Chapter 1 of Blubber Island. Introducing a bashing nightmare
“GRRrrrrrrr…..” He pressed his hands against his head to still the splitting headache. His eyes crunched shut with deep wrinkles. The pain began to subside but strongly lingered in his skull. His eyes opened. Blurry vision, only fuzzy lights and shadows, then his sight focused. He lied on a smooth concrete floor and his body terribly ached. People were pressed all around him. They were alive but out cold. Everyone was green.
His mind felt like clam chowder being scooped back into his head. “What… the…” There were gloves on his hands. They were made of rugged leather and had a sporting design. He stared at them as he turned his wrist and moved his fingers. He noticed he wore a lime-green body suit. His other hand touched his helmet.
He found himself in an unconscious pile of identically uniformed people. Somebody’s elbow dug into his ribs, and he shifted his body to avoid the dull pain. He was in some type of warehouse or test facility. Industrial florescent lighting stared down at him from high above. Wide white support columns went soaring past the lights before silently vanishing. Each column was positioned on a compass axis, the space between each pillar never varying. Like a double mirrored reflection, one pillar echoed the one before and so on forever. When he inhaled, the air felt strangely artificial.
The others started to wake up with identical headaches. There were about twenty-two other green men and women. Instincts urged him to separate himself from the pack. On wobbly legs he climbed to his feet, taking one step, and falling on the bodies below him. They let out their moans “Urrggghhhh….”
His movements felt intoxicated, but he had to get away. A support column stood only a few meters from him. He had to get to it. At first he tried stepping around everyone but it was hopeless. Faces and torsos became stepping stones for his hurried pace. He felt undefended body parts breaking under his feet. He tore for the edge of the human island and misstepped on a helmet. The neck unnaturally twisted with a horrible snapping sound and he fell back into the mound. His nerves snapped. He charged on all fours with a panicked scream, until he rolled onto the concrete. He stood up, ran towards the column and dropped behind it. His heart hammered inside his chest. Cold sweat beaded on his face. Tears wet his cheeks and his body trembled in a state of shock.
A man attempted to stand but fell hard. His head bounced when it hit the floor with a hard plastic bang. Hiding behind the column he watched green bodies crawling over each other, trying to stand and only falling back down. The disgusting sounds of those people made him cringed. Eventually, everyone got to their feet.
“Uuuhhhh … What’s going on?”
“Where … am … I?”
“Who are you!?”
Confused talk. An orgy of angry cursing and crying replaced the silence and echoed away into the high ceiling. A woman struggled to remove her helmet but the straps wouldn’t give. It drove her mad, literally pushed her to the edge of a nervous breakdown. A green man yelled at her to stop but she wouldn’t listen.
‘Why is everyone acting crazy?’
The group became an angry green mob and directed its stupid anger on itself. A brave soul tried to bring order to the growing chaos “EVERYONE, PLEASE LISTEN! WE HAVE TO FIND OU—” It was useless. Panic bubbled over the situation and claimed more followers. The brave man waved his arms in the air. A man and woman wrestled on the floor. He strangled her and she gouged his eyes with her thumbs. Her face turned purple and blood streamed from his ruptured eyes.
He just stood there, watching at a distance far enough to be removed from the situation but close enough to see every detail. Punches could be heard connecting. Helmets and bone hit concrete and meat; they mingled with curses and the screaming that wouldn’t stop. The peace keeper waved his arms until an angry wave of bodies submerged him. Suddenly, an intercom announcement made everyone freeze. “NOW ARRIVED LEVEL FOUR.” Anger retreated back into fear. The fighting stopped. People could be heard sobbing. Nobody dared speak.
A dull roar echoed. The sound of stampeding feet loomed towards them. The group turned into a green shivering mass. Everyone hugged each other as if in a giant cuddle party. Terrified crying echoed. The growl rushed closer. The ringing noise of metal striking metal ricocheted in the distance.
Beiiiiiiing beeeinngg beeeeiiiingg.
Thirty roaring lunatics in blue uniforms charged, swinging their aluminum bats.
Grown men screamed like little girls. Players tried to run, but tripped over others struggling to escape. Heremained hidden behind the support watching. The green team frantically scrambled. A green player put up his arms in feeble defense, a shiny grey bat swung through his wrists and smashed into his face, exploding into a violent spray of blood. The avalanche of metal clubs crashed down on them. FUMP! FUMP! FUMP! Green arms, legs, and torsos were indistinguishable under the assault of bats. Green players tried to wrestle away weapons of their own, and got their heads smashed like pumpkins. The blue players beat the green team mercilessly with uncontrollable rage.
He stood there gripping the support beam, paralyzed in fear. Something bumped into his foot. He looked down. An aluminum bat with blood and hair caked on the sweet spot. He reached down and picked up the bat. Adrenalin flooded into his blood stream. Madness overtook fear. His eyes became large and, with a scream, ran towards the beating circle and smashed the skull of a blue player who looked away. He continued swinging blindly into the crowd, assaulting blue and green players without prejudice. His bat struck a blue player, crushing his hip. The blue player turned around revealing a face twisted in pain and murder just in time for his mouth to be smashed in with a bat. The bat became stuck in the blue player’s shatter-toothed mouth and he kicked him in the chest to dislodge it.
All of a sudden, he felt hands strangling his throat from behind. He turned to face a green player choking the life out of him, but the attacker let go abruptly from a random bat breaking his spine. He made eye contact with the blue player that saved his life, and with brute force, crumpled in his rescuer’s chin. The blue player dropped to the ground, falling victim to the overhead swings of indiscriminating bats. He raised his bat above his head, and brought it down on one of the attackers, killing him instantly.
He raised his bat to further destroy the man when, charging out of the chaos, a woman speared her helmet into his gut. With such unexpected strength, she knocked them both away from the crowd. She mounted him to the ground and bit his face. He could feel teeth ripping flesh from his cheek. He screamed and threw her off. Immediately she dived at him again. He struck her in the face with his boot, knocking her back. She regained herself, picked up a nearby bat, and charged at him screaming. He got to his feet, and before she could smash his head in, he crushed her nose with his fist. She fell. He brought his boot down savagely on her face and throat. With each stomp, he felt the bones in her face give way. He then picked up her bat, and with both hands, swung it on her forehead, scattering her brains everywhere. The green players ripped bats from their attackers and fought back.
The violence continued
“It’s looking ugly, huh?” A calm, raspy voice spoke behind him. His eyes widened and he spun around. A man in a trench coat stood alone. His face hid under the shadow of his fedora. A cigarette glowed from his darkened mouth. He stared at the stranger dumbfounded. The mysterious man spoke through a cloud of smoke.
“You don’t have to die like them if you have friends in the right places.”
“Who are you?!” he demanded, threatening him with his bat.
The mystery man didn’t reply. He let out a small laugh before taking another drag off his cigarette, paying no attention to the mass beating.
“I’m here to offer an advantage for your survival, kid. You’re lucky to have made it this long with the… welcome committee showing up. A tough guy…
He paused mid-sentence for another drag then blew out a cloud of blue smoke, further hiding his face.
… I can tell one when I see one.” Thoughhe couldn’t see his face, he could feel the man grinning.
“I SAID WHO ARE YOU?”
The man was unfazed. He gave his unhurried reply.
“Call me Casper. So what’ya say kid, sounds good?”
Casper tossed him something. He looked down at some type of syringe. It was no ordinary doctor’s needle.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a handshake kid. If you decide you want to live longer than a bat swing, just follow the instructions…
‘The instructions?’
Casper reached into his trench coat and leveled a 357. snub nose revolver, pulling the trigger in a single fluid motion. The bullet hit a charging blue man in the upper part of his chest, bringing him down with fatal stopping power. The combatants froze and turned in the direction of the gunshot. A trail of smoke rose from the barrel.
Everything went quiet except for the tiny whimpers of the wounded and heavy breathing of everyone else.
Casper spoke to him without moving the gun. “Do we have a deal?” He looked down at the high-tech syringe. Picture instructions were depicted on the side. He broke the seal by twisting the plunger and the clear liquid in the barrel turned green. He then removed the cover, revealing a two-inch needle. The last step made him stop. The rudimentary drawing showed a needle being inserted through an eye and into a brain wherein the plunger would automatically sink. He stared at the instructions.
“No……no… NO! What is this?! You want me to inject this into my brain! You can’t make me do this!”
Casper blew out another cloud of blue smoke.
The mob positioned itself around him. He looked at Casper for any kind of response but got nothing except another cloud of blue smoke. He stared at the primed syringe in his gloved hand, stalling in his decision of what to do. Casper gently lowered his gun and took an excruciatingly slow step back. The mob moved forward in relation to Casper’s receding form. His eyes darted from Casper to the crowd and back down to the needle. The mob raised their bats in unison as Casper began to withdraw into the shadows. Sweat poured down his panic-stricken face. Casper continued to fade into darkness. The mob prepared to move in for the kill. He raised the syringe and slowly brought it to his face. He stared at the point. The needle touched an eyelash and he jerked the syringe from his eye. He looked towards Casper in desperation.
Casper raised his gun and tipped his hat before vanishing away into nothingness.
The mob charged forward.
Fighting the urge to shut his eyes, he drove the syringe into his eyeball, feeling the needle enter through his pupil. His eyelid hugged the needle as it slipped in. The plunger moved down, forcing its liquid content into his brain. A warm, glowing sensation spread from the right side of his head. The charging mob moved in slow motion, leaving glowing streaks of thick-colored mist behind them. The figures stretched into a radiating wall of blue and green. The sound of their screams grew into a fevered pitch.
Then, everything went black.
****
Continue the savage journey into Blubber Island
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