{"sf1_id":868140,"sf2_id":null,"title":"An Inner Impulse Rent the Veil: Movement One","author":"Aux Chiens","words":7118,"posted_at":"2015-06-01T11:17:00.000Z","tags":["Abdomen","Body Horror","Cerci","Griffinfly","Horror","Human","Insect","M/M","Male","Meganeura","Skin ripping","Transformation","Zoophilia","blood","chitin","dragonfly","gross","prehistoric"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/868140-an-inner-impulse-rent-the-veil-movement-one","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/868140","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=868140\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"An Inner Impulse\nRent the VeilMovement One\n             We lead two lives, and the half\nof our soul is madness, and half heaven is lit by a black sun. I say I am a\nman, but who is the other that hides in me?\"_________ \nArthur\nMachen, Holy Terrors\n\n            The atheist will tell you\nthere is no god, the materialist will tell you there is nothing more than what\ncan be observed.\n            They are both wrong - but no\nfault of their own, they do not consciously know why.\n            Not yet.\n            But it is not hard to guess,\nthough- the forest will do that for you.\n            The forest is sufficient unto\nitself.\n            In the forest you find\nyourself, up in the Appalachians with its pines that spread out to nigh-blind\nthe eye, out West in the Rockies too, out far into California with the\nredwoods, hug them, clutch them, these trees, you will find yourself, you will\nbe who you want to be, for the Earth birthed you but it fathered you also, it\nis both genders and it is brutal, the worst aspects of male and female,\nabusive, eugenic, you will die being beaten relentlessly by your Fathermother\nand you will cry out its name in love and lust even as it kills you.\n            Find yourself - lose yourself.\n            Every race, on every\ncontinent, came out of the forest and saw the Sun and worshipped it: they had\ngrown miserable in the all-day shade, sleepless from the gleam-eyes of the\nstalking creatures in the canopies that had no name, and then out came the Sun\nwith its light and its banishment of shadows and they worshipped it, no matter\nwhere, you fell to your knees, naked ape, ugly primate, you worshipped the\nSkyfire, that humdrum star that Sagan sometimes frowned, sometimes smiled at.\n            Drake Le Carde was a part of\nthat forest. \n            Even in the pavement plains\nand concrete debauchery of this region of the country there is still nature and\nthere are still dark thoughts that lurk in dark minds - Central Florida,\nhistory-haunted, still the traditional South, slaves died down here, their brown-skinned\nbodies contorted, like beautiful Daphne in faraway myth, into the twist-trunk\ncypress, the spindly-tentacle live oaks.\n            Drake - what an awful name, awful because it was appropriate,\nterrifyingly appropriate, for what had happed to him. And Le Carde - that disgusting French flourish that lingered in the air\nlike the mist from virgin rivers that his ancestors who joined Champlain first\nsaw, far to the north, an unforgotten time.\n            But this was foolishness - the\nfancy of poets, and a man of science had no need to employ a bard.\n            Drake was a man, just a man, fit\nand lithe from years of his enthusiasm for marathons and running, but as\nrevealed by his salt-and-pepper beard he was an old man by many, if not all,\nstretches of the word - barely. This\nwas a piece of trivia hidden from anyone who saw him...his companions with him\nknew, but they were a precious, an elite, just how barely he was - a man.\n            They were riding in his SUV, a\nnewish Ford Explorer - he and three others, graduate students of his, because\nin the real world, the seen world of\nwhat one knows, one expects, he was a professor of Paleobiology at the University\nof Florida, Gainesville, a Southern city, it used to be segregated, you know. \n            It sickened him - America, the\nworld sickened him but the South sickened him especially so.\n            In the real world - the world\nthat one sees - he was divorced, from\na woman who was a scientist herself, a cardiac researcher who knew the\nintricacies of all human hearts except, it seemed, her own. They had no\nchildren - between the two of them.\n            He was respected and awarded\nand he was called upon nationally, at times internationally, in the study of\nthe buzzing and flying and creeping things that lived on the surface of the\nEarth in literally antediluvian ages - his specialty, his passion, some said\nrightly his obsession, was the\ncrowning glory of the prehistoric insects, Odonatoptera...the Griffinflies, with\ntheir lithe, beautiful, near-perfect existence of morphology and reproduction.\n            Griffinflies went extinct\nmillions of years ago - no need to bore with how many millions - but ah, that is false, utterly false, for they,\nas humans, as every animal, merely evolved,\nand not into dragonflies as so goes the narrative, for that is partially, but\nnot entirely true.\n            Griffinflies - like dragonflies, named for majestic mythical\nbeasts. Griffinflies had escaped man's notice because they had evolved in\nstrict, hidden isolation into something approaching that mythic ideal -\nsomething, perhaps, even divine.\n            And that was terrible wasn't\nit? For him to think of anything, as a scientist, to be godly, as supernatural!\n\n            But they did not know - what\nhe knew.\n            He was a scientist and he,\nonce, was an atheist and a materialist but that was, by his own retrospective\nadmittance, an extreme folly - a scientist should be agnostic to all things, to\neven the weirdest and the strangest, because the world is weird and strange,\nand reality is mere consensus amongst\nfragile human psyches.\n            He knew this now - he, and the\nthree others with him.\n            His graduate students were his\nfamily, outside of the family he never had and outside of the family they,\nthemselves, either had lost or had wished to forget: Rick, brown hair to his\nshoulders, burly, strong, tastefully hirsute, only twenty-two but already\noverwhelmingly a man; Chase, the\nquiet one, cleanshaven but rugged and built and sturdy, from his Downeaster\nYankee blood, twenty-three, his pale skin eternally draped in his favorite\nhoodie, napping softly; Jason, his favorite although he was not supposed to\nhave one, the eldest at twenty-six, casting to the world a perpetually soulful\ngaze which he now directed out the window, tall and fully bearded, though he\nwas outwardly confident his very soul, Drake knew, struggled mightily for the\nlost precepts of the religion that he had reluctantly left behind...\n            There could have been others,\nDrake thought, but only the four of them, himself included, remained.        There were so many excellent possible\nadditions that never came to pass - Drake remembered one of them, Andrew, of a\nstoried family from both of the Virginias, who had dazzled the department with\nhis work ethic and his knowledge and gotten accepted, fully funded, but his\nvocation to academe was not as serious as his vocation to his husband and to\nhis brother, he had a family already, and the relationship he and Drake shared\nwas strictly professional.\n                He, Andrew, would have been\nmagnificent - but some are not ready, unprepared to cast off what they had in\nthis world and see how it truly was with cleansed eyes. Drake was leaving the\ndepartment and Andrew would be a star pupil for someone else.\n                The four of them had passed\nmost of this car ride from Gainesville to their destination, Ocala National\nForest, in quiet, respectful silence - there was a tension, an excitement\nbetween them that eluded mere description or words, they were all waiting and\ncouldn't hardly wait. \n                Drake's stomach - his\nailment, ultimate proof of his reality, the obscene blessing to his terrified\nand terrifying worldview, what he saw and felt - was full, it was always full,\nand lately noticeably bloated besides...it made his tight, lithe physique look\noff, but clothes easily, thankfully, covered it.\n                He shifted in his seat,\neyes on the road, giving away nothing - for most of this week, part of the\nlast, and tonight very keenly, it was uncomfortably\nfull. \n                The time, he realized,\nwould be soon. The pile of papers, wrapped tastefully in binders, was proof of\nthat - as much as Drake himself was.\n                At last they arrived at\ntheir chosen campsite and it was dark already so Drake prepared a campfire. His\ngraduate students - Rick, Chase, Jason - after stretching from the long car\nride, did all the remainder of the work, in relative silence, with some brief\nworded instructions to one another, they set up the pair of the tents, brought\nout the food, arranged the sleeping bags.\n                Drake was not dressed for\nthe weather and for June in Florida he looked very odd indeed - a track jacket\nwith the colors and logo of the Canadian national soccer team, and nylon\njogging pants to near-match - and none of the others seemed really concerned\nwith the weather either, based on their attire: Jason wore jeans and a thick\ncotton t-shirt; Chase in, of course, his favorite hoodie, plain black with Hollister stitched across the front.\nOnly Rick was dressed for hiking - and indeed, for Florida in the summer.\n                The campsite itself was\nhighly secluded, and excellently private - this time of year, early summer, it\nwas still bursting with hallucinogenic viridescence, a green so rich and pure\nthat it could scarcely to be believed it was Earthly at all, but a piece, however\nsmall, of Eden itself. \n                In the daylight - now it\nwas night and the forest was black, blacker than the sky, choked with palmettos\nthat were in turn dwarfed by towering long-leaf pines and decades-old oaks. \n                Just beyond the trees,\nvisible through them in fact by a small footpath, was a large lake - it had a\nname and Drake knew it well, but his mind was elsewhere...\n                There was a mild\nconversation between Chase and Rick as they worked, a joke between them, about\nbeing extra careful, and not getting lost - there was a news story about a man\nwho had disappeared without a trace in the North Carolina mountains, although\nthey found his Jeep and his discarded clothes, and although it was a tragedy\nRick and Chase had turned it into a joke. \n                Drake frowned at their\ngallows humor, and their chuckles ceased into embarrassed smiles.\n                Jason had stayed close by\nhim, clingy in a way Drake could not decide whether he liked or disliked, those\nsoulful, gem-like brown eyes, now in the firelight a pair of glimmering\ncitrines, would glance at him, and twice his lips parted as though he was about\nto ask a question, the question they both knew he wanted to ask...but he never\ndid.\n                When he turned away to\nretrieve something Drake felt his heart clench in his chest - a suppressed feeling\nthat threatened to burst at any moment, forbidden, labyrinthine and complex\nonly because it had been allowed to fester for so long.\n                Out came the bear-proof\ncanisters with that evening's meal - some chips, an apple for Drake so he could\nget his required sugar, washed down with water in brightly-colored Camelbaks,\nsomething light, this was ostensibly an overnight stay and it was late already,\nbut it seemed perfunctory, even fake, the motions that one goes through, the\nworld could be ending tomorrow and you are still planning for next week.\n                It was not lost on Drake,\nwho scanned the area - so private, so secluded amidst the forest - enrobed and\nenshrined, they seemed to be, in their flattened and settled place by the\nleering shadows...he felt an uncomfortable, wistful sadness. \n                In the distance there was a\nwild flash of heat-lightning - all around them was the infinite symphony of the\nnight-insects. Drake strained his ears, pacing around the campsite...one of them\nshould have been singing by now. One of them - a special one. Where was he?\n                ...he. He did not have a name but he was certain his existence was,\nfor Drake, a truth, a truth that, like religion, must be revealed but never\nowned, never possessed, as much as he,\nnameless he, possessed him.\n                It was now night, the dusk\nwas full and ripe as a black-splattered fruit that fell to Earth - the silence\nwas unbearable, and he heard his stomach make a noise, faint but perceptible...a\nthreat, at first, but as Drake paused, away from the others, to consider it -\nperhaps, instead, it was a promise.\n                He paced back to the\ncampfire, calling ahead:\n                \"Alright fellas, let's\nhave a talk.\"\n                Chase and Rick, sitting\ntogether, sharing a bag of chips and chatting in a low voice, snapped their\nheads at attention to him - from the shadows next the car, with the same\ndoleful stare, appeared Jason.\n                \"Hey Professor,\"\nChase said cheerfully. \"You been, uh - you been real quiet this whole\ntrip.\"\n                \"Yeah sorry I - slept\non the way here,\" Rick added. \"Up late getting all the notes you\nneeded.\"\n                \"I read them this\nmorning - they were good.\" Drake sighed. \"I know I've seemed -\npreoccupied this time, and I apologize for that. I thank you - all three--\"\nHe shot a glance at Jason, who nodded slightly. \"--for your patience. It\nhasn't been easy doing...what we've done.\"\n                \"It's been fun,\"\nRick answered - before conceding with a half-shrug: \"For the most\npart.\"\n                \"The only thing,\nuh--\" Chase stopped. \"I can be honest, right?\"\n                \"Absolutely,\nChase,\" Drake replied, trying to smile - his stomach cramped and he\nexpertly suppressed whatever pain it could have brought to his face. \"Ab -\nsolutely.\"\n                \"Well um...\" Chase\nset the bag of chips down next to him. \"It's just been a - it hasn't been\neasy working in secret like we do.\"\n                \"And I understand\nthat,\" Drake said with another nod.\n                \"But we're almost\ndone, right?\" asked Rick, leaning forward some. \"We can publish this\nsoon? So you said you were retiring...\"\n                A long, uncomfortable\nsilence proceeded Rick's question - Drake stared at him, his student, his\npupil, nearly a son to him, before lifting his eyes above him, into the\nwoods...he strained his ears once more, but could not hear what he needed to...\n                He shut his eyes. \n                \"Fellas - I don't know\nhow to tell you this - but we can't publish it - we can't go public.\"\n                Chase's mouth fell open in\nshock. \"Pro - Professor, you can't--!\"\n                Rick squinted in disbelief.\n\"Sir, come on you can't be\nserious! After all the work - the pain--\"\n                Drake could hear the\ndisappointment in their voices - he nearly lost his nerve. \n                But then Jason spoke up:\n\"If he says we can't go public, we can't go public, that's just how it\nis.\" \n                The two younger students\nlooked up to their older companion in surprise - Jason had been always been\ntaciturn but lately he had barely spoken a word, it seemed like it had been a\nfull month before either of them had heard his voice.\n                At Jason's words Drake felt\nthe same tightness in his chest, as before, but dismissed it - continuing ahead\nwith the bad news.\n                \"Listen - fellas,\nlisten. I know you're disappointed, I know - I know that's not what you wanted\nto hear. But--\" He hesitated. \"There are very - very good reasons we\ncannot go public - ever.\"\n                \"Ever?\" Rick\nrepeated.\n                \"No - you see--\"\nHe took a deep breath - four decades of teaching, studying, research, papers,\npresentations, awards...they could not aid him now, this was the most difficult\nthing, however improbably, he had ever had to face. When I approached you - last\nyear and told you that there was a species of Meganeura still living, still out here in this particular region of\nFlorida, and I brought back wing samples that had been shed - and so on - but\nthe reason I kept it to my graduate students, not to my department not - to my\nsuperiors or - scientific journals or anything\nof that nature...\" He paused - all three pairs of eyes were on him,\nintent. \"Was because that, amongst them, there is - a king, an elder,\nalpha, whatever you wish to call it - I think we all agreed amongst ourselves\nthe nomenclature was king...and this - king - forcefully uh - mated with\nme.\"\n                His students nodded - it\nwas still a repellent, even incredible story, but they had heard it before, and\nthey knew, each of them, that it was true. His voice was calm, and sometimes it\nbroke off and he would have to start again, as though reality itself impinged\non him trying to speak.\n                \"And this species -\nhas spermatozoa that is highly mutagenic to human DNA - which, if you'd had\nsuggested such a thing to me two years ago, I would laughed you out of my\noffice - that's fiction, comic books, that's not--\" The absolute irony of\nwhat he was about to say hit him, hard, and sighed as he finished the sentence:\n\"--science.\"\n                Again his students nodded -\nJason glanced away, shifting where he stood, as if something had suddenly made\nhim uncomfortable. \n                \"But--\" Drake began\nagain slowly. \"It's true. We all saw it - we all agreed to study ourselves\nwith different doses of the semen collected from male specimens - our trips out\nhere - based on the first...dose...\"\nHe frowned at his own word. \"Given to me. Rick was the control, who\nreceived no dose...\" Rick nodded at the mention of his name, and Drake moved\nto the other two in succession as he continued: \"...followed by Chase, and\nthen Jason, who received progressively higher doses.\" He cleared his\nthroat. \"Inserted anally.\"\n                Chase gave a mirthless\nsniff, and a half-smile - Jason folded his arms, eyes drifting into the fire\nand yet somewhere beyond it.\n                He paused yet again, the\ncrackle of the campfire and the sound of the crickets, without the loudest\ntrilling voice that should have been amongst them, seemed to become louder in\nDrake's ears - the eyes of his students did not waver and it gave him a needed\nounce of strength to continue.\n                \"We tracked - what\nhappened to our bodies - which proved for some of you an extra challenge\nbecause of privacy, I understand - and I understand the fear--\" At the very\nword his own fear chilled him, a spare moment that he powered through with a\nshaky sigh. \"--that we, as a group, had to deal with - after all they are\nour own bodies, and we were lucky, very lucky, that none of us were sick or\ninjured and required to be looked at by a doctor...\" He allowed himself a\nself-effacing chuckle. \"In my - push to do this, that was an oversight I\nhad overlooked.\"\n                Now he moistened his lips,\nand swallowed hard.\n                \"What I did - I know,\nwas highly unethical. It ran contrary to everything I have been taught and\nsurely everything that was taught to you - in some cases taught to you by me. To do this in secret - to -\nwillingly obfuscate findings from the university to advance our own personal\nagenda and interests...\" He shook his head. \"It's a scandal waiting to\nhappen.\"\n                \"We knew that,\"\nRick offered quietly. \"We knew that going in.\"\n                \"You told us right\nfrom the get-go this would be dangerous, Professor,\" Chase said - he\nshrugged. \"We...we don't care. Meganeura\nlecardii has to be protected--\"\n                \"I know,\" Drake\ncut him off, \"I know. We - have discussed - at length my fears, our fears, about what would happened if\nthey discovered a - Lazarus taxon in this part of Florida...\" He lifted his\narms as if to embrace the whole forest, before dropping them down to his sides.\n\"One that is very, very dangerous to human bodies in an - extraordinary\n-and unconventional ways.\" Again he shook his head, slowly this time.\n\"If - it was ever found out - that there was an insect species capable of\nmutating humans...\" His voice trailed off again.\n                \"The forest would be\ndestroyed to destroy it,\" Jason said flatly. \n                Rick and Chase made noises\nof agreement. \n                \"That's right,\"\nDrake near-whispered - he sighed harshly.\n                \"But - Professor, not\nto be rude, but - again, we all know\nthat. We're all from Florida and we're all - we all agreed with you, to protect\nthis place and - the species that was in it - all of them, not just the\ninsects.\" He frowned, unable to hide his annoyance. \"Why can't we go public now? We've found ways to cure the\nmutagen, that's the whole reason--\"\n                \"No,\" Drake said,\nlifting up his hand. \"Rick - no. We can't.\"\n                \"But why?\" Rick\npressed.\n                Drake felt his face flush -\nhe hated it when it happened, he was so used to being able to hide his emotions\nbehind a professional pokerface, even amongst those he trusted it...but he could\nnot battle his own circulatory system betraying him with an involuntary\nreaction to stress.\n                \"I...\" He took\nseveral breaths - breaths he needed for the dire revelation he was about to\nbring them. \"I have discovered the mutagen is progressive.\"\n                It was as if all the whole\nworld had been swept away and there was only Drake, standing before the\ncampfire, Rick and Chase sitting together beneath him and Jason aloof by\nhimself - the Explorer, the canisters, a cooler, the trees around them - it was\nas if nothing else existed in the world except that moment, made of glasses,\nthe slightest hint of anything would shatter it, for with Drake's words time\nhad stopped, the crickets had ceased, the stars did not twinkle.\n                Some seconds passed like\nthis - tense, palpably tense, unbearably tense - Drake staring ahead, trying\nnot to falter, not like this, not tonight.\n                At the end of this\ninterminable length came Chase's voice, stricken with uncharacteristic\ntimidity: \"...h-how...how is it progressive?\"\n                Drake stared at him - his\nmouth opened, then snapped shut, down on his teeth in a frustrated grit.\n                \"Listen, fellas...\"\nhe said, trying to use the intimate, coded language they shared one last time.\n\"It's - it's better - it's better if I just show you.\"\n                Without another word, and\nafter a profound, nigh-debilitating hesitation - he untied and took off his\nshoes, unzipped his jacket, and doffed his pants, discarding them all behind\nhim. He came forward, so that they could see him, full in the firelight.\n                A small gasp came from\nChase and Rick - Jason pursed his lips, revealing nothing.\n                Standing before them, now\nnaked, was Drake - their professor, their advisor, their secondary, sometimes\nprimary father-figure, a handsome man with a cultivated salt-and-pepper beard,\nclose-cropped silvery hair, in his early sixties but fit and lithe for his age,\nlean muscle, having spent a lifetime taking great care of his body...except for\nhis belly, a new and worrisome addition, which was distended, oddly,\ngrotesquely, and where the skin had turned pale, sickly-looking crisscrossed\nwith veins that, in the campfire, were coloured a diseased green-purple,\nbulging up from the skin.  \n                Starting from his knees\ndown, where should have been human skin, flesh, was armored, segmented, bright-glimmering\nemerald hard surface, terminating in sharpened toe-claws, two in the front, one\nout of the heel - at the knee, where these two halves were improbably joined,\nit seemed that whatever hideous disease had turned his extremities like that\nwas spreading - progressively - but\nunevenly, right and left. His penis, uncircumcised, hung limp, disgustingly\nhollow-looking, the urethra unnaturally wide and open, the veins seeming\naltogether stretched and hoary as though exhausted from pumping blood - his\nscrotum was no better, a mass of floppy flesh that looked as though it had been\nsubject to some great expansion and then retraction, the skin losing its\nelasticity in the process. Across his back, a pair of infected-looking streaks,\nlike a sunburn that had not healed correctly, peeling skin with gangrene\nunderneath. From his rear - a tight, firm, fit ass marred by innumerable raised\nwelts and scars - protruded from the cleft in his ass a poking-out of a whitish\nfleshy tube, as though his rectum had prolapsed and then somehow underwent a petrifaction\nor necrosis.\n                Drake let his students take\nthe sight of him in - him, who they had respected, learned from, even loved,\nnow this nauseating, abominable half-monster, a walking disease.\nHe took a step forward, his feet-claws touching the ground and sending tingles\nof ineffable sensation to his brain - vibrations, bare buzzes of inchoate\nelectromagnetism that filled his head with dizzying visions hallucinogenic\ninterruptions of sight and perception...he stopped so that his head could clear\nagain.\n                \"How...?\" Rick\nbegan, but stopping, as if unsure how to finish.\n                \"Is - is - is this--\" Chase stammered. \"The\nend - the end result--?\"\n                \"Not likely,\"\nDrake murmured. \"I feel - which\nis to say I can only hypothesize. If - if you - boys did, what I did, then -\nno, it is not the final stage. A secondary, a--\" His face became serene, a\nneed to own the term that he had given himself - barely a man, instead, something in between: \"A pupal\nstage.\"\n                Again Chase stammered:\n\"What in the - the - the fuck--?\"\n                \"Let me explain, Drake\ninterrupted, his voice still low, \"from the beginning.\" \n                This was how it all began -\nthis was what had led them here, tonight. They had kept inside themselves,\ninternalized, never telling anyone except each other, what bound them first as\nfamily - brothers.\n                One year ago, near exactly,\nDrake had been let known by a colleague at Florida State University that the\nrumor had been for many years that dragonflies of strange shape and unusual\nsize could be seen and spotted in what was called Farles Prairie, next to\nFarles Lake - where they were now, Drake realized, having forgotten the name in\nhis agitation. The colleague had been surprised Drake had no knowledge of this,\nbut then again he was not native to Florida - indeed, being from Canada, not\neven American - and it was just a rumor, never substantiated, a local urban\nlegend.\n                Drake was dubious, not to\nsay actually skeptical, as a scientist should be of exaggerated claims - like\nthe legend that goes into the fish that a countryboy catches - but he was\nexhausted from the end of the semester, and expected to attend a conference in\nDenver that he was dreading, so he instead took up the colleague's challenge to\nfind this insect, with a summer sabbatical to go along with it.\n                When Drake had arrived at\nFarles Lake, which during the unbearably hot summer months is only inhabited by\nthe curious hiker or the occasional fisherman, he was, however, astonished -\nthe rumors were true.      \n                Although in tiny numbers -\ntiny enough to escape detection from the average person who did not know what\nhe was looking for - there were still several healthy and collectable specimens\nof what, based on the primitive wing structure, was undoubtedly a Meganisoptera, one that rivaled, if not\nsurpassed, the famous size of the Meganeura,\none of the largest insects that ever lived...Drake could scarcely believe his\nluck, for such a find would revolutionize the current thought on the evolution\nof insects. They would zoom, like birds, over the surface of the lake, milky\nand drowsy as it reflected the clouds and sky above it - they were all a\nbeautiful shining green, a gemtone, an emerald, a peridot, an arrow shot from\ngrassblade to grassblade.\n                It was as though Drake was\nin South Africa again, as an exchange student forty years ago, doing field work\nfor the very first time - discovering that there was something new, some old\nlifeform that had been ignored by so many for so long, a new species to be\ndiscovered and described...it made him feel young again, like the entire world\nwas new.\n                But - Drake added - he had\nlittle time to be dazzled. With his camera he took some key shots of the\ncreatures, and afterwards he noticed some shed wings by the shore, and\ncarefully, for they were very delicate, collected them to be cataloged back at\nUF.\n                He kept the discovery,\nhowever, and all the physical and photographic evidence to himself, slyly\ntelling his friend at FSU that he had been unable to find the specimen as\ndescribed - he was certainly not about to be outclassed in his field, and\nespecially not his own specialty - that, it turned out, it was probably just a\nrumor, the excited tale of a Cracker pioneer unused to the freakishness of the\nFlorida subtropics. \n                It was nighttime - as it\nwas now - when he came back to his car after spending another day after this\nhiking and exploring, trying to clear his head from a particularly fretful and\nbusy semester...he was alone, the campsite where he was at largely deserted, it\nbeing a very late hour. As he came to his car he heard a sound from the woods,\nsomething he had never heard before, a long, lonesome trill, a high buzz that\ncontained within it a musical quality, a pure, dulcet tone that had no parallel\nin anything Drake had yet heard before.\n                He was hypnotized by it -\nit was such a puerile, ridiculous word, and yet he was, that's the only way to\ndescribe it, incapable of controlling his own faculties, of denying himself\nfrom going further, down the footpath, to the lake that was rapt in a\nreflection of a full, wan Moon.\n                The source of the sound -\nwhich was hard to describe because none of the other three had ever heard it,\nbut was rather like the chirp of a cricket, but longer, more melodic, acting on\nsome deep auditory response in the brain's temporal lobe - he could not\ndetermine, not at first. But then, in the midst of some trees, he could hear\nit, he could hear it louder, and then louder still, until - as Drake near - it\nbecame almost deafening, hurtful to his head, the unending noise that he loved\nand yet, at that moment, also loathed.\n                And he cried out - aghast.\n                There, lit by the\nmoonlight, was a dragonfly - a griffinfly - but enormous, gigantic, and\nstanding, upright, like a man, on two clawed legs covered with the fine hooks\nof its insect ancestry. Four gossamer-like wings fluttered quivering, on its\nback - from behind it stretched a long, slender abdomen. \n                He had approached the\ncreature cautiously, in another world, it felt like, by the effects of - yes,\nwhat was definitely the sound made by the rapid beating of the thing's wings,\nand he crept, closer, closer, to get a better view, a better look:\n                The thing's face was very\nvaguely humanoid, it was not wholly insect, it lacked the aspect of what one\nmay call the uncanny valley, the\nstartling inhumanoid way that insect\nheads are designed to a mammal so used in his collective evolution to studying\nfaces for reaction and body language...\n                ...he, Drake, was unafraid. \n                But he should have been.\n                Without warning, the tone\nceased - the creature's wings ceased their thrumming trance.\n                It raised its arms, great\nclawed things that glinted in the moonlight - raised its arms and kicked its\nlegs back and leapt at him - in two, three bounds the things was upon him,\nusing those claws to thrash at him, tear and shred his clothes.\n                Here Drake paused the\nstory, the review that they all probably needed, so deep in their own project\nthat they may very well have forgotten what their reasons for doing it were.\n                He paused - and he\nremembered.\n                He remembered the rush of\nepinephrine - flight-or-fight, and he chose flight\n- as he struggled in the thing's grasp, finally, somehow, the eternity of\nseconds, grappling free.\n                In his haste to crawl away\nhe had neglected - but then, how would he have known? - to cover his ass, which\nwas naked and exposed to the air.\n                The creature took\nadvantage: in a diving swoop, it struck, knocking him to the ground, its long\nabdomen suddenly swelling from base to end and expelling a massive stream of\nclear, near-luminiscent syrup-like substance - it reeked of burnt sugar, a\nfoulness mixed with the sweetness. \n                Its two arms clutched Drake\nin an unyielding deathgrip, pinning him to the ground - though Drake could not\nsee it he knew what happen next, a moment of grim lucidity amidst his febrile\ncollapse of absolute panic: the thing's legs went into the air, giving room for\nthat abdomen, flung into the air, to move, curve, until, expert marksman, it\nfound Drake's rear.\n                Drake screamed.\n                He felt four needle-knife\nstabbings into his asscheeks - the cerci to hold him in place...and then the\nabdomen itself.\n                It was cold, at first, but\nnot to the touch, for underneath the chitin was evidently something warming it,\nso that it felt like a still-warm corpse - and it slid, roughly, between the\ncleft, into his anus. \n                Drake's hole would not\nyield - face down into the grass, still yelling as loud as he could for help,\nface wet with tears in an excruciation that now bordered on the ecstatic, it\nwould not yield, it would not grow bigger for the invader, too large, utterly\ntoo large, even as he felt a spurt of something into him, some ghoulish precum\nfor this evolved insect monster, Drake knew it, knew that his anal ring would\nsurely rupture, he would die here, he would die being...\n                ...fucked.\n                It was though a spell had\nbeen broken.\n                The pain was still there,\nyes, the crushing discomfort of being so full of something so enormous, but it\nwas joined by something else, something fast-moving, darting, quickly, like a\ndragonfly over a lake.\n                Pleasure. \n                Rapturous, euphoric, joyous\npleasure - the thought of being mated\nthis way was transportive, it was everything, a moment he wanted to last for\neternity, so fully fucked, so completely dominated, made to taste the grass and\nthe dirt, relentless and ruthless.\n                Something inside him was\nchanging - something inside him was rotting, then liquefying, and reforming,\nhis entire sexuality, his constructed consciousness, permanently infected and\ndying, second by second, as a new one was being put in its place...\n                ...he grunted - once, twice,\nputting force behind his arms and hands as he dug into the grass, pushing into\nthe ground, pushing, pushing, so that the creature could fuck him deeper.\n                He grit his teeth so hard\nhe felt as though they should break in his skull - the thing's abdomen,\npulsing, wobbling in the air, sunk another inch, then another, until Drake was\nsure he would burst from it, that he would be ripped open by this insectoid sex\ntool that was probing him. The cerci tore at his cheeks even deeper, drawing\nblood, trickling down to the grass, where it splattered and pooled.\n                But in that instant - and\nevery instant after that, in nights that would drive him wild in some desolate\nhour when he would awake and his asshole would be hungry, starving, so\nwretchedly empty and unfilled - he did not care.\n                He wanted the creature to\nkill him.\n                He wanted the creature to\npump him full of sperm, to ruin his body with a slimy substance he could only\nguess, he could only hope, was the end result of this display.\n                He cried out in ecstasy\nintermingled with a soul-murderingly intense pain, his anus, his lower stomach,\nso full of the creature that was claiming him.\n                And then it happened - the\ncreature began to beat its wings in a rhythm that ripped the air, a fanning\nchill in the warm night, faster and faster, Drake was in a windtunnel, he was\nin the sky though he was still on the ground, he could hear that sonorous tone\nagain, that insect noise of pure song--\n                The fluid began to pump,\ncreature's abdomen squirming and thrusting, the floodgates thrown off, the dam\nbursting, out from the its strained seminal vesicles and into Drake, perfectly\ninside him, again - again - each complete pulse delivering more, sticky, slimy,\nthe burnt-sugar smell everywhere, his\nbody was so full he could smell his tainted insides, his stomach bloating,\nfurther, too far, he would burst, but let\nit be so, a perfect way to die, to be filled with the cum of a master\ngriffinfly...\n                ...he exhaled. \n                The vision - the memory -\nfinished, and back he came to the campfire, to Rick, to Chase, to Jason.\n                But then, too, there was\nthe vague recollection of what happened later that night, less vivid but still\ngorgeous, having a belly so hideously engorged he looked nine months pregnant,\nthe sticky slime everywhere, the creature vanishing as if he had never been\nthere at all, back into the woods, back into the trees. \n                Then he had eaten of it -\nof what the creature had given him. \n                He could press on his\nbelly, still swollen, and out of his ass would pour a precious trickle of the\nsugary treat, the semen, the semen that he feasted on and loved, utterly\naddicted and he would never know, never want to know, why. He had done that for\nthe rest of the following day, so full he was, as much as he hated himself he\ndid it anyway, over and over...until he realized that what he had not consumed,\nhe had absorbed.\n                And then the changes began.\n                First, his legs, the\nskin  sloughing off to reveal the chitin\nthat had rapidly grown underneath...\n                ...he moved the talons - for\nthat is what they were - of his left foot against the grass, trying to savor\nthe blurred vision that it caused, something to distract him, if fleetingly,\nfrom the feeling of, now, impending doom - what Rick, Chase, and Jason all\nneeded to know. \n                Again he felt his face\nreddening with something like shame - but naked already, monstrous already, he\nwas past caring. \n                \"I kept - returning.\nSeeking this - what I deduced was the King,\nlargest and strongest, because I - I was - unable to control my\ndesires...\" He took in a shaky breath. \"I - wanted him. The pain, the -\nfullness - over, and over...\"\n                \"You came back,\"\nRick guessed. \"And you - lied to\nus.\"\n                \"I'm sorry,\"\nDrake blurted. \"I'm - sorry to all of you.\"\n                His eyes caught Chase's -\ndark blue, a twinkle in the firelight - which turned from a glare to a look of\nhurt: \"Professor, you - you didn't have to hide that, after everything - especially after everything--\"\n                \"I did it because I\nwas ashamed,\" Drake said to him. \"It was--\" He stopped, letting a\nshiver run through him. \"It was - the most wonderful feeling in the world.\nOnce I was made love to by him--\"\nDrake smiled, very much well in spite of himself. \"The king, the - largest and best and most\nevolved of his species, I found - nothing else would do.\" He motioned to\nhis bloated belly, and reached around to twiddle the prolapsed peeking through\nhis thin, shapely cheeks. \"Despite these - because of these.\"\n                Another silence befell the\nfour of them - Jason broke it:\n                \"But you told us that\nno matter how ugly the species was, or what it did, it had to be\nprotected.\"\n                \"Yes,\" Drake\nsaid, trying to get back his confidence. \"Y-yes, I did say that.\"\nOnce more he hesitated - his nerve so close to being lost. \"And it is - it\nis a rather - ugly species...\" He\nsighed. \"As much as I...have come to love it.\"\n                He saw Rick blink several\ntimes - his mouth fell agape, his eyes narrowed askance: \"Just - just how ugly, other than - other than\nwhat--\"\n                Chase looked displeased.\n\"There's something you're not telling us - and you promised there'd - that\nthere'd be no secrets...Professor.\"\n                The last word was an\naccusation - Drake tried not to wince, but the urge to overcame him a powerful\ntwinge inside his belly.\n                There was no time now at\nall.\n                \"I will - I will need\nto show you, fellas,\" he said. \"Follow - follow me down the trail\nhere - to the lake.\"\n                \"But why--?\" Rick\nasked.\n                \"You'll see,\nfellas,\" Drake answered, the twinge in his stomach becoming a full spasm\nthat caused him to grunt in unexpected pain. \"You'll - you'll see.\"\n                Chase and Rick rose in\nunison - Drake nodded to James who appeared with a bucket to douse the\ncampfire.\n                \"Bring - a\nflashlight,\" Drake ordered, still looking at James. \"They'll need to\nsee this as clear as - as they can.\"\n                \"Professor,\" Rick\nspoke up. \"Please, why can't you just--?\"\n                Drake held up a hand.\n\"I know. I should have been honest with you - in all things. But I...\"\nHe seemed to consider the thought. \"You need to see...what has happened to\nme. And what - will happen, to me...\"\n                \"Let's go,\" came\nJames' commanding voice. \n                Drake led the way, James\nclose behind him, gently pressing on his back as not to lose his footing - and\nfor another reason that he tried not let sadden him - onto a path that came out\nonto Farles Lake, that, he knew, would sparkle magically with broken moonlight\nin a cloudless sky. \n                From the corner of his eye\nas he walked, he saw Rick grasp Chase's hand, and hold it there, as if to\ncomfort him - he smiled to himself, having brought them together watched them\ngrow closer, his heart briefly warmed...before a cramp seized his belly yet\nagain.\n                He quickened his steps,\nfeet-claws raking the tread-down grass.\n                He would have to hurry - it\nwas about, at last, to begin."}