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THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER Crawl On Your Belly

Awakening to the sound of gunfire and explosions was one of the last things James wanted. The rapid fire and whistling blasts slowly turned sharper in his awakening hearing. The smell and feel of cold mud was against his body, almost soothing to him as it had warmed up around him in the midst of darkness. "You're awake," said a voice from nearby. "Wha-uh...yeah." "That's good. Can you fight?" "Um...sure?" "Take this." An assault rifle was handed to him immediately from the shadows. He grabbed it from the air and examined it tenderly, looking like an M16 rifle. "Wh-why?" "To survive." More explosions and gunfire came from around him, soon turning to background noise. It would take some time for him to get used to this. "Wh-what's going on here?!?" "War." The voice was rather sullen, darkened in the soul. The kind of voice that would be followed by dull soulless eyes, taken by the horrors of war. "Wh-what are we fighting for?" "To live." "Well that's kinda obvious but seriously, why?" "Because they want to kill us." "Who?" "The worms on the other side." James peeked softly out from the trench to see nothing but craters and torn earth. The remains of others littered the battlefield, so blown to pieces that he could no longer tell what they used to be. He also saw what he imagined were dirty fluffs of wool. Textbook barren. All across the horizon were the flashes of gunfire, making him immediately duck back down. James stuttered out: "J-jesus, where the hell are we!?!" "Where we are does not matter. What matters is we take this land for our own." He was trying to place the accent in the voice. It sounded Russian, or something along the Eastern European line. Instead he asked: "Where did you find me?" "You teleported in front of us. We almost killed you for that." "...uhhh...thanks for not shooting?" "You do not look like the enemy, so you are our ally I hope." "Well you DID keep me alive and not do anything to me..." "As long as you can shoot, you are useful." He did see the flashes of guns from around him all the way down the trench, occasionally seeing the voice's owner firing off shots. But he could not truly see his face. When he had a chance, the raptor asked: "What's yer name?" "...Xander." "I'm James." "What does it matter if I know your name? I only need to know it if I make your tombstone." "Geez, you're cheery arentcha?" "I'm sorry. Feeling as if half of my life has been lost in this war has made my disposition less sunny." Little more could be said, as James sat there with a rifle, facing the stranger in the darkness.

He had always wondered about what it was like to be in a war. The dreams boys have of being a soldier, a hero, a warrior of action and blood. Now that he was in this nameless war against a faceless enemy with allies he couldn't even see, he felt confused and afraid. Sarah had once told him of the world wars humans had long before their time. The first one was a lot like this one. No agenda, no purpose, no good or evil, no right or wrong. The end result of Europe having a war with all the rules of a playground fight that built up without stopping. The second one was better aligned between the balance of good and evil. It was easier to tell who was evil, and who was good in most cases. Even in his short time in this war, he could feel it weighing down on him, that mortal fear that either hones one's senses to sharpness or blunts their mind to a dull fatigue. He decided to ask Xander: "Don't you remember why you're here?" The raptor imagined seeing a small gesture of pink flesh, a shake of the head, but he was not sure. "Come on, you have to remember something." "I...I only remember waking up here. I do not remember a home or family. I must have, I know I am fighting for something." "I know I know, to live right? ".........." "You don't even know, do you?" "What do you want from me, stranger?" The shuffling in the darkness quickened as Xander stood up. "Are you an angel who came to judge me?" "Wha-no, what the hell you talkin' about?" "Because I am beyond the help of any god now, so unless you have a holy hand grenade or something other than fickle words, do NOT judge me!" "At least I know why I'm fighting, to stay alive in places other than this shit hole!" "Then tell me, what do you fight for!?" "I fight to protect myself!" "Then you already know my reason!" "...why the hell didn't you just tell me before?" "I tend to forget...this war it...it makes my mind..." The shuffling went quiet as he sat back down, before standing up suddenly to fire more rounds into the distance with the rest of the allies. James tried to will himself into shooting at others across the battlefield, not even sure if he hit anyone, but he tried. Normally he would be all for fighting an unknown enemy, but he was so lost and confused that his battle lust had not had time to awaken. After another round of gunfire, he sat back down to ask: "Why can't both us and them talk this out, if neither of us can remember why we're fighting?" "It's like a rush. A thrill to kill. Once you get going, it turns difficult to stop." "...that sounds kinda scary when you say it like that." "Scary?" "Yeah, I mean only psychopaths think like that. And what makes you so different from them?" "This is war. There are only soldiers. Are you here to argue philosophy with me, or are you here to fight?" "I DON'T KNOW! I just ended up here, I didn't wanna be here!"

At that moment, the gunfire stopped. There soon came a rumbling sound, like that of thunder but far more ominous. Rolling across from a distance. Some of the voices of the other soldiers were mixed in accent, turning more and more in panic as the quaking noise turned stronger. "Wh-what was that!?!?!" James began to worry, looking around, feeling and hearing fear from all around him. Even Xander's breaths began to turn shaky. "What's happening!?!" "...It's coming." "WHAT'S COMING!?!?!" "The end. We took too long. I realise it now." "Too long for what?!?" "Too long to die. Now, the land decides what to do with us." "You...you said you knew nothing!" "...I don't. But there are some things that even worms know." "LIKE WHAT!?! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!" The rumbling turned louder, and he could feel something coming from the horizon. He began to wish fervently to escape from this place, his fears turning stronger, grabbing Xander with both hands. He could feel the cold flesh, slimy in his grip, shaking furiously at the dark figure. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW!?!?! TELL ME!" "I know...that we are the destroyer of worlds." With his strange dead words, something appeared in the dark sunset sky, glistening without emotion, cold and serene, slowly falling to the ground. "If you want to survive, you should leave the way you came." "Wh-what!?!" "You are not of us. You are not an angel either. Leave before you end up like us." "But I can't leave you all like this!" "Some things are beyond your power." Before James could further protest, he saw the gun barrel aimed at him, with Xander's last words told to him. "Go." With that, James did his best to remember how he left, thinking of something, anything, anywhere to be other than this. He begged himself to leave, the power coursing through his body once again, that strange cold embrace clasping around his veins. He felt the darkness take him once again, that comforting black hole, an abyss where everything else remained. Slowly it swallowed him, his eyes fading, and he imagined a countdown ticking down in his head reaching zero. As he did, he saw the explosion. The most beautifully horrific cloud in existence. A surging furious mushroom cloud that at first grew in silence, before the furious roar of a power beyond anything nature itself could create. A blinding flash followed it immediately after, like the gazing eye of a god. And the last thing James would ever see of this world, before fading away to a world far beyond its grasp, was Xander's true face in all its naked pink slime-skinned glory, armed with many weapons. A face that truly made James realise what Xander had said.

There are some things in life that even worms knew. And only James did not know, for he was not a worm.