The War with a Sole Survivor

I’ve been training for this day my entire life. The day my combat training comes into play and I have to invade the Ovum Regno. The Ovum Regno is by far the most dangerous place our army knows of. Millions of us set out to find it a month, and only a few hundred make it there. Yet, even of those few hundred, we are told from the beginning that only one will be chosen to enter.

We can feel the ground beneath us begin to tremble and heat up as the archway begins to expand, meaning all those who have finished training must set off on the journey to the battlefield. I don’t think any of us are certain of what all we will encounter, but we do know that none of us are coming back to our grand country.

“Samantha!” I hear my mother calling me by a name she insists I go by, but she knows she could be killed for daring to call me any name other than what the law states: S-1300700. That has always been my name, always will be…

“Hello mother,” I say giving her the same look as always, the look that means ‘don’t say that name here.’ She waved it off with a laugh.

“Oh shut up, I could not care any less what the law says your name is,” she declared. “I named my daughter Samantha, and I’ll be danged if I call her anything else on the day she…”

She looked down, tears welling in her lake-like eyes; I admired how we looked like exact clones of one another. We shared the same thin white tail that was just a little too long, the same small heads that resembled ovals instead of spheres, even our voices were identical (with the exception of our dialect).

“Mother it will all be fine, you know as well as I. There is no way for me to stay here. I was assigned to the army, that’s the law.” My voice cut off slightly, choking up. “This is what I was destined to do…”

She stood silently for the longest time before she was shoved roughly away by two of the guards. The ranks were coming together. It used to amaze me that over a million soldiers could look so proud when they were almost certain of death, but now I understood the cause. We had a duty to fulfill, without our army fighting to get to it, the Ovum Regno would perish. We were its protectors, here only to be trained to destroy all the evils that surround it.

I take my place in the third to last row. I look around and notice that there is not a single familiar face to be seen, but I’m very grateful for that. I could not imagine having to see a friend die, even though it was inevitable, I prefer to assume they found some way around the law.

“WARRIORS!” Screamed our chief, S-101. “Today you scrawny white ingrates go to war. You have been trained by the best this country has to offer, ME, and the Ovum Regno has declared it choosing day. You will fight through untold horrors, and not a single one of you idiotic tail-waggers are coming back alive. Today all but one of you die, and if you’re worth the ground you stand on you wouldn’t have things any other way!”

The archway was now mere milliseconds from full expansion; the crowd of warriors surrounding me began bouncing around excitedly as we were pulled forward. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning as we swirled around and around through the canal leading to the battlefield, my adrenalin rushing faster than I could ever begin to think possible. We continued through until we were joined by a strange jelly and doubled our speed.

We were fast approaching the end of stage one. Within seconds we were shot into a pinkish cave-like area that seared our bodies as we landed. I passed several others of us that were burning alive on the floor of the cavern, some with only their DNA strands left to see. It seemed far less dangerous to stay within the jelly, but nearly half of our ranks were dead by the time we realized. They didn’t bother to warn us of acid oozing from the ground, though I feel like they would’ve been nice to know.

The bubble of jelly we’re in gets smaller as we travel on, forcing those at the front to be forced forward and into the walls of the cavern by those behind them. I can't help but notice how so many of us would murder our fellow warriors, our own DNA, just to have a better chance of being the Ovum Regnos prime choice. I try to stay away from the savages, hoping to help in the war for as long as I can.

We come up on two disturbingly pulsing paths branching from the demonically pink walls of Death Cavern. I see a majority of us, the murderers going right. So wearily I follow behind the rest, through the dank depths of the left tunnel. We continue through, scared out of our wits we may have gone the wrong direction, knowing that the Ovum Regno was only through one of the tunnels. Yet, we continue with valor and courage. We are warriors, expertly trained to die with honor, we are...

"Watch out!" I hear several people scream from up front. I look past the others to see freakish creatures flying angrily in our direction. They move far too fast for us to see them, but some of the warriors in the front line create a barrier with their bodies. They push the creatures to the sides of the tunnel, clearing a path for us to travel through. I went past them as fast as possible, barely able to see the gore through the tears welling in my eyes.

I travel for several minutes, a few hundred of my troop left behind me, dying off slowly as they went on. Slowly tiring and tumbling to the ground, but I stay strong. Leading the way, until a huge pearl-like thing four times my size comes into my view, the Ovum Regno. It glowed brightly in the dim light of the reeking opening that contained. The beautiful sight urged me forward, pulling me with some unknown force, while those behind me trembled in fear of it. I came closer and closer to the Ovum Regno, inspecting every detail when to my surprise I see a small dent in it. A dent shaped exactly like my silhouette. I approach it (intrigued by...who knows what) and slide into the hollow seductively, unable to resist its hold on me.

Then tentacles slither out of the Ovum Regno wrapping around me and pulling me inside. I'm submerged into the soft sphere slowly. I'm scared back to my senses at first, then get mesmerized by my own enjoyment again. I love the sweet loving tenderness that I feel inside of it, the attraction it has for me, it feels so right and natural.

But then, I'm pulled apart rapidly. My DNA spreads through the egg like infection, changing its structure slightly. Then I do something similar to a blink, and when I open my eyes...

I'M the Ovum Regno.

I control every movement it makes, and where it rumbles. I feel power and life coursing horribly through my body. A jelly coating slithers over-top of my being and suddenly I lose my memories and succumb to my instincts. I head through a passage opening behind me, intent on getting...

...somewhere. I'm not certain, I just know that it's important. I see these white creatures jetting at me rudely. Frisbee-like circles with small mouths dead-center, but no eyes. They attack me. Chunking pieces of the jelly force-field all over the surrounding area.

I speed up, knowing if I don't they will kill me. I shove them and try to shake several of them off, continuing until I get passed all of the...

...things, I forget what they look like. They were after me, but now they are not which is good. I can focus on getting to the...

...important place. I know it's so close I can taste it, feel it even. Then I do something like a blink, and when my sight returns, I look around at my new home. A beautiful, little, untouched pocket filled with an amazing future. I know that good things are coming, and I look at myself one last time. Knowing that my sight would go dormant for a long time. Not sure exactly how I know, I just do, like an instinct, I'm only now aware of. Something that comes with being the...

...whatever I am. I see a piece of my self pull away from my body and start duplicating slowly. Another began doing the same thing, then another, and another until finally my sight was taken from me.

Nine months later it returns (after a horribly painful pressure like you wouldn't believe) and I look down to see a ball of fat with four thickly stiff tails coming off of it. Then I notice that five thinner tails were protruding off of each of those tails, and can't help but scream. I wanted to ask the other things around me just what sort of freakish being they had turned me into, but sadly I couldn't get any words to come out. I screamed again, this time in defeated frustration. The creatures spoke an awfully strange language, and I feel like I didn't want to know what they were saying until I recognize a single word. A word that seems so familiar to me.

Where had I heard it? I don't even think I existed before this moment. Yet it seemed so strange and awakened so many emotions in me.

A word that I knew, yet didn't know...

...Samantha.