[spoiler]Chapter 1 of my new OffTopic campaign, When Cøckroaches Fly. Open to all to join in and interact.[/spoiler] [i][b]Somewhere in a deep, dark chamber. . .[/b][/i] Milton sits upon a wheeled stool in the nude, typing away at a keyboard as the blue light of a computer monitor illuminates his pale, sunken face. His eyes are wide and beheld by dark bags as they trace the lines of text he types into Google Docs. His lips are dry, and every now and again his spindly left arm will reach over to the endless Subway sandwich which hangs off his desk and extends into the surrounding darkness, putting it to his mouth so that he may bite into it and bathe his mandibles in the succulence of the four dressings he ordered on the sub all those months ago (Sweet Onion, Chipotle Southwest, Subway Vinaigrette, and Red Wine Vinegar). [spoiler][b]*[u]FOOTNOTE: The Recipe to Milton’s “[i]Subway Supreme[/i]”:[/b][/u] — BREAD: Italian Herb & Cheese Footlong INGREDIENTS: Teriyaki Chicken Bacon Pepperoni Swiss Cheese Mozzarella —[i]toast for 1 minute before continuing[/i]— Lettuce Black Olives Pickles Sweet Onion Dressing Chipotle Southwest Dressing Subway Vinaigrette Dressing Red Wine Vinegar —[i][b]split in half down the middle and enjoy![/b][/i]—[/spoiler] [i]Chew.[/i] His eyes flutter. [i]Chew.[/i] An air of pleasure enters and exits his nostrils. [i]Chew.[/i] “Mmh,” he grunts, “my beloved.” He puts the sandwich back down on his paper plate so that he may continue typing. He wipes the remains from his chin with his yolked right forearm. The typing continues. “How long is this damned thing gonna take?” he mutters to himself, his eyes narrowing, “I’m gonna be in college by the time GenV’s even playable, aren’t I? Oh well, at least everyone has this new Virus campaign to keep them occupied in the meantime...” Suddenly, he feels something tickle his foot, and then his ankle. His head peers down like a dropped towel, and he sees it. A single, flat-bodied, brown cøckroach. It scampers up his leg as if an ant on a tree trunk. At this, Milton begins to shriek and holler like an ape and, in similar fashion, lunges from his seat and into the air, his arms craned upwards around him as his gorged-open eyes stare at the tiny fiend in pure horror. He flings his leg forward, striking his shin on the bottom of his desk, and yowls in pain as he draws it back, collapsing to the floor. But mere pain is not enough to drown out his adrenaline, and he springs back up to a primeval stance to confront the demon, wherever it may have flown off to from his now bruised leg. He looks at the floor. Nothing. He looks at his stool. Nothing. The desk? Nothing. He tries craning his head and torso to different angles in order to scan the scene of the crime more extensively, and— [i]Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr[/i] The sound of the fluttering wings of an imp from the ninth circle of Lucifer’s flaming Hell rises into Milton’s ears, and from the side of the stool opposite to the naked author— just before his poor soul could [i][b]see[/b][/i]!— the god-forsaken insect ascends into the dark air, a tiny, terrible silhouette against the light of his monitor, and flies directly towards his face in a drunken charge. Milton caterwauls, and his body seems to implode in on itself as he attempts to finesse the nemesis, half-diving-half-collapsing beneath it to let it soar over him before dragging himself to his workplace. With one hand on his stool and the other on the edge of his desk for support, he thrusts himself into his monitor, plunges headfirst into the screen— shattering it into a hundred sparkling fragments— and delves into the static maelstrom of the Internet— [b]directly into the province of OffTopic City[/b]. — With the digital echoes of his howls of terror still ringing throughout his mind, Milton collapses into the dusty ground of the virtual realm he had just entered. He quickly skitters back up onto his feet again to whip his head around, his eyes burning for the sight of the thing that had chased him into the foreign land. To his short relief, he sees no sign of the bug there. But what he does see in the distance takes him aback. Near the horizon of the cityscape, black smoke billows into the atmosphere from the collapsed BoS building. He read briefly, just minutes ago, about it blowing up... whoever that Virus guy is was responsible. “Jesus,” he says grimly, “this place sure has changed since 2017... what the hell happened here during my hiatus?” Then a sinking feeling digs into his head. He thinks back to his workplace, where the cøckroach attacked him. He knows from his experience working at his mother’s pawn shop that if one cøckroach walks, it doesn’t walk alone (and when one cøckroach flies, any man’s balls will drop). And if he broke the window into B.net, then... [b]that’s just another crevice for them to get into.[/b] Then the reason for the demons’ arrival dawned on him. His face gaped in the humanity of it all. [b]“[i]Someone[/i]!” he cried into OffTopic, “[i]Someone, for the love of God, give me a weapon and help me! The bugs have come for my beloved sandwich, and they’re gonna come for us all[/i]!”[/b] [spoiler]Jesus Christ I have better priorities to be handling right now... but I couldn’t resist.[/spoiler]