#i'll tag with appropriate identifier later assuming anyone does

[slushblock]

Fell - Chapter 1 - The First Day...

Just a story I started last night when I couldn’t sleep due to my fan breaking down. Was originally going to be dialogue for a comic, but got too long-winded, plus I hate drawing proper comics. Finished it up just now.

This isn’t going to be a continuous story, but I figured it’d be interesting enough to post here. Give you guys a sample of my rare prose, haha. Also, backstory.

Axl awoke to the sound of chirping birds. Groggy, he slowly sat upright, rubbing his eyes and adjusting his glasses. The grass was soft, and the morning light glimmered through the light canopy formed by the forest's unusually round treetops. Fluffy white rabbits and other small creatures rustled here and there, painting a strangely idyllic scene. "Where... the Hell am I..?" Axl asked himself as he pushed himself to his feet, dusting off the ironic Nirvana t-shirt he usually wore to annoy the overbearing mother who'd cursed him with his name. The last thing he remembered was browsing an antique shop in his hometown, and finding a peculiar mirror. It had no price tag, and the shop owner claimed to have not seen it before. Moreover, when Axl looked closely at it, it reflected him, but not the shop behind him; in fact, it had reflected a scene that looked an awful lot like the one he was in now. As he had stared into it more and more closely, he'd felt like he was being drawn into it. Then he blacked out, and woke up here. Axl looked around, running his fingers through his wavy ponytail to dislodge some of the grass in it from lying down. He was trying to find any signs of the mirror in the grass. There was no sign of the mirror. What he did find, though, was a small patch of cartoonishly large orange mushrooms, and a collection of tools leaning against a nearby tree stump; a short sword that looked like it had seen better days, a rather nondescript axe, and a surprisingly fancy pickaxe that seemed to be etched with faint runes. All three tools seemed to be made from copper. Axl reached down and picked up the sword, examining it. The hilt and pommel almost resembled the characteristic trees surrounding him. "What on Earth is-" he began as he reached into his back pocket for his embarrassingly old phone and flipped it open. He wanted to know what time it was, and see if he'd gotten any messages since he - what he assumed - had gone missing. Much to his chagrin, it wouldn't turn on. "...Geez, I just charged this thing," he mumbled to himself, irritated. He shook his head and pocketed the useless electronic, idly letting the arm holding the sword swing, "How long was I out?" he asked nobody in particular. "From what I saw, you more or less just arrived." "Wh-aah!" Axl jumped slightly, startled by the new voice, which he turned to face with his hands held up defensively, sword ready. Standing there was another man, looking about his age, with short hair, a long-sleeved gray shirt, and jeans, somehow appearing exceedingly unremarkable in spite of the fact that he seemed to have materialized out of basically nowhere. He was smiling a very sarcastic smile, unperturbed by having a weapon brandished in his direction. Feeling like an idiot, Axl lowered the sword and adjusted his glasses, slightly askew from his start, "Alright, who are you?" "The only person who's going to help you get your footing here," was the only response he got. Axl tilted his head and waited for more of an explanation, maybe a proper name, but when he got none, he just arched a brow, "...Riight," He wasn't sure he trusted this guy, "And where am I?" "Well, I'm sure lots of people have lots of different names for this land..." the other man waved, gesturing to the surroundings, "but most of the locals end up calling it Terraria." "Uh huh," Axl sighed, arcing his neck back over-dramatically to gaze up at the sky, "Great, spirited away to some weird forest in the middle of nowhere and now a crazy person's telling me that-" A wet thump and unfamiliar motion in Axl's peripheral vision nearly caused him to jump again, barely avoiding falling over due to his posture. A weird, globular blue shape appeared from the overgrowth, bounding clumsily in his direction. This was definitely not just 'some forest.' "Don't believe me if you don't want to, but you'd best be prepared for even more surprises if you don't," the man pointed at the gelatinous organism, if it could even be called that, "For instance, that. Meet the most numerous of your new neighbors; the humble slime." "Uh... whoa," Axl warily knelt down, holding up a hand to see if somehow this strange thing could perceive the gesture, "Hey there little buddy." He mumbled, cautiously. Behind him, he could hear the other man snort, as if holding back a laugh. He turned momentarily to shoot a nasty glare back, before returning his attention to the slime. The slime wiggled a bit and hopped closer. It almost seemed curious, and certainly not threatening. Not really thinking, Axl placed his hand on it. It had the bouncy consistency of cold gelatin. The other fellow chuckled. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Axl turned, leaving his hand on the slime. The surface was pleasant under his palm, but it did little to stem his slowly rising temper, "Look, man, not to be rude, but why should I listen to you?" "Let's just say I'm a guide, here to keep you from dying within a minute of your arrival." He held up a finger matter-of-factly, "My first piece of advice is to stop petting that slime and cut it up. You're going to need the gel to make torches." "Right, because indiscriminately attacking the native wildlife unprovoked when it's clearly passive is such a great ide-" Before he could finish, Axl suddenly fell forward with a yelp as the gelatinous creature suddenly became a lot more fluid, causing him to fall over as his arm sunk into it up to his elbow. He quickly tried to push himself up to his feet, only for the slime to stick to his arm and come up with him. He stared in horror as his skin began to dissolve inside the slime. "-aaaAAAHHHH! WH-WHAT THE-AAAAAAGHH!!!" he tried to shake it off, but to no avail as it started to climb further up his arm, taking flesh with it, exposing muscle beneath, and bone in his fingers. "Again, you should probably cut it up," the other man said, calmly, with a patronizing smirk and exaggerated shrug, "The gel loses its ability to move and digest at lower volume." As smug as this jerk seemed to be, there was no other option. Axl frantically grabbed the ratty copper sword and began to stab furiously at the slime, carving pieces off, nearly taking off his own fingers. Once it was small enough, the rest of the slime simply dripped off, puddling on the ground and going inert. It hurt. Axl sat down roughly, holding his mangled arm and breathing heavily. It hurt a lot. He'd have cried at the pain if it weren't for the shock. His shock was interrupted by a mushroom being shoved in his face, one of the large orange ones he'd seen nearby. The other fellow was holding it, still smirking, "Congratulations, you nearly died to one of the weakest creatures you'll ever meet here." The sarcasm almost burned more than the exposed muscle, "Eat this and you'll feel brand new. Well, kind of." "L-like hell I am!" Axl backed off, nearly falling off the stump. He stood up, still holding his arm, growling at this smarmy know-it-all, "Like I'm just going to eat some random, poisonous-looking mushrooms off the ground in a strange place offered by a jerk like-" "Ah, so you're one of the stubborn types," The guide backed up, holding up the mushroom and waving it a bit, "Like I said, I'm here to keep guys like you alive. Eat this, and you might stay that way." He shrugged again, with a slight chuckle, "I mean, you'd get more out of it if you mixed it with some of that gel you just cut up, but first you'd need a bottle," he held up a finger as he said that, then another, and another as he continued, "You could make bottles out of glass, which you could get by smelting sand in a furnace... but you'll need stone and torches to make a furnace. And to make torches, you-" Axl hissed both in anger and pain, "Oh, go to Hell-" "Been there. You'll know when you get there, yourself," The guide's smile was insufferable. Axl resisted the urge to spit. "Tch-" He turned and stomped away. Now he really was tearing up. The burning in his arm was unbelievable, but all he wanted to do was get away from this jerk goading him. The further he walked, though, the more he couldn't ignore the pain, and it clouded his perception. He only realized that the surroundings had changed as he trudged along, with a sudden heat biting at his exposed arm, his foot sinking into... "...Sand..." Axl mumbled, eyes clearing slightly, "...He said sand could be made into glass, which could-" He took a few more steps, when suddenly the loose ground gave way under him. With a surprised shout he tried to jab the sword into something, anything, to keep himself from falling into this new pit. However, when it lodged into the tougher soil just above the sand, the velocity at which he fell away with the sand caused him to lose his grip, drawing him into the pit. He looked down just in time for a pair of heavy, razor-sharp mandibles to sink into his leg. The impossibly massive antlion's red eyes gleamed for a second before it retreated into the soft sand, its new prey in tow. "N-no no no NO NO NO NO-" Axl screeched as he reached upward, in vain, for the sword dangling in the soil above his head, but he was already waist-deep. Then chest-deep. Then shoulder. Then neck. He clawed frantically, but within seconds it was over his head. Soon, his flailing arm disappeared, as well. His screams were stifled by the sand filling his lungs and- -he woke up. With a start Axl sat up, clutching his throat, breathing ragged. He grabbed his wrist, which showed no signs of having just been digested by slime. It was as if nothing had happened. The memory was so vivid, though. "What-... what was... Was it just a dream-?" His eyes darted around. Everything was as it had been, with the pile of faintly wriggling gel to one side, the axe and pick still leaning on the stump. The guide was also there, sitting on said stump. "Nope," the guide smiled, looking amused, foot on a rock, elbow on his knee so he could rest his chin in his hand, "You totally just suffered a gruesome death by giant sand insect. Probably had your guts sucked out, followed by the rest of the moisture in your body," The calmness of his smile was gone, replaced by a twisted sort of dark sarcasm that sent shivers down Axl's spine, "Good thing you drowned in the sand before then, huh?"  The gory description certainly didn't help. It was too much to take in all at once and Axl gave a shaky, terrified sigh as he reached into his other back pocket for his pack of cigarettes. When he found it was not on him, he whimpered, curling up and burying his face in his hands. "So, Axl Colin Eyre," Axl's blood ran cold. How did this man know his full name..? "You gonna start listening to me now?"

#the wall of text has awoken #now to wait and see how many people actually read it #and whether or not anyone 'gets' it :3c #i'll tag with appropriate identifier later assuming anyone does #i'll draw axl later but right now i need to hunt down a new fan #terraria #long post #fell story