What?!

Lucy searched frantically for the small tunnel she’d crawled out of before remembering she was on the far side of the corridor now. Stupid! That ramming hit from earlier must have knocked something loose in her…cytoplasm?

I cannot have cytoplasm right now. I can’t. I have blood inside me. I’m a human.

She could feel the current shifting behind her. The monster was coming too fast, she wasn’t going to make it unless she found a—

There! A gap in the tunnel floor. It was wide enough that the creature could follow, but it was better than nothing. Maybe the monster would be too slow to change directions.

Instead of making a great, heroic leap over the large gap, Lucy rolled herself forward with all her might and pitched into the hole head-first.

Her momentum kept her moving quickly down the straight shaft, and just as the upward current was slowing her progress to a halt, she spotted it: an opening in the side two or three times her body size. She renewed her awkward wriggling, straining to get closer.

She wasn’t precisely sure how big the thing chasing her was, but if that opening narrowed, she’d be off scot-free, minus the eight damage she’d already taken.

I guess there’s crits, she mumbled as she fought her way toward the opening in the tunnel floor.

Just before she reached it, a delicious smell entered her…well, she didn’t have a nose anymore, so she assumed she could smell through her membrane, which she squeezed as if taking a nice big whiff. Mmm…is that…sulfur? Why does it smell so…flavorful? It reminded her of perfectly seasoned meat, smoky and delicious.

A blue [+1 Evolution Points] popped up in her vision, along with a notification.

[*Ding!* Congratulations, you have learned the skill “Oxidize Sulfur”]

[Oxidize Sulfur: Allows for the passive gain of—

Lucy dismissed the notification as something slammed into her from the tunnel below at high speed, and she realized only as she fell through it that it was a bubble of air. It felt…dry. In fact, for the brief moment she was in the air bubble, she felt her membrane begin to shrivel and dry up. Ouch.

Okay, air is a no-go. She didn’t think she’d be charging onto the surface anytime soon, but it didn’t hurt to know your limitations. Which, now that she thought of it, were really starting to pile up. What about her wasn’t a limitation?

It wasn’t something she was used to. To be honest, she’d had it pretty easy in her life up on the surface. Sure, she’d worked hard to get to where she wanted to be, but she’d also been lucky, never had to—

Survive.

The word came to her like a flash of lightning that sets dry grass plains ablaze.

Up till that moment, Lucy hadn’t taken her new situation 100% seriously. Some part of her had refused to accept it. It was too strange, too bizarre and unfamiliar and…unlikely. Things like this didn’t just happen. It was ingrained in Lucy’s entire sense of self that she was a human, and to imagine otherwise strained the limits of her mind.

But right now, that’s what she had to do if she wanted to survive, and that instinct was even more a part of her than her appearance. She had to accept that she wasn’t human. She didn’t know how or why or what had done this to her, but it was real.

Okay, she thought with new resolve, remembering how she’d first managed to move forward in the water. Maybe if I can flex my membrane in contact with the stone…

There was a horizontal tunnel that split off from the main shaft. Lucy gripped the top edge of the side-tunnel opening with her membrane, flexing and pulling against the stone with all her strength until her body started to follow. The current in the shaft was pushing upwards now as another bubble came up beneath her, and above her she could sense the prickly monster shoving its spiny, terrifying bulk after her. It wanted her. To consume her and take her energy for itself.

Well too bad! Lucy wanted things too.

She wanted to live.

Her slimy membrane finally found enough purchase, and with a great heave Lucy rolled herself into the hole. As soon as she did she sensed that it narrowed ahead. Which was good, because she was pretty sure she felt the water shaking behind her as the monster approached.

Just then a massive rumbling noise filled the water and shook the stones, and a blast of hot water slammed into Lucy, sending her tumbling farther into the side-tunnel.

Lucy was getting tired of being pushed around so much these days, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

Stolen story; please report.

As she got her bearings she heard a rushing noise like a geyser, and a few small bubbles trickled into the side-tunnel where she hid, smelling faintly of that same delicious scent as before.

Unless she missed her guess, Lucy was in a hydrothermal vent right now, and that column of bubbles and seawater could be reaching temperatures of over 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Lucky for her, it only seemed to issue the big blasts every few minutes or so, with lower-temperature bubbling in between.

Still, if she had been caught in the main tunnel shaft rather than off to the side, she probably would have been cooked.

Perhaps the blast had killed the thing chasing her?

Maybe, but she wasn’t counting on it. Lucy rolled down the tunnel but quickly came to a dead end.

A roar let her know the monster had arrived at the entrance of the tunnel, and as she turned to face it she felt the water around her tremble almost as much as it had during the blast. The monster tilted back in the water, and its jaw stretched and stretched, opening up until it took up nearly all of its underside.

Then it started working its way in, black spikes shrieking against the stone as it pushed for leverage.

Uh-oh.

Lucy thought of her [Reform Body] skill and hoped it wasn’t something the monster had. But right now she didn’t even know what it meant that she had skills at all, let alone if other organisms had them. She was really going to need to sit down and figure out what the hell was going on.

As soon as I’m safe, she told herself.

The tunnel narrowed significantly, thankfully, and soon the monster got stuck in the entrance. Lucy let out a sigh, feeling the tension in her membrane release as she sagged into a heap against the wall. Her unicellular body apparently had some serious limitations, because she felt absolutely wrecked right then. All she’d done was get poked a few times and moved a short distance, but it felt like her body was gasping for air.

So she let herself relax a bit as she planned her next move. Things had gotten very hectic, very quick, and she needed some time to figure out what the hell exactly was going on.

First she would rest a while, and then—

PING!

Lucy heard the noise a split second before a small, sharp pain pierced her side. Her vision flashed red around the edges.

[WARNING: LOW HEALTH]

[HP: 1/10]

Lucy didn’t need the warning. After the effort of escaping and making it into the tunnel, she felt like she was running on fumes. And that had been before she got shot. Now she could tell her new body was clinging to life.

[Energy: 19/100]

Not good. Lucy needed somewhere safer to hide, and fast. She shoved herself flat against a slight curve in the wall just before she heard another PING! and saw a deadly-looking black spike whiz past, just missing her.

Think! There must be some way out of this.

Despite her panic at the attack and shock from the whole situation, Lucy found that she was able to process things. Not quite clearly and not without an edge of terror, but enough to calm herself down and make a plan.

She couldn’t hold herself there forever, she knew. It took a straining effort already to keep her body pressed so flat, and sooner or later the last dregs of her pathetic energy reserves would run dry, and she would…

No!

She wouldn’t let that happen. Lucy waited until the monster had shot one of its spikes, then poked about a third of her body out of her hiding spot. It was enough for her sense of Awareness to show the length of tunnel between her and the blobby spike monster. If she remembered correctly…

There! About halfway to the entrance, the tunnel split off. Lucy had ignored it as too small to fit into when she’d come in, but now that she had no choice, she decided to either make it through or die trying.

PING!

She peeked out again, and this time saw a tendril of slimy grey mucus working its way into the tunnel, like the monster was trying to force itself farther in by changing the shape of its body. It didn’t look like it was making much progress, but it wouldn’t matter. She couldn’t hold on much longer.

Well, if he can do it, why can’t I? She had the Body Reform skill after all, right? And she wasn’t about to let some stinking, bloated heliozoan end her life just because she looked tasty.

A wave of determination flooded into Lucy’s body, rippling her cytoplasm and tingling her membrane. Wow, this little cell’s got some feelings, she thought, as she imagined herself rolling up her sleeves.

To her surprise, her body did something similar. Well, not quite, since it didn’t have arms or clothes, but she did for a moment see and feel two little nubs begin to extend from her gelatinous outer membrane. Not like they were growing out of it, more just that her normally amorphous membrane-body itself was rearranging to make the shape.

If she could make herself flat enough to fit through that crack, she could escape. Maybe. If nothing else, the crack seemed deep enough that she could rest and recover.

She caught sight of a small red [+1 HP] in her vision, and when she checked she saw that, indeed, her health had gone up to 2/10. The first attack had done 1 damage, which meant she could take one more hit. As long as it wasn’t from behind. Probably.

She checked her energy reserves.

[Energy: 9/100]

It would have to be enough. She couldn’t keep herself flattened much longer, and the monster’s tendril was reaching ever farther into her little cave.

With a bubbling war cry, Lucy unflattened herself and charged out as soon as the next spike cleared her spot.

DIE, YOU STUPID MONSTER!

She didn’t actually have any way of killing the thing right now, but it felt good to express her feelings.

She gripped the stone of the tunnel floor with her membrane and rolled, counting the moments in her mind as she whirled down the hall.

PING!

A spike slammed into her head-on, piercing through her membrane before dissolving painfully inside of her. Lucy gritted her teeth and kept on rolling. This was part of the plan, and if all it took to survive was enduring a bit of pain, so be it. She could do it.

Her progress was horribly slow, and every time she rolled over the part of her body that had been pierced most recently she felt a throb of pain. But the opening was getting closer.

She was going to make it! The monster wasn’t due to shoot another spike for at least three more seconds, and she was about to clear the—

PING!

Pain lanced into her side, and before her world went black she had time for just one moment of thought before the haze of pain and nothingness closed in.

But…that’s not fair! It wasn’t supposed to shoot yet!

Then she faded into a darkness more real and enveloping than any she’d yet experienced, and everything that made her her was gone.

Lucy died praying for a second chance.