#was really sore! i think it bled at one point. or my gums did. SOMETHING bled. look i couldn’t work out what was going on but it was bad

[fingertipsmp3]

I did have a productive day tbh. I did all my work shit, I made two appointments and I went for a run for the first time in 5 days :)

[no-worshiped-roads]

Alright I’d said I’d do something from May’s POV so here we go

@wisteriarotting more for your awesome au

also massive warning for body horror, and implied gore and violence, and some swearing

Mayday listened through the door as the footsteps faded away. Her chest rattled with every breath, threatening to send her into a coughing fit. She let her body slide down the doors until she was laying awkwardly against it on her side. Flopping around the best she could so that her back was against the doors now, she let her emotions loose.

May’s face had wet trails running down her cheeks till she was full on sobbing. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. After everything she had been through, the infection still won.

“GAK!”

Mayday suddenly heaved forward in pain, her sobs having aggravated her infected body. She briefly spasmed in pain, before it stopped. She panted, catching her breath as best she could, finding it hard to breath. It had been getting harder to breath for a while. May let herself slide to the floor in a fetal position, having stopped crying.

‘I guess the one good thing out of all of this is that Zuke, Kliff, and everyone else got to escape. At least they’re not dying with me.’

Mayday winced at that thought. While she knew she was more or less dying, before the infection took her body and will completely, it didn’t make accepting it any easier. She examined the scales again, feeling more just below her skin, stretching and burning it from underneath. Her feet ached from being twisted into an unfamiliar shape, and honestly she was surprised with herself for being able to walk on them for so long. Her teeth were constantly cutting her gums and cheeks now.

‘I wonder if they’ll change shape or just fall out? Probably won’t be conscious for it.’

She had found some tape recorders, and decided to leave some messages behind like the other artists did. She didn’t want to fade out as a faceless monster.

“I’m not sure how much time has passed since I made Zuke, Kliff, Aunty, Kayane, and Gigi leave me behind. We had been through a lot together, saving Gigi, Kayane, and Aunty from the districts they were trapped in. Beating the NSR artists, or...what was left of them. I honestly thought we would all escape together. .......... But this infection has a sick sense of humor I guess. I started feeling sick, getting bad headaches and body pains. I didn’t think anything of it ya know?”

“Just thought it was soreness from the battles and all that horrible noise. But then my skin started to burn from beneath, and by the time we reached Eve, scales had started growing. My feet had become twisted, though that was all easily hidden with some stolen clothes. But I knew my time was coming to an end. So after we beat Tatiana, I forced them to leave without me. Locked them outside the tower.”

“I’m happy they were able to escape. I really am. And, Ms. Natura? If-if you ever come across my body, however ruined it is. Could you please bury it?”

Mayday wasn’t sure how many days she spent in this tower. With only the dull light from the front doors to go by, it was anybody’s guess. Maybe a week? or maybe even more, who knows. Who cares. Mayday certainly didn’t. She passed her time by playing her guitar, but found her hands becoming sore and tired from her constant playing. But it was the only thing keeping her mind at the now. But eventually it had to end. Her guitar started falling apart. Mayday found herself blacking out and when ever she woke, more of her guitar was missing.

First the picks, though she just used her hands. Be damned if they bled from it. then the strings started to disappear and she couldn’t play it at all anymore. The last piece to go missing was the detachable part that adding an extra kick to her guitar. The final time she blacked out she woke to the guitar in pieces. Had she done that? Had something else? Guess it didn’t matter, her guitar was gone, and she was back to slipping deeper into the infection taking over her mind.

“I wonder how far away they are now?” May muttered. “I bet they’ve found somewhere to live, I mean, the infection-”

“SCReeee-EEEEEEE.”

May slapped her hands over her mouth. she had been losing her ability to speak lately. Horrible sounds were ripping out of her throat every time she spoke for too long. And now she was getting to speak even less before that-  noise happened. It scared her. Hearing that sound come from her. She didn’t know what was worst: the bitter irony that it sounded like sour notes on her guitar, or that only one kind of infected made noise like this.

‘Please just let me be a faceless infected. It’ll be easier.’

‘I wonder if the infection is just limited to this city? I really hope it is. Zuke, Kliff, none of them deserve to run for the rest of their lives.’

“SCreeee-EEEEEEEE”

Mayday screamed out and fell forward as her body was overcome with agonizing pain. She writhed around on the floor, screeching like her guitar once did when she hit a bad note. Blackness began overtaking the edges of her vision, until with one finally spasm, she blacked out once more.

May’s body ached, and head throbbed as she came to. She opened her eyes, and had to blink several times to get her vision back, though it was blurry now. And she couldn’t get it to go away. May rubbed at her eyes and winced when something nicked her cheek. Her sight was a bit better, but still bad.

‘Am i gonna lose my sight?’

Mayday looked down at her hands, and gagged at the sight of them. They had become misshapen like her feet. they spread weird with webbing between the now very long fingers. They were covered in scales, and had some dangerously sharp claws on them now. Glancing down at her feet she saw they looked about the same way. Forcing herself to her feet, Mayday found she couldn’t stand on them flat anymore, she was stuck walking on the front of them. She had definitely grown more scales, so much so there was hardly any of her normal skin left. She stopped looking at herself, seeing her legs and arms as ruined as they were was enough.

A certain smell finally reached May’s nose and she crinkled her face. She knows that smell. One hardly forgets the smell of the sewers when you live down in the for so long. But why could she smell that here? As her eyes adjusted to the darkness with her poorer vision, and she could see a hole in the middle of the floor. Just, a giant hole, that by the smell coming from it, clearly led to the sewers.

‘Did-did I do that? When I blacked out? How long was I unconscious?’

Mayday stumbled to the hole, and looked down into the blackness. “m-m-might as wel-well g-g-g-go.”

May’s throat ached. Fine, no more talking then. She climbed down into the hole, down to the sewers, this was her home after all. Might as well as take up residence somewhere comfy before she was gone. She didn’t want to stay in that tower anymore, not with Tatiana’s corpse. Or with the memories of how her own life ended there that day. She wondered why Yinu’s mother never came to collect the body. Or maybe she had and May was just out cold when it happened. She wandered around the rooms a lot after all. Didn’t see the point of staying in the main lobby all the time. Her footsteps clacked on the concrete tunnels due to her claws.

It took her a while to get her bearings, May’s mind being fuzzy about the details of the sewers. Like she had forgotten where some of the tunnels lead. But eventually, she found it. Their old home. Her old home.

‘A good a place to die as any I guess’

May sat on the couch that was in their, her, “den.” She glanced around her home, her now, permanent home. There was an area that was makeshift kitchen, if you could call it that. It was honestly just a place where they could prepare whatever food they could scrounge up. With more and more people succumbing to the infection, less and less necessities like food were able to be made or harvested. By the time the majority of the city was infected, they had stopped getting food and medical supplies in.

To her left she saw the sleeping area, covered with sleeping bags and old mattresses, and even a bunk bed. Seeing the bunk bed made her heart hurt. The point of the bunk bed was to share it, but now she was going to be sleeping in it alone. The bottom bunk would remain empty from now on. There were some personal items of the others, like spare clothes and what not that were left behind. They didn’t need to be weighed down so they were left here. Sounds of movement grabbed May’s attention and she turned to where it was coming from.

Something crawled out of the waters, and froze upon seeing her, hissing. It was a large, but short creature, belly scrapping along the ground. Sharp spines peaked out from the large mane of raggedy hair that covered the back and head of it. It had a elongated jaw full of teeth that forced their way past its lips due to their large size. Along, fat tail slapped on the ground, with a thick nest of spines sitting on the tip. The rest of the body was covered in dull, ugly blue scales, and four pairs of eyes glared at her.

“...E-E-Ell-ieeEEee?”

The sound messed up her speech again, but May didn’t care. Standing before her was Ellie, or what was left of her. Mayday adored the alligator, or Elliegator as she would affectionately call her. But she was a wild animal, so when the infection began to take hold in her, she couldn’t fight it like a human could. It was only two weeks before they lost Ellie, and after she had bit Zuke when she attacked them, she fled into the waters. They hadn’t seen her since.

Till now anyway. Elliegator hissed at her again, and shuffled off to their “kitchen.” She began tearing into some leftover food on the dishes, and only then did May realize how hungry she was. Her belly grumbled, and there was nothing for her to eat. She could go scavenge, but she was unsure if her body could take it. Her stomach growled again, and that made up her mind.

‘Gotta find something, anything.’

She hadn’t walked far down a nearby tunnel when it felt like her head was being split open. Mayday fell to her knees clutching at hair in pain.

‘Skritch. skritch skritch. Squeak.’

Something was moving around the tunnels, several somethings. But the pounding in her head wouldn’t let her focus

‘skrith scratch squeak’

Seriously what the hell was it.

‘squeak squeak’

WHY WOULDN’T THIS PAIN JUST FUCKING STOP?!

‘SQUEEEAKKK! SCREE! SCREEEE!’

May day opened her eyes, feeling the coolness of concrete pressed against her cheek. Groaning she pushed herself up to a sitting position. She blacked out again, that was happening a lot lately. That meant the infection was getting worse. The next thing Mayday noticed was red. Red smeared on the concrete tunnels. A bitter, coppery scent assaulted her nose, and told her that all that red was blood. Looking up further she saw where the blood came from.

Just like with Ellie, any animals in Vinyl City were amongst the first to go. The rats of the sewers were no exceptions, they had grown to the size of small puppies, With spines between their shoulder and eyes all over their bodies. Disgusting, but easy to beat. A good kick was all it took. But these rats? they had been ripped apart. Torn to shreds, leaving nothing but fur and some skin with crushed bones and spines mixed in. And there were a lot of these dead ones.

Then May became aware of the taste in her mouth. That salty, metallic, bitter taste. Her skin around her mouth and her lips felt dry and caked in something, something awful. Bringing her hand to her mouth, and minding her claws this time, she wiped it off. Glancing down at her hands she felt her heart stutter, painfully so. Any other time she might have focused on the pain, but no. She was stuck on the dried brownish red crust the had come off of her mouth. Bits of fur, rat fur, were mixed into the gunk.

Bile rose in the back of May’s throat and immediately she threw up. The vomit was red in color, bits of bone and fur mixed in the slurry. She killed those rats, she ate them. She didn’t know what was worse. That she had eaten those rats, or that her blackouts had her doing things she couldn’t remember. And that those things were getting more violent.

More days had passed and May found herself forgetting things. She forgot stuff from her past, like her school days, she forgot what her own guitar looked like, she couldn’t even remember what.... what... that thing that was here with her looked like. What was its name again? She could remember Zuke and Kliff though. There were others she knew there were but....they were just...gone. She wouldn’t forget Zuke and Kliff. She refused to, clinging onto those memories tightly, not wanting to lose anymore. So she made another recording.

“I-I’m forgetting things. Memories are just gone. I don’t remember my childhood, or my parents. There’s this thing here with me, some kind of reptile I think. I know it but....what is its name?! I’m losing to this infection even more. There were six of us before but... I can only remember Kliff and Zuke. Who were the other three? I know them, I care for them but....”

“They’re just gone, like they never existed to me. I just.... *sobs* I wish this infection would kill me quicker. I don’t want to die like this! Forgetting everything and everyone, fading away till I’m nothing but the infection. Please. This is a horrible way to fucking die.”

She had been unable to continue, breaking down into sobs as she fully realized her situation.

The thing had since stopped hissing at her. It wasn’t friendly by any means but seemed to accept the fact that she was here. It didn’t fight her over food anymore, instead opting to scavenge what she didn’t eat. May found herself not caring about eating other animals now. It turned her stomach still, but she was able to keep it down.

“..down here?”

“no. those guys left, i think they actually got out to.”

“Damn, we should of gone with.”

“Too late now, might as well hunker down where its safe. since that monster in NSR tower is gone, we should be able to walk out too.”

Mayday was shocked to hear voices in the tunnels. She didn’t think there were any other survivors. The only others they had run into when they were fighting the NSR artists, were dead. They had met untimely ends at the regular infected, or worse at the hands of the artists.

“yeah their place should be just up ah-”

“...shit”

Mayday looked over to her right to see some people. She really couldn’t make what they looked like, her eyesight had been getting even worse. So she likely was going blind, or, nearly so anyway. They were frozen though, she could still see movement, and they were making none.

“I thought they left?!”

“Dude why would she leave look at her! She’s a fucking freak like the others!”

May, insulted, felt something rumbled in her chest at that comment.

“How about we not insult the ‘freak’ man? Especially given you know they used to be someone before that damn infection..”

“I think that’s that one chick with the guitar.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well what do we do? we need this area more than her, but she’ll probably attack us.”

‘They need MY home? Are they really gonna to try and rive me out of this place? But if I leave, I’ll begin to forget everything else? and what about...it. I can’t leave that with them. No, this is my home, mine.’

“G-g -way”

The figures jolt, not expecting her to speak. A strange sound echoes in her ears.

“Holy- is she still in there?”

“Maybe she’s not done mutating?”

“g-g way”

The sound is louder, familiar. Like...music?

“How is she not done?! You can hardly tell she’s human anymore!”

“Maybe we should stop trying to provoke her and just leave?”

“Sorry I’m with him on this one. Look at her throat and chest, like, what the fuck are those parts? Besides we could use this place. Let’s get rid of her while we still can.”

“G-G-WAY”

It sounded like sour notes, like strings. Static too. She was feeling...something. Something bad.

“Guys we need to leave, remember the number one rule? Don’t get into fights you don’t need to?”

“Pretty sure we need this base.”

“uh, guys? sh-she looks-”

“we can find somewhere else!”

“g-guys?”

Anger. She felt angry. This was her territory, hers. And she would defend it from these intruders.

“ScreeE-EEEEEAAAAAAAAA”

“OH SHIT!”

Mayday was confused. When did she move off the couch? She was breathing hard, and her heart was thrumming in her chest. It felt...wrong. It sounded wrong, like there was...clacking? Every time she breathed she could hear something weird too...like twanging. Those survivors were gone, something scared them off. There was fresh blood on the ground. Did it belong to them?

‘They seemed freaked out when they saw me. Do I look that different? It’s just scales right?’

She looked over and saw a half of a cracked mirror leaning against the wall in a pile of junk. She...hadn’t looked at herself in a long time. saw no point to it. Yet now...she felt she needed to. She had to. Walking over to the junk pile, she began clearing some of the pile away to get to the mirror. Her hands and arms didn’t look human at all anymore. There was no skin left just orangish dark red scales that looked almost black in the lack of light. Her hands were now almost like a komodo dragon’s, but with webbing between the fingers. And those claws...those...red tinted, wet...claws.

May winced, hoping that was from whatever animals she had been eating. Finally wrestling the mirror piece out, she walked over to where there was a bit of light coming down from a grate. She leaned the mirror against some boxes, and took a deep breath. That sound again. Mayday looked into the mirror.

And felt her heart skip some beats.

What was that staring back at her? That-that wasn’t her. Those same scales absolutely covered her, no skin was showing anywhere. He hair was almost completely gone, in its place spines had begun growing out of her head, neck, and back. Her mouth had split open wide, taking up most of her lower face, and it was lie her jaw was...growing. Getting longer. May’s teeth were mangled, sharp, ugly things jutting out of her mouth a bit, though not as bad as the thing living with her. her legs were bent awkwardly in a strange shape, with no hope of them ever being straight again.

Her feet looked almost exactly like her hands, and she was taller. Or rather...longer. Her body was unusually thin and elongated, making her hunch over weirdly to keep balanced. Then there was what looked like a tail starting to grow, though it was hard to tell. Then there was the...extra parts. She had been wondering where her guitar parts went...well she found them. There were strange scales that jutted out from her lower arms and legs that were once her guitar picks.

Then the strings were now fused into her throat, they moved every time she breathed.

“wh-wha-AAEEEEee”

Apparently every time she spoke too. The strings had fused with her vocal chords. It was why she was having trouble speaking. She probably wouldn’t be able to anymore some time soon. A rattling sound got her attention and she saw her final missing guitar piece. the detachable head was now embedded in her chest where hear heart was. She could see muscle and  sinew had grown over it, keeping it in place. Every time her heart beat, it twitched, making that noise.

The only thing that hadn’t changed were her eyes. Maybe they were a bit bigger, to match her new size, but still. The same color and everything. At least there was that, huh?

Mayday dragged herself over to the sleeping area, and flopped down on a mattress on the ground. This was usually where Aunty slept, but due to May’s new and larger size, it was what she needed to sleep on. Besides, she couldn’t bring herself to look the bunk bed for long, much less sleep in it. Exhaustion suddenly crept over her, and May let her eyes close as she drifted off into sleep.

One more recording, one last one before she was gone.

“Whoever find this recording, please. You have to leave. I can’t fight it anymore, it’s winning and I can’t fucking beat it *cough, cough cough* I-I am always in pain, I’m forgetting so many things now. I *aEEEe* .... I’m losing the ability to speak. I, I’m so scared. If I’m becoming like those that we fought all that time ago, like the artists........I don’t have much time left, so please do this for me. Run away from this city, leave this place, there’s no *screAAEe* no sav-saving this place.”

“And if you meet some people named Zuke and Kliff, tell them I’m sorry.”

The days all bled together honestly, it was the same routine. Wake up, find she had hunted more animals while out cold, laze around the area, finding where that creature was, nothing else. Well, save for the occasional encounter with those survivors. They kept coming back, but were keeping their distance. It still irritated her to say the least, why couldn’t they just leave her in peace? this was her home, and she wasn’t gonna give it up to, to...intruders.

May had been finding it harder to walk on two legs lately, opting to lumber around on all fours. It felt right. She hated that it felt right. Her eyesight had definitely gotten worst. She wasn’t blind by any means, but everything appeared as blurred out figures, making them indistinguishable from each other. The only way she could tell if something was likely alive was if it moved. And by if they let off heat. For some reason she could see heat, which made her poor vision a bit easier.

But boy, oh boy did it not really matter in the end. Because boy, oh boy could she hear. It didn’t matter how far away it was or how small it was, she could hear it. Pinpoint its location exactly. Mayday also found this weird, fog? that surrounded her. A look in the mirror confirmed it was coming from her, every time she breathed. it didn’t seem to affect her or the other creature, but anything else that breathed it for too long died.

She was also forgetting more. All she could remember now was her name, and, and....Zuke. That was the name Zuke. He was...a friend she thinks, no...more like, a brother. Yeah, that was right. His face was fuzzy, but she could remember his smile, his voice, his laugh. Then there was vague pictures of another man. Red hair, glasses, a...scarf? But, who was he? Mayday can’t remember.

Days had passed and she forgot her own name. And someone else but, maybe she just imagined that. I mean, if there no memories and only a feeling there, did that person ever exist in the first place? No. She just imagined that person. But she would remember Zuke. He looked like.... he sounded like.......

His name is Zuke, it’s Zuke. Zuke. Zuke....Zuke.....

Who?

She had to chase the intruders away again. They kept encroaching on her territory, threatening her. So she fought back and made them leave. These intruders were soft, easy to tear with teeth and claws. They were loud, not that she could understand them. Or knew what they looked like. Just vague shapes with heat radiating off of them. Not that it mattered anyway. She was getting tired of them coming here.

She had hunted for herself, finding food down here a bit more scarce. Or at least, large enough food to fill her. More often than not she was hungry still after feasting on what she could scrounge up. There was a larger creature here with her but, no. She wouldn’t eat it. She felt...something for the beast. So she’d leave it be.

Everyday those intruders came back. They were getting more aggressive for all it did for them. She outmatched them in everything. Towering over them in size, faster, stronger, fiercer. Every time they tried to kill her, and failed. And every day she grew angrier and more aggressive herself. They couldn’t stay around her long either, her defense, he poisonous breath, was more than they could handle. This time one of them didn’t flee with the others when she beat them again.

It lay there on the ground, unmoving. Nudging it with her claws still offered no reaction. She could hear no heartbeat, no breathing. she had never touched it, so it must have died to the poison. What was she to do with this thing now? Let it rot? What other use did it have? So she left it, there was something about that she knew...sort of. Telling her to leave it be. So she did.

The creature that made its den here as well had found the body days later. She could hear it tearing into the corpse, devouring it in gusto. The intruders had yet to show themselves again, perhaps the death of one of their pack would make them stay away. But for now she was content with letting her companion consume the corpse. Listening to it eat made her realize her own hunger, and so she left to hunt. Perhaps she’d find something filling this time?

She didn’t. There really wasn’t much left down here. She was travelling further and further to find food, but it seemed most creatures knew to avoid her now. all she could find were small morsels. As she trudged back to her territory she heard something. It was those intruders again. They were smart enough to wait till she left this time. She could hear them screaming something, they sounded distressed. But she couldn’t understand what they were saying. All that she could hear was static and white noise.

She rounded around the corner, but stayed hidden in the shadows. She could see their vague shapes moving, the warmth they let off was very high. As if they had just strained themselves in a hunt. But that did not hold her attention for long. Laying in the middle of them was a figure. A familiar shape and heat, that was rapidly cooling off. Straining her hearing to find anything, a heartbeat, breathing only to yeild  nothing.

How dare they. How dare these things come in here and kill all she had left of her pack?!

“SCREEE-AAEEEEEEE!”

For the first time in a long time she spoke. She could hear louder static come of the intruders’ mouths, but she didn’t care. No. She just wanted them gone. For good this time. She rushed out at them, easily out-striding their smaller forms and cutting off their exits.

“REEEAAEEEE”

She lunged forward and snapped her jaws around an arm of one of the slower ones, lifting them up into the air by it. Sounds of pain greeted her, and she began to swing it around by its limb till she heard cracks and rips. The things fell to the ground with a thud, its limb having detached in her mouth. The flesh  bled on her tongue, coating a sweet taste she had never experienced before. So she swallowed.

Food.

She charged back towards the damaged intruder and gripped them by their middle this time, biting down with a series of sickening cracks. A garbled static screech fell on deaf ears as she threw her head back and let the body slide into her mouth. She bit down, crushing the body into pulp and bones before swallowing once more.

The intruders scattered. Driven by unknown rage and hunger she attacked the rest. One of them fell behind her and loud cracking noises sound out as she felt small impacts on her scales. They stung, but did not break the the skin. She swung her tail around and slammed down on the creature, feeling its body give way under her mass. It did not move again. The intruders fought back, to the best of their abilities. Not that did did much to get pass her scales.

Slashing her claws out at another who had been attempting to stab though her leg sent blood flying, its coppery scent filling her nose. They fell with a wet splat, spasming on the ground. Not quite dead yet. But she moved on to the others. One charged in front of her, trying to use her divided attention to go for her throat. She snapped her teeth down on the upper half, severing he thing in two.

The other three of them had tried to flee, while she was eating the piece in her mouth. But only two of them made it out, one of them suddenly fell to their knees  gurgling, clutching at what was likely their throat. She could hear the things heart stutter, and its breathing harshen and slow. Then it stopped, and the body slumped to the ground. It had died from her poison. She was unsure if the other two would survive from the poison but it didn’t matter.

They were gone, and if they did die she could consume their bodies later. But for now she had plenty of food to consume. She snapped up the bodies one by one, chewing and ripping off chunks. Eagerly devouring a decent meal she had not had in a long time. There was a body unlike the intruders lying on the ground. She did not know what it was. But didn’t touch. She was full, and the smell it let off told it would not taste good.

More intruders came down into these tunnels, some seeking a territory of their own. Others to challenge her and to end her life. She treated all of the the same. They were no threat to her, and provided her with plenty of sustenance. She found that she’d cough up something from her digested meals, that would grow some kind of plant from them. It was there that something else came. But not intruders. They were immune to her poison for one, and had no interest in fighting her. No these things were smart enough to leave her alone, and seemed only interested in what grew from her regurgitation. So they were ignored.

She found herself at times having to wait long periods for food to come from above. She couldn’t venture to the surface herself, it was too bright, and the exits too small. But they still came regardless. As though the danger that faced up there was worse than her. Foolish choices on their parts, but prey usually was. They either learned from the mistakes of other prey, or died like their kin. 

This was her territory, and anything that dared come down here to take it or her life would meet their end.

_________________________

I tried. I wanted to write something where you could just watch as Mayday lost herself more and more to the infection until she was gone. And nothing but the infection remained. I thought it was fitting that the last person she forgot was Zuke, and since wisteriarotting said Ellie’s death is what tipped her over the edge, I made sure to include that.

I tried to establish that as her eyesight and mind faded, she couldn’t recognize humans anymore, and forgot she was one once

For those wondering about some details:

She’s like a combination of a alligator and a snake. Her head is like an alligator's, but narrower, and her jaw is huge and opens wide, like how a snake jaws will unhinge. Her teeth are sharp and there are a lot of them. She has no hair anymore and has long spines on her head, with shorter ones down her neck and back.

Her body is long like a snakes, and has  proportional thickness of an anaconda. Her limbs give her quite the height boost, but can twist under her so she can squeeze through the sewer tunnels with ease. Her feet a re like a komodo dragons and her claws are long. She is covered in dark orangish red scales that have her blend in well to the darkness and they are really tough.

He guitar picks fused with her legs and arms, making sharp scale like appendages that stick out and offer more protection. The guitar strings are fused into her throat and vocal chords and move every time she breaths or cries out. 

(Check out wisteriarotting, who linked a video to what sounds may would make,)

Her detachable piece has  embedded into her chest and the muscle and sinew from her body and heart have grown over it.

I though id add the poison and other creatures for fun. The creatures are animal like too, but more human than may and are not affected by the poison. Like for example one looks like a deer fusion. It has antlers growing out of its head and one of its eye sockets. And deer legs and arms, with a misshapen mouth.

These ones only eat the vegetation that grows from the mass that may coughs up. Both have poor eyesight and rely on smell and hearing to find their way around, though may also has sight like a pit viper and can pick up heat signatures.

The mutated don’t really give those off, since once the infection takes over they’re just basically walking corpses. as for why people keep going down there? they’re desperate for any kind of escape, and don’t believe that the rumors of her are as bad as people make it out to be. This always leads to an unfortunate end.

And the reason I added those creatures? Mayday is basically on the same tier as the NSR artists, and i’d imagine they had to fight a lot of minor infected on their way to the artists. So i thought it would be fitting.

as for the recordings? Well this is from a alternate path where Zuke has to return to the city to keep the infection from spreading,

So why not let him find some recordings of Mayday’s descent into her death? Before you know, having to fight her and see what she has become.

[tidesunderboats]

Oh my god, I thought, it’s so hot. Why does it have to be so god damn hot.

Another heave; my stomach like a boat on an open ocean, punched from underneath by an untimely swell. The slight, ingrained panic of desperately wanting to catch a breath in between waves of it; unable to force open my airways as the hot, hot remnants of my home-made carbonara forced itself out my throat and into the impractically shallow pulp bowl. A little spatter of the acidic, creamy, curdled mess exited my wincing nostrils. In front of my bottom left incisor, stuck between my gum and my lip, a piece of something not completely digested, grainy and sour. I spat what I could into the bowl. My body reeled on the back of the wave, spinning, lurching, and right in the middle of that imbalanced spin, I could feel the hot tear of fragile skin.

Rip, I was thinking. It’s a ripping more than a tearing. No point being delicate about it now.

I reached for the midwife, reaching before looking, whilst I found my centre of gravity again. The nausea was giving way, if only to the pain. Natural birth, my ass. I don’t know what I was trying to prove, to whom, doing it naturally. There was some hope, I guess, that my maternal instincts would kick in, and I was going to push out this pink, clean, mucus-free little human and I was going to glow pleasantly, a little pink in the cheeks, ready for my applause for achieving premium, top-tier womanhood. I had clung onto it as a possibility for most of my 40 weeks; eager to not to make a mess, to definitely not be one of those women whose faeces were discreetly wiped away by one of the medical staff mid-push, god forbid.

I turned to face the midwife. “When are we stopping?”

She smiled, with a very firm squeeze of my hand, which had locked itself onto her forearm. “You’re doing great, it’s all going great. Keep taking those deep breaths-”

“That’s not what I asked,” I panted, “I need to stop.”

I faded as she responded, all out of focus until my eyes fell upon the door. He was stood with his back to us, having finished that phone call he must have needed to take- a phone call that must have been of great import. The way he pulled it out of his pocket as I heaved up the first serving of half-digested dinner, not long after that discussion about the necessary episiotomy-

“What’s an episiotomy?”

“And that’s absolutely necessary?”

-and the mean words I couldn’t keep in my stomach any more than I could our dinner, heaving their way up alongside a contraction-

“If you’re uncomfortable you don’t have to watch, you know”

-and my god, he may as well have been running to make that phone call on time. Now, now though, there was no phone pressed to his head. It was just him, with a back to the door, dealing with things in his own time. Processing. Riding out his own pain, I’m sure.

Like nausea to pain, my bitterness gave way to soreness. Shame. I felt her, sitting in the great bowl of my pelvis, pushing as hard as I was. I felt her wanting to get free, and I was willing to take a hammer and chisel to those bones if they were too narrow, be that the case. I was willing to give blood and bodily fluids just to get her free, if I could. Even if it was ugly.

And it was, it was really ugly. His co-workers wives had popped out their babies pink and clean, and they beamed up at their husbands, pink and clean themselves, if a little out of breath- as if they had taken the stairs instead of the lift on the way to the office for a quickie on his desk after hours. I chuckled, and it sputtered in my chest a bit, arrhythmical. There’ll be no quickies on a desk with a big old episiotomy, that’s for sure. Sorry babe.

 “Do you want me to call him back in for you?”

 I turned my head slowly back to the midwife, with all the intention of spinning it round, and none of the energy. I looked back at those square shoulders, head facing directly away from all the sweat and vomit, blood and faeces, all the heaving and all the screaming.

Suddenly, I’m back a year, two years maybe, dropping home on my lunch break to change the skirt I failed to adequately protect with a sufficient tampon. He’s sitting at his computer, on his day off, when I walk in with my jacket wrapped around my waist.

“Did anybody see you?”

“Probably not-”

“How did you let that happen?”

And I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, thumbing the browning stain as I sat there in my clean pants, like a small child who should really pack a change of clothes now and then, just in case. What my colleagues must be thinking of me, letting myself bleed everywhere like that. Did I get it on the office chair? Did a client see it? How could I let this happen?

God forbid, a client saw it. God forbid, I bled on something again after doing it to our bedsheets only a few months prior- and he showered a good 10 minutes longer, that morning.

 I stared at his head, framed by the hospital door window. A pane of glass and a big slab of steel between him, and that big mess. Bloody genitals on bloody sheets. I wanted to reach for his hand, I wanted to hold it. I wanted to tell him I was scared. I wanted him to wipe my face when I regurgitated his favourite meal against my own control.

But I was clammy to the touch.