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Courage Versus Worms

Chapter 1

First Strike

It was a day like others in Nowhere. Courage was peacefully sleeping on Muriel's rocking chair. Muriel herself was working in the kitchen, while Eustace was reading the newspaper. Nobody was paying attention to the TV, which was on.

After some commercials, a film was aired. It was a war movie, and not much time passed before the scene got into action. When the cannon of a battleship fired in the TV, Courage was abruptly woken up, and he made a big jump, crashing into the living room's ceiling. Eustace started to laugh at the pink dog.

"Ah ah, stupid dog! You can't even watch a simple movie without being scared?"

Muriel, having heard Courage's crash, had got in the room. "Eustace! You shouldn't bother Courage because he doesn't love to watch those movies like you do!" She took the remote from Eustace's hands and turned off the TV.

"But Muriel!" complained Eustace, "it's just a movie! What about watching some great action, big battles and epic stories?"

"Do I have to remind you that these films are based on real events, where people battled themselves? Do you like this?" replied Muriel.

They started to argue about films based on wars. Courage was still stuck in the ceiling, and he spent two minutes to exit the hole and fall on the floor. The dog watched his two owners, and he decided to not participate in the discussion, also because he was still a bit stunned by the sudden awakening.

He went upstairs. He was going to the attic, as he wanted to use his computer. While he was on the stairs, Courage heard a strange, loud noise coming from outside.

Then, a powerful quake made the ground tremble violently. Courage lost his balance and fell, almost hitting every step of the stairs. He stopped at the first floor of the farmhouse. Courage stood up, frightened, but the quake had already passed away.

He ran into the living room, where Muriel and Eustace were as surprised as he was.

"Courage! Are you all right?" asked Muriel, worried.

Courage went to her and gave her a hug. Eustace grumbled something, annoyed. He watched through the window outside.

"Stupid kids, playing with firecrackers..." moaned Eustace. Then, he sat on the armchair and resumed to read the newspaper, as nothing had happened. Muriel watched him oddly.

Courage went to the window, too, in order to see what was going on. He was stunned by the sight of a big mushroom-like cloud far away. Surely, the cloud had been created by the same explosion that caused the quake.

"Courage, what could have happened?" asked Muriel, right at his side. Courage shook his head as to say, "I don't know..."

"You should really go there and see if somebody needs help, Courage!" said Muriel.

Courage thought that it wasn't a good idea to go in the place where there had just been an explosion, but Muriel was insistent. Eventually, he had to accept, and reluctantly he left the farm and headed for the location of the event. "Be careful, Courage!" said Muriel while he was going away.

The more Courage moved nearer to his destination, the more the desert became less sandy and more rocky. In fact, Courage reached a place where huge rocks, stones and various formations were everywhere. There were also dry bushes and some saguaros.

The dog entered a sort of rocky valley, closed by its two sides. At the end of the valley it was visible the crater of the explosion which blocked the other exit and prevented any attempt to leave the place. When Courage reached the crater, he gave a quick look to his surroundings.

Apart from him, there was no sign of anything suspicious or interesting in the area. Courage tried to think of something to say to Muriel: perhaps a government fighter had tested some type of bomb there? In fact, it wasn't the first time that Courage had to do with the military. In any case, he gave a sigh of relief at the fact that no further hazards were going to happen.

He turned with the purpose of going home, but he gave a scream of surprise when he saw a weird tombstone he had not noticed before. The fact was that this tombstone was animated! It was like it was dancing.

Courage was frightened, but it was just the beginning. A unknown voice called him from behind.

"Hey! Hey, you, doggy! Come here!" The voice was whispering, as the speaker didn't want to be heard by anyone other than Courage.

Courage slowly moved towards the big rock where the voice was coming from. He was shuddering. Suddenly, the speaker revealed himself from his hiding place behind the rock.

Courage tried his best to keep his mouth closed.

In front of Courage there was a worm. It wasn't like the ones you find on the ground on wet days. Instead, he had a humanoid big face, with huge eyes and a large mouth compared to his body. His hands were separated by his body, and he didn't wear any type of cloth. Of course, he had no legs, he was able to move by crawling. He was only a little taller than Courage. He raised his eyebrows when he saw how much scared was Courage.

"Little dog, I know I'm perhaps odd to you, but I'm not a monster. Still, we don't have time to talk about this... You must get out of here!" said the worm.

Courage scratched his head. "What's happening here? Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Douglas, and I have just told you that we don't have enough time to talk... you are making them discover us too early! Go away if you want to survive, get it?!" The worm was already starting to get angry.

Courage decided to follow the worm's advice. It was the first time that someone suggested him to go away from a dangerous situation. Still, Courage didn't know that the worm had warned him too late.

Courage noticed something going towards him. It was a rocket. The dog screamed and took cover behind a large stone just before the rocket blew up on the ground.

Courage heard at the same time Douglas, the worm who had talked with him, and another, different voice shout an order: "FIREEEEEEE!" Then, it all became a pandemonium.

The poor dog stared at a huge battle raging on around him. All types of rockets, grenades and explosives were being shot and thrown by the two sides of the valley. It didn't pass much time before the stone which was protecting him was blown up by a rocket.

Courage started to run as fast as he could, trying to evade all the shots which were falling around him.

At the top of the two sides, Courage was able to see various worms, which were just like Douglas was. On the left side, the dog could barely see that the worms were wearing military helmets, while on the right side the worms were naked.

It seemed to Courage that the two teams were fighting to the death. He had to do his best to escape various wrong-shot rockets and failed-thrown grenades, but some of the worms were really trying to hit Courage, maybe because they believed he was an enemy.

Courage screamed when a shot coming from a shotgun missed him and almost destroyed his small tail. When he saw that even helicopters and bombers, coming from unknown places (they weren't of the military of course) were beginning to arrive and bomb all the place, Courage made a last rush to the only exit of the valley.

Finally the dog reached the exit to the valley and ran away from the battle. The worms luckily didn't care of him, they were too busy fighting themselves, and Courage could stop after a while to breath and regain.

The dog watched the battle going on from his safe position. He could see flying worms screaming, thrown away by blasts. Courage scratched his eyes when he saw something like a pigeon flying above the battlefield, but when he opened them all he could see was another big explosion.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, all stopped. Courage was so bewildered that he fell on the ground and stayed there, watching the rocky valley (or at least, what remained of it). The worms seemed to have disappeared, but Courage could see some of them leaving the rocks and going away in the desert.

Courage's head was full of questions. Who the heck were those strange guys? Why did they do battles so large between themselves? And where did they come from? Courage believed to have seen everything, but Nowhere was still able to surprise, and scare, him.

The place was very quite now, but Courage remembered how much quiet was the valley before the clash started, so he decided to return to his house quickly. He walked away from the place, heading for home.

When Courage reached the farmhouse, Muriel ran to him "Courage!" she called, "What happened? I heard something like a war! Are you fine? I'm so sorry I asked you to go there!" She gave him a hug, pleased to see him alive. Courage relaxed himself for a moment, but when Muriel carried him in the living room he remembered the last events.

When Muriel let him away, he tried his best to tell her and Eustace that there were worm soldiers battling for some reason in the surroundings. He even transformed himself into a worm just like Douglas and shot a bazooka at a imaginary target, to show them what he was talking about.

Unfortunately, both Muriel and Eustace didn't understand a single word from Courage. To make things worse, the rocket of the bazooka exploded on Eustace's face. Only the presence of Muriel prevented him from getting very angry. "Aaagh... stupid dog... Darn kids, I hate them," said Eustace while sitting on the sofa, then he started another time to read the newspaper like every day.

"Oh, Courage, don't listen to Eustace. I'm sure you need some rest, you look really scared" said Muriel. She patted Courage's head.

The day was already going to finish. Some minutes before dinner, Courage was in the attic, in front of his computer. He had decided to search for information about those worms. He couldn't know if they were gone... or not.

"Crawling soldiers fighting with missile launchers? Did you perhaps drink alcohol yesterday evening?" asked the Computer's voice, sarcastically. Courage had not much patience to joke with him, so he answered him angrily.

"Ok, ok, don't be mad..." said the Computer. After some time, a sound was emitted.

"I found something. It looks like that in 1995 there were the first sights of these worms you were talking to. Of course, nobody trusted the viewers... some of them were also taken to asylums." Courage felt his backbone tremble. Something like a little laugh was emitted, but before Courage could complain, the Computer continued to talk.

"Anyway, the events where the battles were seen continued to happen, until five years ago. Do you want that I insert your name and story in the list?"

Courage typed instead his request to have more information about the worms.

"There isn't much information in this file. Witnesses state that the worms use various types of weapons, most of which are weird. A witness that seemed to have talked with them said that they battle for a specific reason. However, he couldn't say what the reason was, precisely. Mankind always surprise me... They have much fantasy, haven't they?"

Courage was no more listening to his computer. What could have brought the worms to battle another time, after five years of peace? And why in Nowhere? Courage was frightened by their battles, which he had experienced could be very dangerous for witnesses.

The pink dog went to the window in the attic and watched outside. He could still see the greater rocks from the formation where the battle had taken place in the afternoon. It was still quiet.

Courage was called by Muriel for dinner. When he arrived in the kitchen, he saw that Muriel was happy and Eustace was angry, like every day. It was like nothing had happened in the previous hours. Courage couldn't do anything apart from eating his food. He hoped that the worms had gone away from Nowhere, bringing their battles with them.

Courage couldn't of course know that he was wrong.