Project Equinix Tease: A sci-fi dark future platformer (Patreon)

 I've been teasing this for a while. As I've jumped around with which platformer idea I wanted to settle on to create first, I've debated 8 different stories I wanted to tell. I've had character designs done for a bit (you'll be seeing those soon!) and background and key art thumbed out for my second game, but the plot wasn't there yet. Until now! I've settled on 'I want to tell a sci-fi with realistic origins dark future story with a clear kink bend to it' story. Bit wordy, but you'll understand where and what and how soon enough. For now, here's a bit of the inspiration writing I've been doing while visiting family for the holidays. More to come!

An Idiot History Leads to a Dark Future

My Final Theory for how the World got so F**ked Up: Part 1, by Doctor C. Beckette

While reading languages were forgotten as time progressed inexorably forward, much of the history that would lead to the sorry state of humanity was lost as well. I say forgotten, however as this document at least exists to be written and subsequently read, it is clear that at least some portion of those capable of reading still exist in the human species. So with that preamble set forth, let me explain at least you to my reader what caused humanity’s downfall into what it is now. 

I have spent the better part of my adult life researching the root cause of all of this in excruciating detail, and after 246 years and several life extending operations on the few facilities and locations left on our perpetually winter world, there is one clear cause. A mistake. A mistake that lead to an invention, and an invention that lead to far more world altering circumstances than any could have ever reasoned. 

It was an unlicensed garage inventor by the name of Wilma Petterbaum who sought to create a fake beauty cream that she could claim made people eternally youthful (or at least reduce wrinkles), and thus stake her claim in a crowded industry of other fake health hacks. Her materials of choice was an unnamed and rare jellyfish flesh that was purchased on an archaic form of commerce called the internet, ribbon worm intestines, balm of gilead root, several questionable chemicals from third world countries and a specific brand of bath bomb called ‘Glitterlicious’ dissolved in wood lacquer. It was on her 957th trial batch of working on the project that fate seemed to intervene. Fate, and a literal bolt of lightning.

It was by all accounts a very short storm happening at roughly 3am PST (though I’ve been able to find many details of that time period, what ‘PST’ stood for I have no idea. For now, I’m calling it ‘Pissing Standing Tall’ time), lasting no longer than five minutes and sending only one lightning bolt down from the pendulous skies. Wilma Petterbaum’s daughter, Betty Petterbaum went into the garage the morning after the storm to check on her mother’s experiment by request, and found the five gallon plastic container of mixture her mother was working on had exploded into a perpetually glossy black slime with a strange iridescent nature on its globular periphery. It covered the insides of the garage in streaks and slimy paths and though it seemed to have solidified between the hours of 3 am and when Betty arrived to investigate it, the high gloss and iridescent nature of the material never seemed to dull. Betty took some to wear to school as lip gloss. This was the mistake.

I will forever wonder what may have happened to humanity had Betty Petterbaum not been two things. One of which I know for a fact, she was a fan of and dresser of the goth style. The other of which I hold for personal opinion, she was an idiot. Who dabs strange black iridescent liquid on their lips without knowing its origins or chemical makeup? Betty Petterbaum went to school that morning looking forward to graduation from her current circulars in just a few short weeks, and an entrance into University and independence a few months later. She would never get the chance.

What Betty Petterbaum dabbed on her lips as black gloss was what we academicians have come to refer to as ‘living oil’ in its first known form. Within five minutes of making physical contact with the girl, the mutated aspects of the new living oil reacted with her lips in an endothermic reaction, absorbing heat from her to spread at what has come to be understood as ‘Stage 1’ growth. All we know of the living oil’s properties begin here.

Five minutes of contact is always required for stage one. After 20 seconds into stage 1 it had doubled in thickness, the natural body heat of her lips chemically growing the organism and activating is several nerve-induced reactions , by one minute simple carbon strings were stitched together beneath its surface to increase toughness and begun building simple tendon strings for stage two. By two minutes and forty seconds, the ‘inverse Spatulae’ would latch onto her pores and body hair, solidifying the contact and making removal near impossible. ‘Inverse Spatulae’ of course being the final step of stage 1, it is where the material contact side creates a microscopic suction, drawing itself and whatever surface it is in direct contact with together with a solid and near unbreakable bond. It draws the skin and hair and body up into itself on the smallest of scales while seeping into and filling out pores and skin cracks. 

From there, and after 3 minutes for a total of eight minutes, it entered ‘Stage 2’ growth.

Much like the proboscis of the ribbon worm, the built up carbon strings and tendon threads branched out across Betty’s face like a quickly spreading net. Her lips were sealed together almost immediately beneath the surface. It spread at a rate of 12.7 centimeters per thirty seconds, fully engulfing the total skull of Betty within a matter of minutes. I can only imagine how the first victim must have looked, terrified as her skull was entwined within a corded black net that spread and stuck to her crushingly tight. Every expansion of the net would bring with it a fine film that spread wherever it managed to reconnect with a string, like a fleshy web building up into a transparent black all encompassing hood. 

It is from here we understood the first three qualities of the living oil.The first thing is its voracious nature, it works fast and efficiently without conscious thought, acting by chemical reaction and nerve alone. The ‘living oil’ is a manufactured organism without a central processing brain, only a bundle of nerves, chemicals and processes that it acts upon. The second was that it avoided her nostrils and entering her eardrums or other orifices. This is because the first living oil required sunlight and oxygen to survive, and therefore needed to spread out as much as possible over a surface area to survive and grow. The third is that it also grew and wove its material through her hair. The organism of living oil wove its own protein strings down Betty’s own hair, creating what is called the ‘Wet Look’ of all victims to this day, as their hair takes on the shiny high gloss iridescent look of their covered bodies.

After a total of 11 minutes, it entered ‘Stage 3’ growth. The living oil began to thicken where its transparent film nets were spread into an opaque second skin, and the proboscis spread began down her body. Where the transparent film nets grew opaque, the inverse spatulae would bind with the flesh and follicles, adhering again at a microscopic level and making removal near impossible. The proboscis showed a clear deliberate choice in how it spread downward, as it clearly avoided her clothing in lou of flesh. Beneath her coat, beneath her collector’s edition band t-shirt, beneath her bra, beneath her promiscuous nipple piercing. The net of black spread down her body, and as it spread the film spread out shortly after it.

It’s not hard to imagine how she’d react, even now so far from the actual date in history some three hundred years later. Fear, terror, confusion. Like a fly in a web or a fish in a net. Mumbled screams from herself and terrified yells from her school mates. Probably ripping at her clothing as it spread beneath her, modesty given to the wayside with a desperate need for help in extricating herself from the growing inescapable ebon iridescent cage. 

From this point we can confirm some other things understood about the first living oil. Records indicate it was highly resilient to cutting by means of being pliable, as the skintight hood would not cut to any tool present once it thickened to an opaque black. We also know that the film state would cut with effort, even tear, but the speed and rapid nature of the film and net’s growth made any leeway moot. Any cut to the surface would mend, and once the spatulae suction of the inner surface was in place, to cut the material would mean to cut her. Last was that she could still breath, and this was because the oil needed to form a symbiosis with the young woman to breath itself. It used her breathing of oxygen to confer and change carbon dioxide, in essence breathing with her every taken breath, co-opting her body in yet another way. She however only smelled the oil’s surface, a strangely pungent scent.

After fifteen minutes young Betty Petterbaum was enclosed entirely from the top of her head to the tips of her toes within the living oil, an organic prison that afforded her no sight, no smell, muffled hearing and dulled skin contact. It was here that the first living oil entered ‘Stage 4’ once it had the poor girl fully enclosed. 

Her clothing worn atop the now enclosing second skin grew itchy, maddeningly so. As previously mentioned, the oil required two things so far. To breath and to absorb sunlight through surface area. Clothing blocked sunlight absorption, so clothing had to go. I can only imagine the fierce battle of will Betty must have gone through to retain her clothing and some semblance of modesty, but the itchiness would only grow stronger, and eventually the need to dull the itch would win out, resulting in full exposure. Her skin must breathe, and the oil was now her skin in a sense. This was the fourth and final stage, and informed much of this new organism’s function. Betty had a full day ahead of her, and every few minutes a portion of her skin went without exposure to sunlight it would renew its itch. This went for her head, her limbs, her toros, and her privates. 

Betty’s mother Wilma was called and rushed to Betty’s room at the ICU wing of the local Hospital as she was being studied and quarantined. Wilma was allowed as the primary source of what may be knowledge of how this had happened and as the mother of the victim. The day dragged on, Betty refusing to be covered in any way and refusing to stay in bed due to the itching the medical staff eventually came to understand. Wilma’s sample of the living oil was collected by a fleet of black helicopters and black vans and men and women in black suits. Wilma was taken by those same men and women for questioning as Betty’s day progressed. The living oil was a diurnal creature, and would eventually go into a dormant state as night approached. The oil’s dormant state included fusing Betty’s arms to her sides and her legs together into a mono-limb. The itching would cease, and the organism would rest as Betty was tightly bound in the cocoon of the living organism. Malleable, movable, but relentlessly restrictive and smooth, every curve and dimpling of her skin shown in its surface.

It was at this point in the first day that doctor’s attempted to extricate Betty finally from the iridescent shell, and learned of the multitude of issues in doing that. Even dormant, when attempting to cut it the connection to her body was so seamless that it would cut her skin. It was Peeling it off her body caused every other portion of the oil to contract and react violently against Betty as a host, choking her and retracting tightly against her body. It was actually during this first night that the term ‘inverse spatulae’ was coined, as it resembled much in the way a lizard can cling to a surface, only if the surface and lizard were reversed in which side held onto which. A total of 32 attempts were made to explore and possibly remove Betty finally from the epidermis cocoon she found herself in, all ending in failure. After scanning it for metallic compounds and coming up empty, X-ray scans during the dormant period of the material were made, and it was noted that beyond being physically covered on every centimeter of her body, tubules and invasive protrusions were found inside her nostrils, down her throat and in her anus and vagina, perhaps keeping track of her waste and physical needs.

At sunrise, 5 am it was noted by the nurse on staff that Betty seemed to be getting fed, as a swallowing sound and movement of the throat was recorded before the cocoon retracted and Betty soon began to squirm and remove the blanket from atop her, exposing her whole body toward the sun. What she was being fed was not entirely understood at the time, but eventually it was discerned that the living oil had begun at the first moments of attachment reproducing the proteins and chemicals necessary for physical healthiness, and would henceforth feed it’s victims at the first light of day, another in a long and complex string of chemical and nerve responses that happened automatically. 

At the dawning of the second Day, Betty Petterbaum and her mother Wilma Petterbaum disappeared from public knowledge as did every known sample of the oily once make-up product experiment. Some records indicate they were taken by their then government officials. Other records and reports show that a cartel of medical conglomerates had absconded with the pair and the mother’s research for a hefty sum of money. There are yet even more reports and accounts about aliens, magicians, and other absurd conspiracy theories. Which is true is not known to history. What is known however is the next true appearance of the ‘living oil’, some 50 years later...