Song of Jayde | FTL Multiverse

   • Oracularity | FTL Multiverse  

It was all over within an hour.

There was no warning. Everything that the survivor colony had established and constructed in the aim of a new hope, devoured.

The alarm the colonists had designed to alert them of the creature's approach failed to activate. It seems as though the creature had never given up on its conquest, its feast, across the Omniverse.

A colossal pseudopod of flesh erupted from a distant multiversal spatial rift a couple light years away. It pierced through the core of the colony's moon, destabilizing and fracturing it into many individual chunks. The flesh sutured the moon's fragments back together, and begun to feed on the helpless survivors. The screaming didn't last long.

You and one of your friends ran faster than you ever had before across the surface of the moon to reach any kind of vessel capable of fleeing. You threw yourself into the airlock of the closest and not yet destroyed lifeboat. Before your friend was able to reach for your hand however, a tendril ensnared his ankles, dropping him to the ground. You stare in anguish as more flesh rolls over and engulfs him, boiling and melting the tissue off of his body. You have no choice but to slam the airlock hatch shut and leave sooner than possible.

The ship is barely able to lift off in time as appendages and tongues try to clasp the hull. In orbit of the colony's moon which has been transformed into a hellscape, you take one last look, before the ship engages the FTL drive.

More branches and pillars of flesh have overgrown the moon and surrounding space. Enormous bulges and creases of sinew contract and expand as they fold over each other, forming openings and geyser shaped features. A moment passes, and the flesh begins to expel millions, perhaps billions, of minuscule orbs of light. As they're ejected from the creature's mass, they gently sway and flit across the vacuum of space.

You witness a few of the powerless individuals on the surface of the demolished moon make inevitable contact with these specks of light. Within seconds, their bodies freeze, collapse under their own weight, and begin to convulse on the ground as they horrifically transform into malformed animate pools of flesh and organs. The creature's tentacles loom over them, and seemingly absorb and fuse them into its own.

A trillion hateful eyes turn to gaze at you as your ship creates a rift to travel through. A stress induced vomit pours out of your esophagus. You aren't sure if you'll have enough time in the remainder of your life to truly reflect on the events that had just occurred.

When you come to your senses, you notice the ship's computer displaying that you only have enough fuel for this singular trip to an unfamiliar and unregistered destination. Aborting the jump now would only leave you stranded one too many realities closer to the flesh, if it isn't already here.

You take a deep breath, knowing this is likely the end. You apologize outloud.

...

You awaken from a violent jolt, as you must've passed out from exhaustion at the helm as the ship was cruising along hyperspace. Several hours had gone by during that time.

Surveying your ship's navigation systems reveals that you're approaching the terminus of the Omniverse. You consider disengaging the engines to avoid arriving at such a place, but acknowledging the fact that you have nowhere else to go across fathomable infinite space, you figure one last sight before the final moment in all of extance might be an okay way to go out.

Seven seconds before your ship drops out of FTL pace. You close your eyes, take what would perhaps be your last breath.

The lifeboat chimes out of hyperspace, and steadily drifts forward.

You open your eyes.

Language loses all meaning upon what you witness in front of your cockpit's window.

An inter-universal trunk of flesh is planted into the center of this reality. It towers beyond your ship's sensors range, and undecillions of factors past your own visibility.

Its innumerable branches extend in every direction, rooting themselves across all of space. The stars and galaxies are suffocated from view.

Blossoms of flesh bloom and form into resemblances of the corolla of flowers.

The creature has terraformed the Omniverse into a beautiful garden. A protrusion of itself, across all of existence.

This is what it was doing all along. The Omniverse never even had a chance.

The ship's alarms ring. You don't bother looking as to why.

Tendons and tentacula of sinew pry the hull of the ship open and extract you, pulling you into the vacuum of space.

The creature's eyes fixate on you for a few moments, seemingly inspecting you. Despite the uncountable presence of spores around you, you don't feel any different.

One more breath. You silently mumble the words "I love you".

The tendrils tear your head off of your body, and assimilate your tissue.

...

Eons pass.

Life never returns.

The Omniverse belongs to the creature.