Stillness.
The mimic sat in the blood-drenched silence, breathing slowly. Its jagged lid hung slightly ajar, not out of hunger, but curiocity.
It was thinking again.
For the first time in… it didn't know. Time was meaningless in the dark. It only knew hunger, then sleep, then hunger again. Now—curiousness.
It turned its body slowly, its tendrils squirming around as it gazed at the chamber it had inhabited for so long but never truly seen.
In the far corner, bones. A mountain of them. Most were eaten by it but some were still there in rotten clothes or rusted crumbled armour.
Closer to its body were remnants of the fallen. Loot that was left by its victims and or missed by the girl he had devoured.
The mimic slithered forward.
It did not feel hungry now, at least not the usual kind. But some instinct told it: these things were his.
The mimic opened its lid(mouth) wide. Wider than any human could think of. Its throat was a dark spiral of endless space.
And it swallowed it.
The shattered sword.The cracked gems.The broken flask that still hissed with fumes.The boots. The gloves. A belt buckle. A torn diary page.
All of it.
There was no digestion. No destruction. The items sank into the mimic's body, vanishing into some hollow within. A space that should not exist.
'How do I do this? Why can I?'
No answer came. Only silence. And more questions.
When it had swallowed the last stray copper coin, it went back to the center of the room once again and sat still looking around. Its tongue curled inward. Its claws folded beneath its chest. It thought.
Two doors stood across the room, like watching eyes. One, cracked and old, was slightly ajar—beyond it lay the path of the adventurers, the one they always entered from. The other—thick stone, shut tight, etched with strange symbols—stood untouched. None had entered it. None had ever been able to as most of those who came till here were eaten by it.
He stared at it. For hours.
'Where do I go?'
'Do I keep waiting?'
'Do I… leave?'
'Or should I go deeper?'
That thought—leaving—felt alien. Wrong. But also tempting.
He tilted toward the stone door, inch by inch.
And then he realized something terrible.
He could not move properly.
Not truly. Not like the things that walked. Not like other adventurers, he had eaten.
He could lurch, slam, and pounce.
But to crawl or walk or run? No.
He was a box.
A trap.
A corpse-eater.
A prisoner of his shape.
'So what now? Am I cursed to stay here, even with my thoughts? Even when I have the ability to think, am I still bound to remain here? Trapped in my hunger and misery.'
It hurt. The thought. To be aware, and still trapped in these walls.
It turned away.
But at that moment. Something caught his gaze.
Movement.
In the corner, half-hidden beneath a loose stone, a reptile crept along the wall. A scaled creature no larger than a boot. Green, slow, flicking its tongue in the blood-soaked air.
The mimic watched.
Not with hunger. With something new.
A new feeling bloomed inside him. A whisper. Not like the old one, not the screaming hunger.
This one was cooler. Sharper. Almost… excited.
Eat it. Take it. If you don't have legs… steal them.
Consume, become what you eat.
And in that moment—the mimic understood.
If he devoured the creature… he could learn to move.
The reptile crept along the edge of the wall, tongue flicking at the air. It sensed something. Maybe blood. Maybe death.
Animal instincts are always much better than most humans. It just could not pinpoint the source of its unease.
The reptile could not think that the box in front of it was the danger.
Not the mimic, still as stone, watching with those glowing red eyes from the shadow of the open lid.
And then—it pounced.
The mimic lunged towards the small lizard and used its tendrils to trap it in its tentacles slowly bringing it to its mouth.
There was no chewing. No tearing.
Just absorption.
And then… something changed.
A completely new knowledge formed in its mind—information.
Sensation. Shape. Understanding of the reptile body.
He staggered backward—if a chest could stagger—and froze. A thousand nerve-like pulses danced beneath his stelled body.
His body twisted.
Warped.
Cracked.
Transformed.
The mimic grew, his sides bulging outward, tendrils curling inward into joints and limbs. Its steel-like body was transforming into thick skin.
Scales pushed through leathery skin, black as obsidian. Sharp, overlapping. His jaw split, reforming into a long mouth filled with crooked, carnivorous teeth and saliva. Two clawed feet slammed against the stone. A thick tail burst from his back, coiled and muscular, slapping the bloodied floor with a thump.
His body had reshaped itself, mimicking not just the reptile's form, but exaggerating it.
Where the lizard had been small and timid, the mimic was towering, almost twice the height of an average human. Massive. Monstrous. Alien.
Black scales covered his entire body, slick with fresh growth. Only his belly remained softer, a dusky grey. His claws were thick and hooked like hunting blades. But his eyes the same horrifying, red eyes looking around.
It looked like a creature that came from the deepest depths of some horror story.
A monster made flesh.
The mimic breathed.
Then… he tried to move.
His left leg twitched forward.
Then collapsed under him.
He hit the ground with a bone-shaking crash, growling low in his throat. His tail flailed. His claws scraped against the stone in confusion.
'Why?''How did it walk? Why can't I—'
Then, something flickered in his mind.
Not a thought. Not his own
A memory.
The feeling of toes gripping rock.
The balancing tilt of a long tail.
The placement of weight—careful, calculated, instinctual.
'The reptile…''It's memories…'
The mimic remembered.
Not clearly, but enough.
Fragments. Senses. Motion.
He rolled to his side. Dug its claws on the bloodied stone floor. Its limbs moved awkwardly with unease like a newborn child that had just learned to stand up on its own.
But he stood.
Shaky. Crooked. But upright.
He took a step.
Wobbled. Nearly fell.
Another.
His tail adjusted. His weight shifted. Muscles realigned. His new legs bent the right way this time.
And then—he walked.
It was clumsy. Animalistic.But it was freedom.
The mimic stood in the middle of the room, breathing slowly and heavily.
And then, with a slow turn of his monstrous head, he looked toward the stone door.
The one no one had ever entered.
And this time…He could.