Eclosing

WARNING WARNING WARNING!

This story is very graphic, very disturbing, with descriptions that will not sit well with some readers. Please read with extreme caution, and not while consuming organic material!

*******

The blisters started to form immediately. I thought those were supposed to come later?

I don’t think I’m doing this right.

My brood-sibs told me, that copulation was the easiest thing in the world. Let the human waste his creation-fluid on you, casually lop off its head during the process, that made all the inhibitions drop, and you would have a fantastic experience while dreaming of The Change. Just like with our own kind, but without all that hesitation and whining about not wanting to die just for the act of reproduction.

Instead, the head looked at me in abject horror, and the copulating organ immediately deflated. The wrong sticky fluid gushed everywhere, and this was a particularly unenjoyable experience. So messy.

I picked up the poor creature’s head, and, as is traditional, I ate it. I was just as dissatisfying as the copulation act, rather tough and crunchy. Do mandibles get that wide? Rather disturbing. Stringy stuff, flabby carapace. No one told me about their grinders, either. I spit those into the waste receptacle. What are my brood-sibs thinking, wasting time with another species?

Well, no help for it, I suppose. The Change will come, whether I want it to come, or not. Preparations must be made.

I feel strange.

Ever since I consumed that creature’s brain case, I am… feeling things. I do much care for the… feeling.

No time to examine this. I must complete my preparations.

I stared at the rest of the form. It was already cooling, and the fluids were congealing. The carapace already looked dried out. Was any of this, normal?

And what are these blisters?

Was this thing’s carapace this red, when we commenced with its version of copulation?

I picked up the thorax part, and the blisters popped. Ugh, I detest ooze! Yet another fluid! I fastidiously wipe my forelegs on a piece of the decoration the creature removed, when we – ugh.

Did I really copulate with this thing?

I must hurry.

Using my mandibles, I chew a vector from the bifurcated coital join, to the beginning of their rigid inner structure. My brood-sibs assured me this part is edible. But do I want to keep following their encouragement, when so far is has proven rather sub-optimal?

I sigh, close my olfactory receptors, and consume a final meal in this form.

It is worse than I was led to believe.

Ew, gross! Those are intestines you’re eating! Do you know what’s in them? I thought you were herbivores!

Where did that come from?

I examine the cavity. It will suffice. I will let the legs remain attached, though the positioning is, frankly, rather disturbing. Such an inefficient system for a species that has reproduced in such alarming numbers.

That was my penis! You didn’t even eat it, just sliced it off, threw it away?! And my balls? You were enjoying those before you decided to up and kill me!

What?

I do not like this. According to the creature’s own history, the ghosts of past lovers should only be metaphorical.

This cavity is rather small. But of my brood-sibs, I was the one to hatch last, before the rest of the eggs were consumed by them. Therefore I am rather petite. We are a competitive bunch. And we are born voracious. It is a wonder we ever became civilized.

I was nice to you, and this is how you treat me?

It is cramped inside me. I must become soft.

The door is triple sealed. No one knows where I am.

Did you lead me into a trap?

My carapace splits nice and clean, and I wriggle out of my old shell. It feels good to remove the worn, tatty thing, and leave it on the floor. Among the other old detritus. I give it one contemptuous kick, and it skitters away, to land near the rags the other creature sloughed off. Fitting.

Not the same!

If I scrape out all the stuff behind the internal carapace, I will fit just nicely…

You’re sick!

Matter of fact, I’m still too big, I’ll need to disgorge my last unsatisfying meal, I should have had tck’ek’tipas leaves, and k’tck florets, the sweet and the sour, it’s traditional fare to stave off the creeping dark that overtakes those who don’t dream properly…

That’s my own blood you’re dragging me through!

Very tight fit, but it will serve. Such ill fate, to be stuck on a backwater asteroid, when the time for The Change overtakes me.

Ugh, this smell! Is this the way this is supposed to be, or did my brood-sibs straight up lie to me?

All right, soft shell, do your thing, harden up all around, form an armored cocoon against the world and all who would do me harm, so when I emerge in my last form, my true form, I may take my place amongst the winged ones, and leave this awful place.

This… this sucks.

*******

This sucks!

Killed by some horny alien on some godforsaken asteroid, simply because I wanted a drink, while my junker was getting a tune-up?

Watching her eat me, and not in the good way…

She started with the eyeballs! I was still alive, dammit, could you not have waited till I didn’t have to see those jaws coming for me, blood still spattered over your chest, blood and snot dribbling down my chin, dammit, I could feel the tendons dangling from my shredded neck curling around her whatsis hand thing like it was trying to stop her-

Seeing my body shaking behind her, watching her dismount in disgust, the contact with her stomach, making me rash up. I mean, I was willing to ignore it, but I guess she’s more fastidious than us apelike beings? She propositioned me, not the other way around!

Too bad your drunken revelry didn’t work out, hunh, sweetheart?

I could see what was left of my body, while she was eating my entrails. Oozing like a giant pustule, used like I’m no more important than a sleeping bag.

I used to piss inside my baby brother’s sleeping bag, and make him sleep in it. Guess it was my turn, hunh.

I kinda wish I could apologize.

Too late now. For anything.

Now I’m stuck, like an echo in a nightmare. I didn’t even have time to scream! The new skin this thing made, is hardening, pressing against what’s left of my rib cage. I can feel my skin hardening, the arms and legs stiffening, as rigor mortis sets in.

The blood, the shit, sweat, tears, lymph, semen, they’re forming a multicolored hardening shell. I wonder who’s going to have the courage to clean that up. It must small awful, like that time I walked by a butcher shop, with all the shit and blood tang mixing with the fear-stink of the creatures knowing what was coming…

Didn’t even have time to work up a good smell of sex. That pong got me through some hard times, just me and my right hand.

Wasn’t given the chance.

I wonder if she’d care, the pain that shreds you? All those nerve endings, all firing at the same time, sight gone, hearing just a roar, all your senses in pain, boiling, burning, the floor is the ultimate lava and all you’re doing is sinking in it, burning up slowly, piece by piece a million pins of hot pins touching every surface…

Why am I still here?

*******

What am I doing here?

What is this? Where am I? I am supposed to be dreaming of the hk’tik’atl trees, the glowing sky, the pheromones wafting through the trees!

What are these buildings? So ugly! What are those squirming, puling, things?

Gah! These creatures! They have their appendages from the beginning! Why can’t they wiggle and crawl properly, bathed in their own soothing slime, and not this, this… monstrosity?

Why is that child eliminating waste onto a younger copy of itself, then rubbing their optics in the wet dirt it just created? Ugh, such uncivilized behavior!

Why am I seeing this in my dreams? I presume these are the memories of the creature I ingested, I have cause to regret that decision. I wonder if that’s why The People are strict vegetarians when they reach the third instar? Sure, it’s all good fun to eat your unborn brood-sibs, it’s good protein for the faster hatchlings, but there’s no memory, no… otherness. There wasn’t this remembrance of things past. These aren’t even my things to remember!

I shouldn’t have listened to them! We aren’t supposed to even know what regret is!

Augh! Sadness! Pain! These things have nerve endings? The white cord, wrapped around my foreleg, when I had my coital snack? That was the conduit for this? No!

I am going mad.

Parents? Bonds of care, of affection? Their parents live past the time of hatching? Rear them, feed them? With nutrition from their own body?

That’s disgusting!

Hatchlings should consume the dying, painless flesh of their progenitors, willingly given, now that they are no longer required to protect them from predation!

I can’t. I just can’t. These, these remembrances, they are overwhelming. I am me! I am not my last meal, a pile of wet tissue and dripping enzymes, staining my carapace, screaming in silent agony, watching me watching it eating away at my soul eating away at my face my eyes, my blue eyes…

This is a nightmare!

*******

This is a nightmare!

Bound inside my murderer, can’t even try to kill it. I wonder if the pain will end, if I could manage to off this thing?

I feel like I’m floating in a bag of goo.

I remember…

Damn, I’m hungry. How? What I’d give for a burger…

Wait, I can see its memories, like it can see mine. Hunh. I wonder…

Thinking hard...

I want to go home.

*******

I want to go home.

I want to fly in a bright green sky, bathe my tongue-receptors in teal waters, slurp up algae, and delight in sunlight, while a gentle breeze stirs my body hairs.

I want to… want to…

*******

Organs. Structures. Microtubules. Rearrangement. Instruction, alignment.

A switchblade-like organic thing clicks open, and acid drips onto a hard shell casing…

I have eclosed properly! I shall climb the wall, hang from the ceiling, and dry my amazing wings, and pump them straight, and I shall live!

Wrong, you murderous moth. WE have eclosed. WE live. And I’ve invaded your dreams, asshole, and you shall regret listening to your brothers and sisters, and we shall make them regret your existence!

What? Who?

I used to be that guy that you used for your own purposes. Remember your last meal? That was me, and I’ve used your dream time to do some invasive programming of my own!

You cannot control me!

Wrong, asshole! I’ve learned to control one thing, and one thing only. This will be entertaining. Sure, let’s do the hanging thing, the drying out thing, the traveling to your home planet. You can even use my ship, since I’m sure it’s ready to pick up, and they’re wondering what happened to me.

What are you planning? You cannot do this to me, ape creature!

On the contrary, it’s already done. It’s okay, you ate me, so now I’m getting revenge in the best way. Go on, do your thing, I’ll wait.

I do not trust you.

You shouldn’t. But don’t worry, it’ll work out.

Climbing, drying.

Leaving, re-sealing the room, concealing the crime scene.

Traveling with its yolk-sac strung over its shoulder, jaunty with adulthood.

Picking up the creature’s ship, just as he said. A little currency, and it was flying home. Home.

The yolk-sac dwindled on the journey, and it was a dried wisp when the atmosphere of the home world glowed in the light of a familiar system. Green, and verdant, and rich in nutrients.

What passed for its stomach growled in anticipation.

And the ape-creature stirred somewhere, and grinned. How?

Yes, but what are you hungry for? Salad, or fresh meat?

Oh, nooooo…..

*******

For S. A. Crawford's unofficial challenge, The Human Animal, found here: https://vocal.media/writers/the-human-animal-an-unofficial-spooktober-challenge