Warning: Graphic transformation
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"Log Twelve. The creature, 20B.7Velo, or otherwise affectionately called Biscuit, has really taken a liking to custard. Is it because it reminds it of its natural diet of goopy innards, or maybe perhaps the liquid of eyes...."
"Or.... get this..... it could just really like custard" I sighed back to my enthusiastic coworker.
Her eyes narrow and I hear that all too familiar annoyed exhale from her puffed cheeks. She stabs the button to end the recording, irritated I butted in again with my unethusiasm.
Elisa. What would we do without your devotion to something so... boring?
"It could be something deeper" Elisa jabs and wheels her chair over to the side of the table I'm leaning on while scraping up a spoonful of chocolate custard.
She frowns at it, then to the creature pacing in the glass room only a few feet away.
"Do you think chocolate is poisonous to it? Like to dogs?"
I scoff, almost inhaling my spoonful.
"Does that thing look like any dog to you?"
The phone starts recording again.
"Be aware it has ingested chocolate. I will monitor for any side effects."
"You aren't going to kill the thing off one spoonful" I roll my eyes as the recording shuts off again.
"And you aren't going to take your job seriously, no matter how many times I ask you to" she bites back and leans over to tap the clipboards i'm laying my arms over with my food.
I snort and lean back instead so she can swipe off the dust from my chips and scowl at the sauce from my burger.
It had been a long day. A few to be exact. I had been sleeping here in this facility rather than being home in my own bed and eating a proper cooked meal.
What I would do for a casserole right now.
But, I was here, watching this stupid creature just do lap after lap of the glass room while Elisa gasped over every movement or noise from it.
I huffed and kept scraping my container while Elisa studied the creature like it was about to drop dead at any moment.
They said it came from space of all places.
It sure did have quite an ensemble of people smothering the capsule it had been stuffed into when it first came here five weeks ago.
All the fuss was over when it was safely contained in it's room, like all the other strange creatures collected in here.
Only an arms width was between rooms. The creatures could see each other clearly, and I could watch how bored others were with thier own specimens too.
The guy to my right was slumped over his table asleep while his partner stood by the glass, scribbling.
To the left, I caught the scowl of another woman who was quickly redirected by her male mentor.
I turned back to Biscuit and scoffed.
Space.
It could have been some wierd mutation from earth. Cows were born with two heads and sheep had human faces. What's to say this wierd thing was from out there?
It was probably so we didn't go looking for more ourselves.
What a load of....
"Shelby" Elisa snapped again "observe, won't you?"
Sliding my eyes over to the glass, I glared at Biscuit staring back.
All six of its stumpy arms were pressed to the glass as it squashed it's fat, transparent stomach to it. The three black eyes on either side of its head closed happily when it wiggled it's body back and forth. The little looped tail uncurled and rewound as the black speckled fur across it crackled like a lightning storm.
"See?" I pointed "it's happy."
Its body really did look like space. Maybe they actually were telling the truth?
I could see the little glob of custard free-floating in it's window of a stomach. Rather than squeeze down a maze of intestines like a normal creature, this one literally absorbed it's food floating within it until it was gone.
The first thing it had eaten was an arrowroot biscuit. That's how it got it's name from us.
I remember the oval shape floating around it for days. It still made me smile when I remembered how amusing it all was the first time.
Now, watching a glorified washing machine had become tiring.
"Ohh, are you happy little guy?" Elisa crooned as she pressed a hand to the glass and giggled at Biscuit moving it's stomach to her "are you hungry?"
We still didn't know it's gender either. 'Little Guy' was what it was also known as until we figured that out.
With only one Biscuit dragged into the glass room, it was a bit hard to make comparisons to another of its kind.
The only thing we could do was treat it like a dog, since it almost resembled one with its small, squishy body.
Was it closer to a pug? Or maybe a cute corgi?
Either way, it didn't like dried dog food and absolutely refused to drink from a dish. It only absorbed things by laying over them, then turned them into a wierd shiny goop.
Goop poop. Elisa had been so excited to shovel it into a tube to study. I only laughed over how much it reminded me of slime that children glued between thier fingers.
Still, it turns out it contained tiny traces of space dust, which is what made it shimmer. So, for now, goop poop was valuable for our studies.
Biscuit started to try and absorb the glass by pressing harder into it. It nuzzled it's head to the glass and started to leak from the swirling stomach.
Biscuit was hungry again.
"What else do you have?" Elisa rushed back to the table to scour it "anything it might like?"
"Nuh, uh!" I shielded my loot with my hands "get the others to give it the plant pellets they made for it! I paid money for these!"
Especially my chicken and hallumi burger I had been looking forward to all day.
"You know it doesn't like those" Elisa pouted back, her eyes setting on my prize "how about a little bit of that?"
"My burger?" I turned to it then back to her "how do you know it can eat cheese and chicken?"
"Only one way to find out!"
She lunged around the table and ripped what was supposed to be the corner of the hallumi from my burger. Instead, the whole slab was torn free that she happily whisked away while I complained for her to return with it.
"I hope you choke on it!" I snapped to the delighted Biscuit swarming to the feeding hatch Elisa slipped the halloumi through.
"It's just a baby!" she gasped back to me "don't be so Shelbish."
"Oh, ha, ha" I grumbled back and dragged the rest of the burger over to bite into it before she could steal more.
The halloumi was sucked straight into the stomach that stopped oozing. Now content, Biscuit smeared it's face into the ooze in wonder.
I glared at the little thief while Elisa made observations and pondered over the use of so much slime. Biscuit grinned back, then suddenly lurched forward.
I paused mid-chew while Elisa fell silent. We both watched Biscuit drop down from the glass and start oozing more slime to drown the floor.
"What's happening?" Elisa panicked as she backed up beside me.
"Its your fault for giving it human food!" I scolded "we should have just stuck to pellets like we were told to!"
Biscuit heaved and poured, hunching over and dragging all of its arms beneath it. It was now drowning in the ooze, but didn't fight it.
"HELP!" Elisa shrieked down the room "THE SUBJECT! IT'S DYING!"
Boots thundered towards us from both sides of the long room. I heard the clanking of weapons being carried while the officials raced towards thier precious test subject.
Biscuit convulsed and stared blankly through its liquid blanket pressing up against the glass. It stopped moving when people swarmed the room but didn't enter.
"We don't know if it's acidic or not" one said.
"We don't even know what's going on!" another gasped.
"Well? Why aren't you recording this?" a third turned to Elisa and me, snapping her fingers.
We raced over to the glass, Elisa with her phone while I was clutching a clipboard and pen to take notes frantically.
With Biscuit shielded by so many bodies, all anyone could do was watch as the fur along it's spine cracked and split.
The ooze poured into the blood bubbling upwards, mixing with it.
Biscuit was stripped down by the ooze that patched the old body across it as it rose higher and higher.
When the top reached the roof of its room, it started to take shape and harden into the same dark, scattered space pattern.
The new Biscuit was massive. It's six arms scraped the ground as two extras formed legs that folded to support it. The hunched back dipped the long neck towards the glass as the head still formed into a pointed thing popping back out the same three black eyes on either side.
We all stood there in shock as the transparent stomach gurgled within the new creature sitting before us, until it lurched forwards and started to dissolve away the only thing keeping us safe.
Biscuit was hungry again.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
