Overview

Worm Children: Children of the Same Crop is a novel unlike any other. It chronicles the bizarre remnants of society following a Third World War. Follow Larwa Chlopak on his quest for revolution against a tyrannical dictator in a surreal world. Even the author himself, Gruber van Fiether, is a complex character of intricate design, adding a dimension of condescension and satire to the work as a whole.
Be assured: there is meaning to be found within the absurdity. For the brave souls who will venture further, may your search begin. 

A Figment Realm

"Only by chance are these first words still soaking in the ink in which I have scribbled them, even after I withdrew my pen from the last stroke of the final letter...
Yes, forever will my heart reside in this warm cauldron. For a night, I have immersed myself in a figment realm; I have disappeared from my desk and strolled the boulevards of a world over the ocean of my own mind. I walk and dream. Feel me follow as you read, and feel the others as well. They know who we are. I understand someone witnesses my transgressions here as I selfishly steal the secrets of this place, for it would be privilege enough to observe quietly and confide these accounts in my own record. My eye gazes outward through this branch I sprout–a branch that reaches out, thirsting. Accompanying the moon, I retire from my writing indefinitely, and the last limb of my imagination dances with the music of the following words:"

And with those words, Gruber van Fiether launches us into one of the strangest literary adventures imaginable. From beginning to end, Worm Children misbehaves, presenting the reader with impossible solutions to ridiculous problems. The absurdity is undeniable - just as much a reflection of the strangeness of sentience as a critique of the cruelty and greed of modern society. John aspiring revolutionary Larwa Chlopak and a cast of bizarre supporting characters on their quest to overthrow Krüstof, the malevolent, semi-crustacean dictator, but be wary; there is darkness within everyone, just as there are Worm Children lurking in the shadows.
Worm Children Cover.  Fabio Chiappina 2016.

Meet the Inhabitants

The handful of Gruntians that I had the pleasure of immortalizing in ink.

Worm Children: The Birth of a Legend

"'Welcome to the Zero Zone; Population: Unknown' the sign ambiguously declares." Fabio Chiappina 2016.
"Four hundred nude infant worms mewed and puked curdled blood as their shiny bottoms wallowed in the worm’s decaying filth. The children gazed hungrily upon their discoverers, for their teething gums had yet to taste the luxury of fresh meat. Their bodies were strangely human, as if forged haphazardly by feral beings rather than an omniscient deity. The worm children were black, slender, and slimy, and their ebony blood pulsed clearly like ink through their gelatinous skin. ... The figures were haunting; an obsidian dust cloud seemed to linger upon them like death upon the gallows, and no appendages would dare cling to such physically atrocious beings from fear of loss of social reputation. Their bodies, unnaturally lanky and astoundingly muscular for such fetal pups, were composed of serpentine coils of grub-chub awkwardly conjoined to faces grotesquely resembling dismembered humans. Indeed, any human spotted sporting so embarrassing a visage would be instantly shamed by the beautiful masses; their jaws, from which sloppy gums and several rows of long spindling teeth protruded, were unhinged; their eyes were hollow with stark darkness, absorbing any light waves bold enough to attempt to impress their electromagnetic peers by approaching the aphotic entities."

Krüstof

"Krüstof crept slowly towards me, smirking triumphantly. He had conquered yet another realm: the art of life. I imagined him painting life across a graveyard, spilling biology into corpses long enskeleted. He would sculpt passion into those dead eyes, pruning the gray clumps of excess clay. But he could not revive those who had never died–those gray, rotted eyes of the lifeless living… No, his creation was by no means perfect, but it was beautifully seductive in his eyes, so he took no notice of the beast’s excruciating pleas for death. He rode to my home in the shoes of God Himself; now that he boasted a successful mutant maggot, both Krüstof and the villagers knew that a god was no longer necessary. Krüstof had conquered Him and assumed His duty of creating life, and his deformed mascot provided living proof, though anyone could tell the beast’s life would end soon, for none can defy the will of Mother Nature for eternity, and she would soon rectify the injustice that had been served upon her. The maggohound stared her defiantly in the eyes and mocked her, teasing her momentary lapse of control as an unnatural and illegal being, chuckling at its victory over the divine forces. But this manipulation and ultimate surpassing of nature further enraged the elemental forces, and Mother Nature would await the correct time to enact her unrelenting revenge against man…"
The Tyrant. Fabio Chiappina 2016.

The Zuk

The Zuk. Fabio Chiappina 2016.
"My eyes regained usefulness just in time to catch a glimpse of my thief, wheeling a cart filled with my precious toes, as it retreated to its home in the hay, and I would never forget the mortifying sight.
It could only be considered a tiny person, but even this would be an inadequate classification, for its mutilations were multifarious and dramatic. His four stumpy arms clasped his creaky cart weakly, and it was now clear that these were the instruments of torture that had pulverized my toes. Those “arms” of his had no fingers, and so each handle was loosely wedged between a pair of his limbs. But apart from these appendages dangled two thick, lumpy, vestigial arms, neither of which retained the necessary nerve endings for movement. His solitary leg boinged like an oiled spring, muscular yet dystrophic, and his brittle heart pumped steadily upon his head. A long, goopy tongue, which I soon realized was the glue-covered noodle I'd felt upon my foot, hung trailing from his circular lip, slathered in thick, adhesive saliva. The spawn of Chaos hobbled off, oinking and wheezing with its dilapidated lungs, satisfied by its successful treachery."

Grunty Kraba: A Summary

"Despite the torridity, frigid spells of stinging cold plastered the fields with glacial frost once every moon cycle, destroying the harvest and bludgeoning the wildlife population with a polar fist. The fields remained unsaturated throughout even the heaviest showers. Rain poured from the heavens, but demons scurried puddle to puddle, collecting the water in their bags. Ominous peaks towered above ruthless alpines, giving way to the cruel jungle and the unrelenting marshlands. Even the fairest of the landscapes, the Great Plain, was littered with craters. A peek inside one of these rocky chasms would reveal the acidic sea beneath the Earth. The waves playfully tossed about the ever-resounding wails of the damned in an eternal game of catch. Roars emulated as serpents splashed in the underworld’s coves, and few whose feet slipped through the cracks lived to tell the tale."

The Darkroom

"He belonged to a class of barely acceptable Yardlings–men dangerous enough to repel predators but lacking sufficient strength to defeat another Yardling in combat. Above them were multiple stout, chunkoid men aggressive enough to keep the higher-ranked outlaws on their toes, and should any of the unquestionable apexes suffer an injury or incapacitation, these second-tier Yard-dwellers would voraciously pounce to fill the power vacuum. Providing stark contrast to The Yard’s zenith of impeccably formed, bloodthirsty criminals existed the sucklings that inhabited The Darkroom; these were a blobbish, unfortunate, wheezing race of malformed wormishes accurately classified as defensive-types for their pacifist nature, though not even the greatest Yard-dweller would dare confront one of these in combat. Physical battling would entail entering The Darkroom, and to do so, having been so perpetually accustomed to the sensory stimuli of The Yard, would bring about certain insanity to even the healthiest mind. Indeed, there roamed no light in The Darkroom–none would dare enter–though somehow still the most terrifying and psychologically destructive sights were seen. There existed no odors, though any who accessed the room would instantly have lost their sense of smell due to the sheer rancidity of the air alone, and, if they had ever been able to find the exit, they would quickly have noticed the uselessness of their tarnished noses. There sounded no sounds, but the most horrifying of screams–the kind that plagued the nightmares of even the manliest being, wrenching profuse tears out of infant and beast alike–rattled against the bleeding eardrums of all trespassers. Suffocating ink enveloped all; a dry breath was an unknown luxury. Hallucinations galore tormented the powerful mind to gradual insanity and dangled suicidal temptations that the feeble mind could not resist. Poisonous air, bleeding water, breathing darkness, psychopathic humidity. Almost as deadly as the elements, the occupants wetly chomped on intruders within their personal and metaphorical bubbles with tiny, sharp teeth, connected flimsily to weak, snow-white skin. Even so, many preferred the hazards of The Darkroom to the permanent warfare of The Yard, where severed limbs and popped skulls littered the crimson landscape as maniacal warlords chuckled heartily while they feasted on the flesh of their inferior victims."