Memento Vivere

James hit and hit the incoming ants again and again till they were puddles of ant blood forming. In the tunnel he could barely see them, the darkness surrounded him like a inescapable net.

The more he fought, the more he honed his battle instinct, his silver red gauntlets were now fully red, covered in their enemies blood!

After a while the giant ants retreated.

James leaned against the wall trying to catch his breath.

"Hey you two, are you alright?"

"We are alright, but shouldn't we ask you the question?" Asked Dan concerned.

"Yeah you look like shii-" pete tripped over a dead ant, he then banged his head against a wall.

*click*

You could hear a mechanism starting. Like gears in a clock, it flowed without problems.

Suddenly from the entrance they came, light was popping up in form of translucent blue balls, like lamps were they hanging!

James and the other watched them light up from where they came from to the way where the ants went, only to find out to their horror that instead of giant ants there were now a giant worm!

He was slithering around, under him you could see crushed ants antler, legs, all kind of ant organs.

The giant worm made no sound, it had thousands and thousands of teeth, razor-sharp.

They could mutilate anything like a meat grinder. The giant worm breathes through its skin, therefore has no need for lungs.

The giant worm will eat anything from dust, fruits and vegetables. They will eat all things that once lived.

This hermaphrodite giant insect was lured through the scent of endless corpses of ants.

It sniffed and looked around to observe the group of James and the others.

Then it began to eat the corpses. It just ate and ate, the meat was split, torn, broken and crushed. Its teeth wasn't just for sure.

"Alright... it seems it isn't interested in living things like us, that still doesn't mean we should treat it lightly, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. The fight must have startled it. Looks like the ants knew it was coming and retreated because of it. " James was sweating buckets. Fighting in a barely visible environment hordes of giant ants takes a toll on everyone. Especially since he just had a fight that nearly cost his life.

"Then we should probably use the other tunnel right?" Asked Dan huffing.

Pete was trying to get up but ant blood is pretty slippery slimy!

Dan seeing his brother struggling, walked over and gave hand, till he slipped too!

James watching this whole ordeal couldn't believe how these two got so far!

James went slowly over and pulled them up like nothing.

*sigh*

"Let's go"

James then walked in the front of them ready to take the lead.

Then he heard something. Something far away that came near. It was getting louder and louder.

It sounded like tapping, multiple tapping, crawling.

The giant worm stopped eating. It turned its head back, then looked far away and tensed up.

Soon it got into a fighting position, using its tail like whip, deterring incoming enemies.

The tapping was growing louder and louder and now it was clear who was responsible for it!

The ants came back! But not alone! They brought giant armed soldier ants with them.

They were more aggressive than the worker ant, these were truly soldiers. Born to fight knowing no end to protect its queen and the colonies! These ants were a little bit bigger, but less then the worker ants. They were quality over quantity in a picture.

They began to attack the worm. They crawled all over the giant worm and began to tear it apart still alive. The giant soldier Ants were armored with pincer, sharp And durable. They could pinch through metal like it was nothing!

The giant worm was enraged, as it tried to shake them off. It whipped it's tail up and down, swirling dust everywhere. Pebbles flew everywhere.

Some unlucky ants couldn't escape and were crushed under the pressure of the tail.

The giant worm may have low intelligent, but it is still a living being, thus like every living being it has its survival instinct ingrained.

Seeing the giant creatures fighting each other, gave James and the others the opportunity to shy away from a pointless fight, needlessly tiring themselves.

They made their way slowly but steady

To the second tunnel, as the first was obviously occupied.

As they went on the sound of clashing slowly grew distant, until there was nothing left to hear.

They kept walking only to find more and more skeletons on their way, which was uncanny.

"Lets wait here for a moment and rest, we really didn't even have time to catch our breath really. This damn cave! I swear to god if it weren't for lo- i mean Grisko, I wouldn't even be here *sigh*"

James complained, then he sat down against the wall.

Dan and Pete watched James and then sat down too, of course first the made the place where they sat a little bit clean.

Dan then searched his pocket, then his shoe.

He hid an emergency snack and broke it in two and gave the other one his little brother.

James was just sitting there stunned with his mouth open.

Dan bit in snack, until he heard James stomach grumbling.

At first he was slightly surprised, then he took his snack and broke it in half again.

He tried to give it to James but, James was too embarrassed to take it.

"Yeah no thanks!" James refused adamantly!

Seeing James refusing to eat the snack he gave, he decided to take a bit, but then he heard another grumble.

James then took the broken unbit snack without saying anything, which made both brother's smile.

James looking at their expression, it irked him somehow so he asked,

"What are you smiling for?"

"We are just glad, that we can pay you back a little. D-d-dont get us wrong here though, we are not saying that our lives are only this much worth! Its just the beginning!" Said dan very seriously.

"Yeah like big brother said, just the beginning!" Pete followed.

"*sigh* forget that, tell me something about you two, I mean we escaped death together, and the only thing I know about you is that you are both brothers and your names." James scratched his head as he looked at them.

"Hmm... well originally we came from a planet called Gliese 876 d, well that was the name it had, it is now known as Nox Vulcan. We grew up with basically volcanoes spewing fire every night, because the volcanoes were mostly at the night active. It was a cursed blessing, thunking back, because of the volcanoes we had soil more fertile than any other planet in our constellation Aquarius. Still, volcanoes did not only gave us food, it took many man and woman from us, it didn't discriminate between age, race or sexuality. In its own kind it was fair. So many people began to worship the god vulcan..., every year we would offer in a rite a living being..., my brother was chosen as I too was picked. We brought the village the luck of unluck, that's what they at least told us. We were always outcasts, we only had our mother, so our lovely mother sent us with a ship in dark night away. Later we found out, it enraged the whole village, to appease them, our mother jumped in the volcano..., we never returned back, since then we roamed around and finally decided to enlist in Avarus malum, we still have to eat, but we never imagined our first battlefield to be this crazy, we are not going back trust us!" Dan never looked more serious than ever.

"Sorry to hear that, you two must have been through a lot, losing your mother it must have been painful..., what about your father? "

"Well I still have fond memories of him, pete was to young to remember so I don't know how much he remembers about our father, but our dad was very happy, always working on the fields, he cared a lot about us, even if he didn't say it, he showed us..., he was the most happy on the fields. I remember waking one morning a bit earlier than usual and finding our father make preparations for the day. He always looked so proud, proud of his hard work. He always told me,

'Son remember one thing, if you can't be smart, you have to work hard instead, because your hard work never betrays you' I always kept it in my heart, I wanted to be a son who my father could be proud of and a big brother who is protecting his little brother. So I am always thankful for you saving us, we may be not the smartest but we will work hard! Sadly he died early, he died what he loved, he overworked himself to death." Dan said.

"Brother..." pete always respected his big brother, but hearing the story of their father, gave him a new kind of respect for his brother.

"You are a special kind of brothers huh" James scratched his head in defeat.

"What about you?" Asked Pete.

"Me huh, there is not really anything special, i grew up on a planet called teagarden b, our name was from the star we orbited, teagarden, we had a twinplanet too! Teagarden c, because of that we named our planet castor, they named their's pollux. Twins inseparable. I was a normal kid, growing in a normal family, i had normal friends, went to a normal school, you get the picture right? Well, someday a disease broke out on pollux, then a famine, because of our close relationship between the two planets, we naturally decided to help them, we gave the food for the people and medicine for the weak and ill, we didn't think much about it, we just did what was right. Because we sent them supplies, we had a shortage, but we knew with the upcoming season we should have no problems. With time they recovered pretty quickly, you think it would end here huh, sorry to disappoint you, this was only the start. The new season was now here, but we had now a problem, because who ever we sent to help, got back sick. So it spread, now we were having a famine and pandemic. So through the new season we lost our crops, had low supplies and everyone was ill. We asked for aid, because they recovered and their season had a surprising surplus. You would expect them to help us back, since we also helped them right? Well no, nothing like that happened. They attacked us in hordes with their ships and soldiers. We were caught off guard. We didn't expect those ungrateful fuckers to bite the hand that literally saved them. So at the beginning we were hit pretty hard, it took us a while to fight back. We were losing, our people were starving, dying right and left through the disease. We were at our end. So we hired mercenaries, at the end i joined them. We won, albeit narrowly..., at the end of the war everyone was simply tired. Both sides lost too much. I lost my normal life too, i lost everything. Only through the mercenaries did I found a purpose, i wanted to help people like me.

We did, so we grew, we all had similarities, our past didn't bound us but gave us strength for the future. *sigh* then we split up, but thats another story. After that I joined avarus malum, I thought they had the same goal, albeit different methods. They took me with a quite good offer, because I got experience. I had it real good at the beginning, until they showed their true face. It was too late for me to get out. You can join pretty easily but if you want to quit be prepared to lose a heavy price. Yeah well, now here we are now, god knows where."

James then stood up and dusted himself clean.

"Well that was quite something of a storytelling from both of us, we should get going, my friends are searching for me, surley... I hope at least...*sigh*"