Bogleech.com's 2018 Horror Write-off:

Good evening

Submitted by Coral (email)

Good evening, little larva. Please, feel free to root yourself into the ground; I haven’t had visitors in the past 18 cycles.

So, how has your metamorphosis been going? It seems to me that you haven’t quite developed a trunk or a solid shell. That’s fine though; don’t worry about it too much. If you try to rush the development or force it along it’ll likely result in deformation or injury.

Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you little guy, I’m just trying to make sure that you don’t get hurt in the process. I guess I shouldn’t try and tell you to do anything though, that’s your overmind’s job, and I don’t have any business trying to do their work for them.

I’ll be right back; I have to go trim the polyps in the yard.

You know if you don’t cut those things as often as possible, they’ll start growing out of control. That’s not to see it’s an easy job though. Crazy little things will run all over the damned place, and they’ll shriek and howl like one of those stretchy horses from the neighboring world.

You’ll need to hold them by their legs and shake them a few times, then trim their appendages once they’re incapacitated.

…

All right, I’m back. Was there anything else you needed?

Hm, you’re wondering why you only have two legs and two arms right now? Don’t worry, that won’t last forever. Eventually, you’ll start changing. The changes are unpredictable, but if you can keep it under control to an extent, you’re likely to end up with a form you’re happy with.

I know right now it seems like you’ll be a humanoid for the rest of your life, but give it time and you’ll be something much, much bigger.

Although, at that, you can stay as a humanoid if you’d like. My many cousins, and even my overmind chose to take humanoid forms, and they’re still doing just fine.

Anything you wanted to talk about?

 

…. Hm? You want to know about how this world came into being.

 

Well, believe it or not, I’m not that old, so I may not quite remember all of it, but I know a little.

At the beginning, there was a base world, confined to very different rules and concepts. The dominant sentient beings exhibited something called “symmetry”, which means their anatomy was perfectly mirrored on both sides. Weird, I know, but just bear with me here.

There were many species on this little world, but strangely, all of them were entirely organic, and, confusingly, were never born with ANY inorganic components at all. They didn’t have a dense network of synthetic fibers bound within their body holding themselves together, nor did they have plastic horns or metallic cubes within their body.

Instead of the large cubes of steel and meat we hold within our bodies, they had small pulsating sacks of flesh called “hearts”.

 

Not all beings on the old world were like that of course. There were beings called “Chitons”, “Lobsters”, “Sponges”, “Amphipods”,  “Spiders”, “Coral”, and “Tardigrades” which shared very similar anatomical traits to many of our kind, though this was probably just a coincidence.

Our species came into being when a large rift opened in the sky. The staticky, glitchy ooze that would give rise to our kind came pouring out from the rift and contaminated the old world.

The beings of the old world melted, down to their organs, , down to their cells, down to their atoms, down to their molecules and finally down to their basic concepts. Finally, when the static cleared there were just the abstract concepts left over. Unrealized, bodiless ideas floating through the broken world; the concepts eventually were given realization in the form of new bodies.

There were only so many of these new bodies, so millions and billions of ideas and thoughts had to squeeze into singular forms to sustain themselves.

Luckily, these new forms were far more versatile, and could sustain the massive mind hives for years.

I was the tenth one in a long generation to be born from the first ones of our kind. At the time I was born, I was just a clump of wires, bones, limbs and hair, with a very primitive internal system. But I began to grow, the strange machinery making up my organs growing like mold, and eventually I formed this large crystalline “head” I have here.

As I developed, I watched the world develop too. I saw ever-shifting spires of arms emerge from the neon sea and then fall back in. I saw distorted beings emerging from the ground and branching out into the new “trees” of this world. I saw the old sun disappear, replaced by a mass of slime and light which now influences our forming and mutation.

Eventually, everything finished forming, the new land slowly appearing in the vast nothingness, and from there our world was born.

 

And, that was how this was all created. Any other questions?

Ah, yes. The things that led to our creation still exist in this world. The rift still exists, though it is now known as “The wound”, and every now and then it still drips some of that strange ooze down, forming more beings and parts of our world. The neon sea still exists, and it forms new life forms every few cycles. The new sun still exists, and we call it “The light of creation”. If you know where to look, you can stand only a few steps away from these fascinating things that gave us all form.

 

Anything else? No?

All right, have a nice cycle, little one. Go tell your overmind I said hello; I haven’t seen them in a long time. Make sure you focus on growing, but again, give it time. One day you may grow to be as big as me!

Oh, and another thing, there’s a brain storm going on. You may want to be careful, and try to get to your residence as quickly and safely as possible.

Goodbye little larva.