Something Awful

Waking up was an odd experience.

Frankly, given that the last thing I could remember was dying, waking up at all was pretty strange in itself. Still not as weird as what I’d woken up into, but still. Odd.

I was in the dark. Not as in, “It’s pretty dark in here,” but more like, “complete and total lack of light,” kind of dark. I wasn’t cold, and aside from a light draft hitting some part of my body, I couldn’t really feel much of anything. I could feel something on top of me though, real big and real damn heavy. I shifted a bit, to see if I could get this thing off of me and-

Oh?

Oh.

Those definitely weren’t any sort of limbs I was familiar with. I took a moment to really tense and relax myself, get a feel for what I was working with. I’d died and come back, so I could understand if I didn’t come back the same. I had some limbs- no a good few- no, no, fuck’s sake, I am absolutely carpeted with these tiny little… Tentacles? How could tentacles be that small? Wait, are some of these things on my insides? How does that even work?

What am I?

I needed to see. I needed light. I had eyes, a whole damn lot of them too, but I can’t use them in this pitch black. There’s got to be something I can do, maybe get out of this cave? No, this weight won’t let me move. What should I do? I need light! Can I make my own? Why would I have eyes if there wasn’t any damned-

A faint light came into existence on the ceiling above one of my eyes. “Well, that’s pretty good timing,” I thought, until I actually tried to look around. Peering out into a small cavern, I saw that the light came from an irregular series of luminescent stripes on a cave wall shrouded by long, fleshy, subtly pulsing tentacles, which were ( I attempted to move them, and), yep, those are mine. Apparently, I am bioluminescent.

What the fuck am I?

With some sense of scale granted by vision, I could actually get a sense of my size, and sweet titty-fucking Christ, I must be massive. Looking around the cave, I realized that what had seemed like a small cavern was actually a very large body cavity. One of the smaller ones my mass contained. I must be literal miles across! The weight holding me down must be fucking gigantic.

I have to get this thing off me. I struggled some more, but that thing wasn’t going anywhere. From what I was feeling of it, it was a sort of upside down cone, a dull spike pinning me in place. Bigger at the top. Hm. The top.

What was on top of it? I recalled the sensation of air passing over my skin. There was a part of me that was exposed to an air current. Moving air would probably lead me to the surface, and maybe someone up there could answer my questions. I focused on the cool sensation of the draft. It was brushing up on a small tendril, no eyes on it. Not good. I don’t want to try to navigate blind.

Did I have to? I mean, when I decided I wanted light, I got light. Maybe I grew the necessary organs on command, right? That’s not much weirder than being reincarnated as a giant fuck-off tentacle mass. So, I just kind of wanted it, and in short order I had eyes. A pair of them too, which means binocular vision. Sweet.

There was light up here, so no need for trying to grow bioluminescent organs. The light was coming through a hole in what looked to be some old brickwork- nineteenth century, I’d guess, looking through the hole. It looked like a storm sewer, big, clearly designed for crew to service it fairly regularly. Of course, the state of disrepair the thing was in indicated it had gone without maintenance for a lot longer than it should. Still, the section I could see was rigged with electrical lights- probably old school low-pressure sodium vapor lamps, given the yellow light. Sewers like this aren’t usually kept lit at all times, so there was a good chance there were people still down here. Did I want to see people right now?

I definitely needed help, but what the hell kind of help do you give to a guy afflicted by a severe case of ‘died-and-turned-into-a-giant-lovecraftian-freak’ disease. How would people even react? How would I even explain my situation? It’s not as if I have a mouth. Wait, do I have a mouth?

I thought for a moment, and did a quick assessment of my body. After some time, I concluded that I did, in fact, have a mouth. It was very large, and had no jaws. Not good for talking.

On the other hand, I did just grow a pair of eyes, perhaps the most structurally complex organ of the human body, on a whim. I could probably grow a mouth, lungs, vocal cords, lips, hell, I could probably grow a whole damned human body! Which, come to think of it, would solve most of the problems with finding help. I’d still have to explain the whole tentacle situation, and that thing that is weighing me down is getting to be very uncomfortable, so I would very much like help with that…

So, fuck it.

I pictured a body very much like I had before all of this, with some notable changes. Mostly practical, I swear. Small stuff, really. Leaner build, upped muscle density, a few little tweaks to the face to make it more symmetrical. Nothing else, hand to god, nothing at all. I mean, I had to guess a couple of things, but then I’d never measured myself out, and sure, I might have rounded up on the length of my dick, but seriously, who wouldn’t? Otherwise, I was picturing the same chestnut hair and gray-blue eyes I had always had.

I refuse to be judged.

I stuck my eyeball tentacle through the hole, focused on the image of my new body, and sort of pushed mentally. The sensation was, to be frank, utterly underwhelming. I guess that the sensory data of my new body is so immense that a human body’s worth of sensation wasn’t really enough to be notably different. Still, nice to have a more familiar shape, and- oh?

Oh ho ho! Now that is truly fuckin’ interesting! As I had formed my new body, it seems that I had focused a little too well. Rather than being tethered to my body by a long tentacle, I… wasn’t! The tentacle that I had used to reach through the hole was still present, and I was completely disconnected from it. I could still feel and control my larger form, and I retracted the tentacle back into the hole. I can be in two places at once, I guess. Convenient. I licked my newfound lips, and tested out my new voice.

“Hello?” I started, before stopping, surprised. I was taken aback slightly at the sound, as my voice was about an octave lower than I had expected, with an appealing, but peculiar, resonant quality.

My musing was cut short as I heard footsteps approach from the corridor. Someone was coming this way, and fast.