the following is the beginning of… something. whether it ends, or even continues, is up to you. email me [cruxymox@yahoo.com] with your thoughts, whether they be yes!, ugh., or the next sentence/paragraph/chapter. anything, really.
reality is slick and black – one might slip their fingers through it and stain. were there any, wet shadows would steal rumors from passers-by.
i and two broken coins in my hand. a veil over reality, oiled.
listen – you will not find me sympathetic.
so i’ve the two coins, finger-things clink-clink-clinking as they would, while crawl i do through this rotting hole. it is the only sound – i can be very quiet when i wish.
i am heading to the seller of books. i’ve learned of one that interests me. may i learn something that i need. i wonder what look the book has been given, what it will cost me. not my two coins. certainly not my two coins. clink-clink.
it’s then i notice something in my path. it is a human, a small female. it is standing still, staring, glaring at me. it has not run screaming away. burning blood does not pour from its eyes. oddly, it maintains a regular heartbeat. slow. in my way. it seems i will need to either eat it, or worse still, communicate with it. i hold steady, and wait to see what it will do.
“yorrrrruglee.”
urgh. english-languaged. not a question though. so i wait. quiet, my coins.
“welll… arn’t-y’guna seisumthing?”
an odd question. i open several mouths and oscillate various tongue-snakes. beyond that i do not respond. i continue to wait.
it comes closer, a hand reaching out to touch–
remember. remember.
…fast i extend pseudopodia. grab the girl, grab the girl. annoyance turned into a neatly wrapped-trapped meal. my digestive system ululates. mmm.
onward i slink. clink-clink.
an hour passes perhaps. two. the tunnel-muck pleasurable in all ways. no other travelers but for the ones acting as nutrients for the mushrooms. three. the unseen violence of mushrooms. some are as large as i am, rooted in limbs of the ceiling. four. others are biolumines–
ONANON BOUT MUSHROOMS. I DONTLIEK MUSHROOOOMS. SLIIIIMEEE. SHOOSHIT.
the small human female. sorcerer! fully digested, but the intangibles remain, and now they’re… mine.
WATSA SORE-SIRRER? AND YOREMINE.
it tries to w-waggle one of my arm extensions, there is no result.
LETSJUSTGO. I WANTOOSEE THE BOOK! I CANCOL’R THE PIKTCHURES!
i nearly drop my coins.
by the thirteen eyes of [REDACTED]. calm, small human female.
MYNAMES E. V.
evie. noted. listen, evie. it seems that we are to be together for some period of time. you are going to have to adapt your speech patterns, or else be tuned out completely.
FIIINE. But sometimes I get to waggle your things.
…
that is… fair.
would it be fair? to give control of one’s physical aspects over to another. it is–
A lot, maybe! Now let me try it.
i allow access to a portion of myself. evie fumbles a bit with an appendage, forming it into a human arm. a hand with twenty two fingers at its end. it–
She!
…she. she crushes a mushroom growing from a corpse in the wall. screaming is minimal. i regain control, dissolving the fungus remnants.
That was cool! But gross too, I could feel it… Eww!
i did not.
a learning experience for both of us, then.
let us go.
The book!
the book.
continue on i – we – do.
amarthis - tom reed 