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And that makes it 2-1 by logical majority vote, so you lurch toward Arledge or at least the soggy cocoon of gak where Arledge used to be (seriously, what the fuck) and stretch your stupid glowy hands out and try to ignore the pressure and the throbbing and the roaring. Which kind-of succeeds until you actually make contact— way too much contact, with your hand cleaving right through the unstable gak. You're up to your shoulder in it before your fingertips brush the cocoon's hard nucleus— brush <span class="mu-i">Arledge's body</span>— discharging the blessing in a flash of electric blue. Your ears pop. Your head sings. You can taste it in your teeth, like copper, and all your muscles have gone slack at once: you half-sit half-collapse and look on blissfully dumb as the cocoon starts to expand. It's growing <span class="mu-i">longer,</span> mainly, fresh gak snaking out in front and building up and hardening and taking on color, until— this is worrying enough to penetrate your haze— you are very clearly looking at a <span class="mu-i">worm.</span> A second worm. Not as big as the first worm, or as red, but still the height of a man and long as— as— a lot of men. Too many men.
"What the <span class="mu-i">fuck,</span>" you mumble, and stagger to your feet. "What the..."
The second worm is draped across most of the floorspace that the first worm wasn't, the situation improving only slightly when it sways into the air. You don't <span class="mu-i">want</span> it to be Arledge. You don't want to add "people turning into worms" to your ever-expanding list of things that are possible. "Arledge?" you say.
Nothing. It doesn't even look at you. <span class="mu-i">It's unlikely I'll be able to communicate, but please know that I remain aware of the situation at hand...</span> Shit. And double-shit, because you're realizing that your outburst has broken a powerful silence: that's Not Lottie up there, mouth hanging a little open, that's Worm #1, bereft of orders and deadly still, and that's Lucky, half-up the stairs, somehow non-astonished. He looks mainly resigned. "Typical," he says—
Then Not Lottie cackles and flings her arm around and Worm #1 follows, shooting past Worm #2 (Worm Arledge???) and arcing toward the stairs and snapping up— it snaps up Lucky. Just like that. He doesn't even get a chance to yell, it just shoots its jaws out and swallows him whole and the stairs are empty and he's gone.
(2/4)
