Mortality Blogexpiration date: 8.7.2086

During the day, we were mostly safe – we were staying in a complex that I’d seen before, a sort of religious complex (probably based on first methodist in downtown pdx) that was like half school half convention center, with wings and rooms and stairways. The first night we weren’t sure what was happening because the incursion was small – the little bugs, of the flying and crawling variety, were on their own, with no zerglings or tentacles to back them up. Still, some people got swarmed, and we found out what happened when you got infected – you didn’t turn into one of them, you just rotted, dissolving from the inside out into a corrosive bio sludge, that settled down through the structure into the ground, and waited for nightfall before spawning a new wave of creatures.

So we eventually barricaded ourselves properly, sealing potential access points, killing the bugs that made it through – big skittering silverfish, and orange and red wasps, swinging lazily in the air as they zeroed in on anyone caught out in the open. The zerglings dashed around, never destructive, more like scouts, tapping experimentally on doors and barriers, windows and walls, looking for a weak spot. Of course, they were vicious too – someone was eviscerated, and we had to seal off that area, as it’d be where the bugs came from the next night.

During the day we ventured out to collect things, to try to find infected areas and expose them to sunlight, which ate away at the runny flesh of the creatures and turned them to ash. We tried to take time to enjoy ourselves, to get a little sleep even, but we were getting worn down – each night we had to ward off our attackers, and each day we had to recover from the attack.

Eventually, the tentacles found us – deep-rooted tubes of muscle burst up through the ground, spines snagging on nailed boards, ripping through cardboard and plastic. We made it out, somehow, and retreated to my mom and dad’s house. We tried to seal it off too, but we knew it would only be a matter of time before enough biomatter had accumulated to form another tentacle. I was in charge of sealing things – I wrapped the toilet in saran wrap, ducttaped cardboard and bags over the windows, plugged drains with rubber cement. We weren’t concerned about breathing – if the bugs got in, oxygen would be a moot point.

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So that’s basically a combination of I Am Legend and the zombie attack mission in StarCraft2, which is cool – I don’t think it was ever particularly terrifying, but it definitely fits the alien/zombie horror sort of idea. A bit like Signs too in that regard. The Zerg influence is obvious, of course – maybe my subconscious is telling me to play more StarCraft?