Who: Nebula, a slime]

[Where: Cozy Boring Old Cave]

[When: It’s dark…]

The entrance to this cave is super weird. It’s vaguely rectangular, and the grayish stones bordering it are a bit too blocky for my tastes. Maybe it’s an old ruin or other structure? Or maybe it’s just a regular ol’ cave and that’s just how caves look now, I don’t know!?

Entering the cave, I find my dark vision to have increased substantially. Maybe eating cheese improves vision?

Hah, I kid, I kid. It’s carrots that are supposed to improve your vision.

Besides, it was live mice that I’d been eating, little mice with wings. My thoughts go back to their succulence, how I’ve had my fill of the cheesy little critters, filling my energy reserves. I even feel a little overfull, if that even makes sense. The stuff is practically sloshing away, much like my beautiful slimy body.

For now, I feel myself compelled to remain in the cave. Each time the thought of leaving enters my mind, jitters run through me. Impressions whisper to me, warning me of the dangers outside the cavern entrance, urging me to stay away.

Fine then! I’ll go deeper, since clearly going out is not an option!

As I pass the stalagmites, I note how a faint grid pattern is etched into the stone, their previous purple-gray color now a purple-reddish-gray, heavy on the gray. The splatters on them are still there, yet even with this improved dark sight, they’re still indistinct dark splotches to me. Darker than my lovely slime, that’s for sure.

Even with this improvement in my vision, I still can’t quite tell what’s going on with the shadows up there on the ceiling.

A compulsion urges me to delve deeper, the desire to do so not entirely my own. I don’t argue with it; the curiosity burning within me helps to push me onwards.

The deeper I go, the less natural the cave begins to feel. More artificial, if that makes sense. Like a natural formation had been co-opted by something that was overwriting the original.

The cave’s passages narrow, the stone reddens, and the walls flatten, the grid-like pattern becoming more and more prominent until finally breaking out into fully developed red bricks. No longer a cave tunnel, its structure has been clearly defined as a hallway.

There’s even half-formed doors every so often. The hallways wend and wind, occasionally branching off into pathways that my compulsion steers me away from. Looks like those aren’t my destination. It’s very frustrating not to be entirely in control here, but if these are the rules for this new me, I guess I gotta roll with what the dice gave me.

Doors are getting actual handles and hinges now. On the ceiling, the wriggling darkness has been replaced by hanging wires and flickering incandescent bulbs. Pipes wend their way around the rather ordinary sort of shadows, a copper and iron network of hissing valves and glowing mossy growths.

Going downwards was my only option now. The artificiality of the place grows ever more apparent, the designer apparently having taken one look at a geometry textbook and gone mad in the process. The air is growing heavy with humidity, steam escaping from various vents and valves, placed seemingly randomly about the place. The same goes for the lights and doors, the vast majority arranged at odds with the architecture. Leaking pipes grow like errant vines through a forest of crumbling brickwork, linoleum tiles, and dingy hallways.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

Rhythmic clunks of steel-on-steel ring out, echoing through the increasingly chilly air. Temperature sensing, one of the senses I don’t have and don’t miss, is unavailable. Yet, I can still see the steam in the air condensing into sparkling frost on everything, indicating a much lower ambient temperature.

Not having much else to do while my body semi-autonomously pilots itself, watching the changes in my environment is all I have for entertainment.

My glorious slimy self is beginning to pick up the scent of something sweet, with a tinge of burnt char under it. A sickly sweet scent suffused with a sour undertone that only intensifies as time passes.

I mean, the rotted deer carcass from earlier smelled absolutely divine, and tasted great, by the way, I suppose, but I think that’s more of a quirk of this body than it is of anything else. So who knows what that smell could be…

No longer condensing on every available surface, frost has begun limiting itself to the insides of panes of dirt-covered glass on metal doors. If I had to hazard a guess as to the function of these doors, I’d guess them to be something similar to the insulated doors of a walk-in freezer. Some of them have latches or wheels instead of proper knobs, and, continuing the theme, none of them follow any sort of logic in their placement or orientation.

Hardly any of this stuff looks to be functional in the slightest. Geometry becomes increasingly non-euclidian, and at several points, I even find myself oozing along what can only be called the ceiling.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

At some point, I must have tuned most everything out for what felt like hours but could have been for any amount of time, as far as I could tell. My surroundings blur past me, growing ever more strange. I encountered frosty crystals of dripping white growing from the cracks of the meat-locker-style doors, their points reaching out to follow me. Torn and faded posters are pasted to the walls and the floors, writing too destroyed to make out.

Without warning, my free tour ends, and I find myself in an open pentagonal space. ‘Behind’ me, in the direction from which I’d come, a door slams shut, locking me in here. Whatever has been pushing me forward suddenly falls back, and a shiver runs through me. Finally! I can move on my own again! Rows of rusted machines, their original purpose obscured through the ravages of age. Red bricks and crumbling metal beams lay scattered about like bones in a graveyard. Along each of the walls of the five-sided room was a door, identical to the one I’d just gone through.

CLANG.

Keeping everything lit are flickering bulbs, dangling from the rafters. The clanging noises are loudest here, coming from no discernable source.

CLANG.

The linoleum and concrete meet in the middle, a five-pointed star of flooring, and smack dab in the center of that, is one very well-aged human corpse.

CLANG.

Nothing but rags and bones now. The cause of death is pretty obvious: there’s a copper pipe growing out of the skull, right between the eyes. I cringe with sympathy, my jelly wobbling with me. Most of the skeleton, much like the pipe, is missing or covered in white crystalline growths.

With one final CLANG, the room is silenced. Pressure builds in the back of my mind, a tidal wave against whatever’s left of my poor mind, until finally, the dam bursts.

[[Hello? H-h-hello? Testing, testing, one two three, testing… tak tak… I-is this thing on?]] A quiet and distant voice, crackling and popping, enters my senses.

What? Who said that? I wobble my vision around myself, not finding anyone in my vicinity. Huh. Nobody’s here.

[[I said that! O-over here!]] Inexplicably, my attention is drawn to the center of the room. [[This way! L-look! Look!]]

What, the skeleton? I circle the corpse, looking for the source of the distorted whispers.

[[Wh-what? N-no, not the skeleton! Besides, I-I-I-I haven’t been in that th-thing for… well, sugar, I don’t know! Years, maybe, who knows.]]

Wait… How am I being understood? I’ve just been making my usual gurgles! And there’s nobody visibly around, so that must mean…

[[That I’m using telepathy on you, y-yes. Look, I-I-I just need you to touch me really quickly, please!]]

…

[[O-okay, yeah, I could have worded that better.]]

…

[[Look, I-I-I need your help, okay? I-I’ve been here for who knows how long, all alone, by myself, a-aand loo-look, just touch the c-crystals on the copper thingy! Please!]]

Why should I? What’s in it for me, huh?

[[Um… a friend for life? I-Immortality? Aaa-a-a-access to limitless resources? Please, I need you to make this choice on your own! This is i-i-important!]]

Hmmmm. Not really convincing me here. How do I know this isn’t a trick and you’ll just curse me?

The feminine voice let off a staticky sigh. [I …can keep you well fed? A-all you have to do is the occasional task for me in exchange!]

Hah! Deal! You had me at ‘food’! So declaring, I wrap my glorious gelatin around the crystal-covered pipe. What now, I ask the voice, whose discordant distortion fills me with comfort every time I hear it.

[[Dissolve it,]] the voice commands of me.

Eagerly, I oblige. The crystals are rock candy, as I find out. The copper pipe tastes of nothing, like most non-foods I dissolve. Like other non-foods, my slime breaks it down and converts it into more slime. The constituent molecular makeup of what I’ve just dissolved is reported to me as I take it apart, layer by layer, which is how I find out the crystals are rock candy, of a sort.

These too are flavorless.

[[Bones too, please?]] asks the voice. I wiggle my mass in my best imitation of a shrug in the affirmative. Digging in, the bones are soon made non-existent by my highly efficient purpleness. [[O-okay, that’s good!]]

Yes, ma’am! Ooh, what’s this? I lean in for a closer look at what I’ve uncovered.

Laying there, fully exposed by my efforts, is a marshmallow white crystal star, almost identical to my own. Huh. Is that-?

[[Yeah, that’s me. We look kind of alike, don’t we? Ready for the next step?]]

Oh? Aren't I already touching it? I lift the star in my freshly-extended pseudopod and examine it. Comparing the two, I see that the core in question is about the same size as my own.

[[I don’t mean your slime, silly, as superb as it may be. I-I-I mean your Core! Y-you gotta touch our cores together!]] Miss Voice Lady laughs, tinny and stuttering and melodious like the rest of her. [[You’re a fun one, I like you!]]

Are you sure? I get a really bad feeling whenever I think about exposing myself like you’re suggesting.

[[Aahh, don’t worry about it! You’ll be fine! We’ll both be fine!]] Lady Miss Voice assures me, and just like that, all my hesitations melt away. As though they’d never existed, not even in my memories. I’d be concerned if that weren’t one of the worries that melted away.

Hey, before I do whatever this is, what’s your name? They call me Nebula, and by they, I, of course, mean me.

[[Oh! Right, introductions! Nice to meet you, Nebula! I’m–]]

tink!

The sound of two crystals tapping against each other, muffled in slime, rang out through the room.

Miss Voice Lady, as Nebula had called her, rolled invisible eyes as she watched the slime collapse into a puddle after touching the two cores together.

tink! tink!

Two more tinklings, the sound of two small gems clinking against the concrete floor. A boring wait was in store for the now-musing voice. [[At least they did as I asked, and willingly! Mostly willingly… That should assist with the companion bonding process… Besides, I could really use the help around here! …I’ve been so fudgin’ lonely here…]]