Yukipo Short 3: Noxious Guts
The fall was surprisingly short and the impact appropriately mild. Not that it would have mattered much. Yukipo landed on something soft and slimy anyway.
Shocked by the unusual consistency of her accidental saviour, she quickly rolled off the black blob of goo. Thankfully, the Blob did not seem to have a mind of its own, as it did not appear to be bothered too much by something dropping on it.
Even though the Blob thing did not mind, Yukipo did. Her nice white dress was now covered in a greasy black substance; with a smell worse than the common stinkhorn.
Although Yukipo liked her dress much, she had no time being sad about its dirtying. She came this far, so she won't let some grease on her clothes stop her. Besides, Yukipo was used to it. Whenever it became night in the forest, Yukipo always dug herself a hole to sleep in. Wet and mossy soil was her favourite. She doesn't quite know why, but sleeping underground regenerated her and made her feel energetic in the morning.
"Yuck." a combination of disgust and fear rushed through Yukipos body, while observing this strange mess of a slimy pillow. She touched it slightly, only to quickly pull back. The texture made her spine tingle.
Since the gooey blob did nothing but lay around, Yukipo diverted her attention to the rest of the place she just dropped into.
The atmosphere was bordering on unbearable. The air here was warm and smothering. Yukipo was sweating from just standing. Breathing was possible, but its unhealthy and mucky nature prohibited any strenuous tasks.
The atmospheric condition was mirrored in the design of the surroundings. It wasn't as dark as Yukipo thought it was going to be, but that did not make it much better. The site was enwrought with cylinders of different lengths and thickness. Yukipo thought they looked like smooth and warm to the touch versions of tree trunks.
The floor was covered in numerous grids, through which light illuminated Yukipos location. Her understanding of the source of light was lacking, but she did know that this light was not natural.
Looking down through the spaces between the bars, Yukipo saw a yellowish magma like river. This slow moving river was the source of not just the light, but also of the tremendous heat, which was thankfully a lot weaker above the grid.
The light was just enough for Yukipo to make out a corridor through the unnatural tree trunks. A corridor just spacey enough for Yukipo to walk through.
The big static iron worms in this corridor seemed to have a flatulence problem. Once in a while they hissed and shot out a stream of very hot air, often almost burning Yukipo while she traversed between them.
Not that she was able to touch these worms anyway, they were incredibly hot. Yukipo had to, as swiftly as possible, crouch under or jump over them; always timing her next move just right, so that she wouldn't get hit by another blast of hot air.
"This...this...is not an animal." she stuttered fearfully.
Yukipos anxiety level rose the more she kept pushing on through the corridor. It wasn't a very long corridor, but because of the tight spaces between the unmovable torrid worm-like tubes Yukipo had some trouble fitting through them.
Luckily, she made it to the other end of the hallway, but not without some physical pain. Her right knee had been wounded by a sharp screw sticking out of the tubes, and her small arms and legs suffered multiple slight burns.
The scrape on her knee wasn't too bad, but Yukipo couldn't afford to take any risks. She pulled out a couple of plantain leaves she had turned into bandages. Yukipo hurt herself on a regular basis in the forest, so she always had some of them on her.
"Porcupines are very stingy." she whispered to herself, while putting on one of the bandages.
Even with her knee all bandaged up, Yukipo needed to take a short break. At the end of the worm room was a junction, which was not as hot and sticky as the rest of the room, mostly due to some tiny air-holes to the outside. This was a good resting place for now.
The insides of that beast took their toll on poor Yukipo. Her eyes were red and burned from the toxic air, she was covered in a greasy smelly substance, which made her sick and her entire body hurt from all the little burns she had suffered. Not to mention her knee.
Sitting near the air-holes, Yukipo, in her mind, went over several plans on how to take out the one-armed felon. She needed to find its heart, if it has one, and destroy it.
She hated having to do that. She would have preferred it, if she had been able to talk it out. Sometimes though, the well being of the many stands above the well being of one evil monster.
After a few minutes, Yukipo picked herself up. She still had not recovered all of her energy, but that was impossible to accomplish in this environment.
The only hint Yukipo could go by in finding the heart, was her small biological knowledge about the nature of hearts. "They pound." She thought, looking around the junction she was currently in.
She could either go left or right. It seemed that both ways had been labelled, but Yukipo couldn't read the signs.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe." Yukipos finger ended up pointing to the right.
"Alright, right it is." Her confidence was slightly shaken by her preceding experiences since coming here, but she was still far from done; considering what is at stake.
With a proud strut, hiding her windedness, she turned to the right, following down the next dark way, deeper into the belly of the beast, and passing the sign she could not read, which said: "Engine-Room."
To be continued...
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