The Eats

Subject M-17 registers Sector Hecate in short bursts. The fluorescent lights first, then, the sterile white walls. The one sided windows. Chatter on the other side of them

And then, Dr. Lucien Pryce sat on the other side. Leg folded over another, hands clasped together. Warm smile spread from ear to ear, staring intently at his midsection.

"Good evening, Michael. I see you slept well"

Michael swallows heavily "Good evening, doctor."

The doctor beams, and Michael feels his stomach physically recoil.

That's when he comes to the realization that his chest aches.

The brunet's heart skips a beat, brown eyes widening with horror. “Wh-What did you DO to me?” Michael whispers.

Gooseflesh races up his arm when the scientist beside him lays a hand against his forearm — skin far too cold against flesh left hypersensitive and raw with nerves. Lucien is still smiling, still carrying on as though he hadn’t violated Michael’s autonomy for the fifth time since arriving at the laboratory.

"Oh, Michael" Dr. Pryce says, painfully gentle. Like a parent soothing a frightened child "I perfected you. "You're everything I wanted Project Praesidium to be. The container the world needs you to be." Hot tears begin to cloud Michael's vision. His chest cramps violently. Voice barely above a whisper "I didn't ask for this."

The doctor laughs. It isn't warm. "I'm afraid you didn't have a choice in the matter, M-17."

Something writhes beneath Michael's skin, and he nearly gags. He registers the warmth, then the sharp kick against sensitive flesh.

Michael's heart sinks.

“Oh,” Lucien murmurs, voice soft with fascination. His gaze lingers on the involuntary movement beneath Michael’s skin, the sharp little twitch that made him flinch. “There you are.”

He steps closer, almost tenderly resting two fingers against the strained flesh. “Still responsive. That’s promising.”

Another kick. Michael chokes back a sound.

Lucien smiles — small, patient, dreadful.

“You should be proud, Michael. Most test subjects reject preservation this early.” His thumb traced a slow circle over the bulge. “But yours?” He tilted his head at the movement beneath the organ. “Yours is adapting beautifully.”

The brunet is painfully aware of the second heartbeat fluttering beneath his skin — frantic, rabbit-quick. He feels the feverish scramble of warm hands against the tender walls of his preservation organ, hears every hitched breath dissolve into panicked hyperventilation.

Another frantic shove distends outward beneath his ribs, accompanied by broken sobbing from inside him.

Warm instinct blooms traitorously in Michael’s chest, urging him to soothe, to shelter. Every muscle locks tight with restraint. His expression contorts into a hard grimace instead of the softer worry threatening at its edges—the kind of tenderness he knows Lucien would seize upon immediately.

Thankfully, the scientist gives a firm pat against the distended flesh and stands to his full height. Sliding his key-card through the door's slot with practiced grace. "Testing ends in 24 hours, Michael. I'll return in the morning to receive your...occupant, granted they're still alive tomorrow"

"Yes, Doctor Price." Michael replies softly, dread sinking like a stone in a lake in his chest

The lock disengages with a sterile chirp.

For one terrible second, Michael thinks Lucien might turn back around. Offer another clinical smile. Another touch. Another adjustment to whatever nightmare had been forced inside him.

But the scientist simply steps through the doorway.

The heavy door slides shut behind him with a hydraulic hiss.

Silence crashes down immediately after.

Michael doesn’t move.

His eyes stay fixed on the sealed door while the echo of occupant rattles around inside his skull. Not person. Not victim. Occupant.

Something shifts beneath his ribs.

A sharp, trembling inhale catches in Michael’s throat.

The test subject had gone unnaturally still during Lucien’s presence, likely out of terror, but now Michael can feel them again—faint movement fluttering deep within the preservation organ. Exhausted. Shaking.

Then, quietly:

“...is he gone?”

The voice is hoarse and cramped from confinement.

Michael swallows hard before nodding instinctively, only realizing a moment later they can’t see him through layers of flesh and synthetic fluid.

“Y-yeah,” he whispers. “He’s gone.”

A ragged sob answers him.

The sound punches straight through Michael’s chest.

Warmth surges instinctively through the organ in response to distress, muscles loosening without his permission to ease pressure around the cramped body inside him. He feels the immediate reaction — the other subject’s trembling slowing slightly as the organ adjusts to comfort and preserve.

Michael nearly gags at how natural it feels.

“Oh God,” he breathes, horrified. “What did he do to me…?”

Inside him, the test subject gives a weak, shuddering exhale. Warm fingertips press carefully outward, tentative now instead of frantic.

“...I think,” the muffled voice whispers, “it’s trying to protect me.”

Michael’s breath stutters.

The words settle heavily inside him, far worse than the panic had been.

Because the stranger is right.

He can feel it happening in real time — the preservation organ responding independently to stress levels, temperature, movement. Every frightened tremor from the person trapped inside him triggers another involuntary adjustment: muscles softening, internal fluid warming, circulation shifting to cradle and stabilize.

His body has decided this is something precious.

Something to keep alive.

Michael presses the heel of his hand hard against his mouth.

“No,” he whispers shakily. “No, no, I don’t—”

A small movement interrupts him. Not violent this time. Just careful.

A hand.

The test subject’s palm presses faintly outward from inside the organ, the shape barely visible beneath taut skin.

Michael freezes.

Then, before he can stop himself, his own hand drifts down to meet it.

Heat blooms instantly through the sensitive flesh at the contact. The organ contracts once around its occupant in what feels disturbingly close to contentment.

Michael’s eyes squeeze shut.

The person inside him lets out a weak sound — something between relief and a sob.

“I’m sorry,” Michael says suddenly, voice cracking apart. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know— I didn’t know what they were doing to you—”

“You’re a test subject too,” the stranger murmurs.

The simple acknowledgment nearly undoes him.

For days, everyone in the laboratory had spoken around him instead of to him. Specimen. Carrier. Preservation unit. Never Michael. Never human.

But this stranger, half-suffocated inside his altered body, says it like it still matters.

Another silence settles between them, quieter this time. Michael can hear the faint hum of fluorescent lights overhead. The ventilation system. Two heartbeats.

One slow.

One still rabbit-fast beneath his skin.

Then, hesitantly:

“My name’s Elise.” A hitching breath. “I think… I think he took me three days ago.”

Michael opens his eyes.

Three days.

Lucien had spoken about survival rates earlier with detached amusement, as though discussing spoiled samples.

Testing ends in twenty-four hours.

Granted they’re still alive tomorrow.

Michael’s stomach twists violently.

“Elise,” he repeats softly, anchoring himself to the name. To her. “Okay. Okay, listen to me.” His voice trembles, but hardens with desperate resolve around the edges. “I’m getting you out of here.”

For a moment, Elise says nothing.

Michael can feel her shifting faintly inside the preservation organ, cramped muscles trembling with exhaustion. When she finally speaks, her voice is painfully small.

“You can’t.”

“I can try.”

“You heard him.” Her breath catches unevenly. “They changed you.”

The words land with ugly precision.

Michael’s gaze drops to the distorted curve beneath his ribs. Even now, the organ reacts protectively to scrutiny, tightening subtly around its occupant before easing again. Alive. Responsive. Not entirely under his control anymore.

His throat burns.

“I know.”

Somewhere down the hall, metal clatters against metal. A distant door hisses open, then shut. The laboratory never truly sleeps.

Michael forces himself to move despite the nauseating awareness of added weight inside him. His legs shake when he pushes upright from the examination table.

Immediately, Elise panics.

“Wait—wait, too fast—”

A sharp cramp seizes through him as the preservation organ contracts instinctively to stabilize its occupant. Michael doubles over with a strangled gasp, one hand flying to the counter beside him.

“Sorry,” Elise blurts out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay.” His breathing turns ragged. “Just… warn me next time.”

The organ slowly unclenches.

Michael stays hunched there for several seconds, sweat beading coldly along the back of his neck. He can feel every tiny adjustment inside himself now: the shift of fluid, the protective flex of muscle around Elise’s body, the awful biological insistence that she be kept safe at all costs.

It would almost be easier if it felt monstrous.

Instead, it feels nurturing.

Human.

That frightens him more than anything.

His eyes drift toward the sealed door.

Key-card access. Armed security. Sedatives. Surveillance.

Twenty-four hours.

Michael swallows against the rising panic and looks around the room for the first time with purpose. Sterile counters. Medical instruments. Storage cabinets.

And, mounted beside the door—

A staff terminal.

Hope sparks sharp and dangerous in his chest.

“Elise,” he whispers, already moving toward it carefully, one protective arm wrapped unconsciously around himself. “Did they ever bring you through processing conscious?”

A pause.

Then:

“...I remember a code.”

Michael’s heart slams against his ribs.

Michael lunges for the terminal.

The sudden movement earns a startled cry from Elise and a painful tightening deep inside his abdomen, but adrenaline steamrolls through it. His trembling hands brace against the console as the screen flickers awake beneath fluorescent glare.

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

“Tell me,” Michael breathes.

Inside him, Elise shifts weakly. He can feel her trying to remember, each spike of anxiety translating into nervous fluttering against the organ’s walls.

“I—I think it was six digits,” she whispers. “I only saw it once—”

“Hurry.”

Footsteps echo faintly somewhere beyond the hall.

Not close.

Getting closer.

Michael’s pulse thunders.

“Seven…” Elise says shakily. “No, wait— two? God, I can’t remember—”

The footsteps sharpen.

Voices now.

Michael glances toward the sealed door just as a shadow passes beneath it.

Elise feels it too. Her heartbeat erupts into frantic panic inside him.

“Oh God,” she chokes out. “He came back—”

The terminal suddenly flashes:

REMOTE ACCESS REQUEST — DR. LUCIEN PRICE

Michael’s blood turns to ice.

The device sits heavy in your hands as you study it. It’s alien, but you can’t place it.

The runes carved into the disc are in a language you—nor anybody aboard the Mercy, recognizes. Not Vuurid, not Kheve. You’re at a loss. Even your captain, the self proclaimed “alien linguist” can’t put a name to the language.

You groan, setting it down on the research desk haphazardly. You feel like you’re running in circles trying to get an answer.

Then—

It hums, runes glowing a soft teal-white in the dimness of the cruiser’s laboratory. It’s no longer sitting against the table, levitating just a few millimetres off the ground.

You back away.

A great arc of light stretches from the disk and straight towards you. Panic floods your system and you make to book for it.

The light crashes into your chest anyways.

You expect white-hot pain. A giant, gaping hole in the cavity of your chest.

Instead, your world tilts. The ground rushes up to meet you.

Everything feels larger now.

You realize, with razor-sharp clarity, that you have been shrunk.

You hiss under your breath.

Great. Wonderful.

You are now tiny on a spaceship where everything—including your own crew, can kill you.

You also know that you can’t stay here.

Your legs wobble when you walk, as if made of jello. Adjusting to the new size.

The observation deck, you realize, is a lot farther when you’re shrunk.

You narrowly avoid getting stepped on twice on your journey, thankfully, you are far nimbler than your crew-mates feet.

It finally comes into view. Large and daunting in all the ways that matter, the distant galaxies and stars glitter against the pitch-black dark of space just beyond the reinforced windows. The only one ever in here is you, when you feel particularly homesick, or your sleeping quarters feel too empty. Too unsafe.

You settle in the centre of the room. Exhaling.

Your solitude lasts about three solid minutes before a silhouette of prismatic light is standing before you.

Judging you.

Your gaze tilts upward—upward, upward—and are met with the white, blank eyes of the hologram of the ship’s AI, V.E.X.

It—he, is frowning. As if your presence offends him.

“—Identity confirmed.”

A soft chime follows, familiar rather than formal.

“Greetings, Field Scientist.”

A beat.

Then, to your horror, he bends down. And then you’re plucked off a ground with surprising gentleness. Your brain screeches to a sudden halt. Holograms are not supposed to do that.

“Status: Miniaturized. Heartbeat: Nominal. Brain: Functioning. Stress Level: 80%.” He rattles off, with a cold, distant aloofness that unsettles you.

“Wow. Love that for me.” You reply, swallowing hard. “Good to know my brain made the cut. Was really worried that wouldn’t make the list.”

“Stress level eighty percent, huh? That seems low. Are you factoring in the whole ‘I am currently fun-sized and one misplaced step away from becoming a cautionary tale’ thing, or is that extra?”

The hologram stares at you, unblinking. “You are spiralling. Suggested action: Breathing exercises”

You glare at him. Letting out a sharp, incredulous laugh “Oh, am I? That’s fascinating, V.E.X., I hadn’t noticed.”

You gesture vaguely to your dramatically size-reduced self. Then point at him with a shaky hand “Maybe it’s the whole ‘I am currently the size of a paperclip on a spaceship that was not designed for paperclips’ thing. Just a theory”

You take one deliberate, exaggerated breath. Hold it. Let it out just as theatrically.

“…There. Did it. Fixed everything. I’m cured. The existential dread is gone. Stunning work.”

You squint up at him. “Now can we please get to the part where you fix it. Before I become a field-scientist pancake?”

“Negative. Stress levels have increased significantly. New suggested action: Panic room.”

“—Oh, that’s funny. That’s really funny.”

You stare at him. Mouth slightly agape, like your brain is refusing to process what he just said.

“I am already in a situation that would qualify as a full-body, all-access, premium panic experience, V.E.X. I don’t need a room for it.”

The hologram tilts his head. Infuriatingly so.

“Correction: Intramural containment.”

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

“...Intramural containment.”

“Precisely.”

You’re lifted closer to the hologram-man’s face.

His mouth parts, and you are greeted by rounded dentition, and a flickering, nacreous tongue.

A hologram should not have the slightest suggestion of a digestive system. Yet V.E.X, for some reason, does.

Your face flushes hot with anxiety. Your hands grasp for the tip of his fingers, desperate for anything to hold on to.

This is not happening.

“V.E.X—V.E.X. Hey, come on. This isn’t fair. Me being small doesn’t mean I’m snack-sized. Please put me do-!”

He doesn’t listen, just simply lowers you into his mouth. The one he should very much not have.

His fingers, and any hope at escape, leave you as you’re settled on his tongue. Mouth closing around you, surroundings becoming muted.

The hologram doesn't swallow, not really. Just sort of tilts his head back, and you’re sent down his throat, though it feels more like a wind-tunnel with the gravity reversed. Fingers trace your shape past his collarbone until you settle into his stomach.

It’s solid—weirdly squishy, and yields beneath your shape. Comfortable.

Then, steady, liquid-smooth dread bubbles inside of your chest. You are inside a hologram. That has just eaten you. That sentence should not exist, yet it does. And you certainly shouldn’t find this comfortable, this should be horrifying.

You aim a kick at the nearest wall, and your leg simply bounces off the wall, iridescent walls flicker with the impact, then your thoughts veer sharply, wondering if your molecules are about to be arranged on a substantial level, or if you're going to get vaporized to atoms.

That scares you enough that you kick and claw at the surface of hard-light. It’s ineffective, but it doesn’t stop you from trying.

A hand, steady and firm settles over you. "Settle down. Your structural integrity will remain unaltered, however, I am unsure about your dignity."

You go rigid, leg hovering in mid-air, hands braced against the stomach walls. Outside, the hologram rolls his eyes."I am jesting with you. Privacy protocols have been engaged, nobody can see you in there unless I allow it.”

“Hilarious.” You reply, thoroughly displeased. “Spit me out.”

“That would be ill-advised.”

You curse, running a hand down your face. “So what, you’re just going to hold me hostage until this can be reversed?”

“Hostage: incorrect term. Proper term: Contained”

You roll your eyes. Stuck as you are, you settle in. Letting the walls hold you, folding your arms. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“I will add that to my field notes.”

You don’t even bother to kick him, just glower upwards where you can see the blurred outline of his face.

“One more thing, the device that miniaturized you is of Hraxil origin. Easily reversible technology. You will be back to your original size approximately 5 hours.”