“Uh, um, hang on-,” I switch over to my large body, taking a look around, checking where I am, if I can even see the leviathan. “Um, no, I can't even see where we are, sir. I don't think I can he-,”

“You have to,” he says in a voice that only barely hides his rising hysteria, “Mort, listen; is there some way you can get over here before we-,” A quake shakes everyone inside the cockpit, a loud, whirring grinding sound screeching through the entire ship, tattling that it’s only a matter of time before the shield gives out and the rest of the ship is crushed like an empty soda can. His eyes are wide and so, so blue. “Mort. There has to be something you can do. Anything.”

I… I don’t think-,

Well, I mean, I guess there’s one way I could get here in a matter of minutes. Just one. But if it doesn’t work, forget the ship, I’ll die too!

...Though, looking at Typhin, at the Lieutenant and everybody, few brave enough to shoot desperate looks at me, eyes brimming with death, how can I possibly say that I value my life above theirs? I’ve spent this long trying to find someone, am I just supposed to give up now out of the possibility that I might die?!

No. For the sake of these people, I’m ready to die.

I think.

I level my gaze with Typhin. “Sir, I think-, I think there might be something I can do.” His eyes fill with wavering hope. “But I’ll need you to open the door outside.”

Typhin shares a firm nod with the Lieutenant. “I’ll take you there, Mort.”

“Thank you.” We run there amidst shouting troopers and hurrying men, the shields creaking and moaning with each step we take. But we get there, and once we do, I’m ready.

Well, about as ready as you can be, I guess. What I’m about to do is extremely stupid and if a trooper decided to shoot me in the head and chest in a minute or so, I would die. Why?

Because, at this very moment, I’m making my larger body eat itself. I’m not kidding.

See, right now, I’m split in two, right? Since my tentacle-tail-thing is just split down and there are living consciousnesses in either body, so there’s no need for any recovery to happen. I’m about to change that. Namely by shoving all my tentacles into my primary mouth and just sort of chewing. And so, when an endlessly recovering object is shoved into a bottomless pit like my own mouth, it causes the regeneration to cancel out, letting me shove more and more tentacles inside, an experience that is deeply uncomfortable both from the eating and eaten side, but it has to be done.

Dozens of consciousnesses blip out of existence, my body searching for someplace to regenerate the lost limbs, and when I’ve finally got all my tentacles in my mouth, I turn myself inside-out and stab my final body, my last consciousness, with my own teeth.

And that’s it. My whole larger body, consumed by itself.

But it won’t be nowhere for long.

“Sir, open the door, quick!”

Typhin is only barely able to get proper distance and open the airlock for me to dangle my tail outside in time. Space aims to suck me out ass-first, but I’m able to refuse it by digging my hands into the metal of the ship, which probably isn’t a good idea, but I don’t have any better option. Peeking outside as best as I can, I’m given an excellent view of how the leviathan unhinges his jaws to engulf us fully, blotting out every star visible. But in that darkness, I’m also able to see how my tail grows longer and farther at a terrifyingly quick speed. After only a matter of seconds, I can feel how the still-regenerating end of it crashes into the inner mouth of the leviathan. But my tail continues growing, and until the end of it starts ballooning into my primary consciousness and mouth, I don’t say anything.

But once that happens, once I feel another consciousness form, I shout “close the door!” and Typhin obliges, the door slamming shut and cutting off my tail, or, rather, the grabby arm, as well.

I stumble a few paces, and then stop. My focus can’t be in here.

Just as Typhin approaches me, I shift my mind outside, letting my small body mindlessly collapse into his arms.

I’m in his mouth. Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m in his fucking-,

Hm. Hang on. Is it just me, or is it getting a bit cramped in here? Actually, yeah, it is! My body has barely even recovered and I’m already filling out the entirety of his mouth, what a wuss! Wait. Shoot, the ship! Where is it, where is it-,

Ah, there!

The hull is covered in a thin, kind of blue-ish covering that seems to have protected it from the brunt of the damage, but damn if I’m gonna fuck around and see it get worse. My first step is to make sure that it takes no more damage than it already has, and so, before my body has even fully recovered, I wrap a few of my tentacles around it, creating a strong bubble to shield it from the maw that I now fill almost completely.

And now, I need to get it out of here.

The leviathan’s mouth is mostly closed, sure, but there are enough gaps between the teeth for me to be able to see from which way the faint light of the stars is coming from. With my goal defined, I move towards it, all tentacles not occupied with protecting the ship forcing their way between the teeth to pry the jaws open.

But the leviathan is far from docile in this, reacting by grinding its millions of teeth together, cutting off some of my smaller tertiary tentacles. However, it isn’t enough to pierce my thicker tentacles, and once they’re able to dig in between the teeth as well, with a push and a pull and a heave and a ho, I tear the jaws both ways, forcing the maw open just a smidge, just barely enough for me to place more of my body into the nook in order to pry it open just a little more, a little more.

Until, finally, with trembling tentacles, the mouth is open enough.

-Now!

I shove the closed ball of tentacles shielding the ship through the cars of teeth and out into the freedom of space. Well there, I release my grip, spreading my tentacles like a flower, allowing the ship freedom.

The final tentacles letting go of the shuttle hold eyes, and through these eyes, I can only barely see the inside of the cockpit, where the Lieutenant is gripping white-eyed onto a chair or something.

Uh, hi! Better get going, sir!

I wave to him.

Aw, man, he didn’t wave ba-,

The jaws of the leviathan snap shut in front of me, biting with enough sheer strength to cut through any tentacle left outside his mouth, leaving most of me still inside his mouth.

Hm. If I wanted to, I could probably just let this body die, huh? I mean-, I’ll regenerate out of those tentacles left outside, and if not that, then I’m sure the ship has gotten far away enough to survive, so…

-But where’s the fun in that?

Heck yeah I’m fighting! Surviving! Battling a creature so much larger than me, stronger and-,

Something moves beneath me. Hey! No tongue, that’s unfair! I was pepping myself up!

The tongue tries to grab me, probably to drag me down into its gullet. Okay. Sure. You know what? See if I’ll let you! I still haven’t regenerated fully, buddy! Instead of letting this damn fish grab me with its tongue, I grab its tongue instead! A classic role-reversal, and for a moment, it seems like the leviathan doesn’t know how to react. That is, until I start eating.

Then it panics, alright. But the tongue is too weak to fight me, and after a mere minute, I’ve bereaved it of its one way of swallowing me.

Heh, take that, dummy! Stupid tra-,

Oh, the mouth is opening! Whatever fo-,

A large asteroid about a third of my own size crashes through the leviathan’s open mouth and right into my face, shoving almost half of my body into the upper part of its throat.

Shit-, fuck!

Every tentacle at my disposal instinctually wraps around the asteroid, crushing it in my grip, leaving me with a million rocky shards. But it’s still trying to swallow me, which would be bad, so instead of focusing too much on the rocks, I pull my tentacles through the mouth and stick them outside of the leviathan’s mouth before he can close his mouth fully. Then, I pull myself back up through his mouth, but before I force his mouth open to emerge like an invasive species, a little thought strikes me. This is… not a terrible situation to be in. He’s got scales on the outside and vulnerable flesh on the inside. Right as we’re speaking, the part where his tongue used to be is bleeding profusely, milky clear liquid seeping into the rest of his body.

...I can use this to my advantage.

But I can’t crush him from the inside. As it is right now, the most viable options I have for Murder is to either crush him or to eat him. Eating takes a long time and is boring. Crushing is fun. Plus, I’m not sure if the ship has gotten far away yet or if the leviathan is in pursuit, and I’m sort of missing a friendly face already, so I’d like to kill this guy as quickly as possible. Hmm.

My gaze falls on the numerous sharp rocks still littering his mouth since he hasn’t been able to swallow them yet (without a tongue). Uhuh. Rocks. The primitive knife.

I grab the largest shard I can find. Hold it tight. Point the sharp end upwards, at the roof of the mouth, towards the skull and brain. Hehe. Let’s go, baby!

Without any humane hesitation, I stab the shard as hard as I can into the roof of the mouth, feeling how it easily penetrates through the flesh only to instantly stop at the bone, but tenacious as I am, I just keep going, pressing it through with all the might and anger of a caveman being eaten by a mammoth, and once I get far enough to where the sharpness of the shard seems to flake away compared to the bones of the leviathan, I throw it to the side, crawling inside the wound I made mouth-first, opting to an even more primitive form of killing.

Eating.

Bone and flesh and blood vessels are easily crushed in my many, many maws, and with ruthless effectivity, I gnaw out cavities within the creature, finding its eyes and eating them until the creature is blind, working my way through the hollow cavities left by the eyes until I find its brain.

If I couldn’t see as easily in darkness as in light, I wouldn’t have been able to truly take in the massive expanse of perfectly translucent, gelatinous brain-matter before me. At least, I think it’s brain matter? There isn’t that much, all and all, but it’s clear enough by the place it occupies that this is the thing that makes the leviathan live.

As always, I dig in. Nom nom nom.

Hmm. Y’know, flavourless jelly is actually really disgusting. 0/10, absolutely revolting. In the end I resolve to just squeeze my eyes shut and swallow without looking. And, within a certain amount of time… All the brain is eaten.

There’s no clear change in the leviathan as a whole, but I can somehow feel that it’s gone limp.

Which is my cue for a hasty exit! I prefer eating from the outside in, less variables.

And so, with a few well-placed bites and punches to the upper area of the skull, I emerge. Once I’m outside the leviathan, I’m actually able to make a few comparisons when it comes to size. Length-wize, we’re about the same. But since he’s a fish and I’m a snowflake of tentacle strings, my mass is only around a fifth of his. Oh well. Once I eat him, I’ll be bigger, so it doesn’t matter!

I emerge fully, wrapping my tentacles around his body. Hm.

With a strong squeeze, I break his spine and most of his ribs, eliciting a violent, spasmodic jerk that only a dead body can make. Y’know. Just to be sure. Everything else considered… Yeah. It’s dead alright.

...Does that mean I’m the biggest creature in this system?...

Huh. That feels…

Like a weirdly hollow title.

Anyway, let’s get to eati-,

No, actually, hang on. I can eat without thinking. What’s more urgent is what’s happening on the ship. Where is the ship? Is it safe? Is it alright? I heave my body about, changing my perspective just to get a look around.

-Oh! There it is, thank God! Hovering just at the edge of the asteroid field, almost gone but not quite. Well, that’s all the confirmation I need right now, so…

I start eating, letting my mind zone out and, when I truly feel like I’m no longer thinking at all, I shift my consciousness into my smaller body.