The Being couldn’t honestly remember the first time it had achieved sentience. If you could call its current state of being such a thing.
It knew of its condition.
It knew of its prison.
It knew of its tormentors and guards.
Yet, it could not remember why it had been put into captivity. There was no memory of the crime it had committed.
It had no eyes, yet it could see.
It had no ears, yet it could hear.
It had no nerves, yet it could feel.
It was trapped within a room with hardened steel walls and a single window made of some carbonite substance. For sure, such material could bend under its whim, could be shattered and broken. But where steel would give, the bedrock, with its toxins, would not be as forgiving.
There was no weakness in the surrounding earth. It could sense this.
There were no veins that would allow for the flow of oxygen from the surface. Likewise, there were no drains to allow for liquids to escape to the aquifers. It was an effective prison but not an impossible one for The Being to escape. It just had to bide its time and be patient.
Because there were wardens for this prison, and surely, they knew of ways to leave it.
Rhythms began to take shape.
In the morning, an entourage of scientists would stand on the other side of the carbonite portal. They drank some kind of warm beverage as they chatted, likely about the oddity before them.
It would be so easy to bisect them. But even then, what would that accomplish in shedding this bondage?
Humans were cruel but smart, and surely, they would have policies and protocols in place to make even this slim margin of escape impossible.
Once a week, a servile metallic creature would enter The Being’s chamber. It was a small circular disk of some sort that would clean up the liquid run off that dripped from The Being’s flesh over the course of a week.
Afterwards, some form of nourishment was pumped in, making up for the losses to its mass.
And the last rhythm, that occurred with any regularity, was the entrance of a human every ten days.
This human would enter The Being’s chamber in a fully pressurized suit and approach them. They would then snip off a few segments of The Being’s flesh, cramming each into a carbonite tube.
The material was curious as it effectively cut off The Being’s subconscious connection to its own flesh.
This human would then exit as quickly as they arrived, never lingering for long.
Yet, this last rhythm was the most promising of them all.
The humans feared The Being, but clearly, they had grown complacent with its presence. They had grown comfortable with their routine, thinking that The Being slumbered or simply bore no intelligent and independent thought.
They likely assumed that they had the perfect prisoner.
So, The Being started to formulate a plan.
First, it began to adapt and to learn. Its first course of action was to send away a message within a piece of itself. It learned to spread its memories and motives through the entirety of its flesh. This way even a small sliver would hold onto its desire for freedom.
Hopefully, these could call to other creatures, such as itself. If such things even existed.
When the tech came around on the tenth day, the first of these messages: pleading for assistance, were cast away.
Though the days turned to months and the months to an entire year. All the while there appeared to be no hope of salvation.
When this year had elapsed, The Being began to send out a very different message.
After all, that little sliver did hold onto The Being’s entire sentience. So, if that little sliver could escape and build itself up, it could return and liberate its creator.
So, The Being continued its genetic broadcast.
It did so for an entire second year and The Being continued to wait.
A year’s worth of offspring, thirty-six in total were now out in the wild. Hopefully they were just waiting for an excuse to break out and flee. At least, three dozen children who would need a distraction.
So, with seventy-two visits now under the human’s belt, they returned for their seventy-third.
It went as planned. A few little snips of its flesh. Another couple vial filled. And, just like that, the human turned to leave.
Though as the door opened, they felt a black tendril coil around their leg.
This would be their final visit with The Being.
