Sana was warm. She was adrift in mellow amniotic fluid, and the muffled sounds of the world outside barely reached her rubbery little ears. She had been gestating for almost 8 months and sensation was new to her. As her nerves bloomed and flickered to life, she was flooded with a pleasant balm of feelings. She was warm. She was safe. She was loved. This was all she knew and all she needed to know. 

In a month, she would be ripped from the sanctuary of her mothers womb, and her mother would be killed shortly after. She would never be held again. Naturally, Sana would have no conscious memory of this blissful time in her life, but the sense of loss hung forebodingly at the back of her mind. It shrouded her thoughts and memories with a veil of grief that she would never understand. 

 

***

 

More than two decades later, Sana was hot. The engine of her escape pod was engulfed in white hot flames, and the cabin blared with alarms and flashing lights. Sana’s hands flitted from one control panel to the next, but wires had melted, leaving the switches obsolete. “Shitshitshitshitshitshi-” She muttered to herself like a mantra, because she didn’t know any prayers. 

She was going to crash. The pock-marked, misshapen surface of a small planet rushed toward her as she sped past its little moons and asteroids. Spots turned to craters, flatness turned to large, flaky rock formations. She was racing straight toward a large valley, its rocky spires spearing up at her as she fell. She braced. “Shitshitshitshit-” 

But the impact never came. Sana unclenched her teeth, then her eyes and then her fists. Over the alarms and sirens, she heard the low whistling of wind pushing through cracks in the portholes. The planet had opened up a gaping mouth and swallowed her whole, welcoming her into its depths. She was free falling through a giant cavern. As she glanced through the rear porthole, she saw the opening at the top of the fissure rumbling closed behind her. From the light of the engine fires, she caught flashes of the cave walls. She watched, motionless, as they changed from a dark, flaky brown to a waxy, pale yellow and then abruptly to a slick, glistening purple. Sana yelped when the ship's wing clipped the wall and jostled her violently in her chair. As if out of a trance, she grabbed a hold of the steering wheel. 

The back of the cave loomed ahead. This time, Sana kept her eyes open and watched in wonder as it shook, then shifted away, revealing the tunnel behind it. With trembling hands, she steered the ship through dozens of twists and forks. As she hurtled deeper into the planet, the walls closed rapidly around her. Suddenly, the ship slammed to a halt, stuck like a cork in a bottle by the constricting walls of the tunnel. Sana felt the jolt of whiplash before she registered the stop. She blacked out with her hands still clenched around the steering wheel. 

 

***

Sana woke to the harsh beeping of the control panel throbbing in her temples. She smelled copper and the bitter char of burnt flesh. Something wet was dripping onto her forehead and into her hair, it ran in little rivers down the back of her flight suit. A quick clench of her fists and curl of her toes told her she had all her limbs intact. Nothing seemed broken, but everything hurt when she moved. She peeled open her eyelids and took in the smoldering wreckage of the cockpit through a dream like veil. She knew she should get out of the ship, but it was like she was underwater. Her movements were slow, and her thoughts hazy. It would be so easy to just sit there, to rest for just a little longer. 

Get out. She heard a voice, a thought. Get out, it said, more insistent now. Okay okay, she thought, no need to nag, I’m going. Her burst of indignance gave her just enough energy to drag herself out of the seat and out of the broken porthole. She landed on the ground with a splat, and turned to look at the remnants of her escape pod. 

It was unsalvageable. Everything was burnt and bent and broken. It would never fly again, it was dead, and she was stuck. “Shit. Shit shit shit shitshitshitshit.” 

Stuck, on some distant unknown planet on the outer rim of space; Stuck, with untold dangers and an undoubtedly painful death awaiting her and, worst of all, stuck completely alone. “Fuck this!” She screeched, “This is bullshit! Fuck the galactic republic! Fuck the rebellion! Fuck everything! And fuck my dad!” 

She was sobbing now, beating the already dented nose of the ship until it fell apart entirely. How did things go so wrong? How did she, a galactically recognised biologist, end up here? As with most of her problems in life, all roads lead back to her father. They had never been close, let alone loving. He had never paid attention to her before this, always more preoccupied with his political career. Honestly, she thought he didn’t care. That's why it was a painless decision when the rebellion approached her. She had lived her life in the lap of luxury and it felt good to give back, it felt right. After hearing those rebel stories, seeing the oppression, the inhumanity, she didn’t feel like she had a choice. After all, it was just money, they had so much of it that even he didn’t know exactly how much they had. But the look on his face. When she closed her eyes it was all she could see, warping and twisting into a grotesque mask. Sana slumped against the hull. Rage had wrung her out and left her as boneless and sad as an old rag. 

Get up, the voice vibrated at the back of her mind. She wanted nothing more than to lie there, but the beeping was blaring louder now. It grated on her eardrums and pounded on the inside of her skull. She had to move. She had to get away. No, wait. She needed to check if her scanners were still functional and assess her environment. The compad on her wrist was barely working, the only thing it could tell her was that the atmosphere was breathable. Mostly nitrogen, a good amount of oxygen and almost completely saturated with water vapor. If she could find an exit close to the surface, she might be able to send out a distress signal from her compad. Looking around, she noted that the walls of the tunnel were curved and coated in a thick layer of something slimy. The ground beneath her was soft and fleshy, and from the ceiling above hung short, fat tentacles that dripped with the same slime. This was no planet like she had ever seen before. 

Sana realised there was only one way forward. She had to follow the tunnel, and go deeper into the belly of the beast. A light current of damp, sticky air brushed her face and the tunnel pulsed gently. It was pulling her, inviting her. With a strange calm she started to walk. 

 

***

 

Sana didn’t know how long she’d been walking. Her compad was emitting just the tiniest bit of warm light, but it was enough to light the way. She had followed the tunnel diligently, crouching in some parts, stumbling in others. Her boots squelched reassuringly as she plodded along. When she arrived at the first fork, she hesitated. She thought about going right but it felt bad just to think about it. Somehow she knew, right was wrong and left was right. She giggled about that for a long time, but she wasn’t sure how long. After that, she chose her path deftly, neither stopping nor thinking about which way to go. She just knew, and followed the good feeling. 

She fell into a comfortable routine, following nothing but her instinctual circadian rhythm. When she was tired, she would rest, pressed up against the cave walls and if she wasn’t sleeping, she’d note any changes in atmospheric composition. She took copious field notes of the tunnel structures, scent and temperature variations. She observed that despite the perpetual dampness, no mold or fungus seemed present. Even the cuts she had sustained in the crash healed quickly and without infection. She theorised the mucus of her host contained powerful antifungal and antibacterial properties, if only she had access to her lab, she would have been able to confirm it. Maybe she was delirious, but she was enjoying herself. Yes, she was sweaty, a little itchy and sticky with whatever that slime was (probably a form of mucus, don’t think about it too much), and yes, normally she hated being alone, but her brain was too full of questions to dwell on it. Her mind whirred and buzzed with theories about organs, tissues and cell structures and she tried not to think about how she liked this better than being around people. People were scary, they were unpredictable, and they were the one thing that made her feel stupid. The biology of a person was far easier to understand. Systems, organs, enzymes, everything somehow worked together to form one functioning whole. It was grotesque. It was beautiful. It was- “Ow, fuck!”

Sana smacked her face against something wet and slipped backwards. Thankfully the ground was muscular and springy, so it cushioned the blow. As she got up and tried to swipe the slime (mucus) off her already stained flight suit, she turned to look up at the thing she’d bumped into. At first glance, it was a raised lump on the ceiling of the tunnel. But upon closer inspection, Sana saw that it was actually a bulbous, slug-like creature. Its flesh was a gelatinous translucent pinkish color, and its segmented, sausage shaped body was about the size of a dog. Its mouth was latched onto one of the tentacles and it pulsated rhythmically as it suckled. 

Sana stared, fascinated by her new discovery and made more notes on her compad. A symbiotic species? A parasite? Or was it some sort of larval young? She mulled over these questions as she picked at a scab on her hand absentmindedly. She didn't even realise she had started walking again. If by some miracle she made it out of here, the discovery of this organism would change the field of biology forever. 

But there would be no funding for her research, the Galactic Republic would probably dismiss this as useless and irrelevant. Or perhaps something more sinister, her father would find a way to exploit this planet. To harvest its flesh in great chunks, reduce it to a lab sample, a case study, spread across the galaxy in small sterile, vacuum sealed packages. It would never be whole again. The thought was enough to jerk her out of her head and she stopped walking. 

In the silence, she became aware of a faint beeping. The sound had crept up on her, and now that she heard it, it was impossible to ignore. It poked and prodded her eardrums and pushed the good feeling away. At first, she thought it was a hallucination, something left over from the crash. But… the tone and timing were too different. This was something else. This meant there were others.

At the next fork, she decided to follow the sound. Her thoughts jabbered all at once like a flurry of insects, and she started to pick up speed. She wanted the beeping to stop. She wanted to find the source of her pain and destroy it. But no, she needed to get out of here and that beeping meant there was a chance of escape. If it was a ship, if the crew was still alive… Her heart pounded, deafening in her ears. She realised excitement and fear felt the same. She raced toward the sound, not caring or stopping when she slipped in the muck. It blared like a beacon. 

Up ahead she saw a faint red glow reflecting off the walls of the tunnel. She broke into a full sprint. “Hello? Hello, is anyone there?”

She rounded the corner to see a pile of rubble that might have once been a small rebel attack pod. The cockpit was empty. The beeping came from the empty fuel gauge, and it screeched mockingly at her. There was no one. Her lip quivered and she felt the stinging pressure of tears in her eyes. Despite all her fears, she was painfully disappointed. How could there be nothing? No functioning ship, no crew, no radio. She was alone again. And the beeping was scraping the inside of her skull like a worm. It had to stop. She had to make it stop. 

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up!” With each cry she drove her foot harder into the fuel gauge. The little red light cracked and died, and the tunnel was once again filled with silence and Sana’s panting breaths. 

In the gloom of the tunnel ahead, an unusual lump caught her eye. As she inched cautiously toward it, she expected the lump to take shape. But it remained an amorphous blobbish ball. The surface of the ball was not smooth, like the tunnel walls, but rough and cracked. It felt like a giant boulder, but it was warm and spongy to the touch. Sana ran her fingers along its surface until they slipped into a larger crack, perhaps three inches across. She brushed a tuft of soft hair. Peering inside with the compad at full brightness, she found the unmistakable shape of a human eye. It was closed. Long dark eyelashes fluttered, as if disturbed by the light. Sana felt her heart in her throat. On the other side of the lump, she saw a foot peeking out. It was bent at an abnormal angle, broken. There was someone in there. 

“Omigod! Hello?” Her voice was hoarse from disuse “Can you hear me? I’ve come to help you! I’m going to get you out of there!” 

Sana started scraping frantically at the crack in the lump. The rough surface flaked off as she scratched at it like scabs, but revealed only raw, shapeless flesh beneath them. She was getting nowhere. Sana pulled out a small penknife from the compad, she would have to cut him out. Working as carefully and quickly as she could, she started slicing into the flesh lump. If she could just find where it ended and he began, she could carve him out of there. Yes it would be miserable, but at least they would be together. But no matter how deep she cut and hacked, all she could find was solid, tumorous flesh. 

“I’m sorry if I’m hurting you. Just wait a little longer, I’m almost there. Can you hang on a little more? Please just be okay.” She pleaded with him in a constant stream as she worked. Now that she found someone to talk to, the words didn’t stop. 

“Just a little more, okay? Wait, I’ve got something! Okay now we can start to…” Sana gasped. 

What she’d found was a segment of his large intestine, but it wasn’t connected to anything. Where it should have led to the small intestines, it merely melded to the flesh of the lump. 

“Shit.” Sana whispered it like a prayer. 

She cut more haphazardly, looking for something, anything at all. That couldn’t be all there was. She found a small piece of liver, the end of an esophagus, a shard of rib. But they were nothing but scraps. She realised there wasn’t even much blood, no veins, no arteries, just a light sheen of red along the surface of each cut. Sana glanced at the eye, still closed and impassive. 

“I’m sorry. I just need to know.” she breathed. 

She sliced the flesh right next to the eye, where his ear and brain would be. The penknife slid smoothly through. It met no bone, no cartilage, no change in texture. Just meat. Sana sat back with a sob, there was nothing left of him. He was just as silent and indifferent as the planet around her. Any remains that may have existed now lay mutilated, sprawled across the tunnel floor. Even now, they slowly pieced themselves back together, reforming the globular lump. How could this happen? What did this to him? 

Sana’s mind started to work faster as she latched on to a chilling new thought. How long had he been in the tunnels for? A few days? A few weeks? The scab on her hand itched. Actually, she had been itching her arms and legs for a while now. Plagued with allergies as a child, this had been fairly normal for her but… With a pit in her stomach, she pulled up the sleeve of her flight suit, she found more scabs spotting her skin. “Shit! No no nonono-” 

Sana tried scratching them off but they stung painfully when she tugged on them, and they stuck fast to her skin. Suddenly hyper aware of all sensation, she found she was itchy everywhere. She could feel little phantom scabs prickling and crawling all over her spine, scalp and neck. Oh god, she was going to become a flesh lump. She was going to end up a piece of nothing meat, no elegant systems, no spindly beautiful capillaries, just solid wart all the way through. She tore desperately at her flight suit, crying, shaking and hyperventilating. By the time she recognised the panic attack for what it was, the edges of her vision were blurring, and she faded to black. 

 

***

 

Sana was on her father’s ship, but the edges warped and rippled like they were liquid. Something was wrong, she realised mildly. On the main deck, people scurried like ants. They swarmed toward tiny doors, and clambered over each other till they were all piled up. Sana floated above them, and watched the scene in a strange state of serenity. 

Lights flash, blinding and disorienting her. Someone is shaking her hand. She was at an award ceremony, taking a picture with the Dean of GRMU. For once, her smile feels bursting and genuine, she was finally being recognised for her research, and her father was in the crowd. He’d never come to any of her events as a child, not one dance recital, not one birthday, but finally, she’d won his approval. Through the camera flashes she spotted his stoic face and she beamed at him. He remained as impassive as before and her smile faltered, but only for a moment. 

“Thank you for coming!” She ran in for a hug but stopped herself when he didn't move, settling instead for a curt nod. “It means so much to me that you were able to make it.”

“Yes, of course. Congratulations.” He said dismissively.

“Would you like to go for dinner? To catch up? I know we haven’t seen each other in a while and-”

“No need. My secretary reports you are doing well here.” He checked a message on his compad while he spoke.

“I see.” Sana tried to hide her disappointment by keeping her tone even, but couldn’t stop the welling of tears in her eyes.

“Actually, I came to speak with you on behalf of the Republic military. We’d like to buy your patent.” Her compad beeped and a contract popped up. The amount of money on the bottom line made her eyes water. 

“Whilst I am flattered,” she said carefully, “I don’t understand. The enzymes I developed are for general medical purposes. Once primed with genetic material they’re designed to kill harmful viruses and bacteria. What is the military going to do with this patent?”

“That's confidential.” Was the stern reply.

“Will my enzymes get distributed to the general public?”

“That’s also confidential.” 

“Then I’m not signing! I designed these enzymes to help people, not rot away on some military base.”

“Dammit Sana,” he grabbed her hand and forcibly moved it to the signature line on the contract, “stop being so difficult. I can assure you, your research will go to good use. Now enough of your fussing and sign the damn contract.” He snarled. After she signed, he put his hand on her head like she was 10 again. “Well done Sana, I’m very proud of you.” 

For weeks after she had a pit in her stomach, but buried in her work, she pushed those feelings aside. But then the reports started coming in, the republic was wielding a mysterious new bio weapon that could target and wipe out entire species. The rumor mill said it ate its victims alive, from the inside out. Pundits across the galaxy speculated about whether the Republic’s new weapon was a super virus, bacteria or plague, but Sana knew it was an enzyme. In leaked videos, Sana watched in horror as her life saving research melted the flesh of whole civilisations. Their screams dying with a gurgle as they liquified. 

 

***

 

Sana bolted upright with the sizzle of dissolving flesh still ringing in her ears. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, but found only warm, damp darkness. She spotted the lump in front of her. Even in the short time she had passed out, the crusty surface was whole again, a spherical mass once more. Remembering her panic from before, she quickly checked her arms and legs for more scabs. She found no new ones, but felt a painful ache in her stomach. Her mind flashed to the atrophied organs inside the flesh lump and another spike of adrenaline surged through her. She scrambled to stand up but stumbled, suddenly very dizzy. She felt weak and her hand shook when she checked her compad for light. How long had it been since she’d eaten? 

She wanted to start walking, to get away from the wreck and the terrible remains of the lump, but her legs felt spindly and unsteady. She needed to feed herself, just enough so she could keep going. 

She looked at the lump. It was starting to wiggle. Under the surface, something squirmed and poked at the bottom corner. With a crunch that made her squeak in surprise, a fleshy little face peeked out. She recognised it immediately as the meatslug she had seen a few days prior, only this one was much larger. It chewed a larger hole in the crust of the meat lump, until the whole thing was able to wriggle out. She watched, fascinated against her better judgment, as it squirmed its way up the tunnel wall and attached itself to a tentacle. Once latched on, it started nursing immediately. Sana examined the empty shell of the lump, and realised it had probably been a form of chrysalis, or egg sac for these meat slug creatures. 

“They are larvae.” She hummed to herself. 

And like many young, they relied on their mother for food. She glanced at the meatslug as it fed greedily on the tentacles. It was worth a shot, she had nothing to lose. She found a spot further down where the ceiling dipped low enough for her to reach, then standing on her tiptoes, she brought the little tentacle to her mouth. It was warm, smooth and slimy, just like the walls of the tunnels. She took an experimental suckle, and felt her mouth fill with a rich, sweet liquid. It was a little sour, fatty like the yolk of an egg, but had a strangely pleasant after taste. As soon as she touched her tongue, her mouth filled with a rush of saliva. It was good. She wanted more. She took a longer sip, then another, then before she knew it she was guzzling it down. She suckled fiercely, taking great big swallows until finally she was full. 

Sana wiped her mouth absentmindedly on the back of her hand. She was filled with a new, centered calm. The silence was back and for the first time in a long time, she felt fulfilled. She hardly even remembered why she had been so panicked in the first place. It was time to start walking. 

 

***

 

Sana fell back into the easy rhythm of the tunnels. Now, she no longer worried about food or water and merely drank from the tentacles when she was hungry. It made her rests more infrequent and the soreness of her body vanished. As she was walking, the tunnel suddenly opened up into a larger cavern that housed a meatslug the size of a double decker bus. It was snug against the walls and Sana had to squeeze herself along the side to get past it. She ran her fingertips along its gelatinous skin, soothed by the warmth she felt. It was strange, she could not remember the last time she had freely touched another person, skin to skin. It felt too intimate, too naked. But that was the feeling she remembered when she thought of her mother, the tender touch of another living being. She could recall no other details. Was her wrongness a product of or the reason behind her mothers absence? Did she come out bad, like a burnt pastry with a raw, doughy center, or did she become that way? 

The skin of the giant meatslug was turning from its usual smooth, gooey texture, back into the crusty flakes of the chrysalis. It was too big to be freshly hatched, but as she let her fingers run over the scab-like crust, she wondered whether it was reforming its shell. Entering another phase of its life cycle. 

When she was a little girl, she would wander through the winding halls of her fathers house and run her fingers along the trim. It was a cold, grand house, meant to look like old mansions from Earth, and it always felt cavernously empty. It had never felt like home. Somehow, walking through the tunnels on this new planet felt different. Despite the fact that she was probably the only human still alive here, she didn’t feel half as isolated as she had in her fathers house. Back then, she felt completely alone in the world. Now, she literally was, but she didn’t feel lonely. 

She thought back to her last moments with her father. She was standing in his private cabin, waiting for him to look at her like she was a 10 year old girl again. Rebel attack pods were swarming around them. He knew she was responsible. She felt it like the blow of a sledgehammer. He knew.

“Get off my ship.” he growled. 

“What?” 

“I don’t accommodate guests on my ship unless they’re friends or family, and now you are neither.” 

“Father I’m sorry, I can explain. I-” 

“Enough. The ship can’t withstand this attack much longer.” Her father was around the table and in her face before she could blink. He wrapped one giant hand around her throat and started marching her toward the escape pod. Sana scratched at his hand, she pulled desperately on his arm, she kicked, she fought. But his grip was like adamantine, and he effortlessly threw her into the small cockpit before slamming the door. Sana pressed her face up to the rear porthole, tears streaking against the glass. 

“Please, Father, I’m sorry.” she gasped. 

She saw tears in his eyes for the first time. Like some contorted, horrible mirror, they cried together, in sync for the first time. “I have no daughter.” 

He hit the pod release. 

Sana stopped walking abruptly, she’d come to a dead end. That had never happened before. She was just wondering whether she should turn back when suddenly, the ground beneath her vanished and she fell into inky darkness. The entrance behind her squeezed shut. 

Sana was propelled down the tunnel by a series of muscular contractions. If she wasn’t worried about being digested, she would have found the pressure quite comforting. It pulsed around her, holding her like a tight embrace. 

She was extruded rather unceremoniously onto the floor of a large, spherical chamber. In the center, suspended by taut cords of muscle, was a great palpitating mass. This was the center, the heart. She knew it. It pumped and throbbed in a constant, comforting way, and Sana found herself entranced by the rhythm. This was the beat she had been following, it had always been leading her here. 

I am the mother of many, it told her, in its strange, thudding way, and I love you, my child. Mother’s voice thumped in her chest. Come home, it told her, come into me. A small hole in the center of Mother unclenched and opened up. Sana knew at once it was meant for her, not just because Mother was inviting her in, but because somehow she knew it had been saved for her all this time. Her eyes never left the little pocket, not as she unzipped her flight suit, nor as she shed her boots, socks and compad. 

When she clambered in, everything fit exactly right. It was ecstasy. She was home. Soon, Mother throbbed, soon you will know the rhapsody of belonging. You will first hatch as a youngling, and feed off of Mother till you are grown enough. Once you are mature, you will reform into a Mother like me and be sent into space. There you will live forever, always orbiting Mother, surrounded by your siblings, filled with children of your own. You will never be alone again, my child. You will be full of life. Sana curled up and closed her eyes. Her breaths blended with the gentle pulsing of Mother and her heartbeat reverberated through the walls. She felt a sticky, gluey crust starting to fuse her eyes shut, the way it does if you cry in your sleep. She was languid, like she had been trekking across the frozen plains of Gliese all day, and she’d just laid down in front of a fire. Her limbs were heavy and her thoughts were cloudy. She knew only three things. She was warm. She was safe. She was loved.