Page 77 of Eat Me Alive
“Fuck me, it’s creepy in here!” The redhead named Winnie hollers a few feet away from me. She tours around our root cave with a huge smile on her face. “It smells like grapes inside, too. I smell it through the mask. Are those what’s inside those canisters? Grape juice?”
I choke on my saliva and she has to pat me on the back. She doesn’t have to know that those are Datu’s collected seminal fluids.
“Definitely not.” I had asked her to help me make sense of how the machine is set up. It should have a damn powersource for it to work, but obviously, there’s no electricity here. There should be some place it gets its energy from. I need to know for my peace of mind.
Maybe it's taking a lot of energy and causing the drought. It's a stretch, but it's what I have for now.
“So, let me look at this thing…” She crouches over the pump and shines a light over it. “I may need to pull some stuff apart.” When she starts dismantling the machine, I can’t help but feel nervous that she might fuck it up.
She haphazardly drops the parts on the floor. There are grey metal pipes buried into the ground. Winnie and I follow it as her mechanical hands detect where it goes. As we walk deeper into thecave, I get the distinct feeling I’m invading someone’s privacy. The smell here is different.
“Eeeww, that smells like Stygian gold.”
“What is that?”
“Basically the Philosopher’s Stone. Can turn any metal into gold, but instead of gold, it’s…anything. Medication, weaponry, artificial intelligence…” She raises her arm toward me. “My Bucky arm is sentient. She thinks for herself, and she’s made out of Stygian gold after I lost my arm completely.”
“W-what happened?” Is this why I don’t need my glasses anymore the longer I’m here?
“An eater got to me. Someone like your love interest? He’s an eater, right? Maybe I’m just racist…or speciesist…”
“What?” I hiss, not understanding anything she’s saying. “H-he’s a god. God of Void.”
She purses her lips as she moves ahead of me. “They always have a God complex.”
I feel offended for Datu, but for some reason, I want to hear more of what she’s saying. She obviously knows a lot about this strange land… she is human, she would understand my need for answers.
“Wait, I need to know more!”
“Can you tell me what you see him as? The place around you?”
I search her eyes for…what? “What do you mean? He has different forms. Sometimes he’s Terra—the plant people. And this is a rainforest in a drought!”
She makes a low noise in her throat and I see her frown through the transparent mask.
I want to scream at her to just tell me what she thinks.
“He’s too painful to look at.”
“What do you mean? That he’s ugly? No, he isn’t!” I scoff loudly.
Shaking her head, she unmasks herself. “No, just that I get a furious headache when I look directly at him.”
Confused, I just blink.
Uncomfortable, she pats my arm. “One thing about here is you don’t want to interfere with the natural processes of life. Personally, Iwillinterfere, but this place is not my domain. I don’t fuck with magic with a ten-foot pole.”
“They said the island’s health is his, too. Do you know what that means?”
Then, a look of utter disgust takes over her. “Oh, ewww!”
“What the fuck does that mean???” I am getting so frustrated at this.
“It means we’re in his innards, lady! God, I need to decontaminate after I get out of here.”
I stew in her words as we turn a corner, then into a hole on the cave wall only one of us can fit into. The power source is inside. I hear it beating like a heart.
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
