u/Lyzen_Chambers

​

My first memory was the warmth within my egg sack. I consumed the nutrient rich semi-fluid substance around me, unaware of anything that existed beyond the soft rigid walls of my home. As much as I could manage, I practiced moving; wriggling from side to side, stretching forward and back, contracting and expanding the muscles in my body - movement without going anywhere.

My second memory was of my food slowly running out and the walls of my home beginning to close in around me. My fate was sealed...which would come first, suffocation or starvation? I began thrashing against the inevitable doom with every muscle my feeble body had developed! Then I saw my salvation, a weak spot in the wall! I pushed my head into it. I could feel it beginning to give way. A crackling, tearing noise accompanied my charge toward freedom! There must be something on the other side of those walls I could feel it! I could sense it...

A gap began to take shape! I grasped at the edge of my prison with my mandables, bit down hard with my sharp teeth, and I ripped! I tore at the hole desperate to free myself. That's when I smelled it...the world outside. The air was acrid and metallic with a pleasent sharpness to it, that of bile and grease, a multitude of conflicting smells hitting me all at once. This...this is what freedom smelled like? I continued to break free and when the exit was big enough for me to squeeze through - I left my home, once so warm and comforting, now a hazardous trap. The smell of my new world washed over me. The moisture in the air mixed with a thin layer of slime covering my translucent skin and quills. I had lain on the ground for a long time until, eventually, I took in my surroundings.

The ground was meat. Solid and squishy, marbled with fat and gristle.

The walls were meat. On their surface were metal pipes draped in thin facia and a ventilation system that ran upward toward an unknown ceiling somewhere far in the distance.

The hallway was meat. A single passageway extending outward, fading into the darkness, leading away from the chamber of my birth.

On the floor beside me sat my now empty egg sack, it was beginning to shrivel and harden. I turned toward it and checked the remains, looking for any trace of leftover nutrients. I found a few scraps flaking off of the inside of my egg and ate them - they were dry and not very tasty. Then I tried eating a bit of the outer casing of the sack - it was not very filling and was brittle like chewing thin glass. The meat of this place seemed edible enough, but I wanted to save eating the walls as a last resort - so instead I ate as much of my former home as I could. Sustained for the time being, I left the room, crawling down the tall hallway hoping to find some more food - leaving a thin trail of slime behind me as I went.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *Where is this place? How did I get here? Who am I? Oh! A ceiling!*

Out from the darkness above me I could see the meat sloping down into view. As I crawled, the walls also began to slope inward, becoming a more confined corridor. Further on it became a tighter tunnel. Further on it became a small hole. As the walls and roof closed in on me, my pulse quickened. As my quills brushed against the meat surrounding me, my muscles tensed. A sound in the distance was slowly growing louder. A soft low whistle at first, the sound was now a gale with a metallic creaking underneath. I was being funnelled forward but I had a goal, a destination after all of this crawling! That sound! I crawled faster, allowing my mucus to aid my propulsion. The cramped space pushed my quills flat and pressed them into my back, I could feel the way their rigid structures were causing my skin and internal organs to shift around them. The sound was now an orchestra of giants wheezing in unison, a symphony of agonal breathing! I shot out of the opening of the hole. The external pressure on my body immediately released, my quills popped back up, my squished organs moved back into place, and the tension in my body relaxed. The air howled all around me and I laid on the floor.

I had emerged into a great cavernous room, the loud air was thin and stale, I could feel the muffled metal beneath the meat vibrating at a different frequency than before. I got up and began to explore. Contained within the room were rows and rows and rows of enormous lungs - hung upside down by massive tendons, supported by beams of metal, wire meshes fused into the sides of the air sacks, breathing asynchonous with each other. Ventilation ducts jutted from the tops of the lungs, billowing air upward into a haphazard spiderweb of interconnected shafts, all creaking and moaning from the ever-flowing air, all sticking into the meaty walls and ceiling of the room. Wherever meat touched metal there was scar tissue. A thin fleshy layer of film was spread over most of the exposed metal, veins could be seen pumping an unknown liquid into the meat, organs, and connective tissues. Wires were sending electrical signals to and from machine and flesh. The sound made in this room was hundreds of eternally dying breaths.

As I crawled the rows, the lungs became more gray, more wrinkled, they didn't pump with as much vigor, the surrounding metal and tendons showing signs of age and general wear, calcified growths could be seen on the lungs and the vents. The thin layer of flesh on the metal was thicker and more wide-spread the further I travelled. Eventually I came across a lung that had fallen. The tendons had snapped, the metal beneath had buckled, it's ventilation duct dangled uselessly above, one of the structural beams had pierced it's side - and it was still weakly continuing to pump. The air escaped through various holes where it had torn itself free of the piping and wheezed out of the hole ripped in it's side. Hungry, I approached the fallen lung, found a place that wasn't pumping too much, and bit down. It was thick and leathery, the more I chewed, the tougher it seemed to get, turning into a wad of un-swallowable gristle. I continued to chew, letting the sour juices coat my mouth, and continued on.

Reaching the other side of the large room I found a metal hatch. I extended my body up, clamped my mandables onto the handle, and pulled down. The hatch opened away from me revealing another passageway. With nothing here to eat aside from tough lung meat, I entered the corridor. The hatch closed behind me, cutting off the roar coming from the previous room. I hoped that this hallway wouldn't try to squash me like the last one did. As I travelled down the hall I noticed a change in the hum given off by the meat in this area - a less chaotic, more consistant vibration.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *What is this place? What am I? Why am I here? Oh! A hatch!*

This passageway was much shorter than the one before. It ended in a hatch just like the one I had entered. Opening the hatch (towards me this time) the sounds and smells of this room hit me. A savory smell mixed with a hint of sweet decay, wafts of something acidic. The sounds of grinding, churning, turning. I exited the hallway, the hatch closing behind me and I found myself on a metal catwalk. The tightly gridded grating suspended high above the ground by cables. To my left were tall thick spires of bone, large growths spurred out from them, huge lopsided buckets were welded onto the spires spiralling upward, in the buckets were great chunks of clean juicy fat. As the spires turned, the fat was scooped up from somewhere down below and carried up to it's destination in the darkness above. Above me to my right were a mosaic of gears of all sizes, starting huge at the top and getting smaller toward the bottom. They were attached to a wall made not of meat, but solid bone, the gears were metal, the gearshafts were calcium barbs growing out from the wall itself. Chunks of rotting discolored fat were being fed into the gears at the top. as they were smashed and ground up into smaller and smaller pieces, the grease from the putrid fat oiled the gears. What was left of the fat after the mashing fell down into an enormous vat underneath me where it was mixed into an odd colored slurry. As new fat was added, the slurry hissed and bubbled creating a layer of thick greasy foam at the top. Every couple of minutes a long flat metal scraper would rotate over the top of the vat, scraping the foam away, causing it to spill over the edge, plopping onto the unseen ground far below.

My belly rumbled, I chittered with excitement, I was spoiled for choice! While the fresh fat was slick and juicy, the smell of the rotten fat was irresistable. The catwalk was uncomfortable to crawl on. The floors of meat were sturdy but soft, the grate was hard and had rounded protrusions on the surface, and my slime was less helpful in my movement here. I came to a crossroad in the catwalk; the path to the left would take me toward the bone spires, straight ahead would continue onward to another passageway, and to the right would take me closer to the gears. I took the catwalk to the right and crawled until it ended at the wall of bone. I rolled onto my side and stuck some of my quills into the grating. Using the muscles I had built up from crawling, I did my best to maintain balance, keeping my center of gravity as close to my rear as I could - and I streatched, reaching out toward the falling small chunks, snapping my mandables trying to grab a morsel of sweet sweet rot. One piece of fat got skewered on a quill, then slid off falling to the depths. One piece bounced off my head leaving a spot of grease. I had missed four falling pieces before I had manage to grab my prize. I slowly retracted myself, the fat was heavier than I was expecting and I was shaking with the effort and anticipation. Firmly back on the catwalk, the lump of fat was mine! I bit down, it popped, rotting grease filled my mouth, I buried my head in the fat chewing with barely enough time to swallow! Surely this is what being alive is all about! While I didn't know much, I knew nothing could be better than a big tasty meal when you're starving!

Slapping sounds from above, thudding, getting louder! I pulled my head from my meal, grease and fat rained down around me, a wet slamming sound getting closer! I looked up to see a massive boulder of rotten fat hurtling down towards me! I scrambled, whipping my front up and over my back, my slime mixed with the grease, flailing, no movement, heavy smacking sounds echoing all around me! The hard bumps of the catwalk let me get purchase, I flung my whole body forward, every panicked muscle in my body screaming, surging! The fat meteor crashed into the catwalk right behind me causing the whole thing to shake and ripple violently, the end tore away from the bone wall, bone and metal shrapnel flew, the cables holding the end snapped, within seconds the catwalk was tipping downward! I dug my backside into the grating and pushed upward, once I was streatched as far as I could manage I dug my face into the grating, climbing to keep myself from falling into the abyss below! Tension on the catwalk released as the big ball of fat ripped free, what remained of the right catwalk shot upward and threw me into the air! I landed toward the center of the catwalk crossroad, I came down hard, my squishy body slamming into the pointed grating. A loud thick sploosh followed by a long sizzle came from far below me. The catwalk creaked and swayed as I layed there. My pulse was sprinting, my muscles were on fire, my body ached, but I was alive. I heard a light plip-plopping sound. Then a thick spash and my body was on fire! The foamy odd colored slurry had splashed across the back part of my body. It was sizzling! I writhed, my quills flared and shook, the pain was a white-hot knife barbed with needles! As half of me melted away, partially digested fat slid out of my belly mixing and dissolving with the back half of my body, quills, muscles, and organs. I watched as half of me dripped through the holes of the catwalk.

With my pain streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *Why me?! Why was I even born?! Why do I keep going?! Why do I have to drag around this shitty body?! WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?*

Everything went black.

I awoke some time later. Pale yellow liquid was leaking from me, what was left of my organs were partially dangling behind me, the burning was dulled but still painful. As I moved, the hot needles came back. Half of my muscles were gone, I needed to re-learn how to crawl and every inch was torture as my organs dragged against the bumpy metal grating. Eventually, I made it to the corridor leading away from the catwalk. Finally back onto the soft meaty floor, my slime would help my mobility here. I pressed on.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind became focused. *Keep going, just make it to the next room. Keep going, just make it to the next room. Keep going, just make it to the next room.*

I crawled through a doorway into a small room, empty except for a bone pedestal in the center, there was no wall opposite the door. The space gave way to a cistern extending out and down beyond the confines of the little meat room, metal archways streatching out beyond vision held up the low ceiling. It held a viscous milky liquid of unknown depth. As I approached the pedestal, the cistern began to sparkle - first the liquid, then the arches, then the ceiling. I saw and beheld an endless colony of neurons activating. In the liquid they were swimming, dancing around each other, creating strands of light whenever they bumped together. From the pool they had grown up the arches, linking together to form twinkling webs of unknown calculation. From the arches they had continued to move up and now coated the ceiling of the cistern, they clumped together creating glowing stalagtites that slowly dripped falling stars of thought, returning to a silky pool of ideas.The yellow blood coming from my body was coagulating, making me sticky. I crawled up the side of the pedestal and onto the flat angled top.

My final memory was of curling up on top of a flat piece of metal affixed to the top of the pedestal. Shimmering dancing lights illuminated the plaque and the alien words that had been etched into it untold eons ago.

*WELCOME HOME*

​

My first memory was the warmth within my egg sack. I consumed the nutrient rich semi-fluid substance around me, unaware of anything that existed beyond the soft rigid walls of my home. As much as I could manage, I practiced moving; wriggling from side to side, stretching forward and back, contracting and expanding the muscles in my body - movement without going anywhere.

My second memory was of my food slowly running out and the walls of my home beginning to close in around me. My fate was sealed...which would come first, suffocation or starvation? I began thrashing against the inevitable doom with every muscle my feeble body had developed! Then I saw my salvation, a weak spot in the wall! I pushed my head into it. I could feel it beginning to give way. A crackling, tearing noise accompanied my charge toward freedom! There must be something on the other side of those walls I could feel it! I could sense it...

A gap began to take shape! I grasped at the edge of my prison with my mandables, bit down hard with my sharp teeth, and I ripped! I tore at the hole desperate to free myself. That's when I smelled it...the world outside. The air was acrid and metallic with a pleasent sharpness to it, that of bile and grease, a multitude of conflicting smells hitting me all at once. This...this is what freedom smelled like? I continued to break free and when the exit was big enough for me to squeeze through - I left my home, once so warm and comforting, now a hazardous trap. The smell of my new world washed over me. The moisture in the air mixed with a thin layer of slime covering my translucent skin and quills. I had lain on the ground for a long time until, eventually, I took in my surroundings.

The ground was meat. Solid and squishy, marbled with fat and gristle.

The walls were meat. On their surface were metal pipes draped in thin facia and a ventilation system that ran upward toward an unknown ceiling somewhere far in the distance.

The hallway was meat. A single passageway extending outward, fading into the darkness, leading away from the chamber of my birth.

On the floor beside me sat my now empty egg sack, it was beginning to shrivel and harden. I turned toward it and checked the remains, looking for any trace of leftover nutrients. I found a few scraps flaking off of the inside of my egg and ate them - they were dry and not very tasty. Then I tried eating a bit of the outer casing of the sack - it was not very filling and was brittle like chewing thin glass. The meat of this place seemed edible enough, but I wanted to save eating the walls as a last resort - so instead I ate as much of my former home as I could. Sustained for the time being, I left the room, crawling down the tall hallway hoping to find some more food - leaving a thin trail of slime behind me as I went.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *Where is this place? How did I get here? Who am I? Oh! A ceiling!*

Out from the darkness above me I could see the meat sloping down into view. As I crawled, the walls also began to slope inward, becoming a more confined corridor. Further on it became a tighter tunnel. Further on it became a small hole. As the walls and roof closed in on me, my pulse quickened. As my quills brushed against the meat surrounding me, my muscles tensed. A sound in the distance was slowly growing louder. A soft low whistle at first, the sound was now a gale with a metallic creaking underneath. I was being funnelled forward but I had a goal, a destination after all of this crawling! That sound! I crawled faster, allowing my mucus to aid my propulsion. The cramped space pushed my quills flat and pressed them into my back, I could feel the way their rigid structures were causing my skin and internal organs to shift around them. The sound was now an orchestra of giants wheezing in unison, a symphony of agonal breathing! I shot out of the opening of the hole. The external pressure on my body immediately released, my quills popped back up, my squished organs moved back into place, and the tension in my body relaxed. The air howled all around me and I laid on the floor.

I had emerged into a great cavernous room, the loud air was thin and stale, I could feel the muffled metal beneath the meat vibrating at a different frequency than before. I got up and began to explore. Contained within the room were rows and rows and rows of enormous lungs - hung upside down by massive tendons, supported by beams of metal, wire meshes fused into the sides of the air sacks, breathing asynchonous with each other. Ventilation ducts jutted from the tops of the lungs, billowing air upward into a haphazard spiderweb of interconnected shafts, all creaking and moaning from the ever-flowing air, all sticking into the meaty walls and ceiling of the room. Wherever meat touched metal there was scar tissue. A thin fleshy layer of film was spread over most of the exposed metal, veins could be seen pumping an unknown liquid into the meat, organs, and connective tissues. Wires were sending electrical signals to and from machine and flesh. The sound made in this room was hundreds of eternally dying breaths.

As I crawled the rows, the lungs became more gray, more wrinkled, they didn't pump with as much vigor, the surrounding metal and tendons showing signs of age and general wear, calcified growths could be seen on the lungs and the vents. The thin layer of flesh on the metal was thicker and more wide-spread the further I travelled. Eventually I came across a lung that had fallen. The tendons had snapped, the metal beneath had buckled, it's ventilation duct dangled uselessly above, one of the structural beams had pierced it's side - and it was still weakly continuing to pump. The air escaped through various holes where it had torn itself free of the piping and wheezed out of the hole ripped in it's side. Hungry, I approached the fallen lung, found a place that wasn't pumping too much, and bit down. It was thick and leathery, the more I chewed, the tougher it seemed to get, turning into a wad of un-swallowable gristle. I continued to chew, letting the sour juices coat my mouth, and continued on.

Reaching the other side of the large room I found a metal hatch. I extended my body up, clamped my mandables onto the handle, and pulled down. The hatch opened away from me revealing another passageway. With nothing here to eat aside from tough lung meat, I entered the corridor. The hatch closed behind me, cutting off the roar coming from the previous room. I hoped that this hallway wouldn't try to squash me like the last one did. As I travelled down the hall I noticed a change in the hum given off by the meat in this area - a less chaotic, more consistant vibration.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *What is this place? What am I? Why am I here? Oh! A hatch!*

This passageway was much shorter than the one before. It ended in a hatch just like the one I had entered. Opening the hatch (towards me this time) the sounds and smells of this room hit me. A savory smell mixed with a hint of sweet decay, wafts of something acidic. The sounds of grinding, churning, turning. I exited the hallway, the hatch closing behind me and I found myself on a metal catwalk. The tightly gridded grating suspended high above the ground by cables. To my left were tall thick spires of bone, large growths spurred out from them, huge lopsided buckets were welded onto the spires spiralling upward, in the buckets were great chunks of clean juicy fat. As the spires turned, the fat was scooped up from somewhere down below and carried up to it's destination in the darkness above. Above me to my right were a mosaic of gears of all sizes, starting huge at the top and getting smaller toward the bottom. They were attached to a wall made not of meat, but solid bone, the gears were metal, the gearshafts were calcium barbs growing out from the wall itself. Chunks of rotting discolored fat were being fed into the gears at the top. as they were smashed and ground up into smaller and smaller pieces, the grease from the putrid fat oiled the gears. What was left of the fat after the mashing fell down into an enormous vat underneath me where it was mixed into an odd colored slurry. As new fat was added, the slurry hissed and bubbled creating a layer of thick greasy foam at the top. Every couple of minutes a long flat metal scraper would rotate over the top of the vat, scraping the foam away, causing it to spill over the edge, plopping onto the unseen ground far below.

My belly rumbled, I chittered with excitement, I was spoiled for choice! While the fresh fat was slick and juicy, the smell of the rotten fat was irresistable. The catwalk was uncomfortable to crawl on. The floors of meat were sturdy but soft, the grate was hard and had rounded protrusions on the surface, and my slime was less helpful in my movement here. I came to a crossroad in the catwalk; the path to the left would take me toward the bone spires, straight ahead would continue onward to another passageway, and to the right would take me closer to the gears. I took the catwalk to the right and crawled until it ended at the wall of bone. I rolled onto my side and stuck some of my quills into the grating. Using the muscles I had built up from crawling, I did my best to maintain balance, keeping my center of gravity as close to my rear as I could - and I streatched, reaching out toward the falling small chunks, snapping my mandables trying to grab a morsel of sweet sweet rot. One piece of fat got skewered on a quill, then slid off falling to the depths. One piece bounced off my head leaving a spot of grease. I had missed four falling pieces before I had manage to grab my prize. I slowly retracted myself, the fat was heavier than I was expecting and I was shaking with the effort and anticipation. Firmly back on the catwalk, the lump of fat was mine! I bit down, it popped, rotting grease filled my mouth, I buried my head in the fat chewing with barely enough time to swallow! Surely this is what being alive is all about! While I didn't know much, I knew nothing could be better than a big tasty meal when you're starving!

Slapping sounds from above, thudding, getting louder! I pulled my head from my meal, grease and fat rained down around me, a wet slamming sound getting closer! I looked up to see a massive boulder of rotten fat hurtling down towards me! I scrambled, whipping my front up and over my back, my slime mixed with the grease, flailing, no movement, heavy smacking sounds echoing all around me! The hard bumps of the catwalk let me get purchase, I flung my whole body forward, every panicked muscle in my body screaming, surging! The fat meteor crashed into the catwalk right behind me causing the whole thing to shake and ripple violently, the end tore away from the bone wall, bone and metal shrapnel flew, the cables holding the end snapped, within seconds the catwalk was tipping downward! I dug my backside into the grating and pushed upward, once I was streatched as far as I could manage I dug my face into the grating, climbing to keep myself from falling into the abyss below! Tension on the catwalk released as the big ball of fat ripped free, what remained of the right catwalk shot upward and threw me into the air! I landed toward the center of the catwalk crossroad, I came down hard, my squishy body slamming into the pointed grating. A loud thick sploosh followed by a long sizzle came from far below me. The catwalk creaked and swayed as I layed there. My pulse was sprinting, my muscles were on fire, my body ached, but I was alive. I heard a light plip-plopping sound. Then a thick spash and my body was on fire! The foamy odd colored slurry had splashed across the back part of my body. It was sizzling! I writhed, my quills flared and shook, the pain was a white-hot knife barbed with needles! As half of me melted away, partially digested fat slid out of my belly mixing and dissolving with the back half of my body, quills, muscles, and organs. I watched as half of me dripped through the holes of the catwalk.

With my pain streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind began to wander. *Why me?! Why was I even born?! Why do I keep going?! Why do I have to drag around this shitty body?! WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?*

Everything went black.

I awoke some time later. Pale yellow liquid was leaking from me, what was left of my organs were partially dangling behind me, the burning was dulled but still painful. As I moved, the hot needles came back. Half of my muscles were gone, I needed to re-learn how to crawl and every inch was torture as my organs dragged against the bumpy metal grating. Eventually, I made it to the corridor leading away from the catwalk. Finally back onto the soft meaty floor, my slime would help my mobility here. I pressed on.

With my path forward streatching ever onward, I had time to think and my mind became focused. *Keep going, just make it to the next room. Keep going, just make it to the next room. Keep going, just make it to the next room.*

I crawled through a doorway into a small room, empty except for a bone pedestal in the center, there was no wall opposite the door. The space gave way to a cistern extending out and down beyond the confines of the little meat room, metal archways streatching out beyond vision held up the low ceiling. It held a viscous milky liquid of unknown depth. As I approached the pedestal, the cistern began to sparkle - first the liquid, then the arches, then the ceiling. I saw and beheld an endless colony of neurons activating. In the liquid they were swimming, dancing around each other, creating strands of light whenever they bumped together. From the pool they had grown up the arches, linking together to form twinkling webs of unknown calculation. From the arches they had continued to move up and now coated the ceiling of the cistern, they clumped together creating glowing stalagtites that slowly dripped falling stars of thought, returning to a silky pool of ideas.The yellow blood coming from my body was coagulating, making me sticky. I crawled up the side of the pedestal and onto the flat angled top.

My final memory was of curling up on top of a flat piece of metal affixed to the top of the pedestal. Shimmering dancing lights illuminated the plaque and the alien words that had been etched into it untold eons ago.

*WELCOME HOME*