Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Little Helper, being the over eager idiot that he was, came into the cabin swinging blindly, not bothering to look directly beside him as I ran over and started taking mad slashes and stabs into his body, leaving a dozen wounds that gushed like a keg that’d been given the buckshot treatment.

  I knew that that wouldn’t be enough though, and right as he went to come about with a swing I landed a hefty left hook into his jaw, knocking him out cold as what little life that could’ve kept him conscious flooded out of him.

  +3 Blade Skill

  Blade Skill: 6/100

  Level Progression: 30/150

  I’d done it, with barely any time left on the clock, in fact it was “Oh fuck!”

  HEALTH: 16/100

  You have successfully applied a Bandage to yourself.

  Bleeding stopped.

  Removed: Bandage

  Great job there sport, never knew you had it in you. Seriously. Never. To the point where it’s actually annoying that you saved yourself. Now I’m angry. You arsehole.

  Suddenly I was on my knees patting the dying but not dead Little Helper down like a TSA agent with nothing to lose.

  “Why don’t you have a bloody first aid kit you muppet!”

  And that’s when I realised how much of a bitch I was being. The kid was dying, and all I was concerned about was saving myself.

  “Ugh…”

  You have successfully applied a Bandage to Satan’s_LittleHelper.

  Bleeding stopped.

  Removed: Bandage

  Hey look, you saved someone, but are you a doctor? I didn’t think so. I hope they sue.

  “Now, I’m going to leave you here, but I’m also going to take what I want, alright?”

  I waited for a response for a while before realising that he couldn’t without using the chat function and… well… let’s just say that people who litter the front of their Home Base’s with torches don’t tend to know all the functions.

  The kid was useless though, there wasn’t a damn thing worth anything on him or anywhere else in his cabin.

  So, starving and mostly bled out, I wandered outside, my legs barely holding me up as I drunkenly stumbled along the grass like it was made of marbles.

  Obvious solution was to call for help from the guys, but something about being a real, proper leader without the need to answer to anyone else gave me even more arrogance than normal, and I’m pretty arrogant.

  What? I can admit it.

  Anyway, positive that I was going die in the woods I continued my weak scramble until, just out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a buck.

  He was beautiful. Huge antlers, good coat, he’d clearly been a well-fed boy.

  Made it all the more difficult to pull out my rifle and put him down.

  Chapter Four

  As I sat hunched over the body of my kill I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to do something like that in RL.

  Not the whole thing of course, I’d probably have taken him home instead of ripping into his warm flesh with my fingers in the middle of the forest, but hunting. Real hunting.

  Don’t get me wrong, out there I’d done my fair share of piggin’ and fishin’, even got a roo once, but to me there was something different about deer and things of the like.

  Something about going out with a bow or a rifle to sit out in a forest for hours at a time just waiting sounded so serene to me, beautiful even.

  With piggin’ half the time the meat’s no good, and you can’t do a whole lot with its skin either, whereas with something furry you had the opportunity to not only pack a freezer with a few weeks’ worth of meat, but also the ability to make clothing, blankets, or whatever else out of the pelt.

  Meh, enough boring RL crap.

  By the time I’d decided to start my way back home I’d collected a good deal of meat from Frederick, that’s what I’d decided to name the buck, as well as some hide that, to my despair, needed a tanning rack before I could start making leather.

  I gotta say that that was something that really annoyed me about being ‘new’ again. All of a sudden I was in a place where I was being constantly reminded of what I did and didn’t have as a result of being on the bottom rung on the ladder of success.

  Heh, kinda like going from high school to uni.

  Anyway, I spent the entire trip back to Home Base bitchin’ and moanin’ about how much it sucked to not have everything in the world, and when I did get back that only got worse.

  Build more beds to make more room for your citizens.

  “So did you get the iron?” Paul asked hopefully as I approached.

  “No ‘Hello Zoey’? No ‘Why’re you covered in blood Zoey?’ What’s the point of coming back if you-”

  “That’s a no then?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” I said, instantly losing all the passion in my voice, “How’s things here?”

  “Things are… holding. Nothing really interesting happened. You just missed Chad, when he came back and saw you weren’t here he went back out to get more wood.”

  “And the ladies?”

  “There’re doing well, but I’d say it’s time we get some beds up.”

  “Sounds good to me, where’s the wood being kept?”

  “Just inside, Chad built a chest and started storing it all in there. I think he’s already converted a good chunk of it into planks and stuff, and I chucked as many plant fibres in there as I could.”

  “Thanks.”

  Yet another reminder that working with people was awesome, suddenly I had all the information I needed and there wasn’t any of the searching through logs and notifications that came along with working with the AI.

  “Holy crap…” I muttered once I got inside and discovered the chest which was filled with what looked to be a forest’s worth of wood and grass.

  “Paul!?” I called out, the idea of trying to sort through all that gear giving me more than a bit of anxiety, “Hey Paul! You wanna come in here a second?”

  “Yeah?” Paul replied from where he stood right behind me, “What you need?”

  I did my best to hide the fact that he’d startled me before finally turning to face him, “I reckon you should make the beds, just do the ones we need so that we can start working through the citizen backlog.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Well for starters I’ll be getting all this meat and hide in the fridge, then I’ll be heading out to fetch Chad before midnight hits. We got a whole lotta digging to do, and that’s damn hard when you’re dead.”

  Chapter Five

  It felt weird running away from home as soon as I got back, but something about hanging around while Chad was out bushwhacking didn’t seem right, especially with how close the moon was getting to the middle of the sky.

  Oooh, midnight’s a-comin’. You think you’ll be able to handle the horrors of the night that come down upon you once that little hand hits twelve? If you do then you’re a moron. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

  I picked up my pace as the feeling of impending doom set in.

  Dinos I can handle, people I can deal with, but what got released throughout the world at midnight was enough to make anyone lockdown for the night.

  I guess that was the point, have a set period between when the moon was highest and the sun came up where no one dared go outside.

  It also acted as a Helluva incentive to get barricaded.

  “Chad!” I called out, my hopes of not getting found by other players getting drowned out by the fear of getting trapped outside, “Chad!”

  The forest stayed silent and the path ahead devoid of life.

  “Chad you fucking idiot! Where are you!?”

  Still no answer.

  “Cha-!”

  “What!?”

  I spun about in relief as I spotted Chad standing not five feet from me, “What… just come on, it’s almost midni-”

  We were too late, the air raid siren had started blaring throughout the game. />
  You’re in trouble now.

  “Run!” I shouted before bolting back toward Home Base like a cheetah without bothering to check if Chad was behind me.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “What am I doing out here!? What are you doing out here!? Didn’t you see the time?”

  “Yeah, so? It’s… oh… yeah…”

  It was at that moment that I realised what had happened, it was something that had happened to me a few times since respawning as well.

  “You forgot you were a freshie, huh?” I asked with the best laugh I could muster while looking out for the glowing green eyes that signalled our certain death.

  “It’s not that I forgot, I just kinda… yeah, yeah, forgot works.”

  I got what he was saying. It wasn’t like he wasn’t aware that he wasn’t as well armed or anything, it was just that he’d forgotten the fear he was supposed to have when that siren came.

  As I said, everyone hid when midnight rocked around, but those of us who’d been alive a while normally had enough firepower on us that we could at least make it home without having to run like a man on fire.

  “Where are the others?” I asked, finally noticing the Js weren’t a part of my entourage.

  “They ran back home a few minutes ago, I figured I’d trail up the rear, catch any stragglers.”

  “Heh, I’d say good call, but…” I trailed off as I ground to a halt and Chad joined me at my side.

  We were barely fifty metres from home, if that, and that’s where the game had decided to leave us hanging.

  “You see ‘em?” I asked as I slowly knocked an arrow and tried to count the green lights that surrounded us.

  “Mmhm… What’re we gonna do?”

  “In my experience we wait until you come busting through the trees with a flamethrower.”

  “Great, well I’m afraid I left my cloning machine at home Zo,” Chad spat angrily, “any other plans?”

  I swallowed hard and took aim at the nearest one, “I think this is where we die.”

  Chapter Six

  I see you’ve met the Muties, and no, that ain’t referring to their lack of a tongue. Creatures of the night that aren’t quite human, aren’t quite dino. They were cooked up in a lab between periods of what I can only assume was methamphetamine downtime and are released throughout the world as a constant reminder that… Point is that they’re a whole crazy bucket of fun, truly, and all they want is a hug.

  The Muties had started muttering amongst themselves as they circled us, the intelligence of the dino in them being the only thing stopping them from charging us all at once.

  “What are they waiting for?” Chad hissed, “We should be dead by now.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Just shut up, alright? Let me think.”

  “What thinking do you need to do? We’re not exactly well armed for something like this.”

  That’s when I remembered the rifle.

  However, by sheer dumb luck, that’s when one of the Muties decided to take a chance, lunging at me with its raptor-like legs and its mouthful of razor sharp teeth.

  I was quicker on the draw though, landing a single quick shot through the monster’s face, blowing off a good chunk of its scaly cheek, stunning it but not quite putting it down.

  “Go, now!”

  Chad didn’t need to be told twice, in fact I don’t think he really needed to be told once based on the fact that the second I’d opened my mouth he’d bolted.

  I was trailing behind though.

  Didn’t hurt my feelings at all.

  Honest.

  An unholy scree ripped through the forest and I was quickly pulled away from my brief moment of sadness at being left alone.

  “Keep running!” I shouted before spinning around and taking another few quick shots at the sprinting Muties, successfully managing to catch one in the kneecap causing it to collapse in a bloodied mess on the ground as I turned back around and restarted my own sprint.

  Chad was nowhere in sight at that point, so it was just myself and the Muties running and leaping through the forest, the evil creatures finally starting to catch up as my useless human legs started to give way.

  “Over here!” Chad yelled from beside me, “Quickly!”

  I blindly turned to where I hoped his voice was coming from and picked up the pace as much as I could as the Muties struggled to keep their footing with the sudden change in course.

  “Almost there!” Chad called out again, “Just keep running!”

  I still couldn’t see him in the darkness, and to make matters worse I started seeing more green eyes lighting up ahead of me.

  Then it happened, the ground just disappeared and I fell down a good few feet before landing on my arse as the moon disappeared from view and the sound of something wooden being crafted landed in my ears alongside the angry screams of the Muties just above me.

  “Chad?” I asked hopefully, the pitch-black hole I was in not entirely dissimilar to a trap I’d fallen into a few months back, “Chad?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” he responded with a sigh of relief as he plopped down beside me, “Took your time, didn’t you?”

  I laughed at that and looked to where I hoped he sat, “Well I thought you’d gone and abandoned me, didn’t I?”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I said ‘Run’ and you were gone. I mean come on, do you really think it’s fair to assume that I’d just magically know you’d buggered off to dig a hole for us to hide in?”

  Chad stayed quiet for a few seconds as he thought over his answer before letting out an entirely too confident “Yes. Why would I ditch you? Not like they’re raptors or anything that you can handle, it’s bloody Muties.”

  “Speaking of,” I said as I looked up at the small amounts of dust that fell down on our heads as the Muties started smashing the wood, “I think we should start burrowing our way home.”

  “What about the subterranean terror?”

  Chad was always so creative.

  “Subterranean terror down here, terranean terror up there. We stay we die, we leave we die. I think we should just dig.”

  “Alright… but you owe me one.”

  “Try fifty,” I laughed, “how about I make you second in command?”

  “Won’t that piss Paul off?”

  “Everything pisses Paul off. He’ll just have to get over it.”

  “Aah,” Chad let out as he started digging in the direction of our Home Base, “someone’s still bitter.”

  “Shut up. You’re just jealous ‘cause he’s straight and you can’t snatch him out from under me like the last one I dumped.”

  “Didn’t he do the dumping? And trust me, most everyone’s just a little bi.”

  I knew he’d tacked that last bit on there in a bid to try and deflect from the fact that I was about to claw his face off, and despite myself I let him.

  Fact is Chad was always quick to speak, slow to think, which made him a pretty great friend now that I think about it. Especially considering that he couldn’t lie to you for more than a few seconds before bursting at the seams and spilling truth nuggets all over the shop.

  “Hey Chad?” I said after a solid five minutes of silence between us.

  “Yeah Zo?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Naw,” he replied with the same voice he used when he spoke to puppies, “fuck you too, fuck you too.”

  Chapter Seven

  I wish I could say that we made it back and everything was dandy.

  But things was not dandy.

  They was not dandy indeed.

  “What’s that?” Chad asked as a crashing sound echoed through our little tunnel.

  Without much thinking, I turned around, an action that took significantly longer in a crawling position, and saw what had caused the sound.

  “Dig, dig, dig!” I practically shrieked as a set of glowing green eyes locked with mine and a shrill roar screamed through the tunnel.

 
; “Shoot it!” Chad yelled back at me like I needed to be told.

  The thing crawled quickly, and I mean fuckin’ horror movie Japanese ghost girl quickly, and even with my shots locking it down in place every few seconds it was still gaining.

  It wasn’t until I ran out of bullets and started the painfully long reload that I remember what I had on me.

  I panicked, alright?

  The Mutie was barely ten feet from us before I stuck up the pile of dirt, sealing off Chad and I from the rest of the tunnel and giving us a few more seconds before it could catch up.

  Whoo-wee, you’ve done messed up there. Let me guess, you went underground to escape the big bad thing and, in an idiotic attempt to save yourself, you piled a bunch of dirt up behind you in order to keep the beasty at bay? Yeah, here’s the thing genius, you need oxygen, and unless you plan on setting your roots and growing up through the ground you’ve got about thirty seconds before you’re spacing out and seeing the light.

  “What did you do!?” Chad growled, each of his words more measured than the last.

  “I didn’t see you coming up with any bright ideas, did I? Just keep digging!”

  “And what!? Hope we find a cavern? No way, I’m getting out.”

  “No don-!”

  I was too late though, he’d already started digging upward and, in a few short seconds, he’d dug up enough to let air flow in along with a horde of harrowing screams.

  “Fill it in!” I shouted as the dirt behind us started to give way under the ravenous clawings of the Mutie.

  That’s when Chad and I both got a hard lesson in gravity, the dirt pile he’d desperately tried to clog the hole with collapsing in on him and trapping us in a one-by-two metre space.

  Chad had all but surrendered, falling out of his crawling position into a tired sitting one, but I was less willing to accept death.

  I didn’t bother telling Chad what I was doing and simply started digging around his pile with my axe, dropping its durability like a motherfucker, but smashing through the dirt like a lightsaber through B1 battle droids.