Chapter 96: S#16. The Cave (3)

A cave made of red mucous membrane – below the cliff.

Bob Bojangles and Nurse stared into the darkness where no light reached. Beyond, an unidentified shape was writhing.

I signaled them to stay still, then drew my axe.

I approached the darkness slowly. The outline of the entity gradually emerged.

“What the hell is this…?”

Lying in the darkness was a giant sphere. About 5m in diameter. Like a massive meatball.

A pale surface coated in slick mucus.

Living tissue? The enormous ball in the red ravine evoked an eerie sense of dissonance.

I turned on my radio.

“Agent Frank, there’s some kind of sphere here?”

-Don’t touch it under any circumstances, the agent warned just as the sphere’s surface began to writhe.

A grotesque tentacle shot out. It snatched Nurse’s ankle.

Before Nurse could be dragged away, I brought down my axe.

As the tentacle severed, the large sphere quivered as if in pain, then spewed out more tentacles.

Tentacles like angry spaghetti noodles swarmed us.

Time for an axe dance.

I charged forward like lightning, chopping the rapidly flying tentacles.

I buried my axe blade deep into the center of the sphere.

Disgusting flesh splattered everywhere.

I wiped off the chunks stuck to my gas mask visor. The space that had been blocked by the burst sphere came into view.

My breath caught.

The space contained another sphere. One, two, three, four… over 100 spheres densely packed…

The surfaces of the spheres split open, tentacles stretching out in unison.

I turned my back.

“Run!”

I ran, taking Nurse and Bob with me.

Countless tentacles extended, chasing after us.

There was no path around the cliff. Instead, I saw an extremely steep hill.

It was tangled with vines that looked like meat rather than mucous membrane. We could get to the top of the cliff through here.

“Nurse, can you climb up?”

“No problem.”

Nurse’s body was nimble. She started skillfully climbing the hill, gripping the vines.

But Bob was the issue. Could he really climb such a steep hill?

There was no time to hesitate. The spheres were rolling closer, getting nearer.

If we got caught, it definitely wouldn’t end well.

“Officer, no practice this time. We have to go up right now.”

Bob grabbed the vines and got on the hill. He climbed with difficulty, grunting and straining.

I went up right after. The vines densely covering the hill made for good handholds.

What were these vines, I wondered. The coloring was different from normal flesh walls.

Nurse shouted from ahead.

“Something’s wrong, babe!”

“What is it?”

“It’s moving…!”

What was she talking about?

Now I saw it too – the vines were twitching.

Squirming, squirming, squirming – rhythmic movements like a swarm of horsehair worms in water.

Not a pleasant sight.

One vine wrapped tightly around Nurse’s left arm.

Her arm was torn off at the shoulder.

“Aaaaargh!”

Nurse screamed and collapsed. Blood gushed from the severed surface.

The vines clung to her body.

I swung my axe again. I climbed up to save Nurse, smashing vines with the bomb bag in my other hand.

A vine coiled around my leg. Its strength was no joke.

The vines above ripped Nurse’s protective suit and pulled out her intestines.

Nurse died a gruesome death.

“Eeeeeek!”

Bob let out a strange shriek at seeing his colleague’s demise.

The white spheres had rolled to the base of the hill. They extended tentacles, grabbing and pulling on the living vines.

Oval heads embedded in the hillside were revealed. The vines had separate main bodies.

They looked like bean sprouts. The vines we’d been grabbing were their tail sections.

Tentacles from the spheres yanked on the bean sprouts. The heads buried in the hill popped out one by one, going into the spheres.

It was a battle between alien lifeforms. The hill and ravine undulated grotesquely.

I quickly climbed to the top of the cliff, supporting Bob. There was no time to retrieve Nurse’s corpse.

Finally reaching the cliff top, Bob lay down and sobbed.

“Hic… C-cop… Cop died…!”

“…The person who just died was Nurse. You’re the cop.”

Both women were now dead.

The only ones left were Agent Frank, Cowboy, Indian, Cop, and Woodman.

Only men remained.

I never dreamed Ishikawa Reiko and Nurse would die so futilely.

Where did the Final Girl rule of horror movies go?

I turned on the radio to report Nurse’s death.

But there was no response from Agent Frank.

A communication error? Maybe they were in combat too.

I prayed they were at least still alive.

What were those alien lifeforms that resembled meatballs and bean sprouts?

The very existence of this flesh cave was a mystery to begin with. Only Agent Frank among us would know the truth.

Bob and I went deeper inside. As we progressed, the walls and ceiling narrowed, becoming increasingly cramped.

A dark, damp meat space. Anyone with claustrophobia would never endure this place.

Just as I felt an ominous sense that we’d gone too deep to ever return, we reunited with our teammates.

Cowboy grinned.

“Hey, you’re alive, friend.”

“We thought you were dead when you didn’t answer the radio.”

“Can’t die in a shithole like this.”

Everyone looked exhausted. Their protective suits were a mess, soaked in sticky mucus.

White sphere fragments were scattered all around. Looks like they’d been through a battle too.

I reported Nurse’s death.

Indian recited a short prayer. Cowboy and Agent Frank showed no reaction.

Everyone was impassive.

“Not much further. Just a bit more to go,” said Agent Frank, taking the lead and wiping his dagger.

Cowboy raised his hand.

“What is it, Cowboy?”

“Look, I get nightmares if I don’t know the name of what I just killed. Mind telling me what those goddamn shitballs we just wasted were?”

“As I said in the briefing, you don’t need to know the details.”

“No. I need to know.”

I chimed in, “Cowboy, I thought you said hunting dogs just need to follow the hunter’s orders?”

“Yeah. But sometimes hunting dogs bite their hunters too. Now’s one of those times. FBI, spit it out. What are these things? Our target? Aliens?”

Frank nodded.

“That’s right. They’re extraterrestrial life forms.”

“Sh*t, I knew it! But I’ve never heard of aliens looking like volleyballs before?”

“No. I don’t mean the entities we just eliminated are aliens. This cave itself is an alien life form.”

We all wore blank expressions for a moment.

“You’ve entered the body of an extraterrestrial life form.”

I recalled the site just before entering the cave, where soldiers and scientists were bustling about checking the situation. That place was an entry point into an alien body.

If the passages inside the body were this large, how massive must the entire alien life form be? It was hard to fathom.

The red flesh walls surrounding us twitched.

Inside an alien body. So that’s why guns were prohibited.

“I thought we were just gonna pop some aliens… but to go inside one…”

Cowboy muttered in disbelief, leaning against the wall.

A long tentacle shot like an arrow from the end of the passage.

It pierced right through Cowboy’s neck.

Then it dragged Cowboy’s body away.

“Cowboy…!”

I grabbed Cowboy’s legs as he was being buried in a large white sphere.

I pulled hard, yanking him out.

There was nothing above the thighs. All I held in my hands was a dangling lower body.

The sphere engulfed Cowboy with a squelch.

Before I could smash it with my axe, the sphere disappeared, burying itself in the wall.

“……”

I stared blankly at the empty space where Cowboy had been.

Three dead in an instant.

Now only Agent, Indian, Cop, and Woodman remained.

“We can’t delay. Let’s go,” Agent Frank urged.

—
Raei Translations
—

After much struggle, we reached our destination.

Even the cave that seemed as deep as space had an end.

Looking up, I saw a massive, plump protrusion.

Its rounded, bulging shape resembled a domed building stuck to the wall.

In the center of the protrusion was a hole just big enough to squeeze a body through.

“We’ve arrived. We’ll enter immediately, so please activate the bomb timer.”

Agent Frank spoke to headquarters via radio.

He checked the bomb bag I was holding. The bomb had a timer set.

“Woodman, beyond this protrusion is the ‘enemy of the nation.’ That’s what you’ll blow up with that bomb bag.”

“You said to put it in its mouth, right?”

“Yes. We only have one chance. We must succeed.”

The protrusion’s surface was smooth, making it difficult to climb.

I made an improvised grappling hook by tying a rope to my axe. I threw it up and hooked it near the hole.

I climbed up the rope.

From below, Agent Frank shouted:

“Woodman, prepare to swim once you’re inside the hole!”

“Swim?!”

“It’s filled with liquid inside!”

Clutching the bomb bag tightly, I squeezed into the hole.

A yellowish liquid greeted me. It had some viscosity.

The space, so vast its ends couldn’t be seen, was filled with liquid.

I swam, searching for the ‘enemy of the nation.’

It didn’t take long. Right in front of me floated a life form of overwhelming size.

My mind reeled.

Gray skin. An excessively large head compared to its body. Long limbs – the typical alien appearance.

The shocking part was the scale. Its pinky finger was as big as my torso.

It would be disastrous if such a monster went on a rampage, but fortunately, its eyes were closed. Was it sleeping?

I approached to place the bomb bag in its mouth.

Then I noticed something strange.

“Wait…”

A thick cord, like an intestine, was connected to its curled-up body.

The cord linked to the flesh wall at the end of the space.

“That’s… an umbilical cord…”

I could hardly believe my eyes.

I turned on my protective suit’s radio.

“Agent Frank, what’s going on here…?”

-Woodman, is there a problem?

“That’s a baby, isn’t it? Don’t tell me this liquid… is amniotic fluid?”

Agent Frank replied nonchalantly.

-What’s in front of you now is just the fetus of an alien life form. It’s the ‘enemy of the nation’ and our target for elimination. You are inside the womb of an alien.

—