Butchery
Plot points/Scenes
CRUNCH
Lilac shell buckled and shattered, cracked shattered edges grasping towards the ceiling, sending bits of greenish meat flecking the air.
The hammer that had done the deed flipped over, the cleaver fused to the other side glinting with green ichor in the fluorescent lighting.
WUNK
Down slammed the blade between the greenish plates on the creature’s underbelly, green gore splattering across stained white fabric. The apron’s owner tsk’ed as they lifted the back of a hand to rub a few drops of blood from their cheek. Her other two hands slide apart, separating the insect cleanly in half, meat shuddering from open wounds as steaming green blood pooled out onto the stained metal table.
The hammer-cleaver lifted again, followed by it’s equally sharp brother, slide free from a pocket in the front of that washed, stained, and re-stained apron. They each came down in tandem:
WUNK-NK
Six legs, three on each side,were neatly severed, swept off into the bins to her left and right in one smooth motion. A third hand grabbed the two meaty halves and rotated them to the side, the final touch coming with a meaty noise.
THUNK
The short, crunchy head was freed from the creature’s carved up body and slid into the disposal as the prepared side of isopod meat was tossed down the line onto a waiting conveyor belt, trundling off to some other part of the factory.
She would never see just where it, and neither did she care, because the next body was already waiting on the table in front of her.
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Green ichor was the lube that kept the line going, steaming as it poured off the stainless steel carving table onto the floor in splattering sheets, each new body pushing away the blood of the one that had come before it. She could smell it, a chemical odor, musty, her mask not filtering enough of the steaming ichor out of the air.
She was breathing steadily, chest rising and falling at a clipped pace, the Sirysian staring blankly at the assembly line. Her eyes were half lidded, staring blankly, betraying the mechanical awareness in the back of her head that kept her three arms whirring in a perfect dance of asymmetry.
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Isopod after isopod passed under her, football sized terrestrial shellfish that had been plucked from the caps of their towering, fungal homes in the dozens, heads smashed, the still squirming bodies unceremoniously tossed into crates to become food for the masses.
It’s meat was familiar, a staple to the Syrisian, it’s taste ashen, as she hadn’t been able to afford any of the fresh stuff in ages. Only the frozen, packed into bags and bought from the back a food truck for a price that was supposed to be affordable for people like her, but always seemed to be on the rise.
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But she did remember how meat used to taste. A sweet flavor held in her childhood, when her mother kept hutches of the little bugs in the flooded portions of their basement, the amphibious creatures thriving on the strange molds that grew in the contours of the sandstone floor.
Everyday, it would be fresh isopod stew, or shanks, legs, fried or soaked in a marinara of fungal bulbs whose juicy insides had been fermented and turned into a spicy, salty flavor that mingled with the sweet earthiness of the swamp bug meat.
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Just thinking about it made her stomach feel phantom pangs, teeth exposed behind her mask in a grimace, brows furrowed for a moment. Those days had been long gone. No more fresh meat for her, despite working in a meat factory, chopping up bugs all day. The irony was not lost on her, even as she tried to salvage the taste within memory, only able to feel the crinkle of plastic under her fingers. There was just no time to cook, not when she had work to do and mouths to feed and debts to pay.
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She found herself overwhelmed with worries, shaking her head and sighing, pushing them down and focusing elsewhere. Once she’d wanted to work as a chef, taking night classes when not working at this same factory. She knew her meats; her whole family dined on them wholesale, and her mother had even sold jerky, spiced and sun dried on the sides of their sandstone home.
She had wanted to try herself, cooking as a kid, always making horrible recipes. Sweet things mixed into the already sweet isopod meat. She’d nearly made herself vomit so many times, the Sirysian shaking her shaggy head again as she remembered how often she was chastised for wasting food.
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But sometimes, just sometimes, in between the loud, yipping chatter that crossed the dinner table, someone would ask “Hey, who made this? It’s really good,” and she would find herself grinning, mask around her neck as she hid her smile behind a shank of meat.
That’s why she’d wanted to cook. Her own brand of creation, working with what she had to make something new, and possibly, the Sirysian rolling her eyes at herself, something good. That’s why she’d ended up working here in the first place. Back when they used to let customers take cuts of meat home with themselves, before policy changed. When she thought, in her young mind, that butchery was an equal skill to cooking.
Too late, she figured out how wrong she was. Turned out working on an assembly line had about as much creative freedom as the very dead insects she carved up; they weren’t going anywhere, and neither was she. The raw cutting and chopping, sawing and bludgeoning, was vastly different than the subtle cuts of meats she used to make, soaking and seasoning and sizzling. There was no kitchen warmth, just the cold lights, cold steel, and cold innards of a cold cement building, clinical and refrigerated.
She shivered, the heated ire firsing in her throat reminding her of the perpetual chill that nipped at her fur.
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Her initial enthusiasm had quickly decayed into passive aggressiveness for her “career”, that word alone making her show her fangs. There was nothing in this for her save the money. She’d reached a point where she didn’t even think about what she was doing, left to bore herself to death in her own shaggy head.
Her muscles were no longer straining for speed, the jittery nervousness of her younger self long since replaced with the calm fatigue that came from muscle memory, keen predator eyes staring out, unused, over her tusked, hyena like muzzle, guiding her three arms with ease.
The nub where her fourth arm used to be occasionally raised itself, helping her balance, waving a phantom limb that didn’t exist past the elbow.
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Most Syrisie had four arms, their expanded neural trunk able to handle all six limbs gracefully, her two hooves clacking on the tiled floor as she shifted, tossing another hunk of meat down the chute.
But she’d lost the fourth limb two years ago, almost resulting in her losing her job at the factory. It would have resulted in her being out on the street, with no one hiring. She shook her head; no one had been hiring for years.
She had woken up with no recollection of what had happened to her. She had been on her back, found nearby in the woods, her arm swaddled in blood stained bandages. Apparently she’d had a horrible accident at work and wandered off site. At least, that’s what she thought.
The official report said she had merely been found nearby; there was nothing to link her injury to the company. But it hadn’t mattered at all. They still nearly fired her under fears she might sue. A reminder of how she needed to be safe, if she was ever going to pull herself up by her bootstraps and get out of this hole.
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It wasn’t like fishing for reparations would have done any good. She wouldn’t have been able to afford prosthetics, even with the extra cash, in the one in a million chance she won the suit. It hadn’t kept her from trying to find something. Browsing for something cheap, anything that would replace her lost limb, the realization of what had happened to her, and how there would be no reparations, sinking in again and again until she’d had to simply give up. She had a pup to care for and a mate that had been missing since the night he knocked her up.
It was a memory cocktail that tasted bitter in her mouth, her fang sinking into her own lip in anger, the tall syrisie slamming her hammer down hard on the back shell of the next bug.
KRAAAAACK!!!
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Still, she could work faster than someone with only two limbs, the stump ending at the elbow waving in the air to help he balance as she danced a bloody dance. Like the higher ups always told her, hard work paid off. Always work hard, and fast, so that one day, she could be in the same place they were. There was no denying it either; she was good at her job. It just wasn’t the one she wanted.
SPLCH
Spotted, fuzzy mush burst from the carcass, rolling over the dead creature’s chitin underbelly and down it’s plated sides. She hadn’t paid attention to the mottled and pale coloring of its shell, or the obvious bloating, her mask hiding the smell of decay. Spores sprayed from it’s gas bloated belly, raining down on the table like snow, the Sirsyian sighing as her shoulders drooped.
“Fucking disgusting,” she growled, grabbing the rotten inscet and clacking her way across the factory floor to the incinerator. Some kind of fungus had been sweeping through the herds of land-bound shellfish, the dead ones still moving and spreading their spores until they inevitably ended up on her table. Luckily, it was just the live ones that could be infected. The rest of the shipment would, hopefully, be clean.
She gripped the wooden handle to the furnace, cracked and blackened from years of overheating, and pulled. The tesla baked maw opened, flames hissing upwards into the vent above. Heat washed over the fur on her face, muted, but no less hot, tossing the still dripping carcass inside. She wouldn’t take the blame here. Whoever had plucked the isopods from their fungal caps had picked this one up, but, she would still be the one blamed for wasting company time if her boss came by.
She growled under her mask as she returned to her stretch of table, reaching up to grab a hose that hung from over head. A searing hot cleaning agent sprayed from it in a steaming stream as she washed away the smears of infection that stained the once shining steel.
4 sweeps of the hose, done, back to work.
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Even with her precautions, they’d have to sell this batch as soon as possible and get it chilled to prevent the loose spores from spoiling the meat.
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Then again they had to do that for everything. Outside the sealed workplace, it was fruiting season. The air outside was the foggiest it’d been in a long time, the pale green mist a shimmering, shifting wall of hundreds of species of fungal spore. She’d had to bundle up every morning, even despite the sweltering heat, just to keep from getting them stuck in her fur.
It was either that, or go through decontamination when she started her shift. She wanted to avoid those painful showers, if at all possible, remembering the feeling of her skin scrubbed raw even under her fur. It hadn’t been pleasant, the Sirysian looking up at the clock in an attempt to distract herself.
12:34.
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The mechanism on the side of her mask clicked, and she inhaled deeply, a familiar and welcome vapor filling her lungs. She closed her eyes and held her breath for a moment, savouring the chemical flavor, making sure the high hit as hard as it could. Then she let it out, white mist hissing out from the vent near her jawline.
HSSSSsssssss
She barely felt the drug hit her, the result of years of being on the mask. A muted sensation of her muscles relaxing could be felt through the wave of fatigue she felt for the whole rest of the day. It was the tiny bit of relief she got, the only break between now and the lunch she’d take in another hour and a half. So she clung to, savouring it, letting her mind ride it back once more into memory.
CRUNCH
Her cleaver came down once more, the vibration that shook her arm melding with another in her pocket, the faint sensation tugging her back out from her reverie. She tilted her horns and waited, cleaver still raised.
VRRRRRRR
Paws stained a dirty orange by the ichor of days past tugged at the thick rubber gloves that covered them, one finger at a time. The glove found itself unceremoniously tossed onto the table as she dug into her pocket and tugged out a square of lacquer-like material, another square in its borders glowing a bright off-white.
She scanned the words that stained the screen, written there in electrically-charged organic ink.
“Sgnture @ bk door”
She stared wordlessly as the thin square of chitin went dark, unceremoniously stuffing it back into her pocket, moving down the assembly line, passing coworkers who didn’t even notice she was there, all lost in their own reveries. She moved past the grinders, cleaners, the sound of her hoofed footsteps changing as the ground under her shifted from plastic laminate to old tile, the mustiness of this older corner of the building sifting through her mask.
Ahead of her a red light blinked on and off in the dimness, a single sputtering light fixture in the center of the ceiling doing it’s best to brighten up room. The two lights mixed together into a sickly orange as it reflected off the mottled floor, the greenish color of dead isopod blood sunk so deep into the tiling it would never come out. Motes of dust floated lazily on the currents of air the Sirysian churned up in the otherwise dead space, dancing between the same boxes she moved past, forgotten on rusted metal shelves.
The blinking red light went dark as she pressed her arms to the crash bar on the door and slide past it into the spore lock. The door closed behind with the hiss of old hydraulics, the rubber seal sucking into the doorjamb, leaving the Sirysian in the blue-tinged darkness of the airlock.
In here, the brownish green dust of dead spores swirled around her hooves as she moved in the dim light. It was silent, the sounds of the factory far away, almost imperceptible through the thick door. On the other side, the sealed metal kept the lazy buzz of insects from drilling into this small sanctum. She stood for a moment, in this one-pace-long liminal space, hovering under the blue bioluminescence that filtered from the algae-speckled jar that hung over her head.
Outside, a tinny speaker buzzed her arrival, the circuit in the door breaking and letting out a tinny cry as it swung open. Spores swirled away from the doorway like a dense fog as she stepped through, their combined colors a translucent dirty green. It was fruiting season, and a thick haze hung in the air, the sky in perpetual twilight. City lights hung dimly in the distance, visible even in day due to the dark sky, the only other diffuse light coming from a familiar pale disk swimming through the thick, muddy sky.
She squinted at the sun for a moment longer, then looked down to greet the courier.
The movements of the delivery “boy” were furtive and shifty; in the few moments she’d spent poking her head out of the doorway, it had already glanced down the alleyway twice. The third time it happened, she let the door close behind her and cleared her throat.
It’s attention snapped back to her, it’s beady eyes, like drops of black glass, glittering in the fluorescent light the hung over the doorway as it looked at her for a second. Then it’s trunk darted away again, those little eyes, too many to count, scanning furtively for something. They glistened from a few deep folds on its head, a bit like the eyes of a tuber, as she watched it’s circular mouth fold outwards and inwards in quick motions, speaking as it held out a cardboard box, duct-taped shut.
“Delivery for you.”
The six limbed creature didn’t even mention her name; she probably wasn’t even part of the delivery job; however, her profession certainly was. The thought made her ire rise once more, but she pushed it back, instead clearing her throat as the tardigrade glanced away once again and asked:
“What is it?”
Her voice snapped it’s attention back to her, it’s four dump arms shrugging as it’s tube-shaped mouth gaped up at her. For a moment, she thought she saw it shrink back slightly, and she wondered if speaking to someone so much larger than itself was what had it on edge. Then again, judging by it’s demeanor, it wasn’t her it was worried about.
“They didn’t tell me. Just that it’s priority, and to leave it in the back.”
She should have known; another slice of meat for her “friends” in high places, those figures with more money and connections than she could ever wish to have. They had expensive tastes, eager to sample meats on the pure qualification that it was rare, dangerous, or endangered. Sometimes they were interested in some obscure holistic cure despite having access to medical technologies she only ever saw on the news.
At the very least, this way, some of that wealth trickled down to her, however little it was. She was happy to occasionally get to flex her real cooking muscles, even if it was just making choice cuts. There were also the rare, very rare occasions where there was enough left over for her take home, the thought making her salivate slightly behind her steaming mask. Tonight, if she was lucky, it wouldn’t be instant noodles for dinner again, and that hope alone was all she needed.
“Alright, key’s under the doormat. And this better not be another puffer! I almost lost a hand to the last one.”
She took a step down off the curb and reached towards the box, the tardigrade leaning back as she loomed over the much smaller creature. Her claws brushed the cardboard sides, and whatever was inside jolted violently, her outstretched arm snapping back as strange spines punched holes through the top of the cardboard.
“It’s still alive?!” Several expletives flew from her fangs, muffled behind her mask. “Are you serious?”
“Shhhhh!” The waterbear’s muzzle darted towards the end of the alley. No one was there., again. It turned back to look up at her accusing stare.
“Look, just hold it by the bottom! There’s 4,000cb in it for you if you get it to me fresh! That’s the whole point, just take it!”
It practically threw the box at her this time.
Her arms became a flustered array of limbs of she was forced to lean forward to grab the parcel, a instinctual habit as she tried to keep the, admittedly dangerous, cargo from smashing into the pavement.
“HEY!”
The tardigrade had begun to beat a hasty retreat, turning as if to run, her quick bark from between open tusks stopping them so short they actually stumbled a bit. “500, up front.”
She could practically see the waterbear sweating in panic.
“B-buthey didn’t give me any-!”
She half shook her head, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “Not doing it.”
Her furry yellow arms shoved the box back, the tardigrade pushing back with a clap of its hands against the cardboard.
“Come on, you know me! Look, I’ll see if they’ll do 4,500! Just do it!”
The box jerked, and was shoved back into her arms, her claws scraping against the cardboard.
“I get a cut,” she hissed, leaning over him, box pressed against her chest.
“You’re already getting one!” They grunted back from their tooth ringed muzzle.
“Of the meat.”
She tugged the box back, letting the water bear stumble awkwardly, it’s arms clutching open air.
“You can’t!”
“Well you figure it out with our friends. But I need to sample to make sure the cut is right.”
She grinned under her mask, vapor hissing from the gasket on it’s side as she took a long breath. The drug eased her nerves as she waited for him to accept her half truth. On one hand, it would help her get the cut right. On the other hand, she just wanted something else to put on the dinner table for once. She wasn’t getting the short end of the deal again. Not this time.
The lumpy messenger stood, stewing for a second, all four of it’s claw nubs clenched into little balled up fists. She could almost see the sweat running down what would’ve been it’s forehead.
“Fine, do it. Just get me the cuts in the next hour.”
The Sirysian didn’t even respond, turning on her heel tugging the door open with her free hand, striding her tail whipping behind her before it too followed her back into the factory.
The airlock was silent once more, save for the hiss of cycling air and the excited swishing of her long tail. It stirred the dust on the floor into a light froth, motes gliding past her unfocused vision as she shakily lifted the box to a perked ear. She waited, holding her breath, rounded, hyena-shaped ear pressed against the cardboard, and listened.
A light heartbeat, the running murmur of a small animal, the blood rushing through it’s panicked veins even as it sat perfectly still. She heard no tensed muscles, no subtle movements. Just that low, humming purr, slowing in tempo as the box remained comfortingly steady in her grasp.
She didn’t even notice that she was digging her claws into the yielding cardboard until the clank of the door lock releasing reminded her she had a job to do. Her predatory instincts would have to remain unsated, for now, the Sirysian pressing her third arm into the crash bar and her shoulder into the door.
The quiet of the airlock gave way to the familiar noise of the factory as she stepped back onto the tiled floor, heading down the path she had taken earlier, the red light no longer glowing, as the tardigrade had been dealt with. This time, however, she took a right turn before the tile turned into laminate, instead heading deeper into the storage area.
Her eyes swept uncaringly over the shelves as they progressively got older, downwards, hovering over the floors, the sweepers not often visiting this old part of the warehouse. Grime lay stubbornly in corners where the janitors were too lazy to reach. Cobwebs full of shed fur peeked out from under a few of the old cabinets in the back, an abandoned office on her right.
Once more, the sounds of work faded away, until she stood before a heavy freezer door. The slotted window in it lay dark, inside appearing to be unlit. The stainless steel door handle glinted up at her as she tucked the box under her arm, freeing up her two upper hands.
She curled both around the metal and undid the latch, tugging. The door opened with a unsealed hiss, tepid, dead air wafting over her as she slid around the halfway open doorway.
Her hooves click-clacked on the sparkling clean, plastic coated floor, the door closing itself behind her with a vacuum-sealed click. She reached for the light switch in complete darkness, her predator’s eyes doing nothing to penetrate the gloom. Familiarity guided her through, and with a little fumbling, she flicked it on, a fluorescent light clattering to life above.
Sterile was the best word to describe the room she stood in. Despite its location in the older, run down part of the factory, it had clean walls and a spotless white floor of the same plastic laminate that covered the floor in the newer parts of the factory. A single glittering stainless steel table was bolted to the wall, and a grate made of the same spotless material was set in the floor.
What had once been the old walk-in freezer was now her own private butcher shop, courtesy of those friends in high places. It was one of a collection of old freezers had all been locked off or demolished, save this one, when the company decided it would have all its products stored by a seperate company across the lot. A byproduct of an outsourcing that she still didn’t really understand, but had made it easier on her whenever her “friends” came knocking.
That’s all it was, nice, secluded, and almost entirely soundproof. Even the loudest squawking of the most unusual beasts would be hard to hear through these thick walls, and any strange juices would sluice down the drain to disappear into the sewer system with nary a trace. A quick wipe up and the only trace of her deeds would be the extra cash in her pocket.
But she had work to focus on, pulling her mind back from daydreams of things only money could buy, setting the box onto the table. As it tilted onto the stainless surface, the sound of claws trying to find purchase on the cardboard made her ears perk up.
But there was no more movement coming from within. Either it was waiting, or it had just been sliding around in the box.
But it was clearly still alive.
She reached into her apron, and set her stunning hammer down on the cold metal table, keeping one eye on the box as she mentally went through her technique.
The higher ups always wanted things fresh, chopped up mere hours before delivery from her hands. She’d have to be fast, accurate.
Next came a pronged, hooked knife, gleaming sharp, for draining and gutting.
They should really stop delivering things in boxes like this. Some of the things they wanted cut up, some of those more dangerous delicacies, they couldn’t be kept at bay by mere cages.
A butcher blade had no block to sink its head into, instead laid flat with a clatter.
But that’s how it was, with happy customers, and all the poisons and fangs and claws left up to her. Still, she was glad none of them had tried to deliver a whole side of meat to her, still alive. A Feather Horn, the ones that still had their horns, the endangered ones. The ones slowly disappearing as fungal infection tore through their herds.
They all ended up like their southern brethren, fungus growing in their heads, antlers made of fuzzy fruiting bodies, wispy moth feelers that moved on their own, guiding the blind beast. Once infected, they could no longer see through the mycelia that had grown thick within the chitin shell covering its eyes, obscuring the world through a thick layer of roots.
She hated those things.
Her last two knives.
One small, almost like a kitchen knife, set down to the left of the box, and one yet smaller.
She lifted this last knife to the light, inspecting the blade.
It was a tad worn, but that was to be expected. She’d gotten it from her friends in high places, second hand.
It’s dull surface still shone up at her in patches through the scratches and corrosion, a rounded crescent in the light.
It was a scalpel, uncommon among butchers. Perfect for removing smaller, more delicate organs.
She wiped it on her apron, before laying it beside it’s sibling.
“A cleanly workplace is an efficient workplace,” she muttered to herself, the words more a joke than anything, something she had heard in a movie once, right before the serial killer antagonist started monologuing. Just like one, she needed her gloves, though rather than obscuring evidence, she just wanted to keep her fingers from getting coated in ichor.
She dug into her pocket, shuffling around in her apron, grumbling to herself a moment later.
Some killer she’d be, leaving fingerprints everywhere. She’d left her gloves at her workstation outside.
It would be a minor set back. She’d have to sneak around to the washroom to clean up after the deed was done, and unlike the killer in the film, who’d been slathered in makeup, she wouldn’t look ridiculously conspicuous.
Also unlike that guy, at least she got paid for premeditated murder.
She tilted her head for moment: Well, it wasn’t exactly murder. The little guy, whatever it was, would get a chance to fight back. She’d have to watch herself.
Her hands hovered for a moment, as she went through the proper motions in her head.
One hand on the hammer, two to open the box, and another over the top incase the thing tried to jump, the Sirysian shifting her hooves, stance wide, and lifting her arms into position. She sat there for a moment, she realized what she was missing, glancing at her raised stump.
Her elbow, ending in nothing but air, hovered as if extending the hand that had once been attached to it, the Syrisian frowning behind her mask, before letting it drop to her side.
Right, one hand to open the box.
She reached down and picked up the hammer, clunching it tightly, before placing it and another hand on each side of the box.
“Alright,” she told herself, steadying her nerves, pressing on the side of her mask and taking another shot of vapor.
She held her breath, counted to three, and then breathed out.
Alright.
Her fingers dug past the lip of the the four folded flaps and tugged them free, the box opening in one smooth motion.
The scratched brown flaps gave way to vibrating neon as thrumming wings burst from the box in two shimmering arcs, scraping and gashing her palm.
There was a hiss, and something wet and warm hit her hand, the butcher drawing in a breath of pain as she felt the substance seep into the cuts that had been painfully opened up in her palm, burning.
She drove her hand down, reaching for a neck, or a round shell, her hammer raised, those shimmering walls of brilliant color stretching higher, catching the light, catching her eye.
Scales, a fan of scales. Dozens of tiny wings all hinged on one joint, opened up and glittering like rainfall. No, vibrating, the cascade of colors the natural motion of the fluorescence on those flared arches.
A low thrum pulsed in her ears, the cascade of colors brilliant, her hammer still raised. Her hand still. She saw shapes, cascading droplets of water, bright as sunshine, made of sunshine, form. Dancing. They moved, they swam, still, moving ever down. Drawing her eyes lids with them.
Memories seeped up through the cracks in her waning awareness, screaming warnings, but muffled behind the haze of organic technicolor.
Her mother had told her about these things, known for its brilliant wings, on a drab body.
She saw her home. Waves of brilliant purple as the knee-high stalks of fruiting bodies waved in the glowing wind of the bioluminescent summer sky.
It uses those wings to stun and draw in prey. Like the boy who’d lived across from her.
It rolled into the motions of faces, muzzles, swinging horns curling around the sides of big shaggy heads, happy sirysies dancing in a crowd. Memories of the Dry Festival, their quartet of limbs shifting in a choreographed whirl, moving like droplets of water dancing down a windowpane. She found herself drawn in.
This is combined with a nootropic venom that is spit at their prey. It can be absorbed through the skin very easily, and there here had been a stain on his chest, or what was left of it.
She could see multitudes, her eyes heavy as they fixated on the path between two cliffs that towered to her either side, one roiling with the fires of the damned, the other roaring with the waters of the blessed, held back by the power of a savior, a light at the end that beckoned her forward for salvation.
The effects are many and varied, but the victim is always lulled into a hypnotic sleep, numb, unaware, and easy for the creature to control.
They found him nearly a mile from home.
Her limbs were so heavy though. Her head was slumped down, the creature before her crawling over the edge of its box to keep facing her as her chin hit the table. Worlds still whirled before her eyes, the edges of her closing eyelids even filled with the visions of infinite space, of joyous faces, of warm dapples of sunlight. One last thought screamed at her, before all fell silent:
The venom further causes retrograde amnesia. Through repeated injection, the victim will be unable to orientate itself enough to escape.
Her mother had told her it would lay eggs in her eyes, and she thought nothing of it. Until they brought the corpse back. Those round marbles, staring up from a partially decayed skull.
She slumped to the floor, gone in the visions playing out to her by the venom pumping through her bloodstream.
In her dreams, she had watched over and over as those milky orbs hatched, insectile limbs poking free from eye sockets, beckoning her into another, deeper nightmare.
It was all happening again.
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Blackness.
Where the visions had once been there was numbness. A numbness full of drifting lights. The bright stars of pain she saw whenever she hit her head or strained her eyes. But she knew it was really just her, and pain, because behind those lights, there was pure blackness. She was blind, through through the grogginess in her system, the thought remained quiet. She just needed to open her eyes, so she could look up at the ceiling above her bed, at the glow in the dark stars she’d stuck there long ago.
She drifted, the bed under her feeling harder than usual. Cold, seeping heat from the dense fur at her back. Was she at home? It smelled like her workplace. The thoughts drifted sluggishly through her mind, and she was on her feet again, at work. Her entire shift went by in a blur, and suddenly, she was in bed again, as the thought came and went.
She could remember that day, like any other. Was it the day she had lost her arm? No, but her right arm throbbed painfully anyway, like it’d been the one cut off. No, she must have just strained it, and that was how her day had gone, of course, before she went home...
No. She was not at home. Her bed wasn’t this hard, cold, smooth. But why was she sleeping at work? Her dreams shifted again as she saw herself laying on the floor, pillow under her head. But no, she was still here, in the dark. She breathed in; she was awake, she knew that. Awake and with eyes closed. Eyes closed. Eyes… closed. The words made no sense. Then they did. She called herself an idiot, rolling her eyes internally. When she got up, she’d laugh at herself, she thought, as her eyes drifted open.
Shimmering wings buzzed to life before her nose as her eyes went from half-lidded, to open, the sudden brilliant lighting up the dark room, the timer on the light above having long gone out. The blurring shimmer on her chest reared back, fear gripping her heart as she tried to get her limbs to move, the scream in her throat choked by muscles that refused to move. She could only gurgle, as it’s slavering pincers opened, and-
“SCRRLTCH-!!”
It was thrown from her body and against the wall in a spray of green innards, crushed to a pulp by the bat that bounced off the wall with a metal clang muffled by inches of ichor soaked insect meat. It slid to the ground, wings jittering, legs working in cyclical spams as it’s nervous system tried to keep the already dead insect alive. It’s wings dimmed, jerked, before a tubical face stepped into view far above her, her eyes drifting and unable to focus on the giant that seemed to be looming over her.
“Bug’s dead. Looked like it was about to take her head off. Already laid its eggs though.”
It spoke to someone else in the room, staring down at her. Tapping her side with something cold and metal, sticky with the remains of the crushed insect.
“They’re not going to fuck you up fer that?” A voice replied, muffled and crackling. Coming from the same direction of the tardigrade that was now leaning down to inspect her. It took her moment… a headset.
“Nah,” it replied, two clawed arms tugging her away from the wall, the smaller creature grunting with the effort, leaning over to wipe its brow.
“Christ, these psychos are too big for their own fucking good.
“Like you don’t like ‘em big,” the voice crackled, getting a gurgling growl from the delivery bug as it stepped over her, the apron around it’s waist billowing out as it crouched on her other side.
“Fuck you, just shut up and be a fucking look out. I’ll call you when I need you.”
The voice didn’t reply as the tardigrade held her arm, lifting it to it’s beady-eyed potato face and inspecting it with a look she knew too well. Had she been able to, she would have screamed, as the bloated mass of red flesh that was her forearm was poked and prodded by the six armed tardigrade.
Pain sank into her shoulder, as whatever had been done to her arm had apparently numbed the nerves to keep her from screaming herself awake. But not enough. Pink skin was barely stretched over the thumb sized lumps that filled the tumorous mass like a bag of marbles. It had left her arm soaked in blood, the skin inflamed and suppurating, her once beautiful fur dotting it in mottled, pus-soaked clumps. All over her arm, fat pink holes gaped, swelled, and moved. Opening and closing, as she realized the flesh on her arm was moving, writhing with life. White things, fat and round, peeked out at her like curious eyes, winking at her as they squirmed.
She felt rising in her throat. But could do nothing but watch. The feeling of nauseous laying over her like a miasma, her stomach tight and churning as she watching the tardigrade inspect the hungry maggots with the passive eye of of a butcher looking at a cut of meat.
Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him, as he gently set her arm back down, and stepped back out of view. The cold ground made it worse, to where she could feel the feverish throbbing of the inflamed skin on her arm, and almost feel the hungry, inward motion of the larva moving deeper into the flesh that was trying to remove them.
She couldn’t close her eyes, too drowsy and paralyzed to even whimper, her ears not even perking towards the sound of metal sliding on metal, the tardigrade returning to its observational squat a moment later with something at his side. Something that shone even in the dark, and made her blood run cold. A cleaver. Her cleaver.
Her eyes couldn’t follow the metal blade as it raised it over her shoulder, peering through the slits of her still sleeping body as the tardigrade held her arm steady, one of it’s clawed, clammy stumps on what was left of her forearm, one on her bicep.
It came down with a noise that was liquid, of metal not sliding but butchering it’s way through still living flesh, only to end in the bloody wet crunch of bone.
She screamed, blind with pain despite her eyes laying open, but only a whimper trickled out, echoing off the metal walls.
The waterbear jolted, cursing, dropping the knife to the floor with a clatter and fumbling in his pockets. He pulled out a black square and slid his claw across, a bright light shining into the Syrisie’s face, tears and half open eyes glittering back at him.
“Shit man, she’s awake!”
“Awake?! Fuck man!”
Blood pumped from her arm as he glanced frantically around the room, tugged a apron from the wall and pressing it over the open wound.
“Shit shit shit, this didn’t happen last time” it hissed in a panicked voice, standing up, glancing down… and stopping.
“I got it. Don’t worry.”
It crouched down again, back to her.
“You sure?”
It turned around, two of its claws cupped together, the dripping remains of the creature it had spattered to a pulp in it’s small claws.
“Yeah. Our butcher just has to take a cut of her meat.”
It straddled her body, sat on her chest, her chest tightening even as small as the bugbear was compared to her. They leaned down, hooked claws extended on the ends of stumpy digits, sinking them into her soft mouth. It pulled, painfully cutting the soft insides of her lower lip, until her jaw trailed slackening open. Again, she whimpered, the tardigrade digging its claws in the side of her mouth, keeping her jaw open.
“Sorry hun. I know nothing about butchering.” It plucked a chunk of the cold, slimy gristle from the hard shell in its hands, from the creature’s thorax. She knew the venom gland wasn’t in there, but in it’s abdomen, still smashed against the wall. “You’re gonna have to eat it all.”
It dipped the foul, rotten meat against the back of her throat and clamped her jaw shut, covering her nose. Air whistled between the cracks in it’s mottled digits, mucus running down them, her eyes still shining with pain as she felt herself choking. Chest burning, lightheaded, her arms still pumping blood, barely staunched by the apron stuffed into the open cut.
Finally, her body swallowed, a rough hand on her throat feeling the lump move downwards.
“Alright, one down. Open up,” the bug whispered, prying her jaw open again. More fetid meat pressed against the back of her throat, blocking her windpipe. It glued her uvula down, making her eyes water as the gag reflex forced her throat to spasm shut. But already, her muzzle had been shut, the forced reflex making bile rise in her stomach. Too late, the contents of her stomach spilled into her muzzle, cheeks filling with her old lunch until it gushed from her nose in greenish streams. Her whole face burned as the tardigrade cursed.
“Fucking hell, bitch threw up on me!” It released her head in disgust, bile drained her from slack jaw, her windpipe finally open again, burning lightly from the bile that had run down it.
“Dude, hurry up,” the look out hissed, the tardigrade tossing the thorax to one side and, thankfully, when he had turned her head back to look at him, picking up the smashed abdomen of the thing. She never thought meat stained with the half rotten guts of the bug it belonged to could look so good.
The process began anew, and this time, it put the meat on her tongue, closed her mouth. She almost passed out from lack of air, before finally, she swallowed. Her head swam, chest constricted and only breathing at a resting rate. Her body through she was asleep still, things swimming at the edge of her vision, humming, drifting. Again and again, the tardigrade forced her to choke down the uncooked insect, crushing it’s organs into pulp before enclosing them in her mouth until she nearly passed out again and again.
She felt so lightheaded, the tardigrade nervously glancing to her side, cursing again at the arm she couldn’t see. A foggy thought mulled it’s way through her dying brain as he turned back to her, dipping something black and acrid into her mouth and began the process again, her head beginning to dance with lights as black as void.
I really hate the sight of my own blood.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRUNCH
WUNK
…
Sliiiiide
…
WUNK
…
WUNK
...
THUNK
…
The Sirysian stared blankly at the assembly line, working at an average pace.
CRUNCH
A lilac shell buckled and shattered, bits of greenish meat flecking the air.
The hammer flipped over, and down came the cleaver fused to the other side, muscles tightening in her arm as she swung at force.
WUNK
She could feel the impact in her elbow stump, the bandages wound tight.
The cleaver and the hand next to it parting ways as they forced the meaty insect in half, it’s gore spreading across the table in a greenish arc.
The knife lifted, and came down:
WUNK
Three limbs came off, the two on her body working to make up for their sibling that had recently gone missing, the cleaver brushing the isopod legs aside into the nearby basket, the meaty center of the abdomen tossed aside, the sound of metal meeting meat at a pause as the other half was slid into place.
Then came the next cut.
WUNK
The green ichor was the lube that kept the line going, steaming as it poured off the table surface to the floor. She could smell it, still, through her filter. Acrid, not metallic. Not like her blood.
Not like her blood.
The thought gave her pause.
When she had awoken, it had been to the metallic scent of her own blood, her body slumped against her apartment doorstep. The cut had been clean, like the one that bisected the body in front of her.
THUNK
But it was the pain that woke her up, the dull throbbing in her stump and the sharp bite of the concrete step digging into her side. Someone had wrapped up her wound and the soaked gauze had bled through, the smell had bleeding into her mask. Her mind had been sluggish, the pangs of panic unable to speed her heartrate, she had lost so much blood.
CRUNCH
She remembered she had passed out again, before finally managing to fumble her phone free from her pocket, her every motion anemic and cold. She could have died then, but she kept shaking herself awake until her neighbor came down the stairwell.
WUNK
They dragged her, half awake, to her apartment, and stayed with her. The authorities were contacted, but were no help.
She just couldn’t remember what had happened. There was a vast blank in her memory. Had the wound not been fresh, had she not woken up on her own doorstep, bruised, horn cracked and arm missing, she would have thought she had lost it a long time ago, like she’d lost her other so many months before.
WUNK
She hadn’t been able to stay home to nurse it back to full health either. They’d given her a week off, but she’d only taken 6 of the 7 days. The stitches had been expensive, and the painkillers had been unaffordable if she wanted to stay on the mask, so when her cleaver his the table for the first few days back, she’d sucked in a dose of vapor and pretended it helped take the edge off the dull throb in what was left of her arm.
WUNK
It’d been 2 weeks. No one had been caught as there was no lead. The inside of her head for that entire day was one big blank.
No one was blamed, not even the company she for for. It couldn’t be classified as a workplace accident. No one saw her go home, but she had ended up on her own doorstep. Any attempt to point fingers at the food corp. Itself would have been met with litigations against her own negligence, that she’d lost it while drunk.
THUNK
She kept working, her brow furrowed, sliding the chopped carapace to the side, it’s bleeding meat adding another layer of paint to the gory canvas.
There was, in the end no one to blame but herself. It was a thought that kept creeping in; maybe she had been gotten drunk.
Maybe she had tried to cross the street, or wandered into the brush. She’d been missing her arm long enough for the spores that had landed in the stump to flourish and wipe each other out. Like she’d been out for a long time, gotten it bit off by some animal in the woods. Her brow furrowed further, grabbing another isopod.
Maybe she was a fuck up.
The hammer came down in a angry arc.
Stuck here in this shit job losing limbs one by one until…
SPLUCH.
She looked down at the rotten mess under her hammer, her eyes filling with hot tears of frustration.
Her jaw tightened, tusks biting into her mask.
The rancid carcass slammed into the wall, leaving a streak of rancid green.
Popped knuckles bulged around handle of her cleaver, the blade slamming into the metal table, sparks biting the air as the knife bent and split the half inch thick steel in two.
Her stump burned with pain as she stood, the other assembly line workers glancing at her.
There was a hole in her head, a gap in her memory, and it had been filled with nothing but seething anger.
Plot type
Standalone
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