“Careful!” Betty screeched as Joe ran over yet another large rock.
“I’m sorry! They’re everywhere!” Joe’s hands clamped on the wheel as he navigated the treacherous, rock-littered wasteland.
The cracked desert stretched out for miles. The flat, desolate earth fractured into long spiderwebs of fissures as if something giant had crushed it centuries ago. Heat waves rippled across the surface, distorting the view into a surreal haze.
“Sure, but maybe you could try avoiding them,” Betty said. “You know, that way my tyres don’t feel like they’re doing the cha-cha.”
Joe huffed. The cha-cha? Are you a 100 years old? He thought as he steered around a particularly jagged boulder. “Noted. By the way, now that we’re moving, I’m pretty sure that guy in the rift said we need to level up fast. Which probably means achieving things… or killing things.”
“Kill things!” Betty repeated with an unsettling amount of enthusiasm.
Joe cast her dashboard an uneasy glance. Why do you sound excited about that? Was she at the mercy of this Infernal Resonance thing? One problem at a time.
They continued across the wasteland, Betty’s tyres crunching over dried fragments of something that looked like plant roots but had long since shrivelled into dust. The sun, if it could be called that, hung low, as if they were driving through a permanent sunset.
The ground began to dip quickly, a steep descent into what appeared to be a canyon Joe was certain hadn’t been there moments before. He eased off the gas, staring ahead in concern.
“Well, that’s new,” he said.
The cracked earth sloped down, funnelling them into a cavernous road that carved into the red rock. Massive stone walls rose on either side, towering above the car and blotting out the fiery sky.
The red sandstone shimmered with streaks of black, lines of dark minerals snaking through the rock like fossilised lightning strikes. The deeper they went, the thicker the foul, decaying stench got. Joe swallowed, fighting off the urge to gag.
“Lovely neighbourhood,” Betty quipped.
Joe rolled down his window, immediately regretting it as the smell intensified. “Yeah actually, let’s keep the windows up. This place smells like a rotting dumpster fire.”
“Thankfully, I can’t smell anything. Just keep your eyes on the road before you roll me into another rock,” Betty retorted.
Her full beams flicked on automatically as they delved deeper, illuminating the walls with a yellow glow.
As they descended, Joe examined the stone walls, only to recoil in horror. Scuttling along the walls were things that looked like oversized cockroaches, each the size of his fist. Their shells glistened in the dim light, slick and shiny, their legs skittering in chaotic patterns as they climbed.
Their antennae twitched, detecting the vibrations of Betty’s engine. Joe finally noticed on his mini-map a large wave of red. There must have been hundreds of them.
“Ugh, look at the size of those things!” Joe grimaced. “They’re huge!”
“Hey, at least they’re not in here. Besides, maybe you’ll get to ‘level up’ by squashing a few of them. Just give the word, and I’ll help you get ‘em with my tyres,” Betty offered.
“You’re going to drive up the walls are you?” Joe replied.
“I can give it a go.”
Joe shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the road as it narrowed further, barely leaving any space for Betty between the jagged red walls.
“This place getting smaller, or am I just feeling extra claustrophobic?” Betty said, her headlights catching glimpses of skittering cockroach legs that disappeared into the cracks as they passed.
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“Just hang on. It has to open up soon.” Joe replied. They continued like this for a while, the only sounds were the hum of Betty’s engine and the distant, echoing scuttle of unseen creatures. The rotten, sulfuric air clung to everything until Joe was practically breathing through gritted teeth.
At last, after what felt like miles, the canyon began to widen. Joe let out a long, steady breath as the cavern opened up, offering a little more room. He grinned, patting the dashboard. “There we go, Betts. Bit of breathing room.”
“I’m not a dog, Joe.”
“Yep. Sorry.” Joe pulled his hand back. He was still getting used to this whole ordeal and wasn’t quite sure how to act.
Their relief was seemingly short-lived as Betty’s brakes slammed on, jerking Joe forward as the car came to an abrupt halt.
“Whoa, Betty, what gives?” Joe asked, looking at her dashboard as if it might hold some clue. Nothing appeared on his map—no enemies, no obstacles, just the endless stretch of red rock ahead.
“What do you see?” he asked, straining to peer through the windshield.
Betty didn’t answer. Her engine revved, growing louder, almost like she was building up for something. Then, with a startling thud, something landed on her roof.
Joe jolted, looking up. “Did… did something just hit us?” he asked, but before he could react, another heavy thump echoed from the roof, then another, and then another. The sound grew until it was like a shower of rocks raining down on them.
“Oh, hell no,” Betty snarled. Before Joe could reach the steering wheel, she sped forward, tyres squealing as she sped off, seemingly on her own.
“Betty!” Joe shouted, grabbing the wheel but feeling resistance. She wasn’t letting him steer. The car blazed ahead, bumping and jerking as hundreds of slick, dark shapes tumbled down from the cliff walls, rolling off her roof and hitting the ground in a writhing mass.
Joe could do nothing but watch as hundreds of enormous cockroaches swarmed down the walls and landed in front of them. Their legs wriggled as they climbed over each other, their bodies glistening with that strange phosphorescent slime from the cavern walls.
With a maniacal growl, Betty barrelled forward, ploughing straight through them. Shells crunched as if she was stomping on giant snails, and notifications began popping up in Joe’s field of vision:
Achievement Unlocked: Betty the Bulldozer! You squished a roach. 5XP gained.
Joe blinked, shaking his head. “No, no, no, not now!” he muttered, blinking at the notification, but the achievements kept appearing.
Achievement Unlocked: Betty the Bulldozer! You squished a roach. 5XP gained.
Achievement Unlocked: Betty the Bulldozer! You squished a roach. 5XP gained.
As they raced over the swarm, the notifications flooded his vision, obscuring everything as more roaches rained down on Betty from above. She hit the crawling masses with a bumping rhythm like they were speeding over oversized speed bumps.
“Betty, are you seeing this?!” Joe yelled, trying to focus on the road despite the virtual text swarming his sight.
“See it? I’m feeling it! They’re practically bathing me in bug guts!” Betty’s voice vibrated through her speaker system with a strange satisfaction as she pulsed her engine in quick bursts and sped up even more.
The achievements continued to pop up relentlessly.
Achievement Unlocked: Betty the Bulldozer! You squished a roach. 5XP gained.
Achievement Unlocked: Betty the Bulldozer! You squished a roach. 5XP gained.
“Betty, slow down! I can’t see!” Joe said, frantically blinking at the virtual text as the cockroaches poured down from above, carpeting the car until they felt almost buried.
“No way! We’re on a roll!” she shouted.
Joe could barely keep his eyes on the path. The smell had become unbearable and he was sure what could only be described as “cockroach juice” was leaking through her interior air vents.
“Betty!” he choked out, “This is disgusting!”
“You’re welcome!” she replied, unapologetic as her wheels gripped through the slick mass, leaving a long, roach-coated trail behind them.
Betty skidded out of the narrow canyon, lurching into a wide, bowl-shaped clearing in the middle of the cavernous structure. Joe braced himself, blinking the last of the notifications out of his vision and taking in the open space, grateful to finally be out from under the overhangs—and away from the endless rain of cockroaches.
For a moment, it was silent, the only sound the faint grind of Betty’s idling engine.
Joe saw in the centre of the bowl what appeared to be an enormous, dark boulder, almost blending into the background. Joe tried to compose himself, attempting to slow his heart rate down.
A small part of him felt that thrill he felt when he exploded that crab-man, an excitement that he couldn’t quite place. It was only when he looked slightly closer to the boulder, that something seemed…off.
“That… doesn’t look right,” he said.
“No kidding. That’s no rock.”
The “boulder” shifted, and a chitinous rustle scraped the cavern floor as it lifted on six massive legs. Two long antennae unfurled from its head, twitching as if sensing the air. Joe could now see on his mini-map the size of it, it took up almost half of his screen.
“Oh, no.” he whispered, as the creature’s body unfolded to its full height, easily the size of a house, towering over them.
Every grotesque detail of its ghastly form was visible in the light—the ridges of its carapace were rough and cracked, a sickly sheen coating its black, oily shell. Its mandibles dripped with a vicious green slime.
“Is that a—?” Betty’s said with revulsion. “A giant cockroach?!”
Joe’s gaze darted above the creature, where a line of glowing text suddenly appeared, hovering in the air: Level 10 Fireroach. No further information. No hint of a weakness or strategy, just its ominous level, which might as well have been a death sentence.
“Level ten?! Betty, we are so, so screwed.”