Bonus segment:
A Piecemeal Exposition
SPEEDY SNAIL-MAIL
Salutations dear readers!
Well, talk about a slugfest. I hadn’t expected to be forced out of my shell and thrown right into such a sticky situation, right from the get-go. You’ve gotta admit, however, that for someone as snot-nosed and inexperienced as me, I gave it my all. I really thought that this slug would just amble about sadly, but turns out it was a big-ol, double-crossing, slimebucket. Hopefully, it runs out of hemolymph before I get drained of my own fluids. So, I guess it's a war of attrition at this point!
Speaking of which, you might have wondered why a slug’s blood, or hemolymph, tends to be blueish-green. You likely know that our own human blood is red because of the iron in hemoglobin which, when bound with oxygen, appears red to our eyes. For slugs, as well as most mollusks, snails, octopi, spiders, and many others, oxygen is carried by the molecule hemocyanin, which uses copper to bind with oxygen. The combination of copper and oxygen produces a blue-green tint.
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Aside from all the blood, you might also have noticed the extraordinary amount of mucus I found myself rolling around in. This particular slug presented mucus with extreme levels of the qualities you’d normally find in slugs. The slime a slug produces serves multiple purposes, chief of which is to keep the slug’s exposed body humid at all times. The worst enemy of slugs is desiccation, or dehydration, which is why water-pulling salt can kill them so quickly, as will hopefully my proboscis! Their mucus can also serve as a deterrent to predators by being slippery and foul when ingested, as well as ease their movement by providing glide across rough surfaces and traction over vertical surfaces. Some slugs even produce sticky mucus that can trap pursuers or prey!
It is said that slug mucus is hygroscopic, which is the reason it caused me such pain and misery. This term signifies that it has both adsorbent and absorbent properties. Adsorbent signifies that humidity is pulled from the surroundings onto the surface of the mucus, whereas absorbent means that humidity is drawn into the mucus itself. This is what happened to me, my own fluids being drained out of my body by the highly active mucus for the use of the slug. Thankfully, I managed to find the vulnerability of the slug’s internal shell and drained it of its own fluid directly from the source!
All that’s left for me is to find a way to get out of a situation that’s turning out to be slicker than snot on a doorknob. I guess I’ll just have to keep on slugging it out and hope for the best!
Off the top of my head,
-me (your as-of-yet unnamed Heroine)