Devour

It just kept growing...

This story is in response to the “Minutiae” prompt from Turtles of Alchemy. Please enjoy…

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Cerafis seemed like such a faraway threat when scientists first discovered it. An organic lifeform, larger than anything that had ever been discovered, but it was an inconceivable distance away. Million of lightyears.

It didn’t matter that it was growing.

It didn’t matter that it devoured planets.

No one batted an eye when it snuffed out stars.

It was so far away. A strange anomaly, to be sure, but nothing that should be a cause for worry.

But it kept growing. And it didn’t stop.

Scientists continued studying it, and they were making progress.

But it was making progress too.

I still remember the day when they announced that it had grown to the size of a galaxy. Within a few weeks, it had eaten several as well. They tried to take photos and scans of it, but it was just…

Flesh.

Endless flesh, stretched thin like canvas across the universe. And it just kept growing.

Next came the questions:

How do we kill it?

What’s making it grow?

How long do we have?

And all of that, all those questions, led to a single moment. One where I was strapped to a seat with a cockpit spread out before me. The ship I sat in was packed with more technology than anything my species had ever conceived.

It also carried a weapon they believed could kill Cerafis. Or at the very least, halt its growth. The only problem?

The weapon didn’t work.

It may as well have been a scratch on the foot of a giant for all the damage it did. It left a wound larger than my ship, but ultimately smaller than a pinprick on the body of this galactic…thing.

“Listen to me, we can use this!” my handler said.

“How?” I asked.

“Fly into the wound, enter its body!”

I shook my head. “And then what? I don’t have another bomb.”

“We’ll figure something out. Your ship has basic weapons. This is our only shot, we only built one of those things, after all.”

They were right.

I laid the throttle down and rocketed towards the wound in the wall of flesh that stretched into every direction. Globs of crimson liquid splattered against the clearview screen. I slammed into the wound and pushed through into a vein.

My vision turned red as my ship tumbled through the liquid. I frantically slapped buttons, twisted knobs and pulled on the yoke, but I couldn’t regain control.

It wasn’t designed to function inside of a body.

“I’m inside, but I can’t do anything!” I shouted.

“It’s fine, we’ll just follow the current. Veins lead to the heart, after all.”

I lifted my hands off the controls and sat back. My own heart was frantically beating in my chest. The sights surrounding me were entirely alien. The walls of the vein were clear as glass. I could see nearly infinite branching paths beyond.

It was almost beautiful.

“How long do you think this will take?” I asked.

“Who knows? I’ll be here with you the whole time, though. Try to stay calm, and remember: you’re going to save us all. You’re going to be a hero,” my handler said.

A hero, huh?

Wish my mom could see me now.

Are you finally proud of me?

I kept floating through those massive veins. Time meant nothing anymore. I slept. I ate rations that were stored on the ship. Days went by. Then weeks. The view was always the same.

Pure red, and beyond that, endless branching veins.

Like anyone, I had asked myself so many times where Cerafis came from. What did it want? Why was it devouring everything?

No time for answers.

All those questions went away when I saw the heart.

It loomed ahead, stretching above and below like a tower of flesh. It had a steady rhythm to it. Every thunderous beat shook the entire ship. All of those veins, those branching paths, led here.

“I see it!” I shouted.

My handler took a moment to respond. “Hey! I’m awake, I’m here! You can see it?”

“Yes! I’m about to enter it. What should I do?”

“Good, once you’re inside you should…” The line went quiet.

“Hey! Are you there? Hey! Tell me what to do!” I screamed.

I passed into the center of the heart as a blinding flash of light swept over me. I blinked, and suddenly I was standing on solid ground.

My ship was gone.

Everything was gone.

I was standing on a pathway inside of the heart. It was clear like the veins I had traveled through. Countless veins all around me flowed toward a center point at the end of the path, dwindling in size as they reached their destination.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

It was a person.

The center of Cerafis. The core of this impossible thing. It was a person.

Somehow the revelation only made me angry.

Of course it would be a person.

All we could do was devour and destroy. It’s all we had ever done.

Did we create Cerafis?

I ran down the path toward the person connected to the thousands upon thousands of veins. Their head was bowed, hair covering their face. Their body was naked and exposed.

I could kill them.

I wasn’t thinking. I’d left logic behind when I entered the heart. I just wrapped my hands around their neck and squeezed. The veins and walls of flesh rippled all around us, but I didn’t let go. I squeezed harder.

Their body shook and convulsed, but I didn’t stop. Not until they lifted their head and the hair fell out of their face.

But by then it was too late.

With their final breath, they smiled at me.

With my face.

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, I was floating in space.

Stars in every direction.

I couldn’t feel my hands or my body. I tried to breathe, but I quickly realized I didn’t have lungs.

I did have a mouth, though.

And all I felt was hunger.

I couldn’t recall how I had gotten there. My eyes wandered across the expanse surrounding me before finally settling on a planet with puffy clouds, verdant landmasses, and pristine oceans.

I licked my lips as I gazed upon it.

It looked…

Delicious.

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Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing

Listen to this while Cerafis continues to grow just out of sight…