Let's Mutually Not Kill Each Other

The People Are Made of Mud

The people were made of mud.
The bar we'd entered and sat down in was full of dark, dripping figures. Their eyes — two glowing pinpoints set deep into their gloppy faces —had followed us to our seats directly in front of the bartender. The pub had been loud with chatter moments earlier, but as we wove through the scattered tables and sat down, it grew unbearably silent.
These people had never seen outsiders before.
Rocket hadn't even bothered with concealing his massive gun. The mud people's eyes roved and found its gleaming metal trigger, the rodent's finger only inches away.
He jumped up to a stool and slapped his free hand on the bar table. The loud noise spooked the mud people, and the bartender came out from behind a beaded curtain.
"Gimme the strongest stuff you've got," he said loudly. For a moment, nobody moved. But then the creatures resumed their conversations and the live band returned to playing their fast-paced song on wooden instruments, everyone only slightly more wary than before. The bartender moved slowly, but eventually had three small glasses of dark blue liquid sitting invitingly on the counter. I took the stool beside Rocket, and he leaned towards me.
"I guess I won't be selling your body for drinks. I don't think these piles of shit can even distinguish your gender, let alone find you attractive."
"So what," I whispered, hoping the bartender couldn't hear me. "We throw back some shots and run for it?"
I had no interest in helping the rodent. But, like him and Groot, I wanted to get off this planet. We would have to work something out. It didn't mean I had to be friendly. Only civilized enough to formulate a plan.
"Yeah, that's what I had in mind," he said, tossing back the blueish alcohol. He grunted. "Ugh. What are these people made of? That's strong stuff. I want ten."
"So your plan is to get drunk? And then what?"
"Getting drunk is only the first part of my plan," he said, flagging the busy bartender for another. "It's crucial for the second part, which I was hoping to avoid."
He gulped another down.
Upon seeing my look of annoyance and confusion, he continued. "I'm going to call up some friends of mine."
"You have friends?" I said, genuinely surprised.
He growled. "Acquaintances. We may have saved the universe together one or two times, but that's a very long story I'd like to not tell. I needed some money, so we split. Unfortunately, if I call them for help, they'll hang it over my head for the rest of my inevitably short life. And they'll want a share of your bounty, which is not ideal. I need a new ship."
"I am Groot," said Groot, pushing his glass toward Rocket.
"Yeah, it'll be nice to see them again," he sighed.
I watched him with unending curiosity. Was he being sentimental, or just drunk?
While Rocket fidgeted with a small receiver, I downed my glass.
White-hot fire dripped down my throat, and I was blinded for a moment. I let out a yelp of surprise, to Rocket's great amusement. He chuckled drunkenly.
"I sent word to their ship. They should be here in a couple hours. I guess we'll just have to pass the time. What's there to do in a dump like this?"
He was being louder than necessary, but I wasn't sober enough to stop him. The effects of that drink were fast-working. Several of the mudmen turned and glared at him.
"I mean, how do you people even live like this? You're made of mud, your houses are made of mud... Look at that! He pointed at a plate on someone's table. You eat mud too? Y'know, cannibalism's outlawed 'n every stellar district. Hic!"
His words were slurring together. By now, he'd only had three glasses. But he was a small guy.
Rocket jumped down from his stool and swung his gun around at the mud people.
I leaned back, swaying slightly.
"Hey Rocket, if you shoot them do you think they'll be piles of shit on the floor?" I smiled hazily.
"Let's find out!" he yelled.
With a scream louder than drunk me had expected from a man so small, he clamped down on the trigger and blasted the mud people in front of him, spattering the walls with gooey dirt. I yelled too, watching with glee like I had watched my brothers play war games on the console. Beside us, Groot winced at every death, but said nothing.
Rocket stopped for a moment, panting.
The room would have been quiet but for the overwhelming sound of squelching mud on the floor. All the remains of the people he had blasted... they were moving. Shifting around so that the floor was a swirling mud bath. And they were re-forming. The mud built itself up again, and soon the figures stood exactly as they were before. Rocket and I watched in horror.
Now the looks on the figures' faces were undeniably of rage. For the first time, they spoke to us, their voices entwined in terrifying unison.
"Leave."
A shiver crawled up my spine.
"Holy flark," Rocket cursed under his breath. The noise in the room returned to maximum when he started blasting again. "Die, you freaks!" he yelled.
I merely shouted and shook my fists from the sidelines, watching as more mudmen were obliterated and reformed. The more Rocket shot them, it seemed, the less time they took to reform.
"Uh, Rocket," I said, tugging on his fur. It was hard to keep my words straight in my head. "They're, uh, together." What was the word I was searching for? The mud on the ground was pooling into one large mass. My instincts, no matter how newfound, were telling me right now to run.
It was too late now. The figure that was currently forming on the floor rose to thrice the size of the individual figures. It loomed over us, its eyes glowing brilliantly with fury. It's voice was deep, a tangle of many.
"We kill you now."
"I am Groot!" Groot shouted. He scooped Rocket into his arms and dashed out the door. I followed him back into the town, where a crowd of the mudmen were watching our drunken fight in the bar.
"No, Groot!" Rocket screamed. "I can take 'em!" He continued to fire backwards, over my head.
"Watch it, you moron! You'll hit me instead!"
"Fine by me!"
"I am Groot."
"I'm gonna confiscate that gun!"
"You'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!"
"I just might, if that thing catches up to us!"
I looked back. I think at that point I may have urinated a little.
The gigantic mud creature had grown in size, and was hot on our trail. It was now about the height of a tree — taller than even Groot. Its gloopy arms were outstretched, and whatever mud it lost by Rocket's blasts, it made up for by accumulating mudmen who threw themselves headfirst into the mass.
I was gonna be having nightmares about this guy for a very long time.
But at least I wasn't as wasted as Rocket. At least I still had brainpower to spare.
"Lead it to water!" I shouted over the monster's eerie roar.
Groot understood immediately. He veered off his current path through the valley and towards what looked like a very wide lake between two hills. I followed close behind, wishing he would carry me, too. At least if the monster caught up to us, I thought, I'd get to see an epic battle between dirt and a tree. What a spectacular way to end.
"Why... won't... you... die?" Rocket yelled, not even bothering to lift his finger off the trigger. Sooner or later he was going to run out of juice. "[y/n], behind you!"
Between my focus on the lake and my surprise at hearing the rodent use my name, I didn't notice the monster's hand behind me until it was too late. I stumbled as it scooped me up and lifted me high in the air. It would have been thrilling, if the monster hadn't opened its gaping, cavernous mouth and dropped me into it. I screamed on the way in and got a mouthful of mud. I giggled hysterically, a fit ending in hiccups. I had eaten a little bit of the creature that was eating me. It was perfect.
The voices outside were muffled, but I heard more yelling and the firing of Rocket's blaster.
Suddenly, there was a gaping hole in the monster's stomach, wide enough for me to crawl through. Thank goodness. I was about to suffocate for lack of air. I slid out of the quickly-closing hole and fell to the ground, where I was swept up.
"Not again!" I cried. I tried grabbing fistfuls of the mud and tearing them off the monster, only to find that it was not the mud creature that had picked me up. Groot, with myself and Rocket over each shoulder, began a mad dash to the edge of the water. The creature wasn't far behind.
We entered the water with a colossal splash, just as the creature reached for Groot's neck. It tripped over its own feet trying to stay away from the water, and consequentially fell in. It began washing away with the gentle waves, but we didn't even look back to see if it had died or not. There was an island in the middle of the small-ish lake. Groot released me and I swam for it. Rocket was far past swimming on his own, so he stayed slumped over Groot's shoulder.
"We showed 'im, we did!" he said, trying hard not to let his gun sink to the bottom.
At last, the three of us washed ashore, panting face-down in the sand.
"I'm glad I sent the signal in the bar, because this thing's fried," said Rocket, tossing his receiver into the water. He stumbled to his feet. "And now we wait for those halfwits to show up."
Out of the water and in the chilly open air, I began shivering profusely, my body almost quaking with the cold.
"Well, now we know," I said through chattering teeth. "I wouldn't have found any new clothes in town."
"I think a dress made of mud would be lovely," said Rocket. "You can smear your own shit on your face and call it makeup."
"I'm about to smear something on your ugly triangular face." I scooped up a handful of sand and stalked over to Rocket, who was standing rather unsteadily with his feet planted in the wet ground.
"I'm not a savage, but if you come close to me with that I'll resort to biting."
Suddenly, a blinding light shot down from the heavens, and a loud humming sound resonated through the murky air.
"Greetings, A-holes!" called a male voice from the behind the light.
"God?" I said quietly. I was a fool.
Because Peter Quill was exactly the opposite of a god. He was a human.