She had learned to separate what strengthened her from what would rot her. She did so through her lichen. Through her spores. Through the fine fungal lattice that was part of her, but never entirely of her. It was this living network that soaked up what entered, broke them down, sifted through, transformed what could nourish, and expelled the rest. As ooze. As mist. As cast-off spores curling into the air.
But now?
Now those filters were torn. Crushed under the collapsing masses around her. Melted into gammy, gluey mud. There was no space, no room to rebuild, no reach to grow outward, no way to vent. Only the narrowest of openings remained, slits in the remnants of disintegrated roots.
Just enough
to try.
And worse, unlike ever before, what she expelled —
it had nowhere to go.
The arachnid’s insides pressed on her from every side. What she managed to expel, the remnants of rot and venom, clung to her. Coated her. Layered and turned her into thick, wet mush.
And still, she filtered.
And simultaneously, she fed.
The expelled poison became ooze.
The ooze was reabsorbed.
Her roots drank it again.
Filtered again.
Expelled again.
Over and over. A cycle of rot and refinement, ever changing masses pressed atop each other and ever again into her, layer by layer. Involuntarily. Unstoppable.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And all the while, she burrowed deeper into the dead body around her — feeding from the liquefying organs, the steaming pulp of tissue and venom around her.
She could
not
stop.
This was the process of change.
Filtering and expelling Death,
just to take it back in.
Growing from Death.
Growing through Death.
Not dying.
Becoming.
It lasted for hours.
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