Comfort I-n the End


Written by Septia.


The outside was getting colder. Within two weeks the snow had arrived. It brought me a terrible sensation; walking outside left tracks now, anything could find me, find us. 
	Barks echoed in the far distance, raising the hair at the back of my neck. The howls called me back, sent me sprawling across rubble and debris, sweeping a branch behind me to blur the footprints and disperse the scent. I always carried that stick now, ever since the snowfall. Whether it actually did any good, or just as a personal dogma, I was not at right to know. I never stayed outside long enough, or near the surface long enough, to ever see the dogs.
	I…hoped it was dogs. 


Shifting aside the old world rubble over the cellar door, I crawled in. Once inside, dragging back the planks and debris so the door was covered. Before I pushed against the weight to have it slowly settle in place, weary of any sounds. Dubious safety. 
	Down the hole – deliberately stacked with more caved in planks and rubble – it was hard to make it down: another safety net against intruders.
	Splinters and nails scraped against my skin, threatening to dig deeper on each trip. But once I was down, I could breathe again. 
	My breath followed a rhythm, a gentle rise and fall, matching that of the core of my lair, the one thing keeping me in this spot… In the corner of the room, radiating with a mellow glow, laid a large swathe of undulating white flesh. 
	It tilted the top – or the bottom, hard to tell – of it's frame to me. Feeling my presence returning.
	I met it in kind, wrapping my arms around it.
	"I'm here. I'm here, I wouldn't leave." 
	The whispers calm it. I liked to think it understood me. Something that knew me, and wanted me. Something I could protect. Something…that didn't bark, show its teeth or claws…or worse. 
	I had been frightened in our first encounter, though, in the state it was, I probably scared it more. Two souls abandoned in the snow. One of us defenceless.
	At least I could move.


~ 1 ~


Barks. Close. Closer than ever. The hair at the back of my head stood in needles down my neck.
	I bury my face in the creature, squeezing my arms to sink deep into the flesh bulbing up in my grasp: hiding myself inside of it. I hushed it, despite its lack of speech. But it knew… It's body curling up around me, a buffer to the noises growing closer…
	Another bark.
	We shuddered together. Waiting…hoping. My nostrils strained, stiffened by fear and blocked by the grub's skin, each breath was slow, silent, and weight as a rock down my throat. My heart beat like a mallet in my chest… Would they hear it? The grub tugged me tighter. The warmth enveloping from their mounds of meat. Buffering my sounds, muffling my worries.
	There were no more barks that day. Yet we stayed together all the same, waiting, until the fear would abate, until safety was assured, I did not want to let them go, I did not want to leave them. 


~ 2 ~


Their heat became a necessity. The weather turned to frost, days spent in each other's embrace, drinking in the warmth radiating from their body, smelling faintly of jerky and orange peels. Compared to the scent of bile and tar outside, this was…comforting. 


~ 3 ~


Going outside became risky. I could leave at shorter and shorter intervals. 
	The snow was heavy, and my clothes were insufficient. I spent more time with the grub, sharing tins of preserved peaces and ham. Its mouth kind of…sucking, cupping after the food. I gave it more and more. It was my furnace, if I didn't feed them, I would be without heat, at the mercy of the outside. 


~ 4 ~


Days passed, feeding the grub, to keep it alive, holding it to know I was there, to make it know there was a reason to live. And sleeping together, in its radiant bodyheat, keeping me from feeling the bite of ice creeping in from the hostile outdoors. If only the snow would stop. If only I could make it further…to find, anything. If anything remained… 
	We are out of preservatives. It, is looking worse for wear… its skin grows stiff and cold. People made soup of leather shoes, right? If I am not going outside anymore, do I really need all my clothes?


~ 5 ~


It's just my coat left now… I use it as a blanket for both of us, wrapping in tight when sleeping… But, I don't know how long i will last us… The snow is still thick… And the grub…they need it more than I do. I dress off my coat, walk to its front, see the maw panting, then gaping in desperation. 
	I hold out the end of the sleeve and… it swallows it, up with my hand… a tropical warmth in the form of a soothing gel spread over through my hand… like fluid velvet enveloping me… 
	I tug my arm back out…watching the rhythmic tugs and gulps drawing my last piece of clothing into it, folding at its lips and suckled inside… 
	But my hand, was still so warm. Caressing the lips as it swigs down my jacket, I slip a finger inside…dipping into the pot of warm honey drool… A quiver of heat through my arm. Shaking my spine. The rest of the first, wrist, slipping inside, breathing in its drool. The warmth I sustained on, snuggling over my skin. Its flesh kneading against me…brushing in the warmth it could offer…
	I leaned into it, pressing my arm down its gape, letting it suckle and cover me in a film of its drool. The other arm, a leg. It was so warm. I could feel my heart beating through my chest… Again…it provided… 


I lay still, silent as the grub.
	Caked from head to toe in its saliva. Warm, doughy mucus that kept me sealed it, a wetsuit of heat. A breath, cold air making it in to my lungs, but heated by my body. We survive even still, as the weather grew colder, as rescue seems impossible, we were still there together, and I was still alive.


~ 6 ~


It is colder now. so cold. I can barely move. 
	The grub is struggling. It tears in my heart…
	Its getting, so cold… 
	My breath disturbed, I crawl forwards, through the oozing saliva coating, through the comfort it has granted me for weeks. I stare at their form, watching their skin harden.
	I would die here… This notion had buried deep, long ago. And by now it festered. 
	There was no food, there was no outside from which I could salvage. But… we did not both have to die… back to its mouth, it was closed. I brushed over it, coaxing it to protrude and gape. Still willing to provide of its drool.
	I reach my arm inside, and it begun to suckle. Then… I pushed the other in. I spread it as its muscles warped and constricted to knead its heat into me. I held it open, staring. My breath calmed… as I fed my head past the gape, into the toothless maw. Flesh smothering my head, enveloping me in its body heat once more, pulsing… I shoved deeper… and… found resistance.
	“I am here,” I say, panting, “let me in, please.” 
	It fought me… the back of its esophagus pushing back. But it had given too much of its strength to me. I pushed harder… 
	Arms, passing the event horizon, where peristalsis took hold, instinct grasping my hands, then my head, reeling me inwards. Into the dark, damp, warm depths. I panted, shaking, feeling its lips travel and steamroll over my torso, my lap, my legs. Enraptured in its gape. Surrounded by the pulsating warmth seeping in from every corner. Cloaked in saliva… I sunk down into its depth… My body…thrumming with shudders. 
	The most caring, and inviting sauna… The outside world, forsaken…I forgot the old. I forgot everything… Curled up inside the grub. And resting one last time, as its walls encroached, and hugged me. 


~ 7 ~


Cold… Hard. Cramped… Passage…
	Air… Lungs. 
	I become. 
	I know darkness. I know there is beyond. 
	The cage is weak. I exploit is cracks. I tear down the past. 
	Light… faint. I rise. There is, no room… cramped, once more… 
	I seek the light. It holds salvation. It holds, life… I am alive. 
	Crawling through the passage, tearing aside sticks and gravel. 
	I reach… outside… 
	Light… so much light…everywhere… and space? I can stand? I can extend.
	My spine straightens for the first time. 
	Feet secure on the ground, legs locking taut. Joint after joint clacks into place. 
	I am… 
	I. I, am.
	And the, I, that I am, is outside. 
	Air… Breath… I can breathe. I can, feel… I feel…
	Where? Are they? There is…more than me. There was…there was another me… Another it… 
	‘Where are you?’ Is what I want to express…but what leaves my lips is a distorted noise: “I. am. here.” 
	I am still moist from my cage… trails left behind me as I escape both cocoons… But they were not inside… and that means… they are, here, on the outside… somewhere. Then, I only had to look for them. There was only one place to search: Outside.
	I begin. I begin my search for them. That ‘them’ who was with me, I want… to meet them. 
	I want to see them, for the first time. 
	I want to hold them.
	I just, have to find them first…