The Hunger

393 AC - The last of the Axiom engineers pass through the portals, which then close behind them with a sucking sound. Even if Lindiwe wants to turn around and make sure everyone has gone through, I don't let her. I'm not interested in them. They're the least of my worries. I'm much too busy watching the opening that's appearing on the wall. Suddenly, vapors bubble and gush forth, and a dark mass emerges in an explosion of hissing, sinuous smoke. The black deluge opens first to reveal a slitted, voracious eye, then a carnivorous maw, ringed with razor-sharp teeth. There you are, abomination! It exudes hunger, starvation even. A prehensile tongue flicks out of the mouth, probing the surroundings, while hands with slender, hooked fingers suddenly emerge from the swirling black clouds. It rushes over to the Sap that is still flowing where the prospectors drilled through the tank.

It feeds on the Sap greedily, like an animal, with no decorum whatsoever. It plunges its hands into the thick substance and shoves handfuls into its mouth, its tongue lapping it up vulgarly as if tormented by a frenzied and insatiable hunger. Oh yes, I understand you all too well, darkspawn. Oh, how I commiserate with you. But on closer inspection, I could clearly see that its nature was different from mine. Its priority was Sap. But in that case, why attack those who were venturing down here? Because they'd eaten Sap and the liquid was running through their veins? No… It was something else. I'd felt how Sap was absorbed by a human organism, how it was metabolized. No, there was something compulsive in its insatiable behavior. Lindiwe narrows her eyes as I use her Irises. I'm looking for something to explain its gluttony, its urgent greed…

MAW