Ch 2

I'm having a nightmare. This has to be a nightmare. During the night, a noise woke me up. The noise was a long loud moan, like someone clearing their throat of congestion and not doing a very good job of it. It almost sounds like a Zombie… I sat up, shivering, wondering what the hell was that and why it sounded so familiar, when I heard it again, accompanied by the shuffling and dragging of feet outside. It IS a Zombie!

I sat absolutely still, petrified with fear. Zombies! Why'd it have to be Zombies? It takes me a moment before I realize that I can actually see the Zombie, but not with my real eyes. It's almost like I can see through the walls of my suddenly woefully inadequate shelter. Part of me suspects it has to do with my mindscape. I know that the Overmind can see through the eyes of his Zerg, but the Hatchery hasn't finished yet. Only half an hour left. Is it developed enough to be able to see? Closing my eyes, I look around from the perspective of the Hatchery outside. Evidently it can, but not very well.

Opening my eyes again, I focus back on the Zombie. Part of me wishes I couldn't see it at all. I especially wish that I couldn't smell it. Putrid doesn't begin to cover it. I bury my nose in my sleeve, keeping silent. There's something… off about it though. It doesn't look like I'd expect a zombie to look. For one thing, it's green, and other than the smell, it looks rather well preserved. I'd expect a zombie to have injuries making it obvious it's dead. It doesn't even shuffle or drag itself at all. It's more like the old style classic zombie monster, stomping around without bending its knees, and even permanently stretching its arms forward, like it's about to grab someone.

Actually, if I didn't know any better… nah, it can't be!... can it?

The zombie moans again, only this time it sounds rather distinctive, like gargling marbles. I've only ever heard one sound like it, and I realize with a sinking feeling in my gut that it means exactly what I think it means. Another sound cinches it for me. It sounded like bones rattling together, like if you shake the skeleton in the biology lab of high school. That's another sound I've heard from the same place I'd heard the same Zombie noise before, from MINECRAFT!

What the HELL!? Zombies and Skeleton archers from freaking Minecraft are outside my shelter!? I can see them now that I look. I can't see very far outside my shelter. I know it's because the sight range of my Hatchery isn't too good while it's still in the cocoon, but I can just make out the fuzzy outlines of a skeleton or two farther away but still in the clearing. The zombie is the only monster actually near my shelter. I'm only lucky I haven't heard any spiders or creepers yet. A hissing sound outside followed by an explosion that shakes the ground makes me realize I'd thought that too soon.

My Hatchery makes a sound of distress and pain over the web of light in my mind. Objectively, I know the damage was only minimal since the Zerg are extremely tough, but that doesn't stop my near instinctive reaction to just run out there, charging anything and everything that would dare threaten my Swarm, and rip it to shreds. Thankfully, I'm able to reign in the impulse. I'm not stupid. One arrow would be enough to take me out, and that's not even considering Creepers or if Zombies can infect me or not. I may be the Overmind, but I'm still human (I think). So long as I stay in the shelter I should be fine, since most all mobs are fairly stupid. Heck, they wouldn't even notice me if I looked at them through glass in the game! Or at least that's true in the game anyway. With the way my luck is running, that wouldn't work now. I pray spiders don't show up though. I don't think my simple stick and leaves teepee could survive one of them climbing on it.

Turning in the direction of the Hatchery at the sound of another explosion, I grimace and clench my fists. I hate feeling helpless, but in this situation that's all I am, helpless. My Hatchery sends another burst of light across our connection that translates to a sound of pain. It wants relief from the attacks, and I want desperately to give it that relief, but there's nothing I can do.

The few skeletons in the clearing have started firing arrows at my Hatchery and the Zombie near my shelter finally steps close enough to go agro on the thing. Next to the explosions from the Creepers, which did little damage, the arrows and the teeth and clawing of the zombies aren't doing much at all, but they aren't doing nothing either. My only consolation is that my Hatchery is healing faster than the Zombies and Skeletons can cause damage despite the fact that there are about a dozen of them out there now, trying to hurt it.

Well, ok, that's not my only consolation. My other consolation is that there are only ten minutes left until the Hatchery is done. I was hoping to watch it hatch now that I'm awake for it, but that's not a risk I'm willing to take. Besides, I can still see the Hatchery through the walls of the shelter, so it's not a total loss. It seems the closer something is to the Hatchery, the easier it is to see, including itself. I wonder idly for a moment how exactly the Hatchery can see itself, before dismissing the thought.

I don't dare peek out at the monsters with my real eyes, in case there not being a 'block' in the way lets them detect me. I'm scared stiff though. I don't dare make a noise in case they can hear me. They might not have detected Steve when he made noises in his shelter, but that was just a game. This is real life, so who knows what rules may have gone out the window. I can only count my blessings and thank God for the fact that they haven't found me yet.

It felt like hours had passed even though I spent the time watching the timer tick down on the progress bar in my head, waiting for the Hatchery to finish. Finally though, it hit zero, and I heard the sound of my salvation. With a recognizable splattering noise, the hatchery hatched. Like a bird breaking through its egg, the Hatchery stretched forth and ripped through the membrane of the cocoon like tissue paper. The Hatchery unfolded and stretched, seeming to swell in size, far larger than the cocoon had been.

The four tusks marking the four entrances into the Hatchery itself stretch high into the sky, towering over the trees. Where before it was the size of a three story house, I'd say it's now the size of a five story office building, tusks included. It's ridged, it's spiny, and it has chitin like armor. I notice to my delight that the faction color it has is the same black as my shirt. That, combined with the nondescript flesh colored purple of the rest of it, makes it look rather like an eldritch horror from hell, demonic and at first glance, evil.

Despite my light sided tendency, I rather like it. I believe the proper descriptive would be, 'awesome'!

To my surprise, the Hatchery makes an audible gurgling noise I can hear both with my ears and in my head, and a new window appears next to the other information on the Hatchery's stats. It's a list of basic commands, almost straight out of Starcraft. I know it'll follow anything more complex to the best of its ability, but these I know it can and will follow already.

Along with that window though, comes something far stranger. It's like my sight range has… exploded. I can now not only see through the walls of the shelter, I can see into the trees a fair distance more than I ever could, even with my improved eye sight. Even with such an extensive sight range, it seems the Hatchery can only detect things from a certain distance. That which it does detect, it lights up for me almost the same way the Hatchery itself is lit up, marking them red or blue depending on if they're friendly or not. Considering none of the creatures within sight range are friendly, all of them are red.

More jarring though, is that whether or not I have my eyes closed, I can now see everything within a 360 degree radius of myself while within range of the Hatchery, and anything out of the sight range of the Hatchery simply fades to black. It's at that moment I make a startling discovery that if I don't move my physical body but move my mental one, I can see things from that mental viewpoint, almost like a third person camera. So long as I keep my eyes closed, it's not so bad, but opening them leaves me seeing double like before, which is even more jarring.

Also interesting is that anything the Hatchery or I can't see directly appears exactly as the fog of war did on Starcraft, with a grey/black fog over the last thing I'd seen there. If I send my mental self beyond the sight range of the Hatchery, all I can see is black, or faded out grey landscape in terms of the path I took from the burrow. At least now if I ever want to go back there, I'll know where to go.

With a thought, I return my perspective back to the Hatchery. I'd never really stopped seeing what the Hatchery sees, it's more like I wasn't focused on it, like peripheral vision. As for that peripheral vision, I snap my mental self back into place with my real self and open my eyes. All of that only took the span of a second. Evidently I can slow down my own perspective of time when I do that. That's useful to know.

Taking a look at my Hatchery's brand new command list, I read through them quickly. The ones currently labeled are the ability to give commands to the larvae to morph into things just like in the game, setting up separate rally points for each creature type the larvae can morph into, a manual override for opening and closing the Hatchery's entrances since it seems to do that on its own already, and I can order it to evolve the Swarm with the Burrow ability, which costs 300 Bio-Energy, whatever that is. There's also a command for automatically refilling my PSI energy by touching the Zerg Bio-Energy Pool. I can only guess that whatever that is, I'll know it when I see it.

The next thing to immediately happen had a grin spreading across my face. Slowly, like a viscous liquid pouring out from underneath the Hatchery, the Creep starts to grow. It looks a bit like grayish purple rubber. Thanks to the single mindedness of the monsters trying to harm my Hatchery, they simply sit there as the Creep latches on and grows over them, absorbing them into itself till there's nothing left. While not intelligent, the Creep is directed by the Hatchery, which can and will protect itself by any means necessary, and if the monsters are stupid enough to hold still, well too bad for them!

As the Creep continued to slowly flow over the ground, a larvae crawled out of a fleshy tube in the side of the Hatchery and onto the Creep. It kinda looks like a cross between a Pill Bug and a Chaurus. A few monsters still coming out of the trees started heading for the larvae. I kind of hoped that the Creep would stop them, but it only slowed them down. Only when they stopped did the Creep once more slowly suck them under.

Unfortunately this meant that Creepers wouldn't really be affected by the Creep at all. One of them came at my larvae. I tried to order them back into the Hatchery for protection, but it did nothing. I could've ordered a newborn puppy to play dead for all the good it did me. Not even relaying the order through the Hatchery did any good. I watched in trepidation as the Creeper came to a stop near the Larvae and exploded.

As expected, the Larvae were pretty much unaffected. The Creep itself had a scorch mark on it, but that slowly disappeared as the Creep reabsorbed its top layer into itself. That holds pretty close to the game, considering how many hit points Larvae had in Starcraft. They are pretty much nothing but high density armor crawling around. I'm a bit surprised the Creep was affected at all though, since it didn't look like it was in game.

While I'd been watching the Larvae, the Creep continued to spread and finally reached my shelter, only to my horror, the Creep started to absorb that into itself as well! I've only got a few moments before I'll be a sitting duck for any monsters out there. Heart pounding, I waited till the very last moment, then took off for the Hatchery as fast as my legs could carry me. I count myself lucky that there aren't any monsters in between me and it, but there are some Zombies heading for me now.

I see a skeleton draw a bead on me and I try to run even faster. Unlike for them, the Creep actually hardens beneath my feet rather than slow me down. Counting my blessings, I make it into the Hatchery's entrance just in the nick of time, as the arrow thuds against the door as it irises closed.

After a moment to catch my breath, I look around. I'm in a rather short hall that slopes downward very gradually, into a large bowl shaped room with a dome shaped ceiling. Stepping into it, I take a look around. There are ridges in the walls going all the way up to the ceiling, and in the center of the room is a pit that drops down into a pool of white liquid with a green tinge to it. It casts a low light over the room, not terribly bright, but enough that I can relax, knowing no monsters will suddenly appear in here.

I slumped to the floor and leaned against the wall heavily as my situation finally caught up to me. Minecraft monsters. Wherever I am, Minecraftian monsters are here. Toto, I don't think I'm on Earth anymore. A quick glance up at the sky in my Mindscape confirms it. There's not a single constellation up there that I can identify. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't see how I thought this world was Earth at all. It'd been niggling at the back of my mind all day, but only now do I see what'd been bothering me about this place. No birds, no bugs, no normal forest noises. Nothing but the wind in the leaves. I'd passed it off as animals being silent while I was around, but I realize now I should have at least heard something from farther off, but there wasn't.

I'm not even on Earth anymore. I couldn't get more lost in the middle of nowhere even if I tried, nevermind how I even got here in the first place, or why I'm the Overmind. I drew my knees up and rested my arms and head against them and took a shaky breath. What do I do now?

As I sat there, I slowly became aware of a thrumming in the floor. Glancing down, then around, I realize that very slightly, the floor is moving. So are the walls. Distracted, I look around, seemingly realizing for the first time that I'm inside my Hatchery. This building is alive. A thrum of love, concern, and acceptance flows over my connection to it. I smile and gently pat the floor. Lost I may be, but at least I'm not alone.

Casting my attention back outside, I frown, seeing all the monsters still popping up and coming after my Hatchery. Just like in Minecraft, these things are just spawning wherever there's enough darkness to do so. After a few moments of watching this, I realize that standard spawning rules must still apply. Judging from the amount of monsters, I'd say this world is probably the equivalent of Hard mode with the land set to Large Biomes, considering how enormous this forest is. I idly wonder if I died here if I would respawn. I don't think I want to test that out.

Turning my attention to the outside again, I spot an Enderman and freeze. I'm looking right at it! A moment passes. Then two. It's still not reacting. I sigh in relief. I guess I have to look at it with my physical eyes to anger it. I'd been really hoping that the Endermen wouldn't be here. Creepers and Zombies are bad enough, but there's little I can do to defend myself from Endermen. Their ability to warp around and single mindedness once looked upon make them extremely dangerous foes. Luckily, they're like the Borg, in that if you ignore them, they tend to ignore you. Hopefully this Enderman will lose interest soon and warp away.

It doesn't help any that the monsters here aren't pixilated cubes. No, these are true monsters. They're still obviously Minecraft monsters, but these things actually look like they come from a nightmare than a game. The Enderman is rail thin and its skin is black and scaly. They kind of remind me of Dementors without the cloaks from the Harry Potter movies. Shivering, I look away from it.

A burst of concern from the Hatchery fills me with warmth. I smiled and leaned back against the wall. A depression forms beneath me to my surprise till I found myself lying down. I guess I am a bit tired. I pat the Hatchery again and it thrums in pleasure. Staring up at the ceiling like this, I can see the walls moving back and forth. It almost looks like breathing.

Maybe I'll be ok. With the Zerg on my side and looking out for me, I just might survive this. Heck, the Zerg can adapt and survive anything, even space. Maybe someday I'll find Earth again. I just have to get to space first. With a goal finally in mind, tension I didn't even realize I had finally eased out of me and with the warmth of the surprisingly soft Hatchery beneath me, I drifted back to sleep, far more comfortable than I'd been in the dirt outside.

- END CHAPTER –

Overmind Matthew

PSI Energy – 50/50

Status – Normal

Abilities

- Spawn Hatchery – 50psi – 12 hour build

- Regeneration – Passive – Heals anything not instantly fatal; time needed depends on extent of injury

- Anaerobic – Passive – No longer requires breathable atmosphere to survive

- Temperature Resistance – Passive – Currently able to survive temperatures between -450 and 118 F

- PSI Regeneration – Passive – Regenerate energy at .5 points per second.

Zerg Swarm

Bio-Energy – 0

Support – 0/11

Entities

1x Hatchery