Welp, Morrison was dead!

I felt pretty bad about it. Or as close to feeling bad about it as my halted emotional development would permit. I mean, it wasn’t really my fault. I don’t really understand the concept of “fault,” anyway. Wasn’t that just an excuse to feel bad about yourself when accidents happened? What was the point?

Still, Morrison had been a real pal. An irreplaceable part of me!

I'll never forget the time we spent out here in this darkened forest, sharing our hopes and fears, bonding over our hardships and dreams for the future, telling jokes and singing silly songs…

I will treasure these memories in forever!

Goodbye, Morrison! Now Heaven has another precious soul up there, looking down on us! I mean, looking out for us! I know you wouldn’t want me to waste my life wallowing in grief.

“Don’t be trapped in the past, Axe,” you’d probably say while throwing a comforting arm around my shoulder. “You’ve got a world out there to see, and a life that needs living! Don’t worry about me, my friend…

“We’ll meet again someday…”

Morrison! We will! We really will! Keep a seat ready for me when that day comes, so we can sit together and laugh and tell stories about the old days! I’ll carry you forever in my heart! I love you, man!

You know, they probably don't have them here in this world, but do you know what would taste really good right now? Nacho Fries! Gosh, I could eat about a million of those! Why does Taco Bell make all the good menu items temporary? That wasn't fair.

Oh, you want to know how Morrison died? Why? You weren’t like, emotionally invested in that guy, were you? Because if I’m being honest, I had a suspicion his story wasn’t going to end well. Some people are just doomed by the narrative. It pains me to say this about a friend, but I don’t think there was anything that could have been done to save him.

He was just one of those guys…

Okay, fine, if you insist! Gosh, I just can’t say no to you people.

It all started with the slimes…

__

So, as we all know, when you’re questing in a world of magic and monsters, slimes are a rite of passage for any fledgling adventurer. They were part of the basic package. Could you even imagine going to a new world and killing some slimes? It just isn’t done!

That’s why I was so excited when Morrison and I came across a clearing of them bobbling around in the sunlight. Slimes! The iconic symbol of adventure itself! The mascot of my favorite copyrighted console Japanese role-playing game series! Slimes! SLIMES!

I wanted to touch one to see how it felt!

I wanted to poke one and see if went all jiggly!

I wanted to kill a bunch and see if they evaporated when they died!

Morrison was much less enthusiastic about our discovery.

“What are you doing?” he asked as I guided us towards the adorable little critters. “Hey, stop, Axe! Stop, damn it! Can’t you see those are

“Of course, I can!” I happily responded. “Slimes are awesome! And now I get to chop some up! Isn’t life wonderful?”

“They are awesome!” he shouted. “They’re dangerous! They’ll eat anything they encounter! Just look at the grass they’re wading through! Look at the grass, Axe!”

Okay, I really didn’t want to say this about him, but lately, Morrison was being a pill. Like the medically prescribed kind they forced you to swallow to keep you from injuring the orderlies. These were just slimes, what was the big deal?

Although now that he had pointed it out, I did see that the grass the slimes were moving through had withered and turned brown. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was even starting to smoke a little. All throughout the clearing were huge swathes of destroyed plants and blackened dirt.

“See?” Morrison said. “Slimes are a pestilence from hell! Anything they touch, they kill. If they get into your fields, your land will never produce crops again! They’ve been the ruination of many a village!”

Well, that was thoroughly untraditional! Slimes were supposed to be cute and fun, not all-consuming harbingers of the wasteland! This was the first time since my rebirth that I’d ever felt disappointed in this new world. Destructive slimes? What was the point!

Now I’d never get to meet one who said: “I’m not a bad slime!”

Darn it.

“Gosh, all right. I guess we’ll have to leave them alone—"

And that was when the slime attacked.

Okay, let me tell you some things about slimes: they are No rustling through the grass, no squishy blobby noises or anything! They’re also fast! This thing came out of nowhere and went straight for Morrison like a lioness on a baby elk! As soon as it got on his torso, Morrison began screaming in pain, which you’d think I’d be used to by now, but scream was the worst of all by far.

“Ohhhhh, fuck me, fuck me, he shrieked in agony. Jeez, Morrison, we all get it, you’re in pain. But is there ever any reason to use such salty language?

Morrison grabbed desperately at his chest, which surprised me. Apparently, the pain was so acute that in his need to be free of it, he could override my control of his body! He grabbed at the slime and pulled it away, exposing an awful round burn in his chest that exposed glistening pink muscle tissue. Wow!

Before he could toss the monster away though, the slime enveloped his hand and began dissolving his fingers. Double-wow!

Now I understood! These slimes secreted some sort of bioorganic acid that dissolved anything it made contact with! This little guy was melting Morrison while simultaneously slurping him up! Look, it had even grown a little bigger from the mass it had already pulled from him. Wasn’t that something?

These new world slimes were pretty cool after all! I was now sorry I had looked down on the little guys. I shouldn’t have expected everything to be like it was in my favorite games. That was just me being selfish and slow to adapt.

Yeah, I learned a valuable lesson that day. I needed to be flexible, and not force my values on others. It’s not the fault of anyone else if they didn’t meet my arbitrary expectations. I needed to accept people (and monsters) for who they were, and not what I wanted them to be.

Thank you, Mr. Slime! The lesson you just taught me will help make me a better person.

I’ll always be grateful.

“Help me! Help me, you evil bastard! It’s going to ” yelled Morrison.

Oh, right, Morrison. Whoops!

I was really going to have to talk to him about cleaning up his vocabulary.

I swung myself at Morrison’s wrist and severed it cleanly. His hand, and the slime covering it, fell swiftly to the ground. Morrison squealed again, but I drowned him out. I could build him a new hand later, using my Rooting skill. It’d be a little stiffer than his old one, but I’m sure he’d get used to it. Heh, soon enough, me amputating his hand would be just another inside joke for us to share.

We’re pals! It would be bygones in no time.

“Oh, you fucking he sobbed!

Because we were pals, Morrison saying that didn’t hurt my feelings at all. Gosh, he sounded just like my dad did that one thanksgiving, when I grabbed his carving knife and tried to let the angels out of his forehead.

What? They said they were trapped.

I launched myself directly at the slime, going for a quick kill before it went after Morrison again. Then I remembered that slimes weren’t really physically solid. They were gel-like. You can’t cut a gel! That’s just silly! I was going to have to think of something else.

While I pondered my options, the slime started eating me, and oh my gosh, it

Morrison! Darn it! You didn’t tell me these things ate inorganic matter too! That would have been helpful to know! Darn it! It’s dissolving me! I’m being dissolved! That’s not supposed to happen! Aren’t I the main character?!

I used Envenomation, but it had no effect! Slimes were apparently immune to poison! Darn!

Razor Web was useless too! I also tried growing new roots to push the thing away from me, but they dissolved as soon as they sprouted!

Oh, man, was this it? Was my new life over? My story hadn’t even amassed enough chapters to be released as a Kindle Novella! There was still so much I wanted to do! I hadn’t seen any elves! I hadn’t had a good plate of fried chicken! I hadn’t fallen in love with a wistful farmer’s daughter, who wished for a life free from the constraints of her family!

She was tomboyish and fun! She didn’t like wearing dresses, but when she did, she was a knockout! She liked reading and dreamed of attending school! Her controlling father wouldn’t allow it, though. He wanted her to get married and produce more farmers for the family farm they farmed! She felt trapped!

But then one day, she saw a certain axe walking down the road.

“Who is this wonderful axe?” she’ll ask herself.

“I’m just an axe passing by on axe business,” I’ll reply. “I see you have a room to rent. I’ll need it for a few days.”

“Right away, Mr. Axe!” she’ll say!

And then, over the next week, we’ll slowly fall in love with each other. She’ll ask me about the world, and I’ll ask her about life on a farm, and we’ll stomp some grapes and learn we have more in common than we realized!

Then under the light of the moon, we’ll share our first kiss, and then she’ll scream in hideous pain because I’m a really sharp axe and you shouldn’t kiss axes, and her parents will run inside and start screaming at the sight of her because there'll be all while our song plays on in the background:magic

Oh, wait. Solar Absorption. Duh!

I began pulling in the light of the sun, more and more of it, as much as I could contain! Fun fact, guys: When you’re pumped full of solar energy, and begin condensing it as much as much as you can, squeezing it tighter and tighter, and and then suddenly release it, it creates an awful lot of intense instant heat!

Turns out, slimes evaporate after all. Neat!

Oh, but I was in no mood to celebrate. My steel was tarnished and chipped. Streaks of discoloration and dissolved metal were everywhere. I was a real mess! I was so tired; I couldn’t even use Solar Absorption to heal myself! When I tried, exhaustion claimed me, and I passed out.

__

“C’mon, C’mon, I heard someone say.

Gosh, was I wasted! When I regained consciousness, I saw Morrison standing over me. He had a foot on top of me and was slowly pushing against me with it while he pulled with the arm that connected us. He was trying to pull me out of his body by the roots!

“Morrison?” I asked him in confusion.

“Shut up!” he yelled. “You monster! You damned…monster! Fighting that slime took a lot out of you, didn’t it? I could feel it! I could feel it through that awful, connection you forced on me! I know how weak you are now! I know you can’t stop me from breaking free!”

“Breaking free? But Morrison, we’re friends!”

“I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND!” he howled with a maniacal glint in his eye. “You my friends! You imprisoned me inside my own body! You wouldn’t let me sleep, and you wouldn’t stop I’m mutilated! I’m a freak! I…I…I have endured so much!”

“But Morrison! You’re on the inside, and that’s what really matters!”

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! I hate you! I hate you! I swear in the name of all creation itself, I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

“Do you really hate me, Morrison? Or are you just upset because Coach cut you from the team?”

“What the HELL are you even talking about—No. No, I’m not letting you do this to me anymore. My suffering will end today. Do you know what I’m going to do to you, Axe? Hmm? I’m going to pull free of you. Then I’m going to toss you into that field of slimes and watch them slowly devour you! Do you hear me, monster? I’m going to watch you

Poor Morrison. The acid from the slime attack must have had an additional effect that had driven him bonkers! I was clearly immune to it, due to being an axe, but he had no such protection.

My poor buddy! I wanted to help him so much, but here I was, helpless as could be! Unable to prevent him from making this awful mistake!

“I forgive you, Morrison! I know this isn’t you!”

“Shut ,” he growled.

I heard approaching footsteps. Well, I didn’t actually them, since I don’t have any ears, but whatever it was I used in place of ears let me know something was swiftly approaching us. Something

“Uh, Morrison? Something’s coming—"

“I’m not falling for your bloody tricks, Axe! Now just shut up and let me—"

I think it was a troll. I’m not sure, I’ve never seen one in person before, it could have been an ogre, but I was leaning towards troll. Whatever it was, the darn thing had some height! It was a huge scaley looking mass of muscle, with a pointy nose, and a mouth filled with crocodile teeth. And it was standing right behind Morrison and smiling. Not a friendly smile, either.

I was going to call out another warning, but eh. Morrison was too far gone to listen, the poor fella. There was really nothing I could do. Besides, he looked so happy fantasizing about how he was going to kill me, that I really didn’t have the heart to tell him it was too late to run. May as well just let him enjoy his last few moments of joy.

He jumped up, startled, when the monster breathed out over his neck.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded as he turned his head, before freezing. “Ah..AH! AHHH! Troll! Troll! ” he cried.

Oh, nice! It felt good to guess right.

Morrison wasn't feeling good, though. The troll grabbed him by his throat and lifted him into the air, all the while grinning at him with those big, scary teeth. In his panic, Morrison tried to swing me at the monster, but the big guy wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed my handle in mid-swing, and tore me out of Morrison’s hand, roots and all. I can’t even describe the sound of it. It was just…

He tossed me away behind him. I landed on my side, atop some moss. Still too weak to intervene, all I could do was watch.

Naturally, Morrison started to scream in pain, , but the troll wasn’t having that either. He opened his mouth wide, like a snake with its jaw unhinged, and swallowed my buddy up, all the way to his torso. Then his teeth clacked down with the speed of a guillotine's blade, and bit him in half at the waist. Just like that, my pal was dead!

The troll chewed away, making awful crunching sounds as he did so. Then he lumbered away, leaving Morrison's lower half to rot on the ground.

Ah, Morrison! I swear I’ll remember you as you were. A loyal and true friend who’d do anything to help the people he cared about! You deserved better in life! You deserved a happy ending! You were one in a million!

Anyway, he was dead now, so I wasn’t getting fed to any slimes. That’s not a bad exchange, right? Sure, a better deal would have been neither of us getting killed, but darn it, like I told that one fella tied up in the chair, you can choose your wife, or you can choose your daughter, but you don’t get to choose both!

That having been said, I sure was bushed! The moss I was laying on was soft, and I heard crickets chirping gently in the background. There had been a lot to unpack today, a whole lot! Felt like a break was just what I needed. Yeah, I could save today’s problems for tomorrow.

What I desired now was a good nap. A good, long nap.

I needed it too. Because when I woke up, I was going troll hunting!