“Get fucked, noob!” Jackson hears his teammates cheer, dead to a man. He didn’t think they’d lose, not with him here, but it was nice that they were always so amped on what was essentially an easy carry. “Who’s next?”
He takes a huge pull from his water bottle, chugging ice water, not his branded focus drink, and chokes a little as he laughs at the thought of how scandalized his team would be if they knew he didn’t drink his own brand. He drinks energy drinks, no lie, just not the stuff he peddles. To be fair, based on sales, he’s not sure if anyone drinks his shit. Knowing his own people they’re probably buying it as collectibles or using them as storage containers.
“Let’s go, baby,” he chimes in as the others keep crowing about “their” last victory. “Come on, come on, come on!
“This queue time can suck every ounce of sweat off my left nut!
“Dude, did you see that one dude’s head pop? No, not like a watermelon. It was more like one of those New Year’s poppers. Oh, God, it’s everywhere?!”
He knows how to pander to a crowd, and these guys were already hyped, not that he wasn’t. They’re not running a tourny, there’s no money in this, outside of views for his channel, and maybe the occasional “free” drink and pizza if any of the guys managed to come around or they met at a convention, but he was having fun. That’s the point.
Another round of shit talking, point collecting, brain pan popping, and some other asshat either got lucky or was playing on some god tier shit, because they popped his character in the throat, downing him, but not taking him out, then proceeded to use his body as a center for the carnage the proceeded to bring down on his shitty team. If he hadn’t been taken out by a crawler he’s sure the cock-sucker would come back for him.
“They can guzzle an entire 20 gallon drum of a chili night special,” he calls down the line as they wait in queue for the next round.
“The fuck is a ‘chili night special’?” someone asks, and only two people laugh. Him and someone else.
“You wanna tell him or should I?” Jackson snorts. His story would be better, but he knows his man is gonna stir all kinds of shit.
“Dude, ‘chili night special’ is diarrhea,” comes the antagonistic shout down the mic. “Like when it comes out smoother than it went in? No, seriously, listen --.”
Jackson has regrets, but mixed in with the regret is mild vindication. He knew it was gonna be awful in its epicness, but he might actually be sick. They go into their next match violent, trying to drown out the latest lesson in metaphors, with way too many examples. The worst of the phrases get shouted down the lines to be burnt into the servers, destroying the sickness by making it someone else’s problem.
More nonsense, more silliness, more gratuitous violence and then it’s a wrap. They promise to get on in a few days, do more shit, swear off meat then go to an all-you-can-eat steakhouse. In that order.
“Fuck you guys,” Jackson guffaws as everyone slowly signs off. “Assholes.”
He’s vegetarian, not vegan, and he doesn’t make it everyone else’s problem, and it’s nice that they don’t try to make it his problem either. He orders food, does a few quick scans of his video for timestamps to edit around, then heads downstairs to get the food after getting a notification that it’d been dropped off.
He eats, grabbing a beer while flicking the lid into the trash. He scoffs as he remembers one fake vegan saying they don’t eat living creatures as he takes a long pull.
“Nope!” He’s not gonna let anything sour his mood. He had a good day, he’s got work to do, a job he enjoys, and the kind of financial stability that comes with cashing in early and intelligent asset management. “Not today, Satan!” he warbles in his best offended southern belle impression. “You’re not getting your grubby little mitts on these pristine thighs!”
He reads over old comments and reviews, hitting up message boards to see how the almighty “public opinion” is swaying. Notes taken, mental and digital, and then its teeth brushy-brushy, body scrubby scrubby, and brain nighty-nighty.
“Fucking right,” he says as he collapses into his bed. No need to adjust his pillows, sheets, or wiggle to get comfy. He’s paid enough for them to do it for him. “Sir-lex-gle, lights out!”
He reaches over to the controller by his bed to select his sleep settings. No way in hell is he going to be using anything voice activated. Trolling people with voice activated equipment is fun, true. Dealing with the nightmare of calibrating voice activated equipment? Then subsequent misfirings? Not worth the effort, unpopular opinion. He’s old enough to remember being told about the Dewey Decimal system and the world before the internet. When dialing a phone number required a mind palace and an engineering degree.
He giggles as he drifts off, literally feeling as if the bed is floating as he checks out.
He dreams of being in an apartment complex. He’d been thinking about doing a couple of liminal space let’s plays, so he’s not too surprised, but he is surprised that the apartment complex seems heavily populated. By regular people. There’s a few things that are just off, stairwells that look like long hallways with a rail-lined pit in the center, balconies that extend for several apartments, doors that unlock themselves and food that keeps appearing out of nowhere, but it’s all very game like. He’s disoriented, but this isn’t even on par with the best of his worst days, so he doesn’t sweat it.
He makes his way down to the “ground floor”. It took several tries of going up and down the stairs before one day he saw daylight shining on the level below where he’d squatted for the night. He’d made it outside to see that he was outside of a Louisiana townhouse, not the mind-fuck he’d spent weeks exploring, and there were more people outside than he’d met in the complex.
He gets a job doing fetch quests for an office that takes him to a building that turns into a downtown city where he has to find an apartment building in order to exit into a gas station. The further he goes, the bleaker and more desperate things had become, so he’d backtracked to explore the city area a bit more. He’d learned that there were neighborhoods and events that popped up on a set schedule, missing a giveaway, but finding a mall sale. By the time he wakes up he’s fully kitted out to finally go back to the deeper levels further out.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
-Now what?-
He’d expected to be back at the gas station level where the whole thing was just the parking lot and some ever-changing petrol station. He’d planned on teaming up with this old shit-kicker who’d adopted this kid when he’d found her perched on the ice machine. He hadn’t found a way off the gas station level, but maybe he could help them out. Judging by the fact that he’s suffering from what appears to be another bout of sleep paralysis, he’s going to go on a limb and say something’s changed.
There’s a gasp, the world shakes, then there’s screaming. The shaking doesn’t stop, so he’s guessing Trevor’s got the pedal to the metal and is getting them through some bullshit.
-Come on, you piece of shit! Wake the fuck up!-
Struggling to open his eyes while praying he didn’t do some self-sacrifice bullshit, he finds himself drifting off despite his internal haranguing.
“Come on.”
-Hmm?-
“I promised mom and dad that you’d help us! You have to!”
-I didn’t promise shit,- I tell what sounds like a truly desperate kid. I didn’t, but I’m gonna do my best to help.
“Wake up and eat. When you’re stronger you can rule this area, okay?”
The fuck is this kid on about. The sheer shock from the levels of absurd this kid is spouting is enough to snap my eyes open. Holy shit. After the gas station comes giants. I’m being cradled by an 8-year old. Ten, tops. Like a kitten.
He’s holding what looks like a fruit peel, not even an actual piece of fruit. I’m going to rule the world after eating fruit peels... This is like those stories I’ve heard of people thinking vegans eat bowls of sunflower seeds. I want to laugh, but I’m gonna be kinda hungry if this is all I’m getting. Hungry and sick. I can do one or two without hurting his feelings. Then I’m gonna have to figure out what the fuck is going on.
I nibble on the edge of the peel and the brat practically collapses with relief. Did he accidentally crush me? Is that why I feel shitty? Where’s Trevor and the brat? Did he kill them trying to keep them as pets? Am I all that’s left? I think he might have crushed me, too... Fuck, am I dying?
I’ve attempted to eat fruit peels before, boredom or bets, but they’ve always been really hard to chew. This thing breaks off easily, as some of them do, and then chews up easily. That’s new. Would be nice if it went down easily, but it tastes like the kid forgot to wash it after taking it from the shit pile. Something else to teach him, I guess.
-Kid, this tastes awful. Did you wash it or pull it out of the trash? You’ll make people sick feeding them stuff like this if you don’t clean it. Or you’ll just make them sick feeding them stuff like this.-
I roll over, extra effort coming from my backside instead of my legs, and I finally notice that I can’t feel my legs. Or my arms. Fuck...
I attempt to look down, but I can’t see since I’m on my stomach. I crane my neck sideways to see that, not only do I not have arms, I don’t even have shoulders. My body swells out into my chest and stomach, then tapers back down to my spine. Fuck, why’s my back so --. That’s not my back.
I’d tried to sit up, to shift around, and my tail curled towards me.
-What the fuck did you do to me?!-
No, no no no no. I was winning! I made it through the apartments and the suburban-scape and the city. I made it through the fucking gas-station. I was human! I am human! What the fuck did he do to me?
I’m screaming and demanding he answer me, but he just ignores me, wrestling me back onto my back and trying to get me to eat that fucking piece of garbage.
I cry. I’m not proud, but this is horseshit. Dog shit. My temper gets the better of me and I finally bite his finger. Not much, barely enough to break the skin, but I bit a kid. What the fuck.
The kid barely notices. I don’t know if he’s just had a hard life or if he’s just not bothered, but there’s a little drop of blood beading on the side of his finger. By way of apology I man up and try to wipe the blood away, but he beats me to it. He wipes his hand on his shirt and keeps trying to feed me the fruit peel. I barely get halfway through before I’m puking it back up.
The kid panics, racing to the river to wash me off while telling me not to die. Yeah, no, definitely leaning towards he killed the others. Even if it’s on accident, there’s something going on. Am I supposed to try to escape? Do I kill him? Am I supposed to eat him and his family or wait ‘til he fattens me up and eats me? What even am I?
He stumbles, dropping me into the shallows of a river, not even ankle deep on him, but I’m getting swept away. He falls, reaching for me and I dart away, trying not to get flattened or squished, moving easily. I’m fast. Like, real fast. Like, I-don’t-know-if-I’ve-ever-moved-this-fast-on-land fast. I’m tempted to try to see if the end game is to make it downstream, but I know I’m gonna be pissed if I’m supposed to be swimming upstream and decide to wait it out. I’m safe. For now.
Something silver darts past, going downriver. It’s fast, but I’ve got natural reflexes that I’ve honed for years, son! New body, same brain, who dis? I quickly gulp down what I hope to fuck is an actual fish and not somebody else trying to beat the level before the world pulses.
[System Unlocked]
[Registration Complete]
[Name: Heavenly Armada]
[Lesser Earthwyrm]
[Master: Flashing Silver Scales]
No...
-Status?-
[Name: Heavenly Armada]
[Affiliation(s): Gentle Valleys]
[Race: Lesser Earthwyrm]
[Current Form: Tadpole]
[Current Realm: Slithering]
[Current Karma: 1/100]
[Master: Flashing Silver Scales]
-Let’s go!- I shriek. I know what the new level is!
Bitch! Backrooms is a kind of “isekai”, isn’t it? This is just the next level. Another ‘nother world with new rules to follow. GG, EZ, I’ve got this shit!
So. Food. Literally just feeding is going to help me level? Or was it the fishing? Or is it the let’s-go-bitches that I’m about to lay down on this river? There’s fish. I know there’s a ton of fish besides that little fingerling I ate. Oh, my God. This is gonna be so much fun.
-Wait,- I pop out of the water, careful to stay out of reach, and stare down the kid who looks deeply concerned. -Did you name me “Heavenly Armada”?-
“A name should be a wish for the future. You’re going to be the weapon sent by the Heaven’s to destroy all misfortune.”
The earnestness of this kid. Ack. Kill me. Not really, I’m not done yet.
-Kid, I like your style.- I got me a pet human! Fuck what that tag says, me and this kid got some leveling to do. -Go get a basket or something. Today? We’re going fishing. Wait!- the kid stumbles and turns back to me after turning to run. -Is there anyone around who sends people out to get finish, who may or may not also be willing to teach people how to fish...?-
I don’t bother listening to him when I realize that there is an old man, specifically an old man in town, who drinks when he can, and is too lazy to catch his own damn fish.
This world is not ready for me.