The Artur Kunz Blog

Jarek woke up from a horrible nightmare. He was almost killed my a plant and lost his gardening suit and his grandfathers knife. Then had to kill a flesh-eating okapi with his teeth and if that is not awful enough he had to seek refuge in a bunker full of probably horrible people. Then he realized it was not a dream but what actually happened. His leg still hurt, his hand was still burned, but he felt much better. Another day and he would be ready to go home. "Those bunker#3 people seemed to be not that awful after all", Jarek thought, "I am still alive and they treated my wounds." Just now he realized the humanoid creature squatting in a chair next to the bed. Jarek crawled to the other side of the bed and eyed the man from his frog-like legs to his smirking face. "Great! Enough sleep. Time for your first lesson. Here is a knife. Try to hit me.", the man said with a squeaky voice and throw the knife to Jarek. The knife fell in his lap. The frogman jumped ...

Anna stood at the counter of the Three Moon Shine Bar and enjoyed a Green Dream, the only thing that helped her calm down as a voice interrupted her peace: "Ahoi, I heard you are looking for business opportunities." She turned around and examined the man that approached her. He looked old but not as old as his clothes. She lost the interest when she noticed the toe coming through his left boot. "Thread-level zero; recommended elimination method: punch to the face", said her warrior-brain. She couldn't turn it off and she had to spend a lot of strength not to act on it. She told him with clenched teeth to go away: "Whatever you want, you clearly couldn't pay us. You know I am a Hyper, so don't overextend my patience." Hypers were female genetically modified warriors, that were used by the Gori dictatorship to fight a rebellion against them. Hypers had hyper-stamina, hyper-speed, but were also hyper-aggressive and hyper-active. The dictatorship w...

Commander Oswield sat in his enormous armchair and stare into the air as he often did when he had to make a difficult decision. Despite the huge size of the armchair, it seemed tiny in comparison to the man in it and at the same time he had an elderly look. He was often compared with a mountain: Huge and ancient. After a minute of starring, Flenk became inpatient. "So, what do we do about the digging-creatures plague? We don't want to end up eaten alive as it happened in bunker#7. Do we?", he asked again. Flenk tended to use chairs different than other people. He had squatted in the seat across Oswield and seesawed from side to side. He was not what one would expect the second most feared warrior of the camp to look like. He was small and thin, but what his opponents had to find out was, that he was also fast, nimble and precise. Just as Oswield was about to give an answer, someone came into the door. It was Gidgig, one of the warriors of "the camp". That was h...

Jarek barely survived his encounter with the Kukuruza. The first thing he did was lying down. His heart was still pounding. He had to calm down. He had to think. “I have lost everything today.”, he muttered to himself, “my armoured suit and even my grandfather’s knife. What will become of me now?” It was a painful loss. Almost as painful as his broken leg and scratched face. “Stop this!”, he yelled at himself,” I can mourn my losses when I am in safety. I didn’t survive the vines to lay down and die now.” He repressed his thoughts about his past and his probable future. If he couldn’t focus right know there would be no possible future. “Step one”, he said to himself, “check pockets.” He had to use his left hand because his right hand was still burning from the Kukuruza juice. Three Kukuruza bars, a bottle of water and a bottle of Kwirza, fermented Kukuruza juice, were all his pockets revealed. The Kwirza was exactly what he needed right now. He drank the bottle in one go. “Step two”, ...

"Sleep well, good night and ring alarm on the sight of white light...", Jarek sang to calm the Kukuruza, a two-meter high yellow glowing corncob formed plant. It had closed its impenetrable shell as it heard Jarek kicking a stone while trying to sneak up to it. The singing worked. The Kukuruza lowered its shell.  While Jarek continued singing good night songs from his childhood he raised his harvesting tool, a chainsaw formed like a two-handed sword, into position. After the second repetition, he rammed the sword into the unprotected flesh of the Kukuruza. It screamed so loud, that Jarek's ears would bleed if they hadn't been protected. Splinter flew through the air, acid juice squirted out of the wound and Jarek had to duck a vine. Thanks to his gardening uniform, an Exoskeleton-Suit, he was well protected. Suddenly a vine grabbed, levitated and slammed him and the floor. Jarek could barely take a breath as it levitated him again.  This plant was much stronger t...