Marie huffed as she hauled her heavy luggage through the airport. Each and every time she travelled, she promised she wouldn't overpack. And each and every time, she'd be proven a liar. And all she was dragging with her was her carry-on luggage — her checked bags, all five of them, all oversized, were surely being handled by some poor airline attendant.
It wasn't Marie's fault, though! She was an acclaimed professor of astrophysics! All of her books needed to come with her. Yes, even the ones she read already. Even the centuries-old encyclopedias that were falling apart with each reading. Even the ones brought for pleasure. She had enough of those to fill an entire suitcase.
Even Marie knew she didn't need to truly have all of these books with her. She didn't need to bring along her entire life. This was just a weekend trip to a moderately sized conference. Marie knew this. It was an objective fact, and her refusal to acknowledge it was making her airport trips significantly worse. Would she ever change her ways? Probably not.
She knew she wouldn't, even as she rushed through the airport, expertly weaving between other passengers. She had to stop being so damn late! She'd yet to miss a flight, but if she did, it would almost certainly be because her plethora of bags had to be checked multiple times by the poor TSA agents.
But that's the thing — Marie was making good time despite all that. No. What was really getting in the way were these damn gate changes.
The first gate change happened as soon as she walked from baggage check to the other end of the terminal. Annoying, yes, but it happened, and groveling over it wouldn’t solve anything. So she walked all the way to the other gate. One end of the terminal to the other. Being one of the largest international airports in the world, the terminals were as large as one would expect.
But then the gate changed again. Back to the original one. Meaning another trek with all her luggage back to the other side of the fucking terminal. And when it happened again, Marie was convinced, despite her analytical, rational mind, that the universe was playing some sick joke on her.
Her watch was counting her steps, how long she walked for. That was, until her watch died, and she realized she left the charger at home. But last she checked, she walked three miles, from one end of the terminal to the other as the gates changed over, and over, and over again. And she probably walked doubly so since then.
What the fuck was even going on? There was too much of this bullshit that Marie couldn’t stay convinced that this was accidental.
What sealed the deal on this shitty situation happened when she got to the correct gate again. She hardly even noticed she was the only one walking from gate to gate anymore, even though it was presumably a full flight. And when she asked an agent, who hardly regarded her even as she raised her voice, he tiredly replied with –
“No flight with that number exists.”
So with nowhere else to go, Marie brought her tired legs to some refuge. The food court was bizarrely empty, and the restaurants were all closed. There may have been another restaurant open, but Marie was not going to walk across Terminal E all over again. Why the restaurants were even closed at 4pm on a Thursday was beyond Marie. All the seats were gone too, but Marie wasn’t expecting any sort of comfort, so she gladly took the floor.
    At some point, her data ran out, and then her phone died, too. And then her charger mysteriously stopped working — not with her three phone banks, not with any of the outlets, not with anything. And with every store closed, Marie declared her phone unusable. Stupid fucking technology. This is why Marie firmly believed books were superior.
    Restaurants were closed, stores were closed, her flight vanished into thin air after depleting her energy, and with no food source to go to, she was exhausted beyond belief. 
    Marie had no choice but to cry uncle. Only, there was nowhere in this godforsaken airport who could hear her. She didn't care if she made it to her conference. She just wanted out. Or answers. Why was no one helping her? Where was everyone? How the hell was she supposed to get out?
    Marie wanted to think she was a powerful person with a strong heart. She didn't cry. Every since she broke down at her first university lecture, she swore never to cry in public again.
    But no one saw her. She was ostensibly not in public. So tears shed from her screwed shut eyes. As she expected, no one stopped to help her. She cried and sobbed and wailed and no one even turned their head. No one heard her. No one came to rescue her. So she just cried, and wept, and all but melted into the cold, unforgiving airport wall. No one even flinched as she shrieked out.
    Marie was alone.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
    Time had stopped moving. Marie didn’t know when.
    The airport had grown more empty of passengers and staff alike. The buzz of conversation and tearful goodbyes had disappeared. The last pager call asked for a staff member to come to the gate Marie had initially gone to. That must have been hours ago.
    The screens flickered on and off. At first it was a couple blips, but then full minutes went by with no activity. Marie could swear she read this exact scenario in a creepypasta two decades ago. It was more annoying and less scary than she thought it would be.
    The lights went out. Shortly after, clocks stopped moving, but she continued to hear the ticking in her ear. Louder. And louder. Oh, so loud.
    Marie drifted off to sleep. She wasn’t comfortable, not at all. But her exhaustion led her into slumber. She hoped when she woke up it was all just a bad dream she had on the plane. She hoped, foolishly.
    When she woke up, a strange aroma sifted through the air.
    She fell asleep, ignoring it.
    Marie couldn’t stay asleep for long, though. Each time she tried, she fell into an even lighter trance. Her subconscious was held captive in the waking world by the strange scent. Eventually, her curiosity was peaked. Who cared if anyone believed her? At that point, Marie just needed the entertainment. She got up, leaving her luggage right where it was. No one was there to look over it, anyway. Nor was anyone there to steal it. 
    The academic stood up and wandered to wherever the smell was coming from. Or… where she thought it was coming from, at least. But every time she thought she was getting close to the scent, she only felt herself getting further away from it. More walking, huh? She supposed it wouldn’t be beyond this cruel airport, the ethereal Mistress who held her captive.
    Just as she wandered from gate to gate, she wandered place to place. For minutes, that turned to hours, that turned to dozens of hours. Eventually, as her body began eating itself, she stopped feeling so hungry. She stopped being lucid enough to realize how much time had passed, and the lack of clocks only guided her loss of her sense of time.
    Her body eventually had enough and collapsed. She barely noticed she did. Marie’s glasses tumbled to the ground out of her reach, and she felt around for them.
    The shock of what she felt brought her back to the waking world.
    In place of the clean marbled floor was a fleshy mess of organs, viscera and tentacles. She pulled up her glasses, now covered in red slop. Disgusted, Marie threw them far away from her. As she saw them tumble and fall, Marie’s eyes were guided to the windows.
    What she saw would have made her vomit if she had any food in her.
    Instead of gray clouds covering what would have been a sunny day, Marie saw pulsing tentacles, beating like a heartbeat. She could hear it through the soundproofed walls. Eyes the size of Marie herself were locked onto the victim. 
    They blinked and followed Marie as she ran away, screaming, adrenaline providing the boost in energy she needed. The fleshy floor was hard to traverse, and she kept bumping into what used to be stores selling cheap accessories and exorbitant alcohol. Now they were covered in the same disgusting organs, slithering tentacles and stray eyeballs that perked up as Marie bolted past them.
    She would be shrieking at the top of her lungs if all her breath wasn’t going to running for her life. A few yelps of horror left her, though, as a couple tentacles lightly lapped her legs, trying to grab onto her ankles. She almost tripped. Almost. Marie herself knew she couldn’t run forever, but surely there was a hiding spot, surely there was one gate open, surely—
    Eventually, Marie couldn’t run at her maximum speed anymore. Not that she was a fast runner to begin with. But the tendrils took full advantage of her moment of weakness. One wrapped around her ankle, leaving Marie tumbling to the ground. She was stopped in that, too, as another pair of tentacles swiftly wrapped around Marie’s chest to keep her suspended. They formed half of a harness, wrapping around each of her tits, and tying itself firmly in place.
    She struggled with all her power. With the boost of adrenaline, it should have been enough to wrangle free. And she did… for a brief moment. She kicked the tentacle off of her, but it was swiftly replaced and the other ankle was similarly restrained. 
    Her chest was bound, but her hands were still free. Marie pushed against the tentacles wrapped around her. She dry heaved as she pushed against the slime and unknown fluids covering every inch of them, but she still tried. It was another futile effort, though, because her hands were quickly grasped by the same grimy tentacles.
    Marie shrieked at the top of her lungs until her throat was sore. Distantly, she knew that was a terrible idea, but fear took over whatever reasoning she could have tapped into. Another significantly larger tentacle shoved itself into Marie’s mouth. Tears streamed down, slipping underneath her lips along with the thick tendril. She could taste her own hell.
    The tentacle shoved its way deeper and deeper. Suddenly, Marie’s need for food and water was quenched in the worst way possible. From a widening opening in the tentacle, out shot alien versions of cum and eggs. Marie rattled in her bonds but got nowhere, and was forced to accept this sick excuse of a gift. It didn’t matter how they tasted (unexpectedly decadent) nor whether she had the energy to refuse them (she didn’t). The salacious eggs and milk were shot directly into her stomach. Marie could almost feel them cracking in her stomach.
    And she could feel something seeping from them to the rest of her body, too.
    Mercifully, the tentacle exited Marie’s mouth. A streak of thin cum broke between the tentacle and Marie’s bottom lip. She gagged and choked and gasped for air.
    Was this a nightmare?
    Marie was no stranger to being in airports late at night. Sure, it felt strange and ethereal sometimes. They were known as liminal spaces for a reason. But she never felt anything as real as this. That’s how Marie knew this was real. 
    It didn’t feel fake, in concept or in actuality. 
    She was pulled to the fleshy walls of the formerly sleek airport and held there. Tentacles and tendrils of varying sizes and textures wrapped around her waist. Her neck. The rest of her arms and legs. Whatever texture laid on the tentacles was clearly unsafe for humans, given how it melted her clothes away with a loud fizzle. At least if it was toxic, Marie wouldn’t need to suffer much longer.
    A tentacle slithered by her ear, wrapping around it. No. No, not in there. But Marie didn’t have energy to resist. So the tentacle shot into her ear, past her eardrum, taking hold of her brain.
    Now the flesh wall could truly do anything it wanted to her.
    But Marie didn’t find herself changing. Not immediately, anyway. Instead, she heard a loud, booming voice that echoed in the room and from inside Marie.

W H A T   D O   Y O U   W I S H   F O R ,  H U M A N ?

The first thing Marie wished for was what any human would in this situation. To be freed. Whether that meant sent into the outside world once more or to be killed, Marie didn’t care. She just wanted out.
    Some sense of agreement hummed in her body. Did it understand her wish? Would it actually be granted? Marie knew better than to hope.
    Something flashed before her eyes. An illusion, she knew, but one that felt just as real as the flesh wall and the tentacles and their slime and her fear.
    Visions of her at the conference she was supposed to go to, with her panel packed and her at her most confident. For a second, Marie believed that’s where she was, and the whole airport flesh wall thing was some sort of weird dissociation. But just as it got believable – and enjoyable to experience – the same scene flashed before her eyes, only significantly worse. An empty crowd with a few stragglers glaring at her, laughing, mocking her. And between those two visions, she saw everything else in between.
    A half-full audience. Being interrupted. The tentacles shooting out for her mid-lecture and raping her in front of everyone. And all of them felt so visceral.
    So wonderful.
    Marie’s face twisted into a dopey smile, drool dripping out. A tendril slithered between her legs, inserting itself into her pussy with only minimal resistance. It didn’t take long for Marie to get completely soaked, lubricating the wet tentacle even more. It rammed into her, thrusting into her deepest corners, through her cervix and into her uterus. But she didn’t feel pain. If she did, it was replaced with sheer ecstacy.
    As she was ruthlessly fucked in the pussy, another one joined her in the ass. Marie’s wide, moaning mouth was shut up by the same thick tentacle going in, plugging her completely. The scene in her eyes changed. No longer was she at a presentation, she was in Italy eating some unbelievably delectable food. She was in Romania getting seduced by a steaming hot vampire. She was in Australia being fucked by an anthropomorphic spider. She was on Mars, on Saturn, on Jupiter, out of their solar system, dying from lack of oxygen as she lived out her life on earth. She was. She just was.
    Marie was everywhere. She saw everything. She understood everything.
    And she never wanted to be anywhere else.
    She hardly even noticed her own climax. Her own climaxes. Her body convulsed in a never ending series of mind blowing orgasms. Her brain melted into steam the same way the tentacles melted her clothes. And as she rode out her thousandth orgasm, the flesh wall placed its eggs in its new broodmare for incubation.
    H O W   L O V E L Y ,  M Y   G O O D   V E S S E L .
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
    Samantha sighed as she removed one of the last few ‘Missing Person’ flyers. She didn’t know who exactly Marie was, but she hoped desperately that she was found and that she was safe and happy. But it had been months, and eventually the airport CEO decided to finally remove the out-of-place posters. The police search had ended a long time ago. She overheard a rumor that Marie’s family had given up on searching for her, deciding to grieve her presumed death.
    She shuddered. Samantha prayed that she’d never end up in that fate. She had way too much to live for. At least, she thought so. She’d been working in the airport for almost a year, and her life was still stagnant. Numbness was just a baseline state for her nowadays. She was the one who hung up the flyers she was now tearing down, too.
    That was three months ago, but it may as well have been a few hours. Nothing in her life had changed.
    But she couldn’t get lost in her thoughts now. The New Year was coming soon. She could make a resolution to change her life then. For now, she was okay living in endless ennui.
    Samantha knew there were at least a couple dozen left. But she had begun to get a tad exhausted looking for them. Sadly, her break was still hours away, so she had nothing else to do than walk around the airport all but aimlessly. Her legs were getting exhausted, but her manager yelled at her and threatened to fire her last time she was caught taking a short rest break. So she kept walking.
    And walking.
    And walking.
    Luckily, the crowds had begun to dissipate, so at least the noise was less of an issue. Along with bumping into people. Only… why? Samantha wasn’t in an isolated part of the airport, and this was one of the busiest times, with security lines a few hours long and with baggage claim belts stuffed to the brim.
    But Samantha couldn’t linger. Who knew where her manager would be, waiting to give Samantha her last paycheck? But the crowds got more and more dispersed until ultimately, the airport she knew every inch of was completely empty.
    And when Samantha truly took a moment to realize something was deeply, deeply wrong, a loud thump echoed. Samantha turned around and saw an egg the size of a child dropped in front of her. Cracking the floor…
    No.
    There was no floor. The egg hit the bottom of the fleshy floor with a wet splat. Another egg dropped from the ceiling, and Samantha dodged out of the way just in time.
    Whatever hellhole she had apparently crawled into anticipated her movements, and a tentacle covered in viscera grasped onto her ankle. Samantha yelped and tripped, thankfully being saved by the softness of the floor. Disgusting, but at least her skull hadn’t cracked open.
    Samantha looked up at what dropped the eggs. She couldn’t keep her shriek of pure terror silent.
    What she saw was not human. The upper half looked human, yes. Her stomach was wide, full, as if she was well past her third trimester of pregnancy and still incubated. Her limbs were connected to the flesh wall, consumed by tentacles. Her face was beautiful, even with its unkempt hair and long-stained makeup, and horror filled Samantha as she realized something.
    Samantha recognized her.
    Marie. From the missing person flyer.
    Marie smiled down at her. A kind smile, facing Samantha’s fear with gentleness.
    H E L L O ,  G I R L .
    The voice bellowed. Samantha collapsed in fear, the loud call echoing in her head. She couldn’t even stand. Samantha was utterly petrified, ultimately helpless as one of the tendrils gently wrapped around Samantha’s shaking face.
    L E T   M E   F U L F I L L   Y O U R   L I F E .
    And Samantha’s new purpose began. Just as Marie’s did. Just as so many incubators who would get lost in an airport would, too.