The cavernous mouth of a spacefaring, planet eating cosmic goliath was a strange enough place to live by any metric. Thing is, Humanity didn’t have much choice in the matter.
Their world had been gulped down nearly 200 years ago in a single snack-sized bite.
Chomp. Just like that.
The remnants of Earth’s various peoples now lay in scattered ruins across the light year long distance of the Biter’s pink tongue. Wreckage and churned earth sat wedged into the canyon gaps between its mountainous teeth, mixed and matched with dozens of other alien species and their architecture, all now trapped within the world of the Biter’s mouth. A menagerie of life from across the stars, all brought violently to this place.
In one small corner of the Mouth, a patchwork of human and alien architecture had been anchored into the flesh of the Biter’s cheek with stakes and chains. Perhaps it was the only human settlement left. It was certainly the only settlement Peri knew of that wasn’t a Pirate den or infested with mindworms.
The place had been named something by the alien race that had lived there previously. It was etched into the stone steps of the xeno-chapel, into the walls of the gathering hall in an unidentifiable script of blocky, alien letters. After the humans had arrived and found it abandoned they had simply called it Sanctuary.
Parasites and Gaxax rarely ventured near it despite the harvest of human lives waiting there for them. There was something in the walls that they didn’t like. A poison in the soil that humans didn’t seem to mind at all.
In some places there were pockmarked stones pierced into the stringy, black and red flesh of the wall, serving as platforms to walk across between buildings. In others, there were bridges of scavenged wood threaded with tendons as thick as vines. The alien buildings were visibly more aged than the newer human constructions, leaving it a lopsided city where the buildings below sometimes fell apart with disrepair, and the buildings above were constantly expanding, weighing down on everything beneath.
Lava-like stomach acid sometimes splashed up out of the throat like a geyser. It melted the flesh, bone and chitin of those foolhardy or unlucky enough to be by the entrance of the throat. Very few settlements persisted in that area - Sanctuary being more than far enough away to avoid the splash zone. Those outposts that were unfortunately close enough could be seen pitted and speckled with acid burns.
Often, these places were more dangerous to other inhabitants than the Biter itself. They were Pirate settlements anchored along the roof of the Mouth. Fishing out valuables and slaves with tech-nets and enormous hooks before they could be swallowed and lost to the alien Hell of the Underbelly and its vast medley of horrors. That was where the decomposers dwelt. The fungus colonies that swallowed creatures alive and stuffed them full of growing spores.
Still, Peri knew he would rather be swallowed and eaten alive in the Underbelly than be caught by the pirate Fishers. At least you’d get a fight to the death down in the Underbelly. The pirates had an incentive to keep you alive for a much longer time.
Yeah… pirates suck. Peri concluded.
The world shook as the Biter swallowed some saliva, the noise of it like the roaring of a distant tsunami. The wave of spit came along with a flood of leg sized parasites that swam about in the Gum Gulch, the spot where saliva pooled in a vast moat in between the tongue and the plaque filled badlands at the base of the Teeth. The squealing bloodsuckers were torn from their perches along with a modicum of Biter flesh each and sent spiraling down into the distance, off toward the drain. They screeched loudly enough to make Peri wince as he drove his climbing pick into the flesh wall.
“Hate those damned things,” Corma said from five feet below, grunting as he hoisted his leg up and onto a scar on the wall. “Their screams make my skin crawl. Like haunted puppies.”
Peri nodded his agreement. “I don’t trust anything that slimy and wiggly. Too much like a gaxax.”
Corma shook his head at the mention of those dreaded beasts. His unkempt hair was slick with a combination of sweat and the humid mist that inundated every part of the Mouth - a cocktail of a hundred different biological compounds that were inescapable in this place. They filled every breath.
Watching the receding wave of saliva disappear down the Throat along with a thousand wriggling shapes, never to be seen again. “Good thing we’re not out Mucking today, eh? Those wader boots they give you won’t do anything to stop you drowning, just like those blood suckers.” Corma talked absently as he continued to climb. The man never seemed to have a quiet moment, and Peri found he appreciated the casual noise. “It seems like you always find grubs in your socks afterwards. In places other than your socks… Did I ever tell you about the nest of gyrdwirms I found in my hair? It was only like a week ago…”
Peri listened and nodded along, stabbing his gyro-knife into the fleshy wall with a thunk and an unexpected splat as a weakened portion gave way. With a yelp, Peri swung back on his climbing hook. He released it and let his momentum carry him in an arc before yanking on the rope tied around his wrist and recalling the hook before plunging it back into the wall several feet away. The broken wall spewed a fetid, boiling liquid out into the humid air. Peri wiped his face in a panic, sighing in relief as he realized there was none of the Biter’s blood on his lips.
“Ah!” Corma yelled. Without warning, he couldn’t avoid the chunky black spray of biological material in time and so did the next best thing. He pulled his leather bib up and over his face, tucked his head, closed his eyes, and waited begrudgingly for the black blood to stop splattering his head.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
When the flow finally receded and the flesh began to knit itself back together, Corma looked up in accusation at Peri, who gave a weak smile before apologizing.
“Maybe double check where you’re stabbing those things, eh?” He shook his head and casually wiped at the blood in his hair that could mutate his flesh and mind should he so much as take a sip. “Wouldn’t want you to be climbing with a mutated Freak.”
“Aren’t I already?” Peri managed a full smile.
Corma grinned back, stabbing his hook and gyro-knife into the wall as they continued to climb towards the roof of the Mouth. They had been climbing for an hour already and would wind up climbing another thirty minutes before they got there.
“Cavern up here!” Peri called back as he pulled himself up over a lip of calcified flesh and into what used to be a quarry - most likely a Svetak quarry, judging by the perfectly clean cuts and the burn marks. The Svetak were older than the unknown race that had built the bottom half of Sanctuary. Or at least that’s what some of the older humans said.
The Svetak’s handiwork was littered all over the Mouth; broken plasma cutters shaped like potato peelers; castoff shells from when their children molted; there were even murals left behind in the scorched walls, depicting the Svetaks, short and round with a turtle like shell that enveloped their whole body, save for the seven holes through which they stuck their limbs and head. They had frills on their reptilian head and a beak like mouth.
Peri would have loved to meet one, but no human had ever seen a living Svetak. Only their remains. And their ruins.
It wasn’t a good line of thought to dwell on. That an entire species had lived here in much the same way humans now were. That they lived and built homes, carved blocks of flesh from the walls and seared them to stone with which they built their homes. And now they were gone. Just like the people that lived in Sanctuary before. All eaten by the Biter.
Just like the humans…
Peri shook his head as Corma grunted and reached out a hand. Peri grabbed him and hoisted him up.
“Let’s take a sec and make sure we’re clean.” Peri reached into one of the many pockets on the leather bib wrapped across his front and pulled out a cleanish rag. He handed it to Corma as the man collapsed on the ground and started wiping himself down.
The cavern they were in extended deeper into the wall, continuing on in a scorched path where the Svetak had cut their way in. The human ministers said they had been quarrying for building materials but Peri had never seen a building like that, made of scorched blocks of meat.
It’s almost like they were trying to dig their way out.
It obviously hadn’t worked. The deeper into the flesh you went, the harder it was to hurt and the faster it lashed itself back together. Peri had once seen a man become trapped in a tunnel as the flesh around him healed. Tendrils and threads of meat collapsing upon him, folding around him and swallowing him from sight.
With that memory in mind, Peri didn’t much feel like exploring the tunnels. They looked partially healed already, which meant they would be quite the squeeze once you got further in.
Peri accepted the rag back from Corma and tossed it out into the open air where it fluttered and plummeted to the Gum Gulch far below. A frenzy of motion erupted where it landed in the river of saliva, like piranhas to a chunk of bloody meat.
Peri looked away. He followed Corma’s lead and sat down. Climbing duty was exhausting as always but Peri enjoyed the exploration of it. He looked out over the Mouth from his vantage point. His soft purple eyes taking in the vast world inside the Biter. A fetid breeze sent his matted hair fluttering just slightly at the tips.
Teeth the size of mountains ringed the horizon. Cavities and chipped tips visible even from so many miles away. Vague shapes moved about the peaks of the Teeth, enormous serpents that glided on frilled wings in the humid air, snatching scavengers from the base of the teeth before returning to laze about their mountain peaks.
Along the tongue there were an uncountable number of hills - each just a single one of the Biter’s tastebuds. A wild variety of creatures prowled there. Hoheits tucked their elephantine trunks into their tiny, orb like bodies and rolled along the gullies, using tastebuds like ramps to launch themselves away from predators. Raptor like creatures screeched and chattered as they gave chase.
Odd crabs and flat, scuttling creatures scraped food scraps from the surface of the tongue. Proboscis wielding insects buzzed about and were snatched up by fleshly, many tongued balls of malformed meat. Strangely hued plants and fungus thrived in the aftermath of feeding frenzies. Skimmer worms slid across the plains, enjoying their precious moments of freedom before one of the many clawed horrors swooped down and snatched them up - only to become the host of another brood of skimmer worms.
Peri looked up at the roof, towards their goal. Long strings of glowing fluid hung down in sticky, swaying globules. They were extraordinarily sticky and could be rendered down to a mortar that had the additional benefit of lighting up the darkness. The anti-friction sack on Peri and Corma’s back allowed for easy transportation of the ceiling gunk.
“Well…” Corma said, standing with a groan. “I’m as clean as is possible in this shithole. Might as well get the rest of this trip over with.” In a conspiratorial whisper, Corma leaned in towards Peri and added, “I heard there’s to be a celebration on our return. For the raising of the new apartments, we’re to receive honors.”
“Full honors?” Peri asked, though he didn’t much care either way. The only difference was the spot you sat at the long table. No extra food for the honored.
What a scam...
Corma seemed to feel otherwise as his eyes glittered. “Yeah. Full as full gets. We get to sit second-high - and you know what that means.” He wriggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.
“Ahh…” Peri said, nodding. “Of course.”
Corma paused. “You do know what it means, right? I know you don’t eat at the long table all that often, but still…”
“Yup, I know exactly what you’re talking about.” Peri said in a tone indicating the exact opposite.
He stood and stretched, checking his bib’s contents and the security of his pack. Satisfied, he pulled out his climbing tools.
Corma gawped for a moment before starting his usual stream of chatter. “It means we will only be two seats away from the chancellor’s daughters! Misa will be there! She’s always there! And we’re going to be sitting basically right next to eachother!”
“I knew that,” Peri said.
He hadn’t known that.
And as soon as he learned that particular fact, he forgot it, because in the middle distance, hidden among the dangling globs of glowing, sticky roof-ooze, he saw something that caused his heart to clench up. He went ramrod stiff and his purple eyes widened.
“Stop!” He grabbed Corma’s shoulder and pulled him away from where he was getting ready to mantle. The man grumbled something, sour that Peri didn’t seem to care about the chancellor’s daughters and their seating order.
None of that mattered though, because from the roof of the Mouth not even a half-mile away, there dangled something that was not at all a globule of sticky ooze. It was metallic and beaten and covered in rust. A hook threaded with a steel wire mesh and a smart-reactive net hanging from its tip.
Despite the distance removing even the remotest chance of being heard, Peri still whispered when he spoke.
“Pirates,” he said, pointing towards where the hook and net dangled like an angler fish’s light. Corma tensed, eyes scanning the roof silently until he spotted it as well.
A moment passed as the pair simply stared, dread clenching in their guts.
“Fuuuuck...” Corma groaned. His scarred face twisting into an expression perfectly the opposite of pleased.
“Yeah…” Peri agreed. “Fuck.”