The Vyrex Plague

<<Language is difficult for me. Why would I need one? Do you tell a mouth to eat or eyes to see? I have known only myself for...so long. >>
<<I am not sure when I began, when I was born. My only memory is the searing pain of birth and the blinding sensation of senses. The day was hot. How does one truly describe the birth of dual beings? Nearly as soon as my as my mother-link was cut, that vital cord that sustained me in my womb, I felt and was felt. I do not know how to describe my history next, the combination of birth and old life threatened to fracture my single mind. I lived, I breathed. I grew old and I grew into my prime. It was then I experience birth once more. Another appendage grew from me, another body for me. I grew in size. I do not remember all the details of my original form, information lost to the corrupting influence of the exotonic radiation bombarding my planet. However, I do know this in my early years I grew not as a predator, solitary in its hunting, but as a herd animal. It would make sense, would it not? A creature that lives and dies as a mass, a creature that already works towards the good of the whole at the cost of a single creature. A single mind to guide them. An evolutionary advantage to combat the ever-hungry monsters that seek to devour my flesh.

I could easily outpace my single-minded herd brethren growth with my combined mind. I grew and grew until my herd was quiet of other minds. It was just me. I sought to grow, to expand. I needed to defeat the monsters that snapped at me. I ran, like a herd animal, carefully throwing away sick and old appendages to the hungry predators, carefully nurturing my younger self. It was not easy. I felt everything until the very moment the body died. I had to stop it. I had to stop the pain.

It was then I learned a valuable lesson, a tool I would bury into the very deepest parts of my bodies. I turned and I fought the monsters. I destroyed their corpses and I, the once prey, became the predator. I devoured their flesh. It felt good. It tasted good. I was the strong one now. It was then I learned the true lesson. The children of the herd members that devoured the flesh were different. My still infantile mind could not truly comprehend the changes, I only knew I was stronger. My teeth were sharper, my vision more focused. I could change myself. I took this knowledge and applied it voraciously, hunting down the predators on my planet, killing them and incorporating their strongest features into me. I would’ve quickly overtaken the planet with these foolishly constructed bodies.

It was then when the asteroid hit. I cried out in agony as my millions perished under the molten rock that boiled away the oceans. The massive rock melted the foundations of my planet, melted everything I had. I was nearly wiped out. The rock did not even have the decency to leave bones and dust for me to weep over. Only fire. It was here I lost much of my knowledge of who I thought I was , but it was here that I learned what I truly am. Bodies were shed until there was nothing left. My herds were obliterated and those that survived starved. They starved until there was just one last creature. A single me coughing and wheezing until it collapsed in a pile of ash and dust, the creature’s last breath finally escaping its lungs.I lost my sight, I lost my smell, I lost everything. I was finished.

And then I felt once more. I could not see, I could not hear. I could only feel. The world, black and uncaring was here. I was not the creature I remembered. I was not the herd that scoured the planet of predators. I was something different; I was small. I could move, I knew that much. So I did. I pushed my boundaries, but they seemed infinite. Suddenly, I felt good. My movement brought me to a spot of warmth and energy. Molten rock? I cared not. I feasted on the energy. I consumed it until the spot was as cold as the rest of the planet. Uncontrollably, I divided. It was then I understood who I was. I could not feel it before, my mind and body were meshed too closely, but the cleansing fire from the sky brought the clarity. I needed the death and agony to show me what I truly was. I was not the herd. I was not the predator. I was above all that. I was plague.

I hunted, I grew, I divided a thousand times over, a million times over. I consumed the surviving organisms, binding their qualities with myself. I was so close to the barest of life I could finally see now, how to manipulate myself. I was the marble and the creator. I could see the essence of life. I could change it. Nothing on this dead rock could stop me.

The next thousand cycles were filled with me establishing my domain. I grew a billion appendages and discard a billion more. I gave birth and consumed myself. I was predator and prey. I learned, I changed, I grew. I spread across the planet until everything was me. The whole planet quivered and quaked under my touch.

I was trapped. I did not know of space or anything beyond my immortal world. I stared at the glowing sun, burning out countless eyes as I hungered for its energy. Eons passed as I carved myself. Madness crept into my vision, poked at the edges of my control. Bodies twitching when I told them not to, mouths feasting greedily. I was nearly lost on my forsaken home planet. Until...it fell from the sky. A large, hard carapaced creature, sick and diseased smashed into the ground, its guts splattering miles away from its body. It didn’t matter to me. I had instant communication from one side of me to the other.

I deliriously delved into the charred flesh of the dead creature, hunting and seeking its secrets. It came from above. It came from not here. It held the key to escaping. To growing forever. I consumed it. I studied it. I incorporated its secret into the innermost parts of me. I would never be trapped on a planet again.

I turned my millions of eyes upwards, I turned every sensor, every filament I had towards the sky. I was free.>>