[Original Novel] The Black Pool, Part 8

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I wished for a compass as I approached the edge. Some way to navigate in this baffling continuum of identical looking pillars. The best I could come up with was to remove the bioluminescent gas sack fastened to my mount’s harness, propping it up on a pile of rocks. This way I wouldn’t lose track of where I set out from.

With that taken care of I took flight, setting off for the pillar nearest me. On the way, wind rushing past, I peeked into the leather satchel to find my chubby little passenger sound asleep. Now that I got a good look at him, he’s not that ugly. Or her, maybe?

On a whim, I tickled one of its legs. It quivered, then promptly rolled up into a ball. Didn’t even know it could do that. Below us, great puffy clouds of the ever-present white vapor rolled past. I could say nothing of what lay beneath them...except that I dare not investigate.

Only when the next pillar was nearly upon me did I remember that I’ve never actually landed one of these things before. However it seemed to understand what to do on its own, and a minute later I was dismounting onto the rocky shores of what I hoped would be the final stop on my journey.

The trek was long and arduous. I might’ve ridden my mount, but didn’t know what I might find further in, so I didn’t risk it. I brought blankets, but the longer I stayed down here the more I adapted to the cold. It seeps into your body after a while, you stop fighting it, and it becomes the new normal.

The mutation probably has something to do with it. I first noticed while laboring to earn my meal with the others that my new body is significantly stronger. There are aches and pains where some part of it is halfway formed, but for the most part everything but the appearance is greatly improved.

I don’t remember when I stopped shivering. The first month was now just one long smear in my memory. I just know that once most of my humanity bled away, the discomfort vanished along with it. I still laid down some blankets before sleeping though.

The grub groggily poked its head out of my satchel as though hatching anew. It cautiously extended its little feelers, waving them about until satisfied that it was safe to come out. I don’t know why it slept next to me, the inside of the satchel was probably warmer.

“You weird little monster” I muttered. As if in response, it gurgled, chirped, then threw up on itself a bit. With some experimentation, I found that it made a wonderful pillow. If it objected to this new arrangement it gave no indication, instead falling asleep after a few minutes and emitting a droning sound I interpreted as snoring.

I followed suit, exhausted from the day’s travel. As I was now in possession of both an endo and exoskeleton, I discovered that when I focused, I could feel the latter expanding slowly. Decompressing the way your spine does as you sleep, because the weight’s been taken off.

I thought about anything and everything, unrelated fragments popping into my consciousness as they often do just before I fall asleep. How could my life have turned into this? How could it ever return to normal, even if I find my way out?

To think all of this was down here, or wherever it is, all along. For my entire life maybe? Or longer. Waiting to be discovered by some poor fool at the bottom of an innocuous hole. Curiosity kills the cat...if it’s lucky.

I dreamt I was a young boy again. Perhaps three or four, playing in the back yard. With some effort I flipped over a large stone, then recoiled in shock. The flattened soil beneath the stone teemed with beetles, worms and spiders, all of which must’ve burrowed under it for shelter.

They scattered this way and that as I backed off, brushing at my overalls to make sure none of them got on me. “What are you up to, kiddo?” I turned and clung to my father’s leg, tearing up. He chuckled. “You know, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

I was about to respond, but when I looked up at him, his head was that of an insect. Bulbous compound eyes, chittering segmented mouthparts and a pair of long, delicate antennae. I screamed, and my face froze that way. A single perfect, eternal scream of absolute terror, resonating forever.

I awoke to find the little grub gnawing on my head. A few bugs clung to the ceiling nearby, as well as a pair watching me from beside a stalagmite with idle curiosity. As before, they made no motion to stop me.

A few hours later, I spotted a black pool in the distance. There were people around it. Not naked captives, but about a dozen uniformed figures. I slowed my approach, ducking behind one stalagmite after the next until I was close enough to covertly spectate.

This shaft was fitted with a mechanical lift, which another uniformed figure stepped off of a moment after it arrived at a platform designed to receive it. The others formed a lines and saluted. Soldiers of some kind?

The one I assumed to be their commanding officer performed an inspection, then issued orders I couldn’t quite make out from this distance. A long, flexible rubber hose was fed into the black goo. Then one of them flipped a great metal switch on a control box attached to the lift.

The faint but unmistakable sounds of a pump echoed down the shaft, and the hose began ravenously slurping up the black stuff. While they were occupied with all of this, I took the opportunity to get closer.

From this distance I could at last study them properly. Their uniforms were all black, in an archaic style. They wore dull, black leather jackboots with pants that bulged unnecessarily at the hips, and button up shirts with breast pockets bearing pointed flaps. The long, thin strap of a saber belt ran down their chests at a steep angle.

Their faces were stranger still. Lean to the point of emaciation, so white as to border on translucent. Their eyes, sunken into their faces, were jet black. Most wore helmets with a pointed spike on top, as though they were meant to be used as a weapon of last resort.

Their commanding officer stood a full two heads taller. He wore no cap, but a mane of shiny black hair he was now in the process of carefully combing back. He had compound eyes, proportionally much smaller than I’ve seen on the bugs, roughly the size of oranges.

He also sported a pair of long, thin black antennae which blended in with his hair so well that I didn’t notice them right away. Pulsating black veins showed through his skin wherever it was thin enough, and his uniform appeared to be alive.

Not leather. Not fabric or even metal, but a writhing bodily sheath of segmented black tendrils. Slithering, surging, the entire garment dynamically rearranged itself to follow his movements. Who could manufacture something like that? Or...grow it? Who are these people?

A pair of the soldiers carried a muzzled, bound insect onto the lift. Pressing one of the buttons on the control box, it began to ascend. I backed away, having seen enough. Whatever world they came down that shaft from, I knew I wanted no part of it.

Who else is aware of this place? Even as this unfathomably large, strange creature feeds upon countless worlds, some of them have evidently turned the tables. If I were to explore far enough, would I find research outposts? Colonies even?

None of my concern. It will be enough simply to escape. I was so lost in thought as I headed back towards the rim that I didn’t notice the bulging mound before me until I was nearly on top of it. Almost like a bubble. Formed by volcanic activity, maybe?

When I leaned in and put my hands on it, I felt warmth. More than that, after I removed my hands, the handprints left behind were almost transparent. I wiped away what I now realized was an outer layer of fine, gray dust.

What’s going on in there? I could make out warm yellow light and signs of movement. I don’t know why I wasn’t more careful. I guess I figured the worst that could happen to me already had. The last thing you expect, at the bottom of one hole, is to fall down another.

But that’s exactly what happened when I leaned a little too hard on the brittle shell, which gave way without warning. When I landed, it was in a pool of glowing yellow gel. Like backlit honey. I rubbed it out of my eyes and surveyed my surroundings.

I stood waist deep in luminous, sticky yellow gel amidst a tangled mess of thick black tentacles. Something similar anyway. They were thick as logs, emerging from within the waist deep pool and snaking up the sides of the pit. The air stank powerfully of sulfur down here.

Several dangled from the ceiling around the breach in the bubble I fell through. Twisting together in some places, spreading apart in others. Their stretchy black skin wept the glowing yellow goo wherever I clawed at it while trying to ascend, like sap bleeds from a tree.

At regular intervals along the gently pulsating black trunks, there were clusters of membranous bubbles filled with glowing yellow vapor. It felt strangely familiar. I just kept climbing, leaping from trunk to trunk like a monkey, constantly searching for new footholds.

Then something floated past. I only barely noticed the first one, but when another drifted into view, I recognized it as a miniature version of that blimp creature which skewered my first mount. The bubble under my hand burst, about a dozen tiny floaters erupting from it and spiraling upwards into the air.

A nursery? This whole thing must be someplace for them to spawn. Judging by the fact that I’d seen only one fully grown specimen so far, probably only a tiny fraction of the little creatures sailing lazily through the air all around me would survive to maturity.

I found myself wishing that I would’ve mutated a set of wings earlier. But after about an hour of careful climbing, fighting the urge to pinch what’s left of my nose lest I fall, I pulled myself back through the ragged opening. Is this place just holes within holes? With progressively stranger worlds at the bottom of each?

I found my satchel where I left it, propped up against the hazardously delicate shell.The fall cracked my exoskeleton in several places and badly bruised the few soft parts of my body, which I intended to heal. The little grub was none too happy that I interrupted his snooze.

Even so, with some gentle massaging, he secreted enough black jelly that I was able to mend all of my injuries. In return, I plucked one of the little floaters from my body and fed it to him. Several more were stuck to me on account of the foul smelling yellow crud which I had yet to scrub off.

After I finished doing that, I set off once again for the rim where my mount awaited, this time paying closer attention to the terrain. When I came across more smooth, bubble like domes, I took great care to be sure of my footing, and to avoid touching them anywhere.

I pressed on despite my exhaustion, neglecting to sleep on the off chance that those uniformed goons might’ve followed me. What a relief it was when I finally found my mount, still tied to the stalagmite where I left it!

As I flew to the next pillar, I caught myself missing the village. The bustle, the commotion, feasting alongside the others as they laughed and sang. Perhaps it’s better to be in the company of monsters than alone.

Once I landed, dismounted and tied the obedient creature to a nearby stalagmite, I set off for the black pool I knew I’d find at the center. This place has a logic all its own. I’ll never really know the “whys” of it, but it’s easy enough to learn the “whats” by simple exploration, trial, and error.

That’s a dangerous way to learn, however. Falling into that spawning pit was an indefensibly stupid mistake, one I resolved never to repeat. From that point on, anything unfamiliar was automatically suspect. Not because it could kill me though. Death is far from the worst possible outcome down here.

Every time my stomach growled, I stopped for a short while to massage some black jelly out of my strange little stowaway, which I then rubbed into the few remaining patches of skin on my body. It hit the spot and kept me going, but I could feel the last of my residual humanity evaporating.

I distracted myself by thinking up a name for my traveling companion. Eel mouth’s warning be damned, I had to call it something. After some deliberation, I settled on Horatio. No real reason, except that it tickled me to give such a distinguished sounding name to this odd little bug.

Following another two day’s travel, I arrived at the black pool only to find it surrounded by naked, frightened captives. I wasted no time informing them that the black fog is but an illusion to prevent them from straying too far from the pool.

To my dismay, they laughed at me. One even threw a stone, which missed me only by a hair. That’s when I remembered how I must look. I tried to convince them that I was human once, and that they’d become like me soon enough if they remained by the pool.

“What’s your name then?” I turned to face the fellow asking. It should’ve rolled off my tongue. But I’d been down here so long by that point that, try as I might, I honestly couldn’t remember. “Listen...I know how this is going to sound, but...I forgot.” He scoffed and turned away.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 9!}