Cubicle Overgrowth

Tags: Angst, Horror, Gore, Body Horror, Medical Horror

Published: 08/04/2022

Summary

We should have known that Cubicles were more than shitty knockoff MedSystems. But how could we? How could we have known just what would happen to SecUnit?

CWs:

We didn't know until it was too late. How could we have? SecUnit hid any sign of pain or discomfort until it could no longer stand and collapsed onto the white tiled floor, dripping gore and pus. It hates leaking.

Let me start from the beginning. Not from the very first sign we could have possibly noticed, that was already a month later. No, this was after it returned to Preservation, after it saves my life, settled in, rescued its friend the research transport and returned to relax on the station a while. Perhaps it had progressed even then.

There is a disease they call cubicle overgrowth.

It starts with fatigue, and oh SecUnit was fatigued. But it had every reason to be. Trouble and crisis after trouble and crisis, is it any wonder it was still groggy after recharges?

And then comes the pain. Chronic pain, stabbing in joints and the chest, aching throughout. We never knew it was in pain at all, but it made sense after a lifetime of injuries to have lingering aches.

We never saw its skin, so how could we have seen the reddening, the thickening and crinkling almost like citrus peel?

We never touched it, so how could we know what was tender to the touch?

The organics and inorganics of SecUnit never played nicely together, no matter what the salespeople said. No, the cubicle was not just a tidy hole for hiding away unwanted equipment, and it wasn't just an on demand repair kit for a SecUnit's injuries. It provided required nutrients, but it also provided "regular maintenance". Polite speak for culling away overgrowing tissues and tumours that dislodged mechanical parts and impacted organic organs.

It took three months before it was complaining about organics leaking. It never specified what that meant. When asked, it looked uncomfortable and spoke of running noses and sweat. It didn't mention the sloughy nodules on its side and back that dripped lymph fluid and blood constantly.

The overgrowing tissue ate away at its own flesh, dislodged its wiring, poked straight through the skin, leaving pale globs and tendrils of not-right flesh that bled so easily where skin should be.

It was only after it collapsed from fatigue and weakening muscles that we noticed the smell. It wasn't exactly like decaying flesh, but it had the same visceral wrongness to it.

Rushing to the MedSystem, panicking, wondering what was wrong and if we had missed anything, we all thought that this was a neglected injury, not... Not this.

Because now, watching SecUnit lying on a MedSystem bed, awake only for a few hours each day as its own body wastes away around it, it is too much to bear.

And there is nothing anyone can do but keep it comfortable.