Thud!

Hmm…?

Thud!

What the hell is—

Thud!

Alright, fine! I’m awake! Now stop—

Thud!

I lash out in anger, annoyed that the stupid scientists would stoop so low as to hit me in my sleep. Forget the consequences, as long as I can at least hurt… Wait. Something’s off…

Thud!

Alright, I’m really getting sick of that. I try to open my eyes, to see what the hell they’re even hitting me with, only to find that I can’t. That’s… Well, I would say it’s upsetting, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me very much.

Thud!

That, on the other hand, is bothering me. I try to retaliate a second time, but just like with my eyes, I can’t seem to do it. Did these quacks paralyze me? Will I never be able to move again? Trapped in my body for—

Thud!

Something inside me snaps. Maybe it was whatever little shred of sanity I had left after years in this dump. Whatever it was, it’s gone now! My eyes suddenly respond, light blinding me for a moment. As my senses catch up to what’s happening, I strike preemptively. For whatever reason, it works this time. All eight of my long arms successfully shoot out around me, grasping for my attacker. Wait…

I don’t get to dwell on my extra limbs, as my eyes finally adjust to the light. Looming above me is… I’m not actually sure. It’s got the body shape of a gorilla, but with scales instead of fur. Where you’d expect there to be either a gorilla or lizard head instead sits a massive eye. The thing spins in a giant socket that takes up its entire neck. Just as my glacially slow brain puts together the creature standing next to me, one of my exploring limbs makes contact with it.

That… is my arm, right? It doesn’t… look like an arm, not really. It has the structure of several ropes wound together, with… Are those teeth? What looks like sharp teeth stick out at random from its rubbery flesh. To make it all so much worse, it’s bright pink. Bubblegum pink. Is this even my limb anymore? Maybe it's some illusion… But I clearly feel it moving away from me. Wait, why is my arm so long? 

As I’ve been watching the extending limb, so has the eyerilla, patent pending. It doesn’t seem threatened, since it hasn’t made any movements to get away from the obnoxiously-colored thing. My limb finally makes contact, feeling up the smooth scales of the creature. 

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

And I taste it. The eyerilla, I can taste it through my arm. What’s even more shocking is that it tastes good. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever had, but its weird jerky taste would beat anything I could buy at a gas station… Why am I thinking about this? 

Thud!

My vision is cut off as something large and heavy crushes against my body. Surprisingly I feel no pain, but I do feel an overwhelming anger flooding my mind. As the object is lifted off of me again and I lay my sights on my target, my body explodes. 

Thin threads of pink shoot at the monster in a swarm. The brute’s huge eye looks shocked as the first of my attacks make contact. As soon as that first strand of me wraps around the eyerilla’s arm, I use it to pull myself towards it. I feel my body lurch as I fly through the air at the creature.

The beast’s fist smacks into me with a wet splat. Once again I feel no pain, but rather a strange sense of excitement. At this point the poor monster is wrapped up in my body parts, looking like it tripped through a gum factory.

I open my mouth and bite down on the thing’s fist. Warmth floods my mouth, adding a new flavor to the jerky taste I’ve been experiencing since the fight started. It’s an oddly sweet taste, but it goes well with the salty of… Focus!

My jaw moves, grinding against the creature’s body. I ignore its desperate thrashing, focusing on the taste filling my mouth. If it wanted me to leave it alone it shouldn’t have woken me up! Or been so tasty!

I feel another mouth open somewhere on my body, along with a third. I lose count after that, the wonderful taste distracting me. 

I spend… I’m not sure how long, a while, eating the rest of the monster. After I swallow the last of the tough flesh, I feel a tug in my gut. My spread out body quickly retracts, like a measuring tape. In a flash, I’m all back together.

As my emotions settle and the adrenaline cools, I realize something is seriously wrong. Last I knew I only had one mouth, and two arms. I try to look down at my body, but just see the ground. Now that I think about it, my eyes are almost level with the ground. What did those lunatics do to me? I really want to see what I’m dealing with.

Instinctively, one of my arms reaches out from my body. It lifts up into the air a ways before stopping. Then it grows an eye. 

Suddenly my vision is split in two, an image from where my head is, and one from up on the limb. To keep myself from puking, I close my original set of eyes. 

I almost throw up anyway. From my new vantage point, I’m able to look down at myself easily. And where I’m sitting lays a large wad of gum. At least, that’s the clearest description I can think of. It looks like gum someone chewed for a while and spat onto the ground. If it then grew a ring of eyes on top, that is. 

What I thought was a normal pair of eyes is in fact a large ring of them that sits at vaguely the top of my blobby body. I’m starting to be glad that my skin is pink, if it was red I’d look even more disgusting. 

Speaking of disgusting, the ground around me is absolutely painted with the blood of the eyerilla. The poor grass is already covered in brown. Come to think of it, that was a monster. Did the scientists make that, too? Where am I, even? 

Before I can take a good look around, the strangest thing so far pushes its way into my view. 

You’ve killed an Imek. Your monster score has increased. 0 > 3.