Quoted By:
In terms of pure physical terror, this is the peak. In your own opinion, the part just before is the peak, and everything from now on is steeply downhill. You find security in knowing that everything is over with. You have completed your part in this. Now your body must complete its.
You retch again, and begin to sense a hollowness. You could not stand if you tried. Every part of you is sagging and distending, sliding off the bone, and your bones themselves are bending, and when you feel your face begin to go you know the time has come. Your skull comes with it. Then: a loss of sensation.
Darkness. Weight. An alien scrabbling in the back of your head. You move parts of yourself, probing.
Blue blood. Which syringe was this? Is it the one you drew from... from... what was the thing's name? Buster?
That sounds correct. Some manner of crustacean, then. Or insect? You are a magician, not a veterinarian. The good news is that the scrabbling is all the instinct the little bugger has— that's the tradeoff for smaller changes, a harder process but a significantly easier wrangling after the fact. You grasp the scrabbling and yoke it tight to yourself.
Then you mobilize, the creature working its limbs on your behalf, and emerge from your mound of sloughed flesh. From this angle, the cell is vertiginous, its only escape— the barred window— a sheer cliff away. You pause and consult the creature.
It is unbothered. Your legs are sharp and hooked and your body is flat. You lever onto the door and pick your way up, finding purchase in imperfections and divots, and after another round of consideration you slide yourself vertically through the bars. You plop to the ground outside.
Though you are unsure of the precise layout of this compound, it ends up not mattering. A Courtier of kindly disposition spots you in a corridor, coos a bit, picks you up, and deposits you outdoors.
You are free. You will not bother going back for your belongings, which are replaceable. You will crawl to a safe location, and— when your blood begins to replenish, when your original nature makes itself known— you will shed your loosening skin and grow a new body around your heart. Everything, at least for then, will be alright.
<span class="mu-r">-----</span>
<span class="mu-r">A pathetic insect exposes its true nature. It is caged and exposed. It is too cowardly to destroy its fellows, so it metamorphizes into a weak, inferior state and runs away. The progeny it devotes itself to is DEAD. Its mission is and will be and already was a FAILURE. There is nothing of value here.</span>
Nothing is of any value to <span class="mu-r">YOU.</span>
<span class="mu-r">Nothing is of any value to <span class="mu-s">US,</span> tapeworm. There is nothing besides US. There is nothing at all.</span>
He did not fear his own death.
<span class="mu-r">...</span>
Oh, to fear anything else...
<span class="mu-r">-----</span>
(3/4)
