FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The beach was never noisy, but it was always hauntingly absent of human sounds this early in the morning. Waves crashed onto the shore, slithering away only to come back a moment later. The wind breathed, full of salt, against the crumbly, grassy dunes and the welcoming cliff-arms that stretched around from the long, humped beach to hug the bay.

Thomas enjoyed it like this, wriggling his toes through the sand. The surfboard barely weighed down his left arm, caught against the side of his wetsuit-clad body. His friends joked it was his second skin, and they weren't wrong; the suit showed a lot of wear and tear, the body beneath clearly built by someone who enjoyed the outdoors. Staring out at the sea with equally blue-green eyes, he ran his free right hand over the closely-cropped blond fuzz he'd shaved just before heading out to the beach. He stepped forward, his wide feet leaving broad prints in the sand.

He was kind of disappointed: a big storm was supposed to pass by, and the winds should have made for some choice waves. While there were some, it wasn't anything particularly special. He wasn't about to waste the trip, though. His mind was all set to relax and indulge himself, his feet already sinking into wet sand, when his toe scraped up against something. It wasn't sharp enough to badly slice open his toes, but it did make Thomas wince and look down as the mysterious object bit slightly into his flesh.

The corner of what looked like a buried metal box stuck out of the sand. At first glance, Thomas thought it was rusty; most metal objects that had washed up on the beach were at least a little rusty, and he worried about having to get another tetanus shot. His eyes lingered on it, drawn in by the surprising lack of wear on the intricate patterns disappearing below the sand. Thomas' initial impressions were wrong: it wasn't rust, the box was just covered in copper or some other brownish metal, possibly even made of it.

Raising his head to look back out over the ocean, Thomas bit his lip, and looked down again. He wanted to just ignore the box, head out into the water; he argued with himself that he probably shouldn't leave something like this to be buried, or get exposed more. "Someone else might hurt themselves if it's left behind," he thought.

It wasn't entirely altruism that made Thomas decide to dig it up, even though the corner offered no estimate on how big the box was. There was something mesmerising about it, the way the water seemed to flow easily around the designs on the box. He plopped his board down. It wandered around his left ankle, the strap keeping it from going too far, like a block of pumice on incoming waves.

Quiet voices kept telling him to forget about it; that it might be some huge, buried thing that'd make him miss the waves. An unusual curiosity had started to fill his mind, and the job proved to be relatively simple: the box ended up being about the size of a Rubik's cube, and seemed to be made of metal that had remained surprisingly untarnished by having been in the sea.

Turning it about in his hand, Thomas studied it for a while, before scooping up his board in his free hand and jogging away from the water's edge. He could feel the sea calling to him, the box shaking in his hand as he returned to the car. Balancing the board, he fetched his keys and unlocked the car. Carefully placing the box inside, he ran back out to the waves.

As though his act of being a good Samaritan had been rewarded, the promised storm seemed to whip up the waves; Thomas grinned, his tiredness and the niggles of normal life fading as he rode his board. One particular one seemed to knock him over, pushing him deep into the sea's murky depths. For a moment, he wanted to open his mouth and dive deeper, a strange ringing in his ears. The madness passed mercifully quickly, the buoyancy of the board around his ankle returning him to sensible thinking as he broke through the surface.

Freed from the water, he decided that, despite the waves still looking good, it might be best to head back. "No sense in drowning myself like an idiot," he thought. Still, he enjoyed the feeling of the sand slipping between his toes as he headed up back to shore.

* * *

"Hit the beach this morning, Tom?"

Thomas nodded to his colleague. He'd gotten used to that over the last couple of days. Despite showering and applying deodorant regularly throughout the day, somehow it didn't matter. He smelled of the sea. People at work were noticing it more and more; he hoped that it wasn't going to be a problem.

The worst part of it was that it wasn't true. It wasn't like he hadn't wanted to. Every day he didn't go felt more and more uncomfortable, each hour clouding his mind with fantasies of freedom in the sea, but for the last week or so he'd been having nightmares that constantly plagued him, waking him up every few hours in a heavy sweat. He'd shower, to help cool himself down, but it didn't seem to matter.

As it was, it was a struggle to get up early enough to stumble into work, let alone hit the early morning waves. Instead, he'd had to sate himself going after work, spending every hour of light surfing or even just swimming in the ocean. There was something remarkable about the feeling that you were this tiny thing, almost completely in control of this much larger, powerful force that could kill you if you weren't careful. The oceans had been humanity's ancestor's home once, but many aeons had passed since then.

When he wasn't busy at the beach, he was at home, studying the box, usually as he ate. His diet had slowly been changing; he'd been eating more seafood lately: sushi, tinned fish of all kinds, even going so far as to snacking on seaweed. Anything else made him sick, and he'd quickly decided this weird fad would have to last. He couldn't afford to be both hungry and exhausted when he came in to work.

"Maybe that's why I stink of the sea?" he thought, glancing up at the slow-moving clock, the itch to be free welling up in him.

The box popped up in his mind. That always seemed to soothe Thomas: he thought of it as his mystery to solve, his gift from the sea. It was, or appeared to be, an ancient puzzle box of some kind. Its condition suggested it was probably a replica - nothing was going to last that long that well in the sea - but it still tantalised his mind.

Thomas hadn't realised he'd pulled it out of his pocket to toy with again before a cough from his supervisor had him blushing. Reluctantly, he shoved it away for later: he seemed to be on everyone's radar at the moment. He stank, apparently, even though everyone knew full well that he should be smelling of anything but the sea.

Half an hour later, he headed to the bathroom. Locking himself in the stall, he breathed out heavily, pulling off his clothing. Thomas scratched at his skin; red welts covering most of his body testified it wasn't the first time. He was probably overdoing it, he realised; there could have been anything in the water. Humans pumped all sorts of shit - sometimes literally - into the ocean; it always made him angry, but now whenever he thought of it, he raged. Scratching extra hard, he quickly dressed himself again, ignoring the erection he'd gotten from nothing until he could hide it away in his pants.

Thomas' work day crawled on. He tried his best to concentrate, but his heart and mind were clearly elsewhere. Something in him snapped: he still had about an hour to go, but he couldn't stay there any more. Waiting until his supervisor was out of sight, he got up to use the bathroom again. Instead, he walked down the emergency stairs, pushing out of the building.

Wanting to relish his ill-gotten freedom, he breathed in. All he could taste was the fumes and soot in the air. He coughed, blobs of phlegm spraying out of his mouth. His hand dipped into his pocket as he headed for his car.

The box almost seemed to squeeze him back.

* * *

The sea had been especially enjoyable this morning.

Thomas emerged from the water, flopping exhaustedly on the land, his wetsuit looking particularly ragged with how much time he'd been spending in the water. Looking up at the sky, he estimated the time. "Seems about right for lunch," he thought, his breath catching up with him as he let the waves lap around him.

He was surprised at how much he cared when he'd gotten fired. It wasn't all that much, but he still felt a twinge of shame when his boss called him into his office to yell at him. Thomas wasn't surprised: after that first day he'd left early, he found he had a taste for it. It gave him extra time at the beach, he rationalised, which he used to do what he always seemed to do: swimming around until he exhausted himself, then going back in once he'd rested, over and over until the moon was out and the sun wasn't. His work had been suffering too: as soon as he left the beach, he was back to trying to figure out what the box meant. It was well past midnight when he fell asleep; every morning he stumbled out of bed, grabbed on clothes and arrived at work well after he should have, even if he was keeping regular hours. There was no hiding the stink of the sea on him: even with the wetsuit on, he was bathing in it almost constantly.

Dragging himself up to his feet, Thomas rubbed at his head. He hadn't been shaving, and was a little surprised his beard wasn't growing back. His hair stayed shorter too, though it was more than that. He felt a bald patch growing over the last couple of days.

Wandering over to his car, he slumped in the seat, resting the box on his wet crotch. The car smelled of the sea too: he stopped drying off intentionally, and the water had soaked through into the seating. The musky smell of mould touched his nose, but Thomas couldn't really care. Grabbing one of the many bottles of water he had lying in the back seat, he poured the fresh water into his mouth. It ran over him, warm from being in the car for hours, but he didn't mind.

Hungrily, he reached into the chiller. Thomas had to be careful with money now, so he had had to give up sushi and rely on the tinned fish he'd bought in bulk. His tongue waggled around the tin as he sucked up every last morsel of tuna in the can, throwing onto the passenger's side floor. Another can disappeared down his mouth, his teeth starting to throb as they clinked up against the can. He'd lost interest in brushing his teeth, but seemed able to cope with the pain that seemed to spring up quickly.

Finally satisfied, he moaned, unzipping the swimsuit. It was getting uncomfortable again, and was pleased to let himself out. "I'm kind of like a canned fish," he thought, laughing as he felt his hard cock spring out. Even over the salt covering him and washing over him in the air, he could smell a particular kind of salty fluid that he must have been leaking for a bit. The tip of his throbbing cock glistened as it poked out of the unzipped wetsuit.

Thomas felt his body almost liquefy, pouring down the seat. A deep groan crawled out of his mouth, as his dick quivered on its own accord, his balls throbbing and full. He'd been so caught up with things, he barely remembered the last time he had gone out, and hadn't jerked off for a week. Now he seemed to have gone beyond his body's limits.

He didn't have to touch himself. His cock shuddered unaided, a glistening eruption of pre-cum oozing over his throbbing, purple head. It was almost aching with how hard he became so quickly. Whatever invisible spirit was coaxing him like a lover, he was pleased to have it, even though it seemed to be draining the energy he'd just recovered. His fluids poured out of him, the feeling pleasant.

The base of his shaft scraped against the box, which seemed pleasantly warm, even more than he'd expect from having kept it in the car. Thomas' shaft rubbed up against it as he generally gyrated on the seat. The box seemed to help. Grunts grew in his throat. Suddenly, the fluids pouring out of his shaft turned thick and creamy, his eyes growing heavy as he sank down into the cushions as his cum gushed out of him.

* * *

Thomas was swimming through the water when he heard his wetsuit tear.

That hadn't surprised him too much: he'd been wearing it more or less constantly for what felt like forever. Pushing his finger into the hole, he felt the rough, hairless skin poking underneath. That hadn't been much of a surprise either. His bald patch had grown every day.

He had watched this happening in the mirror: Thomas didn't notice the changes until he caught himself in the rear-view mirror. Not only was he almost completely bald, but his eyebrows were gone, too. The blackness in his eyes seem to make them swell and bulge. His ugly, deformed nose looked like it was horribly broken and set badly, more and more flesh being nibbled away. The mouth was the worst: his lips were blue - something he wasn't sure was because of the water or the transformations - and his teeth were razor sharp.

The changes weren't confined to his head, although most of the daylight hours he spent sleeping or out in the water and they happened underneath the wetsuit for the most part. The only time he really saw himself was just before he slipped into the back seat of his car to rest. The drive home became less frequent, and it just made sense.

The skin on his body had toughened; that was clear because his fingers no longer pruned when he slipped up out of the beach. His body hair was mostly gone, too, sloughing off every time he slipped out of the wetsuit like a strange eel. Although his body felt strong, there was an undercurrent of weakness too. He chalked that up to being exhausted. Driving away was proving costly since he'd lost his job.

Unzipping the wetsuit, he shuddered as the cold water washed up against his skin. Then he grinned: one part of the changes Thomas had known was to his cock. His shaft loved the sea. He seemed to always get aroused when he went out - it was one of the reasons why he'd given up on surfing and just stuck to swimming - and whenever he went far enough out that he felt he could avoid being noticed, he would open the front of his suit and allow his big cock to dangle out, sliding through the water and adding to the saltiness. Nobody could ignore how big that bulge had gotten, and whenever it entered the water, it was almost like constant edgings and orgasms as the sea caressed him like a lover.

Bobbing in the water, he let his momentary concerns wash away. Although his cock never seemed to get hard, it always seemed more than capable of producing a steady stream of pleasure and fluids. Thomas didn't care if he was pissing or something closer to fucking: whatever it was felt as good as sex, so he'd taken to doing it every day.

Diving down, he felt the sea drag along his exposed length. Thomas' nipples hardened; they seemed to be shrinking, as were a lot of things that didn't seem necessary. His fingers and toes had shortened; he could tell by how hard gripping things was becoming. He had started to lose his fingernails and toenails, and replacements didn't seem like they would be growing in any time soon. Luckily, the sting caused by the salt water on the exposed flesh was small, and after a few days the protruding digit would callous over with the new skin, as he liked to call it.

Grunting, Thomas felt a surge: diving down, he felt the sticky oiliness of his seed slide across his face. He darted out his tongue. This part of the sea tasted like him now, and would for a few brief moments before being churned up. Something about releasing his fluids, adding himself to the sea felt natural. Letting his limbs go limp, he let the ocean carry him around. Drifting was very enjoyable, and swimming was almost as easy as walking. Sometimes after he orgasmed, it felt like he could swim to the horizon.

Thomas moaned, his hands rubbing up against his neck. "When did I get these welts?" he thought.

* * *

Thomas bolted awake; his heart pounding in his chest. Flicking on the light in his car, he squinted out, looking for what had made that noise. His eyes seemed large and dark, the light catching on them as he scanned the stormy night sky.

Foolishness hadn't been entirely in Thomas' nature, but he had become very protective of his car - or rather, the box he kept inside it - and his blood pulsed at the thought of someone being out there. Rubbing his bald head with his sticky hands, he pulled himself up, sliding his strangely wobbly legs out of the front of the car.

Becoming unemployed seemed like a distant memory; even the sting of being kicked out of his home felt like nothing. His belongings had either been confiscated to pay back his rent, or had been dumped. Taking one look at the flotsam and jetsam of his life away from the sea, he drove away with barely a thought. He had all he needed: the sea, and the box. His car hadn't moved for over a week now, and he'd had to ration when he turned on the engine with the petrol beginning to run low. He didn't seem to need the heat lately, which was fine.

With his back hunched over, he lumbered around the car, large black eyes scanning the slightly-lit night sky around the car. Fragments of his wetsuit still clung to his body where his body had begun to swell underneath, stretching the worn material past the point. It now had no crotch; Thomas let his constantly-swollen, dripping cock dangle free, the engorged flesh hanging down to his knees. The light caught the fluid draining out of his grotesquely huge cock. His nostrils, standing out of his warped short nose, seemed to flap open and close. The scent of blood was in the air.

Thomas saw the source of the sound had startled him. His tongue slipped across the sharp, ragged teeth that filled his mouth. An unfortunate seagull had struck his car in the dark, flapping uselessly in front of it.

A sharp hunger pang filled his empty stomach. The ravenous hunger he felt constantly nowadays had made its way through his stores of fish. He had taken to fishing, foraging, and drinking from the sea. He knew the last should be a stupid idea, but it didn't seem to affect him any more: the salt soothed his throat, especially when he coughed up the huge blobs of phlegm that had crept into his lungs over the last couple of nights.

Thomas was becoming more active at night now: the sun hurt his eyes and burned his paling flesh, and the risk of being seen seemed to repulse him. Even though the beach wasn't really visited all that much, it just felt wrong for anyone to see him. His body throbbed, and suddenly he felt his mind cloud over for a moment.

Feathers and blood were the only thing that remained.

After eating, the pale moon shimmered in the ocean. Feeling his sphincter quiver, he wobbled his way to the ocean; Thomas's knees felt almost gelatinous, which made his steps awkward. He heard a tear, feeling the cool sea air brush up against more exposed skin as more of his wetsuit crumbled off of him. Sagging down on the beach, he wriggled across the sand; he enjoyed the feeling of the grains roughly sliding over his cock as it dragged along, his lower body limp as his arms pulled him into the water.

What was even better was entering the water. Thomas' legs were still strong, despite the weakening of his bones, and in the water he seemed to be able to move faster than ever. His hands pulled him down, diving into the dark night waters like a shimmering streak under the dull light of the moon. He could stay there for almost an hour until his lungs began to burn and he was forced to find his way to the surface. He never lost his way: this area was his home now, and he new it intimately.

He still felt hungry. Flexing his bulging shoulders, he pulsed through the dark waters. Swimming far from shore, almost tirelessly for hours, he found a school of fish that had yet to be claimed by the fisherman's net.

When he was done, they never would be.

* * *

Grasping the box in between the sphincter nestled between the thick lower tentacles growing out of the base of his torso, Thomas used his weight to slam the car door open. He didn't care about it now; he had meant to abandon it last night, but a group of drunken revellers had claimed the beach as their own that night. They hadn't even noticed him, bobbing out in the waves. It had decided his mind clearly: the box needed to be with him.

That's what the voice had been telling him.

It called to him constantly now, the pull unbearable. Grasping the rocks ably, he pulled himself down to the beach. It was still warm from the day, which he found enjoyable. The third tentacle, which was in between the other two, was now almost as long, but it was his favourite. His arms flopped around him: he was completely bare now, the last of his wetsuit disappearing unnoticed during one of the many long hunts he made in the sea for food.

The warped, inhuman ends to his arms dug into the sand, pulling him along. The nubs of what remained of his fingers felt the coarse grains run over them. The box he'd stored in his ass throbbed, the voice calling him amplified through it like a speaker. It made his body tingle. Slime oozed form the tip of his tentacle-cock, leaving a slimy trail behind him as he pulled himself over the warm sand.

Welcoming him, the heavy wave pulled him into the waters. He felt a twinge of sadness, and turned his noseless, lipless, inhuman face one last time towards the shore that had been his home, before his body disappeared beneath the surface for what he sombrely felt was the last time. Bulging black eyes, incapable of tears, instead turned his mind to more practical things: the hunting of prey as he searched the boundless waters for the voice that beckoned him.

Every passing day had improved his ability to stalk and hunt prey. The more he practised, the better he got. New skills seemed to come unbidden to his mind: he could shift his body more easily now, and had started playing around with the colours of his flesh. It was just in time, for his changing body ached constantly for more and more food. His hunts drove him deeper, hunting for fish humans ignored in their trawling.

For over a day he had hunted before he realised he had not gone to the surface. His gills seemed adept at providing him with whatever oxygen he needed, which was a dull shock. Swimming up closer to the surface, he turned his black eye towards the sky, the stars shimmering as he glanced up through the water. The hunger grabbed at him, and he plunged down once more towards the depths.

Another day passed, and another; every moment spend hunting down anything that moved, his tentacles grasping at it, bringing the prey to the short beak protruding from his mouth. Once there, there was no escape.

A strange shudder passed through his body, another need resurfacing in him. Something that felt alien to him seemed to be inside him, and the voice whispered to him that this would help to hasten it. Using the tips of four of his tentacles, he rubbed at different spots along the fifth one, the one with the spoon shape on the end. The pleasure of touching it at this moment made it clear that this was exactly what he should be doing. It waggled through the water, the fluids in his body rushing and pumping faster and faster.

Thomas' body flowed almost gracefully through the water, circling around as he felt the water slide across his smooth body. The strong muscles of his body had become almost aerodynamic, his head and neck one smooth shape. The firm human muscles had stretched and grown; he was stronger now, he knew that, but it was less prominent.

That would come soon, he knew; the changes were already happening to him.

It seemed to excite him, the constant change he felt had gone past the pain and bother and was now exquisite. Making a final spin, his shaft unleashed a heavy cloud of white, spore-like fluid into the churning waters around him.

* * *

He was finding it harder to remember things.

Thomas' mind thought about it, the shark struggling futilely in his powerful grip. He seemed to remember a lot about sharks that was useful, but those parts of him seemed to have become streamlined, almost instinctual, to the point he couldn't articulate or conceptualise them in his head. A dull aching in his mind reminded him that the creature, its writhing becoming less frantic as it tired itself out, should have been massive; as it was, he was really not concentrating too hard on the creature. It'd make a good meal that would last him for a few hours, certainly, but once it was in the tangled network of tentacles, it was a foregone conclusion.

Sliding the side of the shark against his beak, he started to eat, trying to recall the things he seemed to be forgetting. He remembered having another shape, but the change between that one and this one had taken so long that he could really remember what he had looked like originally. He remembered doing things, figures and shadows mostly, but they all seemed to blur the longer he thought about them.

Some things hadn't quite faded. He remembered his name, the sight and sound of it, but it felt rather pointless now as nobody used it; even the voice that continued to call him in his head didn't use it. He could vividly remember the beach that he had loved, which had somehow become his second birthing spot. The box - currently back into its usual spot wedged in his sphincter - was another thing; the only physical memento of the time before. He had gotten so accustomed to his tentacles now that, quite often, he would fiddle with it using two of the tentacles as the rest of him swum along.

That became easier when his other tentacles had grown in: the sixth had been a surprised, but he now sported eight of various lengths. His body, the slowly-reshaping gelatinous blob, had shifted two of them down where their other three brethren were, leaving his head and torso an aerodynamic missile of flesh.

Or a huge living cock, pulsing its way through the sea.

Thomas "giggled"; that is, his mind felt light and confused, like it would have if he'd seen or heard something funny before. Humour was something he felt, but couldn't quite remember. It was a human emotion: humanity was something that was becoming more nebulous and unreal with each passing day.

A shadow passed overhead; he only came this close to the surface to hunt - he found the cooler water more to his liking - but he had seen the shapes moving. They were large, like a big shark or a whale; some were much larger, while others were surprisingly tiny. He'd been curious about them at first, but they had no sense of flesh about them: they didn't hurt him, and didn't seem to be tasty, and so he mostly pushed them to the background.

Swimming away, he felt the voice speaking louder now. He trembled, a shudder sliding over his body. When the voice talked to him, his mind went fuzzy; it was a strange feeling, but he thought he liked it. His body certainly did; he felt his "special" tentacle become immensely sensitive, making his attempt at eating with it somewhat awkward. The corpse of the shark dropped out of his grip, disappearing into the inky deep where he usually resided. Already, the scavengers had noticed it and were after it.

He didn't particularly care. The dance had begun again. Thoughts clouded over, all but the most primitive ones designed to keep him alive. He swirled around in the water, his tentacles sliding over one another as the whispers filled his mind. Deep shudders quaked his body, spots of colours and lights peppering over his body as he fell into an orgasmic frenzy.

The sea slowly clouded with his fluids. The dance would go on for many moments before the voice left him spent.

* * *

The huge Speaker was asleep.

He had swum and hunted for as long as he could remember - which admittedly wasn't long - and the search had taken him far below the surface. The light that he knew shone from above the water did not reach here; down here, the creatures created their own if they needed it. Creatures such as the leviathan.

For what felt like a long time, he had outsized everything he had run up against: the hunts now were a mere formality, for he could open his mouth and a school of tiny fish would fill his belly. Sometimes there would be a larger creature, but he overpowered them with one tentacle now. It didn't hurt that he seemed to have developed even more abilities: he could taste the venom in the larger creatures he hunted, feel the crackle of energy as his body shocked his prey. Except for the voice, he felt like the king of the sea.

Then he had found the Speaker of the Voice, and knew that to be false.

Down in the depths, in a warm crevasse that, by all rights, should have teemed with life, he had felt its presence. Flexing his body and fanning out his tentacles, he shimmered down the hole. Green light enveloped him as he slunk down into the massive hidden cavern. The Speaker could dwarf a leviathan. It certainly dwarfed him; one of the hands could have reached its clawed grip around him and, with one clench of the giant muscles, crush the light out of him.

The voice had grown, washing over him. There was no choice in the matter for him: he had to obey, and knew exactly what to do. One tentacle gripped tightly on to the box, presenting it before the sleeping undersea giant. Even looking at it now sent ripples of energy through him, and his excitement caused a cloud of seed to further murk up the water around him. Presenting the return of the item he knew had been lost, he lowered it gently into the outstretched hand.

The Speaker opened his eyes.

He knew insanity then: memories of Thomas flooded back into him, his memories of the surface world, the discovery of the box, and the slow corruption of his body, all to bring the box back for this giant creature. Unable to cope with how alien he had become, he pleaded for those thoughts to be taken away.

When the Speaker closed his eyes, those thoughts drained away, and a sense of keen bliss. He was only too happy now. The water clouded around him as the insanity clung to him, sending him into the throes of ecstasy. Thinking of only one way to thank the Speaker for his timely gift, he swum along the great slime- and silt-covered body, hunting for something new.

He found it: the Speaker's monstrous breeding tentacle was bigger than his body, jutting out of his body and gently swaying with the water's currents. His tentacles wrapped around the tip, his own breeding tentacle gently probing for the opening as the rest began to massage the skin on the surface.

As though bidden, he let his tentacles inject their poison into the Speaker. The shaft that he pleasured released a thick spray of oil that soaked into him, threatening to untangle his grip, but he had dealt with slippery creatures before, and this provided him with the knowledge that he needed. Sliding around, he slowly worked his breeding tentacle inside the opening that had disgorged the oil, reaching inside the Speaker to coax out even more.

His beak opened, the taste of the Speaker entering his body; it further clouded his mind as he gyrated around, tentacles slipping over one another as he released his own fluids to mingle with those pouring out over his body.

That's when he learned that he wasn't alone.

Another like him appeared: a jutting piece of rock seemed to transform in the corner of his eye. The other kraken took up a place on the Speaker's shaft; two pairs of tentacles touched. More kraken, and even more exotic creatures, emerged from the shadows and their camouflage. Tentacles and strange limbs intertwined to cover the shaft of the Speaker whom, he knew, had summoned them all down here to be servants to tend to him. They would be here for the eternity that would pass before the Speaker was awakened.

He was growing; it made sense, as he was smaller than the others. His body seemed to feast on the Speaker's fluids, as though he still hadn't been enough of the creature he needed to become. He felt his tentacle swell, his hungry tentacle plugging up the shaft as it drank up the offered juices, before disgorging some of his own. Continuing to swap fluids with the Speaker, he felt the others begin to add theirs to the mix. The sea blurred around his eyes; his long head throbbed, like the top of the shaft on which he writhed.

Fully grown, he felt a hot throb push him off, the True Seed of the Speaker had been planted in him now. The others came off with him, their bodies growing closer to one another as the servants took pleasure in one another. He felt a tentacle slide into him, hot sperm - or whatever it was that they made now - entering his body. New memories flooded his mind; memories of the long wait for their master to awaken. He did the same, sharing his knowledge with them. Brilliant colours and pulses of light, some even incomprehensible to any other creature, flickered across the surface of their skin.

The orgy continued, as it always had when a new servant arrived, for a long time. They had an eternity to wait, every new servant another notch before they reclaimed the world. It was a pleasing initiation for all who partook it. The worries of the finite disappeared: the skills of the hunt that had been honed faded quickly from his mind, overwhelmed by the Waiting.

Unwatched by the servants, the box rose off of the Speaker's hand where the latest servant had left it. Carried by the warm turbulence, it slowly bounced out of the cavern, floating upwards on a new mission. It would take many years to even reach the surface, even more to make its way to land. It had laid buried for centuries before, waiting for one who belonged to the sea to discover it and return to the true home with the rest of the Speaker's servants.