Step-by-Step Story #1: Zombies, Cheetos, and Murder

Well, that experiment was what I'd call a flying success! Thanks to Astana for coming up with the idea for this blog, and putting together the whole story (stories?) as best as she can.

The prompt for the story was, "You are stranded in the wilderness with nothing except the clothes you are wearing." The result was a bunch of hilarious comments that took the story on a wild ride. Included is a link to the original blog post, and to Astana's blog.

The information included is based on comments posted before January 9, 2024. Some comments posted on January 9 have been added to the story. Comments posted later on are not included.

Alright then, here's the full result, put together from the comments into some sort-of continuous stories.

I found myself in the wilderness. I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing. I decided that I must do something, so I searched around for edible plants. I found none, then proceeded to find a body of water. I was struck by a sudden thought. Why not drown myself? I decided I would rather drown than starve, only to find myself reincarnated as a gazelle. A cheetah came up to me out of nowhere and began attacking me. Rude! I thought I would die again, but the sky turned dark and lightning struck us. I do not know what happened, but suddenly I was the cheetah. A miracle happened. A Dorito fell from the sky! I would go hungry no longer! But then, out of the stormy darkness came a rhino, running towards a bag of Cheetos laying on the ground in the distance. Those were my Cheetos! I ran after the rhino, neck and neck, and got the bag! It was amazing. Cheetos were the best food ever. Why not, I thought to myself, pretend to be a human to get access to more? Nothing can go wrong! I ran to the nearest town, only to find a poacher. He shot me. I died. From what I could see from way up in Heaven, he was arrested by a passing cop. Or was it an ant? I was really far away, okay? He got a good lawyer, though, and won the case.

I bought a chainsaw at the store and ran home. The press were following me, wanting a story about the case. I killed them and ate their bodies. That is where this story ends.

After reincarnating as a gazelle, I lay in the water, wondering how to swim with this new body. A shark swam towards me. Its fin shot through the water, then its head rose up. I punched it as hard as I could, but it was no use. It devoured me. I got a good glimpse at its mouth and digestive tract, but saw no more.

With the new meal of a gazelle in my stomach, I swam to the meeting of the Fish-Friendly Sharks Support Group. I greeted everyone, only to find a hunter on the riverbank. He shot a harpoon at me. That was the last I could remember.

My friends and I hauled the shark out of the water and onto land, where we had made a fire. I made an incision into the flesh, and an arm fell out. A human arm. Or was it a gazelle arm? It was probably some mixture, but we had had enough. We decided to burn the shark with the human/gazelle corpse still inside.

I was taken to the police and placed in a morgue, where I then woke up and started a zombie apocalypse. Why? Because. I then attempted to kill all life on the planet, or at least turn them all into zombies. Before I could achieve that, I was bitten by a human and became a regular dude again. After awhile, I became Humanman, a vigilante hero who simply bored criminals to death whenever trouble struck. However, I was shot and killed by a gunman when I first confronted him. The government put up a memorial in my name, reminding everyone not to be a fool.

I was trapped inside a nuclear power plant, but after getting too close to the core, I mutated and escaped my radioactive prison. I came upon the Humanman Memorial in Cyprus and devoured it. I then began eating Cypriot children. That is where this story ends.

I started a company that manufacturers pressure cookers. We are on terrorist watchlists of over 50 countries, yet world leaders still buy our pressure cookers to cook fancy meals. That was, until Instapot came along and bought us for $2 bn. But I did manage to become a board member. Two days later, I was assassinated by a "radical cookware traditionalist", who reincarnated me as his son with black magic shortly after murdering me. I proudly declared my father's commitment to cookwares on television, but then I got power hungry. Although I had been reincarnated as a 5-year-old, I still had the mind of someone much older. I wanted revenge. Papa murdered me. So I would murder Papa. One night, I did. I disposed of the body the next day in a place no-one would dare to go: the sewer.

Shortly thereafter, my company was bought by a multimillionaire who I highly disliked. He had to go. I used some of my father's money to put him on a space probe to the planet Neptune. Good-bye and good riddance, I thought.

Due to a misunderstanding, the multimillionaire was arrested for slavery. People thought that he had bought me, not the company, and I played along. I hated that man so much. It was agreed that he would be in exile on Neptune.

While on Neptune, I had lots of time to use. I met some local green little guys and we agreed to get revenge on Earth and its governments. They showed me a television that I could use to monitor activity on Earth. I could see that the United Nations General Assembly agreed unanimously to argue over how to make each other's decisions and ignore a new threat. It was aliens on the planet Uranus. What fools! It was Neptune who was attacking them! They would be so easy to defeat, it would be no fun!

A few days later, those of us on Neptune witnessed quite a sight. We gathered to watch the galaxy Andromeda smash into Uranus. We thought it would be beautiful. We were wrong. All we could see was a flash of light. And then the universe ended.

In a historic first, the JetPunk Quizmaster surprisingly recognized Cyprus as a European country. JetPunkers felt that the world had been turned upside down by this act. The world was turned upside down once more when the Belgians eradicated almost every single organism on Planet Earth, rendering it a desolate dystopia.

The only survivors were those who held Cypriot passports. This resulted in a civil war stemming from a disagreement over which continental union to join. The war wiped out all Cypriots, ending the age of humanity.

Then came the great earthquake. Measured at Magnitude 15.7 on the Richter scale, this earthquake obliterated every tectonic plate, creating one continent. It became known as Anterica-Eurafricasiaceania. Cyprus became the capital.

Not too long afterwards, aliens from Uranus launched an attack on Cyprus, sending the Earth into a political crisis. A pandemic of amnesia led people to forget everything about the once great place of Cyprus. The only thing they could remember was the misconception that "Europe is Cyprus". They chanted this as they marched through the streets, all day long. Their minds were empty of every other piece of information. All they could think was that Europe was Cyprus.

Another catastrophic event in the short space of a few months came when a lightning bolt struck a TV factory. The televisions turned into monsters bent on world domination. Their leaders were the infamous Smart TVs.

I was in school in my local Texas community. I was bored. Being smart, I found this class very boring. Then suddenly, I saw a flash of light and everything was gone. I was in the step-by-step world! I was sure I would not kill my self off. But I had a sudden sense of unsureness. Maybe I would. I would have to find out. I saw a temple up ahead of me. On an open platform in front of it was a tiled mosaic in the shape of Jeppy the JetPunk Fish. Music played. I walked into the temple to an altar. On a plaque, it read, in the glowing letters of a language I had not realized I spoke, these words.

Then suddenly, above the altar, a shape appeared. I believed it was McKenzieFam. They spoke words to me in a misty voice, and the sky outside began to darken in a beautiful sunset.

I suddenly had a flash of understanding. I knew what the Infinity blogs were. I would soon journey to the first. A portal opened in front of me. A loud voice coming from what seemed like everywhere said, "Journey to the Soul Blog. Step in." I stepped in and the world rippled. It morphed into a room in the top of a tower in the sky. The floor was of red carpet. A statue of someone none other than Kalbahamut himself stood prominently in the center of the room. He spoke to me in his usual borderline-obnoxious tone.

I ventured towards it and picked it up. I put it in my pocket, but felt the world tear apart. I was now facing my first challenge.

I was in a maze. At least I thought. There were high walls and many pathways branching away. But I was not alone. A horrible creature was ahead of me. It looked to be a half-cockroach half-shark, or maybe a megaladon. Whatever it was, it was huge.

"Um," I said, "How do you get out of here?"

"Why are you asking me?" It asked.

"Um, you look like you have been here for a while, based on your long beard and the tally marks on the wall," I said. "You probably know this place very well."

"Fair enough," it replied. Then it laughed. Horrible, disgusting laughs.

"If I knew how to escape, don't you think I would have done it already? Wow, humans! You're funny! Maybe you could be my resident comedian?"

"Um, no thanks," I said. "Please don't eat me."

"I'm a vegetarian, FreeStater!"

"Um, I would like to get out of here."

"I'll tell you this. If you can defeat me in a battle, I will show you the way out."

"I thought you didn't know the way out," I said.

"I know how to get out of here. I just can't because of a curse. But you can. I assume."

"Okay," I said. "I will battle you."

The creature threw me a sword.I tried to pick it up, but it was very heavy. Eventually I managed. I really needed to go to the gym more back on Earth.

It lunged towards me and I struck it with the sword. It deflected it easily, flinging it across the floor. I ran and picked it up.

Twenty minutes later, I was running out of energy. I raised the sword and hit the creature in the head. A halo of circling stars formed above its head.

"FreeStater, I am now your pet!"

"Um...kay," I said. "Would you mind living in my garage? The rest of my house is kind of full of other stuff."

"Okay," it told me. "But you have to read me a bedtime story every night. On odd days it will be Crime and Punishment, and on even days it will be Peter Pan!"

"That seems doable."

"Now I will show you the way out of here. Can you break the curse?"

"I can try," I said.

"Follow me to the portal to the next blog!" it said. It stayed right where it was.

"Um, where is it?" I asked.

"The portal is inside my stomach."

"Umm......."

"Come on, climb inside. Into my mouth, FreeStater!"

I reluctantly climbed onto its head and into its mouth. it swallowed me, and everything went dark. Then I was in the Strife Blog.

The Strife Blog was a circular orb of translucent, glowing glass. I was inside it. Swirling around in the air was a book. I tried to grab it, but it was too far away. I tried three more times, and then caught it. I had collected the Strife Blog. Two blogs down, I thought.

I then found myself in a strange world. I was in a red-carpeted hallway lined with photos and maps. The maps showed empires that were vaguely familiar. I realized they were the JetPunk Empires. My creature had changed into some weird monster. Weirder than it already was, I guess. It seemed to be a calf-horckoach gemadolon now.

"Who are you?" someone asked. I turned and saw myself walking towards me.

"I am FreeStater. Are you FreeStater too?" I asked.

"No! I know not of this FreeStater. I am Qy of Svalbard."

"But you look just like me," I answered, "Only younger."

Qy scoffed. "I was a member of JetPunk for awhile until someone replaced me. He called himself Qyz and said I was no longer needed on the site."

"Oh," I said. I understood what happened.

"Well, I am terribly bored. I am the only person left in the Dawn of the JetPunk Empires world, nobody has been here since early 2023. Would you like to become pen pals?"

"Okay," I said.

He smiled.

And that is where this story ends.

We hope you have enjoyed the first community-written story in the Step-by-Step Story series! Thanks to everyone who posted comments and contributed to the storyline.

This story was created by McKenzieFam, comments came from a variety of different JetPunk users, and the comments were compiled into a story by Astana and MckenzieFam. The thumbnail was designed by Astana and the images were generated with Craiyon and/or from Pixabay.

Once again, we really hope you enjoy this blog. We would also recommend checking out the first Step-by-Step Story blog, as well as the blogs of McKenzieFam and Astana. We hope to publish more of these blogs in the future and would love any input by the community.