Waiting Shapeless

Chapter 23. Gnumus

Tyler: Human

Tyler pushed her way forward through the darkness. The stale air of the ship gave her the sense that she was actually pushing through the dark, forcing herself through an invisible barrier like an airship pushing through a thick layer of clouds. Gripped in her hand was that sturdy bar of a weapon she had picked up earlier. Thankfully she hadn't needed to use it yet.

She had been walking for quite a long time. How long exactly, she wasn't sure. Maybe an hour? Two hours? Her concept of time was so skewed now, it could be day or night and she wouldn't have any way to tell.

The pathway had become thinner and more empty. Occasionally she would pass by large, sticky splotches of an unknown dark substance on the floor, or thinner swiping stains that had been splattered down the wall.

She had been afraid to go near the blight, her mind running wild with what it could possibly be. The darkness converted everything to dim black and white, making things difficult to recognize.

She shivered as she walked on. The only way out was forward. That's what she kept telling herself.

There was something on the floor up ahead that she only faintly saw. She approached it wearily.

It wasn't until she was standing over it that she could finally get a good look at what the object was. It seemed to be some kind of metallic arm. The limb was made of interlocking cylinders that allowed a large range of movement. Scratches and gauges stretched the length of the metal arm like tattooed scars. At the end of the distorted tube was a vice like claw.

Tyler studied the limb. In the absent lighting it looked crooked or contorted in a way, twisted unnaturally from its original state.

The longer she looked at it, the more disturbed it made her feel.

Tyler looked up from the claw and gasped.

The walls and floor just ahead of the torn arm were completely splashed over with the black liquid. Not just spots of it like she had seen before; here it heaped and pooled on the floor along the corners of the passage, thick and sludge like. The ooze was splashed up high along the walls, and in some spots it looked like it had been smeared against the wall by something.

She would have to walk though it if she wanted to continue.

Tyler gritted her teeth and stepped into the dark muck. Her shoes sunk though it slowly as she pressed her foot all the way to the floor. Hopefully it wouldn't seep into her shoes, fortunately it wasn't deep enough to envelop her whole foot.

She squished through it, taking gentle steps so as not to splash it up onto her. What had happened here? What was this stuff?

The air was still thick, hot, and stagnant. Before now the black ooze didn't have a strong enough oder to be noticed by Tyler, but now that there was so much of it, she could smell it. It was rotten, foul. Like the smell of layered rotting fruit on a forest floor, but with a mix of mechanical burning. Tyler gagged as she felt it slowly slosh around her foot as she stepped. She held her hans to her mouth and nose to lessen the stench, and fortunately it helped a little.

As she walked, the pathway opened into a large chambered hall. There were rows of dark open doorways on each side of her, each of them mucked with the same black sludge. The black entrances watched her ominously as she slowly crept past them. She continuously twisted her head from side to side to inspect the empty doorways, fearing that something would jump out. But each of them held the same silent, foreboding darkness. 

She gripped the thin bar tightly, training herself mentally to use it if anything happened.

She tried to move a little quicker though the sinister hall, sloshing through the mysterious black juices. What WAS this stuff??