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shadows-and-science-gone-mad · 3 years

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[CONTENT WARNING: scenes of graphic violence, gore, death, & cannibalism]

Talos 1193-7-E. October 6, 3738.

Thirdborn stalks through the jungle, making almost no sound as his clawed feet gently meet the soft ground. His piercing eyes flick from side to side as he scans the underbrush for prey. So far, his hunt has been unsuccessful, only managing to find a few meager scraps of flesh on a long-desiccated carcass. Plenty to sate his own appetite, but not enough. His clan is counting on him to return with enough food for everyone.

A sound in the brush causes him to halt. His head snaps toward the source of the noise. As he stares intently into the vegetation, waiting for another sign to strike, the sound repeats. Thirdborn raises his reptilian head skyward and inhales deeply. The scents of the forest seep into his brain, mixing with the thousands of memorized odors he has gathered from countless hunts. He filters out the ambient background scents until he identifies the specific odor associated with the noise he heard.

A blade-snout.

Dangerous and difficult to take down, but more than enough to feed him and his clan.

He resumes his hunt, now moving in the direction of the blade-snout’s foraging. Slowly, his quarry begins to come into view. Its body is about the size of a rhinoceros, with a dark-grey coloration leading into a brilliant red on its face. It is facing away from Thirdborn, but he can still see the meter-long serrated cranial crest that gives the beast its name. He’s faced this sort of prey before, but he will have to be extremely careful if he is to successfully kill it. He crouches even lower, his belly almost touching the forest floor. He silently slinks towards his quarry, inching ever nearer. His leg muscles tense, and he prepares to spring on his unwary victim.

Suddenly, the foliage across the clearing explodes. Thirdborn’s carefully focused hunt is ruined as another reptilian leaps from the brush, snarling as it collides with the blade-snout’s great body. The intruder’s long claws sink into the rough hide, anchoring it in place as it begins to bite and slash at its quarry. The blade-snout bellows in surprise and pain, and begins shaking its body, trying to dislodge its attacker.

But, the predator was anticipating this.

As the blade-snout rears onto its hind legs, the predator reaches under its neck with one of its muscular arms. It grabs ahold of the blade-snout’s head, steering both hands clear of the deadly horn. Flexing its powerful muscles, it quickly twists the head at a sharp angle. A snap of bone, and the blade-snout’s struggling body goes limp, its neck broken. The predator drops its deceased prey to the ground, grabs ahold of its hind legs, and begins to drag it off into the brush.

As Thirdborn’s surprise at the sudden attack begins to fade, he truly notices the identity of the interloper. It looks almost exactly like him, only around 30% larger, and with a much blunter muzzle. A soft growl emits from his throat as he recognizes it: Firstborn, his older brother.

The rudimentary society these reptiles have begun to develop places an enormous value on physical strength and hunting prowess. As such, the oversized, powerful Firstborn seized control of the pecking order almost as soon as he reached breeding age. Meanwhile, Thirdborn, while still plenty strong, grew to be smaller-than-average, so occupied a slot near the bottom of the clan’s hierarchy. As one of the clan’s few males, he was still made to venture into the forest daily to gather food, but his meticulous planning and stealth skills were looked over in favor of his brother’s raw power.

This has fostered a deep-seated jealousy in the younger reptile. One that is certainly not helped by his brother’s current commandeering of his kill.

Thirdborn lets off an annoyed snort before turning back into the brush and stalking away. By the time he returns to his clan’s camp, he is not surprised to see his brother gloating over his accomplishment, as the others feast on the blade-snout’s flesh, utterly enthralled by his story. Thirdborn slinks over to the gnarled tangle of roots serving as his bed, drops to the ground and curls up. He has no desire to partake in celebrating an accomplishment that his brother stole from him. He closes his eyes, places a clawed hand over his head, and does his best to ignore the revelry around him.

Orbit of Talos 1193-7-E. October 6, 3738.

Floating weightless in the uppermost reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, the ancient dark matter entity known as Pulse watches the reptilian drama playing out below.

When one is nearly as old as the universe itself, one’s options for entertainment exhaust themselves fairly quickly. And this is certainly the case for Pulse. It has spent a veritable eternity wandering across the universe, doing little more than passively observing the goings-on around it. It hasn’t been totally idle — many a culture throughout the universe has depictions of angels or devils that resemble its rough outline of a form. But, it’s been millions of years since it last interfered directly with a developing civilization.

Something about these reptiles, though, has captured its interest.

Perhaps it feels some sort of connection with them. Perhaps their acts of joy and jealousy remind it of a simpler time, when it too felt such things. Perhaps these raw unfiltered emotions reached out to it across time, and drew it here to their source. Or perhaps it’s just really, really bored. Whatever the reason, Pulse feels an undeniable urge to interfere with their development.

But, rather than the grand gestures it usually performs — arriving in broad daylight in a flash of lightning and fire, trying to inspire fear and awe in its observers — today it plans to employ a much more... subtle method.

As the daylight sky blackens into night, Pulse descends through the atmosphere, landing gently on the outskirts of the reptiles’ camp. It surveys the sleeping creatures, most of them piled around the mutilated carcass of the blade-snout. Though it is an immensely-powerful being, trying to single out one individual among the tangle of bodies and limbs is too risky. It could accidentally wake them all, making this whole ‘stealth’ endeavor a waste of time.

Instead, it glides over to a lone reptile, curled up amongst the roots of a tree, some distance from the rest of the pack.

It crouches, and places an amorphous hand onto the sleeping animal’s head. Due to the unique nature of its physiology, its entire body is an exceptional conductor of electricity, and is able to transmit electrical impulses through mere physical contact.

In this case, it is transmitting brainwaves.

It imparts the sleeping creature with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its billions of years of experiences.

This sort of knowledge is not meant to occupy the mind of an organic entity, and even such a trace quantity is enough to fundamentally rewrite such a being’s identity, down to its very core.

Its work done, Pulse releases the reptile from its grasp. It then silently rises from the camp, returning to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, resuming its role as passive observer. It has set these events in motion, and now intends to simply watch them play out.

This should be interesting...

Talos 1193-7-E. October 7, 3738.

The morning sun illuminates the alien jungles of Talos, burning the nighttime darkness away with brilliant pink light. The nocturnal denizens of the forest retreat into their dens, as their diurnal counterparts take their place in the sun.

In the reptiles’ camp, the clan begins to stir. The females tend to the nests, distributing fresh meat to the elders and hatchlings who were unable to participate in the previous night’s feeding frenzy. The smaller males root through the dirt, searching for insects, small mammals, and tubers that can be added to the clan’s food stores. And, of course, Firstborn rises from his slumber, his shortened jaws stretching wide as he yawns away the night’s drowsiness.

He stretches his powerful limbs, and looks around his domain. As the largest male in the clan, all of the females mate with him, and him alone. All of the hatchlings, and even many of the young adults, were fathered by him. As he gazes upon his family, he can see all of his children, mates, and siblings going about their morning routines, exactly as they should.

All except for one.

With a snort, Firstborn stomps across the clearing to the huddled body of Thirdborn. While every other member of the clan has awoken and begun their work, his younger brother is still nestled up in his resting spot. Of course, this scrawny pariah would be so useless as to not even wake up when the morning comes.

Firstborn hisses at Thirdborn, trying to rouse him. It seems to have no effect; Thirdborn just continues to lie there, hands over its head, trembling softly. Firstborn responds to this lack of action by roaring, a loud scream that should be more than enough to wake him. Still nothing. Now seriously annoyed, Firstborn uses his powerful forelimb, and delivers a swift smack against the lout’s muzzle.

Thirdborn’s eyes snap open, and roll up to lock with Firstborn’s. But, something seems different about them. Instead of the cold amber gaze of the day before, his eyes are deep red, bloodshot, and are staring at his brother with an expression of blind, pure contempt.

No, not contempt.

Hunger.

Empty, meaningless, all-consuming hunger.

In a flash, Thirdborn erupts upward from his resting position. He impacts Firstborn square in the chest, fast enough to offset his reduced mass, and knock the larger reptile to the ground. Pinning his brother with his claws, he unhinges his jaw and clamps it around Firstborn’s throat.

Firstborn lets out a hellish scream, and tries to free himself from the smaller creature’s grip. In previous squabbles, he has never had problems overpowering Thirdborn. But now, his attempts to wrench his arms free only causes his attackers claws to dig in even deeper. Eventually, the claws break the skin, tear through muscle, and wedge themselves deep between the bones of his wrist.

His mind overwhelmed with confusion and agony, Firstborn attempts to cry out once again. But, his own bellows are cut off as Thirdborn tightens his grip around his neck. His breathing grows swift and sharp, and his mouth fills with the taste of his own blood, as his weaker sibling mercilessly crushes the life out of him.

When Firstborn finally stops struggling against his attack, and his body goes slack as the last flickers of life escape his brain, only then does Thirdborn release his grip on his throat. Dislodging his claws from the shredded tangle of tendons and muscles that were Firstborn’s arms, he raises his head skywards and screams. As long and as loud as he can. Blood fills his mouth, a mixture of his prey’s and his own, as his body seemingly fails from the extreme over-exertion of his violent act. As the air in his lungs finally runs out, he takes a step back from the still-warm body of his rival. He begins to rake his claws against Firstborn’s chest, carving long deep gouges into the flesh. He pries open the chest cavity, and begins to gorge himself on the entrails of his victim.

Naturally, this display of excessive savagery has attracted the attention of the rest of the clan. They have gathered around the cannibal’s brutal feast, and watch him with apprehension and fear. One of the older females, Firstborn’s favorite mate, slowly approaches Thirdborn. In an instant, before anyone has time to react, he whirls around and slashes her across the throat. She collapses in a heap, her body twitching as blood pours from the gaping hole in her neck. Thirdborn abandons his first kill, and shoves his muzzle into the open wound, beginning to consume the female’s body before she has even died.

The rest of the clan moves away from the bloodthirsty killer, but their movement draws his attention away from his feeding. He lets out a guttural hiss, unlike anything their species should be capable of producing, and charges at the creatures that were once his family.

Firstborn was only the beginning.

Talos 1193-7-E. June 16, 3739.

It has not even been a full year since Pulse visied this world and toyed with the mind of Thirdborn. And yet, if one had not seen the transformation occurring in real-time, one would never guess that the current Talos was the same planet it had visited.

Where once there were lush, vibrant jungles, now there is nothing but death. The great trees lie in ruin, the vegetation trampled into sludge, the rotting bodies of the planet’s myriad creatures baking and blackening in the sun, turning the once pink skies black as they slowly dissolve into nothingness. It would appear that, in the span of less than a year, the planet has completely died.

But, such an assessment wouldn’t be entirely accurate.

Talos didn’t die. It was killed.

From out of the mammoth carcass of a tusked grazer, a reptilian figure emerges. Its skin is caked with dried blood and flaking tissue, its claws drip with the putrefaction of its innumerable prey, and the decaying remains of the grazer’s entrails dangle from its rotting jaws, the lips completely deteriorated, revealing a tangled array of blackened teeth. It is almost recognizable as its former self, but twisted and broken beyond comprehension, its jagged body as fractured as its mind.

It scarfs down the fetid organs in a few swift gulps, before burying its snout once again into its victim’s broken thorax. This is all it has done in nearly a year — all it’s even capable of doing anymore. This basic act of consumption has completely overwhelmed its very being. What began as mere jealousy has evolved and warped into something far darker. Its metaphorical hunger made harshly, cruelly literal.

The creature once known as Thirdborn looks to the skies, spying a glimmer of starlight through the putrid clouds. And the spark of hunger flares once more in its shattered brain.

The murder of its sibling was nothing.

The massacre of its clan, a mere trifle.

Even the total annihilation of its homeworld is no longer enough.

It now hungers for existence itself.

It will consume it all.

And it will never, ever stop.

#my writing #alliance space #my ocs #pulse #ao-003 #science fiction #short story #violence tw #gore tw #death tw #cannibalism tw

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