by Peter John
The bug face-planted and then somersaulted. The weight of its body plummeted into me and I spun away absorbing the blow and using it to turn me around, ready for the next attack. As I completed my turn, I realized I had stunned it and it was arching its back. The six legs curling to cover its underside and it hissed out a long and thoroughly disturbing hiss that seemed to echo out into the distance. I stood, staff ready for the next attack, my knees and legs shaking from exertion and fear. This is not a creature from Earth I thought to myself as realization dawned on just how isolated and alone I was.
The creature seemed to die with its long last wheeze and after prodding it with the staff to be sure, I carefully made my way to the top of the next dune and looked around. The rocks were a lot closer, but to my dismay there appeared to be many more snaking trails making straight for this position. I understood now that the beetle had used its hiss to send out a call for help. Damn it! Can’t I get a break? How can I possibly fight all these creatures? I thought as I broke into a run for the rocks. I didn’t think the rocks would protect me, but they might give me a defensible position and that was my best hope for now.
My vision seemed distorted though, as if something were blocking my view. I kept blinking but it wouldn’t clear away. I ran on and with relief I reached the rocks before any of the bugs could arrive. My bare feet were slapping on rocks now, the sand making sure-footing treacherous. I could not fall, I would not fall, I had to find something, some way to increase my odds at survival. At last I found a large boulder I could climb. It would give me about two meters of clearance from the ground. The best I could hope for at this point. I clambered up, barely making it to the crest of the rock before the scuttling beetles caught up with me, and I was out of time. They broke from the sand in groups, swarming the rocks and scurrying helter skelter directly for me. All of them hissing and scraping chitinous claws as they charged. I couldn’t count them there were just too many.
Perched on the rock I prepared as best I could with my staff. The first few arrived and they tried to climb it. Each insect desperately trying to get at me. The claws on the ends of their segmented legs couldn’t gain purchase as easily as I had. Instead they could only stand on hind legs menacingly, forelegs scrabbling on the slippery rock face and force that horrible hiss through their mouth and palps. Looking down at those huge mandibles clacking open and closed and the writhing mouthparts all reaching out for me, left me in no doubt that they wanted to eat me. The big pincers, each half a meter in length snapped together like a pair of scissors, the glint of the sharp serrated inner edge terrifying in its wicked simplicity. With hundreds of these scythes arched and waving in my direction I felt no comfort standing above them, in fact I was terrified. Gathering myself, I chopped down with my staff. Each time aiming for a killing blow, the hardened nub of my staff dripping beetle juice and ichor. Not every hit was successful though, but they came up for seconds and I gave it to them. I was really grateful for my elevated POV and began to hope, until I noticed I was only making my problem worse.
By killing or stunning those first victims, their carcasses fell down and lessened the height for the next group to press their way up the side of the rock. By the time I realized what was happening I had already lost the fight. I was completely surrounded with no escape and things had just gone from bad, to worse.
It was infuriating and so were the blinking squares. I waved my hand in front of my face but it seemed to make no difference. The translucent squares were still in my vision and becoming more numerous. It was just a matter of time, but try as I might, I had no chance. The beetles eventually swarmed over me. I used every ounce of strength, every trick I knew from my military days and martial arts training. No matter what I tried, I eventually had nothing left.
They tore me to pieces. First, one of them managed to sever my foot right off at the ankle. Unbearable agony raced up my leg as the limb I had relied upon my entire life was just gone. What remained was only protruding jagged bones, stark white contrasted against the red of my fluids. Stringy sinews and copious amounts of blood and flesh tore off me. I fell gasping, unbalanced. They sliced off parts of my other leg next. The stumps of both my limbs spewing hot gushes of blood into their open maws, their pedipalps like ravenous sponges dabbing the blood and slivers of flesh deeper into their mouths. The shock of it did absorb some of the pain, but my screaming mind kept fighting against what was happening.
I just wanted to kill these creatures. To strike out at them. The blinking squares had almost covered my vision now, and that dark amber glow showed through my red-tinged lids. I was going into shock. My life ebbing away, and then just as suddenly the entire nightmare vanished.
I opened my eyes to see the stark white room again. “What the fuck just happened? a nightmare? Did I just dream about being ripped apart by dozens of fucking beetles? I shuddered and wanted to curl up and be alone for a while. I felt hopeless, stripped to the core and dismembered, literally. The elation of being free had quickly withered to a really dark and foreboding mood. To make it worse, Grant swam into my tear-streaked vision.
“Petros” he intoned in my mind. “Relax. You are okay. This is part of your training. You will need to absorb these lessons as we assess your psychic profile, build your skill-set, and test your abilities. Take a rest now, and I will be back for a more comprehensive report.”
His comments seemed almost as if he cared. I was still freaking out I had just died.
A while later, I wasn’t sure how long with no reference to sun cycles or watches, I had time to reflect and consider my deteriorating vision. The squares were so numerous they were still distorting my vision. I suddenly realized that if I concentrated on them, the squares became clearer, more in focus. They appeared to have writing on them. I closed my lids, and the squares highlighted. It was as if I was staring at a computer screen. I blinked a few times then closed my eyes and focused again.
The first squares in the sequence said:
You have died from massive trauma. Shock has set in and your heart stopped beating exactly 47 minutes and 21 seconds into the simulation.
What could be more obvious than that? A bunch of bugs had just shredded me. I looked up at the red cross on the top left and wondered how I could activate it to close the window. As soon as I thought it, the window closed and the next window in sequence became sharper.
Warning! Your Hit Points are below 5%.
I closed it too and looked at the next window.
You have sustained a laceration to your chest. Hit points reduced 3%
A slow sense of realization dawned on me. I was looking at instances of my actions from the most recent events to events further back in time. My eyelids were a damn computer interface. The whole experience had been a simulation. Convinced I was right, I continued to scan the square boxes. Each one had a similar tale of woe, with 'this sustained damaged’ and various other technical terms to describe how fucked I was, but then one caught my eye.
You have struck a death blow to a Giant Stag Beetle. Experience gained.
Keep trying. Keep learning. Keep on surviving!
As I read these boxes, it seemed as if a voice was reading the box prompts to me in my mind. It wasn’t my inner voice. At least I didn’t think it was. I felt like I was finally coming to terms with what had just happened. Grant had mentioned something about training and if this was going to be my lot in life, I really didn’t look forward to it.
Clearly these bastard aliens had embedded some kind of technology into my head that let me live and die in the simulation, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next ‘test'.
That the computer could project a virtual reality into my thoughts with that much reality and attention to detail was some pretty advanced tech though. It hadn’t really been my real body in there, even though it certainly felt like it. The idea of going back into that world was terrifying.
Getting the hang of the interfa
ce, I closed all the boxes and tried to gather my thoughts. What was going on here? Why was I being given this training? What benefit did it bring my captors to see me die like that? Did my interactions and experiences really have a bearing on how the aliens perceived humankind?
For the first time, I looked forward to seeing Grant again. I had so many questions. Before I saw him though, I felt the satiated sense of peace overwhelm me again. It must be feeding time. The catheter tube they had inserted to replace the needle in my stomach tugged a little as it pumped in the nutrient nirvana. My thoughts began to drift as the dark blackness of hopelessness engulfed me.
CHAPTER 3
Swamped
My senses reeled as I awoke in a swamp. I felt well rested as if a full eight hours had passed. It hadn’t helped my mood any, but my muscles were recharged. I took note of my surroundings. It was humid, dank and muddy. There was vegetation everywhere I looked and that particular rotting musty smell common in swamps pervaded my senses.
It made me want to breath through my mouth, but for the thought of all the fungal spores, so I kept my mouth firmly closed, and put up with the smell. The last thing I wanted was some weird alien fungus sprouting inside me and controlling my muscles and nerves. I looked around for some idea, some clue on what I was supposed to do, but it seemed like I would have to wander around until some beastie decided I was lunch.
Closing my eyes, I squeezed the bridge of my nose. I was tired of these games and really hoped my life wasn’t going to be like this indefinitely. Through my closed lids I noticed a blinking light. It was to my north. As I turned, the light changed position in my head and I realized it was some kind of compass, probably indicating a direction they wanted me to go. Stubbornly I gritted my teeth. These damn aliens could go to hell. I turned westwards as my stubborn streak dug in. They could put me in their sims and feed me to their beasts, but I definitely didn’t have to follow their orders. I would find my own way around this place. besides I had a few skills in survival. It was time I put them to use.
After a short while traipsing through the mud and mangroves, slipping and squelching through the fetid swamp, I finally found what I was looking for. A small tree with lots of young branches extending up. I broke them off and shaped the green twigs into makeshift snowshoes. Tying them off with bark strips.
I reasoned that they would help me slip-slide my way through the muddy terrain and lessen the risk of sinking into the quagmire. I also chose some choice sticks with sharpish ends as stabbing sticks. A longer one was great for a spear and I just started thinking about the useful staff I had had in the last simulation when it suddenly appeared in my hand. Startled, I dropped it. Then retrieved it from the mud. I had played a few games in my retirement. Particularly Call of Glory which allowed the characters to call forth different weapons as needed from an inventory. I guessed this was no different. I was in a simulation but its mechanics were game-like. It certainly had monsters. I had yet to meet any in this one though. Probably they were all waiting along the route I was supposed to take. I chuckled maliciously thinking I had thwarted the aliens.
I really couldn’t believe this was a computer simulation though. Well, I could believe it, because what else could it be, but the realism was breathtaking. To simulate smells, sounds of birds, insects, trickling water, each and every leaf, not to mention all the physical mechanics like gravity, wind, sunlight, and textures like bark, and then to portray the layers within the plants after stripping the bark was phenomenal. It would most likely require a computer on the quantum scale. If nothing else had convinced me that the aliens were technologically advanced, then this certainly did.
I fashioned a makeshift belt and slid the sharp stakes into it. Then set about covering myself in mud. I knew from experience that it would keep off the biting bugs like mosquitoes and flies, which due to the realism in this Sim were following me around with relish. Setting off again I was feeling much better prepared for whatever was to come, with a spring in my step I set forth to face the unknown.
Half an hour passed and the drudgery and sameness of the Sim began to wear on me. I had been strung out from the moment I arrived, expecting the worst but now as I grew fatigued and slid my way around this mud and mosquito infested place I felt bereft and hopeless. I knew there must be creatures here, or some kind of challenge. My thoughts began to drift as I lazily scratched my scrotum. It had been getting progressively itchy down there and the mud caking the area was getting dry and flaking off. At least the mosquitoes couldn’t bite me, but they kept trying. It was then that I felt something slither. It slithered over my scratching hand and I looked down in horror.
From beneath my loincloth a large black slug looking creature slipped from the mud of my nether regions, over my hand and plopped into the mud at my feet. A shiver of absolute revulsion shook me as I realized what it was. A leech had been gorging on my junk. OMG! No! The absolute disgust I felt was a visceral thing and I immediately hopped from one foot to the other in agitation as I began to inspect myself. I should have considered this sooner I admonished myself, as I searched my body frantically for more of the repulsive creatures.
On the other hand I was grateful that they weren’t giant sized leeches or I would be a dried out husk by now. While I pranced around inspecting for leeches, a silence settled over the jungle. All the insects stopped their chittering and even the birds grew silent. My body search forgotten, I took stock of my surroundings once more. Only the wind rustling the leaves in the canopy and the constant drip of water could be heard. When the environment warned you that a predator was near, it was best to take note.
I crouched down, picking up my discarded gear and looked about warily. Whatever had disturbed them, it wasn’t me. In fact the creatures of this place had paid me no mind whatsoever, so it had to be something else that was stalking around, and to have any chance of facing it, I had to notice it before it noticed me. When the silence persisted and nothing materialized, I began to relax. Perhaps it had moved on, I thought more hopefully than certain.
A shout suddenly broke the silence and my attention was drawn to an area through the trees. It was a human shout and it was angry. The shout surprisingly enough was also feminine. Deciding she very definitely needed help, I made my way forward as fast as my snowshoes sliding through mud would allow. By now the shoes had clogged with mud and were more of a hindrance than a help, but I doggedly persisted.
Eventually I broke through the vegetation surrounding the area of the commotion and came upon a sight that left my mind stunned in consternation. After everything that had happened to me, the abduction, the shock treatment, the subsequent bug dismemberment and now an entire morning of being siphoned by mosquitoes and leeches I thought very little could surprise me, but this caught my attention and I stood mouth agape.
In an open area, quite devoid of trees, divided by a mudbank and a deep stretch of water, was a struggling woman. Upon her ankle was a very nasty looking alligator and it had a firm grip. It was thrashing its tail trying to wrench her off the mudbank and into the water.
The woman, yes most definitely a woman, was clad only in a loincloth and was using her foot to try dislodge the alligator as she lay sprawled in the mud. While on the opposite side of her, a very large feline beast had her forearm between its long, yellow teeth. It held on despite her best attempts to swat it away. The jaguar was dragging her in opposition to the alligator. Its feline face scrunched in fury, tawny fur speckled with rosettes. Its forelegs were scrabbling desperately for purchase and hind legs thrust deeply forward into the mud, back hunched, tail twitching in feline agitation as it fought for control of its prize.
The tug-of-war between these top predators was the only reason the woman was still alive, but not for long, and knowing this was just a Sim, and hoping it wasn’t my last chance to live, I swished over the mud and thwacked the alligator on the head as hard as I could with my trust
y staff. Immediately a box appeared in my vision and I willed it away. I needed to focus on the fight, not some damn notification.
My blow had been as hard as I could generate under the circumstances, but it seemed to have had little or no effect on the scaly alligator. It’s eye was damaged though and there seemed to be blood leaking out. This gave me my next idea and I sidled up to it and tried desperately to jab the smaller end of my staff into the eye.
The first few attempts missed and all I got was the creature to writhe more and struggle to wrench the lady harder. She was grimacing and shouting and kicking for all she was worth. The cat snarled, and hissed through its mouthful as it pulled with greater force, wrenching her arm. I wasn’t sure I was doing any good. On about the fifth try I finally managed to get the narrow end of the staff against the half-closed eye-lid and I pushed as hard as I could. It resisted my shove, but then suddenly the staff slid into the eye and the substance inside oozed out like toothpaste. I then felt the staff break through the thin skull plate behind the eye as it slid all the way into the alligators brain. It released the woman immediately, arching back, my staff still stuck through its eye, and began to spasm in death throes. I wasn’t getting that staff back anytime soon.
Relief flooded through me that something had finally worked and I turned now to face the second and more pressing threat of the jaguar. The woman was trying to pry the jaguars jaws open. The pressure must have been excruciating. Her terror stricken face looked forlornly at me as the cat now had the leverage to pull her successfully towards the trees and away from the mudbank clearing.