: Prompting Needed_

Cranial Affirmations

The far-off door to the pit swung shut with a gentle click that shuddered its way down into the gloom until it reached the caverns below. There the sound spread and dissipated like ripples in pond, each permutation getting lost in the warm and fetid air. As the sound of the door finally got absorbed by the humidity and flesh walls and tendrils that decorated the cavern, another sound took its place. This, much like the door's click, was sharp and repetitive. But it was no echo. At least none that Shinetooth could hear. Then again, were there an echo, he would not have noticed. His attention was staunchly on his food, the tools and the task surrounding them. "There is nothing wrong with you," the little speaker on the table next to him said in a light and pompous voice. Had Shinetooth knew anything about languages, he would have called it posh. But he did know something, though, did he not? The speaker crackled while the orange turntable spun lazily on the white body of the player. The little black disk ('A record', the new part of his brain informed him.) was being scratched by the sharp needle. Somehow that needle made the black disk talk.

"I highly doubt what I'm feeling is normal," Shinetooth muttered. He bore down on the stone with a harder swipe, shivering against the vibration of the blade grinding against the quartz. There was a centering in weapon upkeep. There was also a thrill.

"The world is not against you," the player reminded him through a puff of static. Though the tone of the voice coming from the device was still full of itself, it had a warmth to it. ('It's got what?' his ghoulish brain cackled.) He slid the quartz down again as he whispered the last sentence to himself. "The world's not against me, innit?" Another swipe down the blade did it, and he examined the edge. The point was crooked, but the edge was getting there. It had broken three times before now, and the length was over half gone. Broken three times in one shift? The world sure seemed against his tools at least. To make sure the edge was as honed as he thought, he slid it once against his newly attached thumb. It was a good one; it fit his hand perfectly since he had scavenged it from a fresh body dumped from Receiving above. The staff up there had been scanning for imperfections that seemed to be born from problems in the blood, so grafting the limbs that fit within his quota was getting easier and easier. He did not ask where the mutated bodies went and would not even if he had a means to. He flexed the thumb, glad for how the nerves had melded with his own. When he sliced the steel blade into the callused tip of the thumb, he felt the keen edge dig into the skin. But it didn't cut through. Not yet. He bent forward and continued to grind the stone.

"You deserve love."

Shinetooth barked out a laugh that shook his lip flaps and rattled his loose windpipe. "No one deserves that," he snarled towards the record player. He spat for good measure, though most of the phlegm caught against his teeth. He sucked it back in. What escaped landed with a splat on the chest of his patient. The broad, blood-smeared slab of skin was beginning to become quite shiny from his expectorations. 'More lubricant for the incision', he thought as he rolled his shoulders. He paused mid-swipe. The speaker crackled and clicked as the disk spun under the needle and he found himself staring at the little white box. "Why do I think in words so large," he asked, turning his head down to his patient. The cadaver said nothing in return. Dead people were funny like that. "I used to be so much simpler. I didn't have this egregious lexicon at my disposal." He tested the knife again. It was getting there. He got up, flipped the record, set the needle, then returned to the grinding.

The wavy static finally gave way to the warm and posh, "Welcome to your daily affirmation album. This record was made to be played every day during your morning routine."

He mouthed the words with a thick tongue and ran the blade across the new thumb one more time. The skin split with a whisper of steel through flesh and black ichor oozed out of the wound. Perfect.

The player continued as if nothing had just happened. "I'm your reader, John Cleese. Now, I'm getting paid a lot of money to read into this microphone. Feel free to listen and feel better about yourself."

Shinetooth lifted his patient's arm and examined the stump he had created before the bone within had snagged his knife. Flecks of bone were peeking out of the connective tissue and the muscles were looking shredded. The latter was less important, to be honest. Muscles were food, shredded or not. Along with tendons and all the softer bits. The issue was that if Collections found out he had damaged the bones, they'd dock him scavenging rights for a month at least. He frowned, feeling a stir of anger lance through his chest. 'Not like it takes much for Repair to stitch the things back together,' he thought. He shook his head to clear it and used the tip of the knife to flick bone shards towards his waiting mouth. Might as well get rid of the evidence. He chewed thoughtfully as John Cleese continued.

"Before we get started, you might be feeling loopy from having just woken up. Let's do some stretches."

"And have my leg pop out of joint again?" Shinetooth laughed. "Not likely, John." Something in his new frontal lobe stirred. He looked up and wiped the congealed cranial blood from the side of his nasal cavity. "Excuse me. I mean, and suffer a hip dislocation? Surely not." Confusion washed through him. Where in the hell had that come from? He didn't recognize the voice that had come out. True, he had given himself a laryngeal transplantation weeks ago, so his voice was bound to be a bit alien... but that wasn't the problem. He didn't say that. It's that new frontal cortex, he thought with panic trying to raise goosebumps on his pallid flesh.

"...five, six, seven..." Mr. Cleese counted off the seconds needed to clear one's mind.

"Where am I," a voice said out of his own mouth. The words were at complete contrast to the ones trying to come out. Shinetooth's hand gripped the knife's handle with a white-hot grip. The barbed handle dug comfortably in his palm and offered a cogent counterpoint... 'COGENT COUNTERPOINT?!' He glanced down to the surgical tool ('KNIFE' he corrected with a firm mental shove) and watched as something within him tried to wriggle his own fingers so he'd drop the blade to the ground. His mouth opened and the weird voice timidly murmured with his loose lips, "I'm afraid I don't know where-"

"Oh, HELL no!" Shinetooth interrupted himself. He bent the elbow with the knife attached to it up jabbed the blade deep into the exposed brain tissue above his eye and then-

Shinetooth had the simple thoughts of himself again. He fell forward as his hands dropped. The handle of the knife banged against the table and pushed the blade further in. An odd sort of warmth spread over his body, and his mouth fell slack. He drooled a thick mix of spit and ichor. This was more like it.

"There you go," the speaker said happily. "Feeling better?"

Shinetooth's wounded brain thought as well as it could around his own knife. It was hard to make words much bigger than 'bigger'. His head was his own. 'This is much better,' he thought. He sat up and pulled his weapon from his head with a little 'pop' then licked the blade. His meal next to him was still waiting. He leaned and took a large, hungry bite, enjoying the soft snap of the skin. "I'm good, John," he said through a mouthful of flesh. "I'm really good."