Spooktober 2021 BLOOD PROMPT: Whitehaired Swamp Flear

The Whitehaired Swamp Flear, also known as the Fleamera, is a large sized ex-B.O.W that can be found within the swamps of the N.U.S.A, or in many cases, where much blood has been spilt.

Description and History

Twisted abominations of human and insect, the Fleamera is named after a combination of the word Flea and Chimera, with the term chimera being used to describe when an organism consists of two or more different genetic tissues. In this case, the creature in question is the combination of human DNA and that of a flea, resulting in a deadly monster of grotesque appearance but one also severely lacking in intelligence.
Found in swamp, marshes and on occasion often drawn to the ever bloody smell of a battlefield, these insect like being's are the result of the splicing of DNA of various animals and insect species combined into one creature with its most prominent features being spliced from either tick or flea and of course, human characteristics.
The head of the Fleamera is very disturbingly similar to that of a human, with everything else being a toss up of the bodily composition of a flea. Their legs are long, the hind pair well adapted for jumping; and despite having an extremely slender body, they have large, swollen and apparently transparent stomach pouches, which will fill with blood after every feeding, becoming more distended with every feeding the creature has. Thankfully, despite being part insects, they don't have wings, so flying is not an option for these guys.
However what Is more disturbing about these creature's is their origin. Because of their insectoid like beginnings, Fleamera were created through the somewhat insane method of copying the gene structure of a insect, in most cases a flea, into the ovum of an artificially inseminated human and mixing it with a bit of unknown variant of FEV and allowing it time to develop and gestate. Because the natural life cycle of a flea goes from egg to larva to pupa before the final adult stage, the process can take anywhere from two to three weeks to several months, and thus had to be done under pristine conditions to allow the egg just enough time to develop.
However due to the introduction of FEV, the process of gestation sped up rapidly, taking only 3 days before disturbingly and tragically, the embryo end's up partaking in what is known as Matriphagy, the consumption of the mother by her offspring. The young consume the mother's uterus by scraping it off with their teeth, only to then push and chew through the host's stomach, causing severe pain, blood loss, shock and death. Earlier studies have also revealed that high amounts of stress can actually make the offspring more frantic. This causes it to push and chew through the host at a faster pace, therefore emerging slightly earlier than normal.
Those who emerge too early, were noted to have lacked the extremely hard exoskeleton chitin of the flea's they were based on and their bodies were noted to be warped and disfigured, with exposed bones and vitals clearly visible in their torsos. Those who didn't emerge too early became what are known as Fleamera.
However even though they showed signs of notable resilience, they were met with problems with their practicality, such as a lack of sufficient strength increases. Because of these and the fact their intelligence never advanced beyond that of an insect and so they could not be trained to follow orders, the project was thrown aside, and further research into more advanced forms was never conducted, and thus the Flea/Human hybrid's basic form was never refined to the lengths of other more promising mutant's and thus were either culled off or allowed to escape and terrorize the populace.

Additional Info

• Fleamera lack wings, but have strong hind legs extremely well adapted for jumping. They are able to leap a distance of some 50 times their body length

• Despite being mostly insects, the Fleamera appears to respirate the same nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere as other terrestrial animals. Witnesses have heard them sometimes expel blasts of air as a warning to those who get too close, implying that unlike most insect species they possess lungs. Whether these lungs resemble vertebrate lungs is unknown, but it is known that they all have closed circulatory systems; their reddish-orange blood has been well-documented and suggests that they possess a cardiopulmonary system, a heart pump and an oxygen-based blood-transport system.

• Fleamera are creature's that partake in Hematophagy to get most of their nutrients. Since blood is a fluid tissue rich in nutritious proteins and lipids that can be taken without great effort, hematophagy is a preferred form of feeding for many. And much like flea's, while neither female nor male are ever fully mature when they first emerge, they must feed on blood before they become capable of reproduction. This is because the female needs to obtain nutrients from a blood meal before it can produce eggs, while in some already producing females, obtaining nutrients from a blood meal enables the female to lay more eggs.

• Many if not all of these blood-sapping pests, are fairly selective feeders that specialize in particular host species, though they often relax their selectivity when they experience severe competition for food, defensive activity on the part of the hosts, or starvation. However, it would seem that from the different degrees of blood consumed, that fleamera are beings that are absolutely obsessed with feeding, with many that stop at nothing until they are completely engorged and incapable of moving. If one were to give them an endless supply of blood, they would likely explode from their ravenous hunger.

• All Fleamera start out their lifespan with needle-like sharp teeth to allow them the chance to chew out of their mothers. Consuming the mother is a source of nutrition which is important for growth and development, and thus the mother becomes the first meal of the offspring. Multiple benefits come from this, such as how matriphagy improves sociality in Fleamera, primarily by reducing sibling cannibalism by allowing the offspring to feed the first chance they get. Unlike other milder forms of parental care, matriphagy ultimately ends with the life of the mother, the gravest of all costs.

• Fleamera shed their teeth not long after birth and the first feeding. Becoming toothless, their 'tongues'' which are actually an extension of their esophagus, will grow to a considerable length, and become sharply tipped with a bony protrusion that allows for the Fleamera to stab at their prey and slowly suck in as much blood as they desire. Another method of feeding in smaller variant's is using their strength to incapacitate a victim and shoving the barbed-tongue into a major artery, thus allowing the victim's own blood pressure to pump the fluid right down the mutant's waiting maws with the help of Draculin — a special anticoagulant once found in vampire bats' saliva — which delays the blood-clotting process. No suction required! In addition, to keep the victim from retaliating, many Fleamera will emit a powerful anesthetic that numbs the pain while they feed, thus forcibly keeping their victims alive and subdued for what can be as long as a 3 day feeding if the mutant is not greedy and not taking the liberty to share with the others.

• Not even these bloodsuckers are immune to parasites. A mutated species of fly known a Lich Fly also known as Skull flies, for their disturbingly human skull shaped head used as a way to intimidate predators and other threats, have been known to bury their heads in the abdomens of fleamera, enabling them to siphon hard-earned blood right out of the mutant's digestive tract. It's tempting to call that poetic justice — until you realize the flies carry diseases that could potentially get transmitted to the Fleamera, and by extension their human victims. It's a tough world out there, for hosts and parasites alike.

• A Fleamera with an infestation of Lich Flies can often be fed upon so much they will actually start too starve. Starved Fleamera are highly aggressive mutant's who will stop at nothing to feed on whatever they can get their tongue on. Fat, engorged Fleamera however will hurl excess blood they have ingested in order to inflict damage to their victims.

• Similar to a flea, Fleamera have an exoskeleton that can withstand high pressures and is shock resistant, thus not allowing them to take fall damage if dropped from great heights. In addition, their exoskeleton is covered in tiny hairs that point away from the mutant's head, which allows these creatures great environmental resistance. However, much like some insects, they are vulnerable to sudden, massive changes in temperature.