The Changeling (Story of Id) - Part Five (The Finale)

Rising to Its feet, the Thing knew that Its twin was aware of what It planned to do to her. She had begun to drag herself, pitifully, as though looking for an escape.

The clay thing marched towards her, Its will strengthened by the certainty that it must complete this, that it was Fate's doing that brought this all into being.

The twin seemed to stare at It, horribly transfixed by Its approach, gun raised and pointed, a demand, a promise. Her mouth opened wide in a scream, offering the nearly blind clay-thing a target to shoot. The scream rang off of the walls, before dying slowly.

The clay-thing stood still expectantly, and when nothing happened, It turned and said, “You... lied... to... meee...”

“The effect should occur soon – for both of our sakes, I hope it happens soon.”

“R-r-ramific... ramifications... what are the... ramifications... of... killing... her?”

“If her identity doesn't take to you, we'll be punished. We'll have hell to pay for what we both just did.”

“We'll be... punish-”

The clay-thing gasped and lurched forward. Spasms shook It, and it opened Its mouth to scream. Instead of a scream, a dry rattle poured from Its mouth.

Muse walked over to It, looking down at the shaking thing.

She kicked it.

It seemed to re-animate after a period of short stillness, Its body writhing in small motions, as though insects crawled through it, and had responded to some kind of powerful stimuli. Movement in the Thing amplified, and Its skin formed large, boil-like cysts, spreading to cover It. They then began to crack apart, sloughing off into large piles around It. It was difficult to see at first, but Muse could see that under the splitting was the form that she knew existed. New flesh was exposed from the chaffing of the old.

Muse bent to her knees and pushed the thing on Its side, searching for the first sign of a return to its cognitive abilities. After pushing failed to elicit a response, she slapped the Thing's freshly burst face. As soon as the blow landed, the Thing's new true mouth fell open, and a clear liquid oozed from Its thin lips.

Muse leapt back and hissed angrily, fixing her eyes on Its face, looking for any signs of a return to life.

The Thing drooled more, the liquid now pouring out steadily, a puddle forming around it, beginning to encompass It. As the liquid touched different parts of Its body, the skin began to move, seemingly containing a sentience of its own. And then the body under the broken skin moved, not in a mindless seizure, but slowly, deliberately, like a fetus moving for the first time.

Muse walked next to It, her eyes locked on the bizarre sight at her feet. She reached for the Thing's head, and a very human groan emerged from it. An almost warm smile spread on Muse's lips.

The smile faded from her lips as violent shaking overtook the membranous walls of the chamber and the lights in the already darkened chamber dimmed further.

Panicked, Muse reached under the shedded clay and grabbed for a hand, pulling it up. She tried to lift It with all of her might, but It must have grown extra weight through Its transformation, and the clay-thing did not so much as twitch in response to her attempts at raising It to Its feet.

“Get up, right now!” Muse shrieked, slapping and pulling at Its arm. “Get up! We'll be thrown into the Deep unless you get up! Oh, I should have forced you to kill her, before you saw what you were; your self-awareness is taking too much time, lengthening your growth time. We don't have time for this!”

The Thing finally groaned in response to her shrieking, and It came into consciousness, It tested Its limbs slowly, almost drowsily, and Muse drew away from It, allowing It to struggle to Its feet on Its own.

Bent, feebily, at Its knees, It began to straighten Its back, standing as upright as It could manage. Looking at Muse with new eyes that could now read every distinct line on her face, It tried to speak, and only managed to speak in gurgled nonsense before being nearly sent back down to ground with the strength of the tremors that shook the chamber surrounding them.

Muse seemed to act cautiously, speaking and acting in the most genuine way that she had ever done with It. She stepped forward, pressing her full weight down on Its shoulders with her hands. “You're going to forget about all of this, anyway, so I feel like I can say this; the only reason I care about this whole debacle is because I need for my work to go out into the world. You had better be stronger than the original one, or-”

A huge groan reverberated through the chamber, and the whole room shook as everything was dashed about in the chamber. The air was momentarily knocked out of the clay-thing when It felt something strike Its back, hard, and It tumbled over, falling. Getting back up, It realized that the corpse of Its twin had hit It, and lolled, rag-doll like, on the ground next to It.

It felt Itself being pushed by Muse into a particular direction. It cooperated, walking limply with Muse's support, and It lifted Its head in time to see that It was walking towards a gaping hole.

It tried, weakly, to fight Muse off. Muse seemed to know what the Thing would try to fight, as she shoved and held onto It with painful strength, increasing the speed of their walking.

The Thing groaned weakly, pressing with all of Its pitiful strength against Muse, so that Its head was pressed fully against the heavy folds of Its captor's dress. It comforted Itself with keeping Its eyes from off of the horrible portal, with the denying of, at least, this eventuality.

Eyes shut tightly, It shouted fearfully when It felt a sucking sensation at Its feet, pulling It rapidly into yet another tunnel. It tried to yank Its feet free of the pulling folds, but felt the tunnel squeeze more tightly in response.

Muse shoved the rest of It in, roughly pushing Its hands away when It attempted to tug at her dress. She looked down at the Thing's transformed eyes for one last time, and she allowed her disgust to show on her face for the first time at the sight of the Thing's fear, which turned Its already ugly features into something yet more hideous.

It cried out, frightened, as Its head was swallowed by the tunnel of thick flesh, and in the chamber the lights completely fell, allowing Muse to assume Its own true form, becoming one with the dark.