Adaptation

Peter was standing in his doorway, bathrobe lazily put on and tied loosely around my waist, scratching the disheveled hair atop his head and staring from his open door at the source of the buzzing noise that had woken him up so prematurely. It seemed to be a set of four drones, each slick black in color save for a glowing red light affixed to the front and held aloft by sets of whirring propellers, all working together to carry a large package just above his doorstep. After appearing to acknowledge his presence at the door with a whistling sound shared between them, the machines released the harness holding the container and ascended to destinations unknown. As the large box dropped to the ground with a thud, Peter focused less on the delivery itself and more on the carriers, watching them fly away just as soon as they arrived. When their disruptive noises had dissipitated, he turned his attention back to what they had left for him. He saw no packaging label, no return or forwarding address, just a logo that read "M-X Inc." No shipping or delivery company he had ever heard of, certainly, but it had to be at his place for a reason. Too tired after his rude awakening to consider the possibility of hostile intent behind this package, Peter picked it up with a groan of effort from its surprising weight and brought it inside.

His apartment wasn't exactly the picture of cleanliness and health, but it served as home well enough. Peter felt he hardly had time for such trivialities as tidiness when he had to focus so much on his job to even afford such a dismal place. Times were tough to be certain, but there was only so much that could be done to improve his circumstances... at least, that was his stance on the matter. So for now he would just have to deal with his growing piles of garbage and the occasional infestation inspired by such a habitat. He found a spot on the floor bereft of other obstructions and plopped his strange new acquisition down as he went to the kitchen counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. He had a long night with little sleep that had been so rudely interrupted by mechanical couriers, he would need some good old caffeine to get through the day ahead.

Taking a long sip and shuddering from the bitter flavor, Peter turned back towards the package. He wondered who would send him something like this, considering his parents would often give him several notices when they were sending something his way and his friends never seemed to care enough to gift him things. Could it be a prank of some kind? Did it contain a glitter bomb and an active camera to record his embarassing fate to share on the internet at large? Or was this some kind of marketing ploy, a scam he unwittingly signed up for as part of the less than reputable websites he would occasionally visit?

Either way, he figured it best to do some research into whatever this thing was before subjecting himself to the consequences of opening it. He decided to start with simply the idea of drones delivering random packages to people who didn't order anything, scouring the web for any similar instances occuring. It wasn't long before he was directed to the exact company emblazoned on the box itself, M-X Inc. The home page of the group in question seemed to have some sort of medieval dungeon theme to it, with torches displayed on the sides of dimly lit stone walls on either edge of the screen. The summary presented in the center of the browser described a service meant to "bring friends the mystery and thrills of a real fantasy adventure in the comfort of their own homes." He had heard of similar things before, where people anonymously send each other strange items with their own lore and stories as part of some sort of augmented reality game, so it wasn't like this was entirely a new idea; just the first one that seemed to be themed around Dungeons and Dragons as far as Peter could tell.

He had a passing interest in such things, but he had never made a big deal about it to anyone he knew, so who would've signed him up for this? Could it be a relative that just assumed he would be part of that demographic? As he took another sip of coffee to think this mystery over, he heard a shuffling sound behind him. He grumbled in annoyance, confident that another rat had wormed its way in. He decided to put this conundrum aside for the moment as he walked over to one of his cupboards to look for a rat trap. It didn't take him long, he had stockpiled a decent amount while he had continued to put off hiring a proper exterminator. When he turned back around to find a good spot to place it amongst his hovel, something had changed in his environment. The package, the huge, heavy box that he was ruminating over mere moments before, had vanished.

The confusion setting in served to wake him up considerably more than the coffee had managed to as he took a glance around the apartment from where he stood, just to be sure he hadn't simply misplaced it. It was then he noticed something strange on the ground where he believed he had left the delivery: a strange, sticky, viscous substance coating the floor. He knelt next to it and cautiously stuck a finger into it, only to recoil from the sudden stinging sensation he felt on contact. It wasn't as if this was some burning hot liquid, though... it reminded him of accidentally touching an acidic mixture in his chemistry class in high school. What kind of fun mystery delivery service sends people acid? He noticed that the fluid wasn't limited to the single spot either, it had a trail leading around a corner into his living room proper. Whatever it was, something had found it appealing enough to drag it away into another hiding spot.

Peter started to get the sense there may be some danger involved in these shenanigans, so he got what he could to better equip himself: in this case, a set of oven mitts to protect his hands from corrosive materials and a broom to swing at whatever had stolen them. He kept his phone on him with the flashlight on in case it had snuck into any particularly dark corner of the room, all the while continuing to search for more information on this company that sent him the instigator to this mess to begin with. From what the internet could tell him, the only people that had posted about this service only seemed to do so prior to actually opening them. He had previously assumed this was just to keep the secret of what specifically was being delivered, but now he wondered if there may have been some lawsuits or cover ups of some kind considering the inherent risk of harm.

Eventually his research was interrupted as his flashlight passed over what appeared to be the rear end of a particularly large rat hidden behind a stack of food delivery bags. Peter took a deep breath and steeled his nerves as he raised the broom up above his head and slammed it down with great force. There was no squeal of distress, however. When he lifted up his instrument to see the result of his work, he discovered that there wasn't anything else to the rat connected to the creature's hindquarters. It was as if something had bitten the entire upper torso clean off of the rodent, the blood intermingling with the dissolving ooze trail beneath it. Peter gulped and trembled as his light slowly moved from the corpse to what he had been looking for: the package. Now, however, there was a crimson fluid dripping from the lid alongside the saliva-like substance he had been following.

He had to know what was inside this thing now, for his own peace of mind and to determine just how to deal with it next. Whatever was hiding within this box is something alive and hungry, some kind of animal these sick freaks in this sketchy company had sent his way. It was assuredly very upset from the act of being delivered, particularly since the box didn't seem to have any sort of air holes punched into it to let the thing breathe properly. Peter took another moment to prepare himself after this new revelation and slowly reached out the tip of his broom, doing his best to jostle the box open. As it managed to find purchase underneath the lid, he slowly raised it, his eyes locked onto the sight in shock as his face went pale. There was no creature living inside as he had assumed; what he had found defied any explanation of the known modern world.

There were teeth, rows and rows of teeth, covering the underside of the lid and the sides of the box itself. A massive tongue seemed to writhe within like a tendril and its insides contracted and retracted as it chewed up the other half of the rat within. There was a hissing as the acidic saliva dripped from the corners of its impossible mouth, accompanied by a low rumbling growl as far too many eyes opened along the outside of the box. The slit pupils all focused on him, glaring at him hungrily as the tongue started to wrap around the broom handle. Before Peter had any time to react, it yanked on the instrument, his only means of defense, sending him tumbling towards the creature. He screamed in terror as several more tentacle-like pseudopods reached out from within to grab onto his head, dragging him through the stinging pain of the fluids on the ground with surprising and overwhelming strength. There was little he could do to fight back against this beast as it prepared to feast on his skull.

In the moments he struggled against being pulled into the gaping maw of this monster, Peter remembered some of his passive knowledge of medieval fantasy, thinking back to a creature that had played a similar sort of trap on unsuspecting adventurers, known simply as mimics. Somehow, someway, these things that had disguised themselves as treasure chests in dungeons were real and had evolved to survive in a modern context. He wished he could just tell someone, anyone, about this startling reality, warn them of the dangers of this trap... but even if he weren't about to die, he had been left behind by most people he knew. He had stagnated and dwelled in his suffering without putting forth any major change to keep up with the world around him. In his last moments, he understood the true meaning of the phrase "Adapt or die." At least he wouldn't be the only one, considering how quickly he had found the service in his search engine. Plenty more people just like him would be getting a special delivery soon enough...