How Wormy Came to Be

<Flail> Hootie pls
<Flail> have i ever told you the story of wormy's creation?
<Flail> pls wormy came first
<Flail> wait did it
<Flail> *shrug*
<Flail> hmmm... yeah wormy was after
<Flail> as far as the making process
<Flail> anyways
<Flail> so i was about 9 years old
<Flail> and i had this friend, Mitch
<Flail> Mitch was a bit of a scrappy kid
<Flail> he would get in fights all the time
<Flail> but for some reason we hit it off
<Flail> and he would come over to my house to play SNES
<Flail> and i'd go over to his house to play baseball
<Flail> (his family had an extra large lot)
<Flail> i sucked at baseball, but i liked playing catcher
<Flail> anyways, he had a few friends that would come over to play with us
<Flail> although they didn't really like him
<Flail> it was mostly for the field access
<Flail> and his family had a bunch of nice bats
<Flail> so we would play
<Flail> but you could tell they were just there for the stuff, and not for the friendship
<Flail> this became really apparent one day
<Flail> Mitch's parents worked a lot
<Flail> so we'd often play when they were gone
<Flail> without adult supervision, sometimes the other kids got mean
<Flail> but it never got too bad
<Flail> anyways
<Flail> it was after school one day
<Flail> and we were playing like normal
<Flail> and Mitch was up to bat
<Flail> i was playing catcher which made me defacto ref
<Flail> Mitch was never too good at batting, but this one pitch, he wailed on it
<Flail> it went flying into the street, and you could tell it was going to be a homerun
<Flail> only, the kid that went after it
<Flail> he was fast
<Flail> he ran it down by the time Mitch hit second base, and by the time Mitch was past third, the ball was in the infield
<Flail> so there I am, waiting for the ball, Mitch bearing down on me
<Flail> they hit me at the exact same time
<Flail> i tag him as he slides across the grass into the homeplate
<Flail> the kids circle up, they want to know the call
<Flail> i'm just trying to get up, brush off the dirt, compose myself, you know?
<Flail> i have no idea if he got there before the ball or after it
<Flail> so i give him the benefit of the doubt
<Flail> i call it safe
<Flail> this doesn't sit well with the others
<Flail> and before you know, they're up in arms
<Flail> I'm nine years old and younger than most of the other kids
<Flail> I'm scared
<Flail> so i just take off
<Flail> dropping my mitt
<Flail> they catch me though
<Flail> and pin me down behind Mitch's house
<Flail> well
<Flail> it had rained the night before
<Flail> and the worms were crawling around
<Flail> on the nearby sidewalk
<Flail> one of the older boys gets the idea that because i was a 'worm' i should eat a worm
<Flail> i'm terrified
<Flail> 'worm' was a popular slang at the time for a kid being a dumbass or whatever
<Flail> i start to cry
<Flail> they pick up a worm from the sidewalk
<Flail> bring it over to me
<Flail> i see it's still wriggling
<Flail> i start to fight
<Flail> but i'm pretty outnumbered and the boys are older
<Flail> one guy catches me in the temple with a fist, and i'm out
<Flail> i came to a couple minutes later with a gross taste in my mouth
<Flail> blood and worm guts
<Flail> i threw up in the grass and looked around
<Flail> the kids had all left
<Flail> only Mitch was left
<Flail> they beat him up too
<Flail> he thanked me for standing up for him, but i saw he was sad about the whole thing
<Flail> he'd had a hard time making friends and this was going to complicate it in the future
<Flail> i was embarassed about it all
<Flail> and left without saying anything
<Flail> we stopped being friends for a while after that
<Flail> i was just humiliated from the whole ordeal
<Flail> fast forward to that night
<Flail> i wake up from a nightmare
<Flail> in it, i'm getting beat up again, but this time i don't black out as they feed me the worm
<Flail> when i awake with a gasp, my sheets are soaked in sweat
<Flail> sweat and something else i can't put my finger on
<Flail> i thought maybe i had wet myself, but that wasn't it
<Flail> and i was only nine, no wet dreams or anything
<Flail> my arms and legs felt strange though
<Flail> like, echo-y, if that makes sense
<Flail> they weren't responsive like they usually were
<Flail> like sleep paralysis, but centered in your forearms and thighs
<Flail> so i flipped on a light
<Flail> the first thing i noticed were my fingers
<Flail> they were normal except they had more joints than i remember having
<Flail> i started panicking
<Flail> i called out for my mom and dad, but for some reason my tongue wasn't working correctly
<Flail> i moved out of my bed
<Flail> and crashed onto the floor
<Flail> my legs were fused together
<Flail> and starting to form ridges
<Flail> my parents heard the crash and came running in
<Flail> my arms were shrinking
<Flail> useless noodles at my side
<Flail> my fingers were gone now
<Flail> my hands just rounded stumps
<Flail> getting smaller all the time
<Flail> my parents saw me on the ground
<Flail> and shrieked
<Flail> i was their baby, but now i was deformed
<Flail> a monster
<Flail> they ran away, leaving me to my torment
<Flail> my bones were rearranging
<Flail> cracking and jellifying all the same time
<Flail> my hair started falling out in clumps
<Flail> all at once, i was blind
<Flail> my eyes were gone
<Flail> then deaf
<Flail> my ears melted away
<Flail> i was utterly and entirely alone
<Flail> i could sense motion though
<Flail> steadily growing stomps
<Flail> i felt myself shrinking down
<Flail> fully a worm now
<Flail> the stomps grew louder and louder
<Flail> i could feel the vibration of speech
<Flail> somehow, i began to understand the words being said
<Flail> 'make him eat it!'
<Flail> 'yeah! make the worm eat the worm!'
<Flail> i felt myself being picked up
<Flail> and shoved into some wet cave
<Flail> then hard stones mashed my body
<Flail> tearing me apart
<Flail> crushing me
<Flail> startled, i awoke in my room with a gasp
<Flail> it had been another dream
<Flail> i pinched myself to make sure i was awake
<Flail> i couldn't get the imagery of that poor worm out of my head
<Flail> i was the worm once
<Flail> i knew i had to do something
<Flail> but i didn't know what
<Flail> i lived with this need for 18 years
<Flail> always knowing that i owed that poor worm something
<Flail> but never knowing the proper way to make amends
<Flail> i knew it wasn't my fault, but i felt i had to do something
<Flail> then i discovered tagpro
<Flail> at last, a medium that fit the bhill
<Flail> bill*
<Flail> playful enough that it wouldn't be some grim monument
<Flail> a game that i would have enjoyed at 9
<Flail> something that would reach people on multiple levels
<Flail> and would reach people around the world
<Flail> i struggled at first
<Flail> reflex2 was a failure
<Flail> (so named after the gag reflex that i had to supress during the whole ordeal)
<Flail> but with wormy
<Flail> i succeeded
<Flail> at long last others would know of my torment
<Flail> and the torment of my hapless victim
<Flail> at long last, i had closure
<Flail> and that is the story of wormy
<Flail> thank you
<Flail> dear god that story was 25 minutes long
<Flail> i am so sorry