Exalmex

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Searge? Where are ya? you havent posted in like, 20 years!

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I have the next part of the story on a sheet I printed out, but I can't be bothered to type it all out again. sorry, I'll get around to it.

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Ok. Looks like you can't expect regular replies, because I suppose I'm a bit of an ass. But I'll try to post somewhat regularly.

One slig, one scrab, three paramites and seven mudokons later, the far door closed as the slaughter ended. The other door opened, and some mudokon slaves walked in and started cleaning up the gore, some sobbing as they cleaned up that guy from down the hall. The glukkons watched with gleaming eyes as the window closed. Most of the sligs were trembling; knowing that what would happen to them if they were to be punnished would be like what happened in that pit.
The glukkon turned to his guests. “I hope you all enjoyed my little show” he said, “but now, to business.”
“We all hold prominent footholds in our market – but, could we do better? Could we rise above the competition? Could we, perhaps, rise to the status that RuptureFarms once had? There is a niche in the market, gentleglucks, and I suggest we seize it with an iron fist!”
He waited for a moment. And then another. He looked down at his slig.
“Yeah? Wh- Oh!” The slig said. He slammed his fist down on the table. “With an iron fist! Yeah. Like that.” He stuttered.
The glukkon glared at the slig, then continued, “We can do combined what we could not do divided. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts – join with me, and we can dominate the market!”
He looked over his guests. He had selected them for three things – their general stupidity, their gullibility, and the fact that together they had the funds to do what he had just said. Anyway, it was cheaper than hiring an assassin and forging a will.
The other glukkons looked at him, and he could imagine them all figuring out a plot to rise above the others in the room and get the combined company for themselves. All had no idea that the others were doing the same – all but the host. In turn, they all agreed to his offer.
“Excellent. If you would all sign this paper…”
If this story were a film, then the view would probably zoom out, though the gory pen, through various animal processors, through several employees and slaves, and finally come to the enterance of the facility, revealing the name of the factory.
But I can’t write in binary for you to plug into your computer, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Yes, even the name of the factory.

I sneaked into the hub. Luckily for me, there were handy rocks in front of all the doorways. I peeked from behind the rock. I shot back behind it, suffering a shooting pain for my troubles.
The security had been beefed up. The first obvious thing is that they were standing alert. They must have found their buddy. Then there were more of them. Then I realised the third different thing.
There were slogs in here. Vicious things, they can and will take on a creature many times their size and capability. I could take on about half a dozen of them, but then I’d be full of bullet holes before I could think “I wonder if the guards noticed that?”
What I needed way a way to get into one of the entrances, unnoticed.
Because of some weird universal law I found my self looking for a chandelier rope, but to no avail. What made it even weirder, I didn’t know what a chandelier was.
If I could speak, I could probably distract them. But a paramites mouth, despite the similarities, cannot make the same sounds that a slig’s can. It’s probably because there may be something behind a sligs tentacles, but a paramite’s fingers are their mouths.
Maybe I could take advantage of how alert the sligs were. But what about the slogs?
With some pained dificulty, I bent down, picked up a rock in my mouth and – stoped.
If I could distract the sligs and the slogs, it would be a whole lot easier. I carefully put the rock down and got a slab of meat from my pack.
With my fingernails, I carefully cut the slab into a rock-like shape. It wasn’t a perfect job, because paramite nails are for scooping, but it would do. The, using my fingers as a catapult, I threw it to the other side of the cavern. I heard a damp splat as it hit the floor, then the sound of about a dozen guns clicking and a half-dozen various different barks as the slogs scrambled for the meat. I loped to the next doorway and went through.

Oh yeah, and look out for my sketches, jsut as soon as we can attach our scanner to the computer.

[Splat]

I like it (and i shud for all the waiting I did for it!) Ooh, remaking repturefarms... the plot thickens like jelly!
I strongly recommend as a fellow writer that you come up with a name for the factory yourself. Not doing it makes you seem lazy and if you do that sort of thing it can just get annoying.

I once read this story where the guy wrote something like: "He took a pizza from the fridge. You, the reader, can choose the flavour. Anyway, he put the pizza you have chosen in the microwave. 5 minutes later he removed your pizza and ate it. He liked the flavour you chose..." Basically it went on and on like that for ages. it was without a doubt the worst written thing I have ever come across, which was a shame cus the story itself was pretty good.

Anyway, if you get us to name your factory you're just gonna cause yourself a whole ton of trouble you could definately do without. Exercise some creativity here!

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Whoah! Don't worry, the name is gonna come, just not in that post.

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ok, just warning ya.

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What with people not getting replies from me, they may have given up and left.
So, to try and force life back into the lungs of the thread, I'm gonna post the next chapter I've writen.

I got to the next-
The scrab inside me reared. The air here was musty, and the walls were close. I was struck by a wave of claustrophobia.
I panicked for a moment, turning madly and screeching, trying to find a way out. I got back into the passageway, which was quite roomy, or more roomy that the hole had been!
I took some breaths, and calmed myself. The place had been frightening and cramped, and it had felt as though there was not enough air to breathe! I thought about the scrabs in those cages and the scrablings in their boxes and thought about how they must feel. It must be terrible!
As I was breathing, I realised that the scrablings in my pack had been woken by my screeching, and then I realised that they were trapped too, in my own webbing. I decided to get them out as soon as I could.
I felt quite calm now. I moved back into the small space, preparing for the claustrophobia, knowing that I had to go in there.
I got in, and started panicking again. I almost lost it again. But then I had a strange sensation. I felt different, like a pressure being lifted off of me. I became dizzy, and spots appeared in front of my eyes. I leaned against a wall while I waited for the feeling to pass. And then realised that I was well inside the tunnels now.
I thought I would panic again. But I didn't. On the contrary, I felt more at home now that I had in days. It was cool and moist, dark, quiet and snug between the walls. I wondered why I had been so afraid to be in here before- it was like I had come home!

Bringing back memories of a dense rainforest, teeming with life, and also faintly of a small pen with four walls and a doorway through which food came. But then that memory became even less vivid, overwhelmed by the thick trees, dripping with rain, and full of prey to hunt with the pack. There was a dark place, too, deep in the jungle, made of rotted wood, but strengthened by the memory of what it had been. There was the pack there. The family. There were others, too, and we competed for food and territory, but inside the holy place it was safe for all. There was the pack, and the Other. The Other, and the children, the dozen little ones. Long ago. Gone. Visions of the pack in cages, screeching and hissing for the rest of them. In a cage too small. The pack were taken away from the cage, one by one, but then the other cage came. Eating bad food, with no hunting, no pack, no family. No one. Then the pain, the terrible pain, then - nothing.

I woke up. Then I realised that I had fallen unconscious. I would have pulled myself up, but I was overcome with grief, loneliness and homesickness. I had lost my pack! My Other! My children!
But… I had never had a pack. Or an other, something of a wife. And it was impossible for me to have children.
But the memories had been so vivid!
I pulled myself to my feet. The sorrow, the memories, they were real, but impossible! I am not a paramite, and I never have been.
But something in me had been
I thought about it. Yes! Mayllar had taken a scrab and a paramite, and de-materialised them. It was stupid, he could have taken some flesh and used that. It didn’t have to be much at all! But vykkers are sadists. So, maybe I was seeing the memories of the paramite that he had used. It didn’t make sense, though. The process copied the physical workings and brain processes, not individual memories!
The feeling inside me was terrible, like a huge dark fire in my chest, burning me. But knowing that it wasn’t me who had suffered it made it even worse!
I was resting against the wall, when I heard a sound of fluttering in the darkness. I turned to the noise. It was like lots of little leathery flaps… and squeaking.
Boombats!
I looked around me. Behind was the passage, ahead was only the darkness. When I used my echolocation, I saw two passages, one in the roof and another straight ahead. The passage was even smaller than this one, but I could fit through it with some room for manoeuvring.
I lunged through the passage just as a flock of boombats came through the hole in the ceiling. I used my arms to pull me forward in the cramped tunnel and pushed on all four of my paramite legs to speed through the tunnel. It was dark, but the echolocation guided me through the tunnels. There were several directions I could go, but I was drawn to certain directions. The pain of the bullet wound was awful, as the scab that had formed broke open and oozed blood. The boombats were right behind me, and judging by the odd shaped outcrops I located I guessed that there were several sligs that had come here and been blown up by the boombats terminal stomachs.
I was tiring out fast as I loped through the tunnels, but the boombats keep coming and gaining. My arms were burning and my legs felt like lead and my wound was splitting and I was stumbling and the boombats just kept coming when I collapsed.
It was a painful thing. I missed by target and started tumbling along the passage, suddenly blind because I stopped echolocating, getting bruised and grazed and lacerated by the rocks when I eventually fell down into a pit that came from an outcrop of rock in the path.
The boombats turned along the curved I had gone over. I waited until the flapping died away and then struggled to my feet, fighting the wooziness that was threatening to make me fall unconscious. The pit wasn’t deep, I could get out, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to sleep.
I moved along the room, the floor sticky with my own blood, and started laying web.
I started with the entrance to the pit, sticking it up with web until it was almost sealed, apart from breathing holes. Then, I put some web over my wounds, and there were a lot. I sealed my bullet wound first and then some of the large cuts. I was lucky none of my major veins or arteries had been breached. Then I checked out my pack.
The scrablings looked absolutely terrified. They were yipping and looking around madly like panicked things, but they weren’t injured, because of the springy web. I fed them and myself.
My final job was to make a bed. I laid a layer of web on the floor to stop the rocks from poking into me, and then another layer to make the bed soft. Then I slept, not unconscious, but actually slept for the first time in about a day and a half.

[Splat]

wow... that was a pretty good one. Great emotion at the end and with the flashback-memory thing. Again, it's getting interesting.

One thing I recommend you do is try to use more varied language. Like above,

"I used my arms to pull me forward in the cramped tunnel and pushed on all four of my paramite legs to speed through the tunnel. It was dark, but the echolocation guided me through the tunnels."
Just saying tunnels, tunnels, tunnels can feel pretty bad when you read it. Use different words. ...and pushed on all four of my paramite legs to speed myself forward. It was dark, but my echolocation guided me through the tiny passages."

It does make a lot of difference to the overall effect.

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I spotted that too, but... how many words can you think of instead of tunnels? I could only think of passages, tunnels and holes.

[Splat]

get a thesaurus! Or find one online!

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well... dang, no-one's replying. Bummer.

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Man, this is like a bad habit I can't give up. Sorry to keep forcing this down your throats, but I can't give this thing up. I'll try to write another chapter every week or so, with or without comments, but don't count on it. Here is the next chapter.

When I woke up, it was dark. I wasn’t surprised. The chicks seemed to have fallen asleep, too. I got to my toes, and surveyed the damage.
I was not feeling good. I was not looking good, either. The scrab had a tendency to heal quickly, but not this many wounds. The smaller ones were healed, but I still had lots of cuts, grazes and bruises. But it was nothing that wouldn’t heal. Except for that bullet wound. It was deep, bloody and it had a weird look to it, as though it was becoming infected. But I was lucky it hadn’t penetrated any organs.
I listened for the sound of boombats in the caves outside. Nothing. So I tore up the web separating the crevice I was in to the tunnels, and climbed out. There was still nothing.
I wondered how I would find a way out of the maze. It came from my sense of smell. The air was fresher in one direction, so I decided to go there.
It was a long walk, but uneventful. It left me to my own thoughts, though. I thought about the paramite that had lost its life. Then about the scrab that had done the same. Because it would have. It was taken away from its pack, or not if it was alone. But it was probably put into a cage, tortured by the care given to it by the Magog Cartel. Then, Mayllar probably bought it. And then it was killed in a painful manner.
The memories… I thought about them some more. There was no possible way that I could be remembering them. But I was. A mystery and not one I expected to solve. It was probably a quirk of the process that had made me. But it bugged me to no end.
The labyrinth was chilled as I walked through it. I was anything but comfortable in it. My inner paramite was unsettled, the rainforest they live in is not known to be so cold. The recessive scrab presence offered no help, having been shut down by the claustrophobia. I could survive it, but by no means did I like it. I wondered why it was so cold, when I heard them again.
The approaching boombats were behind me again. I started to pick up the pace, but I didn’t run because of my wounds. Then the panic began. What if I was killed? I would be smeared all over the wall! Then I started running.
I still didn’t run as fast as last time, but the searing began again. What if I collapsed from exhaustion again? What if I died from it? What if that thing was infected?
The ‘bats were closing, and I could not think of a way to keep ahead. I was going to die in a cave, in the pitch black, with-
No… not pitch black. An impression that I had been having for a while now finally dropped into place as Sight, and I realised there was light ahead. Light at the end of the tunnel!
With the inspiration it gave, I ran as fast as I could, with the ‘bats behind me. I could practically feel them now. I got to the source, and realised the light was in shafts, no wider than my toes. I beat on the barrier, but it did not give. I turned around to face the bats, but saw a small green orb in one of the shafts to my left. I stared at it, then reached to pick it up by my mouth. When I tried to retrieve it, I met resistance, and it curved in an arc.
The passage was flooded with light, and I could see that impending doom was a few metres away. I just stood there, shaking, while the boombats approached and then flew right past me.
There were a few dozen, but when they all passed I turned around to see a beautiful silvery landscape, shown up by some of the huge moons orbiting oddworld. The one right in front of me, with a mudokons paw on the front, was shining down onto the side of he temple, through the hall I had just gone through. Oh, odd, it was the best sight I had ever seen, because it meant I was alive! I had survived the awful place I had been in.
The sight was enough to make me just stand there for a few minutes, just admiring it. I noticed a flock of boombats outlined against the moon. Turning around, I made my way back through to the hub.

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I wouldn't call it forcing down our throats, its been a long time since you updated! Still, twas very good, very... inspiring...
I need to read back a little, i've forgotten some of it. Poor paramite! Can't wait for more.

[Munch's Master]

To me, an update for a fic is never forcing it down someone's throat. Hmm, I think I'll go and read all of this today if I have the time. I'll come back with my reply hopefully before tomorrow.

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Amazing! I'm actually doing what I said I would! It's a week later, and I've posted again! Hooray!
Little short chapter, but there will be more, and I'm hoping that this will be one of the shorter ones anyway. It doesn't help that the main character can't talk.

All the sligs in the hub were really hyped up now. I guess they found the mess I left of their brothers in the restroom. I would need to sneak pass them again, but I doubted that the old trick would work again. Looking around, I saw only two doors without lit flint lights above them – one must have been the temple centre and the other the last flintlock area. I waited for while, figuring out a way to distract the guards and slogs.
I realised that if I managed to upset the scrabs in cages out there, I could sneak past. The only way I could do that without the sligs or – I hoped – the slogs not noticing was to echolocate them.
I tried it, making the sound ricochet off the walls into the centre of the hub. The slogs barked in panic, but I don’t think they knew were I was. The scrab cages rattled and screeched, and I decided that the sligs were satisfactorily distracted and ran to the next room.

Greg was studying the map, being the only slig in the hub that could read, when a sound made him look up. The slogs had started going mad, and that was followed by the scrabs in their cages all acting up at once. The other sligs went to sedate the scrabs and calm their slogs, but by chance Greg was watching when a mutant scrab ran between two entrance rocks.
“Good Odd!”, he screamed as he saw the thing run past. The other sligs turned to look at the thing, and all thoughts of laughing at their buddy for swearing so mildly were forgotten as they supplied a barrage of more appropriate curses.
Shawn, one of the quicker sligs and thus the squad’s leader, shouted “After the ****er!”
When Greg looked down at the map and realised where the mutant was going, he screamed “Don’t! Don’t go down that passage!”
When Shawn turned to look at him, his blood ran cold. “Would you care to explain to yourself, fleechbait, as to WHY YOU HAVE DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED MY ORDERS!?”
Greg responded “But that’s the one we were waiting to get. You said going through there now was certain death!”
Shawn hesitated, then deflated, and said “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Heh, I suppose we don’t have to follow the thing, it might as well have committed suicide. We can get its bones for the eggheads to study when the snoozers come and help us out with that area. Good thinking, slurgface.”
Greg, saved from the retribution of Shawn, sighed and looked toward the rock in front of the passage that the creature had gone through.
It probably was a good thing, he thought, that what’s inside was too big to fit through the passages.
He turned back to his work, and thought nothing more of it.

[Splat]

Huzzah, I like it, Exalmex is in for it now!
Trapped between a pack of sligs or a big thing thats nasty enough to scare a pack of fully armed sligs... its gonna be one of those days!

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Sorry this chapter is a little late, but I will try to get the next one up by Saturday just the same. Hey, look! It's really long instead!
Please note, I've had to edit a prior post to conform with the chronology of the story. Maybe you won't notice. Maybe you will. Either way, read the next chapter.


I walked into the new area, the one with the last flintlock. I was very surprised to see it suspended about thirty metres ahead of me. Further ahead, I saw the lever, down at the end of a passage, with a window showing the colours of the early morning.
I stopped, and looked around. It was simple. There was no danger.
It was a trap. I could sense it.
Straining my other five, I tried to detect where the trick was. I was at a passage opposite to the lever one, and between the two was a cavern, with the flintlock suspended above the middle. The walls were too high to climb, so the only way through was ahead.
I wondered if I was prepared. I could be better. My side still ached, possibly worse than before. The chicks were fine, but I was running out of meat. I felt something that suggested I was out of web. I decided I wasn’t, but there was not much I could do about it.
A sound began. It was huge and enveloping. It reverberated off the walls, and became distorted. But the origin was clear – it was some kind of Scrab.
Challenge.
Oh, odd… I had to beat the thing. No tricks, no tactics, I had to kill it in combat!
The thing walked out, and stood right at the other end of the arena, in front of the other passage. It was huge, twice the side of another scrab, blood red all over, scarred but strong. This thing must have been old to have grown so big, and strong to have grown so old. There was no other choice, I had to walk out.
I left the passage. As I entered the cavern, I realised I had stepped on a pressure pad. The grinding of stone behind me told me there was no running.
“Hhruuuuaaaaaarrrrrrrrghhhh” the thing challenged. I recognised the massing of spooce the thing had summoned, meaning that it was ready to use a shred attack.
Howl, the scrab inside me directed.
“Hhiiiiiiiiarrrrrrrrrrrr” I responded. The screeching had hurt my throat, and wasn’t nearly as strong as my opponents. I felt a certain hopelessness.
Something strange happened. The world around me clouded and went out of focus, and I was looking at the world through a red haze. The last thing I did was look at the only clear thing in my sight – the Scrab.

The haze lifted, and I could see nothing but a huge, blinding light. I wondered if I was dead, and this was what had come afterwards. I could vaguely feel something on my arm, and my head didn’t feel right. I decided that the afterlife wasn’t as good as people thought it was, if you could still feel –
PAIN!
Everything clicked into place right then. I was looking down the passage with the flintlock lever, staring right at the newly risen sun. I looked away, and instead at my right arm, which had been torn open at some point, with the flesh just stripped of. I could see the bone!
My eye stung, and I realised I was bleeding into it. It made seeing somewhat difficult, but it didn’t stop me seeing the behemoth on the cavern floor, dead.
Memory started streaming back. It felt as though I was a computer, slowly booting up. I remembered howling and summoning the shred power, then I rushed towards the giant scrab.
We ran towards each other, but when we met I didn’t encounter the amazingly fast flurry of limbs I, watching, was expecting, but we both moved at the same rate. In fact, I moved a little faster. He jabbed at me with his jaw, but I dodged right. When the thing swung round to hit my chest with the tip of its mouth, I backed away and ducked behind it. Seizing my chance, I thrust at its back, but the thing’s skin was very thick and solid, think enough to protect it from bullets from a slig popper. I didn’t break it.
I just pulled my arm out of the back when it swung round again it hit me with the side of its jaw. It felt like being hit by a train, and I was thrown several feet. However, I was falling very slowly, and as I was the Scrab turned and charged at me. In mid flight, I twisted to try to avoid the blow and it caught me on the arm instead. I felt skin and sinew part from each other as it forced its lower jaw through my arm, then nick bone and tear away. I felt it like a pressure, or how a limb is simply known to be somewhere. There was no pain.
As it pulled away with an appreciable fraction of my arm, I finally landed. I flexed to my feet, and tried charging the thing again. My right arm had stopped working, which I doubted was a good thing. Watching it again, anyway. I wasn’t thinking about anything consciously when I was fighting the Scrab, but I must have been thinking because when it brought its mouth to bear I ducked and slid under the thing.
I won’t describe the underside of a Scrab right now. Besides, what was currently occupying my attention was the needle-point feet. In particular, the fact that legs almost as tall as I was were stabbing at me. I stooped and tried to get out, but the legs blocked my way and I had to dodge them, too. I almost did, but one caught my face. It broke one of my fingers clean off! Just drove it through one of the joints and tore it off when it pulled my face into the ground with it. I didn’t much care then, but it’s not a finger I’m ever going to get back.
I finally got out from under the huge monster. I turned to face it, and I jumped at it again. I landed on its back. Pulled now not by a scrab instinct but a paramite one, because the scrab way of thrusting I used my own sharp toes and one working arm to climb up the beast’s back. It started bucking like a irate elum. I held on, digging into the skin on its back and made my way up to the back of the neck.
I twisted my head around as best I could. A paramite’s fingers are spread around the mouth so that it can get at a weak point in the victim’s neck no matter where it attacks from. For bigger creatures, anyway. For the smaller ones, it will simply stab their internal organs or swallow them whole. Either way, I managed to find the mighty Scarab’s jugular. I bit.
It howled again, but this time not the almighty herald of a champion. This time it howled like a mortally wounded animal. I jumped off and backed off from the frantic beast. It’s screeching was an awful noise. It turned around, trying to get me, but the loss of blood was taking it’s effect. Oh, odd, there was blood everwhere! It saw me, and started charging again but it didn’t get far before it stumbled. It uttered it’s death cry, then collapsed in front of me, letting the light from the newly risen sun behind it to stream past the window, lever and corpse. I stood there dazed for a while.
Until I returned to the present. I decided it wasn’t good for my eyes to be staring at the sun like that, and instead lowered my face as I walked towards the lever and then pulled it with a mouth now containing only five fingers.

Greg was smoking a cigarette back in the hub. He felt it helped him calm his nerves. He was, of course, completely wrong, but he smoked them anyway. He wanted to calm down after seeing that beast, being threatened by Shawn, and finding the bodies in the rest room, as well as the one survivor, Doug, absolutely traumatized. It had been a long night, but his shift was nearly over and there would be some more guards coming soon. A few of his comrades had started sleeping already.
A sound began. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but it had a sence of inevitability. It was a grinding of stone on stone. Greg turned to look at it.
The last door, the one leading to the centre of the temple had opened.
After Greg was sure he hadn’t just suffered a heart attack, he woke the sleeping sligs and alerted the other ones. They stared at it for some time.
Eventually, Shawn said, “Well. I guess this means the monster didn’t stop that freak after all.”
He looked around, then murmured, "I hope those heavy snoozers get here soon..."

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Funny, no replies. Oh, well. Have another chapter. My treat.


By this time, I was not in good shape at all. Now, in addition to the bullets in my side, I had an arm that wouldn’t work and a half-finger. On the other hand, I had what was more important than either of those things, and that would be my life. If I didn’t do something about them, though, I would have it shortened. I webbed up my arm with what was left of my web, and now it did hurt, excruciatingly. I couldn’t reach my finger, though. It would have to heal by itself.
What had happened, I decided, was that I had summoned the shred power, despite the fact that I had never done such a thing before. The scrabs gather their own special kind of spooce and use it to make themselves very, very fast. How I had done it, I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to bank on the hope it would happen again.
I fed the chicks and myself, then took some more meat from the huge corpse in the room. I still couldn’t believe I had brought the colossal monstrosity down. But I had, and it restocked my food supplies with just a part of its body. The legs, precisely.
I headed on out, to the sligs that no doubt knew I was there.

When I entered the hub, I entered once again behind a rock. Useful things, they were. Above it, I could see the flints that arched over the entrance to the centre of the temple. Once again, I had to distract the sligs, and couldn’t use the same tricks twice.

Greg, the guard slig, was absolutely miserable. He believed they were all going to be killed in this temple. They had sent a scout force into the centre, but no one had come back yet. Plus, it was only a matter of time until the thing, what the soldiers had dubbed The Slayer, came back and went into the centre itself. He wondered how smart it was, and decided that it was very smart, because he had suspected it had snuck past them not one, but three times. Now, Greg regarded his brothers with a certain respect and understanding, but he knew they were all as thick as two short planks. Nevertheless, they were smarter than animals. If that thing was just an animal, it may have got by twice, but not more. Therefore, he decided it was quite possible that the thing had an IQ larger than the average in the room.
What he wanted more that anything was to get the hell out of there. He was prevented from doing so by the fact that if he deserted, both the Natives and the Magog Cartel would shoot him on sight. So, he hoped for a miracle.
Ed, one of the dumber sligs, said, “Do you think Shorty and Hairy will be back from the centre-“
“Shuttup!” Exclaimed Shawn.

I heard what that slig said about “Shorty and Hairy” and decided that they must have gone through the centre and not come back. So, I decided simply to make a break for it. The slogs might follow me, and the sligs might hit me, but I decided it was the best chance I had. So, I ran.

Half of the Sligs were watching the centre, and the other half were watching the various entrances. They all had their backs to someone else so that they couldn’t be flanked. Their nerves were shot, and they were panicky and dangerous. So, when The Slayer ran to the centre, he was followed by bullets, but Sligs aren’t known for accuracy. Then he was followed by the snarling, drooling slogs, then by the sounds of panicky Scrabs and Sligs. But due to the placements of the rocks, the only doorway not guarded was the entrance, and only the slogs got around that. They didn’t come back.
Greg murmured “Oh ****, we’re all gonna die…”, showing that even people like Greg swear when under that kind of pressure.

[Splat]

I like it, tis good, bit nasty on him though. How will he live his life with only one arm?