Chapter 4: Not For Kids

The last of the spaghetti sauce has been swept into Zim's closet, and the equipment is all back where it belongs. Zim gets back to work without a word, leaving me to myself.

Yay! Game time!

One of the children dropped his game console thingy when he was running from my lasers. I sit in a corner, and turn it on.

One little screen? And ya gotta play by pushing buttons? Lame!

I plug directly into the machine. A virtual game world replaces my reality.

Much better.

I'm with a bunch of other players at a big pretty homestead in the mountains.

Booooring.

Also zombies.

Better.

Also BACON.

I gobble bacon from the breakfast table, while gunfire and zombie screams grow more intense and chaotic.

Except… I can't taste the bacon. This isn't a dream, it's a low-tech human game.

Sad…

Sighing, I figure fighting zombies is the best I'm gonna get.

I try to activate my built-in weaponry, remember again this is just a game, and grumble as I pick up an ancient human rifle. Three shots and four dead zombies later, I decide this game is too easy to be fun.

A message appears. "Blrmglob8118 has joined the chat."

Someone comes jogging across the countryside, stomping dead zombies and waving. He has a huuuuuge toothy smile.

"Hi there!" I zip over the barricades toward the newcomer. "Lets be frieeeeends!"

A player behind me shouts, "Carl! Don't! Come back!"

I forget I'm using someone else's game, so I don't realize the warning's meant for me.

Just as I reach Blrmglob8118, the player pulls a giant chainsaw axe thing out of thin air, chops me in half, and starts eating my feet.

"Carl! That's a cannibal! They're the newest monster in the game! They 'join the chat' to trick us!"

But I'm too busy getting eaten to listen. At least this primitive human game doesn't involve real pain.

This game is not a kids' game.

I hate this game…

Carl is better off without it.


Author's Note:

At the time, this dream felt very serious and dramatic, with me believing it was real, ammo running low, and companions being injured. I especially remember a moment when several women heroically set up a series of barricades as zombies bore down on them, and the youngest ended up with a badly broken leg. Thankfully she was light, because I ended up having to outrun zeds while carrying her. The first sign that things weren't quite right was when the message appeared saying someone had "joined the chat." Also, the "cannibal" probably didn't count as one. Hard to view someone as human when it was a person-shaped heap of meat that sprouted sheets of flesh to attack me with. I chose to smooth over that craziness for the sake of this version.