I remember this kid who spoke like a stereotypical surfer boy. He was in a sixth-grade class of mine, and he had long blonde hair that draped over his eyes. I vividly remember him explaining the idea of “derf”. “It’s kind of like a number between five and six, but it’s not five or six, ya know? It’s just derf.” His arm rested on his trapper keeper as he sketched this new number’s symbol on a sheet of computer paper. It was a curvy figure, and it slightly resembled the Adobe Acrobat logo.

The concept was a thought exercise that aimed to introduce kids to the base-11 numeral system in a “quirky” way. I looked it up, and it’s from iCarly. Make of that what you will.

I thought long and hard about what to title this entry in my grand journey.

This is technically the fourth Gribfile, but numerically, it’s the second. The idea of titling this “Gribfile #2” still makes me shutter, so that obviously won’t do. Besides, this doesn’t even feel like a proper continuation at this point, it’s more like a soft reboot. So you know what? This is Gribfile derf. That’s just how it’s going to be. Four isn’t between five and six, and I don’t care. This is my number system now, and I make the rules.

—

For a brief moment, there was silence.

All was numb. Budster could only feel the fuzzy air around him and the hard bed he rested on. Within the timespan of a heartbeat, the quiet was interrupted by the monotonous humming of fluorescent lights. The dingo’s senses were returning to him: he could feel the crinkled paper gown that covered his fur. He could taste the metallic tinge in his dry mouth and he felt a distinct numb pain in his upper left limb. He heard a distinct clacking noise and felt a painful throbbing in his head. He cracked his eyes open, and after blinking himself awake, surveyed his surroundings.

He was flanked by four white cinder block walls. The white paint was peeling, and the parts that were covered in paint were also riddled with filth. A poster of John Cena posing next to an eye exam was mounted on the wall opposite to Budster. It read “CAN YOU SEE ME?” Just below the poster, a young boy sat hunched over with a gaming laptop. He couldn’t be any older than twelve, but his fingers flew faster than a biblical locust swarm. Large black cameras were stationed.

This situation would normally scare the life out of Budster, but he was much too discombobulated to muster out an appropriate response. He lifted up his head and tried to ask for help. “Buh…wh…whagh…” he moaned. The throbbing was too much, so he collapsed back into the rickety, rough, and suspiciously damp hospital bed.

When Budster awoke once more, the boy was leaning over him. Budster let out a little scream, but the boy remained unphased. He adjusted his flat brimmed G-fuel hat and spoke.

“You awake?”

“I…I think so. I honestly wish I wasn’t, though.”

“That’s kind of post ironic cringecore. I low key hoped you were dead so I could sell you on the black market to buy the $DOGE dip. That would have been pretty based. A famous dingo oil baron is currently waiting on a liver.”

Budster felt both puzzled and threatened by that comment. Before he could respond, though, he heard a booming laughter come from beyond the walls.

“Uh, hi I guess? I’m Budster,” said the dog as he outstretched his paw. “I’m not really sure where I am right now, so any explanation would be helpful.”

“I’m xxx_AmogusTradcathTomboyHunter_xxx. I’m a based zoomer and kind of a super huge open source dev. I maintain like five different Discord.js bots dedicated to basic moderation tools.”

The boy paused as the walls erupted in demonic laughter.

“You got totaled by a car. The driver ran like a sussy imposter, so I just picked up your body. Most of your stuff was broken, but I did find this”, said the boy while handing Budster a Manila envelope. Budster took the package and unwound the string seal. He scanned the monospace print out in shock. It was the old Grib runtime that was written in C and poorly thrown together. Budster’s world was melting around him. That old runtime was nothing more than a repressed memory! It never should have seen the light of day!

And yet, here it was. Budster’s face shriveled in disgust. Hunter screamed in agony: “WHAT THE HELL IS AN INT?”

The screaming persisted for a few minutes more. Then, the boy fell silent and walked out of the room. Budster collapsed in his papers and cried. The tears ran down his snout and dripped onto the thin computer paper. “I…I…I’m sorry”, he sobbed. He then went on an unintelligible rant.

His incoherent rambling was interrupted by a pinch on the thigh. He yelped and looked to his side. A small red crab was sitting on the dingy hospital bed. Budster wiped his tears aside.

“Ferris? Is that really you?”

“Yes. I’ve come because I think you need to evaluate your life choices”

“Oh really?”, said Budster sarcastically. “Ya think?”

“I do. You need to make Grib an interpreter”

Budster’s awe quickly became shock. How could Ferris say something so awful?

“Ha h-ha…very funny Ferris”

Ferris stared at the dingo with his beady little crab eyes.

“Budster.”

“Y-yes?”

[Continued in part 2]