Perhaps even more profound than the physical transformation that had twisted our frames was the blinding dawn of a new awareness that now bloomed within us.

In holding us fast to its arcane breast the vessels of this vast living entity had begun to infiltrate our very consciousness. Straddling worlds now, we perceived our existence anew in visions borne of both our own senses and the monstrous, hitherto unknowable organs of this bloated bio-machine in which we were surely becoming subsumed.

Glimpses of its purpose were slowly being revealed in puzzling shards, as we sought to comprehend an ambition and intent that was as alien to us as the stars themselves. And yet it seemed it was not done testing us yet.

In a twin signal of invitation and repulsion we were drawn to an unfolding schism in the luminous walls of flesh that now surrounded us, within which a beckoning elevator was descending to usher us deeper into the bowels of the machine.