The Terror That Awakes
Author: Black_Evil
Chapter 1: The Terror That Awakes.
When I woke up, my mind felt assaulted by sounds, sensations, and thoughts unbelievably foreign to me. It felt like a tornado of lucid dreams, clashing with malevolence and brilliance to form a truly–so very truly–disgusting chill throughout me.
I had felt as if I had the worst hangover in my life, despite the fact I rarely ever drank alcohol–I never liked being drunk–and would only drink it on special occasions with friends.
Ignoring my thoughts, I tried to get a read on my situation, to at least know that I got home safely.
—Except
'Huh?'
My 'eyes'—if you can call having every inch of skin an eye—showed me something I was not expecting.
I wasn't on my comfortable bed with my Hello Kitty-themed blanket, I wasn't in my room, and I am sure as well that I wasn't in my house.
—Everything around me was wet
'Huh? Huhhhhh?!!!'
--Everything around me was filth.
'Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no'
—Everything around me... was gore.
'O gracious God, I beg you, have compassion on your wretched child and deliver me from this horror! Have mercy on my soul, please let it be a dream, please let it be a dream!'
Although I was a person of faith, I wasn't particularly religious; but the sheer revulsion in me—the gnawing fear and panic—forced me to recite prayers and plea forgiveness.
I thought I had been sent to hell—I later realised that I was indeed in hell—and that I would be suffering for my sins.
'Oh god, oh god, oh god!'
As I recited prayers in a panicked daze—a frenzy of fear and despair—and with bated breath that this would all pass as a horrible nightmare; I was struck with a cold sensation in my mind.
It was all-consuming, eating away both my furious despair and hope... leaving utter rationality.
—I felt calm
It was a calm that both relieved, and terrified me even further—as my calm allowed me to think—as I took in my surroundings.
The walls….
No, calling 'those' things around me walls was a gross violation of my sanity. Those 'things' were like giant, amalgamated pillars of red, grotesque flesh. Flesh that writhed, pulsated, and massed; covering everything in a myriad of shapes and layers; unspeakable fluids ranging in various colours and viscosities flowed with what I could only assume was blood as they kept churning out, like oil leaking out of a tank.
The ground was even more of a sight to behold.
It was as if a tree made of flesh had its roots on the surface. Giant tendrils and 'branches' of flesh spread across a room and stretched into tiny vents, holes, and tunnels as I seemed to have been underground. It was all-encompassing; maddening with every inch a grotesque masterpiece.
(I didn't know at the time why or how, but I found the sight to be immensely beautiful, as if I had just cleaned up my room from the accumulated garbage, and saw it with fresh eyes.)
The sight was overwhelming even with my unnatural calm; I felt suffocated.
Finally, as if it had been waiting to put the final nail in the coffin, sensation kicked in, and even my rational mind felt chaos.
—This room….. This whole area…. was me.
I could feel everything.
From that point, I remember having blacked out, with my body going into autopilot to ensure my needs were minimally met.
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'Huh'
I looked curiously at a small tendril wagging back and forth as I willed it to do. The tendril was blackened red, small but sharp as I had tested it against an insignificant part of my room.
(Note the fact I said room and not body, because I refused coming to terms with the fact I was now the most unfuckable thing imaginable)
To explain what's happened,
I remember waking up 5 hours ago, with a fresh pair of eyes and a cold mind; The blackout had been helpful, most likely helping me 'transition' myself into this 'room' better, so as to not cause another freak passing out. Though I wished I could have freaked out. Would have at least kept me busy for a while.
'Unbelievable! I turned into a horrifying monster just a couple of hours ago and I am contemplating boredom now!'
Yeah, 5 hours was apparently enough time for my hyper-rational mind without any emotional distractions to sort through and leave any attachments I had for my previous life and my apprehension against my new environment behind.
I honestly can't tell if it's depressing that it only took a couple hours to be completely detached from everything I used to know. Q
But in the bright side, calm rationality is fucking broken, I could have easily breezed past my life if I had this. It was like having a guide in your head giving you all the directions you need to be successful in whatever you pursue without self-sabotaging bullshit like insecurity, anxiety, and fear getting in your way.
Hell, because I had been soo afraid of blood, my mind forced me to remember biology class lessons so I could just rationalise all the gore around me as formulas and facts down to the last detail instead of having an emotional reaction to it. It literally rationalised the fear out of me.
This was probably doing numbers on my emotions and actual mental health, but god damn was rationality a superpower I would never want to be without. It was like being transported into a professional athlete's body with six packs when you previously couldn't even walk a kilometre without leg pain, the difference was addictive.
All that aside, it hadn't taken too long for me to realize what I was—well at least what think I was—as I had scoured through my memories to find a way to get out of this situation
—I was a proto-gravemind
—That made me the Flood
But wait, that's not all.
—-I was in 40K
Oh, OH, OHHH, OHHHHH BOY!
If I wasn't the one stuck in an underground tunnel network as a massive gorey flesh-monster, I would have thought this was fiction!
But I was, so I had to deal with it this madness in the most rational way I could imagine—
—-Act like nothing happened.
Hey!
just because I had absolute rationality didn't mean I was incapable of emotion; it's just the way I expressed my emotion was a bit different.
So in virtue of acting like nothing happened, I 'stretched' my legs, arms, eyes, and every other appendage, and just casually began experimenting with them.
As a proto-gravemind, I couldn't actually move so I relied on the many, many tendrils and all sorts of 'danger noodles' to do anything.
My first experiment was to see how many of these noodles I wielded, and the answer was 6666. Though if I subtracted all the insignificant tendrils too small or weak to do anything about, I would get 666 decent to very good noodles.
'666 huh? Probably the 40K magic, nothing is ever a coincidence in this hell.'
Accepting my fate, I didn't ponder too much on the cartoonish logic of 40K, I feared that if I tried to use my logic, I would get smited out of existence.
'Don't question cosmic forces in a universe where they can and will abuse it.'
Next, I decided to use my danger noodles to perform circus tricks... To check their agility, strength, endurance, and versatility of course!
I tried everything from hula-hooping to playing darts with my noodles using the broken and jagged non-fleshy materials around me. It was surprisingly a good experience without any problems I expected to have like fine motor control, size irregularity causing me to stumble and fumble, and everything else a human should expect from having moved to a body such as this.
But no, everything was smooth and natural; like breathing. Nobody ever needs to be taught how to breathe, unless they had birth complications. So using my tentacl—noodles was a non-issue.
Something that surprised me was how my noodles had an insane constricting and weight-lifting strength, a simple noodle the size and width of a human arm could lift 300 pounds easily, 500 pounds with a little struggle and constrict around prey with enough force to crack a human femur—the strongest bone in the body!
—But that wasn't all.
I had biokinesis.
Holy shit.
I mean I knew I had biokinesis since I was a Flood proto-gravemind, but actually using it for the first time was beyond magical!
Even with my extremely amateur technique—instinct can only teach so much—I was able to shapeshift flesh and turn my noodles into battering rams with spikes and all included in the span of a minute!
'The games never showed Flood biokinesis like this. Was it because the Flood would rather just send armies and swarms rather than fight with its gravemind body?' Pondering over it, I searched my memories to see if the games had shown the flood entities being this deadly in close combat.
'Even though I haven't read the books, I am sure the flood wasn't this overpowered! Am I really the proto-gravemind or is this some mutation?' I felt conflicted for a moment, happy to be stronger, but uncertain as my knowledge of the Flood was already shallow before and now wasn't consistent with what I was seeing and experiencing.
Setting my doubts aside, I further explored my capabilities.
'Huh, if I pick up a piece of metal or object, can I integrate it into my body?'
Unsure, I picked up a bent metal beam that was covered in blood and seemed to have already started rusting. I used one of my biggest noodles, which was 7 meters in length and nearly a meter in width, I just wanted to see if I could jab the metal beam in my noodle and reinforce it somehow.
Seconds and minutes trickled by, as I focused on my appendage wrapping itself around the metal and consuming it.
Blood and fluids seeped into the metal, corroding and transforming it's chemical properties to fit with me biologically. However, I didn't want to consume the metal for the sake of consuming it. I wanted to see if my biology allowed me to integrate non-biological matter and strengthen myself through it.
—I knew I would have to fight Necrons one day after all
So having the ability to assimilate Necrodermis would give me another layer of protection; since NOBODY wants to fuck around with Necron Gauss weapons.
—shivers—
No amount of mass will save me from a direct hit with Gauss weaponry. The Necrons have several types of those bastard weapons too!
Cannons, bombs, missiles, and world-ending weapons galore; every faction has it and I need something more than just flood bioforms if I want to survive, much less fight. Purely swarming won't work too well, since there are at least four factions who use swarm tactics on the daily but still get their ass handed to them. The Imperium and Orks are by far the best example of this.
Now that I think about it, I should also try getting in contact with the drukhari; for as disgusting and depraved they are, their flesh craft is genuinely amazing and something I covet. They also knew a lot of warp biokinesis, so even though I was deathly afraid of the warp, I at least wanted to know the basics of warp fuckery so I don't find myself being metaphorically—literally as well—fucked in the ass instead of fucking others in the ass..
Also, nothing they do can even compare with what I do to my victims. Don't mistake me for naive, I know very well that I rival Nurgle on the 'Oh fuck no!' list of body horror.
Removing unnecessary thoughts—I regained focus on my project. It was going decentish…..some parts of the metal were completely subsumed to my flesh, which obviously sucked balls, but R&D was never meant to be easy.
But fortunately, some parts of the metal did what I wanted them to do and became something like a protective glove over my danger noodle. My appendage now looked even more horrific than before….. yay!?
Before; it was your usual noodle that dripped fluid, writhed, and pulsated with meaty fervor—carrying probably a billion flood STDs—now it was exactly that, but metal included!
The metal made my tentacle fashionable in the same aesthetic as how a daemon engine was fashionable to the Dark Mechanicus. I could see myself challenging Lorgar and his dweebs to see who could create the better heretical machine.
That dumbass would probably cry the moment I won, no point in even trying.
'Heh!' A mental chuckle couldn't help but escape me. I despised Lorgar and Mortarian, both demi-gods of insane intellect and body, but got manipulated and usurped by their own soldiers with weaknesses so mortal, that their demi-god title should have been revoked. Chaos is strong to mortals, but to demi-gods and peers? They could only be felled if they allowed themselves to be.
Moving on.
Satisfied with my basic research, I decided I would look into it further after I had gotten a proper read on my situation. I looked for a way to spread myself out of the tunnel network.
'The people I consumed to become a proto-gravemind were a bunch of tunnel rats, so I should be able to find a way out of this tunnel soon.... I wonder if Amasec tastes like beer, that would sober me up—wait can I even taste beer?' My idle thoughts wandered.