It’s Really Not The Same At All

By Rix Prime

“Okay, this really fucking sucks. Mother egg, heat sucks. And I’m stuck with this.” Salrith growled and flopped down at the entrance to the cave she’d found. With heavy weather on its way, the small entrance had been a godsend. It sloped upward rather than down, and didn’t look dirty at all. It was surprisingly clean, and there were remnants of someone else’s fire a few metres in. Here, at least, she could stay the fuck away from the dozens of males that had propositioned her in the last few days. Setting her chin on two of her graspers while the other two began undoing her pack with angry, savage motions, “Fucking shopkeeper never told me this was permanent. Bullshit it only uses one drop. Mother egg! Will I even lay eggs anymore? Do I have a womb or an egg chamber?” 

I had seemed like a chance for something new for her, a chance to feel things differently. She’d wondered what it would be like to have more mammalian physiology.  A proper spade like the beautiful ones she’d seen on a friend. Nipples and even breasts, too. Just a change of pace, physically. She’d taken the potion, which had tasted suspiciously of (and likely had as a component) fox piss. Within hours, she’d had a puffy blue-skinned vulpine spade. To her surprise, she’d developed her mammaries on her belly rather than her chest, and they were more like udders than breasts. At the time, she’d wondered if it had something to do with her mingled reptilian and arachnid blood. More likely though, the potion had been made with a feral in mind.

It had been fascinating, really. She’d explored all the changes to her body with enthusiasm. Thankfully, not much else about her body had changed. Her tail had grown a little bit more bulky, maybe, but for the most part she’d remained the same. Dusky coal-coloured chitin all over her back and across the top of her tail all the way to the tip, scored with purple V-shaped patterns all the way down her spine. Four short and spindly arms with her graspers at the end. Thick and powerful legs that were like bulkier versions of her arms. She still had her chelicerae on her face, and multiple eyes. Her tongue was the same, even. All in all, she’d really liked the new look. She’d been ready for the shift back to her old self within a day. And what a day that had been. Old lovers and new, and a special night spent with a fennec-feline hybrid friend who had definitely shown her a spade was made for a knot.

When her body hadn’t returned to its old form within the next couple days, she’d grown concerned.  When it hadn’t changed after a week, she’d started to get angry. She’d stormed into the shop where she’d bought the potion, brandishing the empty bottle in one hand and shaking it at the owner, a tiger with some rather unique-looking insectoid features. He’d looked utterly poleaxed at her rage and calmly asked her if she’d taken only one drop as the instructions on the bottle had said. “My dear, I do apologize, but it is quite permanent. I warned you that one drop was enough to make the change. It is rather potent. It IS right on the bottle. It seems you chugged the damned thing. No refunds.”

So here she was, far away from everything, from everyone that she knew, alone. Blessedly, wonderfully alone. For the first time in the last three days, she had found a place where she couldn’t detect a single spoor of male. Hell, she couldn’t detect anyone, and that was an absolute blessing for her. She settled down and sat on the bare rock that framed the small cave she’d found in her search. She’d found it entirely by accident, actually tripping and falling into it when she’d reached halfway up a steep slope in the old-growth forest. It had been surprisingly dry and clean, clear of any debris. There was a soft glow a few feet in that outlined a passage that led deeper in, and that was certainly damp and odd-looking, walls glistening with moisture. But the opening chamber? Perfect. There was even the remnant of an old fire near the entrance.
A low rumble interrupted her thoughts and she took a look up at the sky. Finding that cave had definitely been a good thing for her. The skies that had been overcast all day were now darkening, and she figured it wouldn’t be long before one hell of a storm hit. With a sigh, she slipped down into the small cave entrance and clambered along the rocky passage until it came to the dimly-lit and much larger chamber. She laid out her bedroll near the old firepit and flopped down, tail twitching.

“Finally… some peace…” she muttered, “mother egg, how do mammals do this without losing their mind?” She laid on her side and lifted her leg, baring the puffy bluish canine spade that had replaced her slit after taking the potion. Even the gentle breeze on that flesh made her let out a desperate chittering sound, her larger pair of eyes widening. Even that tiniest bit of pressure or brush of fabric on the sensitive flesh made her insides clench, her knees go weak, and a tiny little bead of moisture form on her labia. A bit more embarrassing was the small jet of urine that accompanied that wave of pleasure, dribbling down onto the floor of the cave. Ever since her heat had started, she’d also lost control of her bladder, presumably a biological beacon of here’s a bitch in heat!

The most frustrating part of it all was that she couldn’t even reach her newly-acquired spade to give herself any relief. Her friend had helped with that, too, providing her with a long, thick canine toy moulded after his own bits. This, at least, would be certain not to give her a clutch, no, a litter of little ones. With a grin, her chelicerae twitching excitedly, she pulled the dildo out of her pack and set the heavy-based toy down on a towel.

***

Somewhere deeper within the cave, it awoke, the faint scent of heat and arousal alerting it to a potential new mate. It had been so long since it had taken a new one, though for a being driven more by instinct, its primitive brain had no real sense of time or memory. It just knew that it detected something new. It had so many eggs to lay, more than its current host could hold, and that one was mid-cycle anyway.
With a soft, slippery squelching sound, it began to inch its way to a darker corner of its lair. Glands around its strange eyes on long stalks sprayed a fine mist into the air. Should its prey approach, it may well be able to capture it.

***

Over an hour later, the toy had been set aside, and a puddle of fluid was spreading on the bedroll beneath Salrith. Her mind was as blessedly clear as it would be for the duration of her heat. Another week of this would probably drive her insane. Not for the last time, she cursed the alchemist that had provided her the potion. With her old biology mingling with the new, it resulted in an extended heat that was longer than would be normal. This really was intolerable, but at least once the heat was over it would be another year before she’d have to deal with it.

As she lay panting, she detected a scent on the air that she’d never smelled before. Vaguely familiar but somehow entirely alien at the same time, it was carried in by a faint breeze from the small passage that led deeper into the cave. Curiosity piqued, she sat up, reminded that she hadn’t explored very much farther than the chamber she was in.

She wasn’t concerned about any danger; the old firepit told her that this had been a good spot for at least one other traveler before. Maybe the scent would prove to be the source of something edible. She’d brought plenty enough food, but a bit more variety would be nice. Still, it felt so nice to just rest there, her heat temporarily sated. 

Her mind still somewhat addled, but her heat at least much more clear than it had been, the hybrid finally stood and patted herself down. She was about to set out to explore when she heard the sudden crack of lightning, and then the deep roar of a deluge of rain on the ground outside her cave. “Mother egg,” she marveled. It was one of those kinds of storms. She was happy she’d gotten out of the open before it hit.

As Salrith crept deeper, she was happy both for her smaller size and for the fact that the rocky passageway was so big. It branched a few times, and without thinking she let her nose guide her, leaving little scratches along the wall to indicate which way to go on the way out. As she crawled and searched deeper and deeper, she felt her spade getting warm and flushed. Oh will this never END, she wondered.  How mammals managed to deal with this on a regular basis, she had no idea. 

The creature could tell the source of the scent was growing closer. It had been far too long since it had a breeder. Its dim intellect knew that much at least, and it ached for a new breeding sack to fill with its clutch. As it rested itself against a wall, it curled up and hid against a small alcove in front of a small lump of its dried and hardened slime. The new breeder would come.  It released more of its lure in to the air, ready for the time to strike.

The cave turned out to be an extensive network of passages, most of them spacious, but a few of them a little bit tight and uncomfortable. She was thankful that she had eyes that could pierce the darkness enough that she could make her way with little trouble.

That teasing scent on the air suddenly grew heavier, and Salrith had to pause for a moment, one of her graspers resting on a lump of some strange resinous substance stuck to the wall. She wondered if she should have brought her pack. Having a mammalian heat, she realized, really wasn’t the same at all! She let out a low grumble and continued.

Suddenly, she emerged into a huge chamber, at least a hundred metres across, and filled with hundreds of little bundles of luminescent mushrooms.  Salrith’s chelicerae twitched excitedly as she realized she knew that the mushrooms were one of her favourite.  There must be water somewhere in the chamber! This could prove to be quite a score. She hadn’t been looking for a potential new hideaway, but this could certainly be one. Just because her biology didn’t require a nest or webbing anymore, didn’t mean the desire for one wasn’t there.

A sudden low pulse of need washed through Salrith and she let out a low groan as her bladder released another spurt of urine. The moment she’d emerged into the expansive chamber, the strange scent that had been guiding her grew heavier. At the same time, the mindless desire of heat washed through her with renewed intensity. 

Salrith whimpered, trying to find something to grind her spade against. The desire and need were so intense that she couldn’t think straight. If her new biology hadn’t been so unfamiliar, so new to her, she would have realized that this intensity was unnatural, that something else was making it happen. But all she could think of now was satisfying her need. Spying a little rise and a lump of that strange grayish resin on the floor in a relatively dry spot, she let out a moan. It would have to do, she needed to do something soon.

Not yet, not quite yet. It was so close to being ready to capture a new breeder. When the strange breeder came closer, it experienced a sensation close to surprise and joy, if it could be said to be capable of such emotions. It released more of the powerful chemicals into the air. If it worked, if the prey-breeder succumbed, it would be too late by the time her system became inured to them. By that point, it would already have started the process, and she would take the thousands of tiny eggs it had ready for her.

Salrith knelt down over the lump, back to the wall where, unbeknownst to her, the creature that had lured her was hidden. “God. Happy he can’t see me like this,” she whispered to herself.  When the lump brushed that puffy spade, Salrith cried out as she felt her legs go weak. It was getting worse, the need was getting worse.  The humid air felt like a cloying cloud around her, and everything felt fuzzy and strange. All she wanted to do though was grind herself against that lump of hardened resin. “Fuck… fuck…” was all she blurted out, eyes closed. The feeling of hardness against her spade was incredible, but it wasn’t doing anything to satisfy her in the least.

Behind her, the wall seemed to bloom outwards, the grayish rock wall opening up to reveal the massive pink underbelly of some strange creature. Dozens of thin tendrils writhed on that slimy underbelly, each one of them at least a metre long. Silently, with deliberate and almost glacial slowness, it moved toward the distracted hybrid before it.  Two eyes on long stalks focused on her.  Had someone been observing the process, they would have seen a massive body detach itself from the wall, a huge spiral shell protecting the majority of its bulk. It looked like some sort of massive snail, though no snail had that many tentacles on the underbelly, or the seeming ability to camouflage the thick rubbery hide that comprised the rest of its bulk that wasn’t protected by the shell. Silently, it reared up its massive bulk and rose over her, tentacles reaching out. They would all touch her at once, and it would settle on her, hold her tight. Just a few more moments of complete inattention and she would be helpless to stop what was coming.

Frustrated tears began to form in Salrith’s largest pair of eyes. Nothing was working, nothing felt right, it wouldn’t work! Maybe she needed something in her to get off. Wouldn’t that be inconvenient. The toy she’d used less than an hour before was so damned far away, and she didn’t think she would be able to find her way back with her mind this addled. She ground harder against the lump on the floor, and though it felt wonderful it did nothing to assuage her overwhelming need.

Some subtle shift in the lighting from the mushrooms and the puddles of slime caught Salrith’s attention. Alarms went off in her head, cutting through the haze, and she turned her head just in time to see the monstrosity that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere as it loomed over her. It all became clear to her then, what was happening. The snail-thing’s shell was covered in grit and growths of stone that made it look just like the wall of the cave, and as she watched the creature’s outer hide began to shift in colour, soon the same pink of the underbelly and the tentacles that were reaching for her. They were within centimetres of touching her, the mouth of the snail directly over her head, blocking out the luminescence from the mushrooms on the ceiling.

It was strange… if she’d been jerked out of her haze of arousal by the sudden touch of the tentacles, she would have reacted violently, desperately fighting something she had been utterly unaware of. But seeing this monster, reaching out for her, ready to grab her, she actually hesitated for the fateful few seconds that it needed to capture its prey. 

Despite the slow pace at which the snail-thing had approached, once the mass of tentacles touched Salrith, they moved surprisingly fast, grabbing her in a dozen places at once. Thin and muscular, two wrapped around each of her four arms, coating them in slime and gripping tightly. More slipped around her neck and torso, and nearly a dozen around her huge tail. One even twined itself through the thick ring that pierced the tip.  She felt more of them around her legs, all of them tight and unyieldingly strong despite the coating of slime that covered them. The hybrid knew the hesitation was a mistake, possibly a fatal one, but still her fogged mind kept thinking about sex, about breeding, about her need to be filled.

The tentacles held Salrith still as the massive bulk settled against her back, tail pulled aside.  Even as she thought to struggle, to actually fight, she knew it was too late. Though she tried to stop them, she felt herself lifted slightly off the ground, her legs forced a little wider. The tentacles tugged her arms behind her back, stretching tendon and muscle to the point that it ached. She groaned when two more wrapped around the two udders ahead of her spade and squeezed the base, making them balloon out slightly. In a matter of only fifteen seconds, she was completely subdued and helpless, held in the vise-like grip of the snail’s tentacles.

Salrith tried to struggle or squirm, but even as she twisted and pulled, she knew it was hopeless. Her unfamiliarity with the experience of being heat had been her downfall, believing that the mindless and desperate need, the brain-fog, were entirely from her. Any other time, she would have known that the overwhelming desire had been induced, but she’d been caught utterly off-guard. Fear spiked in her as she struggled. The thing’s mouth-parts weren’t big enough to accommodate her body, so she didn’t think it would eat her, but how could she be sure? “Oh, mother egg… oh fuck…” she whispered. The eyestalks were directed right at her, a disconcerting sight to be sure.

Now that it had Salrith firmly captured, the monster seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever. As it stared down at her with those unreadable alien eyes, she let out a low, frightened churr. Some part of her loved the feeling of being restrained, of being held by something so utterly alien to her and at its mercy. A stronger part of her brain screamed at her, told her to struggle, but she found she couldn’t move even a muscle.

She felt something new, then, a strange squirming between her legs. She went still as a number of incredibly thin tentacles, each barely as wide as a tablet’s stylus, began to prod and examine her spade and anus. They were gentle, almost, questing and exploring, but their motions told Salrith that there could be something much more distressing about to happen, and all in a place she couldn’t even crane her neck to see. Chelicerae twitching nervously, she stared back at the pair of eyes on stalks that regarded her impassively.  Then, one of the thin tentacles pressed in between the pliant flesh of her spade and slid deep, followed by a second, then a third. Salrith groaned, “mother egg, oh fuck, oh fuck what is it… wait, no!”  Two more had begun to press in, but these had slipped in under her tail, exploring the tight muscle of her anus.

All told, soon there were eight of the tentacles probing and exploring, with four probing every inch of her spade and deeper, two under her tail and two more teasing and probing at her udder. Their motions slow and steady, but not quite glacial in their pace. It was really quite maddening as much as it was concerning, and also strangely pleasant.  She felt one of the tendrils in her spade prod against her urethra and then a spatter of hot liquid hit the cave floor beneath her. If she’d been anywhere in public, she might have felt embarrassed, but right now all she could feel was a confused sort of fear.

As the heavy weight of the monster settled against Salrith’s back, with the tendrils roughly tugging her tail to the side, coating it in sticky muck, she felt more and more confused and afraid by the second. More of the tendrils had begun to guide her arms to her sides, and though she struggled, they were implacable. Seconds later new tendrils had begun to force her to rise off of the floor slightly, still kneeling but no longer close enough to that lumpy rise in the floor to grind against it. She felt so exposed, helpless and very very alone. The entire point of coming out here had been to be far from any male that might take advantage of her. But this, she hadn’t wanted this.

There was something to what was happening, though, that appealed to her. Whatever her desire, whatever her intention, this creature that had her in its embrace would do whatever it wanted with her. How often had she and her half-feline friend played with such fantasies?  She’d once spent a week bound tightly in webbing of her own creation, at his mercy. 

She squirmed and writhed in the snail’s grip, gasping as the thin tendrils pressed in even deeper, touching places that made her legs tremble and little moans spill from her lips.  It wasn’t even unpleasant to feel the ones under her tail probing deeper and deeper. One of the ones buried far past the puffy flesh of her azure spade touched and stroked, and she almost screamed. Even knowing that the intense arousal wasn’t due to her heat, she couldn’t stop herself from trying to press into the probing, her thoughts hazy and confused. “Should… fight…” she gasped, and tried to wrench herself free, but with all four arms pinned against her and others holding her legs, she simply didn’t have the strength.

The alien eyes of the monstrous snail moved this way and that, inspecting its catch. Two tendrils wrapped around her snout and neck and began to tug her chin upwards even as she felt a dull pain deep in her sex. Mother egg, it’s in my womb! Salrith thought, gasping in surprise as she felt another one press in beside the first. There was a strange, utterly alien feeling of something squirming deep in her gut. Just how deep were the things going to go?

As her head was forced up so that she was staring right at the snail’s mouth, a fleshy hole that drooled with foul-scented slime, she felt two new tendrils wrap around her udderlike breasts, squeezing the base and making them actually balloon out. Their grip was tight enough that it had begun to hurt, drawing out a pained moan from the helpless hybrid.

All of a sudden, the snail lowered its mouth toward Salrith’s face. No, no, no, it IS going to eat me, it was just subduing me. Nobody’s going to know! She opened her mouth to scream, and the snail took that moment to strike. The monster’s mouth seemed to evert, the inside blooming out and dripping gobbets of slime on her face, forcing her to close all of her eyes lest the stuff get into them. The mouth became like a long, flexible tube, and it shot out and shoved into her mouth, coming to rest on her tongue. 

Immediately, the tendrils on her snout tightened, closing it over the tube and keeping her from forcing it out. The acrid, sweet taste of the monster’s flesh filled her mouth. When she tried to bite down on the tube, she found it impossible to do so. The tube suddenly swelled, and a hot glob of thicker slime was deposited in her mouth. The cloying taste and smell consumed her awareness, but before she could do anything, another glob was shoved in behind the first. Salrith gurgled, helpless to stop a third one, and she found herself swallowing the foul mass before she could choke. She felt that heavy hot lump of slime settle in her stomach. She began, then, to understand that what was happening might be much worse than becoming this monster’s meal as she was forced to swallow more of the thicker slime.

She felt something new then. Something thick and bumpy was pressing at her spade, much larger than the tendrils already inside her. She squirmed as she felt it spread her open, aided by the muscular tug of the thin tendrils stretching her even more. To her horror, she felt another thick appendage pushing at her anus, demanding entry at the same time. When she tried to open her eyes, she felt that the sticky slime was holding them shut.

As the bumpy appendages pressed into both her holes, stretching her open, she gurgled even more. Despite knowing that it was a literal monster that was shoving something into her, her body seemed to exult at the satisfaction of the desperate need that had driven her to seek shelter in the cave. Her cunt clenched and twitched, and she felt another hot splash of urine spatter on the ground, seeping out around the appendage beneath her as she came. It felt so good to be filled, no matter what was doing it.

As the snail fed her another thick glob, she felt warmth spreading from her belly. The haze of seasonal heat was replaced with a heat of a different sort. Something like a fever, clouding her mind, but behind it a strange sort of blissful happiness. Whatever it was feeding her, it was obviously drugging her. The appendages drove deeper as she felt her stomach aching. To her surprise, the thing’s mouth-tube withdrew after only another few globs.

She jerked as she felt the ache in her cunt flare into fresh, sharp pain. The snail’s appendage had begun to force its way into her womb! Despite the blistering agony of that intimate invasion, she only moaned weakly as the feverish heat and unnatural bliss kept her subdued. While that appendage finally came to rest directly in her womb, she felt the second appendage pushing even deeper, probing and twisting in places that had never been meant to be filled.

There were two sudden pinches, and she felt something latch onto her nipples. “No… no…” she slurred as she felt almost microscopic things shoving themselves into her nipples. The sharp sensation of something being injected into them overrode the bliss and she let out a gurgling scream when they quickly detached themselves.  All the while, the monster’s appendage pushed its bumpy length deeper into her bowels. She felt a distinct squirming under her skin near her rib cage and then down on the right side of her abdomen before it, too, came to rest.

Everything seemed to go still, and for an interminable moment, made even longer by Salrith’s addled brain, nothing happened. Then she felt both appendages swell imperceptibly, something traveling along their length. Eggs! It’s laying eggs in me!  Salrith thought, and was surprised when the idea didn’t bring fear. She knew she should feel fear, should be horrified and disgusted, but she didn’t. Instead, it was a dull sort of wondered fascination that showed through the unnatural bliss.

The bulges moved at a glacial pace along the appendages, and she felt the seconds stretch into minutes as they crept deeper and deeper. She gasped as she felt the bulge begin to creep into her womb, and then a soft pressure. The tendrils around that appendage in her womb grew suddenly animated, and she idly wondered what they were doing. Whatever it was, they soon grew still again.

The bulge under her tail was followed by a second and a third, but they took even longer to reach the end of the appendage in her bowel. Like the ones in her womb, the tendrils seemed to grow animated all of a sudden, squirming and wriggling and poking deep in her.

Time stretched on, and in the darkness of the cave, held tight in the snail’s grasp, Salrith couldn’t even begin to tell how long it was before a new bulge was stretching her spade. All the while she could feel the gnawing need of her first seasonal heat behind the drug-induced haze. She didn’t see that each bulge was a small bundle of tiny eggs, each smaller than a pea, and that the tendrils were packing them tight to each other in a solid mass.

Salrith’s only perception of time as those tiny masses of eggs were packed into her, four under her tail for every one in her womb, came when she felt her bladder grew full and she lost control of it. As soon as she did, the feeding cycle of that mouth-tube resumed. That, and the cessation of the faint rumbles of thunder that filtered down into the cave.

As the time stretched on, Salrith could feel the heavy fullness in her, a deep ache that was growing with each and every batch of minuscule eggs. The appendage under her tail would pull back imperceptibly each time it delivered another bundle. A few hours later, or minutes, or days, she felt an ache in her udder that she didn’t quite understand. Someone watching her would see that they had grown engorged and swollen, but held as she was, she couldn’t see that.

The cycle continued for hours, with that bliss slowly fading and the swelling ache inside her as the mass of what was now thousands of eggs stretched womb and bowel unnaturally. As the throbbing ache of the masses within her grew and her body inevitably became inured to the drugs, she tried to struggle and squirm. To her surprise and horror, the layers of slime exuded by the snail had hardened into a sort of flexible cocoon. She began to cry out and scream, writhing and jerking.  She could thrash her tail about, but that was utterly useless.

When the pressure and fullness was almost too much to bear, and her screams had become ragged and helpless, she felt the appendages finally tug out of her, leaving her gaping. She could feel the mass, hard and thick, holding her cervix wide.  The tendrils soon withdrew, but she felt them begin to spray gluelike slime into her passage, keeping her vagina stretched by a quickly hardening plug.  A croak was all she could manage as her anus was similarly held open by another plug.

When the monster finally withdrew, when the tentacles and tendrils released her, she found herself achingly full. Every inch of her body except her abdomen, her spade, her anus and half of her tail was sealed in hardened, unyielding slime, all the way to the tip of her snout. As the snail withdrew and slowly slurped itself away behind her, she realized with a growing sense of horror that she didn’t feel a single bit of her heat anymore. That thing had been breeding with her for days. Literal days.

As she let out another raspy cry of terror and pain, Salrith knew there was no hope that she would ever find herself freed unless someone found her. She knew it had laid eggs in her, it was the only explanation, but all she knew was that, whether this was a fatal mistake or not, she was helpless and alone and beyond hope of rescue.  In that moment, her mind began to break.

…

Salrith gurgled as she was fed a fresh batch of sludgy slime, her motions automatic. Trapped in darkness, helpless, she’d drifted in and out of consciousness. She could mark time only by the feedings and the throbbing ache in her abdomen that only grew as time went on. Beneath her, out of her sight, her aching udder oozed a blackish slime that had pooled beneath her exposed spade and tail. Whatever she had begun to piss out instead of normal urine was the same as that which seeped from her nipples. Her mind screamed out, begged for something to change, for something to happen. She had no way of knowing that it had been weeks, that people were now searching for.  All that she knew was the endless cycle of feeding and pissing and that maddening, throbbing ache.

Her first clear thought in months flashed into her mind. Be careful what you wish for. The squirming was subtle at first, but it started to grow more and more intense, until she knew without a doubt that the eggs, grown nearly double their size, were hatching!  At least, she thought, this would be an end to the cycle, and she would either die, or not. “Oh yes, thank you, yes… yes…” she croaked. She didn’t really comprehend it, but she was begging for whatever release she could find, even if it was in oblivion

To her half-shattered mind, she began to realize that she was growing aroused again as the larval snails writhed inside her, the mass soon becoming a squirming, twitching mess inside her. But this wasn’t a normal arousal, this wasn’t even like heat.  It was blistering, mind-searing desire that overrode thought. Something was happening in the hatching of those eggs, something was being flooded into her system. She wanted something, anything, to touch her spade, to dispel the maddening need. She found the voice for one more ragged scream. They weren’t eating her, they were just moving, writhing.

From the outside, an observer would see nothing more than a writhing, bulbous mass of a belly beneath a gleaming pile of grayish hardened slime that had just grown larger as the incubator within writhed. For Salrith, the world became nothing but squirming and writhing and twitching and unthinking desire that soon took from her any remaining shred of sanity she had.

By the time the plugs within the snail’s newest mate crumbled and fell to splatter in the small lake of black ooze beneath her, she knew what she was meant for. It was her life. Inside her holes, the first of her brood pressed out, squirming and wriggling and twisting, a fat grublike larva that stretched her holes wide and fell down into the ooze. Within her, the next ones began the process of growing and maturing, a process that would take hours.

By the time all searching for the missing hybrid had ceased, the incubator had not even birthed a tenth of her brood. And her mate was there, ready to start the cycle again. The creature that had been Salrith, though, knew none of this. She just knew unending, eternal desire and arousal, and the slowly lessening pressure of the thousands of larvae waiting their turn to mature and be born.