#nonhumanoid

For the included blurb for the match: I'm transmasc, and a pretty big guy. Picture your average, young bear and you've pretty much got it. I adore monsters that make me feel small, and love it when they're rough and possessive. I'm also a writer, and have a miniature natural history museum in my living room (both oddities and pretty things from nature). I'm also pretty big into BDSM, am quite a masochist, and love the thought of being caught/hunted/pinned down without a way to fight back. I'm a physicist, and a lab researcher.

Augerino

Thirteen nosebleeds in two weeks, that’s how dry it is in the rocky desert. Carefully, you tilt your head forward, plugging your nostrils with a tissue as you inhale slowly through your mouth. Your lips are chapped, your hands are cracking, and your eyes are itchy and uncomfortable, yet the temperature is a cool balmy morning. 

You’re not used to breathing here yet, it has a lightness to it that strangely settles in your ears. Even the underground lab air, which is filtered rigorously, still sucks your tongue and throat dry. 

Though you’re not lingering on how uncomfortable the air makes you. You’re busy staring at a hole eaten through the particle collider. 

“What the fuck,” one of the other lab researchers mumbles to themselves. She seems to speak for everyone, because there isn’t else much to say about the cavernous tunnel sprouting through solid metal and miles of earth. 

Carefully, you check your nose again, noting the puddle of blood has tapered off. Tossing the tissue to the trash, you creep closer to the hole, looking up at the dripping rock. It looks ground up, like a giant corkscrew dug its way through… you don’t see the sky, only dirt, until the tunnel curves away from your phone’s flashlight. Then you aim your flashlight down, down, down, down, until you back away before the vertigo takes you. 

“How are we even supposed to report this?” You ask, eyebrows arched. 

“I guess… by stating the facts,” your supervisor says, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. 

This is not the only time this happens. 

No, this million-dollar research project begins to look more like a prion-eaten brain in the coming weeks. Now that everyone knows to look for it, you and your coworkers begin pulling overnight shifts in the lab. The military comes knocking at your door, but your supervisor makes it abundantly difficult for them to do whatever they want. 

It’s the only reason you were able to finally catch a glimpse of what’s doing this, alone, with nothing more than your phone’s shaky camera footage as proof. 

The digging is so clean that the lab barely shakes, like a mild earthquake. You can still maneuver around, though it’s a little more difficult than normal, but you’re determined to find out what’s been eating through equipment so expensive, it makes you dizzy to think about. 

You can barely find the words to describe it. Large, definitely. Something. Somehow. The specific dusty red color of dirt, twisting, turning… drilling, it’s drilling, you realize, the curves of its body spinning slowly into the linoleum flooring. It’s not- could it be one being? Or many? There’s writhing in its skin, like millions of tendrils are wrapping around a larger body, pulsing together. 

That’s the part that surprises you the most, it’s slow, like a large, lumbering beast. Yet it disappears before you fully manage to take in what exactly is happening, its thick tail flicking up and around before vanishing in its tunnel. 

Noisy, the back of your head rumbles. Noisy. Silence. 

The university that owns the collider pulls the plug on the project, and orders everyone out. As you gather your things, a young sergeant with an attractive mustache tries to get you to sign an NDA. You’re doing a great job ignoring him, and he’s becoming more and more frustrated, until he mutters something about a smoke break and leaves you alone. 

Silence, more silence. Good. 

That’s not your own thought, you realize. You recognize the voice from yesterday, when whatever that was crossed your path. 

“Hello?” you ask, dubiously. Then, in an effort to reframe from becoming insane, you think, Hello?

A pause. A rumble, then silence. Some blood drips down your nose, and you hastily wipe it with your sleeve, your heart pounding. 

Hello, footwalker.

You’re not crazy, you’re not crazy. Blinking rapidly, you think, as loudly as you can, Are you- have you been eating through my- our lab? 

I don’t consume. I clean…. home. Filthy. Loud. 

You lean your head back, looking at the cracks in the wall, and take a deep breath. Okay. Well, you might definitely be a part of the biggest scientific discovery of mankind, but not the way you thought you would be. Calm down. 

It’s… old, you realize, rattling conversation through your skull and back. You force yourself to take longer packing your things, communicating back and forth with the creature. It doesn’t even speak- it forces feelings of need into anyone’s brains, though only a few can listen and understand. 

You manage to push feelings back, and you can feel the creature’s relief. It trusts you enough to allow you another glimpse, showing you the countless tendrils that help shape its body into a drill of some sort. Different patterns for different layers of rock.

The head of the creature is tough, its tendrils are leathery and flexible. Its mouth is small, only able to eat the smaller grains of dirt full of organic material. Nor does it have any teeth, only grinding muscles inside of its throat, opening its mouth wide for you to look in. You only feel a small prick of fear, but it doesn’t consume larger animals… the amount of meat and bacteria in your body would make it sick. 

It also gives the best hugs, after you explain what one is. Pulls you close with its tendrils and squeezes your body close. It can wrap you up like a straightjacket, limbs tight at your sides. You can feel its hearts pulse through the skin, some beats faint from the distance, some strong. It can tuck you beneath what would be its chin and let you sleep, it’s body cool against the desert heat during the day.