The mustache fluttered unceremoniously from Captain's face. I wasn’t sure when zee put it there. I wasn’t paying attention, what with fighting off all of these flesh abominations. An unimpressed noise bubbled out from the Biomatrix’s chest, and, irritated, it shuddered. What could have been some strings of tendon on its neck pulsated and glistened as it lifted its head. Gross.

“yOuR qUaNtUm DIsSOnAnCE HaS bEeN NOtEd!” cackled the Biomatrix, ”tO rEaCh CONSEnSuS...tHis TRiAl DeMaNdS sUrROgATe EvIdEnCe.”

Tendrils creeped up my legs. They were black, peppered with brilliant incandescent specks. Deep, vivid, like a blood pool, or a sunset. They would look kind of cool if they weren’t trying to kill me right now. I grimaced, and wrestled with them using what little remaining strength I had. The insect legs on the stag’s shoulders twitched in a twin mocking of a playful cat’s tail.

“yOUR COmMOdITiEs wiLl PrOvIDe IT By BeInG InTegRAtEd InTO ThE bIoMaSs MAtrIx.”

“Huh?” I blurted, intelligently. I wasn’t a commodity, especially not for Captain! I was my own, independent person!

The tendrils tore out of my grip and slithered somewhere above me, jarring my thoughts. I looked to the Biomatrix’s avatar for an explanation. It’s face was synonymous with Captain’s, in the way that they both seemed to pull into an immutable grin. Although, it was less the smile of a jovial whimsicality, and more that of a serial killer. Not comforting. It gurgled, gleefully.

“wE tHAnK yOU FoR yOuR pArTiCIpaTiOn In ThIs DeLiCaTe MaTtER.” it said.

With that, its avatars untangled themselves into twirling bio-ribbons and folded into the gargantuan monstrosity above me. I blinked. Just as I braced myself to book it, my phenomenal luck realized that it forgot to ruin my life again. A tentacle burst through my chest in a firework of blood, like pop bursting from a shaken bottle.

Ow.

I was jerked upward, toward the thing’s mouth; I would have cried out, if I didn’t have a huge hole in my chest. From my suspension, I watched Captain take a sip from zeer mug and stare on while Pilot flailed nearby. Thanks guys.

More tentacles thrashed around me as I passed through the Biomatrix’s jaws. One of them lashed across my goggles and cracked my lenses. Great.

The inside of it was an all encompassing apple red, with a tangle of worms snaking and squirming against both the internal walls and each other. It was like a human abdomen, but with only the small intestine sloshing around. I expected something a little cooler. More weird and alien. It smelled the same as the room where those guys had gotten chewed up, except exponentially more potent. Maybe it was unsanitary to have an open wound in the same place where the Biomatrix ate. 4/10. Oh, it was speaking.

“aNy LAst THoUGhTs BeFORe We InTeRrUpT tHe LiNeArItY oF yOuR eXiStEnCe?” the Biomatrix modulated, its voice reverberating throughout my anatomy, rattling my skull.

As I sank into its body, my delirious mind grappled with only one concept.

“Pizza is not a vegetable!” I wheezed. Genius.

The world faded around me. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I said nothing.

I regret nothing.