At the Del Fenwickian border, 402 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Current Version:
“Hello, my name is Sven, and I am addicted to devouring human brains.”
“Hello, Sven,” the other group members chorused.
Sven took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s been 14 days since my last indulgence. It was NIGHTfall in Wordler Village. I’m sure you can all relate.”
Most of the other zombies lowered their heads in sympathy and communal guilt.
“I know we all promised not to indulge in human brains. I know it was a crime.” Sven took another breath to calm his trembling. “But there were fresh corpses everywhere, some with pre-split skulls, and no law enforcement to be found. You all know how it was. We gorged ourselves on brains like we’d been invited to an all-you-can-eat brain buffet. I’m not proud, but I know for a fact that every single zombie in this room had at least a nibble.”
“I didn’t,” said Carly.
“No cross-talking, Carly. Please wait until Sven is finished,” said Jakob, the chair of the meeting.
“I won’t be silenced that easily,” said Carly. “Not when he just made such a sweeping generalization. He called us cannibals, all of us, and I can’t just wait for my turn to come around before denouncing that kind of slander. I’ve never eaten human brains in my life!”
“Well, aren’t you special?” asked Grrrun. “Little Miss Rare Exception, Little Mistress of Restraint, maybe you should be the one chairing this meeting, hmm?”
“That’s enough, Grrrun,” said Jakob. “We zombies are a supportive community. We’re here to help each other, not to tear each other down.”
“We’re connected, we’re linked, we share a psychic bond, yadda-yadda-yadda.” Carly twirled her finger in the air. “That’s what they keep telling me. Except I’m not a member of your community. I’m a victim of your community. One of you zombies, maybe even someone in this room, did this to me.” She pulled her bangs aside to reveal a bite-shaped scar.
“Oh, damn,” said Grrrun. “That bite’s still fresh!”
“It’s from NIGHTfall,” said Carly. “I got knocked out, and when I woke up, I discovered that someone had been nibbling on my head. Now I’m a brain-craving zombie on a twelve-step program, like all of you—except that no, I’m not like all the rest of you, because I will never give in to the hunger for human brains.”
Some of the zombies chuckled, some of the zombies guffawed, but Jakob shut them all down with a bloodshot glare. “We’ve all been where you are now,” he told Carly. “None of us chose to join this community, and yet here we all are. What’s important is that you’re one of us now, and we are all here to support you.”
“Even him?” Carly pointed an accusing finger at Sven, who shrank back into his seat. “He saw NIGHTfall as all-you-can-eat brain buffet. That’s what he called it. Maybe we should check his bite-marks against the ones on my head, because I was one of the innocent people on his menu.”
“Out of line,” stated Grrrun. “She’s out of line. Tell her, Jakob. We’re here to heal, not to hurl around accusations.”
“Grrrun is right,” said Jakob. “We don’t pass judgment on anything that gets shared in this space. Carly, if you can’t be civil, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Carly stood so suddenly, her folding chair went flying away behind her. “Me? I should be the one to leave? And the cannibal who called me a cannibal gets to stay?”
“Out of line!” shouted Grrrun.
“Fine then.” Carly stalked toward the exit.
“You’ll get credit for participation in today’s meeting,” Jakob called after her. “But I will be referring your behavior back to your intake sponsor.”
“It was a stupid meeting anyway,” Carly muttered to herself. “Stupid meeting. Stupid cannibals. Stupid, stupid, stupid brain-cravings. Hello? What’s this?”
Sometime during the meeting, a slip of paper had been tucked into Carly’s pocket without her noticing. Or at least she assumed it had happened during the meeting. She was pretty sure she hadn’t had a slip of paper in her pocket before she came in.
She unfolded the paper and, if her zombie eyes hadn’t already been stuck permanently open, the words she read would have widened them. “Wordler 402, your five-letter Word of Protection will be easy. Simple. A piece of cake. Or rather, a big bite of frontal lobe. Bon appétit!”
“No. No, no, no, no.” The paper dropped from her hand. “Noooooooo!”
Web3 Draft:
- Listed on OpenSea
- Listed on Rarible
- Pinned to IPFS
Revision Notes:
To be added.
