For one moment you were in one place at the second you were somewhere else. Reality went sideways and your sanity too a break. The world kept spinning and you felt your body tingling your belly felt like someone was poking with white-hot pokers while you could feel ice cold fingers running across your spin.

Than it was all gone and you were alone, the world was spinning and you senses were muffled, fuzzy cottons in your ear, blurry sight. You glanced back and saw a large obelisk-like rock glowing from heat, for a few seconds you could see the world you came from without a warning the image changed into the infinity of space, quickly the rock cooled down and the stone changed again this time back into plain rough rock.



It took a couple of moments for you to regain your senses, there was a strong sense of a swamp. Rotting organic matter with standing water. The soil was dark wet and black, it would have been fertile if there was somewhere to the water to drain. It was overcast, the skies covered with dark clouds, a break in the clouds revealed it was day. Oddly despite the distance rumble of thunder and the occasional lighting, the weather is warm and nice. If it wasn't for the clouds you'd guess this was a summer day.

Colton yeeted through the portal and into a puddle of muck, soaking his Adidas through and barely managing to stop before he faceplanted. The confusion on the boy's face was evident, pale eyes blinking as they took in the dismal - yet stunning - sight before him, a wetland vista far more primal than any he'd ever seen in his life.

That would be none. He had seen none wetlands before this, at least not in person. But was this a marsh? A bog? A swamp? A moor? A fen? Colton did not know, for he had not paid much attention in his environmental biology classes, scraping by - as in all cases - with a participatory C.

"WTF," he whispered, enunciating each letter individually. Doubleyou Tee Eff indeed.

He turned back to the portal from which he'd come and found it sealed, inert. There would be no returning to his world of being terminally online from this boggy wetland.

It occurred to him that he'd never see his family again.

It occurred to him that there was no one to erase his browser history.

A cold gnawing dread formed in the pit of Colton's stomach. Clearly he could never go home again. But so what? "So what," he echoed, hands brushing down the sides of his bright yellow crew-neck T-shirt, already damp from the humidity. "So what?"

He felt his jaw unclench, his shoulders slacken, his spine straighten as if a great existential dread of having lived in the end of days had suddenly been lifted. Yes, there was always the chance that this wasn't some iseki deal and he'd been transported to, say, Florida, instead of another world, but there was no reason to be negative. Best to assume a clean slate, a new chance, a new life in a world that hadn't been doomed before he was born.

He turned to the portal and gave his old life two middle-fingers. "See you in hell, trash fire!" Then turned boldly back towards the swamp and started walking away towards a new life of adventure, excitement, and possibly a lonesome death alone and unmourned.

Colton began his long walk, the marshlands were under an ever cloud cover with the occasional lighting and thunder. The marshes were teeming with insect life, although he wasn't sure if an eight legged and four winged creature would be correctly called an insect. These critter were on the small size, no larger than the tip of his index finger. The water in the shallow pools was muddy, full with black wet soil, white albino worms were crawling in it. Colton had a feeling drinking the water was not a good idea, thus he kept pushing forward.

Somewhere above him the the sun was slowly climbing the sky. Despite the moors he was making good progress, he managed not to lose his direction and he was pretty sure he was heading north, assuming directions worked the same. He managed not to fall into any bogs and keep his clothing more or less dry. Despite the wet surrounding he was perched and his belly began rumbling and complaining.

This swamp was the worst. Colton's socks and sneakers were soaked through, and that was the grossest thing ever. Not that they were good for the terrain, feeling like the muck was going to suck them off his feet every other step. Or for long distance walking in general. His feet were uncomfortable, he was getting hungry, and it was sooooo humid.

"Narnia sucks," he said to himself. "I should, like, find food. Or shelter. Or water. Right?" He thought he vaguely remembered something like that. So... food. Yeah. Mushrooms were probably dicey unless he wanted to trip balls or die, so no mushrooms. Berries? Maybe berries. Something he didn't have to cook, because as a 21st century digital boy he had no idea how. Even if he had, like, a stove. Which he didn't. Or new how to build a fire. Which he didn't.

"I am woefully unprepared for a life of adventure," Colton informed the wilderness. What kind of food even grew in swamps? What did Shrek like? Onions, probably. Yeah, wild onions were food. And they were moist, so maybe that counted as water, too? Maybe?

Colton kept an eye out for food, fresh water, or signs of other people who might have one or the other.

Colton spent the day circling the bog, he was hungry, thirsty and ironically wet. The weather was cold, despite this should have been the middle of the day there was little light due to the overcast skies. If he had any luck it would have started raining and he would have been able to soak his dried tongue but the dark heavy rain clouds, refused to release their content.

He was about to give up his search, maybe find a relatively dry spot and curl into a little ball and and do what? wake up? die?

At that point he heard the song, it was odd, if he had to guess he would have said the tune was something from the middle east.  He couldn't recognize the lyrics, he couldn't even recognize the language but the voice was sweet. Perhaps it was sweet because it was the first voice he hard that wasn't crawling insects or other bugs.

Colton climbed over the little hill that separated him from the voice and saw the horror beyond it. The singer, if you could call it such had four long limbs, that ended with sharp claws, it had another set of small arms that it used to probe the ground with a long metal spear. It wore no clothing but had a dark exso-skeleton. Worse part was it's head, it was set on a long fleshy pink muscular neck ending in a large maw. The creature was busy tossing inside his maw small worms and maggots it was digging from the slush.

Colton stared in shock at the creature. It reminded him of something from the distant past, and after a few moments he realized that it looked like aliens he'd seen in that ancient game his uncle used to play. What was its name? Oh yeah, Half-Life.

There were aliens in that game. And a swamp. That's really all Colton remembered, as it was too scary for him to play. Still, he'd grown up with those old games like Half-Life and Skyrim and Fallout 4, passed on down to him through his uncle's Steam account. In a way, he preferred them to modern games like Fortnight. Not that he had much appetite for games...

This creature was worse, though. It was gross. And it was eating gross worms. It was deeply problematic, despite its beautiful singing voice. Was that ironic? It felt ironic.

Didn't seem like the nudist creature had seen him yet, and that was just fine with Colton. He backed away, slowly, hoping to avoid what would surely be an awkward and tedious confrontation, like when his mom was drinking.

The singing continued on the other side of the little hill, hill was an over estimation, it was a little raised land covered with reed like plants. The song was clearer now, if he closed his eyes Colton could imagine it was a lovely maiden that sang not the horror that he saw.

The song was getting closer and closer, the creature was circling toward Colton position, it didn't seemed that the monster had noticed Colton yet.

Ugh. So awkward. Things were going from bad to worse - if the creature saw him now it'd be obvious that he was trying to avoid it, and that would be a whole other thing that he really didn't want to get into. Assuming it didn't just try to eat him, which honestly would be a lot less cringe.

Last thing he needed was to surprise it by having them suddenly run into one another. No, the better option here would be to warn it that he was close by. And the best way to do that? Song. The universal language.

Colton liked music. The songs he liked best were sad and slow, and dreary, and he didn't know the words. Or the Japanese songs from his favorite anime, which he could also not sing. But Colton did like karaoke - and while the songs were older - like Boomer and Millenial and The Other Generation stuff - he DID know the words, because that's what karaoke places had.

He racked his brain trying to come up with the kind of song a swamp dwelling creature might like, when really, there was only ever one option.

"SOMEbody once told me
the world is gonna roll me,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed!"

The moment Colton started to sing the singer at the other side of the elevation turned silence. With no other option Colton continued, his voice trembling shaky sounded small and alone over the large moor.

A few moment later the singer from the other side joined its voice to Colton. It was a tune and surprisingly it matched Colton memory for how the song should be.

So they sang Colton getting more and more confident as he sang and the critter  followed adding a tune and rhythm to the song.

When the song was over even a fatalist like Colton couldn't but smile with satisfaction of course than he raised his eyes and saw the creature face to face with him standing but five feet away, spear tilted across it's dark exoskeletal hide. Up close Colton could also tell that the critter smelled like a mixture of rotting fish and rotten eggs.

Shit. Now came the hard part. Small talk. Colton hated small talk, even when he shared a common language. Really, he was only comfortable communicating via memes and short texts, but without the internet as a medium and a whole new world it'd be like that space show his grandfather liked... there was this one episode where Captain Professor X was talking to aliens that could only communicate in shared cultural understanding - memes - and he couldn't figure it out.

Not wanting to let the awkward pause grow more awkward or pause-y, Colton settled for giving the alien a simple head-tilt. "Sup?"

That was how people interacted offline, right?

When Colton spoke the creature took a few steps backwards. It stabbed its spear into a puddle and than moved it toward Colton offering a squirming two inch wide milky white maggot impaled on it.

As Colton reviewed the offer the creature started singing once more repeating the tune Colton had sang, surprisingly the creature repeated the words as well but the creature voice was sweet like honey and if Colton would have closed his eyes he could easily imagine the voice belonging to a sweet teen girl.

Oh geez oh man oh geez. Colton did NOT want to eat the gross swamp worm. He really didn't want to. It was gross. And a worm. Probably rife with parasites. Colton was skinny enough that he absolutely did not need a tapeworm.

And yet...

And yet it would be suuuper awkward to decline the generous offer, and Colton wasn't good with confrontation. Instead, he sang back to the creature.

"All I wanna do is say thank you
Even though I don't know what you are
You gave me a gross swamp worm
even though I don't have a jar."


Grimly, he would pull the worm off of the spear and examine the thing before adopting a mock shocked expression on his face and pointing behind the weird swamp monster. "Oh shit it's something horrible, look!"

If the creature took the bait he'd turn and fling the worm as far as possible in the opposite direction before faking like he'd eaten it, with exaggerated chewing sounds while rubbing his belly.

The creature mimic Colton words perfectly, it seemed it had a knack for rhythm and sounds.
Lacking any face it must not understand Colton expression and when Colton pointed and spoke he only got a blank stare from the creature whom quickly fished another maggot and offered it to Colton adding a second to the one in Colton hand.

The creature plucked a third worm and tossed it into it's open maw. Up close Colton could smell the stanch from the the things breath, it felt putrid and its breathing was warm and wet. Colton couldn't see eyes and the thing face seemed to be composed of a large open maw.

It had to see without needing eyes. Like, Colton didn't know, echolocation or something. It would have been awkward to refuse, and who was he to say that his own not-maggot-eating culture was superior? That's an insensitive attitude. Besides, he'd heard that some of the grubs they ate in Australia tasted like peanut butter.

This probably wasn't one of those grubs. Colton stuffed it into his mouth anyway and did his best to eat it.

It might be nutritious, it might be good for him but it didn't taste like peanut butter, it had a foul bitter taste, it tasted like you'd imagined a swamp maggot would taste. The taste was revolting, will Colton try to brave it and force the grub fighting his own raising bile or will he risk offending his singer friend and spit it out?

Colton didn't bother trying to hide his expression, guessing that the creature wouldn't understand human facial expressions, lacking a face as he did. It was the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten, and that was saying something - he'd been to Arby's.

Still, he fought hard as he could to keep the greature down, chewing it with exaggerated bites and swallowing as soon as he was able. "Yum, thanks."

Bitter juices exploded in Colton mouth as he chewed the disgusting little maggot, he was barely able not to throw up.

The thing didn't seemed impressed with Colton expressions, in face once Colton finished swallowing the maggot the creature tossed him another... and another and another...

It seemed the creature wanted to Colton to be well fed.

On some things they say they are an acquired taste, on other one can get used to after eating enough. If the worms had any magic it was that made it so revolting to it one could never get used to eat them.

Colton had his limits. He was willing to play along to get along to the tune of one gross swamp worm, but he had no further interest in what the gross monster might think of him. "Thanks, I'm full, Shrek."

He tossed the worms back at the creature.

The creature looked puzzled, it is very difficult for a faceless maw-only creature to look puzzled but the creature definitely looked puzzled.

"Thanks... I'm full, Shrek." it sang back at Colton biting half the maggot and swallowing it while offering the other half, still squirming, back.

Colton felt a warm fuzzy feeling, it was very faint but somehow he got the feeling eating the worm would help them.

"Oh fine." Colton half-suspected that the feeling he had was the worm's parasites trying to get him to eat more worms and thus more parasites, but who cared. Death would be coming for him soon enough.

He at the worm.

The creature kept feeding Colton the worms, half the thing would eat and half it would toss at Colton. The taste didn't improve after repeatable eating the maggots.

What did change was Colton percept, he began to be aware of the thing standing next to him. First, he was suddenly aware it wasn't an it but a she. Colton, could sense it was lonely, seeking company. He could sense warmth from it, care and desire to help. The thing appeared like a monster but she had the soul of an angel.

~Sweet Angel Rhyme~

The thought broke into his mind, it was her name. She was looking at him with curiosity mixed with a little concern, she was afraid he would harm her.