Raul Carl's phone camera, high definition though it was, couldn't correct his shaking. As it panned across four rounded, joined indentations in asphalt and cement - and what looked like smoking scrap metal - the signal stuttered haphazardly. Details across Instagram Live, in scattered pixels and colors, only barely got across the imposing scope of the crater, with cleanly rounded edges.

"So we're here from - Fairview... fucking Fairview, not New York or -" a stray scream overpowered his voice, followed by metallic, rusty creaks and crunches. "You can't see it, but the stench - smells like fucking death here... Death and, and acid..." He swallowed. "Only on the Carlstrea- hah..."

As he peeked over the screen, trying to show enough of his panting face against the melting signs overhead, a flurry of attacks flashed out:

"Get your face out"

"DUDE"

"Don't namedrop your shit stream, people are DYING idort"

"Show them."

After rubbing his forehead, he turned the camera back to the fuming streets. The roads became uneven, desolate - flames and piles where buildings once lay. "Viewers. I have to keep them informed... it's what they're here for - all the millions, a record count..."

Falling debris, scattering like shrapnel, interrupted Raul’s monologue, and tossed him on his stomach. The roads tasted salty. He crawled, reaching for his phone, which stumbled away from his fingers after a minor tremor. The lens picked up what were either storm clouds, or smoke spires - followed by discolored flares that murdered the broadcast's video quality.

"CLOSER"

"get in there dickturd"

"What's going on there?"

"fake"

Panoramas of wasted, falling red skies shifted to the underside of Raul's fingerprint, then a close-up of a jet's wing sinking into the earth in chunks. It was only a fragment, with more having fallen elsewhere - yet Raul was but a fraction of its size. Blurred, bubbling shapes cleared – the markings and dimensions more clearly displaying, for astute viewers, that it fell off a passenger plane, with nary a trace of those passengers. Chunks of the serial number descended, melting into a puddle of iridescent, pungent liquid. The man's green, hand-covered face reflected in its swirling depths, while he stepped away.

"Chemicals... From above - Motherfuckers." He'd said that word enough times that it lost all its weight in the vast enormity of the situation - to his disappointment, coming across as defeated more than resolute. He held a hand over the charred remains - instantly jerking it away, and waving to cool it down. It left an acrid musk no matter how much he swung it.

A slow drip filled the silence - which he jolted to. From bisected buildings, a corrosive mix cascaded down. Its biting bitterness charred his nose hairs, sharp and oppressive, not unlike vinegar. Multiple stories, some stretching up to 200 feet, toppled and sunk onto each other, leaving them tilted like arches. Some of the messy, foul-smelling mass seared through windows, as others pooled into similar puddles of liquefied, charred matter - carrying the remains of license plates and tires.

Gradually, steadily, he walked to the escape route. Running could overwork his already tired lungs, and breathing the intensifying miasma of astringent smells was probably unhealthy. An abandoned car crossed his path - maybe still functional.

"There's no pattern to where they hit - there's gotta be ten of 'em going around..."

He looked in his hands to the flowing strings of intersecting comments.

"Go in."

"My sister's there, check in with her"

"CNN says it's just 1 but idk"

"I'm leaving"

"SHOW HER"

Raul shook his head. To deny the viewers their content - no, content was a dirty word. He would be denying them accurate information. Nobody would watch a stream of his getaway. He had to get footage of... that invader.

So he followed the trail of droplets – covering his nose in defense from the aroma of several gyms piling atop each other with each step – filming deeper indents and treading through soft, muddy roadway. "These holes have to be at least... I don't have a fucking ruler to say how big they are, but it's huge... Huge as - hah?"

A choke took him off-guard. Someone else. Someone's body, half hidden by the crater and fog of dissolving steam, clutching to the side. Raul went over seven different conversation-starting phrases while rushing over, before finally reaching down, settling on: "Buddy, what's going on?"

Instagram showed his lower abdomen - or lack thereof. Entrails poured from it into the crevice's rising, steaming mists. The host instantly pulled back, slamming the air. "This is... what-who--fuck... baaaalls, I'm gonna get TOS'd for this!"

Though dragging himself away from the scene, trying to catch his breath, he kept staring back at the train wreck – or wreckage of whatever was once there. Similarly to the impact zone he'd first filmed, and the ones leading up, there were four elongated, round marks of increasing size, with the "survivor" lodged in the smallest. They jutted out from a deeper hole, that was formed of two or three meaty, uneven ovals joined together, scrunched and balled up. Spots between each hole were laced with debris, ground beyond recognition past some girders or bricks; each laced with a generous helping of the same viscous mass that ate away at everything. The cheesy musk was strongest here, stinging his eyes. That wasted, putrid mass, biological and mechanical, littered a small stretch of about 20 feet from the hole, as if it had rained down from a canopy above... or an arch. It stopped at a bigger circle, a full, circular mass that left a small cliff. Settled at its base steamed a warm pool, eating down to the core of the street; and surrounding it, organic ripples.

Webs of fleshy wrinkles in a muddy footprint.

Traces with an identical shape marched into the distance, following a pattern; those behind having less matter dissolving, those ahead having more steaming debris... Chunkier, longer, and with greater proportional weight than human steps. Each 50 feet long, one end to another.

A pound. A muted swallow. A whisper. "They're... fresh prints."

Ignoring the streaming odors, ignoring any breathing concerns, he made a full 180 turn and sprinted. As his arms pumped, a shot of the victim reaching out behind alternated with his destination - the car. He ignored the weak murmuring behind him, but some words caught on in the chat:

"COWARD"

"What did he say?"

"Prince?"

"Footprints"

"It's her footprints and swet"

"It's the ground zero of bioweapons is what it is"

Finally planting his face at the Toyota's wheel, Raul found the key right in the ignition. And a second later, he found out why it had been abandoned. The highway, every path, was blocked by smouldering scraps of roofs and windows, and gargantuan potholes that could swallow city buses.

And the screen shook, distant lights appearing to bounce with the springs suspension.

"NO! No, wrong! That can't - it can't fucking happen here! Now?!"

With the phone now out of his palm, tossed to the passenger seat, viewers saw Raul reaching for the drivers' door. The next shaking tremble sent him and the car rolling asunder - the phone jostling, too, the lens pointed to a cup holder. Sounds of assorted, choked swears and pounds echoed on that shot, as vibrations continued.

Until the seat curled inwards. The frame of the vehicle crunched, bits of support snapping in on each other.

Behind him, the windshield displayed four azure toes. Toes, of all things, fucking toes. They connected to the ball of a foot hanging overhead, with shells of similar cars between the phalanges. The blue digits dragged ditches in the road, gathering smashed, mangled debris in the oozing, alien sweat on her whorled flesh. The same acidic sweat seared holes in the roof, revealing the looming sole was pressing its weight down. Hard, fleshy bits bulged in every new opening. Sweat flooded the pedal area, eating away at the catatonic, immobile legs occupying it. Electronic components twinged at the rapid change in temperature. Twisting motions and buckling audio indicated: the expensive sports car chassis was being curled like a pill bug under a single boulder-like mass, its interior rotating.

The final image broadcast of Raul Carl was a desperate, silent, open-mouthed stare, as the foot broke the windows - or rather, swallowed them. The echoing audio of sizzles, punctuated by wet crunches, continued for three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The camera caught nothing but loosely shifting red pushed against it. Before, ultimately, a current of the sloshing liquid drowned the recording device with a spark.

SIGNAL LOST

Rattling. The rumble of an old motor crossing rapid transit rails. Dim tunnel interiors flashing by outside, with no visibility; while the fluorescent lights in the subway car were altogether too bright. Silence, punctuated by coughs, from the deeply unpleasant air seeping in the tightly-locked emergency doors. Claustrophobic loneliness in the assorted crowd. Occasional trembles that made the standing passengers grip to the railings, hand veins bulging.

Cameron kept hunched over his phone. He stood, giving his seat to another passenger – but didn't look their way, keeping his eyes focused on the screen.

"Babe, it's not gonna hold together." Annabella's voice on the other end wavered. "The subway barely works normally. I kept telling them to renovate the rail, mailing them, and now you're on it, and they never listened to-"

"Babe, I'm okay. Breathe." His fingers shook from another jolt below. His smile mismatched the rest of the faces wobbling and behind him, people clutching each other.

She clenched her teeth, and whispered a scream. "Easy for you to say - with your clean air!" She hung her head briefly. The call picked up only rushing, shaking footsteps, as still-standing apartments passed behind. It finally registered coherent words: "Look, babe, sorry. I can't see shit over there. Can barely see shit here. It's falling." Her camera pointed to distant homes, shoddy foundations and boards going horizontal with every tremor. Tree leaves above blew in a flurry, as if scattering from a shock wave.

With a nod, Cameron's face shone in the vibrating, slightly-yellow incandescent lights. "We're helping each other here. They said the next stop is Cedar. When we get together again there-"

"Don't." Suddenly squatting down behind a bus, Annabella first leaned in close enough to show the blood shooting in her eyes; then changed to the other camera to present Cedar Street from ground level.

Behind the gaps in buildings, in the gleam of reflective windows, blue towers shifted. Methodically, diligently, in sync with the ever-active quakes - now tossing and toppling the seated passengers on Cameron's side. Her legs. Her hairless, glistening legs sliced through the vacant office. It left enough of a smoldering hole to reveal a tight, form-fitting gear around her waist. Unlike her flesh, it was so dark - only the barest hints of dying light reflected off its shell-encrusted, bizarre bio-membrane. Everything above was cut off by the top floors, embers dancing among them.

"Run." He mouthed.

"She'll see me."

A scream rang out. On instinct, Annabella’s arms shifted to it. A man sprawled out on the ground, not ten feet away. His voice soon grew hoarse from the yell, shrinking to a small, pleading, "I don't want to die."

The giant hips turned in the distance.

An instantaneous wave of energy burst from 300 feet in the air, oxygen molecules crackling in the wake of the searing ray.

The man no longer existed. Cedar Street no longer existed. Where he stood, all shelter, cover, and traces of life within a straight prism had been skinned off the bedrock. Not even a blink. Not even an ash. The metro tunnels were sliced open.

The aftershock was instantaneous below, and sent the phone escaping from Cameron's hand - as Annabella hollered. An older woman flew against his chest, making his diaphragm spasm. He couldn't tell if he was merely dizzy, or if the blast derailed the car itself.

After some quick apologies, and stumbling searching, he got back to the device. Ignoring stares, and murmurs - everything from chatter about government action to theories on the name and origin of the invader - he forced the dislodged battery back in. While waiting for it to boot up, loading through flashy logos, he slapped himself and performed reality checks – pinching himself and holding his breath. Finally, he put a smile back on when he restarted the video call.

Annabella's bloody, bruised face smiled back, if only briefly. "Thank god. That laser, those eyes beams, it just launched that bus, like - like some kind of leaf, in the... Ow, ow... it stinks..." Glass - from the window she'd propped up against - poked from her left shoulder.

Cameron swallowed. "What in the shit... sit down, I'm coming, babe!"

Attempting to lift the limp arm, despite the stinging, she shook her head. "No, I'm... we gotta keep moving. That - that piece of work left us... nothing to hide behind."

"I'll keep going ahead, so we'll meet at-"

Behind Annabella's camera, in the distance, a set of four slick, liquid-coated fingers descended from the sky - the screen space and remaining structures cutting off everything past her elbow. It penetrated the earth, sending landslides rolling out; and tugging out a worming, sagging string of transit cars. One thumb - if the wet digit could be called that - snapped the container of humans open. Its crack released a stream of coalescing shrieks from inside. Just as suddenly, they halted, as she pulled them out of frame - with a single, elastic snap.

Cameron tugged open an emergency exit, an odd assortment of confused passengers trailing him. "Back. It was Third Street before this."

"Third Street..." Annabella muttered. "She blasted me far enough. I can make it."

The snaking transit tunnels that the passengers dashed through were murky, dim, and clouded with fumes; but they could tell that the ceiling was giving way. Here and there, the whole path appeared to have been squeezed like a great toothpaste tube. A few spots had rays of illumination from the sky - often followed by putrid liquid dripping over the edge, and eating into the rail below. The further they went, the more hints of the outside world sunk in - massive billboards piercing through the steely sky, underground parking areas slowly melting to bubbling tar pits, even foundations smashed down to their level. And then there were the tremors, the continuous tremors, that made them feel like ants burrowing through a hill in a garden...

Annabella kept close to the ground, between a walk and a crawl. Even with no visual sign of the gargantuan visitor, the traces of her rampage were impossible to turn away from. Prints that seemed to carve to the bottom of the earth; steaming rivers of liquid; toppled businesses that had withstood typhoons... it hurt, and looking at them didn't help. She tried to focus on creaking, shattering landmarks to navigate; dashing behind the shell of the old bakery, catching her breath, and repeating the process to get in front of her friend's house. They hadn't talked in weeks. She kept saying to her phone: "It's fine... it's gone... it's fine..."

Right at the platform, Cameron's traveling party encountered an obstacle which outmatched any before. Ticket booths, vending machines, wheelchair accessible ramps - all compressed together in the dirt, forming one ball of impenetrable matter. She'd crushed the station. Cameron, pushing everyone else aside, swung at the clump of ruination - and nothing happened.

He looked back to his phone, panting, almost sobbing - when he noticed a station name hanging above his significant other's head. "Babe... Annabella, you're - here. At the station?"

Seemingly unaware of that fact, she looked behind her. A smile crossed her face for the second time that day - wide, brilliant, proudly showing broken teeth. "Oh, Cameron - honey, honey, finally, I get to hold you again... But it's all - it's broken..."

"Hell, I can find a way up from here. I've got a lot of muscle, a lot of people with me, down here, just gotta - - babe?"

Behind Annabella's happy tears, the sun disappeared. A black, biological, tight-fitting suit eclipsed it; hugging tremendous hips. The scraps of a subway car peeked out from within the darkness – obscured, pressed flat against the giantess' blue, tremendous ass.

As soon as he said "Shit, look out!", the signal broke. The call ended.

"No, no, babe, babe, come on come on... I can't - without you..." He dialed her.

The sky shook, boulders of earthy and concrete debris striking one of the passengers dead beneath. Others instantly rushed away, pulling one another to safety.

Cameron hunched over and called her.

Two immense bulges formed above. Unearthly groans echoed in the tunnels as the street struggled to contain the bursting, horrific pressure of an alien woman taking a seat.

Cameron dialed the number again and again.

A red dot with Annabella's clothes decorated the twin mountains parting the sky, already somewhat washed away by sweat. Through layers upon layers of construction, the sweltering bio-membrane making up the jumpsuit held tightly to her buttocks. It was impossible to see her whole body in the tumbling, dusty wreckage; but simply stretching a leg out from her seated position would be enough to knock over a structure 150 feet away, if her laser vision didn't hit the target first.

Cameron didn't know if she noticed him. He didn’t know if she noticed Annabella, sweet Annabella. He wasn't sure if she was aiming for him, or just wanted to rest her destructive feet. He didn't know how the others got away, if they even could. And he didn't know what the snapping, popping noise was, removing feeling in his legs, then torso, then neck, as her full weight descended and dragged him about the hard railings.

He didn't care. He dialed again, and even when he lost sensation in his hand, he kept calling her name into the darkness that consumed him.

SIGNAL LOST

"Aaaand thanks to KayfaybeBae6 for that donation. Be assured, that one's not going to any Avengers microtransactions. My Kamala's already strong enough."

"YOOOO"

"is that a reference"

"GO BRI"

":D SHO FEET"

Brianna snickered to herself, though the Twitch chat didn't have quite the number of POG messages and KomodoHype emotes as usual. The input display flashed irregularly on stream; a few of the bright colors jolted, and fizzled, before revealing a "lose" screen. She leaned back, stretching so much her gamepad was partially hidden behind her ergonomic chair.

"Really? You-you know guys, I've considered changing mains from Sakura. Yeah, I used to pull off surprises with her - but the meta's gotten so that everyone has a counter. So I'll be--"

Messages flowed one after another, as she went blurry, a loading symbol twirling.

"Change to who?"

"Lag spike"

"Stop using shotos"

"Anyone else getting those connection problems?"

"RARE BLURRY BRI CAMEO"

"That was shaking."

"Where are you?"

"Beat so bad her routor's fizzlin XXDDD"

When her stream came back up, she shook her head. "Urgh, DC'd again? The netcode here is..." A small rumble, like a construction drill - she didn't pay it any mind. "...'where am I?' Yeah, like I'd self-dox." The gamer rolled her eyes.

"THIS IS SERIOUS"

"If you're in Fairview, GTFO"

"news. look at it."

She squinted at the screen, leaning in, and grabbing her mouse. "Which Fairview? I swear, guys, this epic prank of yours-"

Another loading message.

A still frame of the pictures behind her – family photos and themed posters - flying off the walls.

Brianna was launched out of her seat, tumbling into a falling portrait. The rocking around wasn't just a sudden jolt – it continued, making new decorations fall. She needed a second to realize: this wasn't some freak accident. Her apartment room might've been at a higher level, but the structure was built to withstand earthquakes.

This wasn't an earthquake. Earthquakes didn't break the ceiling, sending tiles shooting down from above.

A frozen, blurry action shot came on the stream as she dodged the falling object. The rising dust from the impact made the image unclear; along with the twisted illumination from toppled-over lamps and fallen bulbs from above. The camera setup, too, tilted from a sudden jolt below her.

Her phone. It seemed selfish, but the phone would tell her about any disasters – and let her call someone. She ran for it on the table. As she reached down, a warmth crossed her back.

The next image that made it across to the stream was at a twisted angle, pointed to the ceiling. Above was Bri's hand, reaching for something. Above that, something was reaching for Bri.

Chat continued without their host's input:

"no"

"FUCK!"

"BIG BLUE"

"What's that?"

Four wide, full fingers larger than a human body pierced the once-familiar ceiling – not so much ripping the room apart, as peeling it away with a touch, walls withering back and a wall clock sticking in the whorled flesh. Had it seem her? Brianna instantly took flight, beneath a doorway, switching the stream to her phone.

The screen briefly flashed blue, then went to a shifting redness, from her palm clutching the camera. It displayed the room she was dashing through - dark, shaking, and punctuated by hurried, rapid panting. "Oh God, oh God... which way... emergency..." She tried to remember the fire escape plan – the closest thing that could apply to the situation.

Continuous snaps echoed behind her, as the camera switched to her face - bloodshot eyes peeking left and right at toppled furniture. The camera focused on her hurried feet for a moment, toppling baubles and merch strewn on the carpet. She ducked beneath a door frame as it caved in, the view slowly returning right-side-up, parallel to the unsteady floor.

"BACK"

"r u ok?"

"????!!?"

"FEET"

Brianna panted, looking around. "There's... emergency exits here, I've gotta..."

Further trembles flung away broken shards of fizzled-out light bulbs from the doorway. Amid the noise outside, she was alone with her viewers – who could hear shallow, irregular breaths, and rapid banging and creaking from an out-of-use knob. After a few pleas of "open, open dammit!", the door to the balcony appeared to open on its own, swallowing Brianna.

She lunged with such speed that she nearly threw her phone over the railing. Below was a long drop - longer than it should have been, and getting further each second, with torn emergency stairs dangling limply in the sky. Blue fingers supported it, raising the entire chunk of apartment from below.

Brianna fell to her backside, sweat building around her headset. "It can't..." Her stiff arms recorded a sleek, dark uniform's bio-membrane, wrapped around 20-foot-wide breasts; a long azure neck with what seemed to be gills; and...

...after a second of lag...

A face. Brianna's face, reflected in dark, glossy, immense eyes. It stood there, before her - the shape of a pert, button nose, inhaling and exhaling terrestrial oxygen in a calm, measured pattern. Cheeks lifted by curling lips. Loose, organic tendrils in a gradient of indigo and violet, sliding from the back of her head and framing her features, and stopping gradually around her massive, slender shoulders.

Almost like hair.

Almost like a woman's face.

Almost like a smirk.

As her lips parted, a wet, musty air emerged from the invader's teeth - and it did seem appropriate to call them that. Brianna was almost tempted to touch the green taste buds inside to see if they were real. The tongue unrolled like a slow carpet before a monarch. Overtaken by a pang of fear, she turned to the chat, desperate for some answer – or failing that, condolences.

"HER"

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck"

"face reveal"

"it's over"

"kinda hot tho"

"no"

"...~...--"

Something came out of the giant mouth. Words. Not something Bri could fully make out, with the warning notifications and stream music echoing in her headset; but it was some kind of language. The warm breath washed over her, and became a chill, shutting the streamer into stillness.

The chat messages stopped, too, for just a second - before resuming, nearly rattling in her palm:

"serve"

"pray for a quick death"

"serve"

"pray to be a good nutrient"

"serve"

Brianna stared at the outpouring, sans-serif characters - thumb twitching above them. It wasn't the same confused, chaotic mishmash of tired memes; each was precisely one second apart, and some from viewers who'd been with her for years.

300 feet in the air: running back inside was useless. She rushed to the side, far away from the colossal face, and flung herself over the railing, teary eyes shut. This was it.

Fwip.

There was no hard landing. The invader didn't afford her that. From over 25 feet away, with the speed and distance of a chameleon's tongue, the alien's slimy organ lashed out. It stuck to her body with precise aim, gluing her in a spongy indent in the ever-shifting surface. It "saved" her from the drop. And even when Brianna fought back, wrestling away from its glutinous hold, the flexible muscle coiled around her, rolling her back into the "safety" of the maw.

And lathering her.

And tossing her against a cheek.

Drooling.

Savoring her.

This monster that had methodically wiped out half a city... was playing with her food.

This thought sent cold shivers down her spine alone - nearly as intense as the taste buds sliding over her, coarse enough to rip her shirt, yet soft on her flesh. That damp "air" from the balcony was now a veritable miasma, a mist within the gigantic jaws that fogged the camera screen. Only the smallest bit of illumination shone in between the small gaps in the teeth, containing the fleshy, torn remains of... Brianna didn't want to think about it. She just repeatedly flung her fist against the verdant muscle which shared this cramped, organic room with her.

A small, rising "hmmm~" - and the lengthy tongue deposited its prey.

The twitch signal cut.

SIGNAL LOST

--And resumed, showing a bit of fleshy emerald passages.

And shut again.

And opened, in sync with the organic pulses of alien throat muscles, processing the contents down on waterfalls of hot juice.

Constricting tunnels of throat muscle masticated its contents: one woman, her screams drowning in meters of thick flesh, or cut off by hard pressure on her gut. Every flail and struggle just seemed to push her past another natural aperture in the esophagus. Long, sheer drops, with a peek into terrifying, smoky ground below; punctuated by all-too-long squeezes of slime-drenched cells, the inner biology introducing itself.

She finally had nothing holding her – leading to the longest drop yet, unsupported, into a deep pond below.

splish

Brianna resurfaced, looking around.

"Oh, no... no, that's... fuck..."

Shapes blurred by poor reception and thick liquid crossed the screen, bleeding into one another. A wipe from the streamer's sleeve gave greater definition to the sinking stomach contents: wheels. Concrete. A whole car rolled up like a pill bug, with red inside. What could only now be described as "biomass", from sources that Brianna couldn't identify - and didn't want to. And all around, bubbling acids, with a bioluminescent glow revealing semi-translucent stomach walls that tensed and relaxed around them.

Brianna splashed, clutching to her only remaining access to the outside world. The continual drum of sounds from what felt like right on the flesh sent sweat streaming down her - at least, she hoped it was sweat. "Fuck! Everyone, it's - that's me. That's us. That's us in here! This is what we are to it - her - food? Fuck, no, no, get me out, I'm not - I'm gonna die! It smells like fish and rotten gas, I can't feel my legs, I can't feel the floor, and I'm - I'm not gonna be - mush!"

Between confused screams, and heavy dripping, she glued her face back to the screen: seeing the messages hadn't paused.

"serve"

"be joyous the universe selected humanity"

"serve"

"your achievements have built up to this"

"serve"

"you understand"

She lowered her arm. That repeated message, from people she loved, who'd supported her through her career, such as it was... It really didn't make sense to fight, in her last moments.

No, it made all the sense in the world, to swim towards a stomach wall and kick it in -

Heavy whirlpools began, pulling Brianna away. She let herself float, bobbing among the desolate waste within this blue gargantuan thing’s stuffy innards.

She shook her head and screamed. Her hands clawed to stay above the rising fluids -

And they tingled in the pleasant, bubbling massage they provided. Her head drifted under.

Brianna gathered her air to scream, not so much at her as at the universe -

And the sound was drowned out by a relaxing drumming, almost like a heartbeat; a siren song of satisfied breaths; and the flush of food being broken down to its essential components.

The phone floated up to the surface, along with her hand - and no other parts.

"serve"

"your culling has come"

"serve"

"pray for the last time"

"serve"

With no breaths left, the very last words Brianna typed remained unsent: "thank yo"

SIGNAL LOST