I was just another failed attempt. The sea creature is probably going to kill me and restart again, I realised. A win? For me, at least. Perhaps next iteration would never even know he’s been eaten, stuck within a flawless dream indefinitely. But the visions this monster has shown were flawed and I was sure it wouldn’t last either. In all likelihood the next incarnation would be materialised outside, just have an invisible leash and wouldn’t even know he’s a mouth. For a time.

Is the me who’s been eaten by something else better off? Yeah, unlikely. At least this overgrown meatloaf will extinguish that existence, if it still persists.

“It does,” growling assured me, regardless of me trying to keep to myself. Problem with the ceaseless stream of uncontrollable thought, I couldn’t merely vegetate. The head still worked, no matter how much I clawed at it. I’d need to go deeper for that to be effective. Luckily I now had mean claws.

He’ll eat him and there will be two of us stuck here. And there already are others. How will this entire menagerie work exactly?

“I’ve no desire to consume you. Just imagine a two of you whining right into my ear,” the captor hissed suggesting amusement. I wasn’t amused.

“Who’s whining now?” I bit back out loud whilst thinking how all this mutual inconvenience could have been easily avoided.

“If at all possible, I’ll restore your other existence.”

“And if not, I’m plan B?”

“You’re a way to know what will work interacting with you then.”

“So, I’m…”

A nothing. At all. I knew, but this was still a kick in the balls.

“You’re me. You’ll always be part of me.”

“Stop talking to me! Stop listening!” I screamed, plunging my suddenly dulling claws through my eyeholes and no further. “Go away,” I told it and even brighter idea popped in, “Just kill me already.”

“I’d just have to start anew,” monster said cruelly. “Bear with me little longer, until I know what I need to do.”

The wait probably wasn’t as long as it had felt. Fighting against my own thoughts, the conversations they provoked, the body I could no longer control just felt that way.

Finally, even I could tell something has changed. Monster began accelerating as if close to the finish line. Million toothy branches unfolded. Unwittingly, I must have wondered. Sensory information flooded my all too narrow mind. A wall floated up ahead, so wide that even the brainy demon could not observe it in its entirety. Not really a wall, maybe more of a net – for some sound returned and other just sank right past and went off right into the infinity. All I could tell there was a lot of little threads. I could not guess if there was any actual body or if this was it.

I heard, smelled, felt, knew it. There was even input from first brush with the closest stems. They had untold amounts of little grabby fingers and even eyes. I suddenly knew its name. That specific scent which shared all too much with the one I inhabited. Stalwart defender tried to communicate, but the words were beyond me. Vengeful demon no intention to listen, ripping up the gently prodding tentacles and adding them to the overall mass. Deepwater terror would pry out whatever answer necessary from the much smaller foe’s cold dead fingers.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The net began gracefully embracing clumsy, lumbering mammoth which wasted no time tearing into lithe form. I felt brain’s network extend further with each passing second as though the other body was being converted and absorbed.

When encasing was complete, seemingly surrendered foe retaliated at last. The long stems pierced unrelenting attacker everywhere all at once. There were a lot of needle strikes. I even heard motion with my own two horns.

That’s it? Hope was so brief I didn’t even feel dejected. Physical pain and injury meant nothing to the one which ate me, so the outcome was clear.

“I did not consume you,” it hissed at me and within moments I was yanked to the side, feeling more motion darting around.

“Put me down,” I struggled – in vain. There was danger out there and I needed to put my face in it.

Whilst they both tore the other apart, for a moment I got the impression of net-creature was searching for something out here, perusing much larger brain library rather than inflicting haphazard damage. These were precision strikes. I dared not speculate, but this was a chance I could not afford to lose.

Since I was already somehow connected I probably didn’t need to - but stabbed one of my arms into the monster’s flesh at my side anyway. There was just one thing I needed to be conscious of - none of it was me. All of this was him. So, I extended myself forwards and tugged on one the point of invasion, pulling it towards the guarded cache.

The tentacle I gripped kept getting absorbed and in return it kept on attacking the part of me which held it, but I kept grasping onto them. Sensory information kept flooding me from the point of contact, but I still understood little of its mind. Perhaps my much simpler one was clearer to it, for the viciousness eased and allowed itself be lead eventually. My host was not happy about such foul interference with its business from the inside. This time the other monster was clawing at me, but with two of them at odds I had some room to manoeuvre.

With what felt like a roar I was thrown out of existence and thwacked onto what felt like bed of nails. Stone, sand and other debris pelted my head for a while, then rumbling stopped. One of my horns was broken off and lack of balance was worse than the pain. I fixed it up – by discarding equal portion of the healthy one - and only then could concentrate on the new environment.

From the effort the repair took me I already knew to be alone. Nobody was holding my hand in the dark anymore and boy, was it dark. Everything still hurt and best I could do was disconnect all of the nerve input. Cursed devil was right, this was much preferable.

“Man, what the fuck,” I muttered, rubbing my wet and dusty (grimy?) face. I could not see and restoring eyesight was far beyond me. I didn’t need that to know I was deep underground. Narrow crack deep in the ground, if the oppressive pressure was of any indication. Did I succeed or not? Clearly I was still alive, so I supposed that’s a no. And the one who wanted to keep me agonizingly going was undoubtedly stronger. He’d come looking. I need to go and not be here when that happens.

Clambering up from under the dirt I noted the water running down the walls. It was different. Unlike the one alien monsters floated in. I was thrown way the fuck out of that world. Well, can’t complain - even if I can’t bend all my joints right anymore.

I limped around several steps and the surface I stepped onto sounded different. I tapped again and it was undoubtedly squishy. Meaty. No wonder it stank so strongly of me here. Him. Was the demon here too, somewhere? How much of him? I knew now that the human form he wore contained nothing. An empty puppet, always attached to the main body by a string. So what was here?

I clicked tongue to view farther. A fault. Jagged edges ended here and a lot of softer mass lay on both sides. Not great.

I stuck my fingers into the fleshy formation and joined up our frayed nerve endings. Pain had to return, too, but one banged up arm was doable.

It was… more of me. All over the walls. I knelt, weak in the legs all of a sudden.

“Ugh, couldn’t you have had a less literal meltdown?” I asked of the dormant formless puddle, pulling my arm up to rip up whatever neural connections I could. This wouldn’t be enough. Not nearly. And I probably don’t have a lot of time.

Forced nails out once again and got to decimation. Tore up and chewed, too. I hurried, but it wasn’t long before I smelled someone else. Then I rushed some more.

“Ugh, what the fuck?” new person asked, looking around frantically and gawking at me in particular. He was me, but smelled all wrong. That immediately filled in all gaps.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” I gestured to the yet unchewed pile of brain, immediately assuming his reasons for being here.

“Holy shit, you’re me,” he was as surprised as disgusted.

I scrunched up my nose or whatever I had on my face these days and retorted, “Vast improvement, if you ask me. What’s with all that hair? Still?” How long has it been anyway?

“Well, not exactly had a lot of time for manipedi between dying repeatedly, and then tracking down others about to die repeatedly.”

Right. Time. There really was no time for idle chats, as much as I might have wanted to catch up. I resumed my work and ruined with passion, all mirth but forgotten. “You helping or just came to get eaten?” I spat out between bites.

I heard him shake his head. “It can’t eat me anymore. I’m pure poison… Snail sent me trailing after the backup cache. To kill you.”

I allowed my hardly functional limbs to slow.

“Is that… okay?” he asked after I remained quiet.