The other side of the hole is really far away, but I don’t mind the walk. As I’ve come to realize, if I just bundle up my tentacles into larger bunches, I can walk around pretty easily. Going by what one of my tertiary eyes sees, I look kind of like a large, robed figure. Except there’s no robe, it’s just my tentacles. Watching myself from a down-on-the-ground perspective always feels weird, but now even more than before, mostly since I no longer look like a big snowflake. Wack.

Honestly, if I saw myself lumbering toward me, I’d maybe get a little bit scared.

Maybe.

Anyhoo, I’ve gotten there now! The cavern, that is. Man, it almost looks like someone just gouged out a huge chunk of the asteroid. Just a massive slice of cheese; gone.

I’m barely a fifth as high as it is, so I feel positively dwarfed just standing here. Unimportant! It’s time to explo-,

There’s a thing there. More like sort of just… A little guy? Honestly, he just looks like a little head stuck on a big skirt. And he’s just sitting there? No, wait, he’s turning to me. Or is he? The thing hasn’t got any eyes, just a pair of long antennae shifting about, so I have no idea if it can actually see me. Considering it literally hasn’t got any eyes, I’ll assume it can’t see me.

Since nothing’s stopping me from wandering up to it, I do just that. Its little antennae keep wiggling about, and since I’ve suddenly lost all ethics, I grab onto its head with one of my many tentacles.

Only to find it stuck.

-Huh? Wait, hold on, what the heck is-,

One of its antennae brush across the tentacle holding it, and only then does it react. Not in a very reactive way though, no, its antennae just sort of… Start going haywire. Flapping about and shooting around pretty much at random, and for a moment I recognize that it would make for a very good cat toy.

...Shit, I got distracted! Why the heck can’t I lift it? I’m pulling as hard as I can, how come-,

Wait. Hang on. I know that shape! Broad cone? Stuck to something?

Aha, suction cup!

Knowing the crux of the creature, I react as any intelligent creature would do and exploit the weakness I know is in it. Namely by slipping one of my tertiary beneath its skirt. With the pressure released, the little creature loosens from the ground and I proudly lift it up. Not so calm are you now, boy?

...Instinct kicks in. I angle the creature to peek up its skirt.

It’s just a big mouth. I’m not sure what I expected. Anyhoo, I stick it in my mouth.

1 007 -> 1 017

Mhm, mhm. Pretty chewy texture, gooey inside. Actually kind of gross just because of that, since I hadn’t expected it to pop. 2/10. For some reason, the antennae were crunchy. This does not improve my rating. All together, a really non-conforming meal in a very bad way.

Anyway, snack aside, time to turn back to the cave-,

Hang on, what’s that rumble I feel?

No, seriously, there’s like a rumble in the ground. Kind of feels like how I always imagined an earthquake would feel. It’s probably nothing, maybe just asteroids crashing down or something. Maybe I’ve gotten oversensitive to touch since touch and sight are the only two senses I have le-,

No, wait, I take that back. That rumble is definitely getting stronger.

Or closer?...

Oh fuck. Oh God. Am I gonna get stampeded? Should I leave the caverns? Should I-,

Before I could make any decision beyond freezing, it arrives, namely by crashing into me at what feels like a hundred kilometres an hour, impaling several of my tentacles cores on what I imagine to be horns or teeth or anything like that, but since my body is large and wide I do not fall down or get trampled beneath it, no, instead my body wraps around its head like a red cloth around a bull’s face, and for a solid moment, I realize I’m sharing the space with several others. Whatever this creature is, it has a serious parasite problem.

Forget just suction cups, which are stuck to it like ticks, there are also plenty of other, similar creatures, some of which resemble leeches, others that don't seem to be feeding at all. Just chilling.

Speaking of chilling, it’s certainly not something that I should be doing while impaled in multiple places. At least I’m calm enough to notice that the creature that just attacked me is not a bull, but instead what seems like a very long horned eel. It’s so long I can’t even see the end of it!

Though, impaling me in a way that gives me, as the smaller creature, access to its back… Unwise mo-,

A large part of my eyes was just blotted out. Shit, it’s trying to bite down on me! Well, so it may do, but I’m not letting it get all of me!

Sacrificing the parts that were already in its mouth, I bite off the affected area. Several other parts of me remain impaled, but that can easily be rectified. While it’s stupidly chewing on like five of my cores, I silently pull the rest of my body off of its horns and slide over to sit fully on its back. It has no eyes, only a pair of eerily long, branching antennae that seem to sweep the floor. Oh, and of course a large mouth that’s currently chewing on my own body.

How does it taste, eel-fucker?! Bet it tastes like mouldy cheese, bweh!

Gee. Came right outta nowhere.

I pluck one of the suction cups off of the eel’s back and stick it in one of my many mouths.

1 017 -> 1 027

Right. Nice. Let’s try one of the leeches.

1 027 -> 1 042

And then a suction cup.

1 042 -> 1 052

...All things considered, maybe this isn’t too bad? There’s plenty of parasites here on his back, and my body has almost fully recovered, so-,

One of the suction cups erratically wiggles its antennae. The heck is that supposed to-,

The eel’s antennae perk up, shiver for a moment, and eerily seems to freeze. And then, it heaved up from the ground, the infinite eternal tail stretching into the depths of the cavern lifting it up, and a thought and a jerk, it slams the upper side of its head, where I’m chilling, right into the ceiling. Several of the other parasites around me are crushed or simply pop under the pressure, but octopuses are flexible enough to survive it. While they, the wimps they are, die, I dig my teeth into the eel’s back like a damn parasite, enforcing I stay on top of it.

It then slams its head into the ceiling a few more times, rubs it close like a grater just to ensure everything is dead, and puts its head back down. All the other parasites are dead. I am not. Though I am battered and beaten, quite a few of my cores have actually popped like the parasites, but that is to be expected under the circumstances.

The eel seems happy, and so am I, because now I have corpses to eat!

1 052 -> 1 062 1 062 -> 1 087 1 087 -> 1 107

Neat, neat, nea-,

The eel is moving. But it’s not turning around or anything, no, like some sort of wind-up-toy, it just gets pulled back into the cavern. All the while I dig my teeth into its supple flesh in a meek attempt to not fall off and, most likely, die. Hey, I was going into the cavern anyway, so this is a complete victory for me!

Except for the fact that the eel just keeps going further inside. And further. And again further.

I don’t even gain anything from eating his flesh, so all and all, this is just a very uncomfortable ri-,

Oh, hold on,

A little suction cup just tried to get on the eel, so I helped him get up. And then I helped him into my stomach.

1 107 -> 1 117

Surprisingly, this hiker-situation occurs several times during our travel, giving me quick snacks seemingly just for the heck of it.

1 117 -> 1 242

Maybe I’d enjoy this whole situation if it hadn’t been going on for so damn long. Doesn’t this cave ever end? For the duration of this, I’ve just been hugging this thing’s back, looking at the path ahead and trying not to think that I might never get out. Hm. Maybe I should have been paying attention to what direction we were heading? As it is, if I want to reliably get out, I’ll need to eat my way through the wall, which, although possible, would take an ungodly amount of time.

Huh. Maybe I should have gotten off sometime at the start? Maybe I should get off now before I go even further? Maybe I should-,

The cavern narrows. The eeg barely squeezes through and I stretch and squish my body close enough to him to avoid being scraped off. Narrowing, narrowing, the distance between me and the roof growing thinner, thinner…

Until the eel erupts out of the tight cavern and into a giant, steeping cliff. In shock, I lose my grip on it, all eyes drawn to the massive, gaping cavity within the cavern, a hundred meters deep, and the eel is still going down, mouth gaping as it continues being pulled along by something invisible, all the while I plummet, deeper, deeper, my eyes too wide to close, and in the end, I’m forced to resort to bundling myself all up, forcing myself to stare as the floor closes on me at dizzying speeds.

I crash. The sharp rocks grate away at my tentacles. They don’t break since I haven’t got any bones, but many get impaled or crushed or destroyed. I lie in a heap, trying to still the beating of my heart, watching as the eel disappears into a hole.

I look up. I fell pretty far, huh? That’s...mildly concerning.

I could probably get up if I just-,

Why, hello there. The heck are you?