Pillow Spite
It was a calm November evening in Glatixland's capital city of Glatixburg as tens of thousands of enlisted and officers gathered in Fort Elvis for the annual cross-branch slumber party. Like every year, servicemen and servicewomen brought pillows emblazoned with the symbols of their respective branches and prepared for a night filled with inter-service revelry, scary bed-time stories, and staying up playing split-screen games until officers angrily yelled at them for being too loud.
Unfortunately, a minor spat between General Herman and Admiral Dontz escalated after the latter was accused of stealing pizza pockets from the former's plate. It began as a slap fight but soldiers from both sides came to the aid of their respective officers with pillows in hand. What happened next was the single bloodiest pillow brawl in Glatixian history.
We spoke to Private Henry Gord for his account:
"It was like nothing I've ever seen. Mania just... spread through the ranks. General Herman went down in a hail of feathers and cotton. I... I saw the Navy guys just beating on the Sarg and I knew I had to do something about it. I just got out of basic training, man. They always warn you that you're gonna see some !@#$ up things on the battlefield, but boot camp doesn't prepare you for the look you see on a man's face when a pillow hits him in the nads. I still see some of them... mouths open to scream but nothing really coming out, pizza pockets thrown up all over the floor. Sometimes I wake up and just scream, but their faces never really go away."
Vice Admiral Jorgan Ramsley, a storied veteran of two other sleepovers gone wrong, had this to say:
"It's always -fun- in the movies, but most go their whole lives without seeing the reality of it. This wasn't fake Glatixwood shite, it was the real deal. The glasses that got broken actually got broken. Some of those boys stepped on -actual- Legos , and they're not gonna walk right again until at least tomorrow. You ever doze off and wake to find that someone just hit you with a memory pillow? Of course you haven't. You wake up to see your own bewildered expression etched into the memory foam, right before they hit you again."
As we toured the aftermath of the fight, we spotted a variety of turned over blanket forts, and even a hastily-constructed mattress wall. Few of these were free of damage, as local janitor Thomas Fop can attest:
"See that pile of stuffed animals over there? Those were taken as trophies when the Navy overran an Army couch-fort. They'd drag Privates from the fort, kicking and screaming, and beat them with pillows until they cried uncle. Then they'd take Teddy and toss 'em on the pile."
Thomas gestures to a dozen or so nerf footballs on the ground.
"They used these to knock over the brooms that held up some blanket forts. No precision, no regard for casualties, just mayhem. Heard an Army guy got hit right in the nose with one. Poor bastard..."
While estimates are still being drawn up, at least 30 soldiers where struck in the !@#$ and 4 pairs of glasses were broken or damaged in the melee. The violence has even led to calls to end the yearly tradition, though the Chancellor maintains that the spirit of inter-service cooperation must be carried forward. For now, those involved in the fight can only pray that no one is uninvited from anyone else's birthday party.
