thrown Odie's ball all the way out here," Garfield said to himself.
He was about to leave, but then something caught his eye. There, in a clearing was something small and round with red and yellow colors. When the cat investigated, he found it was Odie's dingleball. But, where was Odie.
"Odie? I know you're here somewhere. I got your dingle ball. Come and get it," Garfield said, as he gave the dingle ball a few shakes, making it make that annoying 'dingle-dingle' noise.
Garfield noticed Odie's tracks on the ground, leading to a hole in the front of a large hollow tree stump.
The stump itself must have belonged to the mother of all redwoods, because this stump was huge. At least the size of a small house. It must have been really old too, because it was covered in all kinds of moss, lichen and flower buds.
The last of the daylight faded and the flower buds on the giant tree stump opened up their multi-colored petals, disturbing a group of fireflies that started to hover around the stump like glittering starlight. Garfield only smirked at the sight.
"Nice touch."
He then approached the hole in the front of the stump to see if Odie was inside.
"Odie, come on out. I gotta boot you back to camp for my dinner," Garfield called inside.
Then Garfield noticed something odd. He felt like he was being pulled forward by some unknown force.
"Hey! What's happening!!?" Garfield exclaimed as he felt the pull get stronger.
He let go of the dingleball to dig his claws in the ground in an effort to resist the pull.
The dingleball disappeared into the darkness, which was slowly pulling Garfield in.
"No! I can't go! I'm too good looking to die!" Garfield shouted.
Garfield was slowly dragged into the darkness until it got too strong for him to hold onto the ground.
"I've never eaten in Paris!!" he yelled as he lost his grip and fell into the bottomless darkness.
As he fell, he could feel himself suddenly stabilize and he gained a sudden feeling of weightlessness. Garfield tried to rationalize his situation and looked at his back.
"No parachute," he said to himself, "So, what? Did my decelerators activate, or something?"
His mind wandered through more possibilities until he saw a small light pass in front of his face.
It was very small. Only the size of a pea. (Pea soup suddenly sounded good to him). Soon, it was followed by more lights until the tabby felt as if he was floating in the night sky.
Not sensing any immediate danger, Garfield reached out and lightly touched one of the dotted lights, and it began to flash many different colors. This set off a reaction to the lights around him, and they all started to put on a light show for the wayward tabby.
They danced and swirled, flashing their many colors and taking many shapes. A bunch of apples. A cloud with lightning. A group of butterflies Sparkling diamonds. And a festive balloons were the shapes they took. For the finale of their show, the five shapes moved to a pentagonal formation. In the empty space at the center of the pentagon, a bright, six-pointed star took shape, glowing with every color that Garfield had ever seen.
"Wow! It's an an epileptic's nightmare!" Garfield said as he watched the light show. "It's almost like one of my pizza nightmares, but less scary!"

"Garfield..."

"Wha!? Who said that? How do you know me? Am I famous in this patch of nothing?"
Garfield looked around for the source of the unknown voice. In every direction, there was nobody who could have said that. His attention returned to the star as its light became brighter.

"The harmony needs you...Please...Help them..."

The light became blindingly bright and Garfield gradually became aware of feeling heavier, until he abruptly landed on something hard. Garfield sat up and spat out a mouthful of dirt.
"I guess it's good to be back on the ground at least," Garfield grumbled.
The void with the lights was gone, and a quick look at his surroundings and confirmed that he was in a forest, but not the one he was in before. This forest was somehow different. The trees looked lank and some had vines growing on them.
The time was about the same as the other forest, so there was barely any light for Garfield to really see what was around him. But, what he could see was the dingleball only a few feet in front of him, as well as more of Odie's tracks leading away from him.
"Great," Garfield groaned, as he picked up the dingleball, "I've got a feeling that this is gonna be one heck of a night."
And he set, off following Odie's tracks deeper into the woods to an unknown destination.