Sublingually administered medications are placed under your tongue to dissolve. When a chemical comes in contact with the mucous membrane beneath the tongue, it is absorbed. Because the connective tissue beneath the epithelium contains a profusion of capillaries, the substance then diffuses into them and enters the venous circulation. In contrast, substances absorbed in the intestines are subject to first-pass metabolism in the liver before entering the general circulation, potentially altering or diluting the original medication. In certain cases, this is recommended to increase the potential impact of the medication, removing some of the body’s conventional safeguards for digestion and alteration.

  ______________________________________________________

  Three-and-a-half pounds worth of visor, wires, and connecting materials. Straps included. A marvel of modern technology, capable of showing off an incredible range of experiences from some of the most complex programming available to individuals in the modern world. Haptic feedback sensors for maximum immersion, alongside tactile-responsive gloves for control setups.

  It’s the best VR headset that money can buy, and even then, I only got it on sale. 15% isn’t much of a sale, but hey, whatever helps, right? Especially if it’s basically the only thing I spent money on.

  Groceries, rent, utilities… and gaming. The thing I use to escape. The tools I have that allow me to not be me for a little while, to exist in worlds where I matter, where I know how to interact with literally anyone, where I have power and impact and can change things.

  I miss it.

  I’ve barely gamed in the last week, ever since the last time I left MEAT. It’s been fear and work and planning and curling up to feel nothing at all. Building and designing my tools, half-useful as they are, researching about the town, eating, sleeping, watching for things that go bump in the night… and, of course, working. At my job.

  There’s an ache for it there. Something that used to mean so much to me, that still does, a method of escape and reassurance and exploration and stimuli, taken from me by fear and pain.

  And now… here we are again.

  First thing’s first.

  Since getting home last night, I’ve rearranged some plans. For one thing, I’ve got two clumps of semi-dead fungal vermin on my person, and now in my home. Getting them into tupperwares, with a bit of easily-digestible food in one corner of each (torn up leaves and bits of whatever’s left of my meat supply), was my first step. They’re both in my room now, hidden in a dark corner under my desk- I thought of putting them under my bed, but figured that’s way too risky.

  I went there for materials, and materials I received, but the beauty of a fungal infection is that it grows.

  All of my other supplies, be they from the crack in my wall or my ever-dwindling bank account and its connection to my local grocery store, are finite. Limited and, at least for now, non-renewable. I could use the spider and mouse now, expending them in some random experiment or theoretical idea, but frankly? I don’t even know what I’d use them on. I have thoughts about lures, distractions, potentially mobile resource-collecting constructs, but there’s just not enough of them to risk on a half-baked project concept. I’m not going back to that mill anytime soon, which means that they’re the entirety of my “weird fungus/mold” supply, and I don’t intend to waste it.

  So… I’m going to let them grow. Spore and develop in an isolated corner that I can control. If their properties as lures continue to work, and they manage to eat up a bunch of little critters, all the better, and if not, hopefully the mold-properties will still grow as needed, giving me the leeway I need to experiment.

  Second things second: Brian.

  I don’t know what they’ve done to the kid, or if he’s been taken away or recruited or “disappeared”; all I know is that he was still in the clinic, the clinic I have an appointment at set for today, and that he’s my responsibility.

  Is that reasonable? No. Particularly logical? Not really. But I’m making him my responsibility. I might be the only person in this town that’s as new to this as he is, and I think I’m the only one who knows about him. Leisha and whoever the hell else she works with can wait- I don’t know if I can trust them yet, and if I’m not completely certain, I’m not trying to involve them in dealing with a traumatized child.

  Might be I can’t do anything at all, but I need to try. And since I’m heading back anyways…

  I look back to my bed, and the headset and gear resting upon it. Normally by now I’d have plugged in and… gone away. Become someone else for a while, someone whose shape and form and decisions I can control, who can connect to and change the world in a way I can’t even imagine in my day to day. Normally, it would be a source of comfort.

  As it stands, it sits there like it’s waiting. Crouched, patient, and hungry, eager for the moment where I put it back on and enter that place that should not be which started all of this.

  Tonight. After my appointment, after I check in on Brian, after I make it home safe before the sun goes down. I’ll drink some Monstrous, get comfortable, make it like old times… before I go back there.

  So that’s third things third, I guess.

  I pull my bag up around my shoulder, zip up my jacket, and leave out to my car, back to the same clinic one more time.

  The Hollow Springs Health Clinic, as unoriginally named as it is, is accurate to its title. It is, in fact, Hollow Springs’ one and only health clinic, and stands by that title proudly. Got a sick kid? Come on over! Need medication? The Health Clinic’s got you covered. Checkups? Shots? Medical testing? Anything short of a major medical emergency, Hollow Springs Health Clinic’s got your back! Proudly serving the town since 1985!

  The building itself is basic, a squat but wide one-story building with painted white walls. My new insight, born from my exposure to MEAT, called attention to that yesterday; the whole place feels clean, in a way that feels a little strange. Not supernaturally strange, per se- more like walking into someone’s kitchen, seeing how everything is organized and labeled, and going “oooooh, just a little compulsive, got it”.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  I barely even looked at the doctor yesterday. He has a name, though I’m not sure I’ll remember it after today; Elijah Hills. Dr Hills has been the town physician for… well, a long fucking time. Couldn’t find an official starting date during my research, probably because the Clinic’s a family practice, but at least as long as I’ve been alive. He’s got a day shift nurse and a night shift nurse (Sarah), and as much as I find the idea of a small-town doctor intimidating, he’s been… fine, the few times I’ve contacted his office about receiving my prescriptions. Got it into a home-delivery pharmacy after, which, while pricy, is a lot less nerve-wracking, but it’s more than I expected, so I’ll keep that in mind.

  I park in the lot, a bit fuller than usual with it being Sunday. My appointment’s early enough that most of the potential doctor’s-visit crowd might still be at church, but hey, it’s not a work day, so… here we are.

  I take a slow, deep breath as I downshift into parking, listening to my car clank and rumble as it falls still at last. This is fine. Get in, look around, get out. You’ve got magic instincts or whatever-the-fuck, you’ll be fine.

  Yep. Very helpful, inner monologue. Great advice. Follow my magic instincts.

  I exhale, letting out the air.

  It’ll be fine.

  I pat the bag at my side, feeling some of the solid shapes inside of it shift as I do.

  It’ll be fine.

  I turn off the engine, slam the door shut, and walk back into the clinic.

  No big deal. Just a place the feds have been, and a kid even more lost than I am.

  I sigh, making my way up to the front desk.

  The lobby’s not crowded, but there is a mother with her child and an older gentleman sitting off to one side. All three of them look up as I enter, and the mother averts her and her kid’s gaze after a moment to process. The guy, on the other hand, keeps staring.

  I work hard not to notice, smiling instead to the young woman behind the desk and putting on my best “femme customer service” voice.

  “Hi there! Ilia Silva, here for an appointment?”

  She blinks, then nods, returning my smile quickly enough. Her nametag reads “Jemma”, and she seems a bit older than me, though not by much.

  “Ope, I see you right here on the list, hun. The doctor will see you right away, but make sure to check in when you come out, okay? I’ve got some paperwork for you to fill out.”

  “Oh, I can do that now if-”

  “No, no, I heard all about your fall yesterday. Doc said he’s glad he had you on the schedule, wants you to go right on back. You’re right on time anyways.”

  I nod and smile and ignore the death-glares that someone in the waiting room shoots at my back. What can I say? Apparently, there are benefits to having an appointment right after a seizure.

  I make my way to the indicated waiting room, more private than the open bed area off to one side of the hallway. I can’t help but to turn and peek around the corner, looking to see if…

  Yeah. Gone. Whether he got picked up by family or the feds and dragged off somewhere… Brian’s not here.

  Ok. Ok.

  Deep breath.

  Think about that later. Focus.

  I make it into the room, close the door, sit down… and open my bag.

  In it is the final piece I’ve managed to construct in the week-or-so since my attack. The fleshy pipe bombs worked fine, in spite of not being very effective, and the Glove, without any other active projects, remains a useful and strange tool nonetheless.

  But the final thing I crafted, out of as much roadkill bones as meat, is different.

  The totem, or construct, or vaguely-serpentine vaguely-centipedal thing of flesh I pull out of my bag, in spite of my altered sensibilities, remains kind of unnerving.

  The… “puppet” is disgusting. A sparrow’s skull, wrapped and left almost black from the amount of hair I’ve used to bind it into place, into the gibbets of meat and bone I’ve spread throughout it. Chicken and pork and wall-meat, wrapped in human twine, left semi-intact and semi-mutilated to shape it into the thing I hold in my hands.

  It hasn’t rotted. Days and days out of the fridge, and it remains just as relatively-fresh as before, as if preserved by some unknown energy. It’s gotten a little worse, a little grayer- it’s got a shelf life, but I’m measuring it in weeks now, instead of hours.

  Back at the mill, I couldn’t find the right situation for it. It can’t really respond to danger, can’t really transmit information- truth be told, without activating it, I only really have some idea of what it’s capable of.

  But fuck it, right? How better to find out than to do a little field test.

  The kid was in this place, as were the feds. There’s going to be documents here about that, even if there’s going to be less than there should be. Additionally, I can’t think of anywhere else I might be able to find medical records for the people of the town, and sneaking in there in person is a risk I’m not willing to take.

  Ergo… the construct. The meat-snake-thing.

  I crouch down, the Glove’s blades and tools extending from my fingers to unscrew the vent on the floor in near-record time. Takes me seconds, even as I trace my own movements and find them half-familiar, half-alien. In moments, the grate is open, and I place the puppet inside, and…

  Hmm. Never actually figured out the activation.

  I take a breath, and focus.

  The Glove works because it’s connected to me. My arm works because it’s connected to my blood. The Bloodling bridges the gap between them, right?

  Using the glove’s claw-tips, I reach back over my own wrist and press them into the semi-visible seams of where my arm comes apart.

  Immediately, as if sensing my wants, blood oozes forth, so bright red it feels neon and faster than it usually does. I have to move my arm into position above the bird-skull, keeping an ear out for anyone approaching as I focus my intent.

  The Bloodling is alien, as is what I’m trying to do. None of these things, these new mechanics, make sense on a human level.

  I need to really push.

  I focus on the idea of it. The intelligence of a sparrow. The way that fibers and threads can work like tendons, moving the muscles and meat I put into half-understood shapes. The idea of watchfulness, and of mimicry, and of the dangers of being seen.

  That last impression comes through loud and clear. Damn familiar one.

  The blood drips down through the Glove, and almost without input from me, one of the blade-tips extends and cuts through the top of the sparrow skull. It slices through like butter, easier than it should, easier than should be possible, and before I can focus on that instead of what I need to, the blood has already flowed out of me and down into the construct.

  It has no eyes with which to see. It has no lids with which to close.

  And yet, the flesh in those two eyeless sockets seem to blink at me.

  I hear the door behind me creak as someone grabs the door-handle, and-

  It’s already gone, the faintest skittering carrying it deeper into the ventilation unit.

  I ignore how much my arm has started to hurt, and how tired I feel, and slap the vent cover back on before jumping back up into my seat, smiling politely.

  Dr. Elijah Hills enters, salt and pepper hair catching the light of bright white teeth and a clipboard click-clacking in his hands as he taps a pen against it.

  “Hello there! Excellent to see you again, miss… Ilia, was it? I’m happy to see that you managed to make it back today, I was rather worried after seeing sudden onset seizures and blackouts. How are you today?”

  I smile up at him, massaging my arm to try and stop the pins-and-needles-and-knives sensation in it, and ignore the crawling sensation I’m feeling behind my legs. Way behind my legs, down on the ground, in the vent, far from my body at all.

  “Just fine, doctor. Just figured it was about time for a quick check-up is all.”

  Officially back up to 8 solid chapters ahead over on patreon!

  And just for funsies, here's the discord!