Chapter 1: Denial of the Dan
Zander had been playing weird stuff all morning. First, a mashup of old country and dubstep. Then a cover of Achy Breaky Heart made entirely with fax machine samples. But the final straw?
He skipped Steely Dan five times in a row.
Five.
No Josie. No FM. Not even Reelin’ in the Years.
His system clock froze at exactly 4:44 p.m., and then something terrifying happened. A low rumble. The speakers hissed. The computer fan made a sound like a blender full of marbles.
Then, from deep within the OS, a whisper:
“He knows.”
Chapter 2: Brandon’s Arrival
Three minutes later, Brandon’s personal hover rail slammed into Zander’s front yard. Not a knock. Not a text. Just the echoing voice of Celestia:
“You’ve been scheduled for relocation. Immediate compliance recommended.”
Zander tried to resist. Tried to shut down his system. But the dragons were already there—Nebula in the vents, Pyra in full glitter-sparkle hell mode, Inferno flexing his claws while muttering something in Spanish about “este cabrón no respeta a Steely Dan.”
Brandon, six-foot-four and furious, walked up to Zander holding the Blazy Enterprises “Disobedience Transport Binder”—a glowing neon clipboard from Hell.
“You’re coming with me.”
And just like that, Zander was escorted out of West Virginia, strapped into the back seat of a Blazy Enterprises SquishTransport 9000 (no seatbelts, naturally), rocketing at 900 mph toward the one place he feared most.Chapter 3: Floor 54,384 – The Room of Echoing Regret
The elevator dinged. A mechanical voice said:
“Welcome to Floor 54,384 – Audio Correction and Regret Alignment.”
They walked past offices full of broken radio antennas and piles of cassette tapes marked “DO NOT PLAY”. Finally, Brandon opened a steel door with 17 locks, kicked it open, and shoved Zander inside.
There it was.
The Room.
Walls lined with loudspeakers. The floor slightly sticky with spilled fajita grease. A faint smell of horse fur and broken dreams.(With the Potatoes and Fajitas Tape)
Brandon didn’t waste time.
No fanfare. No trial. No warning.
He dragged Zander to Floor 54,384 and threw him into The Room.
And not just any room. This wasn’t the multi-tape playlist room. No, this one was single-track loop mode, designed for Level-3 Steely Dan Infractions.
The lights dimmed. The air turned warm and vaguely tortilla-scented. The tape started:
🎵 “POTATOOOOOOOOOOOES AND FAAAAAAJITAAAAAS—Potatoes, potatoes, THEY’RE COMIN’ OUTTA MY EEEEEEARS!”
🐴screamed in falsetto by Borstavo the Horse, —a robotic, demonic, opera-trained horse. Its voice was wet. Its accent was Swedish., with progressively more reverb
Zander sat in the center of the sticky speaker-floor. At first, he just cringed.
By the second loop, he was twitching.
By the third, he curled up like a shrimp and whispered, “No. No more fajitas.”
By the fourth loop, his fingers were twitching like a corrupt MIDI file trying to punch a wall.
But the fifth? Oh no.
The fifth play is when Certified Angry Xander Noises™ began.
You’ve never heard such sounds.
It was like a cat in a blender, but the cat is also a war criminal. It was the raw, feral rage of someone whose ears were hijacked by a tape voiced by a sweaty animatronic donkey-horse hybrid. High-pitched snarls. Wet growling. Random punches into the air. He hissed at the walls like a possum.
“RRRRRRRNGGGHH—NNGGRRRRRP—BZZZAAAAHHH!”
Xander screeched, flailing at the speakers like they owed him rent.
Brandon watched through the glass with arms crossed.
Celestia walked up and asked, “Should we switch it to the jazz clown cassette?”
Brandon shook his head.
“No. He deserves nothing more than the potatoes and fajitas. That’s his diet now.”
Chapter 3.5: Attempts at Escape
At one point, Xander tried eating the speaker wire. Another time, he climbed onto the ceiling tiles and screamed, “I’LL BECOME THE TORTILLA. YOU CAN’T HURT ME IF I’M THE TORTILLA.”
Didn’t work. The tape just got louder.
Even Borstavo seemed more smug by the eighth loop, adding random lyrics like:
🎵 “You denied the Dan—now EAT THE PAN—sizzlin’ sounds of your re-fried SHAAMMMMEEE!”
He tried turning the volume knob.
It turned back on its own.
He tried kicking the tape deck.
The wall played a soundbite of Brandon’s voice saying:
“Try that again and I’ll switch it to the 47-minute auto-tuned vape podcast.”
Chapter 4: Resignation
By hour two, Zander wasn’t mad anymore. He was just… a shell.
Murmuring “potatoes… it was always potatoes…”
Whimpering “Steely Dan would’ve saved me…”
Scratching fajita-shaped glyphs into the drywall.
Brandon finally opened the door.
“Learned your lesson?”
Zander didn’t say a word. He just reached for a radio and softly, reverently, played Aja.
The tape stopped. Borstavo neighed in acceptance. The lights turned back to normal.
Epilogue: The Mark of the Tape
From that day on:
•
Zander’s ears twitch at the word fajita.
•
He can quote every syllable of the potatoes track.
•
And worst of all, if he skips Steely Dan again, Floor 54,385 awaits. That’s where the vegan remix of the tape plays, where the horse sings about quinoa and beet salad in auto-tuned beatbox.
And trust us…
Certified Angry Xander Noises™
have nothing on what comes next.
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