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KAIJUNE 2024 #4: INVISIBLE TOUCH

Well, the fish still keep coming in. I mean, they don't look like fish anymore, they're like... the sea-life-equivalent of all those things they put in hotdogs mixed together, but they seem alive, and they taste alright, so I guess the fish are coming in, and nothing's stopping 'em from coming in. Life goes on...

...To tell ya the truth, I'm scared though. It's all been fine for me, my number ain't come up yet, it's all been good. But I'm scared when it does. Some of the boys've still been able to work after it. Some of 'em can't. Some of 'em... Well, they can do things. They can help. It still weirds me out, what they're doin now. I think it weirds 'em out too.

But she does keep 'em coming in, along with that other stuff. She killed Foot Foot when that... thing tried to hit our boat. Ripped 'em into pieces, boiled his skin. We'd all be dead if it weren't for her. So now, I think about how the fish still keep coming in. Because thinking about the other stuff is worse.

-Captain Redd Paulsen, 68, fisherman.

She saved my life. Right after she took it from me. Like, you know the Mr Brownstone incident? it was the day after I got picked for the lottery. I would've died there if she hadn't turned that thing into steaming meat.

Some days, I wish I had. Coral skin and hair-trigger ink sacs aren't the best for daily life working in retail, yanno? And you can't do shit to get on disability, even with the whole... [Gestures to the world around her].

But, at least it can only go up from here. That's what I tell myself to get out of bed.

-Jenny Rachels, 23, retail worker (former)

Well, I always wanted to work from home. But not like this. I liked having working fucking legs more than I wanted to work from home I'll tell you that! The tentacles're useless for my job too, fucking things have a mind of their own.

Someone said that might be literally true when I brought that up. It took every bit of willpower I had not to punch the smug little fucker, how about you fucking say that when the lotto picks YOU for this shit!

But, silver linings, silver linings. The new teeth at least mean I never have to pay for dental again. And I've at least kinda made a side business with crafts of 'em. I don't know why that shit sells so well, it's just shark teeth. Perverts, probably.

-Dana Raynes, 33, freelance editor.

I don't know why everyone's so mad. I mean, sure I'm not as dextrous as before, but I have assistants for that, and it's done wonders for my marketing!

Like, sure some of us aren't as lucky as the others, but that just means you gotta work harder, just put in a little more pepper, a little more elbow grease! Like, it took me a while to come up with "The long arm of the law has a crab claw," eat your heart out Brian David Gilbert, I love that, we're shooting commercials tomorrow.

-Albert Gilbin, 28, Lawyer

ALBERT GILVIN CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF!

-Regina "Blobfish" Lanoil, age unidentifiable, freelance exotic dancer

I tried to run once. The scales and the webbing and this stupid fucking beak I got now means I can swim really fast, small comfort I suppose. I know, I know I would've probably died before I got down coast, if not from the ocean than from the other monsters. I think now dying would've been preferrable to this. But that doesn't fucking matter anymore, now does it?

...I got a few miles out before she saw me. How do I know she saw me? Well, the fucking radiation glow was when she saw me's a big fucking hint. Einstein! I mean, it;s always glowing, but it really fucking GLOWS when she looks at you, with that eye behind that... hair? I think that's hair?

I know she could've killed me. I know she would've if she wanted to, she's done worse to people who curse her out by the docks, I saw it with my eyes. Well, my old eyes anyway. But she just put me back, like you'd pick up a declawed cat running for the door. I think she smiled at me, as close as it could be to smiling for that thing.

I used to think she was using us, that she we were like cattle to her. I don't think that anymore. I think she loves us and doesn't want us to leave. And I think that scares me even more.

-James Howard, 19, food service worker

I'd like to be left anonymous, for my wife's sake not mine. I like to think I got lucky on the lottery, even if my wife got hit a couple of times.

I still love her, she's still beautiful to me, even with what happened. But... what scares me isn't what she did to my wife's body, but to her mind. To everyone's minds after the lottery, really.

Like, you know when she killed Mr Brownstone? My wife and me were there, we were hiding under some of the cars for most of it, but that's not important. What is important is what happened when she killed it. She tore out some hunks of meat, and just... very intentionally dropped it, like food for a dog.

I didn't think anything of it until my wife just... started running towards it, claws out. And she started eating the meat, raw, like an animal, the blood and flesh on her teeth. I saw her dripping slime from her skin a few minutes in. She always hated being seen doing that, but she was just... unaware.

I tried to walk to snap out of it, but she, the big mermaid, just whipped me away, like a fly. I didn't break anything, but I know she could've. It only ended when she blacked out. Wife doesn't remember a thing about it.

They said there was a bunch of liquid miracle in Mr Brownstone's chest, and yeah that's a windfall, town sustainability, yadda yadda. but... what's she doing to our minds. The way we think, the way we are? That's what I'm worried about.

-[ANONYMOUS]

I hate this fucking job.

Like, tourism is up from the perverts and gawkers! The economy's doing gangbusters from the liquid miracle! People are moving here for stability even with all this shit going on! If you ask if we're economically better off than we were seven years ago, all the stats point to yes! So why does everything still feel like it's so shit?!

...The lottery. It's the fucking lottery. I hate that we have it, but more than that I hate that we have to have it. It was the only thing that would work as fair as it could, that wouldn't have the whole town in a witch hunt for some outgroup or other!

Hell, I didn't make myself immune to it, I could have! I totally could have and I want the electorate to know it! You look into my eye... thingies? I think someone said this is from a barreleye, and quite frankly I buy it.

But you know what creeps me out the most? You know the reports of people who collapsed? The ones who just turn into fish parts and screaming meat? Note how few of them there are. Like, even with the way we try with how the lottery works, boys in the room try to keep repeat instances low, it's still way less than you'd think.

I think she's trying to not make us break. She wants to keep going as long as she can. And the implications scare me. But, at least I have a long time to worry about it, cause re-election's no question. Everyone knows she's the real mayor. I just work here.

-Rachel Wernstrom, 57, mayor

I can't walk anymore, but I can swim with these... tails? Not-legs? I think they're dolphin, but like, they're webbed. But I can't go on land anymore. If you ever see Lisa Thornton, tell her I'm sorry. For everything. And that I can't come back, she has me now.

-Frank Wilson, 45, chef (former)

She was looking at me the other night. Like, sure, I live near the docks, we all see her when she's walking by, but she looked at me, in my window. I saw her eye

I don't know why. I never got picked for the lottery, I saw what it did to a few other people, so she cant've seen me there. I never went out of my way to look at her, she scares me.

Maybe she likes my genes. Maybe she just likes me. I'm scared what happens when the lottery comes up. Because it always comes up when you want it to least. Poor Gina...

-Finn Robertson, 37, electrician

Huh. Not many people come to talk to me anymore. They're scared of me, as I'm presuming anyone that gets called the "High Priest" would. But I'm not that pretentious. Not anymore. You can't be when you look like me now.

I talk to her, bring her words to the mayor and officials who want to listen instead of getting mulched into a pulp. She's a better conversationalist than you'd think. Though, that might be because I was the first person who tried in years, at least, in her way,

She really does love them you know, her people. Like she loved the people of her old city, before it sank and almost took her with it. But that was a long time ago, millennia by her account. She's not much on the details.

I don't know whether... it was the fall of her city or what we, and I mean the royal we of modern humankind, did with testing in the place after that, but she's not well. She's falling apart. needs DNA to help repair her fraying code, like a cornucopia of the sea constantly rotting.

Don't tell her, but I think that;'s the saddest part. She's trying to meet them in the middle. She loves her children, she wants them to be safe, fulfilled and happy, but I don't know if they can be any of those things with what she needs to survive. Not really, not for long.

And yet, still, life goes on. Maybe someday things will change, but for now, life goes on...

-Saul Jonas, Age unidentifiable, marine biologist (former)."High Priest" of Invisible Touch (current)

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Ability Notes: Think of a thing sealife can do. She can do that on a kaiju scale ala Rikuo from Darkstalkers, albeit it's a bit... unstable given she has to Tetsuo out to do it. Though the Tetsuo-ing is pretty useful on it.s own. She can also shoot blasts of radiation, but given it physically causes her pain and further tissue (and possibly genetic) decay, she tends to only do so as a last resort.

She can also do the "swapping stable DNA with her constantly decaying broken genes" thing to kaiju, albeit it's temporary and not really "nourishing" for her, given how kaiju DNA tends towards being a mess at the best of times.

Bonus Trivia: She can influence the way an organism ends up mutating to some degree when doing the whole DNA-swap thing, according to their personalities and their desires. This is often less useful than you'd think because she has a... weird interpenetration of people's desires when she does so, and even when she gets it right, it's more an art than a science.

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While I started on Space Oddity earliest specifically for Kaijune, I started on ol IT much earlier as an attempt at a Mermay thing that underwent similar design struggles, until I decided to eventually put her in Kaijune.

And yes, development-design hell is a running theme with this year, why do you think it took until October?!

But yeah, I chose the name because, well, it kinda felt like it fit, and given that song's basically an "evil woman" song that's speculated to be about radiation, my mind took me to "yandere mermaid doing An Innsmouth." which, god there's a good reason I make my Kaijune kaiju CC-BY, because I'd bet folks could do way more interesting things with someone who's trying to make the best of a bad situation but still inevitably causes harm.

Granted, I can also think of some worse things that self-pitying abuser-types who aggressively refuse self-improvement might do with her in their art (Nobody I've known, but I could still name names), but c'est la vie, such is the risks of the Creative Commons and the rewards are worth it.

And yes, I am aware of how horny people will be for giant yandere mermaid who TFs you. This is not my first rodeo, and I too am one of the clowns.

And, in that grand Kaijune tradition, this character and all related narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator. Have fun!

#my art #my writing #kaiju #kaijune #mermaid #body horror #transformation #monstergirl #kaijune 2024 #creature design

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