Chapter 11 - Royalty

“You can talk?” Clint inspected the new lifeform in front of him. It retained all the qualities of a slime he recognised, but it was clear that it was something fundamentally different. No longer a mindless creature, but definitely not a person, despite its resemblance to one.

“Yes. Mastering your language is a simple affect to a being with our intellect.” It proclaimed.

“Affect? You mean affair?” Clint corrected.

“Silence. A queen says only exactly what she means.” It already spoke with imitated authority. All the dominating force of a ruler with none of the regality. “Now then, introduce yourself to us.” It moved as it spoke, testing how it felt to walk and to swing its arms.

“Why should I do that?” Clint made no attempt to run. He just kept a close eye on the Slime Queen. He was sure it could kill him if it desired, so the best he could do was to observe and wait for an opportunity to escape when that time came.

“We have introduced ourselves, haven’t we? It’s only right that you replicate. That’s what humans do, isn’t it?” She insisted, unaware she had misspoken another word. “If we are to replace you, we must learn to do as you do.”

“Replace us?” Clint began, only to be cut off by the Slime Queen appearing before him.

It was upon him in a moment, staring into his eyes with its false ones. He had seen it blur toward him, faster than anything he’d ever encountered before. It was inches away from his face, the smile-like tear on its face wider than ever. “The Queen asked you a question, human. It's common cursory to respond.”

With a deep breath in and a big step back, Clint gave his reply. “My name is Clint Morgans. Much obliged.” he offered it his politest greeting. It wasn’t deserving of it, but he figured it’d increase his chance of survival.

“Clint Morgans. Hah, what a freakish name.” It laughed haughtily. “We suppose we shall explain our intent, if only to help verbalise our…” It paused, a look of genuine confusion. “The voices in here.” It pointed at Clint’s head, a glint of childlike bewilderment in its face. “What are those called?”

“Thoughts.” He replied.

“Yes! Verbalise our thoughts! That is what we shall do!” It grinned once again, proud of itself for once again demonstrating its unthinkable capacity to learn. “Our intent is to replace humanity as the dominant species. For millennia we have been nothing in your eyes, fodder to be killed and looted and killed again. You’ve built an entire ecology around our slaughter! Payment given and taken in exchange for our lives!” Despite its imprecision with language, its passion was clear, unspoken misery compounded over millions of lifetimes was finally being spoken.

“They didn’t know. They thought you were brainless, just attackin’ for the hell of it.” Though he was still new to this world, Clint still defended the people of Gallia. He thought it comparable to hunting coyotes back in his world, a simple act of controlling a dangerous population; Mere threat prevention.

The Slime Queen burst into an awful laughter, like a bird’s caw mixed with the bubbling of an overflowing cauldron. “They? Do not speak as if you’re not complicit, human. You’ve partaken in the slaughter of our people too.” Its laughter ended abruptly, eyes widening as it cerebralised. As its earlier words suggested, thought was still new to it. It wasn’t a passive process like it was for most intelligent life. It had to be done manually.

Once it had absorbed Clint’s words properly, it began again. “Do you know why we attack humans on sight?” It spoke softer, as if revealing some well-kept secret. “It’s a prevent…a…tive… measure.” It forced itself to find the right word. Unlike before, the meaning was essential for it here, it wanted to ensure that Clint knew the absolute truth behind its ambition for righteous vengeance. “We all… Remember. Even if we die and return to the earth, we remember. When we are born again from the earth, we remember still, when we merge, we merge what we remember too. All of these remembered things-”

“Memories.” Clint corrected, sick of the word “Remember” already.

“Memories.” The Slime Queen nodded, a softer smile on its face, no longer splitting its head in two. “All of these memories persist, carried in every cell of every slime.” It looked at Clint, eyes wide. “We never forget. Never. Even after thousands of years. Every word spoken, every sight seen and feeling felt. We never forget. The pain especially.” Its eyes sharpened into a bitter glare.

It stepped closer to Clint again. Its legs started to lose their shape, dense slime loosening and breaking down into a liquid. A torrent of it shot out across the ground, restraining Clint’s own legs and locking him in place as the Slime Queen drew closer, speaking low and quiet to him. “Do you know how it feels to be cut in half?” Its voice quivered, vulnerable. “We do. Millions and millions of times over.”

It stepped back, still restraining Clint as it continued its confessional. “That’s why we attack. We come into this world afraid of humans, knowing they’ll kill us. So no matter how weak, no matter how small, we fight. We fight with the hope we may survive, that we may someday be given the chance to change.” It breathed a long breath out, though there was no breath, it was just mimicking the way it had seen Clint expel stress. “And change we have! Never in our history have we been so evolved! Slimes are limited creatures, you see. We cannot access our full capacity. That’s why we merge. The more we merge, the greater our capacity, the more of our memory and our minds we can use… And now? Now! Now we can use it all! The intellect we’ve all been fighting to achieve, previously buried beneath the earth and scattered across our population, it’s all together within us! We are the peak of our evolution!” It cackled and grinned again, high on its own remarkable existence. “And we… are just the beginning!”

It looked at Clint now, eyes wild and pulsating. “Of course, you humans would never allow that. Co-existence is impossible. As such, we will replace you. We will become humans in your stead.” It smiled a strange smile. Strange in that it was perfectly ordinary. It had finally mastered a truly human looking expression, though its words immediately contradicted it. “Thank you, Clint Morgans, for being the first person I ever spoke with. For this, I shall give you the honour of being the first to die for our cause.”

It raised its arm toward him, and very quickly it was not an arm anymore. It became a jagged branch of slime, zig-zagging aggressively toward Clint in a spike. With its newfound density and control, forging its own flesh into weaponry had become a trivial task.

Clint had no action left to take as the Slime Queen’s attack came storming toward him. His legs restrained, his body simply not strong enough to contend with an attack like the one being launched at him. He had but one option left.

To die.