Floating in cold, wet nothingness. Unable to feel, unable to think.
Then came a vibration—a sound that roused her into consciousness.
Glass cracking. Crack. Crack. Snap.
A viscous flood, ripping her half-conscious self into the reality of a shard-covered marble floor.
The pain of impact jolted her into awareness, and she began coughing violently to clear her lungs. Emerald-green liquid still dripped from her nose and mouth as she instinctively reached for one of the narrower glass shards.
"So cold… So hungry..." she thought, struggling to stand. Bundles of sodden brown hair reached down to her knees, slithering across her bare skin like the tendrils of some abyssal monstrosity. She took her first real breaths, strands of silvery fog escaping with each exhalation. Her eyes drifted across the mosaic of glass spread out before her—silver eyes stared back at her.
She turned to get a better look at her own reflection on the inside of the tank she had been floating in only moments prior: a muscular physique, a sharply angled face, and strangely two-toned hair—silvery-white on top and rusty-brown below a certain point. It could be worse, a foreign thought sparked in her mind.
The sound of bare feet on marble echoed as she began to walk, taking in her surroundings, leaving dry spots in the emerald liquid wherever she stepped. Her mind flooded with a sense of recognition, yet she didn't know what she was looking at—or where she was. Dozens of glass tanks lined the wall, identical to hers, with copper pipes snaking from their bases into the floor. Most were broken, with tumorous masses of flesh and bone lying before them. The right wall of the chamber was a towering mess of metal pipes, valves, and dials, snaking into both the floor and ceiling.
Though she felt curiosity, something deep in the back of her mind screamed to get out of here—that this place was doomed. Only… there was nothing more than a solid wall lined with bizarre machinery to her right. She saw a doorway at the far end of the chamber to her left, barely a speck from this distance."No choice, I guess," she thought and began walking, careful not to step on any glass shards.
Her gaze darted all around as she made her way toward the doorway, a palpable tension ever-present and intensifying with every step. Gleams of pale-white light reflected off the polished floor and the shards scattered across it—yet strangely, the emerald liquid that once filled the tubes reflected nothing at all. Up close, the lumps of flesh before the tanks were completely indistinguishable—giant teratomas by any other name. Some had visible eyes and mouths, or even entire limbs sticking out of the mass. The urge to break into a sprint was overwhelming, but she kept herself calm by counting the tanks as she passed them.
"Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Thirty-s—"
Squelch.A tumor-thing had used its sole arm to slide into her path and grab her calf, squeezing with seven distended, nailless fingers. Its eleven eyes locked onto her, trailing slowly up her form with a leery gaze while a pair of toothy mouths stretched into perverse grins.
At that moment, she knew exactly what she'd need the shard for.
She stabbed straight down—into the creature's eyes. Glass sank into flesh. Tears and ocular fluid spilled over her fingers. Atonal screeching and the chattering of teeth filled her ears. A sharp yank to the right. Guts and blood poured from the wound, a half-formed ribcage forcing its way out like the jaws of a bear trap. Then—silence. The creature's grip tightened... then went limp.
Still angered, she stomped down. Malformed guts burst from the eviscerated skin-sack, its last intact eye popping from the socket.
A new smell rose as the creature began to dissolve into more green liquid, skin and soft tissue boiling away. Thick ropes of green fog escaped the roiling mass with a screech-like whistle. The scent was... herbal—identical to that of the emerald fluid. Though some of it spilled out across the floor, much of it was being absorbed directly through her leg. With every passing moment, more of the thing's biomass melted and merged into her, and with every passing moment, her pallid-white leg turned a light brown. Silvery pathways in her skin became visible under the contrast.
She felt hunger and weakness fading, strength and limberness flooding her limbs—as if she'd just awoken from a restful sleep.
The flesh, skin, and viscera were gone now, leaving only cartilage, bones, and teeth in what little fluid remained. Slowly—ever so slowly—these too began boiling and melting, the herbal scent of green fog mingling with the stench of burning bone and keratin. Still, she kept her eyes on the other tumor-things. And after a moment of thought—it did make sense.
"I came out of a tank that was full of Green... and so did these things," she pondered, eyeing the nearest flesh-thing."They melt back into Green after death, yet I absorb it... Therefore—"
Her thoughts derailed as the creature she was watching twitched and gurgled. One of its mouths gaped open as green fluid spilled out—and an unnaturally long leg emerged.
Soon, a chorus of lurching, gurgling noise echoed throughout the chamber as more tumor-things stirred to life. Some dragged themselves across the floor toward her. Others hurled their entire mass across the slick marble, screeching each time they landed on shards of glass.
"How many?" she wondered, quickly counting the blobs.Eleven so far, out of the forty-five in total.
Already, she felt the slam of a foot next to hers. One of the creatures tried to drag itself close enough to bite with one of its other mouths. She grabbed its leg and lifted it up, gutting the beast as it thrashed like a hooked fish. Glass sliced through flesh and cartilage. Eyeballs popped. Guts spilled. Screeching filled the chamber—then ceased.
She dropped the thing. It splashed into the floor—and instantly began to melt.
Confirmed...