Universe: Worm

Rating: T

Insert This

So, there I was, in front of my computer on a Saturday night. Sunday morning, rather. I'd just finished binge-reading a whole pile of Worm fics. There wasn't anything new showing up, so I got myself another bottle and sat back to rest my eyes. Nothing like reading a screen for six hours to remind me that I'm not getting any younger.

Relaxing with my drink, I thought about all the things that were wrong with Worm-verse – everything, close enough – and how someone with just a bit of brains and some foreknowledge could change the world. Power would help… or would it? Most capes had some serious mental problems, mostly tied to their powers. Maybe it would be better to go into Worm-verse without any power, just brains and knowledge.

Let's say I got plopped in. How would I fix things? There'd be lots of ways to do it. Self-insert for the win, yo. I opened up a text file and started typing up some ideas. That's what I was doing when the late night got to me and I drifted off…

...ooo000ooo...

I woke up knowing that something was wrong. Before I could figure it out, I followed an order that I couldn't resist and landed on a giant, warm thing. The next thing I knew, a giant shadow passed over me, and then I didn't know anything.

...ooo000ooo...

I woke up again, feeling something was wrong again. Before I could get my bearings, I had to follow an order to walk over there and then stop. Almost as soon as I got here I picked up a smell that commanded that I run away and hide – but I couldn't. I was locked in place, unable even to twitch, as the horror drew near.

...ooo000ooo...

I woke up, wondering how I'd survived whatever had scared me so badly. Even if whatever it was didn't cut me up with a chainsaw or swallow me whole, I should have had a heart attack… though something seemed off about that thought.

No matter. The smell of food came to me and I realized I was famished. I crawled toward the delicious smell as fast as I could. I had to eat and eat and grow and then reproduce. Something seemed off there, too – I'd always vaguely wanted to have kids, but this urge to reproduce was new – but then I was at the food and all I could do was eat.

After I ate and ate and ate, I fell asleep. When I woke up, everything was different, but I didn't have time to figure it out before an overwhelming urge to eat and then mate came upon me. Not being able to control that urge, I did the one and then the other. And then I just moved over to the side and stayed there. Until a shadow passed over one eye after another, and then everything went dark.

...ooo000ooo...

I woke up again flying through the air. I didn't know what I was doing up in the air, but before I figured it out – before I even got to wonder how I was able to fly – I had to dive toward a big, white thing, then land, then crawl and force my way into the wet opening I saw. Crawling down the soft tunnel killed me, but I felt the satisfaction of carrying out my orders.

...ooo000ooo...

The next time I woke up, I immediately felt the same old pressure of an order I could not resist. I had to run and run, up and over and through and under and keep going until I could barely move any of my legs.

The only good thing was, it gave me time to think, to figure things out.

The first thing I figured out was, I had a lot of legs. I was a friggin' bug! A beetle of some kind, maybe a cockroach, not that I'm any kind of expert on friggin' cockroaches except for how to stomp on them.

The next thing I figured out was that these weren't just instincts making me do things. Something, or someone, was making me do it. It wasn't too great a leap to realize that the last thing I'd been thinking about was Worm. And entering the story. And…

Oh, crap.

Taylor was always a sympathetic character in Worm, dumped on endlessly but always trying to do her best. Any reader who wasn't a total jerk hoped she worked things out, hoped she found at least a little happiness.

But now… Now she's been making me run, and up ahead I hear a bunch of my cousins chewing on something hard. Now I'm getting a new order to chew on this non-food stuff. Oh, crap! It's a wire. That bitch Taylor wants me to chew through a wire's insulation and I'm going to die again. Oh crap oh crap oh crap!

Oh, yah, sure, I'll bet a bunch of you readers out there (I'm trapped in a fanfiction, so of course there are readers, unless the author really sucks) figured it out lifetimes ago. All I can say is, let's see you do any better when your brain is smaller than a grain of sand. And when you die every time you turn around.

...ooo000ooo...

That's the way it went, life after life. I'd "wake up" when Taylor gave a command to do something, I'd have no choice but to do what that bitch ordered, and I'd usually die a couple minutes later.

You want to know something that really really sucks? Being eaten by a female of your species while you're having sex with her.

Let me tell you, that gets real old, real quick.

...ooo000ooo...

So now I'm a crab. I woke up and within a minute or two figured out that I was a crab. A crab up on the beach, being forced to walk in circles and do other stunts. I remember this scene, and I remember from the story that Taylor was humiliating me and the others just so she could get into Brian's pants. Not that I can see either of them way up there, because I'm a crab.

I hate this! Hate it hate it hate it! If I could get to that bitch, I'd tear her apart! But I can't tear her apart, can't even give her a pinch, because I can't get up to her, because I'm a friggin' crab.

Hey, all of you authors out there who think it would be great to write yourself into a story, here's a message for you from crabby little me: Eat me!


A/N: Somewhat reminiscent of that poor sap who kept getting killed by Arthur Dent, life after life. If you don't know what I'm talking about, for shame! Go out and get all five books of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.