Intro

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This month I’ve done some fiction. I miss creative writing a lot, but i also really struggle to write anything longer than about 1k words and find it so much harder to figure out if its “good”. 

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If you want to watch the video that inspired this piece here is the link, but pls watch after you’ve read it, I don’t want to spoil anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_saW5yVIpA&list=PLnlSriM4g759m_XWTONc_AyiKhCg56XXf&index=7

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Another big source of inspo was Bogi Takács collection of short stories The Trans Space Octopus Congregation which I would highly recommend.

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The Dreamer

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It is comforting here. It is familiar. It is cool and dark and safe. My knowledge of what exists around me is defined by the shards of light I produce. Tentative stars breaching the darkness. Light here is tantalising and rare. When I collide I become a galaxy, brightness radiating out from the point of impact, overwhelming me and rendering my form visible. Under violence the bright points burst into radiant clouds of my own matter, my tender skin sloughing away into the dark waters. Presumably, it will eventually be consumed by some other creature. I hope they enjoy it. 

 

That is how I have survived here. It pays to be invisible. Those who would eat me do not wish to be seen, lest they be revealed to their own predators. Trying to eat me is foolish. Not only is my skin ever so thin and delicate, tearing away into ribbons under any amount of duress, but it adheres to that which has attacked me, exposing the would-be predator. A useful trick. And one I am proud of.  

 

The pressure, weighing down on me holds me together, allows me to maintain my form. As I understand it, further up than I will ever swim, the pressure is lessened. I wonder then, how creatures are able to survive without this blanket force upon them. It seems absurd to me.

 

Life here follows a predictable rhythm. I descend to the aggregate to feed, consuming what I can of the detritus, before flexing my body and floating up again to this in between space. There exists beings who will never leave the bottom, living their whole lives amongst the sediment, and those who will never encounter it. I am a creature of both worlds, floating between one and the other. 

 

I attempt to evade predators, and frequently I am lucky. I may never meet another being like myself in this vast world, but this is not something which concerns me. I have little capacity to wonder what exists beyond this, and so I feed, I float, I live.

 

----

 

I feel the disturbance long before it arrives. A shifting in the water, a continuous series of vibrations unfamiliar and strange. It continues, getting louder, closer, more transgressive.  Closer it comes. Closer. It is not fast, but I can feel its immense bulk, and I flex my wings once again, pushing myself as swiftly as I am able to get away from whatever predator is stalking the darkness.

 

But I am not fast enough.

 

Its lamps, brighter than anything I have ever felt, cast their brilliance upon me, far outshining what I am capable of producing. I cannot fathom what immense power it must have to be able to produce such burning light. Its arrival has brought great disturbances, creating currents where there had been none, sending powerful vibrations through the water that ripple through my body. I fear it. I try to escape, twisting myself, changing my internal pressures as quickly as I can to expedite my escape. But as I push myself up and up the currents swirl around me, I feel something huge in motion and I realise I am caught. The beast has taken me. I glow with the impact against what is surrounding me, but it has no effect against whatever horror has taken me into its maw. 

 

I am encapsulated by vibrations. They disturb my flesh, tickling through my membranes. It is unpleasant, unnatural. Whatever it is that has taken me, I fear it is not of nature. The textures, sensations, sounds are all so jarring. Smooth, totally smooth sides. It is hard but it is not rock. It does not feel alive. Its movements are stiff and odd, it does not feel as movement should, a body flexing and pushing, systems of pressure and tension contracting and releasing. Nothing I have ever known has felt like this. 

 

The pressure, too, is changing. Just as slowly as the beast arrived it must be leaving. That comforting weight of home is lifting, leaving me loose and vague-feeling. My movements are less powerful, my flesh less compacted. I am less aware of myself. 

 

This continues, the sensations intensifying, worsening as the pressure continues to decrease. Eventually it becomes evident to me that it is not so cold here. This new warmth is unfamiliar and wrong against my skin, my organs, everything. My tentacles quiver in disgust. There cannot be other creatures existing here, how could they under such undesirable conditions? And there is something else. In every cell of my body I can feel it. A sensation not dissimilar to the pressure of this creature’s lamps against my body, but carrying heat alongside it. It repels me. I swim against the smooth edges of the beast’s mouth, a desperate attempt to escape this heat. I might as well be pushing stone.

 

The beast judders and stalls, throwing me against the sides of what contains me. There are new vibrations now, the last of the pressure disappears and I am in agony. The beast swings, the feeling of weightlessness increasing unbearably. This is not the comfortable weightlessness of my home, but as if I have been reduced to viscera by a predator, only fragments of myself floating, entirely detached. The vibrations outside the beast are chaotic, difficult to track, long strings of various pitches interrupted by booming staccato punches, sharp piercing hits. I want to go home.

 

---

 

Although the creature which transported me was of an artificial nature, it appears there are organic beings that survive in this hellscape. I have felt the beating of hearts and the electrochemical stench of life as I was transferred to a small vessel. Their locomotion is strange, heavy and loud. In fact, everything here is loud, my body assailed by constant vibrations. So many that I struggle to distinguish them.

 

The brightness of this alien world still disturbs me, even though I am kept in relative darkness. This darkness has no guarantee of being absolute, it does not surround me, it does not comfort me. There is a space outside of here which is always bright. It is where they enter from. These creatures seem to adore the light. I cannot understand how. One of them enters from the brightness and approaches me. I swim towards the edge of my vessel in an attempt to maintain some distance but it is a futile effort. They watch me as a predator would, but if food is what they wanted I’m sure I would have been eaten by now. 

 

I focus on the sensations of their movement, reaching above the vessel. Something enters the water, stiff and lifeless. It prods my abdomen, stimulating my light and the creature seems to watch as it flashes and fades before poking again, this time harder. Again constellations ripple across my fragile form, brighter than before. I wonder if they realise that this light takes effort to produce. I am poked and prodded again, and again, each time more severely than the last, until my skin begins to discharge and surround me in the confined space. It adheres to the instrument, making it shine as it is removed. I cannot escape.

 

The creature seems satisfied, and makes to leave. I turn my attention to the rebuilding of my skin.

 

---

 

I have come to dread the staccato vibrations that signal the imminent arrival of the creature. It will poke me, again and again, staring all the while. I wish I could stop glowing. I would give anything. I don’t want to give it the satisfaction. My body has been annihilated. My skin will strip away, leaving me bare, shining granules surrounding me like a cloud of detritus, and it will wait until just enough of it has grown back before commencing the torture once again. 

 

I cannot parse their motivations. In the deep cold we are motivated by hunger, by a need to procreate, and little else. Whatever these creatures are, they have harnessed some immense, unknowable power. So much of what surrounds me, so much of what I sense is not alive, and yet these creatures are. Not once have their limbs made contact with mine. It disturbs me. A deep-seated wrongness that I feel from the tips of my papillae all throughout my integument.

 

I hope that I will be released before my body refuses to tolerate this mistreatment any longer. I hope I will once again feel the comforting pressure, the cold, the darkness of my home. I hope I will once again float, weightless, a galaxy unto myself.

 

Until then, I dream.