“ALRIGHT SCUMBAGS, READY TO ATTACK?!”
We all said yes and off we went to kill some weird alien species with a weird alien name.
The village was small and unassuming. It looked like something out of a National Geographic documentary. There weren’t any houses really. Just these yellow huts made out of some kind of wood which looked similar to bamboo. We approached a ridge just outside the village and I got my first look at what was apparently our mortal enemies: the Spittins.
They certainly looked like enemies. They were hulking masses of blonde hair and looked like a group of bigfoots (bigfeet?) with muscles bulging and making weird growling sounds to each other. But they also didn’t really look very dangerous. I didn’t notice any weapons or anything. “Are these the Spittins?” I asked Sergeant Slaughter.
Sergeant Slaughter didn’t react to my question or try to answer it in any way. He didn’t even blink. Instead he did nothing. He just stood there like an idiot. But the twins decided to actually play the game instead of waiting for instructions so they both yelled, and started firing their weapons at the Spittins.
The Spittins ran and hid. I started firing my weapon because, after all, that was how you played One of my bullets hit a smaller Spitten in the chest, who fell down and stopped moving. I felt an inner joy at seeing that it was dead. Nobody wasn’t doing anything I noticed. She wasn’t even watching. Red Bull Kid was firing his gun and screaming a little bit, which I thought was weird but also helped with the atmosphere slightly.
When it was all over, all the Spittens were dead and not a single thing had happened to any of us.
“WELL DONE, SOLDIERS!” yelled Sergeant Slaughter, seemingly awake from his lethargy. “YOU HAVE EARNED THE GRATITUDE OF HUMANITY!”
“That was boring,” said the purple haired twin.
“Too easy,” said the green haired twin.
“Does it get any harder?” Red Bull kid asked Nobody.
“Yes and no,” she replied.
“Meaning. . .what?” I asked.
She gave me a look of utter contempt and stormed off behind Sergeant Slaughter and the twins.
“BACK TO BASE, SOLDIERS! WE NEED TO REST UP!”
The other testers dutifully followed the NPC, but I didn’t. ‘If this is a game,’ I thought. ‘Do I really need to go back with him?’
The thought came seemingly out of nowhere, but it did make sense. This couldn’t just be a rails shooter. It was supposed to be an MMO. The whole point of an MMO was that there were tons of players roaming around, doing whatever they wanted to do. Nobody in the development team said I needed to do what others were doing. I decided to take a closer look at that village we had just obliterated.
I nearly stumbled off the ridge where we had been firing and I walked into the village. The first thing I wanted to look at was the dead Spittins. The one I had killed was lying in the center of the village, curled up in a fetal position. The sound of the wind on the dust created an uncomfortable ambience. I turned the Spittin over with my gun and nearly puked.
It was true that the Spittin was different looking, but it also had a face. It had guts too, that were now hanging out because of what I had done. It’s eyes were white, staring at me with permanent surprise. I used my gun to nudge the corpse a little bit and when it rolled over lifelessly, I felt my last meal coming up, turned away and retched.
“REBO!”
I turned around and a gigantic Spittin had a spear to my throat.
“REBO! BOAL DI NOXA!”
I couldn’t speak Spittin but thought the messaging was otherwise quite clear. I dropped my gun and raised my hands in surrender.
Comments (4)
See all