The mountainous region around Anza was as wide as it was long - separating Cradle from the Furthest Reaches. The hulking, bare giants of granite acted as a barren zone in which little life existed - little life, save for the mountaindwellers.
But further down on the side of Cradle, one would find a moss-grown lake; an artificial thing, first dammed by eager mammals using the waters for procreation. But it served to reinforce an ideal - to prove a concept, that nature could be controlled by nature. This, in turn, inspired to human and so, later, when the humans had been driven into the rocky badlands, they were well-aware that Nature could be controlled. Mortar and brick would soon come to replace the careful construction of sticks and stones and, given time, the once-temporary constructs of beavers would become a staple for the life of Cradle.
What set the lake aside from others, save for the clarity of its ample waters, was a shaft leading the water down through a cave in the mountain - a cave in which an ancient set of turbines spun night and day to fuel Anza’s lights, heat and growbeds. Or at least it had… these days, only two out of the six reactors spun; the four others had succumbed to decay beyond the mechanics’ skill of repair.
On the topic of mechanics, there were only two of them - both of whom had been trained in the age-old craft by their fathers. Who again had been trained by their fathers’ fathers and so forth for generations on end. This had led to some unfortunate consequences - one being that misgivings in the workings of the machines had been passed between generations. But most damning of all had been the belief that the skills required in order to be a good mechanic were passed through blood, not by knowledge - such was life in the powerstation. Being separated from most others, critical thought was hard to come by, especially in a family as inbred and shy of conflict as the Powers.
Bart Power was a short, stocky man. Despite his youth; a mere twenty years old, one might easily have mistaken him for a man in his fifties; wrinkled, gray and with a profound limp to his mangled right leg. Amos Power was not at all dissimilar to his father-cousin; equally short, wide, but with two intact legs and arms that made him deserving of his last name. At forty-six, he was the eldest by far, but somehow appeared younger than his son-cousin.
Their only source of food was the lake itself; a lake brimming with fish, amphibians and reptiles, all of which made good eating for the duo. Every now and then, the citizens of Anza would bring in compacted nutrifungus, but they rarely ate the stuff - more often, they used it for bait in their traps.
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“‘Mos! ‘Mos!” Bart’s unmistakable voice echoed down the long, creaking stairs leading down into the cave proper. Amos could hardly hear him over the whirring of the machines and the screeching in his ears, but as he turned around and saw his bare-chested family member, he connected the grunts to his name. Darkness had fallen on the small lake and in the cooling mountain atmosphere, wisps of fog blanketed the waters. Inside, where the turbines whirred and heated the cavern, it was not unusual for the pair to be as lightly clad as Bart was. But out there… Amos imagined his brother might’ve finally lost his mind.
His pants were torn and ripped and with his right hand, he gripped his stomach in a lurch as his impressive mass shook the stairs, raining chips of wood on the bed hidden beneath the clumsy construct. Amos sat with his legs crossed, reading from a book of schematics - lapping heat from the upstairs turbine while the other five stood idle one floor down.
When Bart’s naked feet finally slapped against the worn-polished stones, Amos saw the first signs of unrest - the trails of blood between his legs and the crusts of red around his mouth. The elder sprang from the stool and came to his brother’s side, hurriedly questioning: “Wha’s wrong? Why’re you covered in blood!?”
Upon feeling his brother’s cradling arms, Bart fell to his knees in agony - beads of sweat lubricating his skin against the stone. “I-I don’t know- F-fell asleep… had a dream… s-something was-...” Speaking the words seemed an impossible task. Amos quickly stood up; his eyes wide and white with horror - locked on his brother’s throat. He had felt something; something shifting between his fingers. He was sure of it - something had moved beneath his brother’s skin. He broke from his trance long enough to blink to verify that something was, indeed, coursing inside the clammy flesh.
“B-Bart, I-” Before he could speak another word, a shower of warm, sanguine liquids deprived the elder of his sight - filling his mouth with a taste of temperate, metallic fluids. He fell backwards, rolling on the stone until he had blinked and rubbed the filth away, only to see a violation most horrific.
There, where his brother had laid a moment before, a spherical bulb of meat had sprung forth - shooting long tentacular growths to the walls; suspending itself mid-air over his still form. A pair of free tendrils toyed across the still Bart until it found the crater that had once been his throat.
The sudden jerk of the tentacles as they bored into the wound startled the elder, sending him a single step back - down the stairs; into the depths of Anza’s power station.