“Has that jelly been following us? That’s weird.”
“The clowns! They’ve got mimes!!”
HONK HONK HONK!
Splatting down from the tree, I hightail it out of there. Bravado? Powers? Pah! All of that pales in the face of the sheer horde of horrible at my rear!
“Run! Run away!”
Right there with ya, HC! Staying secret? Hiding in the shadows? Growing strong from weak? Nope! Seeing what clown tastes of?
All gone, in the face of those monsters! I’m not ready to be a monster yet! I’m not ready for any of this! I don’t care what Miss Cherry wants from me, facing these things (and two very inept humans) is a bad idea!
Retreating to the relative safety of Miss Cherry, my hope is that the monstrosities behind me get lost somehow. Past the other slimes, pumping my little gelatinous body as fast as it can go (not very fast), I make my way through the [Lobby]. Barely glancing at the changes she’s wrought in the short time I’ve been gone, shouts and honks chase me through winding corridors.
Randomly picking corners to turn, I rely on my connection with Miss Cherry to keep me safe. Behind me, the terrible two shout directions.
”Shoot them, shoot them! Target the mimes!”
”I’m trying! Give me a sec to recharge my biocannon! Hold on, Swellie!”
FWOOMP.
Thanks to my unique all-over vision, I’m given the wonderfully bizarre sight of an inflated spine-covered human blimp blocking the way behind me. Swellfish had more than doubled in size into a roughly human shaped sphere, the ends of limbs and his head mostly buried within himself. His spines, previously fist-sized bumps, now jut out to become jagged arm length needles.
Swellfish’s muffled voice warned Headcannon. “I can only hold them off for so long! Hurry!”
“I’m trying!”
BANG!
“Ewwww… Glittery guts everywhere…”
“Suck it, mime! Hey, where is this slime taking us?”
“You’re following the slime? I was following you!”
This time, it wasn’t a quick and simple jaunt through the hallways. My energy reserves were running lower and lower, all while dropping more and more slime, leaving a trail of purple behind me.
A reprieve was sorely needed, and in the nick of time, I got one.
Somewhere ahead of me, I begin to pick up a partially telepathic conversation. Miss Cherry and an unknown person were having a heated argument someplace nearby. Miss Cherry’s voice echoes slightly in my head, full of static and audio glitches, while the other is clearly spoken aloud.
They are talking about the weird green lady and the procedure I helped with. No idea why, I followed every instruction to the T. So there shouldn’t have been anything that went wrong with it, I think.
“And did you even bother with asking first? Do you even know the kinds of risks you took there? What you could have invited from your blatant misuse of Unreality? Do you even know what your little surgery is doing to her?”
Miss Cherry replies with a huff, [[Hey, i-i-it worked, didn’t kssh? See-see-see, this is why I don’t fudge a-around with magic. Too many rules, nnnnot enough art!]]
“Well, your ‘art’ could have killed her! This place isn’t sterile at all! I have dozens of healing spells in my repertoire, any one of which could have done the job!”
[[Iiii told you, I had that covered! Mmmy little slime [Companion] is p-pretty much a walking decontamination room, not a chance that a ger-germ could have gotten through!]]
The unknown speaker’s voice rose again. She, and it was a she, from what I could tell of her soft, yet stern, tone of voice, continued to berate my Miss Cherry.
[[It’s an art! I aaaam an artist! I’ve-I’ve-I’ve created someth-kssh entirely unique, a treasure just for me, and it’s all mine now! Just. Like. You are mine now!]]
“You can’t just do whatever you want with her and I!”
[[Obviously, I can, and I did. I caught the two of ya fair and square. Be glad I didn’t decide ta off ya both.]] Miss Cherry replied, indignant to the protesting mystery voice.
Behind me, the two clowns, sorry, heroes or adventurers or whatever they call themselves, continued their battle with the clowns. Their presence tempts me, scents of both groups wafting over me, making me want nothing more than to dissolve them all to nothing.
With effort, my instincts are ignored for now. As nice as it would be, it just wouldn’t sit right with me to eat them. Maybe the clown-things, if pressed and if there weren’t so fudging many of them!
“Ew ew ew, this one’s hitting me with a silk handkerchief whip, and it hurts!”
“Why are you letting it do that? Pop the thing with your spines!”
“I’m trying!”
POP! Splat.
“Oh, nevermind, I got it! Keep shooting! We’ve almost all of them!”
“Hey, Swellie?”
BANG!
“Yeah?”
Fwoomp! POP!
“Why are we stopping?”
Ran out of room to run, that’s why, I think to myself. It comes out as a gglrgl-blup, with an extra fftz thrown in at the end for good measure. Ugh. I don’t think I’m ever going to get the hang of vocalization. In front of me is a dead-end hallway, a locked insulated freezer door taunting me.
My pseudopods extend out, but they’re nowhere near strong enough to turn the heavy latches, breaking apart when I apply force. Whatever material the door and handle are made of appear to be heavily resistant to my dissolving, oddly enough.
Grumbling, I turn to my next best option: calling out for help with my burgeoning telepathy.
With intent to think as loudly as possible, I direct my next thoughts to Miss Cherry. Not being as skilled as her, I can only hope that I’m doing this right. WIth some concentration, my mind focuses on attempting to speak without speaking.
There’s a trick to it. It’s not exactly speaking in words, but intents and emotions. Tap into your [HEART], deep in the center of your core (and you need a core for this, say my instincts), let it pulse or spin, and stretch out your thoughts like you would a pseudopod. Or as Miss Cherry put it, ‘hallways.’ I'm sure it makes sense to her.
It’s really astonishing just how quickly I’m starting to get used to my new life. I can still recall bits and snippets of a life where I wasn’t a glob of purple jelly, and the dissonance between the two modes is rapidly dwindling.
This place is weird. Weird and dangerous.
Finally successful in my novice attempts to use telepathy, I call out with an internal voice that differs from the one in my memories. More youthful, higher pitched and androgynous sounding than I feel that I should have had. [[Miss Cherry! I could use some support over here! Help!]]
[[Back so soon?]] she asked. [[Ex-excuse me, we’ll continue this kssh-ther time, hun. My art needs me!]]
“Hey! I wasn’t done yelling at you! You can’t just leave me here!” shouted the other voice. Clearly, she could, as Miss Cherry didn’t even bother responding, concentrating instead on the invaders that I’d inadvertently invited.
A chilled presence fills the dead-end hallway, frost building up on pipes and brickwork as the temperature visibly drops, condensing from the leaking steam. Several clown-things start slipping in exaggerated motions, landing on their behinds to be showered in confetti by their neighbors.The corridor ripples, and the rest of the clowns topple over.
Frost crawls up their bodies, their movements slowing to a crawl until they are fully pinned to the floor. Cold, questing fingers of ice crawled forward, stopping just short of the shivering Headcannon and Swellfish.
“Is it just me, Swellfish, or did things get very, very, cold just now?”
Swellfish just nods, wrapping his arms around his torso for warmth. “Too cold… c-c-c-can’t inflate…”
[[Nebby, you-ou brought me goo-d-d-dies!]]
Swellfish and Headcannon whip their heads around. “H-hello? Is someone there?” asks Headcannon.
A burst of static, and her voice comes in clearer in my core. [[Nope! Just you, me, and a few dozen of whatever these… things are. Nebby, would you be a dear and dispose of a few of these technicolor horrors for me? Leave the humans be, if you would. Their mutations are… interesting, to say the least.]]
“You’re imagining things again, HC. J-just the floorboards settling in this… Cave?” Swellfish said, eyes wide as though this were the first time he actually took note of his surroundings. “This isn’t a cave, is it?” He looks up at the ceiling, filled with exposed wires and bare fluorescent lighting between rusted iron beams.
Red bricks on the walls oozed with glowing white moss, and the echo of linoleum tiles rang under their boots. “No, no it is not, Swellie. Not a normal cave at all…”
The floor buckles under me, launching me over the heads of the humans. With an embarrassing splash, my body hits the exposed skull of the largest of the remaining clowns, a purple suited one with a too wide crimson smile, bleached white face, and messy green hair. Pinned down and frozen in place, the clown is helpless to defend against the strength of my dissolving enzymes.
Swellfish trembles, pulling Headcannon closer to himself. “I don’t like this, HC. This place is creeping me out!”
“Shh! J-j-just let the m-m-monsters t-take each other out!”
Reveling in the chance to finally replenish my diminishing energy, I take my time to soak in the flavors of my still-squirming prey. It still being alive adds pep and spice to my meal, which tastes nothing how I’d expected it to from the scent it gave off.
Hints of… rust-flecked crowbar and… the trilling notes of the first robin of spring? Makes me think of comic books and bubblegum. I shrug internally. Cruel of me to eat my food alive? My instincts tell me that I can gain more energy this way.
Listening to my instincts has consistently served to help me survive much better than my human instincts, so I listen to them. My instincts take over, pushing me into the back. My body pilots itself, burrowing in and out of the rapidly dying clown. Bones crumble, meat melts, and organs pop.
By the time that my senses are regained, I’m most of the way through a third clown, bones and all. The rest of the clowns look on in horror at their impending doom. The two humans cower at the end of the corridor, metal door at their back.
[[Voracious little bugger, aren’t ya, dear? Leave some for later, why don’t you? We could use these.]]
She’s right, of course. They’d be great meals, honestly. As for the humans, though, something needs to be done about them. Eating them is always on the table, right?
Woah, where did that thought come from? Don’t I care at all about preserving my humanity at all?
Just a bite wouldn’t hurt, right? I’m sure they’d be fine without a finger. Or two. Ooh, or how about a whole hand? They won’t mind me taking an eyeball as payment for saving them, right? Eyeballs are gooey little things that pop just right when the outer layers are dissolved, sending juices into my gelatinous mass, so naturally I’ve especially been enjoying them when I get the chance.
LIke right now.
Should I be concerned that I’m actually starting to enjoy this? My memory fragments don’t have me being this cruel before. But then again, I’m no longer human, am I? Not exactly bound by human rules and moralities, am I?
In any case, I’ve not felt a single twinge of guilt at my actions. Quite the opposite, really, with bursts of pleasure that satisfy my instincts. Might as well give in to them. Yet I’m totally way better than any base monster, for I have the intelligence of a human guiding me, after all!
“There it is again! Swellie, are you sure you can’t hear that?”
“N-no s-such th-thing as g-g-ghosts,” assures Swellfish.
“Then what is that?” gasps Headcannon, pointing into the frozen fog of cooled steam and mist.
Slurping up the last of the blood of my third meal, which has brought me to full energy reserves, my attention turns to the object of Headcannon’s fear.
Two ethereal glowing red eyes pierce through the fog, illuminating a vague feminine figure. I can just about make out indistinct clothing resembling a tattered skirt and a pointed wide brimmed hat in flashes of pink, white, and hints of blue before they fade away again into the fog. The formless figure, just a darker humanoid patch in the fog, points to the metal door behind the terrified HC and Swellfish.
[[GO, IN THERE,]] shouts Miss Cherry in a voice so loud my jelly trembles and my core aches. The latch clicks, and the door opens slightly ajar, as though a breeze has pushed it open. Headcannon and Swellfish turn to stare at it.
“Holy Pierced Moon, I heard it too! It.. It wants us to go through this door?” guessed Headcannon. Must be more sensitive to this telepathy thing than his companion.
Once again, the corridor ripples, dislodging the half-frozen clowns. The door opens wider, accepting the gift. Landing safely on the other side, the clown-things sat there, unable to move.
[[SEE? SAFE. GO.]]
The two men nod, rivulets of sweat running down their foreheads. Sweating. Don’t miss you, either! Just my simple slime for me, thanks!
“It’s not going to eat us, is it?” asks Swellfish. The two approach the door with caution.
[[WE WILL SEE.]]
Swellfish and Headcannon shudder, probably from the cold that I can’t feel, but can see through the fog of their breath and rapidly-forming icicles. Nonetheless, a shiver also runs through my jelly.
Rolling my core in my best imitation of an eye roll, I slide into them, causing the three of us to tumble through. The door instantly slams shut. The latch clicks, and the door locks again.
My mood brightens up considerably when I see what room we’re in. [[Miss Cherry! I’m sorry! I couldn’t do it! The outside is scary!! I’ll never grow strong enough to protect you, forgive me!]]
I’d cry, but lacking tear ducts, I gurgle defeatedly instead.
Warm emotions embrace me, happiness fluttering through my core. She isn’t mad, no. She’s just happy that I tried.
[[You did good, Neb. Now it’s my turn,]] assures Miss Cherry. [[Why don’t we take a little looksie at what you brought back for me, hmm?]]
“Oh. You’re back. And you brought friends. Wonderful.” It’s the voice from earlier, the one I heard arguing with Miss Cherry. Her voice vibrates against me, the jiggling interpreted by my core into words.
I scan the room looking for the speaker. The vibrations are strongest in the direction of where we’d last left the plant girl. Oozing to the pulsating cocoon of vines, roots, and mosses, my gaze wanders across it, looking for the source of the voice.
“Down here, ding-dong.”
Oh! It’s the book! A few roots hold it place against the root-ball. “So you’re the one who did that abominable procedure on my user!”
Abominable? But it worked, right?
“Darn tooting, it worked. You saved her life, and I gotta thank ye fer that. If only that were all that ye did…”
[[You can hear me?]] I ask, incredulous.
“Aye, that I can. It’s a part of my job description, after all.” The book paused for a moment. “Ye don’t even know what it is ya did, do ye?”
Not a clue, I think, with a shake of my upper mass from side to side.
The book somehow manages to sigh. The pages between its covers flutter slightly. I swear it even sags slightly. “No, I suppose ye don’t. It ain’t yer fault, kid. Those chains of yers are tight as can be. It ain’t like ye had any other choice but to do as she asked, did ye?”
What chains? Just a humble little slime here trying their best to not die a second time, to enjoy this new lease I've been given. Okay, so sure, I've given in to my urges more than once, but that doesn't make me evil, right?
Even if what I've done may seem a little cruel from a certain perspective. Killing is easy when your own body encourages it. As loathe as I may have been in a past life to hurt others, that is no longer the case. I just want to grow bigger, stronger, to learn and innovate.
Morality? Bah! If my boss and creator says jump, you bet I do! She brought me into existence from the cold claws of death, and for that, I owe her everything. She could tell me to kill these humans, and I'd do it in a heartbeat. I don’t know why, but I know with every drop of my being that I would.
“We’re in luck! That’s a PAGe!” came a voice behind me. Even with my full-body vision, my attention had been mainly on the talking book. Swellfish stood there, gazing thoughtfully at the trapped tome.
“Aye, that I am. I wouldn’t do that, if I were ye.” Swellfish’s hands shot back to his sides, having reached for the book. “Go git yer own! I ain’t up fer grabs!”
The two men mumbled apologies. Instead, they looked around for other things to poke at. Swellfish started investigating the goop-cleaning device in one corner of the pentagonal room, while Headcannon reached towards me. “Was the PAGe unit talking to this slime? Can slimes even think? I should bring it to a guy I know in the Academy…”
“Are ye two idiots? That’s a dangerous mutant slime, a [Stellar Slime], and a bonded [Companion] at that! It’ll eat ye without a second thought!”
Hey, that’s not fair! I’d probably be sorry about it about halfway through! At which point I might as well finish what I started…
Swellfish and Headcannon take a step back.
“And ye see this bushy tangle I’m in? She’s about ta hatch, and she ain’t gonna be all friendly-like when she wakes up, if ye catch me drift.”
Swellfish and Headcannon take several more steps back.
“Over there, that’d be these monster’s boss! Not the lug, the pillar it be standing next to! The lug is a guardian, harmless unless provoked. Ya two are in a right mess, ye are. I’d ask the two of ye to take me away from here, but that ain’t exactly an option right now.”
Ceetee looked up from his doodle and waved before returning to drawing flowers in the dirt.
“That sounds… Bad,” said Swellfish.
[[Yes, yes, praise me more!]] crowed Miss Cherry. [[Tell them how dangerous I am!]]
“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it. The boss lady is there, on the pillar in the middle of the room over yonder. She’s in charge of all of these monsters. Honestly, the fact that ye two are still kickin’ is because she’s holdin’ em back.”
Swellfish stared skeptically at the crystal encrusted pipe pillar holding Miss Cherry’s core. “The rock on that thing controls all these monsters? Are you sure? It’s just a rock, it doesn’t look dangerous at all…”
A rumbling rang through the room.
“It wasn’t me!” shouted Swellfish. “I touched nothing! Totally didn’t press any buttons on this weird tubey thing!”
[[Hahaha! It’s time! She’s hatching! Book, tell the humans they might want to stand back a little. Nebby, roll those clownsicles to the cocoon! Ceetee… Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”
“I keep telling you, my name isn’t Book! I am a PAGe, Personal Automized Grimoire! I am a highly sophisticated piece of information gathering ‘n storage technology! And um… You two humans! Things are about ta get a little spicy in here, might want to stand back… AWAY from any suspicious lumps or blinking lights!”
Worry on their faces, Headcannon and Swellfish shuffle over to the furthest corner of the [Core Room].
[[Why does Nebby gotta do all the hard work around here,]] I complained as with some effort, and lots of grumbling, I roll the clowns into a rough pile next to the root-ball.
CRACK!
Wood splinters shoot through the air, the cocoon splitting in a vertical line down the middle. Vines tear, roots snap.
Miss Cherry cackles, loud enough that I’m sure that even the two humans could hear it. A thorn covered vine shoots out, impales one of the frozen offerings through the skull, and drags it back. Sparkling blood leaves a trail into the cocoon, leaking through the opening. The two humans wince at the sounds of crunching and wet tearing that ensued, until finally, the noises died down.
More thorny vines reach through the crack, patting the ground a few times before retreating. A moment later, the cocoon’s inhabitant steps out from the shadow within, revealing her new form for the first time.
