The steep decline almost had me tumbling head over heels. I slowed my pace, trying hard not to slip on the scattered stones. My face wasn’t exactly the prettiest, but I did like everything where it was. Something told me sliding down a hill on my face wouldn’t do me any favors in that department.

I neared the tunnel and my jog turned into a walk. I panted a little as I squinted at the shuffling shapes in the growing gloom. They were oddly shaped and made strange clacking noises. I was so close now I could see they were the size of a large dog but had twice as many legs. It was the barbed tails and pincers that had me skidding to a halt though.

I stared at the creatures so hard I thought my eyes might pop out. They were enormous scorpions. Creatures that were just as out of place in the world I knew as the blasted toilet crocs were. What the hell was I, and my measly sexy-time whip, supposed to do against three gigantic scorpions?

Fuck you, Gordon, wherever you are.

Part of me wanted so badly to run. To turn my ass around and hightail it back to Sob. If the bastard horse was even still where I’d left him. Stella was in there though. I wasn’t going to face this fucked-up world without my girl.

I grabbed my whip, flicking it out as I charged toward the creatures. The nearest one saw me and hissed as it scampered around to face me, pincers raised high and clacking. A word flashed above the scorpion’s head along with a long red bar.

Minor brown scorpion.

Yeah, right. ‘Minor’ my ass.

The whip struck the scorpion's head with a satisfying thunk. The little thrill that buzzed through me was dashed away by the tiny drop in what I assumed was its health bar. Seriously, I might as well have not hit it all if that was all the damage it would do.

The scorpion’s friends skittered around, snapping their pincers, and flexing their venomous tails. They stood behind the first like a pair of muscular bouncers at a club. It was just me against three heavily armored beasts and all I had was an impractical whip. Where the fuck had Gordon stashed his shotgun?

I lashed out again, missing by a hair as I backed away from them. They skittered after me on their too many legs. The first scorpion lunged at me, its tail striking out with deadly accuracy. I dove to avoid the strike, wincing when my masterful barrel roll ripped the wound on my arm open again. I spun; my whip raised high above my head. The boss scorpion charged again and I brought the leather strap down with enough force to jar my arm.

Critical hit!

The wonderful golden words vanished as quickly as they had appeared. The scorpion’s health bar dropped by a third and for the first time, I thought I might actually have a chance. I yelped and contorted my body to avoid the beast's next strike. I moved in a weird shuffling dance. Twice the beast managed to hit me, but they were glancing blows.

With each hit, my eyes were drawn to the bar in the top left of my vision. I hadn’t really noticed it there before as if it only appeared when I focused on it. It looked exactly the same as the bar above the scorpions and I knew what that meant. If all the red vanished, I was a dead man.

My arm was aching, and my chest felt like someone was jabbing at it with something sharp. I had to do something quickly or I was going to be too exhausted to go up against the pair of scorpions that were hanging back. I had no idea why they were doing that at all but given how much I was struggling with just one, I was insanely grateful for their reticence.

Focus, Joe.

I eyed the beast's health bar again. One more critical strike and the thing would be dead. Stella’s pained whine made me falter, my eyes flicking toward the mouth of the old mining tunnel. The armored asshole took advantage of my distraction, lashing out with its barbed tail. I screamed, clutching at my leg as I fell back on my already bruised ass.

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My health bar dropped to half. A little dark green skull appeared beside it. Somehow, I didn’t think that was a good thing. My stomach turned over and I rolled to the side, hurling up nothing but bitter bile.

The scorpions darted forward, circling me before I could haul my ass off the hot dusty ground. They hissed and clicked and jabbed at me with their pincers. Each stab stole a chunk of my already dwindling health.

It wasn’t fair. I’d survived the toilet croc’s invasion and now I was going to be taken out by a rabid pack of enormous arachnids.

Well, if I was going down, I was going to take at least one of these bastards with me.

I dropped my whip and snatched the scorpion nearest to me. It squealed as my hands circled its bulbous tail. I swung it like it was a baseball bat, but I wasn’t aiming at a ball. I slammed the thing into its brethren over and over, sometimes hitting the ground instead. After a few strikes, the scorpion's health bar flashed and vanished. The thing hung from my hands, limp and lifeless. With a horrible squelching noise, the tail separated from the rest of it leaving the bulbous tail in my hands.

I stood there, my arms shaking as I panted for breath. The others came after me, their health bars only partially lowered by the battering from their dead brother. I stumbled back, my own health taking another hit as a wave of nausea swept over me. The little green skull flashed, and my health dropped again, flickering dangerously close to empty.

I couldn’t hear Stella anymore and the thought of her lying in the cave, her body mangled by these horrid eight-legged beasts had me raging like I never had before. A pincher snipped near my feet. I bellowed and slammed the broken-off stinger into the other one's back, breaking through its hard exoskeleton. The scorpion screeched and writhed. I yanked the tail fragment out and stabbed the beast over and over until it toppled over, shifting and flexing in death throes.

A smile split my face. Two down, one to go. I turned, searching in the darkness for the floating name that would show me where the beast was.

My scream broke the silence of the night as its barbed tail punched into my thigh. My knees buckled. The ground rushed up at me. My health bar and the skull beside it flashed in quick succession. I was done for. This was it. My guts screamed and cramped viciously against the scorpion's venom, but I couldn’t curl up the way I wished I could. I lay there, on the hard ground, paralyzed. My finger twitched.

The scorpion scuttled toward me, its pinchers snipping beside my face. All I could do was watch it come.

I should have let the Crocs find me. At least that would have been a quick death. I closed my eyes as the thing came at me, bracing myself for what was to come.

A splattering of warm jelly hit my face. I coughed and retched, trying to rid my mouth of the vile stuff. I tried to wipe it away, but I still couldn’t move. My health bar began to fade. I felt tired. So tired. The comfort of the void wrapped me like a warm blanket.

A bright blue light flashed from somewhere far away, so bright it punched through my closed eyelids.

A loud snort sounded by my ear. I blinked away some of the gunk and looked up at the hulking shadow of Sob.

“Sob? What happened?”

The horse ignored me, his hooves just barely missing my head as he clomped past me into the cave. I tried to watch him, but my head was stiff and wouldn’t move. The same flash of blue light lit up the cave. I closed my eyes against the blinding flare. A moment passed and then I was slammed by a hot furry bundle of dog.

“Ease up, Stella,” I said. “I can’t breathe.”

I didn’t know how long I was stuck lying there on the hard ground, covered in the innards of a scorpion. My eyes kept flicking to my health bar. It had been empty but now it was half full and the green skull had been replaced by a little lightning bolt. A white line circled the bolt of lightning, slowly getting shorter and shorter. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what it meant. I was stuck here until the circle was gone completely.

I lay there, looking up at the blanket of stars as my mind wandered. Stella calmed down and snuggled up beside me, as tightly as she could. Sob returned to stand over me, blocking out a large chunk of the stars. I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or standing watch. I frowned. There was a strange splotch of glowing blue goop on the horse's muzzle. Was that some of the scorpion innards? Was I glowing like that?

I couldn’t seem to sleep in my paralyzed state. It would have been much easier if I could. Instead, I lay there pondering the ridiculousness of what had happened. I’d decided this was not a coma dream. Granted, I don’t know much about that stuff, I’m no doctor after all, but surely there wouldn’t be so much agonizing pain if I was.

No. This was more like an alien invasion. Not like the kind you read about in books, or see on the big screen, but some sort of monstrous attempt to take out humankind.

And, unlike the stories, this time, they might succeed.