516. Observing life, 1

(Rose)

I know the principles of reproduction through mitosis and meiosis.

We made our mix of the two, and possibly more I haven’t learned.

But it began with a single cell, constructed by the merging data and knowledge of the three of us.

The first cell is a diploid one. One set of genes is made from what remains of mine out there, completed by what Blume had kept herself.

The other set is from Blume’s memory of her own body, complemented with mine to fill the gaps.

Nightmare crafted everything else, which includes other genomic segments for recipient cell and other elements. She used the little data left from herself and her knowledge from other creatures to fuse with the remaining scattered microbiological data from Blume and I.

Some of our flora will hybridise as well, along with us.

As Blume once put it, we’re not a single unity as a human, but a complex and innumerable collection of entities, floral, viral, animal, and overall human.

At a cellular level, if you pierce a human body, you find more than one lifeform, much much more.

At the genesis here, it’s an unequal mix of the past existence of the three of us, into a haploid egg cell we look after very carefully.

We then watch it divide, and meiosis starts.

Well, I’m watching. Nightmare acts, designing and guiding the processes. Blume spread roots and vessels outward from the chrysalis to feed the soon to be born creature.

The cell divides itself, into four. Then the gametes recombine themselves, in a parthenogenetic fertilization. Two almost identical haploid cells are born.

B - Had we chosen to be flowers, double fertilization was possible.

R - You mean things with three parents already existed?

B - Of course.

I didn’t know that.

I thought everything in nature was male or female. Blume taught me about parthenogenesis, cloning and things like that, but we didn’t get this far.

Meanwhile, embryos of twin women begin their accelerated growth in this metamorphosis of a sort, fuelled by as much food as we have and T.I. we can gather, with Blume’s help.

Self-created life used to be slow, hazardous and random, with environmental constraints and selection.

The united womb of two gods working together makes the creation of life look easy as a breeze.

Creating life is really a natural incline to these two at least.

Their respective inclinations toward life may differ a lot, but their teamwork around me is a prodigious work of art being displayed.

Inside this hybrid womb, time flows differently. The nutrients brought by Blume are both chemical and magical.

The chemical food is converted into flesh and cells. Some photosynthesis outside helps manufacturing some missing elements from what she digs and captures around.

The T.I. she breathes in makes everything chemical and physical go easier, smoother and much faster.

The essentially human cells multiply at great speed and with ease, so long they get enough compounds to do their replication reactions. It’s all happening under the careful watch and somewhat gentle care of the lord of nightmares.

She’s a master artisan, we both see it as she works there. Even though she never created human bodies before, which Blume has a few times, Nightmare is by far a better expert at this work of creation.

Tuning the metabolism, adjusting the organic catalysts and their manufacturing process. Adjusting the volumes, the flows, the electrical currents, the hormones, everything.

Blume is helping with her knowledge and her hundreds of metabolic roles in here to keep the womb fed and warm, but Nightmare is the star of the show. She’s the master artist in this very motherly work of art and biology.

Two women are growing fast inside of us, as twins.

One to be the human Nightmare, and one to be Rose Blume.

~

Everything I’ve gathered of myself and my will to live again as a human, they already begin to fuse with one of the two templates of brains being built.

Blume tags along with me. On the other side of our circle, Nightmare takes her time, there’s no rush.

We see together the outer walls of our domain slowly recede as the bodies grow.

The umbilical cords grow also larger as well along with the shapes. Nightmare operates their inner end, whilst Blume feeds and operate the outer end. They’re bound not to a mother, but in the end plain roots growing outside of this big blister of flesh somewhere in a field.

We’re growing as hybrids in more ways than one.

B - I missed hearing you say that.

R - In more ways than one you mean?

B - Yes.

You really missed me... Don’t you worry, I will say it again.

Days still go by in blinks. But the bodies grow fast and are the size of children already. I’m still gradually constricting myself inside a brain, as it grows along with me.

Nightmare’s main consciousness has done a similar process on her side as well.

The two bodies are growing in a more and more automated manner as the three of us fuse with them. Or take possession of them.

Blume and I create our shared brain as we also constrict our minds, our structure of T.I. inside of it. Slowly, the T.I. structure becomes neural network and pattern. Slowly, the boundary between the two worlds vanishes there.

Until a moment without sudden change, when we’re simply just in. Inside our body and nothing else.

My body, still asleep, growing, where both of us now live.

~

As we became real once more, we also became unconscious, since the bodies still were asleep and finishing their growth.

Once again, if age was unbound to history, we could have been rejuvenated. Unfortunately, the memories of myself and my genes also carry marks of my age and history. Which means my, our, newborn body will still be about thirty-seven years old on some aspects, and likely already menopaused once complete.

When I truly begin to suffer from the weakness of age, we’ll see if we try to do something about it.

Currently, that age of ours is nothing we need to be concerned about.

I don’t mind my crows’ feet and ageing face or grey hair spreading wildly. As long as my muscles and bones work fine, my body is fine.

I dream about it, and I can feel my legs twitching. The outer skin of the giant chrysalis is becoming tighter around us.

Nightmare and I are both lying in semi foetal posture, feet to head, one to another.

As the egg keeps shrinking around us, we end up constricted during the last days of growth.

Our faces get pressed against each other’s legs. We twitch more and more.

The vessels feeding us are drying. Our minds are waking up.

The dry skin of the larval chrysalis dried and flakes out like an egg shell.

We begin to move.

Air and light begin to caress our skin and exposed spots.

A perfume of roses lingers around, as we begin to awaken.

Our metamorphosis is completed, as our arms begin to push ourselves back into the world.

~