This is a post in a series of posts cataloging writing I did for the games website Zam.com, which later became Readyset. I edited Zam.com from late 2015 to early 2018. This post was our 2016 April Fool’s post.

This post is very stupid and I’m only saving it because it is one of the few times at Zam that I was able to write something stupid and publish it and get away with it, and reading it connects me to who I was back then in a powerful way, I guess.

#1 YARNY’S INFERNO

“Oh drat,” Yarny said, suddenly dead. “I’m dead!”

The cool thing about dying when you are a tiny yarn creature is that you suddenly gain the power of speech. “I’ve never been able to speak before, but now I’m able to speak about anything I wish. How convenient for narrating my adventures in the land of the dead,” Yarny said, as his soul tumbled through space and time. He looked real funny and cute as he tumbled, and his little yarn streamers trailed out behind his comically-flailing limbs. Poor Yarny!

Yarny landed on a cloud up in heaven, face-to-face with Saint Peter. Saint Peter blinked and squinted. “Who’s this?” he asked, in a booming, gigantic voice. “What are you?”

“I’m Yarny,” Yarny said. “I’m small, but I’m full of heart. I died on a quest to brighten people’s lives and help them overcome grief. I’m–”

“You look like a little devil,” Saint Peter said.

“What?”

“You got them little horns on either side of your head, and you’re red, and you’re definitely some kind of, like, voodoo doll, or something,” Saint Peter said. “Some occult shit? Normally all we get up here is humans and dogs, and you’re not either of those.”

“I’m a little toy on a quest to restore hope and wellbeing to people suffering from–”

“You got them little horns,” Saint Peter said. “I’m calling ‘devil.’”

Saint Peter lifted his golden horn to his lips, and instead of tooting the horn toot that opens the gates of heaven, he tooted the bad toot, the hell toot, and sent Yarny down to hell.

The unfortunate thing about being a little man made of yarn is that you burn, very easily. The first thing Yarny did when he arrived in hell was burn in hell. It was very uncomfortable!

“Ouch! Ouch,” Yarny cried, and he

#2 MARCUS’S ADVENTURE IN THE CLONE LABS

Marcus Fenix woke up out of deep deep mega sleep and found himself lying on a table in a mysterious laboratory room. He was very tired and his ribs hurt. “Ow,” he said. “It feels as if one of my ribs was removed!”

“It was,” said a mysterious but very familiar voice. Marcus looked over– and he saw that there was a table on the other side of the room, with a clone of him on it! A second Fenix!

“Ahhhhh,” screamed Marcus.

“I am your clone twin,” said Fenix Two. “I was cloned from your rib. Now we are clone brothers. The mysterious forces that did this to us have locked us here in this room. That is the situation that we are now in.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhh,” screamed Marcus. “I’m very frightened!”

“As you know, we now have three options. The first is that we can be enemies forever and fight each other to maintain our power as the sole Fenix.”

Marcus One tried jumped off the laboratory table and roadie-ran to the door, to avoid any potential gunfire. The door was locked, though. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he screamed.

Fenix Two was not bothered by this reaction, because he was a clone, and clones all understand their original clone-brothers perfectly. “The second choice we have is to team up and be friends and allies,” he continued. “We would join up as a team and help each other. We would become a kind of Fenix Force. Are you the kind of person who would team up and become a Fenix Force with me?”

Marcus One tried to headbutt the door open. His big strong-man meaty head and neck made a big dent, but he did not succeed.

“This is the big question,” Fenix Two said. “Are we, Marcus Fenix, the kind of person who would team up with our clone, or fight our clone? It is the most essential human question. It is the big unknown that every person must ask themselves.”

Marcus One stopped in his tracks. “Wait,” he said. “I thought you said there were three options.”

“Well, yes,” Fenix Two said. “But the third option is only for fanfiction, and not for real life, like the situation we are in right now.”

“What’s that, then?”

“It is the option where we make out and kiss each other very much,” Fenix Two said.

And then Marcus One chose

#3 DOGMEAT TO THE RESCUE

Dogmeat was kicking back and relaxing, drinking cool margs with his loser human pals at the awesome wasteland drinks bar, when an innocent wasteland civilian ran up all a-tremble.

“Dogmeat!” He shouted. “Super cool wasteland adventure protagonist dog! We need your help!”

Dogmeat set down his marg and took a puff on his cigar. “Yes, it is me, Dogmeat, hero of the Capitol and also Commonwealth wastelands, and very cool guy,” he said, adjusting his shades. “Tell me. What is the trouble?”

“Super Mutants have kidnapped everyone in my town! They’re eating them and treating them bad,” the human cried. “I am very weak and have no guns, so I cannot rescue them!”

Dogmeat sighed and hefted his eight-foot-long nuclear minigun with spikes on it. “Looks like I gotta come to the rescue,” he said. “A-gain! Come on, groupies, let’s walk.”

“Right away, sir,” said all the humans, whom Dogmeat could not tell apart because of how boring they were.

Dogmeat and his human friends ran from the settlement place where the margs and cigars were to the bad brown wasteland wrecked place where all the super mutants and nukes were. Dogmeat squashed his Che Guevara cool guy hat low over his eyes and squinted into the encampment.

“Looks like typical Super Mutant shit,” he said. “You there, Human One. Pass me the business.”

Human One handed Dogmeat the gigantic nuke launcher Big Boy gun with a nuke in it, and also an ICBM, and also some anvils (in it. The anvils and the ICBM were in the gun beside the nuke). Dogmeat aimed it at the encampment and blew the encampment up. The blast was so big and bright that all the humans got sunburns.

“That should do it,” Dogmeat said. But down in the encampment the King Super Mutant who was resistant to nukes stood up and shouted “DOGMEAT! COME BACK! WE GOTTA GO ONE ON ONE MANO A MANO!!”

Dogmeat heard this shout and stopped in his tracks.

“Human Two,” he said. “Hand me the business.”

Human Two handed Dogmeat a gigantic sword made out of motorcycles and