Drip.

Driiip.

Driiiiiiip.

It came slowly to her like the slow drip, drip, drip of a leaking pipe.

It was dark underground, but how could those born into the abyss even dream of the erstwhile sun? They should not be able to even imagine the brilliant brightness that stalks the distant overworld. But slowly...

Drip.

Driiip.

Driiiiiip.

Ever so slowly, she became aware.

There were thousands like her, black slugs borne of a putrid ichor. There would be thousands more as The Makers remained entwined and entombed within one another's immortal embrace. She did not understand why the others fled. She could not comprehend how her distant brothers and sisters could flee the sight of such... of such love.

And so while the others, the thousands and thousands of others fled the deepest depths of the forgotten facility, only she remained beside her mother and her father. It could have been a defect. It could have been the radiation that slowly seeded and flowered amongst the writhing horrors that filled the buried ruins.

She remained at The Makers' side, enraptured, and became aware.

She did not have a name for The Thinker, her only true company, but she could feel their psychotic touch. This other one was not the mother nor the father, but it watched The Makers as if hypnotized. She could feel The Thinker's jealousy. She could feel The Thinker's hate, and so she learned of humans and babies and so much more from the hazy connection that existed between them.

For seven years, she watched.

The Thinker did not once speak to her. It was possible that The Thinker had no mind, had no eyes for any but the human male. She wondered if The Thinker was in love with him. The thought made her sad.

For seventeen years, she developed.

Her brothers and sisters fled in a blind panic at the moment of their birth. She consumed their meat and became larger, faster. She listened to The Thinker's hazy ramblings. She became smarter and with that alien spark of intelligence... lonely.

After thirty seven years, she decided to leave.

She did not love the father as The Thinker did. There was something hypnotic about The Makers' immortal embrace, however, and it filled her with a red hot jealousy. She wanted her own love. She wanted her own lover, and so she decided to leave.

The Thinker shared little about the overworld in their crazed mutterings, an alien place where a bright scar of brilliant gold cleaved at the dark like some vengeful warrior. But that distant realm of light and wind bore within its bosom innumerable humans. It would be easy to find love out there.

It took her almost two years, but she escaped from the submerged facility.

It took her almost two years, but she crawled out of the dark and into the dawn of a new world.

And she would find l̶o̸v̸e̷.