The lock clicked outside the shed door, a final, metallic punctuation to my purchase. Darkness, thick and velvety, pressed in, smelling of damp earth, old straw, pig dung, and the lingering sourness of Granite's sweat. Only a thin sliver of dying grey light cut under the ill-fitting door. Silence, heavy and watchful, settled over Silt End. But inside me, the silence was different. It was the quiet hum of engines powering up.
I waited. Counted Granite's heavy footsteps crunching away on the gravel. Counted the grunts and shuffles of the pigs in the sty just beyond the flimsy wall. Counted the frantic hammering of my borrowed human heart – a useful, warm drumbeat keeping time for the colder rhythm beneath.
Host secured.
The filthy water in the basin lapped at my waist. Grease filmed its surface, catching the scant light in rainbow swirls that turned my stomach. Pig muck. Rotting vegetable scraps. The stagnant dregs of neglect. It stung my deliberately cracked skin, tasted like despair and decay on my hidden gills. But it was water. Molecules. H2O. The fundamental currency of my existence, however polluted. My gills fluttered, a desperate, involuntary reflex, pulling oxygen from the foul brew. Survival first. Always. The performance of pathetic submission could drop now. Granite wasn't watching.
I leaned back against the rough stone wall. The chill seeped through my thin, stolen tunic, a counterpoint to the lukewarm sludge around my legs. The trembling I'd manufactured ceased instantly. The wide, watery fear evaporated from my eyes, replaced by a flat, calculating darkness that mirrored the shed's interior. My hand, which had clutched the basin's edge with theatrical weakness, now gripped it with cold purpose. I ran the other hand slowly over my lower abdomen, feeling the smooth, deceptive flatness beneath the coarse fabric. Empty. For now.
Soon.
The Wetlands were a choked, poisoned memory. Our rivers ran thick with the filth of the Sprawl – chemical rainbows shimmering on surfaces that killed anything soft. Eggs laid in the silt were eaten by mutated bottom-feeders or dissolved before they could harden. The air itself tasted metallic, acrid. We were dwindling. Fading whispers in a toxic soup. Desperation drives innovation. Or regression. The old ways… the binding ways… whispered in the deep mud by ancestors who remembered when the world was wetter, cleaner, and hosts were chosen, not scavenged. A host. Warm-blooded. Constant temperature. Protected. A walking, breathing incubator. A nursery.
Granite was perfect. Isolated. Strong enough to provide the necessary biological resources, but dull enough, vacant enough, not to question the subtle changes until it was far, far too late. His emptiness was an asset. A void begging to be filled. And fill it I would. With life. My life's purpose.
The deep thirst, a constant companion since I'd summoned the brittle dryness for the traffickers, gnawed at my core. This greasy puddle wasn't enough. Not nearly. I needed clean water. Deep water. But for now, it was camouflage, a prop in my performance of weakness. I dipped my hand back in, deliberately scooping the scummy liquid over my neck, letting it trickle down towards the concealed gill slits. The relief was physical, a cool counterpoint to the burning dryness of the air, but the revulsion was profound. This was my baptism into Silt End. Filth.
A sound. Sharp, scraping. Near the door. Instinctively, I slumped back into the water, letting my head loll, eyelids fluttering half-shut. Weak. Vulnerable. Prey.
A small, dirty face pressed against the gap under the door. Wide eyes, reflecting the grey light, stared in. A child. A boy, maybe seven or eight, with hair the colour of dusty straw and skin tanned leathery by the mountain sun. Curiosity warred with caution on his thin face. He didn't speak. Just stared. At the freak in the pig basin.
I held the pose, letting a faint tremor run through my visible arm. Let him see the cracked lips, the unnatural pallor beneath the grime. Let him report back: She's weak. She's strange. She's no threat.
After a long moment, a woman's voice, sharp and brittle, called from nearby. "Xiao Shi! Get away from there! Don't touch the dirty thing!" Little Stone. So that was his name. Appropriate for this place.
The boy flinched, his eyes darting away, then back to me for one last, lingering look filled with a child's morbid fascination before he scrambled away. His footsteps pattered off. More silence. But the encounter was filed away. A data point. The child. Curious. Potential leverage? Or just another pair of eyes to avoid?
Darkness deepened. The temperature plummeted. The Bleak Peaks lived up to their name. The air grew thin and biting, scraping my throat and gills like shards of glass. Moisture leached from my skin despite the water. The dryness was an active predator here, hungrier than any human. I shifted, submerging deeper into the filthy basin, trying to conserve the precious film of protective slime my body could still produce, though sparingly. This environment was hostile on a cellular level. My plan needed to accelerate.
First anchor. Then feed. Then multiply.
Granite had said "Work starts dawn." Good. Proximity was essential. Constant contact. The binding required touch. Sustained touch. Skin-to-skin. It wasn't about desire; it was about biology. A cellular negotiation, an invasion disguised as intimacy. He would expect work. Labour. He would get penetration. Of a different kind.
Sleep was a luxury my kind rarely indulged in, and never in such vulnerability. I entered a state of low metabolic trance, senses hyper-alert. The sounds of Silt End filtered through the shed walls: the wind whining through rocky clefts, the distant, mournful bray of a donkey, the rhythmic snoring from Granite's hut – a deep, guttural sound like rocks tumbling. The pigs rustled and grunted. Time crawled, measured by the deepening cold and the slow, painful constriction of my gills.
Dawn came not with colour, but with a leaching of the absolute black into a grim, bone-chilling grey. The thin light under the door strengthened. Frost feathered the rough stones inside the shed. My breath plumed in the air. The water in the basin felt like ice against my skin. Every movement was agony. My joints protested, stiff and cracking. The dryness was a vice tightening around my entire being. Survival. Purpose.
The lock rattled. The door scraped open. Granite stood silhouetted against the weak, grey dawn. He looked even larger in the half-light, a shambling mountain of worn wool and leather. He carried a dented metal pail. His eyes, still devoid of anything resembling human warmth, scanned the shed, lingering on me huddled in the filthy basin. A flicker of… something… crossed his stony face. Disgust? Impatience? Irritation at having to deal with this living problem he'd purchased?
"Out," he grunted, his voice thick with sleep or phlegm. He dumped the pail's contents onto the shed floor near me with a wet slap. Kitchen slops – vegetable peelings, congealed grease, something unidentifiable and brown. Pig food. My breakfast invitation. The smell was nauseating, but beneath the rot, I caught the faint, precious scent of water clinging to the scraps.
I didn't hesitate. Playing weakness didn't mean ignoring sustenance. I hauled myself out of the basin, my movements slow, stiff, exaggeratedly painful. My bare feet hit the frozen dirt floor, sending shocks of cold up my legs. I ignored the slops he'd dumped and shuffled towards the pail he still held. My eyes fixed on the droplets beading its rim.
"Water?" My voice was a raw croak, perfectly calibrated. "Please… Master Granite… water?" I reached a trembling, cracked hand towards the empty pail, not touching him, but close. Close enough to smell the stale tobacco and unwashed skin beneath his layers. Close enough for him to feel the unnatural coolness radiating from me.
He jerked the pail back, scowling. "Work first. Water after. If you earn it." He thrust a coarse hemp sack into my hands. It smelled of dried beans and dust. "Potatoes. Field behind the pigsty. Dig. Fill the sack." He pointed a thick finger towards a patch of rocky, frost-rimed earth visible through the open door. "Half sack by noon. Or no water. No food."
The threat was clear. The field looked barren, the soil frozen solid. An impossible task for a human in my apparent state. Perfect. It created dependency. It created opportunities for 'accidental' contact.
I clutched the sack, letting my shoulders slump further, injecting a convincing tremor into my limbs. "Yes, Master Granite." I kept my eyes downcast, submissive. But beneath the facade, my mind was mapping him. The thick veins standing out on his weathered hands. The pulse point visible at the base of his thick neck. Warmth radiated from him, a biological furnace I needed to tap into.
He grunted, seemingly satisfied with my cowed response, and turned away, heading towards a small, smoke-stained stone hut – his dwelling. I shuffled out into the biting dawn. The air was knife-sharp, stealing my breath, searing my gills. The mountains reared like broken teeth against the grey sky. Silt End clung to the slope below – a dozen hovels of mud-brick and rough-hewn timber, smoke struggling from a few chimneys. It looked less like a village and more like a scab on the landscape. Desolate. Perfect.
The potato field was a patch of despair. The earth was iron-hard, frozen clods interspersed with sharp rocks. Granite had left a crude, heavy mattock leaning against the pigsty wall. I picked it up. It felt alien, clumsy in my hands. Use the weakness. I positioned myself near a frost-heaved mound, raised the mattock with exaggerated, shaking effort, and brought it down. It struck the frozen earth with a jarring clang, skittering off and nearly wrenching my arm from its socket. I let out a small, pained gasp, stumbling backwards, dropping the mattock. I fell to my knees, clutching my shoulder, breathing hard – genuine pain layered over performance.
I waited. Counting silently. One… two… three…
Granite's door slammed open. He stomped out, his face a thundercloud. "Useless! Can't even swing a pick?" He strode over, looming over me. "Get up!"
I cowered, making myself smaller. "It… it's too hard… Master… I'm weak… cold…" I looked up at him, letting my eyes well with artificially summoned tears. "Please… show me?"
He stared down, his empty eyes flickering with annoyance, then a spark of something else – impatience mixed with a brute's condescension. He saw a broken tool needing instruction. He saw vulnerability. He didn't see the trap.
"Fool woman," he muttered, but he bent down. Not to help me up, but to grab the mattock. His large, calloused hand wrapped around the handle, inches from where mine still rested. Contact. Skin near skin. His heat was a physical wave, intense, alluring. Life force.
He raised the mattock with ease, his powerful shoulders bunching under the worn fabric. "Like this." He brought it down with brutal force, shattering the frozen clod. Dirt and ice fragments sprayed. "Put your back into it. Strength!"
He was focused on the demonstration, on the earth. He didn't notice my hand, still on the mattock handle, subtly shifting. My fingers didn't grip; they brushed against the back of his knuckles. A feather-light, lingering touch. Cold skin against warm.
The moment of contact was brief, less than two seconds. But it was enough. It was the spark.
Deep within me, something primal stirred. Not emotion. Biology. A complex cascade triggered. Specialized cells at my fingertips, dormant until now, activated. Microscopic filaments, thinner than spider silk, coated in biochemical keys designed to bypass human immune defences, extruded. They made contact with the pores and microscopic abrasions on Granite's weathered knuckles.
Anchor initiated.
It wasn't painful. For him, it felt like nothing more than the brief chill of my touch. He wouldn't feel the filaments penetrating, seeking entry points, dissolving infinitesimally small pathways through the outer layers of his skin. He wouldn't sense the first few nanoscale packets of genetic material – the blueprint for the binding, the chemical commands to suppress localized immune response, the markers that would signal this host is occupied – slipping into his bloodstream. A silent, biological declaration of ownership.
He finished the swing, dropping the mattock with a thud. "See? Now you try." He straightened up, wiping his hands on his trousers, oblivious to the invasion that had just begun.
I scrambled up, keeping my eyes down, hiding the cold flare of triumph that threatened to show. "Thank you, Master Granite," I whispered, injecting breathless gratitude into my voice. I picked up the mattock, my touch now charged with purpose. My fingers tingled where the filaments had retracted, the deed done.
He watched for a moment, his stony gaze critical, as I feigned a clumsy, slightly improved swing that still barely chipped the frozen surface. Satisfied I wasn't completely useless, or perhaps just bored, he grunted and turned back towards his hut. "Half sack. Noon."
Alone again, I swung the mattock with deliberate inefficiency. The physical labour was agony in the cold, dry air, each breath a rasp, each movement sapping precious moisture. But beneath the pain, a profound biological satisfaction hummed. The first step was complete. The anchor was set. Microscopic tendrils were even now navigating Granite's warm, rich bloodstream, travelling towards optimal nesting sites – deep muscle tissue, fatty deposits, near major vessels. Scouting. Preparing.
I looked down at the pathetic scratch I'd made in the earth. Then I looked towards Granite's hut, smoke now curling weakly from its chimney. His hearth. His body. My nursery.
Soon, little pearls, I thought, the cold wind biting my face. Your cradle warms. The binding has begun. The pink future stirred in the deep, genetic dark, waiting for the warmth to coax it forth. The harvest was seeded. Now, it needed time, proximity, and the unsuspecting lifeblood of the stone-hearted man who thought he'd bought a slave. He'd bought oblivion. And I was the architect.