I was smashed into the ground by a giant monster’s foot… or hand, or whatever. A second later I could see again. I was amazed that I wasn’t pulverized. I pulled myself up—which was kind of hard because I was pretty well smooshed into the ground—and got up.

I saw Teddy off to the side, shooting arrows at the monster. He was really good at it. He made a good heroic character. But he needed my help. Though, I wasn’t really sure what help I could give him.

And that’s when I got smashed into the ground by another one of the monster’s feet. This time, face first. It didn’t so much hurt, as really annoy the shit out of me. And I was amazed that I was still in one piece, even after that thing had stepped on me twice. It must’ve weighed at least 500 pounds.

So I pushed myself up out of the new indentation I’d been smooshed into, brushed some of the dirt out of my eyes with my hand.

OK, this was embarrassing. But I had a monster to help kill.

I started to run after it, pulling my mom’s frying pan out of my inventory, and rushing towards it. I wasn’t fast, but it turned out I was kind of nimble, and before I knew it I was scrambling up one of the long, angular legs of the monster, and straight up its spine.

I got to the top of the monster’s head, I looked down on Teddy as he was shooting yet another arrow at the monster. I hadn’t asked, but he didn’t seem to run out of arrows. That meant that his quiver was imbued by the aliens or the game.

I brought the frying pan down on the monster’s head as hard as I could. WAP!

The blow bounced off the first time, but the monster did reel in pain. The fact that I’d caused it pain only egged me on. So I took another swing down, trying to put even more of my daunting gnome strength into it, and smashed right through the carapace of the monster's skull.

Yes!!!

That went way better than I thought it would. I tried to pull the pan out of the hole I made, but it was stuck.

Ewww…

I pulled really hard, setting my feet wide, really putting my back into it, I wrenched it this way and that, until finally my mom’s frying pan came loose. It had copious amounts of monster-goo dripping off of it.

Again, ewww…

I looked down, and not only could I see down into the thing’s skull, but at the monster's actual brain. Wicked gross. But in no time a thick goo rose up out of the monster’s skull like a toilet overflowing.

OK, that went well. But the damn thing was still up and running, taking swipes at Teddy. Luckily, Teddy was pretty nimble on his feet, dodging, ducking, and yet still firing his arrows.

There had to be something else I could do. I doubted that if I dropped to the ground and tried to beat on the monster’s feet with my frying pan that it would do any good. No, I needed to stay up here and work on what I’d just accomplished. To expand it!

I needed to make the hole bigger! I started beating and bashing at the fractured carapace, causing chunks of it to drop down into the gooey brain of the monster. And yet, the monster just kept on going.

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What the fuck? Takes a licking but keeps on roaring.

And then, a really bad, stupid idea, fluttered into my head.

I didn’t think about it too much. I just held onto my mom’s frying pan, shimmied to the edge of the hole I’d bashed into the skull, and then jumped on in.

***

Okay, it was dark inside the monster’s brain. Definitely no pretty bioluminescence, and the hole I made in the top of the skull only let a few dim rays in. The actual brain matter I was now sunk all the way into was pretty thick, and everything around me kind of pulsed. I imagined that was because of the monster’s circulatory system. They had a brain, so there was blood flow. Or was it ichor flow?

I didn’t think about it too long. Jesus, I should have that printed on a shirt.

What I did was I started to turn, and throw my arms out, and try to squish into every bit of the brain I could, trying to swing my mom’s frying pan to-and-fro. I could feel when I’d made enough of the area I was in into a chunky, salsa-like substance. So then I took a few more steps and started the process all over again.

Mort, the mini monster brain blender.

It was good I didn’t have to breathe anymore.

I could feel the monster lurch as it was fighting, and it was screaming a lot more than it had. which was pretty much the only thing I could hear. And it was deafening—like really, really loud.

Then the thing started to sway more and more, as its screaming and screeching stopped, and then… the world just seemed to drop.

I felt and heard a massive boom. And I was knocked onto my ass.

Besides not having to breathe, I seemed to be pretty impervious to harm—given that I’d been smashed into the ground a few times already and was no worse for wear. But I really wanted the hell out of this creature’s brain. It was dead. I didn’t feel any more pulses in the brain matter, so I assumed that meant that the heart had stopped pumping blood flow.

So, after I put my frying pan back into my inventory, I looked around until I saw a little light streaming in. That’s where the hole was that I’d made in the thing’s skull.

The good thing was, I didn’t have to try to climb up too much. The monster had fallen onto its side, and now I could just crawl over to where the hole was. It was still pretty high up, but luckily I had plenty of brain matter left to use as stepping stones. This time, instead of trying to squish it and make it into salsa, I gently climbed it, like it was packed snow under my feet and hands.

It was good I didn’t weigh much. I didn’t think I would’ve gotten too far with this tactic if I had weighed much more. Before I knew it, my hands were gripping the edge of the hole I’d bashed into the monster’s skull, and was pulling myself up, up, up on out of the monster’s brain-pan.

Before I could bring my head up out of the monster’s murky depths, something grabbed hold of me, and started yanking me out. Fear flashed in me for a second, and then I realized that it was Teddy who had hold of me, dragging me out of the monster’s skull.

He pulled me out, laughed out loud as he looked at me, and set me down on the ground. I lay there for a moment. I wasn’t winded, since I don’t breathe. But I felt like I needed to lay there for a minute,

I’d earned it.

“Mort, you crazy fucking bastard… that was wicked gross.”

I chuckled. “You have no idea.”

He stood there, staring down at me, shaking his head. “You’re gonna need another shower.”

I started pulling myself up off the ground and laughed. “Again, you have no idea.”

Once I was on my feet, I pulled up my stats box. Last night I was a level one gnome, with level one speed, level one strength, NA mana, etc, etc…

But now, I was a level two gnome, with level 2 strength. My speed was still just a one, but my mana had risen to a 1 now.

I looked over at Teddy, and pulled up his stats box. He’d gained an entire level in several areas since I looked at him before we’d left.

It wasn’t scientifically proven, or anything, but I was pretty sure that it meant that we could level up in this game. That this nightmare we were living in, was indeed a game.

At least that made this something simple. The first rule of living through a video game: level the fuck up.

I was just going to have to persuade Ellie, Wood, and Oz—when I actually saw him again—that this was what we needed to do.

A good sized bag fell from the hole in the monster’s head, and landed on the ground, gold coins scattering onto the ground from the open top of the bag.

Huh…

Teddy walked over, picked up the bag and then brought it over and handed it to me. “Seeing that you went monster skull diving.”

A small, awkward laugh escaped my mouth.

“Thanks.”