Worm.

Worm. 2

"Are you sure this is Nick?" Alex asked and poked the worm on the table. They were in Bob's house. Bob had taken the worm from the dirt Nick used to sit in and brought it with him to his house.

"I'm absolutely certain. He was making the ':-)' face," Bob said. The worm made the ':-)' face at him.

"Nick, is that you? Say something." Alex leaned in close to the worm. The worm said nothing.

"He's a worm, he can't hear you. Even if he could, he couldn't understand us. Worms don't speak English."

"But Nick spoke English," he countered.

"Barely," Bob said. Alex sighed. He moved away from the worm and left the spot he was situated in to go to the kitchen. He started making some tea. Worms like tea right? Nick did.

Bob stared intently at the worm. How could that be him? How did he just spawn into a worm? Was it really possible? He wanted to think so. Because if that worm wasn't him, where could he be?

Bob took the worm into his hands. He held him carefully. He brought the worm close to him and began to speak.

"Nick, if that's you, we need you to stop being a worm," Bob whispered. "You can't live in the dirt forever, you have friends and a family and responsibilities to t-"

"I thought worms couldn't hear," Alex interrupted him. He stood in front of him with tea he made. He set it down and Bob did the same with the worm. The worm wiggled to the tea. It poked the mug. It didn't like it. The worm wiggled away from the tea.

"I thought Nick liked tea," Bob frowned.

"Nick doesn't like anything anymore," Alex said. "Only dirt."

"Dirt," Bob said.

Speaking of dirt, some few dozen miles away was the dirt where that worm came from. Deep within that dirt, buried under dozens of feet of soil was a worm. Not a worm-sized worm though. It was Nick.

No, Nick never turned into a worm. He had tried to, but instead he just buried himself in the dirt. It wasn't too bad though. You don't have to worry about people and responsibilities in the dirt. When you're in the dirt, you're just a worm. And that's what Nick was; a worm.

He squirmed in the dirt. He could barely see. The extended period of dirt consumption had demolished his vision. And the dirt was very dark.  But he could see a worm wiggling nearby.

"Hey! Friend!" Nick called after the wiggling worm. The worm continued wiggling in the other direction.

"Hey, slow down, friend!" Nick wiggled after the worm. He followed the worm through the dirt. The worm led him to some other worms. 'Worm!!' Nick thought.

"Hey pals," Nick said to the worms. The worms said nothing.

They began to wiggle away from Nick.

"Pals, where are you going?" He wiggled after them but he couldn't keep up. They were too fast. He was too big. It's hard to wiggle like a worm in the dirt when you're human-sized.

Nick sighed. Why didn't the worms like him? He was a worm, wasn't he? He laid in the dirt. It was hard to see. It was hard to breathe.

He began to think again. Was he meant for the dirt? The worms wouldn't talk to him when he was above ground, but they still wouldn't talk to him even when he was in the dirt. He had to be doing something wrong.

Maybe he wasn't meant for the dirt. Sure, he loved to eat it and lay in it, but he just didn't feel like he belonged there. At least above ground people would talk to him.