In the far away land of D'arvia, on the middle of the Serpent's hook peninsula, there was a small house. It resided on the edge of a small grape plantation, next to a stone building for making and storing grape juice. Behind the grape field, on the other side of the rotting wooden fence, there was tangled, adventurous woodland stretching as far as the eye could see in that direction. The rest of the surrounding area was hills and grassy green fields. The owner of that quaint lot was named Bentley Johnston, and he had a beautiful wife, seven daughters and two sons.

All day long they worked on the grapes, picking bunches, filling and carrying buckets, separating the stems, piling the grapes into their giant juicer, and filling jars with sweet purple liquid. It was in the middle of harvesting season, and the rows of vines were thick with lush fruit. All the kids helped. Even Jessica, the two year old helped pick some, though she ate most of the ones she picked. They ate lunch in the vineyard, only stopping when it was time for dinner. After dinner the kids got some free time, and scattered about the house and yard.

Bentley went to the back of the house, and into the cluttered study. Books sat on desks, shelves, and in teetering piles, globes and maps and heirlooms were scattered around, and papers with poems and journal entries and expenses and taxes and sketches and everything you can think of were stuck in between books, wedged in corners, and stuffed onto shelves.

Bentley wove through the mess of literature, and pushed some piles of books and a chest full of scrolls to the side. On the floor there was a trapdoor with dusty wooden boards, and a dented iron lock. His wife Genevieve came into the doorway.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

Bentley took an old brown key from around his neck and unlocked the trapdoor, opening it with a squeak to reveal a flight of stone steps descending into darkness. "It's a Tuesday," He said, lighting a lantern.

With that, Bentley took the lantern and stepped down into the darkness, closing the door behind him.

Genevieve smiled. "Can't keep away from those pets of his."

Bentley descended the stone stairs, his lantern casting a sphere of yellow light around him. He went down about fifty feet until he came to a large black cavern. His lantern did little to illuminate the misty space, and the back wall was far from visible. Bentley walked across the ominous cave. He heard scuttling and squirming noises echoing around, and suddenly he saw a looming shape in the darkness. It was white-ish grey, with a slimy membrane and moist clay-like flesh. It was longer than Bentley's house and as twice as thick as he was tall. It had no eyes, no limbs, and a whip-like tail. Its head was round and blunt with a circular mouth filled with rows of teeth. It had dozens of nostrils and eardrums in two chains down its sides, and a pink spot on its forehead.

Bentley rubbed its head, "Red-eye, who's been a good wurm?"

Red-eye slithered around him, wrapping him in a slimy but affectionate hug. Bentley went to the cave, Red-eye slithering behind him. More wurms like Red-eye, but without the spot, and some with other distinguishing features, squirmed around the cavern. Big ones, little ones no bigger than Bentley's arm, and slimy green eggs. As they went, Bentley greeted each approaching wurm, scratching their chins and petting their backs the way they liked, and calling them by name (If they had one. Most of the smallest ones didn't.) Red-eye was one of the biggest, and the fastest of them all.

Bentley found the back wall of the cave, and leaning against it was a wooden sled attached to a giant harness. Bentley strapped it on to his wurm, in a tight loop around the neck with long, thick leather reins coming back and attaching to the sleigh, and then got inside.

"Red-eye," He said. Wurms have exceptionally good hearing, and are about as smart as dolphins. "We're going to the stadium." He then gave the reins a tug and chirped a long toooooowoop!

Red-eye took off; burrowing down at an angle into the ground, eating the dirt and stone and clay and any insects or small animals he came across with his massive mouth. Bentley's old yet durable sleigh bounded along behind it, following the spiraling tail in the wake of the beast. The path leveled out, and soon they were speeding through the dark earth, with only a swinging lantern to illuminate the darkness. The battered skis bounced over the uneven ground and clanged against rocks, but Bentley was used to the rough ride by now. He didn't need to steer, as his favorite wurm knew the way by heart. Soon they surfaced in a large tunnel held up by steel beams and a net of wire thirty feet above. Red-eye started slowing down long before they got there in order to avoid collision by the sleigh's inertia. There were many dents and scrapes from those accidents. They came in through a dirt section in between two pillars, and Bentley guided his wurm through the tunnel. As they slithered through the hall, lit by torches on the steel beams, more wurms burst in through the mud. Huge fat wurms, average wurms, worms that were so long the rest of them just kept coming and coming, old scarred wurms that were turning grey, bright young wurms, hairy wurms, toothy wurms, striped wurms, spotted wurms, enchanted wurms that glowed yellow in the dark like lanterns, but mostly just average wurms, all with sleds trailing behind them.

They all joined the progression through the tunnel, and soon they got to a large doorway that shed even brighter light. The roar of a crowd could be heard flooding from it, and as the wurms slid through the gate, Bentley beheld a U shaped stadium, with a jagged strait wall at the other end and crowds curving on either side. Bentley guided Red-eye to a designated area, dismounted, and made his way over to an entry booth. He got in line behind other wurm racers, and when it was his turn he said to the man running it,

"I'd like to enter in the next race." He rifled through his pockets and brought out fifteen silver lorenzos.

He set them on the tabletop, and the man asked, "What's your wurm's name?"

"Red-eye,"

The man wrote something down on his timetable, and after a short time handed Bentley a ticket. It had the number 5 on it. Bentley went back to his wurm and guided it to the lane facing the wall labeled '5', and waited. Wurms lined up beside Red-eye as a tiny wurm with a fat juicy red grub tied on its tail burrowed through the rock, setting the trail for the race. After awhile the crowd quieted and the announcer on a stand above the entrance yelled,

"Quiet down, quiet down please, thank you. All right, the third race of the night is about to start, and this one is for twenty golden vanities. The contestants are," He flipped through a notepad, "The crusher, Spalding, Sunlight, Agatha, Red-eye, Bones, Muddy Joe, Silky, and The Grave Assassin. We're waiting for the signal,"

Bentley hopped in his sleigh, and soon a man below gave a big thumbs up after checking all of the racers.

The announcer called, "On your mark, get set, go!"

Toooooowoop! Rang out, and the wurms took off, burrowing into the rock after the scent of the grub. Red-eye quickly passed some of the lesser wurms, and Bentley's sleigh jumped at the acceleration. Red-eye pushed his way through the dirt at amazing speeds, eating silt and crunching gravel. He found a clay vein in the sub-terrain, and followed it, curving downward. Clay was much faster eating than rock or even dirt, and it also was very nutritious. It gave them a boost like a penguin on ice, and Bentley nearly fell off his seat. Then the clay ended, and Red-eye scooped back upward so as not to loose the scent of the grub. They sped along, and soon they were in third place. The big hairy wurm, Spalding, was right in front of them, but Red-eye was inching up the length of his body. Then, suddenly, Spalding took a sharp ninety-degree turn, crossing in front of them, and Red-eye had no choice but to turn as well. He pummeled into a large area of rock, and slowed down quickly. Spalding swooped out of the turn, joining the other wurms, and left Red-eye in the dust.

"C'mon, Red-eye! You can do it!" Bentley said over the roar of churning earth and grinding stone.

Red-eye dove downward and out of the rock, then swooped back up and sped ahead, taking another clay vein. Bentley's sleigh almost burst form such crazy moves, but it was old and durable.

Even still, He called out an "Easy, boy!"

They were gaining on Spalding, and this time when he tried the trick, Red-eye ducked beneath him and sped on. Spalding snapped out of his turn, to the battering of his owner, and roared in rage. His anger and determination fueled his muscles, and soon he was inching up Red-eye's length. Red-eye heard a large granite deposit nearby, and Bentley knew what he was thinking.

"Give 'im a taste of 'is own medicine, boy!"

Red-eye turned ninety-degrees in front of Spalding, forcing him into the hard rock. Red-eye turned away at the last moment, trailing after the first place. Spalding roared in rage behind him, but he was too far behind, and Red-eye was just too fast. The first place was a long, thin wurm called The Grave Assassin. Its owner, due to limited tunnel space, had to ride on their stomach on a small sled. The Grave Assassin twisted around Red-eye, and zipped into a clay vein. Red-eye followed it, and ate the rest of the clay that the smaller wurm had missed. He heard the finish line up ahead, and sped after the Assassin. They were neck-to-neck, right up along side each other, and then a rabbit decided to cross in front of Red-eye. The extra energy was all he needed, and at the last second he sped ahead of the Grave Assassin. Red-eye burst through the stone wall at the ending arena, halfway across D'arvia, and scooped up the red grub in his teeth.

The crowd roared. Bentley got out of the sled and put both fists in the air and yelled in victory. A man came down and gave Bentley a bag with twenty gold vanities in it.

"And the winner of the third race is Red-eye!" The announcer shouted.

After that Bentley went around for a while, talking to people he had met in the races over the years, and watched the fourth race while red-eye mingled with other wurms in the stables for rent that the company offered. Then Bentley hopped back on and they rode home again. Bentley un-saddled red-eye in the cave, and then crept back upstairs. He climbed up the worn steps and opened the trap door quietly, locking it behind him and covering it with the chest and things again, and then snuffed out the lantern. He crept back out of the office into the dark and sleeping house. It was dark outside, and Bentley could only see enough in the moonlight coming from the window to slip into his room. Genevieve was in bed, sleeping. She rolled over when he climbed in.

"Didya haveagoodrace?" She slurred sleepily.

"Yeah." He whispered. "We won."

"Mmm." She said, and went back to sleep.

Bentley lay for a moment, staring out the window at the nocturnal sky. It was quiet, except for the muffled chirping of crickets, and if he listened hard enough, he could just barely hear the calls of wurms resonating through the earth and night.