It was a typical, peaceful spring afternoon; birds were chirping, flowers were being pollinated, and on this specific day two kids around the age of 12 were eating lunch at school and talking.

"Hey, Johnny!" one kid said to the other.

"Yeah, Dave?" the other kid, Johnny, replied.

"I dare you to stay in that cave next to your home overnight!"

"Uh," Johnny paused, surprised by the suddenness of the dare. "OK, Dave, but that seems pretty easy. I know it's a dare and all, but do I get anything if I do it?" The one who started this conversation, Dave, thought for a moment, before saying "I'll give you ten dollars, and if you can't do it, you have to give me ten dollars!"

Johnny thought it over, taking a bite of his sandwich he got for lunch. 'Is that seriously it?! That's super easy! I'm not afraid of the dark, so it's not much of a challenge, and it's for ten bucks… It's not much, but it's practically free money!' he thought.

"Sure," he agreed.

"Alright! Make sure you're there by 6 o'clock!" Dave said enthusiastically. "And just to make sure, I'll stay just outside the cave while you're there," he continued. Johnny halted for a moment, dumbfounded. "Can't I just… record my time there with a camera or something?" he asked. "Oh, you could just make it to look like you stayed there! Y'know, video editing and all that," Dave replied.

Johnny stared at Dave in bewilderment. 'What kind of tech wizard does he think I am?' he thought, taking another bite of his sandwich. "I… I guess that makes sense," he lied. Dave frowned at Johnny's tone. "What, do you think it's a stupid idea?" "No, no! I don't think it's stupid!" Dave paused for a moment, eventually replying, "Okayyy…"

"…Remember to do it, alright?" he asked. "Alright," Johnny reaffirmed, taking yet another bite of his sandwich. "Good," Dave said.

Staying true to his word, Johnny remembered his promise, and he went to that cave just a dozen yards away from his house right at 6 PM, with a flashlight in his pocket. Dave was sitting next to the cave's mouth, looking bored and glancing occasionally at a watch on his wrist. "Oh, Johnny! I was almost starting to think you forgot!" said Dave as he noticed Johnny approaching. "Well, why'd you think that? I'm right on time, aren't I?" Johnny replied. Dave checked his watch. "Ah… Yeah, you are," he admitted. "OK, nice. See you tomorrow!" Johnny said as he walked into the cave, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket. "Okay~!" Dave replied, taking out an old hand-me-down Game Boy from his pocket.

In the cave, Johnny turned on his flashlight. It was just a normal cave. Some stalactites hung tightily from the cave's roof, and stalagmites stood up mightily from the floor. He walked further into the cave, looking around. The cave was a bit deep, about the size of a house if the second floor was taken off from above the first and laid down parallel to it. After a few minutes of walking around, Johnny wandered into a roomlike fissure and noticed some strange flowers growing in some dirt. The flowers were brightly red, yellow, blue, purple, white, gray, and pink, with the gray and pink ones sticking up like cups and the rest lying flat against the ground. "Woah," Johnny said in wonder. "These are some weird flowers…" He walked towards the yellow flower, his favorite color, and examined it closely. It had a deep dark green center and five petals extending outwards from it in a counter-clockwise star pattern, with the tip of each petal having a small lightly-tinted pastel yellow ball.

Johnny knelt down to the flower, resting his hand on a petal. It felt like just a normal flower. Johnny then noticed just how big the flowers were, they were easily big enough for him to lie down on one if he curled up a bit, so he decided to try it. He carefully crawled onto the flower, wondering if it would collapse under his weight. Surprisingly, it didn't. "Huh!" Johnny exclaimed surprisedly. He turned over to lie on his back, still amazed the flower could support the weight of someone just around the age where one straddles the edge between boy and man*, and he looked up at the roof of the cave. Some more stalactites were hanging from there, slightly illuminated by Johnny's flashlight which had been laid down resting on the flower. Then, Johnny thought of something. "I kinda feel like showing these flowers to Dave," he spoke to himself. He got up from the flower, grabbing his flashlight, and he walked back to the cave's entrance.

At the cave's entrance, Johnny saw Dave deep in playing a game, having barely noticed Johnny moving from his peripheral vision. "Hm?" said Dave, glancing over from his game. "What are you coming out here for?" he asked. "Let me guess," he continued, "You're too scared to stay there any longer?" he finished with a smirk. "No, Dave," Johnny replied. "I just found some weird flowers in here and I wanted to show you," he explained. "Weird flowers?" Dave asked. "Yeah, let me show you. Come on!" Johnny said as he gestured for Dave to enter the cave with him. Dave sighed. "Okay," he said as he paused and saved his game. "I'll go." And so they went to the deep corner of the cave where Johnny found the flowers.

After a few minutes, they arrived at the flowers. "Wow," Dave said in amazement. "They really are weird flowers." "Yeah, that's why I wanted to show you them," Johnny replied. "Just look at this!" Johnny took a running start and leaped onto the yellow flower, landing on it with grace similar to that of a near-teenager landing onto a flower, and it barely buckled from the force. "Wow!" Dave repeated himself in amazement at the flower's ability to hold up a person. Dave then walked over to another flower next to the one Johnny was on, specifically the red one, which was Dave's favorite color, and sat upon it. They both staid there for a while, contemplating the beauty of the cave and nature and stuff... Then the yellow flower Johnny was on shot up its petals, folding themselves around him and trapping him inside, somewhat like a Venus flytrap. "WHAT THE F-" shouted Dave, interrupted by the red flower trapping him inside in the same way. He struggled as much as he could, which wasn't much considering the small space, but as the time passed, the movements became less and less. Eventually, all movement from inside the flowers came to a halt, and the flowers slowly let down their petals from their folded-up positions... Nothing was in them. It was like there was never anyone there in the first place.

'...'

'...'

'...?'

'... ...!?'

'wh... what is this...? ...'

'that flower... it... agh...'

'I... can't move...'

'...actually... the top... of my head... I can almost... move... it... rrn-‼'

'I feel my head going further up... come on... almost there...!'

'There! My eyes are above... the ground!? I was in the ground!?'

Johnny found himself mostly underground, with his eyes having just come up after a few minutes of struggling. He paused for a moment, confused as to how he was there, before resuming his struggle to get himself out from the ground. He slowly forced himself out from the ground, revealing more of his face, before he realized something very concerning.

'Why am I not breathing!?'

Johnny tried to force himself to breath, but all he accomplished was giving himself a slight cramp in his upper abdomen. 'Okay, I am definitely getting out of here right now to figure out just what is happening!' he thought to himself before using all the strength he could muster up to do one thing, go up. He got his shoulders out of the dirt much quicker than his face, and Johnny noticed something else.

'Why am I yellow!?'

His skin was yellower than that of any character on The Simpsons, bright as the flower he had been ensnared in beforehand. He panicked, forcing out his arm from the ground in less time than it would take for a sadistic child to come up with the idea of burning ants with a magnifying glass, with more fervor than that of an overenthusiastic flight attendant bringing alcohol and caviar to a first-class passenger. His arm was just as yellow as his shoulder, with the end having a small hand with three fingers on it, equally spaced, like the hand of a baby born without a pinky finger and a thumb, but flatter and pointier. He stared in wonder at the extremity.

'Why ANY OF THIS!?'

Johnny forced his arm down and pushed, bringing the rest of his body above the ground. He saw that the yellow color of his arm carried on to the rest of his body, which looked much different from a regular human. He had a short, smooth cylindrical body with two short legs, and feet with a shape mirroring his hands, having three equally spaced toes. Johnny noticed something moving from his peripheral vision, and looked up, only to find... a sprout on top of his head. Specifically, he had a long yellow stem with a white bud on top, surrounded by five leaves in a starlike pattern, similar to the flower he had been trapped by earlier. After a small pause in wonder and confusion which may or may not have involved some intense freaking out, Johnny stopped looking at himself, and instead began to look at his surroundings. He was in what seemed to be a large cave, somewhat like the one he was in earlier. Some slightly familiar-looking and very larger than usual stalagmites stood mightily from the ground, and similar stalactites hung tightily from the cave's ceiling. There was also a red sprout coming from the ground next to Johnny!? 'That's gotta be Dave,' Johnny thought.

Johnny walked over to the red sprout and stood in front of it, looking at it closely. It was just like the sprout on Johnny's head, with a white bud and five leaves. Johnny reached out a hand and grabbed the sprout, almost instinctively. He tugged on it a little bit, and he could faintly hear an annoyed hum from below the ground. Johnny paused, feeling reaffirmed and slightly surprised, and started to wonder if he could talk in the form he was in. He removed his hand from Dave's sprout and tried to focus on making a sound with his voice. It took some time, but he managed to get himself to talk in a way that sounded very similar to regular human speech.

After a while of saying simple sentences to get himself used to speech in his new form, Johnny refocused his attention on the red sprout. Johnny again grabbed the sprout and pulled with all his might...!

'...'

'...'

'...?!'

'the top of my head... somethings squeezing it... Mmnnh, nouuh...'

'oh, it stopped... what's that... mumbling?'

'...'

'that thing squeezing my head is back... aagh!'

"Woaahh!"

Dave found himself being flung into the air, being thrown by an odd yellow flower-like creature with big ears. "What the-!?" Dave tried to say, but ended up letting out a noise that sounded like "Oa da!?" He landed abruptly. "You ahrait?" the flower creature... No, wait, this is familiar. Dave had seen this thing before. It was in an old Nintendo GameCube game called "Pikmin", and this thing was that game's namesake... a Pikmin! So, "You ahrait?" the Pikmin asked Dave. Dave tried to respond, but he found himself unable to talk right... "Ah... I ahw... Uh... ...Yeah," Dave said, nodding. "An' I assume you're Dave?" it asked. "Yeah, uh, ahn... Ahn y-yuu'ae... uh, Johnny?" Dave tried to say 'Yeah, and you're Johnny?'. The Pikmin nodded. "Yup," it, or rather, he, Johnny, said. "Wha'ss goin on? Why ae you a Pi... uh, a Pikuh... Pikmin (What's going on? Why are you a Pikmin?)" Dave asked. "A what?" Johnny asked in return. "A Pikmin! Y'know, these li'l plant things from the game series also called Pikmin!" Dave replied. "Huh... Never heard of 'em," Johnny said. "So that's what we are?"

"Wait, 'we'? What do you mean by..." Dave paused and looked at himself. Sure enough, he looked just like a Pikmin, with the same type of body as Johnny, but while Johnny was a Yellow Pikmin with ears, Dave was a Red Pikmin with a pointy nose. "Huh," he uttered. Dave and Johnny just stood there for a bit awkwardly, unsure of what to say. "...Well," Johnny eventually said, breaking the fragile veil of silence, "I guess we should try to find a way to turn back to people?" "Yeah, but... how?" Dave asked. "How should I know?" Johnny retorted. "That was a rhetorical question!" Dave replied, annoyed. "OK, well, I guess let's just..." Johnny said, pausing. "...get out of here." "Sounds good," Dave said.

Johnny and Dave looked around. They were in a cave, like the one they were in earlier, but it was about sixty times larger than that one. There also weren't any flowers there. The cave looked like it was very old, with there being some small-ish holes in the roof from which sunlight shone down onto the ground. "If this cave is as similar to that one as I think," Johnny said, looking up at the cave's walls. "then it won't be that hard to get out of here." He turned to Dave. "Follow me," Johnny ordered.

And so they went.

Johnny and Dave walked for a few minutes, talking as they went. "I'm just saying, if you really wanna build tables, you've gotta study the Bible first!" Dave rambled on. "But what do they have to do with each other?!" "It's very simple! Jesus was a carpenter... and you know, Mario was originally supposed to be a carpenter, too! Playing Super Mario Bros is experiencing a Japanese take on the stories shown in the Bible!" "W-What?!" "Just think about it! Mario is Jesus, Peach is God, and Toad is Jesus' 12 disciples! This is simple logic, man- wait did you hear that noise" Dave and Johnny looked over to their left, seeing an odd pink bug crawling up from the ground. "What is THAT?!" Johnny shouted in surprise. "It's one of those enemies from Pikmin! A Sheargrub, I think," Dave explained. "This kind can't hurt us." Johnny glared at the Sheargrub. It was small, pale, and cute. Its body was shaped like an oblong ribbed pink yolk with two soft-looking mandibles, forming a cute mouthy shape, and it had a pair of eyes, small and black, perfecting its adorableness.

"Aw~!" Johnny cooed, leaning down to it. "It's kinda cute!" Dave stifled a chuckle as he watched Johnny pet the Sheargrub. "You really like that Sheargrub, don'tcha?" Dave asked, slightly mockingly. "Yes, it's BEAUTIFUL!" Johnny answered loudly, hugging the Sheargrub (which looked slightly anxious at the whole situation). "This isn't really like you, y'know," Dave said. "Well, we're the only people here, and who knows how long we'll be like this!" Johnny replied, somehow both playfully and fearfully. "If we get back to being humans, will you even remember me loving this Sheargrub by that time?"

"Well," said Dave, "now that you say that, I am definitely gonna remember this!" "Aw-" Johnny stopped for a second. "Wait... Do you hear that?" he asked. "Hear what?" Dave asked confusedly. "I can..." Johnny focused on something. "I can hear something... stomping? It's definitely somewhere near us."

Dave's eyes opened wide in realization and terror. 'Something stomping?! Maybe it could be... Well, it makes sense, everything right now is pointing to us being in that world, so then it's a... a...' he thought, as he noticed a shadow pop from around a corner that Johnny was staring straight at. 'A...'

ROOOAAAR!

"A BULBORB!" he shouted, running into Johnny to get them out of the way of the giant beast that charged at them, trampling over the Sheargrub. "What the-!?" Johnny sputtered as they fell to the ground. "Run!" Dave shouted, hurredly fleeing from the Bulborb. "Wait! Dave-" Johnny halted as he heard the thing behind him turn around, prompting him to turn around and face it.

It was an odd creature. It had a body shaped like an egg on its side, being colored a pale peachy color on its more pointed end with the color transitioning to a robust red with white spots on the rounder side. It had two eyes that stood tall on stalks, easily the size of Johnny himself (as a Pikmin) twice over. It also had a mouth. Specifically, it had a giant mouth, splitting its pointed front end in half, noticeably salivating. Then it noticed him.

"Oh, SHIT" Johnny yelled as he got up and just barely dodged it running at him, fleeing to the same direction he saw Dave go. After a few minutes of running, Johnny finally caught up to Dave. "Why'd you leave me there!?" Johnny asked irritatedly. Dave slightly flinched, shrugging softly. "S-Sorry... I mean, I told you to run, but..." He sighed. "Well, I thought you would go too! I didn't mean to leave you." Johnny groaned angrily, slightly facepalming. "At least I'm not dead," he said. "Yeah..." Dave replied.

They stood there awkwardly for a while, silent. "Hey," said Dave, breaking the silence. "I think I know what's going on here." "Really?" Johnny asked. "Then what is it?" Dave took a 'deep breath', explaining with "Well, I think that since we've become Pikmin, and there was a Sheargrub earlier, and also a Bulborb, which are all from the Pikmin series of games, I feel like it's safe to say..." He paused for a moment.

"It's official. We're in the world of the Pikmin games," he said.

"...Is that a good or bad thing?" Johnny asked. Dave thought for a moment. "A bad thing for you, at least. You said you've never played a Pikmin game before, so that means you don't know anything that's going on. The world of Pikmin is like nature... It's merciless," Dave explained. "Just about anything can and will kill you along with everything you love, and then throw the corpses of you and your loved ones into a volcano, but not before eating them, pooping them out, and eating them again and puking them out and pooping on them!" Confused and mildly terrified, Johnny stared at Dave, and Dave noticed. "OK, that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but it's still true! This world is dangerous!" Dave clarified. "Yeah, I get it," Johnny replied, silently mourning for that Sheargrub.

They then walked for a few more minutes, eventually coming to the mouth of the cave.

"Oh! Finally!" Dave exclaimed joyfully. "I was getting so bored!" "Yeah, me too," Johnny replied. They looked outside at the vast world before them... or at least they would have done that if there wasn't grass coming up to their heads and blocking the view. "Uh, Dave, why is the grass so tall here?" Johnny asked, glancing over to Dave. "Didn't I tell you before? Pikmin are really short, like less than an inch tall," Dave explained. Johnny slightly flinched, speechless. "An... inch?!" he shouted. "Yeah," Dave said flatly. "barely." "Wow... No wonder you say that this world is dangerous! When we're so small, basically anything can kill us! Seriously, if we're an inch tall, then that Bulborb must have been the size of a rabbit! So many things that would barely even hurt a human could tear us to pieces!" Johnny said panickedly. "Yeah, but this small size is also something good. We can survive falls from very high places, and we can be really stealthy," Dave replied, trying to be reassuring.

"Anyways, let's go," said Dave, walking into the thick veil of grass. Johnny followed closely behind him.

*100 lbs (45.35 kg)
Word count: 3445
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi there! Thank you for reading this. I've had this idea in my head for a while now, and now I'm finally writing it down and sharing it with you all. Please make sure to review this; I'd love the feedback!)
11/13/17 EDIT: I changed the dollar amount to a more reasonable number. ($20 - $10)