Crawlers

11:49pm

'Am I not beautiful?' said the Queen, through Lauren's mouth. 

Lauren's arms stretched wide. Behind her the creature that held her gave a delighted wriggle, quaking a full ten metres of milky blubber. 

'Am I not gorgeous?' asked the Queen. 'Am I not truly the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life? Be honest now.' 

Frozen in place, unable even to gag at the stench that surrounded her, Jasmine could not reply. 

'HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!' a scream was forced from Lauren's lips. A burst of mechanical-sounding laughter followed - 'HAHAHAHAH!' - and four great whoofing blasts of foul breath boomed from the Queen's own tube of a mouth. 

'You find me repulsive,' the Queen stated. The prehensile tongue extended, lowering Lauren's face towards Jasmine's. 'But I love you, Jasmine. Of all my subjects so far, I love you the best. Walk with me.' 

Grunting with effort, the Queen heaved the last of her bulk up out of the pit. Then (RAAASP, wheeze, moan) she set off towards the other steel door Jasmine had noticed earlier. Jasmine went with her. She had no choice. 

To Jasmine, the Queen, big as she was, looked a lot like a maggot. She moved like one too: the grey hoops of muscle down her sides alternately swelled and contracted, manipulating different sections of her body to pull her along. The RAAAASP was the sound the Queen's rubbery flesh made as it dragged across the brickwork; the moaning and wheezing was a sign of how much effort that took. With each lurch forward, gobs of slime sprang out like sweat droplets all over the Queen's body. 

'All this locomotion.' Lauren's mouth, sneering in distaste. 'Most irksome. But necessary. This place is no longer safe. Fortunately an escape route has been provided.' 

They were approaching the other steel door. Beyond it lay a passageway of dripping brickwork, and an intensifying stink of human waste that rivalled even the Queen's distinctive odour. As Jasmine's helpless steps took her over the lip of the door, she realized she'd been right: she had smelled sewage earlier. 

The sewer was bigger than Jasmine had expected, perhaps fifteen metres across. Also, unusually for a sewer, it had lights: more of the same globes she'd seen in the pit chamber had been placed along the ceiling, leading away to her left. But a sewer was unmistakably what it was: a dark and reeking stream ran along a sunken concrete trough in its centre. 

Still carrying Lauren, the Queen squeezed through the door after Jasmine. Turning her bulk with an effort, she started off up the tunnel, following the lights. Jasmine walked along at her side, unable to do anything else. 

'You need to understand what I am giving you, Jasmine,' the Queen said. 'So now I will tell you something of who I am, and how I came to be here. 

'Like you, in a way, I am a chosen child of fate. But I am the lone survivor of trillions. In the final cataclysm of her death my mother scattered us like seeds across the universe. Our chances were slim. Many us of were destroyed - crushed to nothing by the vagaries of gravity, or scorched to dust by angry stars. Many, many more of us simply drifted for ever, falling through blackness endlessly, to nowhere. Of even those few that made safe landing, most fell on barren ground - desolate places, devoid of life. But I, Jasmine, fell somewhere far more promising...

'For tens of millions of years I lay hidden, waiting for your kind to become worthy to serve me. By sixteen sixty-six (by your current calendar) your species was ready. Perhaps too ready: before I could establish my rule, the Corporation discovered my existence and took their steps to stop me. But they were greedy and secretive, and they coveted my power for themselves. Though the Great Fire razed huge swathes of London, the Corporation succeeded in flushing me out and capturing me without the general population ever realising the Fire's true purpose. In the Corporation's furtiveness shall lie my strength. Now, when the mass of humanity knows me, it will be because they will already have become my subjects. 

'Before her death sent me on my journey, my mother was Queen of Everything. I am her heir. With your help, Jasmine, I will claim my birthright. And this world shall be my capital.'