To Serve Those Below
Subscribestar Commission for Realis
The character April belongs to Realis
Written by Rix Prime

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Descending into the depths, all that April could hear were the steady sounds of her hooves as they tapped on the stone stairs that led ever downward. The day had finally come, a day that she had been waiting for since her petition to be her people's offering for this decade had been accepted. Somewhere far below, she had been told, was a stone chamber in which she would present herself to a representative of Those Below. The only thing that lit her way was a trail of moss that grew on the rough-hewn walls on either side of her as she descended, seeming to react to her presence with a soft glow.

Looking back up the seemingly endless stair, the mountain goat realized that she could no longer see the light of the surface. Whether it was because night had fallen -had she really been descending for that long? - or because she was too far beneath the surface that light could no longer reach her, she didn't know. She smiled, remembering the cheers of her people as she took her place on the dais in the amphitheater. It had been a thrill to strip bare in front of everyone, to see their grateful expressions and feel the love that they sent her. She was among the rarest of offerings, one that would please Those Below more than any other in generations. The last time that one with both a vagina and a penis had been offered to Them, the village had experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity.

Turning back to face the descent, she continued on her way, reflecting on what had brought her here. To be an offering to Those Below, one must not be coerced or forced in any way, and April, who had always been curious about them and what they might look like, had decided that when the time came next, she would ask to join Those Below. All that anyone was ever told was that Those Below required the bodies of other creatures to propagate their species, and that they, in turn, showered the village with gifts. The elders said that the offerings would spend their lives serving as breeders for Those Below, an honored place among their society.

At some point she had started counting the steps, but had lost count more than once, and had simply kept her slow, measured descent. How deep into the heart of the earth was she? The entrance to this stair had been halfway up a mountain that overlooked her town, in the middle of an amphitheater used for the once-a-decade Offering Ceremony. For weeks before today, she had been the centre of a celebration of hedonistic and fervent lovemaking that everyone participated in. Everyone but her, that was. She was being kept for Those Below.

It was harder than she'd imagined, leaving it all behind. The town, so isolated in its valley that it really didn't have a proper name, had always been a quiet place. Sometimes people left, but they always seemed to find their way back, the lure of the comfortable life in the valley too much for them. But for those who chose to become the offering, there was no coming back. It was the price that Those Below had for the people that lived in the valley.

The idea had come to April three years before, on her nineteenth birthday. All through school, she had never found something that would satisfy her. She had no musical or artistic aptitude, nor did she have any flair for agriculture. She was good at more than a few other things, and had many friends that would have loved to share their lives with her, even a few she'd bedded before having to make her vocational choice. But as she'd reached the point that she had to choose, it had come to her that she couldn't choose what to do.  And as she'd asked herself 'what do I have to offer', one answer had come to her.  Herself.  A hermaphrodite. Intersexed. There were words for what she was, some of them pejorative, some celebratory, but for April, it was just herself. And looking among the happy residents of the valley, she'd known that it was what she needed to be.  She'd gone to the elders right on her nineteenth and told them of her desire. They had, of course, made a display of trying to decide whether or not to choose her, but it had been a foregone conclusion from the start.

Which brought April to where she was, slowly descending into darkness, her hooves making sharp sounds on the stone that led ever downward, her soft pale brown fur and curled black horns lit only by the glow of the moss. At one point, she felt as if she was just stuck in some sort of strange dream, in a stairway that would never end, but just as she thought that it would never end, she saw something new. The glow far down in the distance was somehow stronger, more intense, as if there were a great deal more of that moss present.

April slowed and finally stopped when she was certain that she was seeing a change in the nearly endless descent. She was close to a destiny that so very few of her people ever found. To interact directly with Those Below.  What's more, she would be breeding with them. The only depictions they had of Them were as shadowy, glistening things that were formless and shapeless. The idea of being bred by something that strange was a frightening one, but somehow compelling and exciting at the same time.

The mountain goat took a few moments to compose herself. She was giving Them the only thing that they had ever asked from her people. One person every decade, to join with them and become a breeder. It was such a simple price to pay, wasn't it?  And she had volunteered for it, happily. She let out a happy sigh and resumed her descent. As she grew closer to that more intense blue-green glow, she felt her heart begin to beat rapidly. She was going to get to see what Those Below looked like, know how they interacted. 

Finally, the steps ended, and she was in a relatively short corridor that ended in a stone archway. Beyond it, the light was so much more intense that it almost hurt her eyes. She'd been in the deep gloom for so long that she had adjusted to the dimness, and the riot of light was actually more than a little disconcerting. But still she moved on, approaching the chamber, anticipation and excitement winning over the fear of the unknown.

She emerged into a large black stone chamber with a raised dais in the middle. To her surprise, the source of the light was not moss anymore, but instead the green-blue glow came from polished stone in the walls of the massive chamber, inlaid with a script that she didn't recognize, and when she focused on it, her head began to ache. This was what she'd been told to expect by the elders, and she shivered a little. It was cold down here, far colder than she had expected it to be, enough so that she wished she'd been allowed at least a cloak. Her hooves giving out sharp cracks with each step toward the dais, April approached.

{A new offering. We waited so long. We wished for more. The last was unsatisfying.} April froze and looked around the chamber, not sure where the voice had come from, but she had a sense of displeasure that weighed down on her, making her stomach tie itself in knots. She'd known that might be something brought up; a decade ago, the chosen offering had become ill before the ceremony, but there had been nothing to do with it. He had insisted on remaining as their offering. For the last ten years, it hadn't been as good in the valley. {We used him. But it was unsatisfying. He was going to die. We made what use we could.}

April let out a low, nervous bleat as she stepped up onto the dais, the polished black stone beneath her so smooth that it shone in the light that came from all around. In a shaking voice, she called out, "I'm sorry, and I bear our apologies. We knew he was ill, but not that it was that bad. I promise, I'm healthy, I'm strong.  And I offer more than we've been able to give for a very long time."

At the far end of the chamber, from an archway that the goat hadn't noticed before there emerged a huge, hulking form. Hidden within shadows cast on it was massive bipedal creature, its form indistinct and hard to see, even when April tried to focus on it. All she was able to see was that whatever it was, it was dark and wet and black, the dim light catching on something that glistened in the gloom. This was the most that any had ever seen of one of Them, a thing hidden in shadows that dwarfed one of the valley residents. Every depiction of them had this same hulking creature, indistinct and covered in shadows.

{This remains to be seen. Lay yourself out upon the dais. Let us see.} The voice seemed to come from all around her, but it was somehow soundless. It didn't reverberate, despite the size of the chamber, which struck her as odd, until she realized that she wasn't hearing anything with her ears. Those Below were speaking directly into her mind! {You are perceptive. A mind like that will enhance my own so very much. This is pleasing. I am waiting for you to obey.}

April let out another bleat, realizing that not only were Those Below speaking to her mind, they were reading her thoughts! After a moment's hesitation, she made her way up onto the dais in the middle of the room. The cold stone looked uninviting and cold, and the sight made her shiver. {I will warm you. Obey.}  Remembering that she was here to serve Them and their needs, whatever they were, she found herself laying out on the hard stone floor. Were They going to take her body right here and now? Was she going to get even a moment to prepare? {You have had enough time to prepare. Your body and mind are mine. It was promised. Now, I approach. Do not flee.}

For what felt like forever, the goat laid there, feeling a warm breeze start to flow over her, carrying with it a strange almost foul-sweet smell that carried the acrid potency of ammonia. The scent teased someting visceral in the back of her mind, something that screamed at her to run, to flee, to escape, Those Below and her obligation to her people be damned, but her legs and arms refused to listen to her. Something in that scent, something insistent and insidious, was making her awareness more keen than before. The glow within the walls grew more intense, as did the cold of the stone beneath her, and the feel of warm air on her sheath, sack and slit all at once. When she heard a strange, wet sort of sound come from the side of the chamber opposite the archway she'd come through, she propped herself up on her elbows to peer into the shadows at that end. What she saw approaching was nothing short of a nightmare.

The hulking bipedal form changed as it stepped out from the archway. For a moment she saw a huge, writhing mass of flesh that wriggled and squirmed, but then it fell to the floor and began to reform into something that made her want to scream. The body now looked from the top like a leech that had grown fat after having gorged itself on blood, its black slimy hide glistening in the faint light that emitted from the walls. Fat and round, with only a strange bulbous protrusion of rubbery ebon flesh to indicate some sort of head, there were no visible sensory organs that April could see. It was what was beneath that was even more disturbing to her, though.  A mass of rubbery, wriggling tentacles, every one of them dripping in ichorous slime that she understood to be the source of the horrifying scent, propelled it forward, leaving a trail of the substance behind them. Inside, April's mind recoiled and told her to get up, to leave, to fight, but despite the rising terror inside her, she found herself unable to flee.

Shaking, she watched the monstrous thing approach, tears welling up in her eyes. She didn't want to be the offering anymore. What did offering mean, anyway, and why had nobody ever questioned why that word was used. An offering was a sacrifice, a gift, to be used. How could she have not understood the truth of that? {Spread your legs, I would judge your worthiness.}  Without any hesitation, she lifted her legs and spread them, wondering why she did it so unhesitatingly despite the fear that made her want to bring up her last meal despite it having been two nights before.

It slither-crawled closer to April, and as tears filled her eyes, the terror so intense that she couldn't even bring herself to scream.  Warmth more intense than she'd ever felt coming from the body of another living being radiated from the creature. Its whole body was larger than her own, and this close, that scent made the tears flow even more freely.  Two tentacles extended from within and began to explore her loins, the tips leaving smears of blackish slime in her fur. The touch drew out the scream that had been stuck in the goat's throat from the moment she'd known the true form of Those Below, a shriek that resounded through the walls. {Be silent} came the command, and immediately, the sound cut off with a strangled sort of gurgle. Again, she was confused and terrified that she did as told without hesitation. What was wrong with her? Then she remembered the strange feeling that had washed over her with that heavy ammonia scent. {Yes. It helps us ensure obedience before we can seize your mind. I will take everything. It belongs to me.}

The probing tentacles found her scrotum first, wrapping around it and squeezing hard enough to hurt, then moved upward to wrap around her flaccid shaft, smearing it with viscous slime in the process. The second tentacle then found the slit behind her sack, dipping in and pressing forward into her passage, slick and relentless. {Oh yes. You are a wonderful offering. The last was simply male, and could not withstand what we do. Feel joy, offering, I have told the others what I have been given. I will claim it all and discard the rest.}

Despite the absolute horror of the situation, she did feel some sort of elation that Those Below were pleased with her gift to Them, that her people had chosen well in sending her. Below it all though, was the creeping terror, the knowledge that she was about to experience something horrific. That knowledge was punctuated when she looked down at where the tentacles had left slime on her fur.  Her soft brown fur was sloughing off and beneath she saw red, irritated skin. {Now, offering, we will begin. I will make you feel good in the end.}

It advanced on her, surprisingly fast, and she felt a half-dozen thick, wet tentacles wrap around her legs pulling them forward. As soon as she felt their heat wrap around her limbs, she tried to struggle, instinct ruling over everything, but whatever It was, was implacable, creeping up over her belly now, smearing and writhing, coating her belly in dark slime. She lifted her hands, babbling out, "no, no, no, stop!" pressing against the rubbery flesh. Immediately two tentacles wrapped around her arms and pulled them downward, with enough wrenching force to make her let out a bleating cry of pain.

Over half of the creature had covered her when she felt something new teasing at her slit, and April began to cry. She felt an overwhelming sense of betrayal, of regret. Did the elders know what They looked like, what Their touch felt like?  Already her legs and belly felt raw and itchy, and the thought of that sensation inside her, on her cock and balls, was one that made her struggle all the more. As if in response to her thoughts and questions, the voice in her head spoke, and she sensed an almost cruel glee in it. {None of them know. We make it seem so good, so right, a gift to us for our blessing to them. The lies we tell them are the things they want to hear. Hundreds of years now.} At those words, April knew at least some part of the truth, and a deep despair began to settle in on her.

The tentacles holding her legs started pushing them up and back, forcing them wide. The stretch was immediately uncomfortable, growing to intensely painful, and command or not, April screamed again as she was forced into a position that left her legs bound in tentacles to her arms. Moments later, that bulbous protrusion was pressing at her chin, everything below her neck covered by the body of one of Them.  It reared up and the last thing she saw before the monster fully enveloped her were two impossibly thin pointed tentacles unwrapping themselves from a central stalk that itself blossomed open to reveal a thick central tube and two thin ones that whipped about, seeking something to grab on to.

{Waited so long to do this. So few of us get to. And I get a womb and a way to spark my eggs. I do not need that filthy copulation.} In the complete darkness underneath the One Below, April felt tentacles slither under her back, around her neck, and then, at the same time, she felt something thick press into her vagina with enough force to make pain flare in her loins. She screamed, but the mistake in that was immediately obvious when the central tube shat she'd seen shoved into her mouth and down her throat, turning the sound into a truncated gurgle. The taste was as acrid and vile as the scent had been, smearing her tongue and making it burn. Her stomach heaved as it invaded her esophagus and pressed downward, the burning pain reaching her belly within seconds. Before she could register it, the two whip-like ones burrowed into her nostrils, the pain flaring there, the most unpleasant invasion she had ever felt.

April's mind reeled as something new began to envelop her shaft, massaging and stroking. Even as her lungs burned with the need to breathe, the ministrations of whatever had enveloped her cock had begun to bring her to an unwilling stiffness. {Must ensure you spill life with this thing, so I know what to do with what I need to keep.}

There was something ominous in that statement, something that told April that there was so much worse to come.  Suddenly, there was a pressure in her chest, and she felt her lungs being flooded with something that was burning hot. It was a searing agony unlike anything she had ever felt, but as it set in, she realized that she didn't feel the overwhelming need for breath anymore. Within her stomach, she felt something aching and writhing, pressing outward in all directions. The itching and burning caused by that caustic slime could be felt all over now, not a single part of her body now aflame with it. Even her labia and inward felt it, with the only place not fully affected being whatever was stroking that unnatural hardness.

{It feels so much better to spill your seed, knowing it will be the last time you do it naturally. Enjoy this. I have given your body enough life to sustain until I no longer need it.} And as she felt the rising pleasure in her loins grow closer and closer to her peak, she felt another sort of stabbing pain in her pelvis, a bloom of agony that was the thick tentacle tearing through her cervix. As the import of the words set into her, then, April knew with complete certainty that she was going to die. 

The voice that spoke to her mind sounded amused, a nearly sadistic glee beneath it all. {Die? No, not exactly. Your life as it was is over. The last one died. You will not. What I do not need, I will discard.} Suddenly, two tendrils shoved into her ears, and after a new blazing pain began, her hearing seemed to grow muted and strange. At the same time, she felt her body trembling and shaking, hips trying to buck as she grew closer to her peak. In one moment, pure ecstatic pleasure washed over her, and she began to pulse her seed into the One Below in powerful, gushing spurts. A sense of extreme pleasure washed over her, even more intense than her orgasm, and April realized that she was feeling the pleasure of the One Below. {Yes, you are a wonderful offering. We made the last suffer for his inadequacy. His seed was inert.}

The pressure in April's stomach from whatever was within it was growing more and more intense, and she began to feel as if she had gone beyond overeating into something that demanded she empty her stomach any way she could, but despite her body making the retching motions, nothing happened. She wanted to cry and scream, but was completely unable. Then, something seemed to break inside April. It was like a tearing sensation, violent and intense, and even as the pressure disappeared she began to feel things pressing underneath her skin, exploring her abdominal cavity.

At the same time, she felt something expanding within her womb, and two crushing aches where she knew her ovaries to be. Before she could register exactly what was happening, she felt something new, something strange. She wanted to relax. Her heart began to slow, and the burning itch all over her began to turn into a strange sort of numb pleasure. {Yes, there you are, April. I know you now. Oh, so many hopes. So many desires to bring joy to others. You wish to be wanted, needed.}

As the numbness spread, not completely negating the agonies that were ravaging her, April grew more and more confused. How did it know her name? How did it know what she wanted? She was distracted by a new pain (pleasure), a new sort of agony (ecstasy) as something thick and hot began to invade her urethra. It didn't move slowly, a lance of pure fire (joy) that spread down her cock and into her prostate and bladder (heart). It rose higher, and she felt new pleasures begin to grow in her upper back. My kidneys, its at my kidneys. Our kidneys. My kidneys. I'm keeping what we need so I can be perfect. April felt a strange sort of despairing wonder when she realized that whatever had invaded her ears was in her brain. I'm in our brain. My brain. Its brain. It's making our thoughts my own.

As she felt those tentacles inside her latch on to organs, the intensity of it all grew tenfold. All her innards, all of them, were crushed and torn away and dissolved in even more caustic slime, and she felt each one.  Her heart was hammering rapidly, until she felt something physically holding it, and then the most intense and ecstatic pleasure washed over her as it was torn apart, with her lungs soon after. She didn't feel the other part of the change being wrought, the circulatory system that was growing from her kidneys to her uterus and testicles, now hanging free within the slime, somehow undamaged by all of it, the musculature around her prostate kept as well.

{This is what we need} April thought, {But there's more for us, isn't there? Yes, you need more.} She felt a wrenching sensation, now completely painless, as her ribs were torn wide. It was a strange thing to know what was happening but also to be confused by it. They were repositioning, becoming a sort of under-cage for the One Below, a protection for their womb and second brain. {That's what we are now, just parts but that's lovely isn't it we're becoming one. Nobody else can feel something so intimate, so beautiful.}

As bones shifted and repositioned, the last vestiges of April, of the individual she'd been, felt a deep sense of utter betrayal and despair. There was going to be nothing left of her but what They needed to use.  She felt her tail detached from her spine, muscles from all over her body moving to weave themselves around it, then attach and press into her vagina. Rubbery flesh formed around it and inside she could feel the One Below's glee as it reformed her womb, making it stretch and elongate to completely fill the protective cage that was being formed on its underside. Her arms wrenched out of their sockets, her legs, every single bit of her skeletal structure was corrupted and repurposed as protection for its womb.

Something was happening to her skull, but she couldn't figure out what. Something so strange and unsettling she coudln't process it. It was being carefully disassembled. She wouldn't be able to feel this, nobody would, but an awareness grew that she was feeling the One Below's sense of it. Her brain was directly linked to its brain. As she felt it being guided farther down inside the body, into the protective cage of bone and remnant flesh, she felt her new heart(prostate) begin to pulse, every once in a while the surge of pleasure of a climax washing through her.  Infested ovaries released eggs and were fertilized by her own seed, becoming a mass of tiny eggs. She watched as they grew, without knowing how they grew.  And inside that little corner of her mind, growing smaller and smaller, April began to scream until she lost all sense of her self.

{Wake up, April. Wake up. I wish you to experience this.}

Confusion, then memory.  Stark memory, and she began to mentally scream and rail against what had been done, but then she felt calm wash all over her as the One Below forced her compliance.  She felt a pressure in her womb, a pulsing and squirming. The ache was all encompassing, and she had an urge to push, the same one that she had been told came with birth oh so long ago.

A picture formed in her mind, one that she understood that the One Below was feeding right to her mind. It was on its side, and she could see now the structure of the bones now covered in rubbery skin that it had used to protect her womb, brain heart(prostate) and kidneys covering the lower half of its body. In a perverse sort of trophy, it had also kept her horns, now settled atop the bulbous protrusion on its head.  A long tube had pressed out near the base of the bonecage, and the One Below told her that it was all that was left of her tail. She screamed again as the pressure in her womb grew even more and the tube flexed and widened. As an oblong form traveled along the strange tube {It's an ovipostor} the pain grew intense, but when it reached the drooling lip of the thing, a climax that washed over every bit of what she once was came crashing through.  A wriggling, squirming mass of flesh and tentacles slopped down on the floor.

{This is all you are, April. All you will ever be. Fertilizing and birthing hundreds of our young. With others we must use the distasteful copulation. You have brought me so much joy, so much purpose. And before I shut your mind off and use your intellect for my own, I want you to know something. There are a hundred valleys like yours on your world. A thousand. And we farm you in order to grow strong. Good night, April. Maybe I will wake you up again in a hundred years...}

April screamed inside until she knew nothing more.