1020. The valleys, 3
(Selya)
S - You think I’ve grown?
Temee appears slightly dumbfounded at first. She comes closer to me and checks my height against hers. I don’t seem to have grown taller she’s about to say.
S - Not like that! My body is dead so I won’t grow any taller. I mean in maturity, as a person.
T - Oh. Well, yes. Of course you have. A lot since we first met.
Right... I wish I could rewrite our awful first meeting honestly...
S - I’m grateful you saw right through me in spite of everything else.
T - I felt strong sympathy for you as well.
A good soul. I must protect her.
The roads we take bring us closer to warmer and drier lands. The only cities we find now are only uninhabited ruins from the previous age. Or worse.
A city of monsters, I never quite expected.
Like a disgusting insects hive maybe.
We got closer to the weird architecture we did not understand from a distance.
From closer look, it’s a city of old that has been covered in grime and dirt, and possibly faeces, generously.
And now that we’re close enough to see the frolicking monsters, and smell it, we understand better how this local tapestry of uneven shapes, colours and stench was woven.
It’s somewhat funny and mostly gross.
There’s a monstrous species of weird animals that is endemic to this spot, this city.
Since even from a distance we can easily some of them mating wildly, and others eating each other, and more, we get the idea.
It’s a faster paced species, with the fastest of metabolisms and life style. They multiply rapidly, eat something more than each other probably, defecate a lot, and eventually get eaten to turn into more of the same.
It’s gross, but it turned the city once human made into some gigantic coral structures that stretch all over, bridging everything and spreading everywhere around, like a random insect hive.
Thankfully, whatever is their main food source somewhere in there seems limited to that location or in capacity, insufficient for them to really leave this corner of the northern desert and propagate endemically.
Had they reached intelligence, they could focus on building a road with their nest materials, toward the next oasis.
But they don’t look like it’s going to happen soon.
Temee is more spooked than I am.
She sees the horror kind that could swallow ecosystems like smallpox disease or plague.
S - Now I can see why your people took the habit of burning every hint of suspicion on sight.
T - It’s... Should we... you, do something about it?
S - I don’t know. If they can’t find a way to leave this place, maybe it’s not enough of a reason to eradicate this species that they are ugly. Though if they left this place... Yeah. I guess I would, before they turn everything literally to shit.
It’s swarming, smelling, teeming all over. The dejections dry into new layers over the millions that preceded.
They weaken and get devoured by others, younger. And boy do they fuck a lot. When they’re not busy eating or defecating.
S - I kind of want to check what feeds them in the middle of this, but... I don’t really want to get anywhere all this.
T - Yeah. Same for me really.
We begin walking our detour around this revolting city while pondering about it.
They have something else to eat or they would already be extinct. And the desert around is wide enough, or they would have already engulfed half the world.
~
Should I make another summon like Melenna?
Or go as a ghost. That might be easier for me. In the end there’s little difference.
We camp on the side of the river that flows there gently. The river is looking clean and unaffected by whatever goes in this odd city. The nest architecture doesn’t propagate into the stream or beyond. Good.
S - I’ll have a look in the morning.
T - Alone?
S - Yes and no.
T - ?
S - Like last time. I’ll entrust my shell to you.
T - Your shell...
She pokes my forehead. She then leaves her warm hand in contact with it. I like that.
T - You’re not dead so be careful then?
I smile. She’s kind. My body is animated as close to normal life as I can make it; but it still is something else on entirely different fundamentals.
The night is calm. Morning comes quietly.
I don’t eat as much as usual.
I lie down as if to nap before my friend.
S - You can still talk to me while I’m away. I’ll rush back if anything goes wrong. But I’ll probably not reply.
T - Be careful. I can’t protect your ghost.
S - Caring for my body is more than enough.
I close my eyes and move my illusion with a bulk of my power away. I slip out of my shell through my wings as twin tunnels.
Every time I discover the enthralling and terrifying sensations of being without flesh to bind me.
Just a spirit with enough power to force interactions with reality, creating senses on an immaterial cloud of power and particles.
And so it flies away, my little cloud of self, pulling a spool of thread from my lifeless body away.
I kind of want to tease Temee again in this state, but first is first.
I jump and fly weightless, until I get above the city. I look around, adjusting this eyeless sense of sight.
I see weird things at the root of the city’s swarm, and nothing on my spectrum of T.I. that could worry me.
I dive and I land as a ghost, in a collapsed crater of sort. The city’s heart. An odd caldera of husks.
It’s a mass of flesh that grows buboes or fruits. It’s growing sort of like a tree from the ground there. But it grows edible flesh to them.
They devour it endlessly as it eats the ground slowly, sinking this spot gradually. This is a weird ecosystem.
This thing’s metabolism limits the entire population of these disgusting beasts.
I kind of want to destroy this tree and condemn their species. Just because I can.
I hear my impulse. The dog.
I sigh, figuratively, and I rein down its selfish desire.
I should still check what this tree looking lifeform is. It has no leaves and odd shapes, but it’s growing. Or trying to since it’s constantly eaten away by the beasts.
I get closer and touch it.
I connect myself to it, to hear what its animal looking nervous system actually might think.
I get deafened by screaming and pain a torturous level instantly.
It was too violent. I got shocked and blown away.
I wake up in my body, screaming and jolting. Temee jumped in surprise.
T - What happened? You’ve been gone for barely a minute... Why are you crying?
I grit my teeth. I wipe my face from the tears that just flow out of sympathy.
It’s not a tree they’ve been eating for so many years... A glimpse of what hell can be.
I’ve felt too much of it and too suddenly. I continue to cry as if someone else I loved had been eaten alive by monsters before me.
Temee comes to try consoling me, even if I can’t tell her yet what I found...
I don’t know what I should do...
S - How many monsters will be there...
T - Hm... On average, one per county I believe. Just one monster or demon per county...
I cling to Temee and keep crying for a while.
~
