The Titan Prototype by Michael Cole

Author:Michael Cole [Cole, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

From the tip of its tentacles to the fins on its mantle, every nerve in the giant squid’s body was on fire. Its soft and flexible body twisted and pulsed. Its siphon jetted water uncontrollably, ejecting waste and blood. Its sense of awareness came and went as the hours dragged by. The cephalopod had no understanding of what was happening to it. It was intelligent enough to surmise that these physiological issues stemmed from the dead animals it had consumed in this metal chamber.

Its flesh shifted and contorted, as though being digested and transformed into something else. Its color took on a blood-red complexion. Its body gradually increased in mass, soon filling up most of the chamber. Its eight arms and two tentacles, originally covered with leathery skin, were now lined with bony spines, much like the hooks hidden within its suction cups. Even its beak grew; a process which proved to be the most excruciating.

Though it could not see, its mantle had taken on a new appearance. Its basic shape remained the same, albeit larger, but its flesh had grown hundreds of pores from which pointed spines extended from. Its flesh, while still flexible and unhindered by an internal skeleton, had grown a top rigid layer, resembling a thin version of the armored shells used by crustacean bottom dwellers.

When it was conscious, it experienced enhanced senses. Its eyes pierced the cloudy residue in the chamber, detecting every detail on the wall opposite itself. Every swirl of ocean current, every faint tap on the hull, and every movement was detected. It learned of faint everyday sounds it did not even know existed before today. The same occurred with its sense of smell. Every scent within a mile radius was detected by its enlarged brain. Urine, fuel, blood, flesh, sediment, metal—even the slime secreted by underwater invertebrates and some fish.

Despite the nonstop agony, the squid experienced pangs of hunger. Those pangs became a fire within its body. A discomfort far more agitating than the process of mutation, its only remedy was consumption of flesh. During its mutation, the squid continued feeding, unwittingly fueling its transformation all the more. Now, with its mantle over thirty feet long and its two main tentacles over a hundred feet, it needed to escape this prison.

Too large for the passageway, the creature exhibited another trait of its mutation: Strength. Its arms, lined with thick muscle, bent over the edges of the open doorway and pulled. The metal wall around the rectangular entry squealed and bent. With added force, it tore like paper. The squid continued tearing up the wall until it was wide enough for its mantle to pass through. The corridor was wider, making for a tight, but workable journey for the breach where it had initially entered the ship.

Now in the open ocean, it beheld the sights, smells, and sounds of many other organisms. When the vessel struck the ocean floor, the shockwave and the expelling of fuel had driven off everything. Now that the wreck had settled, the ocean’s inhabitants were eager to investigate.

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