SLUDGE BUGS- Mission1 [draft]
On our first mission as real Sludge Bug Exterminators, all groups were sent out to investigate possible infested areas, take down crucial notes, and return safely. We were to avoid engaging any threats and to return immediately if the area seemed at all dangerous. I wished some of the other groups good luck and to be safe, including one group of kids we had grown up with. All these 15 to 20-somethings were so eager to head out seeing how the first mission is always just a walk in the park. Time to just casually hang out with our squads in our big boy uniforms, feeling like adults without really having to do anything. But I just knew their naiveté is gonna get a lot of people hurt. This world we live in is a dangerous one.
We had been sent to an old mining cave in the side of a dry, sandy, orangish brown mountain…
“This is the place we have to scout?” Jacob said as he chipped away at he mountain side with his finger. “The mountain is crumbling. Isn’t our first mission supposed to be... you know... safe?”
“This is the area we were given. I’m sure the headmasters wouldn’t send us somewhere they knew was hazardous. Quit being such a baby and get your ass in the tunnel.”
“Come on, it’ll be fine.” I said patting his shoulder. He scowled, but went in.
We walked down a straight corridor for quite some time with no alternate tunnels to take. Our flashlights showing the way with the occasional flicker from Jacob’s.
“Stop doing that! You’ll kill your battery.” Holly hissed.
“What? I’m not doing anything." He said obviously lying, given away by a stupid smirk on his face. “Maybe all our batteries will run out soon. Then well be lost in these dark spoopy tunnels with no way of finding out way back out” He teased, to which Holly noticeably tensed up at.
So I punched his arm and told him to quit fucking around.
“Come on man quit it!"
“Fiiiiiine."
We finally reached a huge circular, dome ceilinged room with a ginormous support beam right in the middle of it. It was made of 7 tree logs tied together, stretching about 50 feet tall and the room’s diameter was at least double that. The room had 9 more passage ways, not including the one we just entered.
“Woah, that thing is huge.” my voice echoed.“Is that the only thing keeping this place up?"
“I-I uh… I hope not… we should check the other tunnels.” Holly’s voice shakily, replied.
“Getting spooked yet?” Jacob asked nudging up against Holly
“No! Lets go…”
[montage of the trio walking through the dark tunnels at different camera angles]
“Hmm… another dead end”
“No, not ANOTHER dead end. The same dead end we ran into 5 minutes ago, and another 5 minutes before that. We’ve been walking in circles Holly! We’re lost!”
“No we’re not! I know exactly where… Ivan back me up!”
“… all the passage ways do look the same, and we have reached way more dead ends than there are tunnels.”
<there’s a short pause, Holly’s facial expression looked pretty defeated, and then she sighs>
“Holly, I’m sure we’ve been through all these tunnels more than once, and this place checks out, we haven’t seen a single bug. If anything, you made us do a better job by double checking everything. Let’s just find our way back while we still got some light, do our write ups, and call our first mission a success. Sound good?”
“Okay... I think the entrance is this way."
But they kept walking through tunnel after tunnel, wrong turn after another. And then Jacob’s flashlight started flickering again.
“Jacob, stop it with your shit.”
“I’m not doing it I swear!”
“Ha ha, very fun-” But then she looked at him and saw the terror in his face, and again the flashlight flickered. “Ivan turn off your light!” and then she and I both turned off ours. “Jacob keep yours on. If it runs out, we’ll turn on yours, Ivan.”
“And if all our lights go out?”
“… That won’t happen. Lets go, we’re waisting time.”
<Holly continues down the tunnel without the boys>
<the guys exchange worrying looks>
“We’re fucking lost.” Jacob said to Ivan
<and then they followed>
<pan-in and pan-outs of the three walking through tunnels>
<Ivan’s flickering light gives out>
“Holly,”
“I know, I know! It’s this one for sure!”
“but-”
“I've got a good feeling about this one!” She turned on her flashlight and immediately it started to flicker.
<Terror can be seen on all their faces and they begin racing down the dark mines>
<a light can be seen at the end of the tunnel>
“Look, day light. We found the way out!” Holly yells ecstatically.
“See?! I told you we weren’t lost!” Jacob said to Ivan.
“But we were lost you dingus.”
“Shut up man.” < the guys playfully shoving each other >
“It's sunset already? Were we really in here for that long?” Holly said and ran ahead, but stopped right at the tunnel opening.
<Holly turns off her flashlight>
“…Guys, this isn’t the outside.”
<the two run up to join her and the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter as they draw closer until the screen is completely white>
<The bright light fades and the screen pans out from us to a big room with a pink hue and glowing eggs everywhere >
“What. The. Fuck…” Jacob’s voice echoed through the chamber in awe.
“It’s a nest!” Holly said almost screaming.
“Holly shush!” I commanded in a loud whisper.
“What?” she whispered back somewhat startled and somewhat irritated at the fact that I was shushing her.
“Look.” I pointed at the middle of the room where a purple and grey blob laid within a pool of what looked like pepto bismol. Its body slowly moving up and down with every soft and steady breath. It was a sleeping queen. I let out one more low and slow “sssshh” past my index finger directed at Holly.
“It's asleep. Lets fucking squash some eggs.” Jacob said lifting a leg ready to stomp on some huevos.
“Are you crazy?! Our orders were to take notes and head back safely. DO NOT ENGAGE. Remember?” Holly hissed at his idiocrasy.
“But… we are already here. Why not just break out the mist nozzles and quietly spray the eggs? It’s not often a nest this big is found, let alone a vulnerable one with a sleeping queen.” I cut in.
“But, the commander said-“
“If we go back and tell the hire-ups, they’ll just send a squad in here later. And even if they manage find this place, there’s no guarantee the queen will still be asleep. If that queen wakes up while we’re gone, that entire labyrinth of tunnels we went through is gonna be swarming with her disgusting babies. It'll be impossible to get to this chamber,” I pushed.
“…*sigh* fine, but lets be quick about it. I don’t wanna be here when that fat bitch wakes up.”
So we pulled out the mist nozzles from our backpacks, turned on our pressurized canisters, and emptied out our “windex" tanks on the glowing eggs. As we sprayed, the eggs that came in contact with the formula seized to radiate their pink light, making it harder and harder to see. After 10 minutes of spraying the damn things, we ran out of “windex.” We'd only covered about half the room.
“Alrighty, I think we should head back now.”
“If we can find our way back. I can’t see shit in this- ” <crackling of an eggshell> “shit.”
<he lifts his foot slightly to reveal a wasp larva glowing ever so slightly>
<the glow in the baby’s eyes intensifies and it lets our a loud, high-pitched squeal and all the eggs around it [that hadn’t been sprayed] begin to glow in a wave starting from this tiny maggot and reaching out to the ends of the room>
The room began rumbling and all our heads turned to the Queen. She had woken up and was looking right at us. She let out a horrible screech and Holly removed two grenades from her belt, chucking them at the giant. “RUUUUNNN!!”
<2 blue explosions shook the room, followed by the Queen’s ear piercing wail. The kids ran, crushing eggs with each step.>
[frames were kids are running to the opening of the cave with the Queen screaming in the background, then a cloud of purple wasps emerges from the darkness behind her, headed towards the protagonists]
<The buzzing of a swarm’s wings flapping gets louder and louder. Holly turns on the flashlight but it continues to flicker>
“Dammit, work you stupid piece of-“ *trips* Holly hit the ground and let out a painful grunt. Shin badly scrapped and bleeding.
“Get up! Let’s go!” Jacob said trying to help Holly up.
“OW! Stooopuh! I don’t need your-"
<they look back and see that the pink glow is getting brighter and the buzzing of wings is even getting louder>
“LET’S GO, LET’S GOO!!” Jacob yelled as he picked her up in his arms and ran.
<They re-enter the room with the massive pillar and many doors. The flashlight giving out for a few seconds and turning back on over and over.>
“Dang it! The light isn’t staying on long enough for me to recognize which tunnel is which!”
“WAIT TURN OFF THE LIGHT!” I yelled.
“What?!”
“JUST LOOK!!” I said turning it off while Holly tried to keep it away from me. “With the light off we can see the daylight shining throuuuugh… <looking at tunnels one by one> THERE! THAT’S THE WAY OUT!!”
“IVAN YOU’RE A GENIUS!” <we bolt for the exit>
“Wait, we can’t just leave!” Jacob yelled.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CAN’T LEA-“
“They’ll follow us all the way back to the city!"
“We just need to lead them to HQ, then we’ll have an army of people to fight off the- HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Jacob was pulling at Holly’s grenade belt.
“Give me your belt and get the hell out of here, I have an idea!” He said trading me the flashlight for an angry Holly. I set her down on her feet.
“Jacob don’t be stupid let’s just all get out of-” he yanked off her belt and headed back to the big room.
“I’ll be right out! I promise!” His voice faintly yelling from a distance and his flashlight loosing it’s glow.
“JACOB!!” Holly yanked my arm and we ran towards the light.
I looked back, and the glow and the buzzing were both intensifying. Then there was a HUGE flash of blinding bright blue light from where we had just came from, and immediately the whole mountain started to rumble, the ceiling was coming down on us. So I grabbed Holly and ran as fast as I could. We jumped out, Holly in my arms, we hit the ground and the tunnel opening completely collapsed behind us, kicking up a gigantic cloud of dust making it impossible to see.
“… No….. No, JACOB!” I ran back to the pile of rubble where the opening was and frantically tossed stones and debris out of my way. “No, NO, NOO!!”
“Oh my God.” Holly whispered, hands over her mouth, eyes wide open.
<Ivan still trying to remove the rubble. The dust cloud begins to subside. He stops, but you can hear that rocks are still being removed an tossed out of the way. He turns his head to the left & the camera slides to the right, revealing to the left of Ivan is Jacob trying to clear the collapsed doorway. Ivan just stares at him, teary eyed. Jacob continues.>
“What are we doing this for? Did we forget something inside?” He asked genuinely with a smile.
“Jacob, what the - FUCK?!” I punched his arm while yelling the fuck.
“OW! Woah, what? What'd I do?”
“JACOB WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” Holly shouted angrily holding back tears.
“Why would you think that?”
“Uuh, maybe cuz you ran towards a swarm of wasps, and the whole mountain came down on us while you were nowhere to be found!” I said punching once more.
“And there was an explosion.” Holly added
“-AND THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION!!” I yelled continuing my punches.
“I told you I’d be right out didn’t I? I tied Holly’s grenade belt to that giant support beam, pulled all the pins, and got the fuck outta there. I brought the whole mountain down on that swarm’s ass. I’m a fuckin’ hero man!”
I punched him him one more time in the arm [it was noticeably painful.] “Damn right you are.”
“Wow, you took out a whole wasp’s nest practically on your own… and a QUEEN… good job. That’s pretty freakin cool of you.”
“Aww, Hollyyyy, were you worried about me?” he teased using a stupid voice.
She wiped her eyes “Uuugh!! You should’ve just stayed in the mines with the wasps."
<we all laughed and headed back to HQ>
Mission 1 - Success?
