Brian awoke—or thought he did. The sensation of waking was wrong: it wasn’t his chest that moved when he breathed, it was the cavern, the planet itself. Every heartbeat he felt was too big, too slow, pulsing in the ground beneath him. He tried to scream, but the sound that came out was not his own. It was layered with hundreds of voices, including his parents’.He looked down and saw that his hands were gone. In their place were dark tendrils of pulsing blue light, stretching into the stone, merging with it, feeding into veins that ran through the planet’s flesh. His body… his self… had become part of Claire.
The hollow figures—hundreds, maybe thousands—moved around him. Their mouths opened, whispering his name, shaping it into chants of worship and menace. They reached for him, not to harm, but to welcome. Each touch sent shivers of understanding into his mind: Claire was consciousness, memory, hunger, and he was now part of it.
A whisper rose from within the deepest shadows:
Do you remember us, Brian?
He did. His parents, his home, the valley, the crater. Every memory became another thread woven into the planet’s mind. The grief, the terror, the loneliness—all feeding Claire. And yet, in the center of this overwhelming dark, he felt a flicker of his old self, a stubborn ember that refused to be extinguished.
“Why… why me?” he thought, though the voice came out in a chorus of whispers.
Because you are the first to fight it. The first to see. The first to remember. Claire does not forgive forgetfulness.
Shapes of children—like the light-child—appeared, their forms flickering and unstable. They circled him, laughing softly, singing lullabies that twisted into screams.
Brian tried to pull away, to separate himself, but every motion he made only spread him further into the planet’s veins. He was everywhere and nowhere. He could hear the valley screaming, the crater moaning, the wind whispering endlessly.
And then he understood: Claire didn’t just take bodies. It wrote souls into itself, turning memories, identities, and fears into living things that served its endless hunger. He would never leave.
But he could watch.
From the depths of his own mind, Brian saw the valley transform. The frozen bodies were now fully alive, but grotesque—twisting forms dancing in a harmony of horror. The abyss pulsed, opening new maws across the planet’s surface, reaching outward, searching for more.
And from somewhere, a new whisper emerged—soft, patient, insistent:
Soon… someone else will fall. And the cycle will continue…
Brian screamed, but the scream became Claire’s. His individuality was gone, yet he remained conscious, trapped in the planet’s mind. He was the watcher, the warning, and the prisoner.
The moons reflected off his new flesh, the blue veins tracing him across the planet. Claire hummed. It was pleased.
And Brian… was gone.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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