177 Chapter 175 - Carnivore

*(mood song: "Starset - CARNIVORE")

Sarah quickly suited up and picked up her weapons and ammo, taking also the rest of the clear fluid and some meat from the kitchen, enough to last a couple of days if she distrubuted it accordingly, the thing that worried her the most was the oxygen supply though, it was really hard to breathe without her spacesuit on, the air was too dense.

Rose: [hurry up and have your weapons loaded]

Sarah: "what if I wait inside the spaceship? if I hide in the bottom they might not find me..."

Rose: [and what if they just blow it up? are you gonna risk your life on that?]

Sarah was pensitive for a moment and sighed: "then what about those mutations? the lizardmen seem to breathe just fine..."

Rose: [oh well, if you kill some and chew their lungs raw sure, I'm sure a quick mutation will be triggered, but... are you able to do that?]

Sarah: "...maybe... I don't know, but what I know is I don't wanna die... if it takes eating a huge talking lizard... then so be it"

Rose: [haha~ don't worry, I'm sure it will taste just like chicken~]

Sarah: "really?"

Rose: [Nah, it will be.... like chewing a tire, you might break a teeth if you do so too fast, also I suggest you to eat their enzyme vesiculae, that would allow you to make vitamins, you will need it to avoid suffering from scurvy]

Sarah: "ugh... fine, I will hunt some huge chickens... thats all..."

Rose: [Are you trying to convince yourself? just do it, no need to feel pity for those bastards~]

Sarah got annoyed: "can you just shut up? I've never killed a living being out of simulations before, its a big deal to me"

Rose: [jeez fine, just so you know, there seemed to be creatures living on the hangar, mostly wall huggers and other Erik hasn't named yet in human terms, they should be choking to death now, so it could be an easy kill]

Sarah chuckled: "wall huggers? what a lame name..."

Sarah exited the submarine through a hatch at the bottom, and machinegun on hand jumped three meters down, getting her feet instantly to her knees in deep sticky mud.

Sarah looked around, and other than the rusty spaceship she had just exited, she could see lots of creatures struggling on the mud around, from eel like creatures with mouths full of sharp teeth, to what appeared like moving rocks.

Sarah: "what are the wall huggers? are they dangerous?"

Rose: [oh, I thought you wanted me to shut up? where did that reverence from when you though of me as a god went?]

Sarah: "I just... you talk so casually and friendly that I just got used to it I guess, I apologise oh mighty one, would you allow me to-"

Rose: [pfft! I was kidding hahaha~ I don't care about formalities at all anymore... those moving rocks you see are "crabs" and wall huggers, the difference is that wall huggers are way thinner and move without using legs, but have poisonous tentacles that will easily kill you, so confirm the kills before getting close]

Sarah: "okay... and those eel like things?"

Rose: [those? they seem to be bottom feeders, probably feed on the waste that comes from the city, better avoid them, your body can't digest so many patogens and toxins for now]

Sarah: "ugh yeah I'm not gonna eat poopy eels either"

Rose: [name saved as poppy eel]

Sarah: "...fine"

Sarah moved through the dense mud, and reached a door that was now open, at the other side, a rusty bot moving on rusty metal tracks.

Sarah: "so that's how you opened the door"

Rose: [yeah, they are quite easy to hack once you have an available receiver, its only at 12% battery though, so I will turn it off, might be usefull later]

Sarah: "okay..." Sarah followed a rusty hallway and reached an equally rusty dark room, inside she could see lots of trash and organic materials stored "hmmm either a dump or a really messy organizition system..." she stopped for a moment and closed her eyes, focusing her senses on her hearing. The place was damp and dropplets of water could be heard, as well as creaking coming from the rusty walls of the floating city "I don't hear anything dangerous..."

Rose: [so? what are you gonna do? this room seems to be connected to another if you cross it]

Sarah: "the next room will also be unknown... so instead of counting on unknown things I can't control... I'm thinking setting a trap here might be better"

Rose: [hmmm what if no one comes?]

Sarah shrugged: "I don't know, everything will be safe then"

Sarah grabbed a long bone and a rock, and went back to the previous muddy room, she approached a wall hugger from behind and threw the rock near it, then she used the rock as a leverage point to flip the wall hugger using the long bone. The wall hugger flapped its poisonous tentacles in the air weakly but... *BANG! BANG! BANG!... BANG! BANG!* Sarah shot it five times, splashing blue blood all around.

Sarah: "okay... is it dead?"

Rose: [these bastards are good at pretending and have great vitality, use that bone as a hook and drag it out of the mud first]

Sarah nodded and did as told, using a side of the bone to grasp the shell of the wall hugger, and slowly drag it out of the mud, it took her a lot of effort and she was panting by the end, but the wall hugger seemed to have stopped moving, Sarah didn't buy it though. Sarah cleaned a spot on the ground of the hallway and set down her equipment, she then took out a knife and some rope, tightening the knife to the end of her long bone as an improvised spear.

Sarah then stabbed the wall hugger with the spear, the creature instantly seemed to come back to life, as the tentacles tried stabbing at the bone spear without much effect, untill finally they fell down. Sarah didnt take any chances, and used her spear to cut them off from afar, she then collected them all and set them at the entrance of the hallway.

Rose: [that's it? that's your trap?]

Sarah: "yeah, they will step on them, or at least they will have to look down, like caltrops"

Rose: [...I see, it might work if they are walking barefoot...]

Sarah's face flustered: "well they might, also I can't reach the ceiling anyway, what would you do?"

Rose: [me? I would use the repair bot to stab them from the back and then shoot the with your machine gun from the other side of the hallway when you turn around, and if they manage to exit the hallway set a container full of poopy eels that would fall on them]

Sarah: "hmm that should work too"

-- thirty minutes later --

Sarah used a plastic bag to collect tissue for consumption from the wall hugger, and dumped the rest on the floor, struggling to lift the empty shell and set it against a wall.

Sarah: "I should be able to use this as cover..."

Rose: [for an alarm they are taking their time... maybe start eating some- wait, something is comming]

Sarah jumped to cover behind the huge wall hugger shell that easily covered her entire body.

An old lizardman entered the adjacent room carrying a torch, wearing only some rotten fish leather clothes and carrying a sharpened bone at his waist. The lizardman saw the open door at the end and cursed, getting close and suddenly stabbing his foot with something. The lizardman was surprised as it saw the spikes on the floor and took out his sharp bone, advancing down the hallway as it noticed the big wall hugger shell at the end.

Rose: [shoot now!]

Sarah didn't wait and got out of cover quickly * BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!...* emptying an entire magazine on the chest and head of the old lizardman.

The lizardman slowly fell to its knees, getting stabbed by the other spikes, and finally falling to the ground.

Sarah turned on her flashlights and she could see the lizardman was mostly bones, almost no flesh on the old creature.

Sarah: "...was he already almost dead? it's dead now right?"

Rose: [he seems to have been close to death already, so yeah he's dead now]

Sarah: "why is it so thin?"

Rose: [I don't know, I can theorize lots of scenerios, either can't find enough food where it lives, others don't let him or maybe it's just sick, I would need to scan it]

Sarah got close and took her knife off her improvised spear: "well, I can find out once i dissect it"

Sarah kneeled next to the dead lizardman and started opening him up, but it barely bled: "thick blood... probably a sign of dehydration... pores in bones... could be osteoporosis..." but even then she couldn't cut the bones "huh? they are way too hard..."

Rose: [yeah, lizardmen are in the database of the muta field so they can't mutate, but their species is inherently strong, so now with a diet of bioalloy bone dust they can indeed get stronger bones, I suggest you take some finger bones and grind them to a fine powder to aid absorption]

Sarah nodded slowly and continued by opening the chest of the lizardman.

Rose: [from the chest... start with the lungs, then find a small vesicle in the area your kidneys would be, with that you will avoid scurvy, yeah those cut them off]

Sarah grabbed a small palpitating organ and ripped it off, along with the obvious lungs that were now full of blood.

Rose: [start eating, you need it to survive, then eat the stomach]

Sarah opened her helmet, the air smelled putrid there, but she put the palpitating vesicle on her mouth and ripped a piece of it, the taste was disgusting, but she was determined to survive, so she turned her disgust to anger, this fucking humanoid chickens had tried to kill her, they were nothing to her, she would devour them.

Rose was chuckling to herself as she saw those thoughts: [keep it up girl, devour it and get stronger!]

Sarah's eyes were crying and her nose became runny, the air was heavy and polluted, and the disgusting metallic taste on her mouth didn't help, she finished the vesicle and one lung as fast as she could and put on her helmet, pushing a button to the side to purgue the air and renovate it.

Sarah: "finallly... ugh... my stomach hurts..."

Rose: [well that's normal, your stomach ain't used to digest things like that, you will probably pass out soon, I suggest you pick the other lung and stomach and run to hide inside the spaceship~]

Sarah did as told and stumbled back inside the spaceship, laying down on the ample algae bed as her stomach contorted in pain, and her entire body sweated in a wild fever, her world soon became pain as she passed out.

Some hours passed, and Sarah woke up to the sound of metal hitting metal.

Rose: [you finally wake up! more weirdos came up while you slept... they ate the old man and are now tearing the spaceship and running away with pieces of it]

Sarah: "that's messed up, so they are really poor..."

Rose: [well, if they have to live in the ruinous depths of the floating city... I would assume they don't have many resources available, seeing as how they ate one of their own they are probably hungry too... oh]

Sarah: "what happened?"

Rose: [one of them stepped on the spikes and died, the others are eating it... anyway how are you feeling?]

Sarah: "Well... I think I still have a fever and everything hurts but... I'm... really hungry?"

Rose: [yeah as expected... eat then, mutating takes a lot from the body]

Sarah had stored the other lung and stomach in a plastic bag, she took them out along with some meat and the clear liquid.

She took her helmet off to start eating and noticed something strange, it wasn't as hard to breath anymore: "so magical..."

Rose: [Humans say this right? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...]

Sarah nodded: "indeed..." and started eating, this time being inside the spaceship and with somewhat clean air she could truly taste the chewy lungs, and the rubbery stomach that she cleaned first, everything was disgusting.

She finished both organs and felt bloated again, putting on her helmet and soon passing out again.

The hours passed again, and as she woke up she could hear even more metallic sounds from outside.

Rose: [oh you finally woke up]

Sarah: "what happened?"

Rose: [nothing much, a dozen lizardmen fought to death for the engine pieces, now a small war is ocurring outside between two gangs of lizardmen]

Sarah: "...isn't that dangerous?"

Rose: [yes... but only if they see you, they would probably eat you or sell you to the upper floors, luckily you should be able to breath more or less now]

Sarah took out her helmet and indeed, it still felp weird but breathing didn't hurt now, she was really hungry though, so she drank a mouthfull of the clear liquid and all the cured meat she was carrying, so she crossed over to the kitchen and ate some more, finally going back to her room and laying down again.

-- four hours later --

Sarah woke up finally feeling energetic, and also it was eerie silent outside.

Sarah: "what happened?"

Rose: [Nothing much, they all died, there's corpses outside, bring one in and continue eating]

Sarah came out and saw the bashed and cut corpses thrown in the waste mud: "ugh no way I'm eating these covered in feces... are there any on the other room?"

Rose: [sure, there are]

Sarah: "...that's a relief... I guess..."

Sarah went to the other room and found it mostly empty, except for corpses littering the floor, some younger and others older, but all of them showing signs of malnutrition.

Rose: [Chose a younger one, easier to carry and will have fewer toxins]

Sarah nodded and cut off the head and limbs of a scrawny younger lizardman and after letting it bleed took out most of the digestive system and dumped it all except the actual stomach, and smaller parts like the saliva glands, emptying its contents on the floor, inside the stomach the fingers of other lizardmen. She carried the stomach, the rest of the chest piece, and one leg back to the spaceship.

Sarah: "it seems cannibalism is a common occurrence for them... why leave so many corpses unguarded then..."

Rose: [not everyone does whatever it takes to survive, some people just die... if enough collectors die, the rest will just wait to starve to death... maybe another group will come and collect them all, we don't know so you should prepare and continue eating, your biggest advantage over them is your ability to mutate, but if word of treasure and meat goes around and thousands of them come... then you will most likely die... so you need to become stronger]

Sarah nodded and once again took off her helmet, eating first the stomach and then the lungs, followed by the vesicle, she noticed that her stomach capacity had indeed increased in such a short time, she wasn't full yet though, so she ate some finely cut leg muscle, and finally could feel her stomach couldn't take a single extra bite, and felt that heaviness that urged her to sleep once again as she laid down on the bed after closing off her helmet.

-- three hours later --

Sarah woke up to a blaring alarm on her wrist.

*Oxygen supply less than 1%*

Sarah quickly took out a new oxygen canister and replaced it.

*Oxygen supply at 89%*

Sarah: "great, they didn't even fill them completely..."

Rose: [I think you should be able to breathe for up to an hour out of your spacesuit now, though your bloodstream might still saturate...]

Sarah: "...I will eat the heart too then..."

Rose: [and the veins]

Sarah: "...and the veins...ugh..."

Sarah cut away as she broke the thoracic cavity open, exposing the organs inside the chest, and took out the hearth, carefully cutting off connective tissue and unconnecting the veins that were connected to the hearth, taking off a good part of the vascular system out of the body.

Sarah: "...it kinda looks like roots connected to a fleshy potato..."

Rose: [don't delay and eat it]

Sarah: "yes..."

Two days went by like this, picking a corpse up, eating the key organs and muscle tissue, along with some bone dust, and then resting on the bed to mutate. Sarah's body became slightly bigger and more muscular, with an slightly wider chest cavity and wider shoulders.

Sarah looked at herself in the mirror as she effortlesly breathed the heavy air: "that was disgusting... but worth it..."

Rose: [cool right?]

Sarah: "yes... mankind would advance enormously if we had technology like this..."

Rose: [Nah... the result of allowing sentient societies the use of this technology is cannibalism and anarchy in most cases...]

Sarah: "hmmm... well... humans wouldn't... yeah, better not I guess..."

Rose: [...there was an experiment like that many eons ago on a small planet with four million individuals in a world with jungles and oceans. Once their civilisation reached the space age, the system was activated..., the end result was a being that devoured his entire world, killing and eating all lifeforms on his planet... first he ate land animals, then unknown members of his society, then famous people with different traits... soon thousands had dissappeared, there were protest for answers but he laid low for some time devouring oceanic creatures, he became a huge monster that even filtered the smallest of organisms out of the water, a couple decades went by and the oceans became mostly barren, meanwhile on land most of the population were either cannibals or vegetarians hidden on the mountains and communities... but soon wars broke out, and at the height of the war, their "president" came back and devoured them all, with no more land animals to devour even the beast had to become vegetarian, but its greed was endless, it absorbed every single miscroorganism and nutrient from the soil, developing roots that extended all over the planet, a creature the size of a continent that enveloped its entire world... all organisms combined into one, slowly devouring the entire planet as it grew..., even developing spore pods ready to launch clones of itself to space...] Rose sighed [it disgusted the ancients what that creature had become, so from then that technology was banned its use by civilisations...]

Sarah: "...I... I won't end up devouring a world right?"

Rose: [...I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, that will depend on you, dont just eat everything you see and you should be fine]

Sarah: "What happened to that creature?"

Rose: [well... it's from before I was created, but according to my data.... its star was saturated with iron, causing it to collapse and blast to pieces the entire solar system]

Sarah: "Were there other experiments?"

Rose: [yes... but the temptation to eat their own was always too much, and there were always ambitious individuals that tried to take advantage of the rest or monopolized resources, so it was concluded a society can only exist when the individuals have a similar amount of power]

Sarah: "hmmm what about Erik then? he looked quite tall..."

Rose: [...well, Erik has truly improved his body, but don't worry, he did under my supervision]

Sarah: "Great... so a lab rat then?"

Rose: [No, not like-]

Sarah: "you told me your creators failed, why do you think you will succeed?"

Rose: [...my... creators watched from the side, I'm getting involved and caring for my friend... it's different]

Sarah: "okay but-"

Rose: [silent, someone is coming!]