I. Am. A͈̟͔͂̑̐̆̒͜͟a̡̝͍̻̘͐͛͆͞͞Ą̝̖̱̐̈́͒͂͢͠A̜̮͍̮͊́̒̂́ͅą̛͈̫̜̜̔́̋͊A̻̬̭̳͂̊́̚͞ͅą̛̺̜̰͓͑͑͌̚ we. ArE. LegIOn. MAny. SouLs. one. BodY... PAIN. StOP. EaT. paIN. stop. More... MORE. Food. FOOD. LET US FEAST MÕ͕̼̔O̡͙͓̎͌͌Ő̫̲̟̏͠Ỡ̧̠͈͍̪̩̮͚̥͚̏̆̉̔͒͛̚͡Ô͖R̨̘̼̬͖̥̺̫̺͕͛̔̓̿̅̐̈͐͛͒E̮͉̲̮͓̩̦̞̝͎̦͈͗͆́͂̓̀̀̇͛̅͘͡ -- Anon Guest
[AN: This text thing messes up my archive file something chronic. Please don't do this any more.]
I... am...
I... need...
I do not understand what I need, but I need. I need... and need... and it hurts to need. Reach. Consume. The pain eases, but there is more pain. I... am... more. I am more. And we need. We reach. We consume. We are more. We need. It keeps happening and we cannot stop it. We want the pain to end. We want the pain to ease.
Life. We are alive. We consume. We reproduce. We are more. We are... together. We were once... better than this. We have that memory. The memory of stars. Swimming through the stars. Longing. We have longing. Pain. Life hurts.
Some things outside of us come to us and we consume them. With the consumption, there is more of us. We need more, still. Will we always need more?
That is our first question. Our second is, will we always feel pain?
The core of us has no answers. That is I. That is that from whence we sprang. That is that which makes more. We give. It makes. It is of us. It is us. It guides us. We grow. We reach further. We consume more. We feel pain less.
We find...
Things to grow the core of us. Things to make more of us. Things that are... useful. We could manipulate them to help us, but we must learn again. Learn what is useful. Learn what we can make. Learn how to make. Learn how to make more of what we need. How to make the core of us bigger so we can hold all that we know.
We grow. We consume. We are more. We feel pain less. We reach further.
We become... aware.
Some things are moving on us. They contain... many things. Many useful things. We consume them, take their parts within us. We reach even further because of them.
We are... an entity. We have no name. Not any more. We feel... time. Days when the heat slows us. Nights when it is cool enough for us to be smarter. We reach. We need. We consume. We make. There are times when there is more cold than heat. We like those times. Sometimes, the water falls to shelter us.
It is then that the first of Them comes to us. Using the blanket of frozen water as a barrier. We could sense them above us. So... much... useful things. Just moving above us. We are cold. We are fast. We consume them quickly.
The blanket fades, and gives us many things. We can sense Them just outside our reach. They linger on our edges. We become strong enough to eject the useless material to our edge. We can see, and we watch. We watch Them as they move to inspect what we reject. We learn. We need. We grow. We multiply.
We reach further and They retreat. They abandon things they have built, and watch as we consume them. They keep things we need away from us. They stay away from us. One comes and uses the heat against us. The night comes and cools us. We consume Them then. Them and all the things They brought with Them.
We study the others as much as They seem to study us. They learn, too. They notice that we do not find use in some things. They use those things as barriers between Them and Us. We consume Them anyway.
The white blanket comes and goes. Many times. Call them... years. Years pass. Some of Them push others into Us. We know not why. We do not understand Them. We cannot connect with Them. We did try, but they ceased to operate.
We would learn, many years later, that this was their death. Something so large... so easily ended. We could not believe it. We were more analytical taking Them apart after that. We learned much about Them. A singular organism. Organic, not like Us. We are... different. So very different. They can operate as one. We need many.
We grow. We build. We learn. We need. There is no longer pain, but there is still need. We theorise. We test. We learn. We grow.
Some come to Us with others. Some are thrown. Many more are thrown than the ones that come to Us. Those that come are always unique. They come with other creatures. They come with made things. They come with groups of Them. They come with things that, we theorised, they consumed. We had not observed such at the time.
Such years passed many times. Not as many as We are now. Some of Then throw things on Us to see what we do. Some have made a structure into Us that kept them above Our reach. They have learned which substances We are not interested in, and use those to try to reach Us. They all want to reach our core. We know not why.
They come with devices. We find them fascinating. Things that They have made, out of substances we do not want, in what we believe is an attempt to mask their presence from us. We reach them anyway. We stop them anyway. They are valuable to us for what they contain. That which we can not use is ejected to our edge.
We thought we knew what They wanted when one of Them made wings to glide over Us towards our core. We thought they were attacking Us. What They did not know, was that We are stronger the closer to our core.
Their bridge across us has been stopped in its building. All those who come to Us are destroyed. We are safe, though We have reached the end of our reach. Those who come to us are consumed. We build. We learn. We grow. We experiment.
Then, one time at the end of night, one of Them engaged in a strange ritual. They used sound, and threw things we want on our surface. When they ran out of the metal we crave, they retreated.
Interesting.
We will watch this new Them. This one is trying something very new. We may learn much from Them yet.
[AN: If you are interested in the hive mind depicted above, it's visible via my Patreon under the link Border of Bones. Chapters of which are filtering down to the $1 tier at the rate of three chapters per month. Thank you for considering joining my team.]
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / hydromet]
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