Touch

Touch
By Anthony Kelly

How does one describe something to one who cannot see? How do you evoke the sunrise to a blind man? How does a Bat know of the approach of Dawn?

The Creature as we know it was essentially blind and had a primitive sophisticated intelligence. It was like a worm cut in two, one moment you have one Worm the next you have two Worms.
The creature was a Worm, a fleshy Worm that wriggled and forced itself through crevasses and holes, it contracted and expanded according to pressure and it fed, it fed and fed. Leaving behind it, the carcasses of its fallen prey.

We began to realise that it could spilt, reproduce itself and each of these elements would share a hive mind of sorts, mapping its feeding area using its body and its tentacles to trace the universe around it.
These copies or Xerox’s of itself were literally clones and shared the mental link, though other copies, unintentional copies, were detached from the colony mind and would continue to reproduce.

These Split’s or Coup’s rarely occurred in the worm’s natural environment unless the new set of Worms spread to a new area as they would be outnumbered and consumed by the host of its originator.

Thus in its home environment, the Worm reined supreme, an alpha predator.
Becoming sentient fighting only against itself, like Mankind it killed it’s own kind.

It also left a trail of sorts, a scent, a lingering scent that marked its territory.

The Creature was durable and had an extreme means of feeding. It fed by slithering around feeling as it went with its feeding tentacles a series of long muscular tongues that could flick out of its mouth tasting the air for scent and heat. Although blind the Creature had smell receptors, olfactory glands in its feeding tube that were as sensitive as a shark in water.

The Creature upon sensing its prey lurches towards it striking out at its prey with its feeing tentacles and grappling with it. The next phase of attack is the most ingenious in its evolution. The Worm turns towards its prey and like the ancient tactic of envelopment it turns itself inside out and engulfs its prey swallowing it entirely with its own body.
The Worm then slithers on, its stomach working to digest the swallowed entity.
Even as it continues to find its next victim.

The Worm begins its life depending on the size of the worm that spawns it and continues to grow until it runs out of food, under laboratory conditions a starving worm, split itself up into smaller and smaller pieces when no food was available consuming itself until a form of sustenance became available.

The creature is not known to hibernate and seems to be driven genetically to the search for food and to breed. It has strong survival and feeding instincts.

Larger worms have been known to engulf and swallow armoured fighting vehicles which are left with little option to shoot drive or burn their way out.
Civilians have little chance if swallowed by a worm to escape unless they have protective clothing or sharp cutting implements.

Infestations of these Worms are highly destructive to natural habitats and are extremely difficult to eradicate as due to the worms natural tendency to Spilt.

Flamethrower’s, Napalm and White Phosphorous are the favourite military means of eradication, but these weapons are highly dangerous to both civilians and to the natural environment.

Aquatic infestations are rare as the creatures drown in water, but they have been known to thrive in marshy and aquatic environments.

The first known outbreak of the creatures was on board an automated cargo freighter that had docked with an intergalactic trading space station.
The Worms were discovered and the infestation was purged but the clean-up operation was badly managed and specimens escaped on other cargo shuttles.

The Worms are only considered dangerous on green worlds such as Earth Central where they are regarded as a potentially dangerous invasive species.
They are treated as pests and even in some cultures as fast food once they have been sterilised.

Once sterilised with low doses of radiation such as those found in a household Microwave the Worms can be cooked, sliced and diced and they are used in the deep fried food market, mostly Asian markets. They are said to have a similar constituency as fried Squid which is a popular South Korean Dish.

The creatures are still being studied and are being tested for intelligence by the Kyoto institute and measure as high as Raven’s on the Barre Human-Animal intelligence scale.

The Worms have taken hold of the popular imagination and are popular mascots and often used in Shlock horror movies similar to Genre films of 2oth century.

Fashion designers have been inspired by the creatures unique form and continue to release ranges of hats, bags and dresses based on the creatures organic look.

The unique inside out method of feeding has also inspired engineers in the fields of construction and housing building and designing inside out homes.