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For those of you who have stuck around in the off chance I might, here's a little of something I'm working on. It's not much, but it's something.","description_bbcode_parsed":"Man, I haven't put up anything in a while. For those of you who have stuck around in the off chance I might, here's a little of something I'm working on. It's not much, but it's something.","writing":"[center]The Colony\n\nChapter 1\nAwaken[/center]\n\n\n“Subject eighteen,” a voice boomed, “can you hear me?”\n\nGinn grimaced at the overly loud intrusion to his sleep. He tried to rub his face but found his movements restricted, his arms bound across his chest, but he was too groggy to be alarmed by that yet.\n\n“Subject eighteen,” the voice insisted again, “can you hear me?” The voice sounded artificial, it lacked any discernible dialect. \n\n“Subject eighteen, can you hear me?”\n\nGinn tried to say something but instead erupted in a fit of coughing. A huge volume of fluid vomited from his lungs and splattered down the front of him. It was a slimy, mucus like substance. It hurt to expel it. It felt like he was going to shatter his ribs coughing so hard. His lungs wheezed and gurgled in protest. All the time the artificial voice screamed it's question at him, oblivious to his suffering.\n\n“Subject eighteen, can you hear me?”\n\n“Yes.” Ginn finally managed to croak. Somewhere above him he heard a computerized chime. It hurt to talk and his own voice sounded foreign to his ears. He tried to open his eyes but there was a blinding light in his face that seemed to pierce into his skull so he closed them again. There was a strong odor around him. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it. \n\n“Please state your name.” The artificial voiced demanded loudly. \n\n“Could y--” Ginn swallowed hard, trying to get the remaining fluid to go into his stomach instead of back into his lungs. “Could you talk quieter?” \n\nThere was an irritated buzz above him. “There is no record of [b]Cood Yi Coodyotalcqueter[/b] in the database.” The voice blared indifferently to his plea. “Please state your name.”\n\nEven in a fog of weariness Ginn realized the futility in arguing with a computer. “Ginn Harbir.” He told it. With one last cough he managed to clear enough of the fluid so that he was relatively comfortable. \n\nThe computer chimed and there was a pause. In the silence he thought he could hear faraway voices, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. There was a deep humming noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere above him. He struggled a bit against his bonds and found that they started to loosen a bit, making wet snapping sounds as they gave way. After a moment the computer blared, “Harbir, Ginn Matthew. Gender: Male. Date of birth: July seventh, twenty-four thousand seventy-five. Place of birth: Lucknow, United New China. Current occupation: unemployed. Previous occupations: retail management, military service. Highest military rank attained: Sergeant. Notable skills: combat experience, leadership. Is this correct?”\n\n“Yes.” He said and the computer chimed agreeably. Ginn tried opening his eyes again. The light was still there, but he could bear it's penetrating glare better now. Everything looked blue. What little he could make out. There was something on his face that was obstructing his vision. It was sticky and wet. He tried moving his arms again and the bonds snapped and yielded, giving him some movement, but he found there was something else confining him. Something hard and metallic. He tried pressing against it and was admonished by a loud buzzing from the computer.\n\n“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.” The computer advised. \n\nGinn realized he had no memory of how he got where he was. “Am I in a regeneration chamber?” He asked “Was I injured in an accident?” \n\nThe computer either ignored him or was incapable of replying to his inquiry. Instead it began to question him again. “On or around April third, twenty-five thousand zero seven, you did agree to partake in an experiment at Gencore Labs. Is this correct?”\n\n“Yes. I think so.” Ginn managed to grab the sticky, wet substance on his face and try to pull it off. It didn't want to come away easily. It was like fleshy webbing. That familiar scent kept swimming in his sinuses. Strangely, it reminded him of newborn puppies. \n\nHis memory started to function again. “Wait, yeah. I just went to Gencore this morning.” \n\nThe computer was unimpressed with his revelation. “And in this contract, you did agree that any--” At that point the voice was shattered by garbled static before it continued. “Is this correct?” \n\nGinn tore the webbing away from his face. It hurt, it was like pulling hair from it's roots. “Could you repeat that?” He asked the computer. \n\n“And in this contract, you did agree that any ssth zzzklre rakkla cazzz bzzzzak skllag crrakl fzzzt. Is this correct?” \n\n“Um... yes?” He hazarded and was rewarded with the chime. He looked around and noticed that the entire inside of the pod was filled with the blueish webbing. It covered him from head to toe. Like he was mummified in the stuff. There was a small round window in front of him. He could see another window across from him, presumably a second pod like his. The inside of that one looked like it also was full of the webbing and it obscured whoever might be inside.\n\n“How do you feel?” The computer asked.\n\n“Terrible.” He said.\n\nThe computer buzzed indicating an incorrect answer. “How do you feel?” It asked again.\n\nGinn sighed. “I have a headache from all the loud noise.”\n\nThe computer chimed. “Cephalalgia is a common side effect of the weaving process. Rhinorrhoea is a common side effect of the weaving process.”\n\nGinn scoffed. “I said 'loud noise' not 'loud nose'.” He thought for a second. “What's the weaving process?”\n\nThe computer paused for a few moments. “Weaving is a method of creating cloth or fabric by interlacing thread.”\n\n“No, the weaving process! What is it?”\n\n“Weaving is a method of creating cloth or fabric by interlacing thread.” \n\nA scream suddenly interrupted his fruitless conversation with the computer. It came from outside the pod, but it sounded fairly close. Ginn tried to press his face against the window to get a better look outside and ended up slamming his nose into the glass. It hurt like crazy and made stars dance in front of his eyes. Apparently his depth perception was screwed up from whatever the pod had done to him. \n\n“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.” The computer bellowed. \n\nIn pain and angry, Ginn shouted. “Open the door!”\n\nThe scream punctuated itself again. It sounded like a woman. She was in pain, maybe even dying. Ginn pressed against the door.\n\n“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”\n\n“Open the fucking door!” Ginn demanded, slamming his arm into it with as much force as his confined quarters would allow. The window cracked in a spiderweb pattern but the door refused to yield. \n\n“Subject eighteen, containment breach.” The computer warned, then added. “Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”\n\nGinn struck the glass. The cracked window shattered easily. The screaming was louder now, rising to the level of hysterical. \n\n“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”\n\nGinn quickly pried the most lethal looking fragments of glass from the window frame. The gooey webbing that was stuck to his hands slowed him down some. The opening was too small to climb through, but he might be able to reach a lever or switch that opens the door.\n\n“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”\n\nHe reached through and started to claw around, trying to find some way to open the door. His desperation spurred on by the screaming woman. Shards of leftover glass bit into his armpit and shoulder as he searched. The sticky strands of gooey webbing snapped and popped inside the pod as he tried to get into a better position. Droplets of blood oozed down the pod's door. \n\n“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to ope--”\n\nGinn managed to press a button on the door.\n\n“Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day.” The computer boomed in the confined space and the blinding light switched off. There was a click and a hiss as the door unlocked, but Ginn had to lean hard against it to get it to swing open. The webbing surrounding his body snapped wetly as he separated himself from the inside of the pod. The hinges of the door squealed angrily, desperately needing to be oiled. Ginn carefully withdrew his arm from the window and fell out of the pod. His legs too bound up to stop himself. He flopped out wet and naked onto a grated floor of a corridor. \n\nOn each side of the corridor there was a row of pods similar to the one he had just escaped from. He also noticed that there were identical corridors below and above him. The grated panels separated the three levels of pods all standing in neat rows like caskets on display. All the pods had windows on them. Some of the windows were lit, but most were not. Ginn realized with growing horror that there were people in all of them. That faraway conversation he thought he had heard earlier was the computer voices in the pods attempting to talk to their captives. The voices were muffled, but he could make them out clearly.\n\n“Subject seventy-four, can you hear me?”\n\n“Subject sixteen, can you hear me?”\n\n“Subject thirty-two, can you hear me?” \n\n“Subject sixty-nine, can you hear me?”\n\nOver and over the voices repeated their questions all around him, like an absent minded echo. It was something out of a nightmare, one that Ginn didn't think he would be able to wake up from. Was this some sort of underground hospital? A prison? He couldn't say. Another scream jolted him from his curiosity about his surroundings. He could figure out where he was later. Someone needed help.\n\nGinn tore away the webbing from his legs as best he could. The stuff was stubborn, but he managed to tear enough of it off to get his legs to separate so he could use them. He grabbed onto the door of his pod and hoisted himself up. He felt weak and stiff. His legs didn't want to stay under him, they were rubbery and uncoordinated. How the could he forget how to walk? \n\n“What the hell is this?” Ginn noticed that he was still connected to the pod. There was a cord of some sort attached to the center of his stomach. It dangled onto the floor and looped it's way back inside where it was connected somewhere amongst all the webbing. He tried to grab it and pull it out of his belly but the pain from doing so was excruciating. It couldn't be what he thought it was. There was just no way. Yet, there it was.\n\nHe stumbled down to his knees and managed to pick up one of the the broken shards of glass. Somewhere he could hear a woman screaming, but for the moment it seemed inconsequential. What he was about to do was crazy. Cut his own umbilical cord? That's not something that someone should have to do for themselves. Or even be able to do. It was easiest to just do it and not think about it too hard. He picked a spot a little less than half a meter away from his stomach. The glass sliced through the cord with ease, thankfully there was no pain in doing so.\n\nHe dropped the glass shard and the umbilical cord. The cord flopped down against his thigh wetly. He didn't want to look at it any more than he had to for fear of it making him sick. He didn't know what would happen or which way it would go if he threw up. If he even had anything to throw up. Someone was in trouble, he needed to concentrate on that. \n\nHe got back onto his wobbly feet and stumbled down the corridor. The smell of newborn puppies was left behind. The smell of dry grease, dust, iron, plastic and dozens of other scents he couldn't identify replaced it. The scents were intensely strong, so strong that he thought if he tried he could almost focus on an individual odor the same way the eye can focus on a single image in a collage. His eyes didn't feel quite right, but that might have had to do with the strange blue hue that everything seemed to have. Whoever designed this place liked to use blue. Or maybe everything just looked blue because of the blue lights. Gave everything a very surreal appearance. \n\nGinn used each pod as a short term goal. Stagger to one and then the next. Eventually he would get to where he was going, wherever the hell that was. He absentmindedly tore at the webbing that was still stuck to him as he moved and dropped it on the ground. It hurt to do so but the stuff felt creepy. Every once in a while he could feel the remains of the umbilical cord slap against his groin or thigh and that was worse. If that wasn't bad enough, at one point he put his hand on his groin only to discover that his penis was missing. All that was left was a nub. The revelation caused a deep, sick feeling of loss in his stomach and gave him even less incentive to look down at himself lest he pass out. If he ever got his hands on whatever Gencore exec did this to him he would beat him senseless. Thankfully he still had his balls. \n\nAfter every ten pods there was an oval doorway that led to an adjoining corridor with ten more pods. Next to the doorways there was hole in the grated floor and a ladder that led to the upper and lower floors, neither of which had any other exit. The doorways were all open but it looked like an automated door could slide in place from a recess. Every once in a while he would glance into the window of a pod but he always saw the same thing. A mess of webbing covering the occupant who was suspended in a clear fluid. None of them appeared to be moving. There was a button on each pod to open the door, but he wasn't sure how wise it was to do so. He let them be. \n\nAfter several different corridors he started to figure out how to walk again, although it seemed to be much easier to do it on his toes. It felt odd, but comfortable at the same time. As he walked he noted that there was something curious about the structure he was in. It felt like he was going up a slight incline. Everything in front of him appeared to be curved slightly upward. When he looked behind it also looked like it was curved upward. No matter which direction he went he was going up. That didn't make any sense. \n\nThe screaming had stopped, but in it's place was loud sobbing. He was getting closer to it, but the acoustics in the rooms was playing with his hearing. He kept thinking she must be in the next room, but when he got there she wasn't. The endless maddening echo of the computers didn't help matters. \n\nEventually he came across a pod with a door that was slightly ajar. There was a clear, thick fluid dripping out from the pod and down through the grate. Fragments of webbing were strewn in front of it and several more on the grate further up leading away. This pod smelled differently than his had. Similar but different, he couldn't place why. The scent trailed off down the corridor. How he knew that he wasn't sure. \n\nHe followed the scent and the strewn webbing fragments to the next doorway. He had finally come to the end of the pods. The next chamber was wide open with a similar grated floor, but there were pipes running from the ceiling to floor every couple of meters. Out of every pipe were several shower heads arranged in a circular pattern. He could definitely use a shower, but the crying woman was so close now. He moved past the showers and found what looked like a locker room. There were rows of standing compartments with benches between them. She was in here somewhere. She was very close. He could smell her. The woman was now crying quietly, having spent herself on hysteria. She sounded tired, scared, alone.\n\n“Hello?” Ginn said. He heard a gasp and the crying abruptly stopped, but there was no reply. \n\n“Ma'am, are you okay?” He wandered between the rows of lockers trying to locate her. He wanted to see her. Wanted to see someone else and confirm that he wasn't alone in this place. That he wasn't going crazy. \n\nHe spied movement as he rounded a row of lockers. Something slipped around the far end, something serpentine. He recognized it as an umbilical cord like his own. Of course. She wouldn't have been able to cut it like he had. She must have had to tear it out of the pod to free herself and it's dragging behind her. He walked toward the end of the lockers. Beyond the lockers there looked like bathroom facilities. A row of sinks with mirrors above them across from a row of toilets that lacked any privacy barriers around them. \n\n“Ma'am?” He asked. \n\n“D--don't come any closer!” She warned with a shaky voice. \n\nGinn stopped. “I just want to help you.” He said.\n\nHe heard her sob. “Nobody can help me.” She moaned. “Oh, Jesus! I'm sorry, I'm... I'm so sorry.”\n\n“Ma'am, are you hurt?” Ginn asked as he slowly worked his way to the end of the lockers.\n\n“No, don't come any closer!” She pleaded. “I don't want you to see me.” \n\n“It's okay.” Ginn tried to assure her as he rounded the last locker. He could see the cord retreat around the end and into the next row. “I'm not going to hurt you.”\n\n“Please.” She begged. “Leave me alone. Just go away.”\n\n“I can't do that.” Ginn said as he moved around the lockers to peer into the next row. “I have no place to--”\n\nHe saw it...her. She wasn't a human, she was an animal of some kind, but she was still humanoid. She was cowering on the floor and clutching her arms across her naked chest with her legs drawn up to protect her modesty. She had thick wooly fur on her body from her head to her cloven toes. There were clots of that bluish webbing stuck in her fur. She had an umbilical cord sprouting from the center of her belly like Ginn had, only hers trailed behind her almost two meters. The fur was thicker on her head and long tight curls hung down to her shoulders and into her face, it was matted with more of that stubborn webbing. Long pointed ears poked out from each side of her head and above those were backward swept curved horns. There was sleek fur on her face. Her upper lip was cloven up to her broad, black nose. She had big, dark, doe eyes. They were wide and frightened. When she saw Ginn her eyes widened even further, before he could say anything she let out a shriek of horror that hit his ears like icepicks. \n\nGinn stumbled backward on his still ungainly legs. Both from her appearance and her scream. She was incredibly loud. The metal walls and floor of the enclosure did nothing to deaden the sound. He managed to steady himself on a sink that poked out of the wall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something furry.\n\nHe looked into the mirror above the sink only to find another animal. A wolf face with yellow eyes stared back at him. There were pointed ears and a long snout with a wet nose at the end. Sharp canine teeth lined the mouth. Thick shaggy fur cluttered with webbing surrounded the head and shoulders. It looked like a werewolf from one of those old horror films. It took a few seconds for the realization to sink in. That wasn't a window. It wasn't a viewscreen. It was a mirror.\n\nGinn had turned into a dog.\n\n","writing_bbcode_parsed":"The Colony
Chapter 1
Awaken
“Subject eighteen,” a voice boomed, “can you hear me?”
Ginn grimaced at the overly loud intrusion to his sleep. He tried to rub his face but found his movements restricted, his arms bound across his chest, but he was too groggy to be alarmed by that yet.
“Subject eighteen,” the voice insisted again, “can you hear me?” The voice sounded artificial, it lacked any discernible dialect.
“Subject eighteen, can you hear me?”
Ginn tried to say something but instead erupted in a fit of coughing. A huge volume of fluid vomited from his lungs and splattered down the front of him. It was a slimy, mucus like substance. It hurt to expel it. It felt like he was going to shatter his ribs coughing so hard. His lungs wheezed and gurgled in protest. All the time the artificial voice screamed it's question at him, oblivious to his suffering.
“Subject eighteen, can you hear me?”
“Yes.” Ginn finally managed to croak. Somewhere above him he heard a computerized chime. It hurt to talk and his own voice sounded foreign to his ears. He tried to open his eyes but there was a blinding light in his face that seemed to pierce into his skull so he closed them again. There was a strong odor around him. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it.
“Please state your name.” The artificial voiced demanded loudly.
“Could y--” Ginn swallowed hard, trying to get the remaining fluid to go into his stomach instead of back into his lungs. “Could you talk quieter?”
There was an irritated buzz above him. “There is no record of Cood Yi Coodyotalcqueter in the database.” The voice blared indifferently to his plea. “Please state your name.”
Even in a fog of weariness Ginn realized the futility in arguing with a computer. “Ginn Harbir.” He told it. With one last cough he managed to clear enough of the fluid so that he was relatively comfortable.
The computer chimed and there was a pause. In the silence he thought he could hear faraway voices, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. There was a deep humming noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere above him. He struggled a bit against his bonds and found that they started to loosen a bit, making wet snapping sounds as they gave way. After a moment the computer blared, “Harbir, Ginn Matthew. Gender: Male. Date of birth: July seventh, twenty-four thousand seventy-five. Place of birth: Lucknow, United New China. Current occupation: unemployed. Previous occupations: retail management, military service. Highest military rank attained: Sergeant. Notable skills: combat experience, leadership. Is this correct?”
“Yes.” He said and the computer chimed agreeably. Ginn tried opening his eyes again. The light was still there, but he could bear it's penetrating glare better now. Everything looked blue. What little he could make out. There was something on his face that was obstructing his vision. It was sticky and wet. He tried moving his arms again and the bonds snapped and yielded, giving him some movement, but he found there was something else confining him. Something hard and metallic. He tried pressing against it and was admonished by a loud buzzing from the computer.
“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.” The computer advised.
Ginn realized he had no memory of how he got where he was. “Am I in a regeneration chamber?” He asked “Was I injured in an accident?”
The computer either ignored him or was incapable of replying to his inquiry. Instead it began to question him again. “On or around April third, twenty-five thousand zero seven, you did agree to partake in an experiment at Gencore Labs. Is this correct?”
“Yes. I think so.” Ginn managed to grab the sticky, wet substance on his face and try to pull it off. It didn't want to come away easily. It was like fleshy webbing. That familiar scent kept swimming in his sinuses. Strangely, it reminded him of newborn puppies.
His memory started to function again. “Wait, yeah. I just went to Gencore this morning.”
The computer was unimpressed with his revelation. “And in this contract, you did agree that any--” At that point the voice was shattered by garbled static before it continued. “Is this correct?”
Ginn tore the webbing away from his face. It hurt, it was like pulling hair from it's roots. “Could you repeat that?” He asked the computer.
“And in this contract, you did agree that any ssth zzzklre rakkla cazzz bzzzzak skllag crrakl fzzzt. Is this correct?”
“Um... yes?” He hazarded and was rewarded with the chime. He looked around and noticed that the entire inside of the pod was filled with the blueish webbing. It covered him from head to toe. Like he was mummified in the stuff. There was a small round window in front of him. He could see another window across from him, presumably a second pod like his. The inside of that one looked like it also was full of the webbing and it obscured whoever might be inside.
“How do you feel?” The computer asked.
“Terrible.” He said.
The computer buzzed indicating an incorrect answer. “How do you feel?” It asked again.
Ginn sighed. “I have a headache from all the loud noise.”
The computer chimed. “Cephalalgia is a common side effect of the weaving process. Rhinorrhoea is a common side effect of the weaving process.”
Ginn scoffed. “I said 'loud noise' not 'loud nose'.” He thought for a second. “What's the weaving process?”
The computer paused for a few moments. “Weaving is a method of creating cloth or fabric by interlacing thread.”
“No, the weaving process! What is it?”
“Weaving is a method of creating cloth or fabric by interlacing thread.”
A scream suddenly interrupted his fruitless conversation with the computer. It came from outside the pod, but it sounded fairly close. Ginn tried to press his face against the window to get a better look outside and ended up slamming his nose into the glass. It hurt like crazy and made stars dance in front of his eyes. Apparently his depth perception was screwed up from whatever the pod had done to him.
“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.” The computer bellowed.
In pain and angry, Ginn shouted. “Open the door!”
The scream punctuated itself again. It sounded like a woman. She was in pain, maybe even dying. Ginn pressed against the door.
“Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”
“Open the fucking door!” Ginn demanded, slamming his arm into it with as much force as his confined quarters would allow. The window cracked in a spiderweb pattern but the door refused to yield.
“Subject eighteen, containment breach.” The computer warned, then added. “Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”
Ginn struck the glass. The cracked window shattered easily. The screaming was louder now, rising to the level of hysterical.
“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”
Ginn quickly pried the most lethal looking fragments of glass from the window frame. The gooey webbing that was stuck to his hands slowed him down some. The opening was too small to climb through, but he might be able to reach a lever or switch that opens the door.
“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to open the pod.”
He reached through and started to claw around, trying to find some way to open the door. His desperation spurred on by the screaming woman. Shards of leftover glass bit into his armpit and shoulder as he searched. The sticky strands of gooey webbing snapped and popped inside the pod as he tried to get into a better position. Droplets of blood oozed down the pod's door.
“Subject eighteen, containment breach. Please refrain from attempting to ope--”
Ginn managed to press a button on the door.
“Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day.” The computer boomed in the confined space and the blinding light switched off. There was a click and a hiss as the door unlocked, but Ginn had to lean hard against it to get it to swing open. The webbing surrounding his body snapped wetly as he separated himself from the inside of the pod. The hinges of the door squealed angrily, desperately needing to be oiled. Ginn carefully withdrew his arm from the window and fell out of the pod. His legs too bound up to stop himself. He flopped out wet and naked onto a grated floor of a corridor.
On each side of the corridor there was a row of pods similar to the one he had just escaped from. He also noticed that there were identical corridors below and above him. The grated panels separated the three levels of pods all standing in neat rows like caskets on display. All the pods had windows on them. Some of the windows were lit, but most were not. Ginn realized with growing horror that there were people in all of them. That faraway conversation he thought he had heard earlier was the computer voices in the pods attempting to talk to their captives. The voices were muffled, but he could make them out clearly.
“Subject seventy-four, can you hear me?”
“Subject sixteen, can you hear me?”
“Subject thirty-two, can you hear me?”
“Subject sixty-nine, can you hear me?”
Over and over the voices repeated their questions all around him, like an absent minded echo. It was something out of a nightmare, one that Ginn didn't think he would be able to wake up from. Was this some sort of underground hospital? A prison? He couldn't say. Another scream jolted him from his curiosity about his surroundings. He could figure out where he was later. Someone needed help.
Ginn tore away the webbing from his legs as best he could. The stuff was stubborn, but he managed to tear enough of it off to get his legs to separate so he could use them. He grabbed onto the door of his pod and hoisted himself up. He felt weak and stiff. His legs didn't want to stay under him, they were rubbery and uncoordinated. How the could he forget how to walk?
“What the hell is this?” Ginn noticed that he was still connected to the pod. There was a cord of some sort attached to the center of his stomach. It dangled onto the floor and looped it's way back inside where it was connected somewhere amongst all the webbing. He tried to grab it and pull it out of his belly but the pain from doing so was excruciating. It couldn't be what he thought it was. There was just no way. Yet, there it was.
He stumbled down to his knees and managed to pick up one of the the broken shards of glass. Somewhere he could hear a woman screaming, but for the moment it seemed inconsequential. What he was about to do was crazy. Cut his own umbilical cord? That's not something that someone should have to do for themselves. Or even be able to do. It was easiest to just do it and not think about it too hard. He picked a spot a little less than half a meter away from his stomach. The glass sliced through the cord with ease, thankfully there was no pain in doing so.
He dropped the glass shard and the umbilical cord. The cord flopped down against his thigh wetly. He didn't want to look at it any more than he had to for fear of it making him sick. He didn't know what would happen or which way it would go if he threw up. If he even had anything to throw up. Someone was in trouble, he needed to concentrate on that.
He got back onto his wobbly feet and stumbled down the corridor. The smell of newborn puppies was left behind. The smell of dry grease, dust, iron, plastic and dozens of other scents he couldn't identify replaced it. The scents were intensely strong, so strong that he thought if he tried he could almost focus on an individual odor the same way the eye can focus on a single image in a collage. His eyes didn't feel quite right, but that might have had to do with the strange blue hue that everything seemed to have. Whoever designed this place liked to use blue. Or maybe everything just looked blue because of the blue lights. Gave everything a very surreal appearance.
Ginn used each pod as a short term goal. Stagger to one and then the next. Eventually he would get to where he was going, wherever the hell that was. He absentmindedly tore at the webbing that was still stuck to him as he moved and dropped it on the ground. It hurt to do so but the stuff felt creepy. Every once in a while he could feel the remains of the umbilical cord slap against his groin or thigh and that was worse. If that wasn't bad enough, at one point he put his hand on his groin only to discover that his penis was missing. All that was left was a nub. The revelation caused a deep, sick feeling of loss in his stomach and gave him even less incentive to look down at himself lest he pass out. If he ever got his hands on whatever Gencore exec did this to him he would beat him senseless. Thankfully he still had his balls.
After every ten pods there was an oval doorway that led to an adjoining corridor with ten more pods. Next to the doorways there was hole in the grated floor and a ladder that led to the upper and lower floors, neither of which had any other exit. The doorways were all open but it looked like an automated door could slide in place from a recess. Every once in a while he would glance into the window of a pod but he always saw the same thing. A mess of webbing covering the occupant who was suspended in a clear fluid. None of them appeared to be moving. There was a button on each pod to open the door, but he wasn't sure how wise it was to do so. He let them be.
After several different corridors he started to figure out how to walk again, although it seemed to be much easier to do it on his toes. It felt odd, but comfortable at the same time. As he walked he noted that there was something curious about the structure he was in. It felt like he was going up a slight incline. Everything in front of him appeared to be curved slightly upward. When he looked behind it also looked like it was curved upward. No matter which direction he went he was going up. That didn't make any sense.
The screaming had stopped, but in it's place was loud sobbing. He was getting closer to it, but the acoustics in the rooms was playing with his hearing. He kept thinking she must be in the next room, but when he got there she wasn't. The endless maddening echo of the computers didn't help matters.
Eventually he came across a pod with a door that was slightly ajar. There was a clear, thick fluid dripping out from the pod and down through the grate. Fragments of webbing were strewn in front of it and several more on the grate further up leading away. This pod smelled differently than his had. Similar but different, he couldn't place why. The scent trailed off down the corridor. How he knew that he wasn't sure.
He followed the scent and the strewn webbing fragments to the next doorway. He had finally come to the end of the pods. The next chamber was wide open with a similar grated floor, but there were pipes running from the ceiling to floor every couple of meters. Out of every pipe were several shower heads arranged in a circular pattern. He could definitely use a shower, but the crying woman was so close now. He moved past the showers and found what looked like a locker room. There were rows of standing compartments with benches between them. She was in here somewhere. She was very close. He could smell her. The woman was now crying quietly, having spent herself on hysteria. She sounded tired, scared, alone.
“Hello?” Ginn said. He heard a gasp and the crying abruptly stopped, but there was no reply.
“Ma'am, are you okay?” He wandered between the rows of lockers trying to locate her. He wanted to see her. Wanted to see someone else and confirm that he wasn't alone in this place. That he wasn't going crazy.
He spied movement as he rounded a row of lockers. Something slipped around the far end, something serpentine. He recognized it as an umbilical cord like his own. Of course. She wouldn't have been able to cut it like he had. She must have had to tear it out of the pod to free herself and it's dragging behind her. He walked toward the end of the lockers. Beyond the lockers there looked like bathroom facilities. A row of sinks with mirrors above them across from a row of toilets that lacked any privacy barriers around them.
“Ma'am?” He asked.
“D--don't come any closer!” She warned with a shaky voice.
Ginn stopped. “I just want to help you.” He said.
He heard her sob. “Nobody can help me.” She moaned. “Oh, Jesus! I'm sorry, I'm... I'm so sorry.”
“Ma'am, are you hurt?” Ginn asked as he slowly worked his way to the end of the lockers.
“No, don't come any closer!” She pleaded. “I don't want you to see me.”
“It's okay.” Ginn tried to assure her as he rounded the last locker. He could see the cord retreat around the end and into the next row. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“Please.” She begged. “Leave me alone. Just go away.”
“I can't do that.” Ginn said as he moved around the lockers to peer into the next row. “I have no place to--”
He saw it...her. She wasn't a human, she was an animal of some kind, but she was still humanoid. She was cowering on the floor and clutching her arms across her naked chest with her legs drawn up to protect her modesty. She had thick wooly fur on her body from her head to her cloven toes. There were clots of that bluish webbing stuck in her fur. She had an umbilical cord sprouting from the center of her belly like Ginn had, only hers trailed behind her almost two meters. The fur was thicker on her head and long tight curls hung down to her shoulders and into her face, it was matted with more of that stubborn webbing. Long pointed ears poked out from each side of her head and above those were backward swept curved horns. There was sleek fur on her face. Her upper lip was cloven up to her broad, black nose. She had big, dark, doe eyes. They were wide and frightened. When she saw Ginn her eyes widened even further, before he could say anything she let out a shriek of horror that hit his ears like icepicks.
Ginn stumbled backward on his still ungainly legs. Both from her appearance and her scream. She was incredibly loud. The metal walls and floor of the enclosure did nothing to deaden the sound. He managed to steady himself on a sink that poked out of the wall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something furry.
He looked into the mirror above the sink only to find another animal. A wolf face with yellow eyes stared back at him. There were pointed ears and a long snout with a wet nose at the end. Sharp canine teeth lined the mouth. Thick shaggy fur cluttered with webbing surrounded the head and shoulders. It looked like a werewolf from one of those old horror films. It took a few seconds for the realization to sink in. That wasn't a window. It wasn't a viewscreen. It was a mirror.
Ginn had turned into a dog.
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