The centipedes of the desolate lowlands spoke a crude and simple language. They strung together a handful of hisses and clicks with the occasional hum and chitter to create a functional vocabulary. The language was nothing to write poetry with, but it accomplished the task it was created for. The centipedes led solitary lives most of the time, but not always. On occasion they would meet with others of their species for matters such as breeding, territory disputes, information sharing, migration, and even pack hunting, when prey was difficult to catch alone. They could even live together in small groups when circumstances demanded it. At rare times like these, their language was put to use. It could produce little more than short phrases from limited vocabulary, relied heavily on context, and constantly required the invention of new supplemental words.
However, inter-centipede communication wasn’t the only use for their strange tongue. The centipedes also spoke when they were alone. A solitary centipede could be heard hissing and clicking throughout the day, verbalizing its consciousness at nearly all hours, except when it slept or was hunting. Not only did this pratice prevent the centipede’s communication skills from falling into disuse during long solitary periods, it also served as a way of scaffolding their thoughts, directing and focusing their otherwise erratic minds. They were not mammals and could not automatically focus like the warm-blooded creatures that came before them could. They could succumb very quickly into unpredictable bursts of instinct, an instinct at odds with their more rational mind for dominance. The use of language helped hone their higher intelligence.
Centipede’s did not have personal names exactly, but they did have titles others could refer to them by. In the centipede world, an individual was closely associated with the territory he controlled. The word used to refer to an individual generally derived from a description of their territory. Of course, a centipede without territory was less of an individual and remained nameless.
The centipede in possession of Prey controlled a southern piece of lowland just below the east mountains. The dirt of this land was a particularly deep red color from iron deposits below the ground, and so the name of both the territory and the centipede that lived there was “Red Dirt.” But most simply called him “Red.”
Prey did not know the alien sound he spoke had any other meaning beyond referring to his monstrous companion. But he would likely stumble on its second meaning soon enough, he was learning words at an incredible rate. Centipedes took years to learn even a slim vocabulary, and this strange fleshy thing had learned enough to communicate well in just a matter of months. Red had a well developed sense of curiosity, something rare in his kind, and was intrigued by the egg sac that had learned speech.
He had named him “Prey” on a whim. It seemed fitting. It was weak, soft, herbivorous and just begging to get eaten when he had first found it, wandering around alone in the middle of his territory. But there were a number of distinctly un-preylike traits it had as well. It had smelled of metal when Red had first found it, the cause of which remained a mystery to Red. It was particularly warm, much warmer than most other prey, and for that reason made a good egg sac. But most of all, it was not dumb like other prey. This Prey was intelligent. It could speak the language of the centipedes. Impossibly, there was a conscious mind inside it, just as there was in himself. So Prey was actually quite different from the rodents and beetles and other hunted creatures, but the name stuck nonetheless.
Prey was walking with Red now, accompanying him to collect the roots they both needed for water. It was strange how fast an old identity could fade away and be replaced, especially when there was nothing left to maintain it. That was the fate of Myrio. He hadn’t heard his human name in many cycles of the moon and so it gradually faded away, replaced by the only name now used for him, “Prey.” So Prey took the opportunity as a sort of rebirth. Not that he had much of a choice. This new world was going to remake him one way or another. He could only resist it for a time.
Over the past few months, he’d tentatively begun to embrace it. With the discovery of communication, he had learned so much about his captor and his new world. Red had begun to tire of his constant questions. A typically incurious species, questions were not unknown to the centipede's, but they were a rarely used tool. Prey deployed them all day and night. At first he had just asked for words. His hunger for new words was endless. The more he learned, the more he was able to ask about. Even now, while Red was busy trying to detect the slightest smell that would give away the location of the water-bearing root, Prey was striding along beside him on those awkward gangly limbs, asking him more questions.
“You like fruit?” He asked,
“No.” Red curtly responded. His antennae rapidly tapped the dry earth as they walked.
“Need water?” Prey asked,
“Yes.” Red responded.
His curiosity was sated for only a mere few moments before he spoke again, “Eggs hatch soon?”
Prey asked this question constantly. As soon as he’d figured out enough of the language to ask questions, he sought out all the information he could regarding the eggs inside him. Would he lay them as eggs? Or would they hatch inside of him? Would it hurt? Would he survive? Or would he be killed? Would the larvae eat him?
Predictably, Red was neither interested in giving answers, nor was he able to provide much information. His own knowledge of the reproduction process was based on instinct and the scraps of information gained from rare communication with others of his kind. He left most of the questions unanswered. Basically the only thing he had told Prey was that the eggs would not kill him. That it would have to birth the young, but would remain alive. He mostly told it this to make it shut up. He had no idea if it was true. If the strange creature did die, it would be for the good of the species. A necessary death to ensure his young's survival.
Red stopped suddenly and shifted his head from the ground to Prey’s distended belly, tapping his cord-like antennae against the taut skin. Prey froze up, its heart rate quickened. Red could sense the rapid pulse in its veins. He could also sense the miniscule movements of his developing young inside their eggs. They were healthy. His gamble with this warm bodied creature had paid off. He could bring the eggs with him wherever he went, he could sleep with them in his own den, he could guard them at all times and they would remain warm and healthy. It was a shame there weren’t more of Prey’s kind around, they were quite the useful innovation.
Prey stayed frozen as his belly was inspected. It was easy to fall into a kind of wary ease around Red now that he could speak to him. But moments like these jumped out at him quite often still, where he would be staring at the beast’s beady unblinking eyes and needle sharp mouth pieces and remember that this thing could kill him at any moment it wanted. Furthermore, despite a rudimentary language, the mechanisms of its mind were still alien to Prey, and its actions were therefore not predictable. He stared into the hard insectoid visage and knew that just because it had a name, did not make it something other than a vicious hunter. For now, Prey felt confident that the eggs within him meant he would not be killed, but the question tugged at the corners of his thoughts despite his attempts to push it away: What happens after the eggs are were longer inside him? He stared into the many black eyes of the centipede and could not find an answer.
In Red’s mind, it would be unpleasant to eat Prey. Although he had initially planned on making it into a snack after the eggs were hatched, that changed when he discovered the creature’s intelligence. There were plenty of Red’s kind who would gladly eat their own kin if they were hungry. But just like humans, there was moral variation in the centipedes too. Red himself found the notion of cannibalism distasteful and had never tasted the flesh of his own species. He found that the idea of eating Prey put him off in a similar way. Though to call it a taboo was not exactly accurate. He might not take pleasure in it, but if times were tough, he would not turn down a potentially life-saving meal, even if it could speak his tongue.
Unfortunately, times were indeed tough. Prey was unusually scarce in the desert. Red’s last few meals had been nothing but rats. It was not a sustainable diet. Certainly not after all the energy expended in laying eggs. He survived on rats and roots for now, but his body grew weak and he felt it daily. He needed a larger meal soon, something substantial. While he searched for the water bearing roots, he would occasionally sweep his antenna through the air, searching for any sign of nearby prey. When he was this hungry, he was always hunting.
He located water before food though, and began to dig into the dry earth to retrieve it. At the very least, they would provide something to temporarily quell his belly aches.
As his front claws flung dirt out behind him, soft mammalian appendages reached in to do the same, albeit much less effectively. Red shoved them away.
“I help!” Prey clicked, reaching back in.
“You no help.” Red shoved its appendages away again.
Prey grunted and sat and watched.
Despite his best attempts to ignore the little egg sac, Red found himself fascinated with the creature. Each day he would discover some new puzzling behavior. It did not behave like a rat or beetle or lizard or another centipede. It was wholy strange to his world.
Prey learned that the “fruit” brought to him was actually a water gorged root dug up from deep underground. The The rough brown nodes varied from about the size of his fist to the size of his head. When split they contained a hard off-white flesh and a small amount of cloudy water. Prey enjoyed regaining his sense of sight when out of the den on these brief occasions. Stretching his legs was also pleasant, even if the weight of the eggs made walking a bit awkward. For the first time in weeks, he was experiencing pleasure. It was simple and fleeting pleasure, only present for as long as anxiety and dread could be kept at bay, but nonetheless, it was nice. Prey even might have felt a twinge of contentedness as he sat next to Red, drinking from his root and watching the white hot sun dip down towards the horizon. Nearly everything he’d once known, including his own name, was gone, but the sun remained. A simple ball of fire, constant throughout his previous and current life. He liked to watch it set when he could.
Suddenly, Red picked up the scent of a mammal. Another rat possibly, but possibly something more substantial too. It was only half a mile away judging from the strength of the scent. Whatever it was, it was worth hunting. Without so much as a warning click, Red launched into a full many-legged gallop. He disappeared across the desert with incredible speed. There was no running from a centipede. You hid or you fought but you could not run. Best of all to just avoid detection.
Prey remained alone. This happened enough that he had grown used to it, though the suddenness of it still startled him. He did not like to be left alone out in the open desert though. So, Sunset or not, he got up to return to the den. He could find his way back from here, they hadn’t traveled very far.
As he took his first steps back, the eggs in his intestines stretched something a bit too far and the resulting pain brought him to his knees.
“AH!” He cried, gripping his stomach. He clenched his eyes and tried to ride out the wave of pain. In the past few moons he had become better at dealing with the pains of his strange pregnancy. If he did not move, the stabbing sensation would depart as quickly as it had come. Still, it was intense for the moment it lasted. When he returned to standing, his knees wobbled from the physical aftershock.
“Was it like this when I was inside you, Mom?” Prey asked the phantom of his mother. Though even if she was present, she would not have understood the question. She would not have understood it because it came out in a series of clicks and hisses mixed with human words in a strange garbled mess. Prey did not even realize he’d spoken it that way until it left his lips. But when he realized what he'd done, he was deeply disturbed. The monster was nowhere to be seen… and yet, he’d used its language. The tongue was no longer an impersonal tool, it had become a part of him.
Prey touched his lips, he looked down at his bulging abdomen, and he knew that this world was changing him. Dread overtook him.
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