Get ready, we’re ramping up once more for the dark side of things.

Insert pithy intro here, I’m tired.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 10: A Civilized Abomination

Day 51

—————

When I woke up this morning Waah was there as usual, but she didn’t greet me as enthusiastically as on previous days. I did my puzzled routine and did my best to convey concern, though I was still unclear how much of my pidgin sloth was getting across. Then she pulled an obsidian dagger from her pocket. It was one of ours! I didn’t have one on me when I was caught. She had found them! “Naw…” she started, hesitantly.

“Where?”

The following conversation was intense and painfully long. I didn’t know half the necessary words, and it was hours before Waah managed to convey the necessary vocab to get the meaning across. Basically, my brothers were split up, and they were being held prisoner, but not by the Sloth tribe. Waah had personally found both me and a group of two, that sounded like Harper and Rabbit, but while they were in the process of transporting them back to be caged they were ambushed by a rival tribe. The details were unclear, but one terrible fact could be discerned. Waah pointed at my face. “They look like I do.” She nods.

No wonder I was locked in a cage when I was found. Nothing indicated Waah’s people were anything but generous and kind, yet for berry theft I was locked in a cage for a week. Now it made sense. There was another tribe hostile to this one in the area, and they shared my genetics. When I was found, the Sloths assumed I was an enemy that had unwittingly weakened myself on berries. The fact that I wasn’t killed on the spot was a miracle in itself. Tears ran down my face. This was worse than anything I had dreamed in my long hours in the cage. If they were with creatures made in the facility they could be returning my brothers to their cell as we spoke. I know all four of us would rather die than go back to that place.

Waah put an arm on my shoulder through the bars. She said something about returning shortly and made her retreat. I sat there to the sounds of birds and leaves rustling, and I wept. Here I had been playing the amateur linguist while my two most defenseless companions, my blood brothers, were being reduced to lab rats by a nightmare horde that had already been dealt the same hand. Things had seemed so light recently, hanging in the forest, chatting with Waah. I had forgotten the reality of this world. Waah was nice, and I enjoyed her company, but in my thirst for knowledge and my joy in meeting other benign intelligent life, I had ignored those few friends that made my life bearable. Harper, Rabbit, Wolf. My family and my heart. I started thinking furiously on a change that would allow me to escape. I was flustered. I couldn’t stay here, not for a moment longer. I looked inside, and the lights were blinking wildly, more agitated than I had seen them yet. “I don’t know what the light show means, but if you have any pity in that glow of yours, you will help me save my brothers.” I couldn’t be sure if the pattern responded. I think it lit up once.

Just as I dove into myself and readied to affect a grotesque change that would make me a human parachute, the rope jerked. Shit, they had noticed my actions, and were cutting the cord! I opened my eyes wide and looked at the guard. He had tied the rope around a branch and was glaring at me. Second ticked by, and I didn’t plummet to my death. After a long breathe, I felt another tug, and slowly, my cage began a descent to the ground. Waah was letting me out. I sat down in the center, as I had for so many days, and I cried. I sobbed and sobbed until I was out of tears. After maybe an hour the cage settled on the grass, and Waah crawled down a nearby trunk to open the cage.

As she approached, thirty or more of her people emerged from behind branches and out of bushes. I was slowly, warily surrounded by the group of wide eyed tribesman. They saw my tears, and many looked visibly shocked. I suppose the last thing they expected from the abominations of the facility was a display of emotion. Waah approached and wrapped her arms around me. She was so small, so light. Many of the men in the group tensed as she approached, and several spears were leveled at me.

“Thank you” I said, in my best imitation of their language. Reactions were mixed, but most once again seemed surprised to see me display this level of intelligence. Over the next hour me and Waah sat amongst her kin, discussing in our broken way the location of the other tribe and the place where my brothers were taken from them. It seemed to have been right around the time I was captured, and I felt fresh tears coming when she mentioned that they had been almost to the berry garden when they were found, following me.

After getting the full story, I asked if I was free to go. Waah looked at me with her impossibly big eyes and nodded slowly. She handed me my brother’s dagger and pointed in the direction we had worked out as being the rough direction of the other tribe. The others made an opening for me, and I gave Waah another light hug before turning to leave.

When I was maybe fifty feet from them, I turned around once more. The group was watching. In their language I tried my best to convey my thanks, and my sorrow over the grief my facility cousins had caused them. I don’t know how much was understood, but it was the best I could do. Before leaving, I turned once more to look at Waah, and gave my best ““Waaah nii, Waah” See you later, Wah. As I stepped into the brush, I heard her corresponding “Waaah nii, Naw”. And with that promise, I felt my eyes harden. I had a mission to accomplish, and family to protect.

I ran headlong until I reached the river, and this time I didn’t wait to build a bridge. Relying on sheer breathing ability and my continually strengthened muscles I dove in head first and flailed towards the far bank. I hit several rocks, and my nonexistent swimming skills meant the short forty foot trip took an agonizingly long time, but I was a man possessed. Eventually I flopped down on the far bank a good half mile from where I had started and barreled into the undergrowth. I used moss and the sun to orient myself and blindly charged through the thick forest. I had to fight off several large insects and a large rodent of some sort, but in my single minded pursuit I felt no fear, and slashed blindly with the obsidian knife until whatever was slowing me down stopped moving.

After hours of running, I came to the end of the forest. I looked through, and was dumbfounded by the site ahead. Giant white cubes of stone and brick were built into the obsidian walls of the canyon. I could hear the waterfall off to my right, signaling that I was somewhere near the entrance to the cavern. Was this the main door to the facility? If so, it was bigger than I had ever imagined. The exit to the cavern was a solid day of walking, and we had been kept further still inside. Though the sight was dazzling, I couldn’t help but fall into despair at the thought of trying to find my brothers in this place. Waiting in the brush, I watched for movement. This was the facility after all, and I knew the creatures that had taken my brothers could do the same to me.

I was surprised by how easy it was to find the things. After maybe fifteen minutes of waiting, a group of four broke from the forest a few minutes walk to my left. It was obvious immediately that the sloths never stood a chance. These weren’t like the frail, specialized things we had encountered during our escape. No, these were hunters, built for life on the surface. They stood a good seven feet tall, with lithe, condensed muscles and long limbs. Their hands and feet were abnormally big, and their skin glistened in a pattern I took to be scaling or other biological armor. The leader, the tallest of the group looked around, scanning for threats. This too was a difference from those we’d seen before. There was intent in his eyes. I had no way of gauging their intelligence from this brief display, but at the very least they weren’t single-use tools like the eye or the shaggy thing had been. These were vanguards, scouts. They needed to be able to judge and act as a group.

This was going to be difficult, and time was against me. I had a plan, having seen the defenses, but it might kill me. It would be a full body transformation, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive the attempt. I searched the area for a few minutes before I found a hollow tree that seemed to be unoccupied. I’d need hours to make the necessary changes, and being interrupted would likely cost me my life. With a last look at the facility, I crawled into the tree and got to work.

My dust was still riled up, pulsing erratically, even brighter than before, like it was excited to be of use. I was growing increasingly accustomed to ascribing emotions and meaning to it. I reminded myself it was a mysterious catalyst, not a living thing. Thinking of it as alive would only lead to misconceptions, and this was delicate work. I looked inward and thought of the epic task ahead. I wasn’t sure if my body could take the strain, and I wasn’t sure I knew enough to make it work. Still, time was ticking and I’d already wasted too much. I began to meditate on my chosen change, an adaptation used by some of the most mysterious creatures on the planet, at least those not changed by dust. I intended to be the mysterious one tonight. I didn’t know if these things could feel fear, but we were about to find out or die trying.

First change, chromatophores. All across my body, I instructed the glow to begin work on these specialized cells right under the surface of my skin. This was the part I was most sure of. Each cell contained pigments all across the rainbow. In addition to those found in natural chromatophores, which include black, brown, red and yellow, I added a white pigment and a combination of the other hues to approach natural skin color. I was on a vendetta, but I’d prefer to be able to look human if I made it through the night alive. I sat shaking as the change occurred, and when it was done I looked down in the dim light to see my skin was almost completely black. Only a dusting of the skin layer covering my new cells betrayed my former look. Now for the hard part. I dove back into my mind, alarmed by how quickly my dust had been depleted. I could only hope that it lasted until the job was done, or I would be even worse off than I had been, standing out as a black outline against the white buildings.

Now that I had my paints, I needed a brush. I directed my will towards constructing a dense grid of thin muscle fibers in between the chromatophores, like a mesh. When tensed at various levels, the pressure in the cells would shift and the different colors would become visible. The muscles were very thin, but they might also provide some level of protection since I had formed them like a natural web over my blood vessels and organs.

Next I attached nerves to these muscle groups, and directed them to grow right to the base of my brain stem without connecting. The pain began almost immediately, and it was much more intense than before. This was the first time I had made changes sequentially, and it seemed each would be worst than the last. I was putting my body through a lot of stress. More than an hour passed as I spasmed helplessly, knocking against the inside of the tree multiple times in my delirium. When the spasms finally passed I dove back in, anxious to see if I would have enough to complete the job.

What I saw was worrying. The dust had stopped pulsing noticeably, and was as dim as it had been in quite some time. There was no going back now though. This last part was what I had been worried about, and it would either kill me or complete the change. Returned to my body, and thought hard on what I would need to do. In order to use my new ability, I would need control of these new muscles. That meant fiddling with my brain to connect the nerves in a way my brain could interpret. The worst part is that it was avoidable. If I had more time, I could simply connect the nerves and grow the necessary pathways in the brain naturally over a course of months. It had been done in laboratory settings before, and with the crutch of dust I was sure it would work. I didn’t have months though, only tonight, and that meant relying on unknown magics to give myself brain surgery in a hollow tree. It would be funny if I wasn’t so sure I was about to kill myself and my entire family through my death. At least Wolf might be safe, I reminded myself. I took some small comfort in that, and decided it was now or never.

I fell into a half-conscious state, somewhere between my body and my mind. I thought very hard about color, and muscles for a few minutes, focusing on the movements of muscles and the desired effect to try and feel out where in my mind those pathways rested. I was far from convinced when I felt I had learned all I could. Breathing deeply of the musty interior of a rotting tree, I went once more into my own mind, and began my vandalism to the very organ that made me me. I connected the nerves, and watched where my brain lit up as a result of the new connection. Then I worked to create new neural pathways between the areas I needed, thoughts on color, skin and muscle reactions. I knew it wouldn’t be enough. It wasn’t right, I could tell immediately. I felt my soul shudder from the ultimate knowledge of my own impending death. As the pain started, I thought I could make out a faint pulsing, and something in my brain was changed, clicking into place. Then there was only blackness and cold, and a headache that felt like the sun.

-------------------------------------------------------------—

I won’t say much about the next chapter. Know that we’ll be seeing more action than we have in a while, and look forward to seeing what our hero can really do when you hurt his friends.