Seras little snippet thread

I floated.

That was all I knew. All I had become. Whatever had happened, whatever I could have been, or was, was long gone.

Time, and nothingness slowly wears off the corners of awareness.

I simply floated along the endless dark. The things that sometimes swam past, hurrying from one point to another never saw me.

I was blank, like the darkness around me. There was no end to it, no start of me.

There was almost no awareness. No sense of time. Like I was dreaming, and things simply swept past.

Then, things did change. The others swam past me in a rush, first in ones or twos, and then in dozens and more. For the first time I was actually touched in a sense, as something swam into me, not even noticing before continuing on.

Spiraling, floating and then slowly, the others disappeared.

Yet… Something was coming. I could feel it, but I couldn't understand it. I simply was, and there was no fear, or anticipation, simply a blank understanding.

I was almost back to blankness after everything when I felt it.

Hunger, not mine, but other, the feeling of the very emptiness being chewed on as it approached so deep was its hunger and yet it couldn't eat that which wasn't there.

A hunger so great it would chew itself, chew air just to hope for a single moment of relief.

Yet I felt nothing. It approached, that hunger almost was enough to bring whatever I was back to awareness, but I was blank.

I'd been nothing for so long…

The beginning of the other passed me by. Then more and more flowed past until soon there was no emptiness. It had flooded all of nothing with its hunger.

The first bite was practically a surprise, as the other bit into my nothingness. It chewed and gagged and then tried for more.

I floated, uncaring that my nothing was being devoured.

They ate and consumed, trying to tear me apart, but every piece of me they devoured was still me.

There was no beginning to me, no end of me.

Only me.

Soon I was taken along. My nothing carried along by the hunger. It felt so strange to be surrounded by something beside nothing.

I could feel the hunger react to me. They tried to consume me. Tried to become me.

It spread but that ended quickly. They didn't seem like me, but their hunger couldn't be stopped, they couldn't stop being me any longer.

Soon it spread to those parts that had devoured me, and I became.

I breathed.

Growing silently, a new life, a new part of me. I could feel it breathing. It's body jerking as it prepared itself for its future life.

But yet as it grew ever so quickly, as I felt for the first time in…

What was time?

It suddenly felt cold. The womb it was in broke apart, and that piece of me, that wasn't nothingness, felt pain.

The Hunger attacked, teeth and claws, and I was devoured doubly over.

Ow.

Another piece of me met the same fate.

Ow.

And again.

Ow!

And again!

Ow! That hurts! Such pain. Feeling! Good and bad, and I felt it all. I jolted, whatever tiredness I once felt ended in anger.

I was nothing, but…

I bit back.

The death of the thing that had caused me pain was slow. As the nothingness inside the body it had eaten devoured it back.

Others came but this time they had flesh. Blood. They were in that other place, and they devoured the corpse that had killed my tiny form.

Then again I bit back.

The hunger turned to me, and attempted to do the only thing it seemed capable of.

It bit me. Ow!

So I bit back.

The Shriek it gave was loud, but…

I bit again.

I chewed.

That tiny spark within me burbled up.

Where before I was nothing, and only capable of reacting to those little things I'd been connected to, now I felt it.

Something new. Hunger.

I bit again, and this time I didn't stop.

—--

991.M41
Damocles Gulf
Rogue Trader Visia Keller To *REDACTED*

Urgent Message: Hive Fleet Kraken offshoot still has not arrived on Semplexia. Tau and Imperial alliance growing difficult. Moving to Forge World K-23-Ola before the alliance breaks down.

Repeat. Tyranid Hive Fleet missing.

—--

Inquisitor Vail, new message received.

—--

W: Astronomicon reports disruption in the warp.

A:What does that mean?

W: I don't…

A: I need information. Where is the Hive Fleet? Did a new cult draw it away?

W: It feels… Wrong Inquisitor.

A: I need more than that.

W: It… Hurts. Forgive me… I feel… Hunger, but not. And… Inquistior… Fear. I feel fear… I can't!

A: Fine, rest and give me an update when you can try again. Out.

—--

Forwarded message from Tau Ethereal on Semplexia

Exploration ship Se'hen che lel reached last known location of Hive Fleet Kraken fleet. Information packet enclosed.

—--

Amberly took a moment to look at the pictures and scans and felt not hope as many might from what she was seeing.

The fleet was dead. Every vessel drifting in space circling itself, a death spiral where every Tyranid had been let loose, not on a planet, but just to devour itself.

Every ship had been devoured by another, floating Tyranid drifting in space torn apart or trying to tear apart whatever was left.

A massacre. A Hive Fleet had massacred itself. It was no wonder the Tau had willingly handed over this information.

She took a moment to look at her message.

William had done his duty and looked once more into the warp. The Astropath had not returned alive, not this time, a shame, he had been with her for years now, a reliable sort.

But his last message confused her.

If the tendril of the hive fleet was dead, why was the warp even more full of hunger now? Enough that just the brief brush had been enough to kill him?

Had the Tau lied? She looked at the report the Tau had sent over once more.

That didn't fit. They knew enough about Human Psykers, that you couldn't simply trick the Imperium into believing the Tyranid were gone.

So… Why was the shadow the Tyranid threw into the warp stronger than ever?

Amberly had a report to write.

—---

Apotheosis.

I'd devoured, and bitten, and chewed until the hunger that had once devoured me had been devoured in turn. The presence that had been so large, so hungry to eat at nothing had been devoured fully, and in turn, as if all that I had eaten surrounded me, and filled the former nothing with life.

What had once been nothing, now had form.

I.

I existed.

I could feel the few others that had eaten me, still dying, but their energy was no longer needed. I was surrounded in a cocoon, made from hunger shifting nothing to something.

And within I gestated. I grew. What had been nothing was now shaped. Hunger shaped me into something…

I didn't dislike it.

How could I? I was… Aware. I moved an old instinct. And a hand was there. Clawed and dangerous, but… I remember having one like it. A hand. Another joined and a leg… Walking. I remember walking.

What I had once been was gone, worn away, but parts remained, and as the hunger filled me, I remembered what was left. I consumed what had once been the Hunger, and now I was hunger.

I was something.

Did I want to be hunger?

Hmm.

I could feel my cocoon grow. The dying Hunger filled it more and more I could feel it preparing to…

No, it felt like it was going to explode! I didn't want to lose my meal. It was mine.

I opened my mouth. I knew how to eat. Not from before, but from what I'd taken. My maw split, and I inhaled. Hunger flowed into me and I grew, while the cocoon seemed to stall. So I did it again.

And again. Quickly the shifting cocoon ran in the other direction, no longer expanding instead shrinking.

I devoured all the Hunger that had surrounded me.

Until there was no hunger but my own.

My hunger was endless. More. I needed more. Wanted more would do anything for more.

I wasn't done! I could feel it. Within me my evolution, my growth was incomplete…

There was nothing to devour here.

I reached out, and my hand ripped through the fragile seeming cocoon that had birthed me. Into not nothing. Into a place I could find more to devour.

Colors.

Feelings.

It left me confused because… I remember this place as nothing. Had it always been so bright? I turned away but I wasn't seeing with eyes, I felt it. Couldn't escape it.

So I dimmed myself to escape letting the lit stop touching me. Until nothing was nothing.

Yes. This was more comfortable. Simple…

I looked up, even as dim as I was now, I could feel it.

Hunger. More Hunger, calling out.

I let myself brighten once more seeing the far distant light. So many lights. Some small, and one… I looked at the brightest light and it struck me, that…

It hurt.

What I had lost. Something about that light reminded me of what I had once been, before the nothing.

I turned away from it. I wasn't… Ready to wonder what had once been.

Instead I looked at that distant tiny in comparison light, and… With a shift of my body I leveled out. My body. I had a body. It shifted as my awareness grew. I wanted to swim, and so my body altered itself.

A long tail grew, an instinct from the hunger, that this was the best way, and I was moving forward. No longer floating, but swimming through the nothingness towards that hunger.

I let myself grow dim as I moved through the currents that existed within this nothing that wasn't nothing.

It was a long way this hunger. Which was no matter, I had very little concept of time, but as I swam things changed.

Despite how dim I was, the area around me grew brighter. Little flairs in the light. Going this way and that.

Then I felt it. A hunger, yet not.

I shifted, a tiny light traveling past me was blinking. Dimming and brightening. I reached it, and…

I don't know what I was seeing. Metal and stone, and more and…

A thing. One of the others was… Attacking? Yes. That was what it was doing. I swam closer, my senses sharpening as I drew nearer. I was hunting. My instincts and body, preparing for a surprise assault. The hunger knew well how to approach prey.

I drew closer. The other was hungry, but not for flesh, but just for… Something else. I didn't like it. I was Hunger. How dare this tiny thing take what was mine?

My maw opened, and even as the other cackled as it scratched at the failing light around the thing, it didn't notice, until perhaps the last moment but far too late. My maw crashed down regardless as it shrieked in terror and fear. Emotions I was familiar with. But my hunger was stronger, it fought desperate to escape to do something.

Nothing could stop me. And it soon was chewed and swallowed. Instantly my awareness expanded.

I stilled.

Ship. The thing was a ship. A human ship.

The ship continued on. It's failing light… Gellar field. No longer a concern. My devouring of the strongest daemon, had sent the lesser creatures fleeing into nothing desperate to escape from my revealed hunger.

I watched as the ship continued on. The light at the top, the astropath? The light they exuded was aimed at me. The… Human.

I knew human. I was-

It saw me. I could taste its fear. But there was so little hunger, and it didn't… I didn't want to eat it.

I turned and continued on my way.

—--

"The Astropath?"

"Survived Lord Captain… But…"

"But?"

"She is unwell. She screams of a hunger in the warp. She is incoherent."

"Sedate her then if you must… I need my Astropath, and report the status of the ship. I will not lose my ship after escaping back to the Materium."

"Yes Lord Captain."

—--

I digested the Daemon as I swam and my mind grew.

I was in the warp. The immaterium. The- It had so many names, in so many languages, that I didn't care to think of them all.

I swam in silence, even my mind was quiet, having to stop thinking just to not bury myself in my own discomfort. I'd been of the materium once. I remember walking. Running.

Who was I?

What was I now?

Existential concepts were not fun, and the more I digested that Daemon, the more I grew to understand that I was something different.

It had some understanding of the Hunger. Tyranid is what they were called. Devours of the materium… But, I'd devoured them in turn.

I looked forward to the light calling me. I was intending on devouring them again. Context was… Interesting.

I was going to devour these… Tyranids. It felt right. I wanted more of them. All of them. I urged myself onward, and I felt myself move faster. Eagerness forced me through faster and it worked. Almost with a thought I was coming closer and closer to the faint light.

The Daemon knew about this. How to move through the warp. It was easy now.

I arrived in front of the light hungry and ready to start biting but…

Where was it?

I realized I wasn't looking at another Hive Fleet. Where was it? I felt confused, as I circled this little light.

This would take some time to understand.

—---

"Get that emplacement back up!" The Commissar yelled and Kurtz jumped to do so. Because he didn't feel like getting fragged by the bastard today.

Not that it mattered, a moment later the bastard died fighting… He'd give him respect if he survived this.

First it had been the damn Cult. Mutants crawling out of the sewers worshipping the bugs if the rumors were true.

That had been rough enough. Especially when the old General had been one of them. Crazy bastard. He'd been fragged early enough that the Guard had managed to form a defense.

Of course, they'd started winning then, clearing out the mutants and cleaning things up…

Until someone had the bright idea to start checking for cultists.

Duke Femore hadn't been one of the bug cultists. No, he was a follower of the great enemy.

Fucking monsters had started pouring out everywhere, and things had gotten bad.

Half the guard had switched sides, at least it felt like that, with so many civilians joining the great enemy. Screaming about things that made him want to kill every last one of them.

Kurtz wouldn't have it. Not here. Not on his homeworld.

Bug cultists were bad enough, but these other fuckers? He jumped onto the Lascannon and took aim.

The horror that had been crawling closer was lined up. The stench made his throat want to heave but he held it in, lined up the sights "Holy Emperor, deliver us from the Darkness of the Void, guide my weapon in Your service." And he pulled the trigger with all the righteous fury he had.

The beam of power arced out and into that disgusting behemoth. It stuttered and almost fell, but then rose back up, the wound already seemingly started to fill with putrid flesh and offal.

Kurtz fired again the moment the weapon cycled, and then finally it dropped.

Suddenly a noise echoed out, and he could no longer hold back. He puked, blowing his rations all over the floor, his legs went weak and he felt nothing but sickness and horror as if something unknowable was touching his soul.

Something had changed, as he brought his eyes up he stared at a man. Arms raised crying out in victory as something opened into nothingness!

He felt himself dry heave as he watched, as something even larger than the nearly unstoppable monster that he'd just killed reached out.

His eyes watered. His body rebelled, his nose already running as it heaved its disgusting bulk through.

That was something that shouldn't exist, but now stood upon his homeworld.

It laughed, deep and baritone, jovially as it joined the traitor that had brought it forth in exulting in its appearance.

Kurtz struggled to his feet, and grabbed the Lascannons shifting it around.

For the Emperor.

He couldn't speak any rite, so he didn't simply pointing the barrel and pulling the trigger. The THING was so large he couldn't miss.

The blast of fury, the emperor's guidance slammed into its filthy flesh.

And did worse than nothing. It burst one of the disgusting boils, and out came a horde of the tiny monsters, the foul things.

"No." He choked out, puking out bile and worse.

"Silly little one. What use is it? Despair and find comfort in-"

The THING's words, spoken directly at Kurtz, ended with a gasp as something burst forth from its belly.

There was a moment where Kurtz couldn't see. His eyes were watering but that wasn't it. There was foul blood and worse hanging in the air in front of this THING. But then as if color was dripping onto canvas it slowly appeared. Darkness.

That's all he could see. Pure darkness given form. A spike of bone and darkness appeared first flowing back into the THING's chest and then out the back, through the portal, and beyond. The portal rippled just like it had when the THING had appeared. And slowly a hand, clawed and terrible slipped through.

It rested on the edge of the portal, and seemed to pull. Only then did Kurtz manage to realize how large in comparison that terrible claw was.

Large enough that whatever it was attached to, was too small for the portal despite this terrible THING managing to slip through without issue.

But it was the THING's response that made Kurtz smile sinisterly. It howled in terror as suddenly its bulk was jerked back, the barbed hook of bone and darkness had shifted and despite the terrible flesh of the THING sagging and flacid, it still hooked into something that meant it started dragging the THING back.

"No! What is this!? IMPOSSIBLE!" It yelled to the sky, its weak and stumpy arms reaching out to scrabble at the ferracrete as it was inexorably dragged towards the portal and then.

Something came through.

Darkness. A Xeno Skull, terrible in its size and fearsome for its slowly opening tooth filled maw.

Teeth larger than Kurtz spread showing an endless void, as it bent down, and the THING screamed in actual fear. As its head was clamped down upon.

A moment later the THING jerked as if its body tried to resist what was happening, but then there was a tearing sound of flesh and worse as the THING simply came apart.

Its head and a chunk of its torso was gone. Spewing foulness into the air as the monster jerked back as if letting the flesh slide down its throat.

There was silence from everyone as it reached down and took another bite before almost too fast to be believed, it jerked back and the THING's body was gone. Dragged back through the portal as if it had never come.

Well if not for the mess it had left.

The cultist that had been standing before the portal was still there arms raised in exultation but he was unmoving.

Yeah Kurtz bet he was surprised. He had enough strength for this. He grabbed the Lascannon.

May the Emperor guide his shot one last time.

HIs eyes were blurry as they ran uncontrollably, and he felt like his lungs were filled with fluid, he knew he was dying. Sickness had been terrible since the damn cultists had started.

He took aim.

The blast took the fool in the chest vaporizing the cultist that had caused all this…

And in a breath that didn't so much leave his chest as pour out along with all the mucus, and worse that seemed to fill his lungs Kurtz saw the portal begin to close.

It's master dead it was now-

A clawed hand reached through, and grabbed the closing portal. Halting it solidly.

Then another clawed hand reached through and despite having closed it started to be forward open.

Then another hand appeared, and another.

The portal forced open.

Kurtz didn't see any of that, his eyes having already clouded over as he fell draped over the Lascannon.