Rats

"Agggh!"

Will pulled out and fell backwards on his chest. He wailed as he crawled away from the gutter with one arm missing.

The rain bucketed down. His screams couldn't penetrate through the blanket of rain. If someone heard it, they couldn't quite make out how urgent it was. Screaming and yelling wasn't an abnormal noise to hear from time to time on the streets.

Hikaru's tentacle climbed out of the gutter and was slowly approaching Will across the road. The adrenaline was the only thing pushing Will this far as the pain and shock of losing his arm was debilitating.

The tentacle grabbed his leg and quickly pulled him back faster than he had crawled. Will grabbed onto the top of the gutter with his only hand.

With a yank, Will's hand slipped.

"Mike!!!" He called out as he was pulled down the sewer.

***

*Splat*

A huge chunk of viscous black fluid fell into the sewer from the storm drain. The slime then spilled into the stream of water, leaving behind the other body of black ooze.

The black sludge split off from one another as it followed the stream.

They were separated by density. Heavier bodies moved slower in the stream whereas smaller bodies moved faster.

The black ooze spread across the stream turning it black. A tentacle rose from the black water and dragged against the footpath on the side, but it disintegrated into slushy mud like a soft-serve cone. Then the stream got split off into three different tunnels.

Following one tunnel, the greyish tentacle rose again and grabbed onto the handrail on the side.

A sewer worker who was walking shrieked when he saw the tentacle appear in front of him. The tentacle then snapped and stayed stuck to the handrail.

The worker immediately went to look over the railing to see what it was in the water just then.

"Why is the water black!"

The water was too dark that even his flashlight couldn't penetrate. He didn't see what was lurking underneath, but he immediately thought of an octopus or squid. The giant variety.

The ink from either of them could explain the black water. However, the tunnels from this direction could only come from the residential district. Did someone lose their giant pet in the storm? A rich person with some weird hobby?

He suddenly thought of a woodblock print design made by Japanese artist Hokusai called "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife".

It was a picture of a woman having sex with two octopodes and was the origin of tentacle porn in hentai these days.

He now had the desire to go watch it tonight but first, he needed to report this incident to management.

Things like this happening were like seasoning to a dull life. He was going to tell this story to his workmates on break tomorrow. Realising that they wouldn't believe him he took out a phone to take a video of the tentacle and black water. Although, he found out the ink had washed down the stream already.

He positioned the camera steadily at the grey tentacle still attached to the railing. Just then he realised that there were no suction pads on the tentacle which are found on both octopuses and squids.

'Huh? Is this a rare species? Is it some sort of sea creature?'

Being middle-aged and working in the sewers for the past 20 years, he never believed again that his life would be anything else but ordinary.

However, maybe this was his time to shine. He could get popular by posting this on the internet. It would be like spotting the loch ness monster or a UFO. He would enjoy a bit of fame even if the nature of his story is weird.

He got excited while thinking this but looked up when he heard scurrying. He stared into the darkness in the distance of the tunnel.

'Rats?'

But it sounded too loud and heavy to be rats.

He was about to wrap up the video when he saw something emerging from the darkness in his video recording. He looked back up and saw a rat.

But it was as big as a Tosa Inu fighting dog.

"Holy F**K! What the F**K is that!" He shouted into the phone.

*KIEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

With a screech, it started running towards him. He staggered and dropped his phone in a panic. Then he kicked the incoming rabid rat away like a soccer ball.

It got back up and hissed at him.

He took a few steps backward and then bumped into something with his back.

He turned around.

It was a 3-metre-tall rat standing on two legs and drooling from the mouth.

It was bigger than a bear.

He broke out of his daze when a glob of drool fell on his face. It grabbed his shoulders with two of its claws and bit into his head.

"Aghhhhh!"

He gave a terrifying scream as its long top and bottom teeth cracked his skull. Blood spilled down his face. It chomped off his cranium just above his eyes. It let go of his shoulders and his body dropped to the floor.

It dug into his guts.

A group of dog-sized rats came round but didn't dare disturb the king.

They pulled the tentacle off the railing and ripped it apart.

***

The black slime finally managed to gather the strength to hop onto the footpath after a long time. It was a puddle of body parts slowly rearranging themselves and sticking together.

After a while, Hikaru rose from it nude.

Most of the radiation had been expelled. His body was slowly leaking black liquid through his skin. He lost a lot of biomass and was still weak until all the radiation was extracted from him.

Right now, he just needed to wait for his body to heal. He started to remember what happened.

"You f**king cyborg!!"

Hikaru punched the wall but instead of it giving way, his wrist snapped.