Perpetual Cycling

Cared For, Yet Neglected.

Yoch didn't know where his food came from. In that sense he is similar to us, is he not? Nutrition labels can appease us, yet we do not visit the animals or the plants that grow for our consumption. Yoch didn't know what his food was necessarily. His parents assured him it was good to eat, and the family called it "Goom."

With his parents nowhere to be found Yoch was finally questioning where his goom came from. Was there a bountiful stash, somewhere outside the home? Maybe a wonderful pipe spewed goom, overflowing like the sludge of the sewers.

Yoch's mouth watered with the fantasy, and he soon forgot the constant warnings about climbing through the home's one exit.

~

Smelly stagnant air burned Yoch's nostrils. The sewer gas poured through the entrance to his home. He reached up, gripping the lowest usable rung of the tunnel's ladder. Rust covered the ladder, flaking onto his palms. How long had it been since Yoch had dared to grab this metal?

About a year.

He pushed the recollection away, concentrating on the climbing. He clambered up the ladder, listening to the drone of machinery within the walls. Its sounds have always been there, like a lullaby to help him sleep while his parents were away. Like now.

They had left while he slept, and he waited for 2 days before beginning to groan with hunger.

After reaching the top of the tunnel, he felt the smell of sewage push his stomach to regurgitate, but he merely heaved dryly. No food had touched his lips in a day.

Recovering quickly, he glanced about, looking to the left and right. Another tunnel, but horizontal this time. A short walk bathed in darkness down one way put him on one side of large metal bars. Light glared through from a lit passage on the other side.

How do I get there..?

Yoch turned, stumbling back through the shadows and toward the other direction. He fell, nearly screaming in terror before he realized he only slipped down a legs length or so.

He was in some sort of vat, and just below him he could make out the stagnant pond of fecal sludge. Disgusting, so much so he pinches his nose shut before feeling his way along the walkway toward what he thought must be a dim light.

A tube much like the first horizontal one opened up before him, but this one had a light hanging halfway down it. It was a good sign, surely, so Yoch lifted himself up into the tunnel and carefully stepped pazt the light fixture and to a more inviting other side.

He realized this passage was framiliar, and went around a bend to find the other side of the barred tunnel he had entered through. Few lights guided his movements now, but it was enough to reveal the ladderway leading ever higher.

Yoch had lived down here his entire life- at least to his knowledge -and had no concept of a "surface." There was only him, his parents, and home. This meant that such bounds in elevation poured him full of excitement!

What was he to find? Another home, with his parent waiting? A pile of goom ready to be eaten- or maybe a great big tunnel where the goom flowed from like in his dreams!

Yoch pulled his chest just above the topmost rung of the ladder and onto the floor of another tunnel.

This light.... Its different somehow.

Yoch grinned without knowing, and quickly sat up to get a look at the new colors. His childhood had been greys and browns, not this new bright blue! Brilliant shining bulbs hung to the ceiling, bioluminesent and somehow framiliar to Yoch.

Goom was growing just above his head, and upon realization on this he licked his lips and began reaching toward the fruit. What a pleasant texture! The soft succulent flesh of the fruit wobbled in his hands. With haggard breath he bit into it. The taste, oh such a plain boring one to most well eating observers like you and I, but to this child it was the delicious sustenance from the heavens of his sewer tunnel home.

What joys he felt as he ate several more of the fruit, until only the highest hanging orbs remained. They were obviously unripe, and far too shriveled in their youth to eat. Yoch was none the wiser, and so his attempts to grab them were most bereaved. 

Ah, such things were what his parents only gave to him in limited portions. He soon would realize their lack of goom was not because they wanted to deprive him of the bitter fruit. A growl surfaced his instinctual cautions motives. The deep guttural growl came from his left, down one side of the tube.

Uh-oh.

Yoch didn't need education to understand what the animal's noises meant for his safety. He sat up quite quickly, watching for only a second longer. He turned, not knowing what monstrosity had starting striding down the tunnel after him. 

"Gruuhhrgh..." The groan of mild effort made Yoch let out a quiet sigh. That thing must have let up the assault only to devour the younger fruits that he couldn't have possibly retrieved! Such a waste to the young child, but his anguish did not stop his retreat into the light of a man-made lighting fixture.

The chamber was near Identical to the one he had encountered a floor down, with a large vat occupying the center and a walkway leading around the rim of it. He carefully stepped his way around the mostly empty sewage vat.

His pursuer hastened the last stretch of the journey, as it reared it's ugly head on the opposing side of the chamber. Such a large beast seemed impossible to Yoch, but he was sure it was real enough to bite his entire body in half with one bite. As it opened it's mouth to give a taunting glare the beast showed off two rows of partially rounded yet jagged teeth. It still had some of the goom stuck between it's teeth.

Yoch didn't admire the set of chompers long! His pace quickened as he brought himself through the tunnel and over into a much longer winding pipe. This one had small amounts of muck in the center as well. Perhaps this was the goom spewing tunnel?

"Groaahg!" The beast behind him was bounding forward. Surely Yoch could escape its jaws, surely?

The bright blue glow of a large hanging goom pushed Yoch forward. Just one more turn and he would find a possible distraction for his pursuer! However at this pace he might not be able to outrun the- hot breath on his back made his run faster.