The Consumption
Lucid Codex Entry 002
It started with the ship.
A vessel so large, it warped the concept of architecture...part spacecraft, part hive, part cathedral. The walls pulsed with light that wasn’t quite artificial, and the corridors hummed with anticipation. People filled every level.
They all kept talking about going down.
Descending. Transforming. Not as a punishment...but a calling.
They weren’t afraid.
They were ready.
She wasn’t.
Not until she saw familiar faces...people she couldn’t name but somehow loved. And him. A man. Not a stranger. Important. He ran toward her, desperation in his eyes.
He didn’t want to descend without her.
So she agreed.
She carried something too. Small. Breathing. A child, maybe. Or a pet. Or both. It didn’t matter...it felt like her son, but it wasn’t. Not completely.
Together, they went down.
And everything changed.
They didn’t walk anymore. They floated.
Their bodies stretched into light, gold and translucent, trailing particles like memories burning off in the wind. Faces blurred. Eyes vanished. Voices became tones. There was no weight. No hunger. Just movement. Downward.
Forever downward.
Then the mirror.
She was in a room. Alone.
Staring.
Her reflection looked back, older than memory. Her skin was human...but wrong. Too smooth. Too still. Until she touched her cheek.
It cracked.
Thin black veins splintered outward, webbing across her face like rot beneath glass. Beneath that, red fissures pulsed...alive, wet, sick. Then it pushed forward:
A yellow sac.
Bulging. Pulsating. Pressing against her cheek from inside.
Something alive was growing inside her.
She screamed.
She clawed at it. Treated it. Panicked. And it faded.
Mostly.
But the red lines remained.
Like a map. Or a warning.
The room around her was massive and sterile...an abandoned lobby, maybe. No lights. No warmth. Just a couch. A single couch. And something beside her.
A child. A creature. A presence.
She couldn’t see it. But she felt it. Watching.
She called out.
“Help me.”
No answer.
Then: voices.
Her parents. Vague. Echoed. Distant but close.
“We’re here. We see you.”
She screamed louder.
“HELP ME!”
They didn’t move.
Then the blanket shifted.
Not fell. Not slid.
Pressed.
As if something underneath had risen to meet her gaze.
She blacked out.
When she opened her eyes, she was somewhere else.
An infirmary. White walls. Bright lights. A clinical silence too clean to be kind. Friends surrounded her...people she had loved once, in some other life.
One held her shoulder.
“She’s still sick,” someone whispered.
Across the room: a man. Huge. Familiar. Silent.
“He’s infected now,” another voice said.
She stood up. The words tore out of her:
“It’s me. I’m contagious.”
Panic.
Movement.
They dragged her away, and she didn’t resist.
She collapsed. Fell to her knees.
And vomited.
Not just bile. Not food. Not acid.
History.
She threw up years of consumption. Candy. Chemicals. All of it. Piled on the floor in wet, multicolored waves.
Then something approached.
It wasn’t human.
It wasn't a machine.
It was a hybrid. Cold. Deliberate. It hovered over the waste like a priest over sacrifice. Then it consumed what she had expelled.
Not with hunger.
With calculation.
It studied the remains.
Absorbed them.
Then it began to change.
Not to help her.
To replicate her.
Then she woke up.
Alone.
Sweating.
The taste of sugar still clinging to the back of her throat...coating her teeth like memory.
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Dream 9/12/24
