FB | Ch. 3 - Clown Clothes

I expected to start my new life as an alien beetle inside an egg or as a squishy larva—or, ideally, by waking up and realizing this whole mess was a stress-induced dream.

Nope.

I woke up looking exactly like myself. Two hands. Two feet. Still had a face. I even felt normal.

Well, mostly normal.

I was wearing clothes that fit like a toddler raiding a clown’s wardrobe. The pants were so baggy I could’ve pitched a tent in each leg. The jacket flopped around like it was a parachute.

It still baffles me that the Giants were callous enough to kidnap an entire species and forcefully transform us into bugs—but considerate enough to soften the transition in certain ways. 

The first mercy was letting us choose our species. 

The second was how they designed our larval stage. We were almost the same as before. Almost. I’ll explain the differences in a moment. 

The third kindness was those clothes.

But the scenery? Definitely not Earth.

On one hand, the world looked familiar—trees, ferns, grass. But take a second look, and everything was off. Trees towered to absurd heights, their bark a deep crimson. Ferns unfurled like purple fans, and each blade of grass was taller than the pines back home. There were two suns in the sky, blazing away like twin spotlights.

For a second, I couldn’t tell if everything was massive or if I’d been shrunk to ant-size. There was no way of knowing. I hadn’t brought a ruler or a measuring tape.

Then came the roar.

Not from the sky. Not from a beast. From my own stomach.

It howled with the fury of a thousand skipped breakfasts. And then, like a bloodhound, my nose twitched. 

There was a smell.

Sweet. Smoky. Irresistible.

Logic, caution, and every ounce of dignity I had melted as I stumbled through the skyscraper grass, trying not to trip over my pants, following that heavenly aroma. The trail led underground. I dropped to my knees and started digging with my bare hands.

Eventually, I struck a red chunky of something.? The color matched the nearby tree’s bark.

"Is this wood? Bark? Alien beef jerky?"

My brain threw a dozen warning signs, but my stomach picked up a baseball bat, hit it, and said, “Shut up, nerd.”

I took a bite.

Crunchy. Salty. Pretzel-like.

Delicious.

Immediately, shame kicked in.

"What is wrong with me? Why am I eating dirt-wood on an alien planet?"

Then, mid-regret, a glowing window popped up.

You’ve eaten: [Degrading ZeepZoop Bark]

+1 XP

New Quest Unlocked: [Eat Your Weight in Food]

My mind froze. I’d seen the game menu during species selection, but this made it official.

The aliens had gamified our abduction.

“This is why they told us to have fun?” I groaned.

I stared at the bark. “Eat my weight in food? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

But my stomach wasn’t joking. It grumbled again, louder this time.

“Fine,” I muttered, grabbing another chunk. “But I’m not enjoying this.”

(I was absolutely enjoying it.)

I kept munching on the ZeepZoop bark. Yes, that’s its actual name. ZeepZoop. I know—another stellar example of the Giants’ terrible naming sense. But wait till you hear some of the other names the Giants came up with. It gets worse.

As I crunched through my alien snack, a dozen questions crowded my brain.

Why make this into a game? What kind of galactic nonsense was this?

Looking back, I think the game system was another weird act of mercy. A way to ease us into our new forms. Something familiar to hold on to while everything else turned upside down.

Maybe they’d been spying on us on Earth and noticed how half of us spend our days glued to a screen, chasing digital points. “If they don’t get XP,” they probably thought, “they just rot on the couch.”

I found another chunk of bark. It practically winked at me.

So I ate it.

And I gained one more XP.

Ch. 2 - The Insectification

INDEX

Ch. 4 - Mashed Peas