The Black City Ch. 01

"Can I help you find anything else?"

I look from the staring, bloodshot eyes of the cashier, down to the package of faintly green-tinted meat in front of him. I look back up at him, and try not to watch the fat, spiny white worm slowly traveling up his face. The last thing I want to think of is where it will end up.

"Nah. Just the bacon, thanks," I say quietly. "My roommate goes through it like crazy."

For a moment I think I hear something, then realize they're coming from inside the pallid cashier's head -- voices, thoughts, sounds, whispers. As clear to me as if they were spoken aloud, but too soft and too chaotic to make out their message. The cashier doesn't speak, nor does he check out the package of bacon. After a long moment, he reaches beneath the register to pull out a dripping paper bag, handing it out to me. The liquid seeping from it has the same green tint as the bacon -- beyond that, it appears thick and black.

"Are you sure?" the cashier says. The worm crawls into his mouth, but he doesn't react. "Candy's half off." He holds the dripping bag out a little farther, but his eyes don't leave mine.

I take the package of bacon and walk out through the shattered glass doors leading to city beyond, the dark sky above comforting to my eyes after the harsh fluorescent lights inside the supermarket. In the distance is a flash of hellish, neon-green lightning, but I don't pay it any mind -- this is just life now, after the Cracking. It's just as real, and as normal, as the decaying trash tumbling down the crumbling, grime-covered streets. As real as the anxious scrabbling of claws and feet from every alleyway, the hazy glow of watchful eyes from every dark place. Things are bad now. They have been for about ten years.

"You forgot to pay," comes a voice from behind me, that of the cashier I'd abandoned, but he isn't moving towards me. I ignore him and continue walking, trying to shut out the thoughts in my head, the screams and the whispers.

I guess I should back up a little. My name's Raine Leclair, and I live in... well, I don't know what it used to be called. Since I can remember, it's been called the Black City. It's been my home since I was a little girl, back when there were other humans -- sane humans, at least. A decade ago, the things from the stars decided to Crack the world, opening it like an egg and taking what was inside. I still don't know what it was they wanted or what it was they took, but the earth didn't seem to like being destroyed very much. Most people lost their minds, others died or were mutated. Sometimes the radiation did it, sometimes it was just looking at the things that came.

Myself, I can hear people's thoughts -- at least, that's the only part of my specific mutation I know how to use. I retained most of my own mind, which is decidedly rare, but I don't know if it comes from my 'gift' or not. It's kept me alive, though... that and Zaz, my roommate. I'll get to him in a second.

"We see you," comes a whisper from behind the window of a hardware shop I scavenged-out ages ago. Can't tell if it's the voice or just the thought... but it rarely makes a big difference, anymore.

"Yeah, how's that working out for you?" I sigh back, continuing to walk towards my apartment, using the sidewalk even though there hasn't been a car on the road in years.

"So small. So pale. Smell of berries and flesh," the whispers continue, and other voices eddy around them -- more thoughts, unclear or inconclusive, never becoming any more than half-formed before being aborted into the garbage disposal of the creature's mind.

Its comment, though, makes me pause and furrow my brow. "Of course I smell like flesh. I'm a person. I'm literally completely made of flesh. You can't say that like it's important or creepy."

"Flesh flesh flesh... soft and wet, wet and warm, warm and soft, soft and wet..." I wince as the whispers and other voices join together in chorus. Can't stand the fucking noise -- this is why I try not to go into town if I can possibly help it. Too many thoughts. Too much sound. Can't turn it off... and wouldn't if I could.

"Alright, weirdo, have fun with your li'l chant," I grumble, and continue on. The apartment's not far from here, now, and I put a bit of hustle in my step, occasionally grimacing at the lack of support and scraping back edge of my years-old converse, which are now more duct tape than anything else. The building I'm heading to is ten stories, a clear target silhouetted against the emerald lightning continuously snaking back and forth across the sky, under and through roiling gray and violet clouds, twinkling like hazy broken nebulas, an ever-simmering cosmic storm within the atmosphere of the planet... this chunk of it, anyway. I've never been able to leave this piece.

Past the empty doorway and up rotting stairs, I nearly slip and fall as a section of stained, tattered red carpet basically disintegrates beneath my feet. I catch myself, though, and continue up to the seventh floor, an exhausting jaunt more unpleasant than the entire walk into town and back. All for some fucking bacon. The stupid shit I do for Zaz.

I pause in front of the door, peeling white paint on rotting wood, staring at the tarnished metal '138' room number. I take a breath, and knock.

"OooOoH Raine is that yOooU? What's the... passworrrrrd."

By Zaz, of course, I mean Zazkoroth -- the amorphous space-horror that I live with.

"There's not a single sentient creature in the Black City capable of even guessing the password, Zaz. It's me."

"MmmMMmMMMM but WHAT I wonder is the password? The word of passage? The letters arranged into an order that will INSPIRE me to open the... door?"

"Zaz, do you want any of this fucking bacon or not?"

The door immediately swings open, revealing the hulking, mostly-shapeless creature beyond it, operating the knob with one of the many long, deep violet tentacles he ejects from his glossy mass at a whim. Beyond his appendages, the only visible feature Zaz exhibits is his single enormous, baby-blue eye, unsettlingly human-looking on his blob-like body. "Well... whY didn'st you sayyso? Mayhaps the wordpass was bAcon after all, yesno?"

Zazkoroth's grasp on english is not... my favorite. He also doesn't have a mouth, so the added layer of obfuscation that comes from translating his thoughts though my skull only makes things worse. His communicative deficiencies, though, are as much a blessing as they are a curse -- Zaz may be weird, but he is entirely sentient, and needs companionship in this broken world just as much as I do. So, however unlikely, we fit together as the only two people in the Black City actually capable of coexisting. I use my telepathic powers to outmaneuver crazies, and he uses his raw strength to protect us from things that can't be eluded. A messy partnership, but one that's kept us both alive.

I slip through the worm-eaten door and into the apartment itself, making my way to the big, tattered gray couch in front of the TV, which is currently just playing static. Flopping down entirely onto the massive seat, I finally let myself relax, finger-combing my A-frame of teal-streaked black hair out of my eyes and tossing the plastic package towards Zaz. "Here you go, champ. Don't eat it all at onc--"

Before I've finished the statement, Zaz has lunged forward, engulfing the greenish bacon -- plastic and all -- under his bulk. There's a sickly slurping sound, then a rip and crunch as the package is torn apart by the lamprey-like mouth hidden beneath his amorphous mass. I wince.

"Many regrEts, gl00my one, did you deSIRE some of the flesh-ribbons?" Zaz burbles into my mind. Like a cat, he squeezes his massive eye shut to express his happiness.

"I, eh... nah, I'm good. Think it woulda made me sick anyway; I'll just grab one of the cans from the pantry." I sigh and heft my light weight up off the couch, slipping my black hoodie off completely and tossing it behind me, leaving myself in just my pleated, midnight blue skirt and light gray tank-top. While I don't exactly have a wealth of boobs, I'm painfully aware of how visible my nipples (and the tarnished metal barbells lacing them) are through the thin, moth-eaten fabric as I make my way into the grimy kitchen.

"I fear I have conSUmed the spaghetti roaches, much forgive," Zazkoroth trills as I pick through cans, trying to find whatever looks the most edible, which I assume wouldn't have been anything called spaghetti roaches. Finally, I pick out a little sealed jar of what I desperately hope is mac and cheese, and a bent-up fork, shuffling lazily back over to the couch.

"Got somethin'. Hey Zaz, you mind if I change the channel?" I grunt as I topple back onto onto my ass, peeling off the lid of the preserved meal. It looks a lot more like sweetbread now that it's open, but... fuck it, I gotta eat something. "Static isn't doin' much for me."

"You do not becoMe s00thed by it?" Zaz clucks, offering a shrug of his shapeless bulk before sliding over to the other side of the couch, engulfing the other half of it before the remainder of his body oozes down into the seat beside me, his appendages neatly tucked into his body as his single huge eye focuses on the crackling snow on-screen. "It has music if you listen enough, like SCREAAMS from beyonddd, but perhaps your girlmind cannot hear the poison notez."

"Girlmind? Excuse me?"

"MmmMMMm yes, excUse, by girl I mean hyooman. I lack the required mIndthoughts to gargle your gentlespeak." Zaz beams contently at me, and I sigh through my nose.

"Alright, can I have the remote now?"

There's a somewhat upsetting gurgling sound as Zaz shifts and squirms, one of his appendages gradually sliding from his body, the thin, quasi-prehensile tendril at its end holding the remote control. Fortunately, despite the way Zaz tends to... glisten... the remote's dry to the touch, and I start surfing through the few channels we have in search of something, anything, to while away the time.

"What visions do you seek?"

"I'unno," I mumble, flipping from channel to channel. Now, as I mentioned, the world is pretty much fuckin' toast, so you might be wondering -- how would there be anything palatable on TV? The answer is, well... there isn't. I surf past 'Crush That Head,' 'The Adventures of Billy and the Rest of Billy's Fingers,' 'Oh God It Hurts, It Hurts So Bad,' and my personal favorite, a game show called 'Who Wants a Vasectomy?' At least that one has a decent selection of characters to root for, even if they're all... you know. Insane mutants. But boy do they really want those vasectomies. "How about this?"

"Acceptance of this program is yes, the screams help to settle my sTomach," Zaz croons, squishing himself down in his seat.

The sounds of screaming on the game show help to drown out the sounds that always come from outside the apartment, and while it's cold comfort, it's comfort nonetheless, helping me to fabricate context for the ubiquitous dread in the pit of my stomach and drown out the mad voices that so often drift through my mind. I finish the can of mac and cheese (which, yeah, unfortunately did turn out to be jarred calves' brains) and set it aside, reclining into the sagging cushions of the couch and letting my mind wander, empty itself -- both focusing and blanking at the same time.

That brief instant of tranquility is interrupted, though, when I feel something smooth and slightly moist sliding up my side and into the armpit of my tank top, gradually winding its way like a serpent across, and then between, my small breasts. A few years ago, my panic at such a sensation would have been immeasurable, but it's now something I'm used to -- the sensation slick and warm, teasing yet insistent. "Zaz, come on...."

"Boredness becomes me, and I stir witH restlessness," Zaz chirps, and I squirm a little as his tentacle eases more completely between my breasts, cradled in the shallow swells of pale flesh and grinding between them. I bite my lower lip, wiggling in my seat without looking at the starry horror who's become my only companion in this broken world.

"Didn't get your fill yesterday, you fucking pervert?" I finally shoot Zazkoroth a sidelong glare, my own violet-tinged eyes only a shade or two lighter than Zaz's glossy, eggplant-colored mass.

"AssUred falseness," Zaz purrs, another tentacle ejecting from his bulk to swoop around my waist, squishing me against his body as another appendage coils gracefully around one of my slender thighs. A little shudder runs through me -- any genuine revulsion I'd felt toward Zaz in the past has decayed since I've been forced to consider him my only real companion. And, though I'm ashamed to admit it, this kind of... 'playtime,' isn't especially rare nowadays. I'm willing to take whatever comfort and pleasure I can get, and despite his alien personality, he's learned how to press my buttons. "Certain; I am as mAny loverz. Allow me to satisfy."

"You call jamming a tentacle or two in my ass satisfying?" I shoot back. Zaz can hear the snark in my voice, though, and pivots quickly.

"Your lustwails suGgest this, correct?" he croons, more appendages sliding from his body to get under my clothes. One tugs my tank top all the way up, revealing both pale, petite tits and teasing one of my nipple piercings with a thinner tendril while the original probe continues to massage back and forth along my chest. Lower down, the tentacle coiled around my leg gradually rotates, creating a bizarre caressing sensation from my inner thigh all the way around to the pert shelf of my underbutt.

As much as I've been trying to deny him the satisfaction of knowing he's getting under my skin, I feel my back arch, and a soft moan escapes my black-painted lips. A blush touches my pale cheeks as Zaz lifts the hem of my skirt to show off the little white panties beneath, as well as the tiny bulge nestled under the thin fabric. That's another of the... 'changes,' I underwent during the Cracking, my mutation altering the direction my body's gender took as I grew into my teen years. Despite developing in a more feminine way as I grew older, my penis remains from childhood... even if it hasn't really gotten any bigger since then. So, despite being more or less vestigial at this point, Zaz gently trails one small tendril along my little dick and balls, sending a shiver of contentment through me -- it may not do much, but it is still sensitive. "Hey, c-cut it out...."

"Do you diSLike when I disturb your dead boy-thing?" Zaz burbles, caressing the tip of a tendril along it once more as he continues to molest the rest of me, another appendage drawing the bottom of my panties aside so that a slightly smaller one can rub and flick across the tender pink hole of my ass.

"It's not dead!" I huff. "It's just... shy. And been asleep for a long time." I chew my lip hard, squeezing my eyes shut to relish the feeling of Zaz's pilot tentacle swiveling along my asshole, leaving a thin snail-trail of sticky lubricant that his alien body naturally produces.

I let out a quiet moan as Zaz changes targets, leaving my tiny and barely-functional dick alone for the moment and focusing on putting his tentacles to good use, continuing to bump and slide them across my nipples and between my breasts. A sharp spasm rolls through me when he finally prods a thicker, slicker tendril against my butt, no longer just poking and rubbing it but threatening to penetrate me completely. While Zaz tends to get a little carried away with how much abuse he thinks my asshole can take, I admit to being incredibly excited to feel that thick, flexible appendage press inside me -- and press inside it does. I lose my breath for a moment, eyes shooting open as I gasp with pleasure. The wet, tapered tip makes entry almost effortless for the first inch, then the second... then I tense as the thick, rubbery tentacle begins to invade me more deeply, invading my quivering pink back hole.

For a moment I think I can feel a quiver in my petite balls, but the tremor fades before I can grasp it and seems to have no further effect, my obsolete ladydick remaining soft and inert as I focus on the pleasure Zaz can give me. "Annnh..." I coo quietly, laying back against the couch and letting my legs slowly spread apart, trembling a little as Zaz's tentacle slides deeper into my ass, starting to slowly thrust back and forth, taking on a patient, cautious rhythm. It's something I've always appreciated about the goofy tentacle guy -- he takes his time and lets me get into it, even if he can tend to get reckless later. For now, though, I get to relish the sensation of his appendage curling and tilting within me, its thrusts slow and easy as it carefully shifts positions, seeking out my most delicate points and quickly finding them when I let out a sharp moan of excitement. "Fhhahh... fuHUuuck...!"

"Contentment; my certainty (not misplAced) is carried forth. Continue your m0ansong, little drops of Raine..." Zaz gurgles happily to himself, his treatment of me getting a little more intense -- one thin, pliable tendril coils around my chest and squishes together what little cleavage I can muster, allowing him to shallowly titfuck me while the bigger limb beneath takes a few faster thrusts up my ass, pulling another harsh squeal of delight from me as he manhandles my light frame with his seemingly infinite appendages.

"NNnghh... aAaahh--!" I groan out through clenched teeth, trying to keep my breathing in rhythm with the thrusts into me. A scream echoes through the room beyond my own, a palpable one, and I realize it's coming from one of the winners of the show on TV. I ignore it, letting the sound become ambient noise, my body relaxed and tightened at once, like when you lay back and let yourself float in the pool -- it requires some concentration to keep yourself aloft, but the act of floating itself is soothing, freeing. That's how it feels when Zaz begins to lift and shift me, idle tendrils stripping my top and skirt away, leaving me in only the little panties, darkened by a bloom of wetness and barely concealing my tiny member. "Don't stop... don't stop...."

"CessaTion is unmotivate, likelihood: n0t," Zaz lifts me fully, my entire weight supported in his myriad arms as he seeks new ways to press and rub them against and into me, continuing his deep, smooth thrusts into my ass and between my tits while his coils fondle me from every other angle. Zaz and I have danced this dance before, though, and I know when he's getting restless... and when he gets restless, I know what to expect.

I open my mouth to say something, but predictably find any speech impeded by an invading phallic appendage yearning for its own shot at playtime, rubbing against and between my lips. Instead of speaking, I lick slowly up its length, to the tip, and spiral my tongue around it, taking in the curious taste. And the taste is definitely curious -- like a pleasant and complex sushi roll, drizzled with a starry black sauce that tastes like the dreadful and hilarious vastness that is the universe beyond my understanding. That might not really give a clear picture of the taste, but you can linger on to the sushi part, I guess.

In any event, Zaz's tentacle is now about eight inches down my throat, causing me to gag and splutter before struggling to relax around it. Doing anything beyond seizing and spasming, though, is wildly challenging when the tentacle horror does the utterly predictable, and I feel a second appendage pressing against the stretched, rosy rim of my sensitive pink asshole. Just as big as the first (if not bigger) and even more eager, I squirm and attempt to protest, eventually choosing to simply project my thoughts into Zaz's mind -- Slow down, you fuck! That's my ass, not a box of fuckin' Raisin Bran!