Greetings, dear readers. I am the Evil Eye Beholder, your host and storyteller for the tale you are about to read.
First of all, I wish to apologise for my lack of updates throughout the past 2 years. When I made this account, I had a lot of different plans for stories I wanted to write and over time these have grown more and more in number. However, issues in real life keep me from updating and working on both these new tales as well as the ones I already published. To be quite frank, the past 2 years were not exactly very positive for me. For that reason, I wish to at the very least try and make as much as I can with what little time I have.
Today, I bring you the beginning of another tale set in the world of Eostia, the setting of the Kuroinu series. But this time, the protagonist is no reincarnator or even a sentient being of the world of Eostia. This time it is something truly... alien.
Spoiler Warning: This work will on contain graphic violence and shameless smut in latter chapters. Rating will change then.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroinu.
Interloper from Beyond
Prologue
Dawn was approaching over a desolate coastal area. The shore was covered in rocks and gravel that had fallen down at some point from the steep cliff towering over it. From below one could see the canopies of plants and some even grew in small patches of dirt that had fallen down from above into cracks and creeks in the cliff. Silence reigned apart from the sound of waves crashing against the shore and retreating back into the ocean, taking small particles and rocks with it, while washing sand into the pores of the loose rocks. Hundreds of stars twinkled above the sea in the sky, which slowly began to change color from pitch black to dark blue and lighter blue as the dawn approached closer and closer, making the stars disappear one by one. At the horizon, a bright spot already indicated where the sun would rise as if coming from the depths of the ocean.
Then a bright blue star rose up behind the horizon, dousing the world in a pale blue light. At the first rays of the sun, small shadows became visible in the water and quickly darted away. As warmth began to seep into the water and ground, it roused the creatures at the beach from their slumber as the new day broke.
From beneath the gravel rose a crustacean akin to a coconut crab, though much smaller. Its eyestalks moved around, scanning the environment before beginning to walk sideways towards the shoreline, scaling over smaller and larger rocks in search for food between the grains. Others of its kin soon joined it awoken by the sun.
Meanwhile, large roach-like creatures scaled down the cliffside to each moss and algae that grew on its surface. They had a flat body with a carapace, but their heads were more akin to that of vertebrates with a distinguished jaw filled with small conical teeth in place of mandibulae. They also had no antennae at all. Some of the insectoid looking beings lost their hold, and tumbled down the cliff to the beach, only to get back up and walk along the shoreline in search for food. The smaller crustaceans quickly fled in the face of these creatures who were much larger than themselves and easily crushed them beneath their feet or just ate them.
At another part, more of these beings descended to the shore line at a location where the cliff had collapsed just recently, causing the debris of the otherwise steep cliff to form a slope that they could easily scale down. Some of them went to the waterline to drink. But soon enough a creature of similar size lunged out of the water. It had a flat body with a pair of large mandibulae like a centipede, but lacked its antennae and many legs. It bit down one of the large roach like creatures as it screeched in pain. The others of its kin quickly fled in a panic as it was dragged into the sea by the marine predator and soon disappeared beneath the waves.
Above this mayhem one of the flying creatures of this world was descending towards the ground. Its body was similar to the roach like creatures, but its legs were longer and a smaller third pair of legs was located at the chest area. On its back a pair of translucent, insect like wings was beating as it slowed down its descent and landed on a piece rock. Using its third pair of limbs, it rubbed its face with them before scuttling along the ground. It would run for a short distance, then stop and look around before once moving further. That was until it stopped and began digging into the ground. Its larger legs, shoved gravel and rocks out of the way, while the smaller ones dealt with gravel and sand. When the depression was about half as deep as the creature was tall its smaller arms shot forward into the ground and grabbed hold of something. Pulling them out, it revealed a fat and round looking larvae as it squirmed on the claws it was pierced with, causing clear body fluids to drip down from it. The flying hunter wasted no time to bite down its prey and tore its head off, before throwing it aside and gorging itself on the dead larvae's body.
Though the piece only lasted for a moment as one of the coconut crab like creatures approached the slightly smaller hunter with hisses and clicking mandibles. The creature hissed back, but backed away, dropping its prey. The crustacean didn't stop though and sprinted towards it. Quickly, the other animal took off the ground and narrowly avoided being run over, before flying away. The other being didn't care as it grabbed the half-eaten carcass of the larvae and the head and began feasting on it itself.
It was simply another day on that world and life continued its natural course of as it had for eons. But today was different. Another source of light was still visible in the sky despite the sun slowly rising at the horizon. For some time now, one of the stars had lasted longer against the rays of the blue star before eventually disappearing alongside the rest during the day, but for a few days that was no longer the case. It was still visible during the day, becoming brighter and bigger with each passing hour. While some of the creatures of this world found it curious, it didn't distract them too much to stop their daily routines.
That was no longer the case. As if a signal had been sent to all the animals of that world, they stopped what they were doing and tensed up. Their eyes and senses were directed towards the same glowing object that they previously barely even registered. With a loud thundering sound, it became larger and larger, turning from a mere flickering light into a large ball of fire and sending tremors through the air and ground. It was so strong that parts of the cliffside collapsed, thundering down to the beach and burying any creature beneath it under tons of debris.
Startled by all of this, the creatures realized the danger this object represented and what kind of situation they were in. Panic spread like a frenzy as the instinct of self-preservation kicked in. All living things wanted to get away as soon as they could and as far as they could. The flying creatures quickly fled further inland, while below them any terrestrial creature left in a stampede as they scaled over rocks and others of their kind as well as trampling and crushing those unfortunate ones alongside any vegetation. Whatever couldn't run away made an effort to hide, whether it was by digging themselves, swimming into deeper waters or by hiding under plants.
The fireball flew over the beach and headed further out to sea as it dragged a cloud of smoke and ashes behind itself. For a moment, it seemed like the danger had passed as it became smaller towards the horizon. But then it hit the water and opposite to the still rising sun, another much brighter light appeared like a second sun dawning over the horizon.
The clouds were blown away. The earth trembled even more violent than before. More of the cliff fell into sea. And then all was swallowed by the light of that second dawn.
The asteroid impact triggered a cataclysmic series of natural catastrophes to hit every part of the planet. The impact itself caused a shockwave to travel across the planet, dealing massive damage to the environments it rolled over. Most of the rock material that the asteroid had thrown into the atmosphere was pulled back to the planet by its gravity, causing it to rain back down and thus even more destruction on the surface. Whatever had been blasted too far away to be pulled back in was now cast adrift into the endless void of space never to return.
Meanwhile, the impact created more catastrophes in its wake. Volcanic activity increased all around the globe, causing not just volcanic eruptions, but also earthquakes and tsunamis all around the planet. Dust and volcanic ashes engulfed the whole world into a chokehold, blocking most of the sun's light and causing temperatures to drop drastically, while the gases the volcanoes had exhaled combined with the water into acid that rained down.
In practically no time, the planet became a hostile environment to most forms of life that had evolved on that planet over the course of millions of years and it would stay being a dangerous place for quite some time before things would settle down once more and the survivors of this mass extinction event would reclaim the world with their descendants filling out the ecological niches that were no longer occupied, eventually becoming a self-sustaining ecosystem once more.
Hundreds of millennia later…
Thousands of years had passed ever since the asteroid hit the planet orbiting the blue star, yet one of the fragments of its crust, which had been blown off by the impact, was still rushing through the emptiness of space. Due to the heat and pressure created by the impact, the original material had undergone a metamorphosis of the minerals partially melting and recrystallizing. Since then, it was simply another chunk of metamorphic rock shooting through space with no set destination like most comets.
Aimlessly it drifted through space, leaving the solar system it had come from far behind and travelling light years. But then its course had been changed when it got caught by another celestial body's gravity. At first it made a beeline for a white star, before its course was changed once more as it flew past the planets orbiting that star. Again and again, its course was slightly changed whenever the gravitational pull of one of the other celestial bodies caught it, almost integrating it into the rings of a gas giant at one point.
Eventually, it was caught in the pull of a small rocky planet in the habitable zone of the star. It was not too different from the planet it had originally stemmed from. It was mainly covered oceans with a few large landmasses forming continents as well as smaller islands. The poles were covered in ice, while some regions closer to the equator appeared either hot and dry with deserts or humid with dense and lush vegetation forming large forests.
In either case, the former piece of planetary crust was pulled towards the planet and entered its atmosphere. The friction with the air molecules heated the rock up once more, causing bits and pieces to break off as they simply burnt away. Meanwhile, the main part of the asteroid remained intact, though much smaller than the one that had broken it off its original planet and by no means nearly as destructive as it crashed into the ocean and caused little to no seismic shockwaves and was perceived by the faraway creatures of that world as little more than a shooting star followed by a slight tremor.
A few years passed after that and the shooting star was forgotten by most. Then one morning, an unusual object was washed ashore at a coast in the northern regions of the continent of Eostia. As the tide retreated back into the deeper parts of the sea with the setting of the moon, a relatively small object about the size of a thumb was half embedded in the sand. During the flood it had been swimming at the surface like a piece of driftwood, but the waves eventually carried it to the shore, leaving it there before the water retreated.
The object was spheroid in shape like a flattened ball and its exterior as it was rough like rock, but it still had a certain luster to it like the shell of a beetle. Its color was a strange dark brown, almost black. For most it appeared little more than just a slightly shiny black pebble. As the sun rose higher, the sand began to dry and warmth seeped into the ground. The shoreline retreated further and further, leaving the object on dry land.
With the sun rising higher into the sky the small object began to suddenly move on its own. Slightly it moved sideways as the sand around it anchored it in place, yet the movements became more violent over time. Then the outer shell cracked open and something began to push its out, uncoiling from the constraints the object placed on its form. It was a grub-like being about as long and thick as a cigarette. Its body was ashen in color and at its head sat small black spots indicating eyes as well as a round mouth.
The creature slowly slithered out of its shell, basking in the sunlight and taking in warmth as it finally left its shell and laying in the sand for a moment. After taking in enough energy, it began raise its upper body from the ground, revealing three pairs of stubby legs wiggling around below the head, that were too short to act as grasping limbs nor for movement. It moved its head around like a probe as if to scan its environment with its tiny eyes. All it could see was sand, but it could clearly hear and smell despite having just been born and it possessed an instinctive understanding of what it was doing.
Despite it appearing to be some sort of insect and the fact that it had no bones and no jaws, it could not be called an invertebrate as a primitive spine made out of cartilage had already formed in the middle of its body. It was simply a creature that was utterly alien compared to most forms of life.
But how did this creature end up at the shore of Eostia to begin with? Where did it come from?
The answer to that was that it had been within the asteroid from the very beginning. When the large asteroid hit the planet orbiting the blue star, the chunk of planetary crust was ejected out into space alongside the creature already being inside it. The ancestors of this being were specialists when it came to making sure that their offspring would hatch under the right conditions. While they would lay their eggs into the sand of shallow waters, they needed dry conditions to survive.
Therefore, their eggs would enter a state of suspended animation, barely keeping itself alive as it would not hatch until preferable conditions would set in. The asteroid catapulted these eggs, which already were in a state of stasis, into space though a lot of them didn't make it already back then as they were destroyed by the extreme heat and pressure as well as the metamorphosis of the rocks around it. Those who made it that far soon found themselves bombarded with cosmic radiation, killing them as it mutated its genetic material into disrepair. Others simply died throughout their journey through space.
All but one egg remained in tact for the very same reasons that killed the rest. It was encased in the metamorphic rock without being destroyed and the mutagenic radiation had a positive effect on it. One of the random mutations allowed it to survive in its state of stasis for the entirety of its journey unharmed. Then when the smaller asteroid fell into the ocean, the sudden change of temperature caused the outer layers of the rock to break away, allowing the egg to be released into the sea a year after it fell down. Since dry conditions were needed for the being inside to hatch, it didn't hatch within the ocean. Instead, it waited like it had been waiting for the past millennia. First, it rose to the surface as the egg was capable of floating on the surface as an additional mechanism to prevent the eggs to simply stay submerged in case they were somehow dug up by the waves or another creature. Some marine creatures attempted to eat it, but quickly spat it out, finding it impossible to crack and not very appetizing due to its rough exterior akin to a stone. Safe from drowning and being eaten by predators, the tides simply carried it to the shore where the life within it finally found the right conditions to hatch after hundreds of thousands of years.
As the small creature took in the world through its senses, a new sensation was born in its primitive mind. A void in its body urged it to move and find something to fill it. But with what and how? It reared its head into the air again and smelled the air, before flopping back down on the sand. Then it stretched its body forward, grasped the sand grains with its stubby legs for support and pulled its lower body forward. After a few clumsy repetitions, the worm-like body fluently began to crawl across the ground like a caterpillar. It was only a couple of meters until the sandy beach was replaced with first traces of vegetation before changing into a meadow with tall grass as well as solitary bushes and trees, but for a creature that was about the size of a finger it was a much larger distance to cross. Especially if it had no legs and was completely exposed to any potential predators, which only urged it to move faster.
Despite doing this sort of thing for the first time in its short life just minutes after being born, it knew what it was doing and why. No, that was not the right word. It didn't know because it had no real knowledge. It was an instinct ingrained within its very being. It had a basic understanding of what it had to do and for what reason simply acting upon these instinctive urges.
And so, it continued to move landwards. Climbing over grains of sand and small gravel, it eventually disappeared in the grass. For the first time in its short life, it felt a sensation that were driving its current actions…
Hunger and a desire to consume.
And soon enough, it came across another living being. Vibrations in the ground alerted it off the approach of another being as it stopped moving, its unmoving eyes fixated the approaching organism. Scuttling over the ground was an ant. Its body was covered in black exoskeleton, while its short antennae wriggled around to take in its surroundings. Its facette eyes were trained upon the grub-like being before it, mandibles opening and closing as if in anticipation to dig into its flesh. For a worm or a caterpillar, such an encounter would be quite dangerous. But instead of feeling any sort of dread or danger, this newborn being only felt hunger.
The being's body compressed and then stretched forward like a spring with an agility that did not fit a creature such as itself. Its head lunged straight for the insect with its round mouth opening akin to a snake unhinging its jaws to swallow prey that was larger than itself. Except the grub was larger than the ant and despite the latter attempting to scurry away, it was engulfed in the open gullet. As quick as it made contact, the mouth closed itself shut and the ant was swallowed whole. The creature remained still on the ground for a short moment, its body pulsing as its still living and struggling prey was pumped deeper into its form. For a moment, its body jerked as well due to the ant biting or using its acid in an attempt to fight back, but eventually it stopped.
As the ant's body and acid was broken down by digestive fluids in its stomach, its genetic information was immediately analyzed by the alien grub's body. Once it was processed in its entirety, the body began to change, incorporating the traits of the devoured insect to improve its body. The outer layer of its skin began to harden into a chitinous carapace and turn from ashen grey to black. Its previously useless limbs elongated and became thicker and tipped with a pair of claws. A pair of short antennae grew on its head and its abdomen thickened, whilst a gland producing the same acid as before formed inside it and was connected via an orifice at the tip of its tail to expel it outwards. At last, a pair of scissor-like mandibles grew at the sides of its mouth, enabling it to effectively bite.
Once the metamorphosis was complete, the insect-like creature almost curiously moved its now strengthened appendages and newly formed mandibles, before crawling deeper into the grass as its legs were now capable of actually supporting the weight of its upper body and move faster than crawling around. Oddly enough, while the creature undoubtedly been strengthened, its hunger was not been satiated in the slightest and a new sensation had joined its urge to consume. An urge to improve itself even further than just now. Wriggling its new antennae, it picked up various new scents coming from many different direction.
And so, it scuttled deeper into the vegetation, following the scent of more prey.
Consumed organisms/stored genetic material:
- Black ant
That's it for the prologue of this tale. Admittedly nothing much happened, but I primarily wanted to focus at the start at this alien biosphere of its homeplanet as a form of worldbuilding and show that this isn't some supernatural entity or an aberration or a bioweapon made by another sentient species.
Thank you very much for reading and I will see you next time.