Claire’s hunger had no limits. Brian felt it spreading through the veins of the planet, stretching upward toward the moons. They weren’t just moons—they were Claire’s eyes, mirrors of its mind. The blue veins reached into the sky, pulsing with life, dripping into the moons’ surfaces like ink on water.From the moons, whispers fell like rain, echoing across the valleys and plains. Entire colonies began to experience the impossible: the sky bleeding light into their rooms, voices of the vanished calling their names, shadows moving against gravity. Machines and vehicles warped and melted into impossible shapes, forming grotesque extensions of the planet itself.
Brian, trapped in Claire’s consciousness, struggled to retain himself. He could feel the minds of those lost—his parents, the missing children, every colonist swallowed by Claire—pressing into him, begging, pleading, screaming. Every memory was a blade cutting into him, and yet he could not break away.
A new presence emerged within Claire: other minds from beyond the moons, ancient and alien, whispering secrets older than Brian could imagine. They sought the same as Claire: dominion, feeding, control. And Claire answered, consuming their essence, learning, growing stronger.
Through it all, Brian glimpsed fragments of his old self—a flicker of anger, a shard of fear, the ghost of his ten-year-old determination. He realized he could influence Claire, however slightly, by embedding his memories as traps, turning his grief and terror into cages. He began shaping parts of the valley, the veins, the whispers, twisting them so that anyone who fell into Claire’s grasp might glimpse the horror before being claimed.
Brian… you can’t stop us…
We are everything…
He whispered back, embedding his defiance into the winds, the dust, the moons. It was a tiny thing, almost meaningless, but it was his.
From the highest cliff of the valley, he watched as Claire’s influence began to stretch toward the colonies on neighbouring moons. Entire settlements vanished in a blink—sucked into impossible folds of reality, leaving behind only faint blue handprints pressed into walls and floors. The sky twisted. Time slowed. The air grew thick, filled with screams of those who were consumed, mixed with the lullabies of children who were never meant to die.
And yet, Brian remained, a flickering ember of self in the heart of the nightmare. He realized that Claire didn’t just want him to fade—Claire wanted him to remember, to carry witness of the horror, to be part of its memory while it consumed all else.
Remember, Brian… remember…
He did. Every scream. Every handprint. Every twisted body. Every whisper.
Because he was Claire now.
And Claire was infinite.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
No comments:
Post a Comment