The Life Aquatic, Part 4 (Aquatic Giantess TF Preg) (Patreon)

Commissioned by Jorgamund

Irshad Khan is a researcher working in a top secret biolab that contains alien artefacts, and obsessed with learning their secrets. But when the funding to her research is cut, she takes matters into her own hands, kicking off a transformation that will leave her utterly changed, and utterly gravid with alien young.

First Part

Previous Part

The Life Aquatic, Part 4

Retreat and Regret

Arturo groaned as he thrust into Irshad’s passage. As before, he could easily succour himself at her enormous breast, taking in not only her sweet sustenance but also life-giving oxygen. But with her size it was now a slight clamber up before returning down, not that he minded. He sank his face into her breast, lapping her milk like a child, reaching out with an extended arm to fondle her other nipple. While they were underwater, he could feel her groans as well: they emanated through her mermaid-like body, rumbling like an earthquake through her core.

He was in heaven. The feeling of her vagina clamping upon his member and sucking away it was like the best combination of regular sex and a blow job. It felt like she was consuming him, in a way. Drawing in his length to take in every aspect of his maleness, in order to drink in as much of his seed as possible. Her enormous arms enveloped him, holding him firmly in place and caressing his muscled back.

They breached the water at the point of orgasm, a powerful thrust of Irshad’s tail causing an upward swell. Art held on for dear life, continued to thrust until finally his balls emptied into her. His dick throbbed, ejaculating stream after stream of his seed into her even as they crashed down into the waves. It was just enough time for Irshad to exclaim into the open air of the pool.

“Yes, my mate! Yes! YES! MORE MORE MORE!!!”

And he answered. He gave her more. Perhaps more semen than he’d ever expelled in his life. There was something unique to her physiology that clearly had a profound effect on him, perhaps a pheromone or chemical aphrodisiac of something, because he was producing more sperm with a much shorter refractory period than seemed humanly possible. At times, it felt like he was literally serving a role to fill up his girlfriend as much as possible, to impregnate her as many times as he could in as short a span as possible.

And the stranger part was how addicting it was. He imagined blowing her, causing her belly to swell and swell until she was unbelievably gravid with his half-human, half-alien young, and always gestating more. Even the sight of her now perpetually lactating breasts turned him on, especially when she played with them.

“That – that was good, Irshad,” he mumbled, clinging to her as she floated along the pool surface. He was held in place by her webbed hand, and in the aftermath of the blissful sex the two lovers simply floated. She rotated, allowing him to be positioned with his legs over part of the curve of her pregnant stomach, and his head resting comfortably between her gigantic bosom, like two great pillow that squeezed and massaged him.

“Mhmmm, this is a good size,” he continued. He reached up and squeezed her huge, apple-sized nipples.

Irshad whimpered as a brief flood of her milk erupted from them, pouring down over her lover’s shoulders.

“C-careful,” she muttered. “D-don’t want to drown you.”

He chuckled at that. “I fear you nearly could. God, it must be quite something to be producing that much milk.”

“Mmhm, you have no idea,” she moaned, relaxing her tentacle-like hair in the water. “Always s-so full. Always m-making m-more. Uncomfortable at times. But good. It feels good. And right.”

He smiled. She was happy, and that happiness not only infected him, but also assuaged his fears about her condition and recent behaviour.

“Well, I’m glad I was able to thank you for this.”

He lowered her much larger hand to his crotch, and she teased it with a finger that was as large as a human hand.

“Mhmm, I noticed you filled me more this time.”

Art had not undergone a groaning growth spurt as Irshad had. And he was not becoming alien like her: the tests confirmed that. Instead, her body had somehow ‘primed’ him for reproduction with hers. He had always had an impressive member, but now he felt like he belonged in a porn production, he was so well-endowed. It had also thickened, taking on renewed girth, and his balls had swelled too, capable of holding much more semen than before, and expelling it with much greater force. It had certainly resulted in much more powerful orgasms, that was for sure.

“I’m not complaining! I think it’s stopped in growth, though. A nice size to finish on, and fit you much better too.”

“Good, we wouldn’t want you to be a freak, would we?”

He laughed. “Though as we’ve learned, my dear Irshad, freaks can come in all shapes and sizes, but also be very beautiful and attractive!”

“Oh, stop it. Too much cheese.”

It was three days after his attempt to talk about her disappearance, about her strange devotion to her new alien instincts. As far as he could tell, the real Irshad was back. They had remained in the pool section for the most part, with her only returning occasionally to check her forty seven eggs. Forty seven, it was an unimaginable number, and to know she was likely to labour again, perhaps with even more, was quite astonishing. But she didn’t stay more than an hour or so now on these visits: long enough for her to squeeze her breasts and eject her milk throughout the underwater cave, spreading the scent that warned off predators and also absorbed nutrients into her eggs. She would then lie with them, keeping her warmth and comfort against them, and use her the light of her bioluminescence to ‘educate them’, as she understood it.

Art understood the necessity of this. After all, she truly was a mother now. And he was a father, though he wouldn’t feel like one until they hatched and he could meet them. What was important to him was that they developed healthily, but also that Irshad Khan remain Irshad Khan, and not lose her soul to the new alien compulsions she possessed. Those fears were gone now after three days of a return to form. They watched films, listening to scientific podcasts of recent discoveries across the globe, even listened to his metal albums, despite her not enjoying them. She entertained him with her bioluminescent displays, which were strangely hypnotic, and the two continued their romantic meals together while laughing and talking of old times. They also freely chatted about their babies, though he had less input to make than her. And, of course, they continued to frequently have sex in the pool, though he had not returned to the lake with her. In fact, their heightened libidos had them going at it at least three to four times a day, and that pattern could well shift to five given how hard she made him, and how much her body craved his seed. But still, things seemed okay, joyous even. Things seemed like they were getting better.

If only he knew.

***

Irshad was nearly done with her mate. He was her friend, her partner, her lover, but most of all to her new instincts, he was a mate. A being to extract life-creating essence from him. He was necessary in this capacity, as well as the additional provision of food, though the lake certainly had enough to nourish, her pregnant body craved the raw fish he brought her. She had eaten more and more in recent days, more than was necessary for the ordinary function of her body. But it would give her an additional layer of fat to draw energy from for when she descended back into the deep.

She had stayed with Arturo Diaz the last few days in order to take his seed. Her body had done . . . something to him. It was difficult to tell: her scientific mind was increasingly muddled when it came to her own biological affairs, but she was certain he had become more virile. His penis was longer and girthier, though still within human boundaries, and now it produced even more pleasure for both of them. More importantly, it also increased her rate of impregnation and implantation. She could tell: the little cramps within her body would light up with bioluminescent signals she could feel, each one telling her that another egg was successfully forming within her expansive womb. Just as her alien body desired.

Irshad knew, on some level, that there was something wrong with her. Sometimes she would dream of being human again, though they were indistinct dreams, fuzzy and unclear. The notion of ignoring Art, of feeling no love for him it did seem strange. Like something was being lost that was meant to be there. Something that had taken time to build and now was evaporating away.

But then the curtain would close upon her mind once more. In his presence, she could chuckle, and talk, and think and discuss and eat and drink and reminisce on old times. And to Arturo, that probably seemed like everything was normal again, and that he had the old Irshad back. It was not the real case. Always, always, always her mind was on reproduction. On spawning her next young. The Gamma Aliens were colonisation experts, and clearly the Seed of Desire within her was crucial to such efforts. One or several of their number would take on its effects, either for some time or perhaps even permanently, and they would birth legions of young to ensure the next generation was large, educated, and capable of constructing proper colonies. That was what she was doing, and her mind was increasingly bent towards this effort. To become ever more pregnant, and to labour ever longer, and to birth ever more.

To breed her new species upon the earth, that they might flourish.

Art was the fuel for this. Her attachment to him had become biological. He was her mate, and so she was devoted to him, and did the things that pleased him, but everything else was surface level. Her Gamma instincts were what lay beneath the waves of her mind, driving her ever deeper.

She cradled her enormous belly as she floated in the pool, feeling every stir of her womb’s endless machinations. Art had fallen silent, but his breathing calmed her. That wasn’t a part of the instinct, but perhaps an artefact of her old pre-birth life. The same with her distaste of his music. And the occasional chuckle at his jokes. All small pieces of human Irshad. She pulled her thoughts away from them, and focused on the fullness in her belly, in her breasts, even the increasingly layer of fat upon her lower half which would give energy when she dove down deep once more. Where before she had feared becoming so large and pregnant, now she couldn’t help but relish it, even in its discomforts. The sensation of having her massive chest literally churning with excess milk was simply divine, especially its continual dripping and spillage which told her how well her body was doing to produce it. But her womb was even better, overladen with young at various stages. They did not kick or move much within their soft, transparent eggs, but the eggs themselves did shift to make way for new young. Clearly, her womb had internal processes for such. And even those feelings elicited a pleasure response.

“Mhmmmm, “ she moaned, holding it. “More p-pregnant. Enough. Enough now.”

Art shifted on her belly. “Enough?”’

“For birthing. Time to dive again. I’ll see you when I n-need more.”

Art was confused, looking at her with astonishment, but already she was moving, shifting through the water.

“Um, shall we talk about this Irshad? Are you in labor right now? Shit, I didn’t realise that-“

“Labor soon,” she said in a monotone voice. “Must see my young. You have done well, Art. Don’t worry, I’ll be back as I was before. I’ll be gone for a while again. I’ll be back for your seed.”

She sped faster and faster through the water, beginning the process of diving for the tunnel that led to the lack. She had the need, and the means to pursue it. Art clung on, attempting to grip her breast, her hand, anything that could give him traction.

“Irshad, what is happening!? You’re – this isn’t like you! Is it the instinct again!”

“I’ll be f-fine my mate! You need to let go! My young need me. They need their broodmother!”

Arturo froze right as she began to dive. They headed below the surface towards the gate to the lake, and even if he could talk, or could hold on further, he wouldn’t. The look in Irshad’s eye was alien and dark, and entirely unconcerned with him. He couldn’t see the woman he knew in them. Only a Gamma Alien, driven by some breeding instinct.

He let her go, and it was only when he realised he needed to breathe again that he swam back to the surface.

“Irshad, what’s happening to you?”

Entry . . . 1.

Yes, 1.

I am no longer the Irshad Khan I was, so continuing her entries is pointless. I am now Gamma. I do not know if I even need a name, only a drive. The Drive. My mate has done his job and inseminated my womb, and now I grow great with his seed. I can’t tell how many are inside me, but I and currently flush with the head of reproduction, and my womb churns with the eggs It brings to fruition. There are certainly more than forty-seven to be birthed this time. I feel I am only just now entering my prime as a Gamma broodmother, and perhaps even future pregnancies will yield larger litters of eggs. For now, I am satisfied. More than I have been before in my life. Each egg growing within me fills me with a deep satisfaction, and I know it is right to create more. To birth more and more. It is my duty and purpose.

I am blessed to be changed. My bioluminescence shines in the cave, flickering information to my young, teaching them of the world above. I sense when they hatch they will need me only for a short time before spreading. I do not sense my female young will inherit my broodmother status either. I alone possess that gift, something that my former human self would find alien and terrifying. To think I was once embarrassed to be blessed to carry so many young, and to nurture them with my milk.

Even this entry is not written in ink, or lead, or typed upon a computer. No, such forms are too rudimentary. I weave them with light. My bioluminescence shines brightly, focuses upon the cave walls to inscribe lettering, and is stored in my genetic memory. I can shine it, inscribe it on other surfaces when I please.

Soon I shall birth. I shall birth days. This is my hope. The experience is not without discomfort but is also highly pleasurable. Fulfilling. Yes, that is the word. It fulfils me in a way that even my mate cannot. He is . . . merely the tool to reach that fulfilment.

And yet I dream of him. I feel as though my memories, or my human side, is slipping away, but never quite gone. I must rid myself of it. I am no longer human, nor do I share a human’s wants. I was always apart from everyone, and only Arturo pierced through that sheet of armour.

Now it is closed back up again, and my young nestled within, safe and sound.

Dreams

Irshad coiled around and against her young in the cave. The eggs had grown bigger, absorbing the nutrients of her cloudy milk even as it leaked from her chest. She was most comfortable here: around the eggs grew matts of soft alien fungus. It did not spread far, but enough so to provide comfort to her where she had laid them. Once again, it was revealed how adept the Gamma were at colonising, that their genetic engineering took even these small details into account.

She hummed to her young and played illusions of light like a disco ball across the cave, shining in hues of blue, blinding white, and iridescent violet. She told her young the story of her human life, and of the blessings she had received in taking on the Seed of Desire, and her genetic epiphany in leaving her human self to the side and giving over entirely to her instincts. She could not tell how they felt about this, particularly since they were in a strange state of hibernation while unhatched, but it felt like the right thing to do.

She groaned, sending a great course of bubbles up and out of cave. Her belly was incredibly taut, even rippling slightly as her eggs bulged against it. She was completely full, overly so in fact, her womb stretching the boundaries of its current capabilities. It made her impatient, as wonderful as it felt. She wanted to birth, but she couldn’t quite know when that would happen, only when it drew close. Perhaps Arturo would be worrying about her, but that would only factor as important once she returned to the surface. She could always find another mate.

So instead she closed her eyes, continued to hum and play lights automatically for her young. And drifted off to sleep.

***

She dreamed she was standing in shallow waters. A river, leading up to a verdant green bank that extended over the near horizon. Forest streets grew along the bank, but she was walking towards a clearing, where a figure was shouting at her. She thought she recognised him. There was something about the thin line of hair along his upper lip that made him quite distinctive. She felt she should have been able to recall him.

So she called out to him.

And he called back to her, motioning for her to draw closer.

She stepped forward, moving through the water easily, but as she reached the bank she hesitated, her foot held in the air halfway between the river and the earth. The figure motioned again, practically pleading, and she recognised him as someone she loved, a man of warmth and humour and compassion, who loved her in turn and had loved her for some time. She raised her foot, and stepped onto the bank. The man smiled, only for his expression to fall as she struggled to take another step. Something had caught her other leg and refused to let go. She looked back and to her horror saw a coil of living water wrap around her ankle, dragging her back. She fought against it, but its grip was too powerful. Worse, another coil rose to drag back her other ankle, and another two grabbed her by her wrists, then an even larger one around her waist.

She cried and yelled and screamed, kicking and writhing against the coils that claimed her. But they were too powerful, and soon she was dragged back beneath the waters. The man raced forward, trying to save her, but it was too late.

All she could do was cry out for his help, to save her before it was too late. But then it was too late, and she was pulled into the dark depths. Her stomach bloated out, swelling with sealife, and her legs twisted and coiled until they were a tail meant purely for swimming. A life on land, and with the man she loved upon it, was now out of sight.

Impossible to reach.

She called his name through the water, and hoped it rose with the bubbles that surged from her lips.

***

Arturo woke from the dream still calling out Irshad’s name. It was only when he saw his dark, dank surroundings that he realised it had been just that. A dream. He was alone in the repurposed bunker, and there was no one coming to grant him company.

“Just a damned dream,” he sighed, rubbing his temples. He wasn’t even sure what hour it was, and it was only upon checking his phone that he realised he’d overslept. A result of too many late nights hoping Irshad would come back.

“What are you doing out there, Irshard?” he asked himself. “Will you come back at all this time?”

He shivered just thinking about that icy expression she’d last shown him as she shot for the gate. Sure, Irshad had always been a little bit icy. Okay, a lot icy. But this was something different. Alien. Inhuman. Cold and clinical without any of her warmth. Even the iciest incarnation of Irshad on the job still had her desert dry humour, her professionalism, her fastidiousness. This was something else. It was like her personality had been captured by the impulse of instinct, and couldn’t be let go. When they’d been having sex, some part of her had remained, in her professing of love, in her tenderness. And then at orgasm, when he spurt his seed inside her, she shut down more. What he’d mistaken for post-coital bliss and silence had actually masked a predatory instinct to take his seed and use it purely for reproduction.

At least, that’s what he formulated as a theory. He wasn’t entirely sure of anything really, only that he was helpless, and that he missed her. Irshad Khan was a woman beyond any other, and not just in her strange, alien, pregnant body either. He had always been captivated by her, but now he feared she was captivated by something else entirely.

Still, he tried to avoid panicking. He’d done his best to simply follow the protocols from last time: blast his metal and hip hop music from the surface, as well as call out to her occasionally from his boat. He simply had to trust she’d return, just as he hoped to discover some way to aid her through his own study of the Seed of Desire. After all, they had all the information necessary on their computers. Everything from the experimentation, the effects it had on her hormones, her system, even her enlarged brain. And while she was likely just birthing for days and would resurface, he wanted to be prepared in case he discovered a very different kind of Irshad, one who viewed him purely through reproductive impulse.

At least, that was the plan.

For now, he needed breakfast, a shower, a change of clothes, and to get rid of some extra energy before beginning his research. And he also needed a chisel. There were more ancient ways of making messages as well, and some lacked subtlety in spades.

But he couldn’t turn his mind from that strange dream, with the river, and the gorgeous woman with the olive skin and the round, pregnant belly. She had looked so much like Irshad, and sounded so much like her too. And she had called out for his help as well.

He wished it were true.

Still, it made him go to the computer first, boot it up, and begin to search for a particular item, one that he imagined was certainly not for easy sale. But it was America, and so he found it faster than he would have expected.

“A last resort, after the chisel,” he said to himself. “Or perhaps even with it.”

Entry 2.

Yes, Entry 2. 17 or 18 . . . was I up to these before? I feel it becomes harder to remember.

But that was before, and the before doesn’t matter as much as the present. I am readying to give birth. I felt the first stirrings not too long ago. Time runs differently down here, beneath the lake. The changes of the seasons and the cycle of the sun matters much less in this darkened space. I make my own light, and my young are nourished by it.

Preparing for this birth, which has taken longer than expected, has allowed me to think on the future of my new species. We are now competitors, in a sense, to the human race. I do not intend on invasion, but neither do I plan on surrender. The oceans are perfectly suited for my kind, and we would live in harmony with sea life, and even work to cultivate and protect it from extinction. I can already sense the power to renew the biosphere of the seas, instead of take, take, taking from it as humans do. As I once did.

I give this information to my young. My glowing skin instructs them. It tells them that the seas and oceans will be ours, and we must be stealthy at first. Hidden. But once we are spread far and show our intelligence, that we can ready to defend ourselves if necessary. Information comes to my mind as it is needed, and my young will be greatly intelligence also.

We will build a future, and I will find new mates.

No. That is . . . not right.

Can I not take my mate with me?

But then, how could I?

There must be other mates that this, so many. So why do I still feel an attachment, when such bonding was only between the human Irshad and he?

Birth

It was happening. Irshad groaned, letting masses of bubbles spill from her mouth as the first of her renewed contractions tightened across her womb. It was a blissful feeling, full of pain, yes, but also a sense of powerful purpose. The pain only reminded her of the importance of what she was doing. With a powerful beat of her tail, and the use of her powerful webbed hands, she manoeuvred herself around the cave to a free spot, one that was clear of her previous growing eggs and yet with enough space to birth yet more into the world.

Another contraction, tighter this time. She gritted her teeth. She had imagined human birth would be full on, but Gamma alien broodmother birth was on another level entirely. It had been an ordeal spanning days last time, to birth forty-seven children, but already she anticipated more, though how many she was unsure of, only that she was giddy with excitement.

For a brief moment, she wished Arturo could be here, with her in the cave as she pushed out her young. Wasn’t that what a good mate was supposed to do? Help usher forth one’s young, pass them to her breast, and watch over them as a protector? But then Arturo couldn’t do any of those things, not anymore.

And yet he had managed with her, despite all the difficulties.

Her instincts rose up and rewired her thoughts, bringing them back to the task of birthing. She had duties ahead of her, and it was important that she meet them. She had to usher in the age of the Gamma race upon Earth, and that required patience and birthing.

Another contraction, and this time she sensed she was close. Her breasts expelled milk into the lair, which spread to become a pale cloud. It settled over her eggs, and they all shifted slightly, squirming in excitement as they were nourished by her ultra-nutritious produce. It was the last thing left to do. Well, except for her bioluminescence. She lit up, radiating a pattern of light across the cave that warned away predators, but also informed her already-birthed young of what was happening. She didn’t know exactly how she could ‘speak’ the Gamma language, but she was certain they understood. She communicated something akin to:

‘It’s okay, my little ones. Mama is just giving you more clutchmates - brothers and sisters. It will sound like I’m in pain, but I’m not. It’s a part of life, and it will make our family bigger and happier.’

They trembled again in excitement, warming her heart a second time. Art would have loved the sight of it. He would have been a source of comfort and . . .

No. It was time to bear down. It was time to be her new form. It was time to ignore her mate. He was not needed now. She began to push, and the first egg descended through her canal.

The first of many, many more to come.

***

Two days. Two full days of pushing and birthing, of expelling life from her grotesquely pregnant body. The effort was Herculean, but then human mythology didn’t much matter to Irshad anymore. She vaguely recalled she had been fascinated with it once, as a child, but those times were increasingly vague to her. What mattered was the birthing, and she was not done by far, not yet.

She groaned, releasing another torrent of bubbles. The pressure was immense and only building. These eggs were even healthier than the last lot, but it also meant they were bigger, and consequently required more straining to push out. It was discomfiting, but this too was not a true bother: as before, she had begun to orgasm with her births, becoming overwhelmed with pleasure. She did so now, her bioluminescent skin communicating in alien language what she could not in words.

‘Ohhhhh yessss! M-more! More young! So many m-more! It feels sooooo goood! This is what I am meant to b-be! NNGGHHHH!!!”

Her vagina distended, another massive egg passing through her tunnel. It stimulated the hyper-sensitive nerves, producing yet another orgasm. For a moment it became stuff at the exit to her tunnel, leaving her moaning and groaning and producing further bubbles in agonised pleasure, but then she bucked her tail, and it exited out onto the large clutch she had already formed. She had lost count of how many she had laid so far, but it already seemed more than her initial clutch, and with each further egg she produced, her pride only swelled further. She rubbed her nipples, groped and squeezed her tremendous breasts, sending out torrents of her life-giving milk. Not only was it sweet to her own taste, and good for her babies, but it enhanced the pleasure, incentivising further effort in her labors.

‘S-so many. S-such an effort. Getting tired, little ones. But I won’t s-stop. I’ll keep birthing - NNghhh! - for you. This is our destiny! We’ll form our own w-world beneath the sea, and me are you m-mother! Aahhh! MMHHHMMM!!’

Another quake of orgasm, and all concerns about the surface were eclipsed by her current purpose. She lowered a hand to rub her rounded mound of a belly, and she felt many eggs still inside it. Perhaps nearly a dozen. It put a smile to her face, and even more so when the next round of contractions began.

She bore down and pushed. Art had put so many inside her. He was a good mate, and his seed was strong.

She would have to visit him one last time for that seed. After all, was it not the Seed of Desire that first gave her this new destiny?

***

Irshad bore down. One last push. One final strain. One last, agonised orgasm that sent her wildly over the edge with pleasure, groping and squeezing her distended nipples and sending clouds of her excess milk everywhere. The final egg of her current pregnancy reached her lower lips, and with a smile on her face, she gently pushed it through her exit, eliciting a blissful gasp of joy.

‘Mmhmmm . . . well done, my darling. The last. For now. I am so proud of you. You made your broodmother proud, my young. Now I can - ahhhh - now I can rest. Mhmmm.”

She did so for some time, simply relishing the power of being a broodmother, of being a Gamma alien. She was surrounded by her new progeny, and the number was certainly greater than her first birthing. Where before she had birthed forty seven babies in their soft, translucent eggs, this time she had birthed sixty eight; twenty one more than last time, and all of them a little bigger. Healthier. More fit to cultivate the lakes and seas of the Earth, becoming one with the environment and yet flourishing within it.

‘Mhmmm . . . already I cannot wait to birth more.’

She caressed her still-swollen stomach. It was never not swollen now. After all, her mate had impregnated her many, many times. Quite a few eggs were still developing, and in a week or more they would be ready to be birthed as well. She was like a living factory, forever producing the next line of progeny to be ‘delivered.’ And she loved it more than anything she could have imagined, right down to the building blocks of her new DNA.

‘I shall spend some time feeding, regaining my energy after my slumber, young ones. And then once I have sated myself, and ensured your safety, I will find my mate. He is only needed one more time. Then we shall find a way to the ocean.

I am Gamma, after all. My genetic ancestors travelled the stars, changed the very building blocks of the universe. Surely, we can escape this lake.

We must.

***

Art had picked up a number of necessary items from town, but he worried it was not enough. The peninsula had a thriving fishing community, as well as a long history of it as well. It meant that some of the diving apparatus equipment he was aiming to pick up was nearer in reach than he could have suspected, but it didn’t necessarily mean he was going to be successful either.

“Whatever it takes,” he told himself. “She’s been gone nearly a week, even longer than last time. I don’t care if she’s birthing an elephant down in that lake, she should have come up by now. At least to give me closure.” The thought that this was simply her frosty way of dumping him hadn’t quite occurred to Art until this moment as he returned to his car, equipment in tow. It seemed absurd, but if it was true then it only made him feel like a crazy stalker, going this far.

“No,” he said aloud, starting up the car. “It’s more than that. This isn’t the Irshad I knew. Or know. She’s changed somehow. She could be pretty icy, but not like this. She needs my help. I know it. And this is the only way I can think of.”

He began the long journey up the peninsula and toward the mountains, heading up to the reorganised military base he’d called home for months. It didn’t feel much like home without his gorgeous girlfriend though. He didn’t care if she was human or alien, pregnant or not, in fact, he rather found her changes deeply sexy. But what he cared about most was Irshad, and it was her he missed.

“I’m going to find a way to reach you, Irshad.”

He thought of the information he’d managed to uncover from the reports on the Seed of Desire. It was indeed affecting Irshad, and not just by giving her the necessary instincts to control her new form and birth their alien young. No, it was also affecting the memory centres of the brain. He couldn’t believe they’d missed it, but then Irshad had taken control of much of that analysis, and her own mind had compromised her. It was a foolish mistake on the part of both of them, and now they were both paying the price, her most of all. Worse, her frontal cortex was altering: the very location of much of her personality. Her personhood.

Her soul.

Art wiped away several stray tears as he drove, horrified at the monumental fuck up he’d made. The woman he loved, that he’d always been enamoured with, was in danger of disappearing entirely into an alien consciousness.

There was only one hope. In his findings, he’d managed with great effort to uncover the strands and patterns of Gamma alien genetic engineering. It was tethered to the mind in a similar fashion to the way some human technologies were just uncovering, able to be influenced and furthered and reduced by conscious and willing thought. He didn’t know how far gone Irshad was, but if he could just reach her, then perhaps they could reduce the changes, perhaps even revert the effects upon her mind.

And then he could have her back.

Entry 3.

I have birthed. I have fed. I have protected and nurtured my young. Now it is time to return to the surface and claim my mate. His seed must be extracted for further impregnation, and then I can begin moving my young to a safer location. The bunker is the key. It feeds not just to the lake, but to the rivers that run through to the ocean. The human shall be easily manipulated, and once his purpose is fulfilled, other mates will suffice.

I must fulfil my role. I must birth legions to safeguard my species.

And I crave his seed. So much so that it hurts. There is something about this mate that entices me more than it should. Thankfully, my instincts grow stronger each day, and shall overcome this unnecessary connection.

It shall also overcome this incessant need to log my thoughts. It is a useless distraction from my birthing.

I must mate again.

I must birth again.

It is my role.

Confrontation

That dream again. She stood in the shallows of the river, her belly round and proud. Within it, dozens of lives stirred, lives that could not possibly have fit inside her, and yet they did. She had human legs in the dream, and something about that was strange and wrong, and yet very familiar at the same time.

Once more, she stumbled towards the bank, calling out to her mate. No, to Arturo. He pleaded for her to return, and she wanted to, but the coils of water were dragging her back under. They were telling her to be something else, to be of the sea. She wanted that also. She wanted both.

But in this dream she feared she could only have one. And in her panic she stumbled from the bank, unable to pull herself free. She was dragged away from her mate - her love - and into the deeper water.

And the water devoured her memory of Arturo above. She called out for his help, his name the last thing on her lips before he was forgotten forever.

***

Irshad rose to the surface of the lake, ready to meet her mate. She had decided, for ease of her reproductive plans, to draw him here. No doubt the human male would be joyous to see her pregnant, perfect form floating upon the lake, her full breasts on display. It would allow her to entice him to the more open outside area that she enjoyed, instead of the restrictive prison that was the indoor bunker pool. Increasingly, that place felt like a restriction of her true nature, and one she did not wish to return to.

And yet, as she broke the surface, magnificently exploding from the water for a brief few seconds, like the great sea mammals of Earth, she immediately felt that something was wrong. Arturo Diaz, the name of the human mate she sought, was not present. She turned about, her skin becoming incredibly bright as if to signal him, her luminescence breaking through even the light of midday.

But there was no response.

Her thoughts shifted. It was likely that he was taking a break. Writing some letter. Taking a trip to the nearby human town. All likely possibilities. Except that she had smelled him on the water, heard the sound of his music. He was nearby, teasing her. It made her alien skin shiver with anticipation, and her loins lubricate themselves in readiness. Yes, her mate was enticing her, drawing her out as if producing a mating call. It made the vestigial remnants of her human mind light up in amusement. There was something about his music, or about the way he treated his facial hair, that made him exciting to her, even now. It was a connection she would have to sever. Soon.

She ducked down beneath the water, searching him out. To her irritation, she found the source not only of his scent, but his music as well. It was within the bunker, lingering out through the tunnel. The scent of raw fish was there as well, like a wafting taste of delicious delicacy, the kind that she had missed in her days of birthing and nurturing. It lit up her system, and with a thrust of her mermaid-like tail she propelled herself towards it. Her own skin lit up, communicating to know one.

‘One last tryst with my mate. I must be impregnated one more time, to preserve my purpose, and my species’ future. I must have his seed, even if it means entering this restrictive space.’

She had grown since Arturo had last seen her, and he saw so now as her luminous form swam through the gate. She had to be on the verge of being twenty feet in length, and the increase was not just in her tail either; her torso and arms had increased proportionately, leaving her even more of a giant. Yet even as her large aquatic body rippled through the water beneath the surface, he could see that she had recently birthed. Her belly was still certainly pregnant, looking like a woman who was nearly six months along with child perhaps, if not a little more, but before it had looked so far beyond overdue it was almost a joke. No, she had definitely laid more eggs, and if he was right in his suspicions, she was running on further instinct, desiring impregnation once more.

He was ready for her, and would not be fooled again. He’d had several more dreams, and all of them the same. The river, the bank, him upon the latter calling for Irshad to join him. Each time she was consumed into the river, and he could understand, on some level, that the real human her was fighting from within, trying to seize back control from the alien instinct that now governed her. Such a dream was not just the anxiety of one man. It was too specific, too unnatural. No, Irshad was reaching out to him, somehow. He didn’t know if psychic talent was something she was only just gaining, if it was part of Gamma alien life or their engineering, or if it was a result of the strong connection they shared manifesting in her DNA, but she was reaching out in the only way she could now. In her subconscious dreams.

He planned to answer her call. She had to come back to land, somehow.

“Arturo, my mate,” she said seductively as she rose from the waves. “Why did you keep me waiting? You know I prefer the lake these days.”

He bit his lip, trying to control his emotions. He knew he was being manipulated, but he had missed her deeply. He had to try, or else be forced into the most dangerous effort using the materials he was acquiring.

“Irshad, you’re back,” he said, feigning a smile. It wasn’t entirely false: he was joyous to see her, just cautious as well. “I just wanted to be by the pool, for old time’s sake.”

She cocked her head in a strange way. “The lake is nicer, is it not? You like fishing there. I see you brought me fish as well.”

He nodded, though didn’t tip it in the water. “Did you want to eat first? You have so much to tell me. Did you lay your clutch?”

Another cock of the head, as if she were trying to figure something out. “Yes, I did. Many births were had. Sixty eight in total, twenty one more than last time. It was an exhausting effort, but highly rewarding. I have now born over a hundred young from two labours alone.”

He nodded. “Wow, that’s a lot! Did you . . . I mean, it must have taken some time. Did you finish just some hours ago, or take a day of rest?”

“Several days, this time. I needed to hunt and scavenge, and watch over my young. You understand, my mate. It is scientific, but more than that. This is my role now, and I must see it through. But I had to see you, of course. I missed you deeply. I know it’s hard, but I want to spend time with you.”

He turned, wiped a tear before she could notice. He played it off as if he were scratching his head, thinking. “Sure, Irshad. That sounds amazing. We could eat and watching a dumb popcorn flick on the projector, talk about what you went through and how we’re going to deal with all these babies? Does that work?”

She paused, processing this. “Ye-es, that could indeed work, my mate. But I was thinking, since I had not seen you in some time, and since you have trimmed your sexy-looking moustache so well, that I could ask you to join me in the lake. Just the two of us. Maybe make more babies with me . . .”

Art took a heavy breath. It sounded so fucking tempting. In fact, it was enough to get him hard. But he was stalwart.

“No, I think the movie sounds better. I’m not in the mood right now.”

“I can see your erection, Art. I can smell your arousal. You want this. You want to suck on these.”

She rotated in the water, pushed her massive melons together, causing milk to spurt out in streams. Art had to look away.

“M-maybe. But I don’t want them right now. I’m not desperate. Sex is amazing, Irshad, but I feel like we need to do more. Talk, like we used to. I don’t want to just be viewed as some ‘mate’, as you now call me.”

Irshad paused. This was not going the way it was meant to. She just needed his seed. Yes, being in his presence seemed to summon some old human feelings, enough that they clawed against her mind like nails against a chalkboard - even reminding her of human expressions such as that one! - but her Gamma mind overrode them. She needed to mate, and her body was flush with a powerful arousal.

“I understand, Art. We can watch a movie. But then you have to promise we have sex after . . . or even during an intermission?”

Art decided to try his luck. “Maybe, or maybe we could talk more, Irshad.”

“T-talk?”

“Yeah, I’m just worried about us. About you. I’m scared that you’re becoming lost in this new Gamma role of yours, and it’s consuming you. You don’t talk about science anymore, you used to love science and genetics, remember? And our silly stories about Project Gamma, you barely mention them now! Do you even remember those old antics that I got up to that drove you up the wall?”

A sliver of memory stirred. A reminder of something to do with a painted ball. No, paintball. Yes, it was paintball. But did she take part? Surely not. She smiled anyway.

“Of course I remember, my mate. My Art. You brought a paintball gun in.”

Art was impassive. “Yeah. Who did I shoot with hit?”

“M-me?”

“Accidentally. Do you remember the names of the other supervisors? The ones I was aiming for before you jumped in the way?”

For the first time in days, Irshad felt real, human fear. It bubbled up to the surface like her groans within the deep as she birthed her young. How could she forget the names of her old bosses? She had known some of them for years, even kept in contact with some of them. And there was one she hated, hated more than anything for shutting down the project. But his name, even his appearance, escaped her.

“I - I’m not interested in this, Art. Let’s just go back to sex. Besides, you know I love your movies after sex, not before.”

Art narrowed his eyes. “You don’t ‘love’ my movies at all, Irshad. You jokingly tolerate them. You think popcorn movies are a joke because you’re a snob. It’s okay, because you’re a lovable, funny snob who doesn’t mind my preference for superhero flicks, but you’d never admit to ‘loving’ my films. Ever. Which is why I won’t have sex with you, Irshad. Because you’re not Irshad at all. You’re a set of Gamma instincts that have taken over. And it’s why I can’t let you leave without making sure you fight back against those brain patterns. I know you’re in there Irshad. I’ve looked at their genetics programming - the mind can make a difference! You need to fight now, and fight hard! You can resurface and be you again!”

Irshad felt something push against her mind, rail against it. It rose just as her mate said, emerging from her consciousness to speak to this man.

“A-Arturo. Diaz. I don’t - it’s so hard to fight. I feel a slave to the instincts.”

Art’s heart leapt. “You can fight it Irshad! Do you remember the dream? One the river bank? I think you sent it to me while you were sleeping! It’s you calling for my help. Well here I am, on the bank, calling for you now!”

“Dreams. Oh my God, Art. I did have those dreams. I thought . . . it did seem so real.”

“It was, and it is! Come back to me.”

“I - I can’t. It’s t-too difficult. I love -”

And then it was gone. A human remnant pushed back into a box to wither and disappear in good time. Her instincts regained control, and they sensed a change in her mate, and the possibility of a trap as well.

“Irshad?” Art asked. “Irshad, are you still with me?”

“Irshad is gone,” the creature said in a monotone voice. “I am a Gamma broodmother now. I have no need of names, particularly human ones. My role is to breed. You must breed with me, my mate.”

Art’s face fell, but his hope remained. She really was still inside there.

“I’m sorry, Irshad. I can’t do that. Not while this thing is trying to control you, erase you! It’s time you stayed in the pool until we fixed this.”

He moved steadily but surely to the button that shifted the gate. He’d done his best to reinforce it, and hoped it would contain her from leaving to the lake.

“You’ve given me no choice,” he said.

But already Irshad was moving, panic in her heart. Her mate had betrayed her, and his role. She whipped about the water, sending an unexpected surge towards Art. It knocked him off his feet, and then the twenty foot titan of an alien mermaid vaulted towards the gate, moving with alacrity to escape. Art got to his feat, heart in his mouth as he realised he had lost valuable time. He leapt at the button, crashing against it and causing the gate to shift downwards. There might still be time.

But then Irshad gave another thrust of her powerful tail, and she coursed through the water with great speed. Had she not given birth and were still fully laden with eggs, she would not have made it. Instead, she passed through seamlessly just as the gate fell.

Art stood in silence as the gate clicked into place below the water. He was alone again, and he had lost Irshad. Misery briefly overcame him, small tears gathering in his cheeks.

“No,” he said, wiping them away and willing them to stop. “She’s still in there. I’m going to save you, Irshad. If you’re not coming to me, I’ll come to you.”

Entry 4. Final Entry.

Mate has betrayed me, young ones. Was meant to impregnate me, bring forth further brooding. I am laden with at least two more pregnancies that I shall labor, but with lack of access to mate I cannot fulfil my Gamma function. Already, I can feel my eggs swell within me to join you as clutchmates, but I need more. Body needs more to breed. Cannot flourish as species without seed from mate, this is condition of the Seed of Desire.

Mate desires return of human Irshad, but she is gone, or near enough so. Must suppress her. Instinct is all. Instinct to breed and birth and nurture. Have my milk, young ones. Learn survival. Necessary skills to flourish. But cannot survive initial stage without more of you. Must breed further for viable population growth. Sense not enough genetic diversity among you, despite own genetic programming allowing for such from even one mate. Require several more litters.

Problem must be overcome. Must escape. Only option is swelling of river in wet season. Lake will flood and connect to other adjoining rivers that lead to ocean. Dangerous, but certain way of escape. Cannot use bunker way anymore, not with mate betrayal. From there, can find many mates to replenish young that are lost in the journey.

Must leave, or one above will try to keep us here.

This form of entry logging is an artefact. It is no longer necessary.

No more entries needed.

The Deep Dive

The next three days were the tensest of Art’s life. He worked without his usual laidback attitude, consumed with concern for his partner, his friend, and his love. Irshad was down there, perhaps birthing, perhaps already trying to find a means of escape. The lake was large, but the only surefire way of leaving was by the other bunker seawater tunnels that fed directly into the ocean. Though he also knew that if a big enough storm approached, the lake could swell and overflow anyway, and she might be mad and alien enough to risk escape by the riverways.

She could also be seen an caught.

And so he worked madly, like a man possessed. It was a suicide mission, he knew. Risky beyond all belief, but he had to try it. While waiting for the final delivery, one that was set to be ready to pick up soon, he worked on the stone table with a chisel, preparing his message to her. If she was one with the rocks and shoal, then he would plant this by her cave where she could not help but see it, and take it in. No electronics failure of brittleness here.

Yet still, each delay terrified him. He had no true idea of knowing her whereabouts, or what she was up to. He just had to trust that enough Irshad was still in there to keep her grounded for now, and that her love for young was still genuine enough that she would be concerned with them first and foremost.

“I just hope she doesn’t interpret my arrival as some threat to them and attack me,” he mused as he worked. “God, she probably will do that, won’t she?”

It gave him pause, but then his own instincts set in, overriding his worries.

“No, she wouldn’t. And even if she did, it wouldn’t be her doing it, but the beast that’s taken over. I’m not giving up on her, and if I have to die to save her, so be it. She’d do the same for me.”

He looked over at the equipment he’d readied, and raised an eyebrow at the insanity of it all. Would the balloon even work? He’d been assured it was used in such events, though only as emergencies.

“Yeah, she’d do the same for me. But probably not something so crazy or stupid. But then, maybe that’s why she finally fell in love with me.”

***

The broodmother increasingly left her young to visit the surface. The weather was all important, the weather was what would save her. It was becoming greyer and greyer, but not fast enough. Rains were approaching, she sensed, the first of many, but she needed them here soon. Some young would not hatch in time. She had to trust in their instincts: her lights had told them of the situation, though perhaps they did not fully understand. If they did, they would know how to reach her when the time came, though it would be risky.

She felt dread at that, but pushed it down. Such considerations were part of forming a colony. The broodmother had to make such dark calculations for the preservation of the colony. It was, after all, her purpose. Her children would not share her burdens or pleasures, and breed normally, before their genetic code became variable enough to ensure proper bloodlines and lineages to emerge. But interbreeding would cause no issues in the beginning, thanks to the genetic gifts she had given them.

And yet still, there was a worry. A care and love for those that would not survive the dangerous journey ahead. She felt the need to assure them.

‘It’s okay, little ones. You will be safe. Mama will guide you to safety and freedom. She will find new mates to bring you further clutchmates.’

It seemed to calm them, which in turn calmed her, though she should not have needed the reassurance. There was still a quiet struggle in the broodmother’s mind, but it was one that she was winning. Soon her entire purpose would be all that mattered, and with her escape, she could experience the pleasure of her pregnancies and births with no other worries, as it was meant to be. She could forget the dream she continued to have, the one with strange legs and the strange man that called to her. If she could get enough distance from her former mate, she could be free of him, and the voice that plagued her subconscious.

There was a crackling of thunder in the sky, and the light patter of what would soon be heavy rain. Earlier than expected, in the end.

‘Very soon, my young ones. Very soon.’

The broodmother smiled.

***

The boat rocked, but then he’d had an upgrade. It was the last ingredient he needed to try his insane plan. The little raft simply wouldn’t do it. Art needed something with a crane, and a winch, and with enough weight to hold steady as he descended. He’d placed the boat off the ramp as soon as he’d gotten it filled with fuel, though he didn’t really need to start it except to position it at the centre of the lake, where Irshad’s cave was, far below. He looked up at the sky and winced.

“Fuck, it’s starting to rain. Could get heavy too. Damn, I wish I had time for more tests. This better work, Irshad.”

He began putting on the diver’s suit. It was heavy, metallic, and the goldfish-bowl style helmet was older than he would have liked. It wasn’t some nineteenth century thing with an oxygen hose, but it still looked like an absolute death trap, and if anything happened to him while he was down there, or the winch failed, or the crane snapped, or the boat capsized, or he got stuck, it could well be game over for good.

But he was ready to risk it all to save the woman he loved from herself.

“Okay, okay,” he said as he put on the helmet. “Systems check. Seals. Oxygen. Pressure gauge. Electronics. Crane and winch.”

He ran over it all, even as the rain began to fall faster. This was not an ideal weather system to take a deep dive suit down. His heart beat nervously as he ran out of preparations, but then a curious calmness came over him. As scared as he was, he was still Arturo Diaz, and he remembered the quality that both irritated Irshad and made her fall in love with him: his carefree love of adventure and life. He smiled, a big beaming grin, and he even laughed at the insanity of what he was attempting. He was still terrified, but he rode the wave of that terror as if he were on a surfboard.

He checked the cable attachment to his clunky suit one last time, then clambered awkwardly over the side.

He sank into the depths, the winch keeping his pace steady. Every breath reminded him of just how precarious his situation was.

“I’m coming, Irshad. You didn’t come to me in your dreams for nothing. You’re still in there.”

***

Something was different. Strange. The broodmother sensed it. Even as the rain came faster, promising an avenue of escape, perhaps even on the following day, she could feel a change in the water. She swam from the cave. With her enhanced sight and hearing, she could sense something new upon the surface. A large boat. Much bigger than the silly little raft the human mate had had before. It would not be enough to reach and capture her. She was safe in the lake for a time yet, and as the weather worsened, he would be forced to withdraw.

That’s what the broodmother thought. That was, until she saw the figure descending through the water, clad in metal like a suit of armour, two large oxygen tanks strapped to its back. It was heading right for her location, just a couple of hundred feet from her cave.

It made her instincts panic. Was he threatening her young? She coiled back, pushing with her powerful tail to the cave, hoping to hide from him. She watched in the darkness as he landed, bright lights fixed upon his armour’s shoulders. He seemed to test something: a cable of some kind, before beginning to walk around, somewhat aimlessly. The broodmother was astonished, and part of her was impressed. A small, screaming subconscious part of her swelled with pride at the insanity she was witnessing. The human crawled over rock, clambered over lake weed, slipped and regained his awkward footing in his heavily riveted diving suit. He looked ridiculous.

It somehow brought a human smile to her face, one that she forced down. After all, her young were at risk, and the human’s lights were beaming quite brightly. The figure turned, and to the broodmother’s shock it seemed that he had noticed something in the far distance. Did he have access to thermal imaging? Or was it their strange connection? The dream rose up in her mind of a figure upon the bank. But in none of those dreams had she imagined that when she was dragged down, her mate could make the desperate decision to dive in after her.

He moved forward. He had something attached to his side, something large and grey and clunky, and yet he was taking a great deal of effort to preserve it. A weapon? Her protective instincts raised. She gazed around at her young, felt her own babies still gestating inside her belly, and made a decision. She needed to remove this threat.

She shot out from the cave at lightning speed, circling around behind the human before he could see her. He was still heading for the cave in his plodding fashion. He’d made a mistake: he was entering her dominion now. And here he was just as awkward and clumsy as she would be on his surface land.

The broodmother turned about. She swam towards him. The cable was the weak spot, so easily severed. Then the oxygen tank would followed. If need be, she could crush him in his suit, but it was important to disable him first. She swung past, circling him a little more, keeping above and out of sight. There was a hesitation in her heart, but her instinct was overriding. She clutched her growing pregnant belly and knew she had to act before this human did something drastic.

She coursed towards the cable, slowed her speed with her webbed limbs, and pulled it towards her easily with a single finger. One bite of her teeth was all it took. The metal twisted and split, and then it pulled apart.

The effect upon the human below was instantaneous. Arturo stumbled and fell, his systems warning him of a cable loss. He tried to move about, and terror came back into his system as he felt the line go completely slack, no longer unreeling in a coordinated fashion.

“Shit, shit, shit, how the fuck did that happen?”

He slowly shifted the deep diving suit, but it was unbelievably cumbersome. He managed to reach, with some difficulty, towards the cable. It was loose. Severed.

“Oh, fuck. Oh fuck. Is it even possible to walk out of here?”

But then even that possibility was closed off by the terrifying sight lurking above him. Art’s eyes widened at the sight of the twenty foot long titan of a creature, like a great sea mammal, like the Loch Ness Monster, looming above him. His lights illuminated it, but as if in retaliatory response, the creature’s skin lit up in brilliant dancing hues of blue, violet, and white, nearly blinding him back. He had never seen Irshad’s form in this kind of way before. It was still recognisable her: the prodigious breasts seeping milk into the water, her rounded pregnant belly becoming further swollen with their young, her gorgeous face still preserved despite the grey skin and dark eyes and seaweed-like hair. But her expression was cold and alien and hostile, and she moved as if he were a threat that needed to be removed.

“C’mon, it’s me Irshad!” he called, though he knew only the reverberation inside his own helmet was audible. Not even she could hear him through the tight seal. He fidgeted awkwardly with the gloves of the suit, attempting to free the tablet. It had the words that needed saying, ones he couldn’t provide her now.

But then she swooped down through the water, like a seal hunting for fish, and batted him aside. He felt something give way and buckle in his suit, and the pressure gauge warning lit up. He was deep enough that even if he didn’t drown down here, he would certainly die from the pressure if the suit was too compromised. He gasped, trying to steady himself, but then she shot past again, and this time something tore open. An oxygen alert set off, blinking red in his helmet. She’d broken open one of the tanks.

“Okay, this is really really really not going well!”

It was, in fact, going terribly. He was losing oxygen, fast, and the other tank wasn’t looking good either. He flailed his arms, trying to contain the breach, but it was no good. His only hope was that Irshad would come to her senses. He shifted, swinging his lights about to try to find her, but instead he only saw her immense maw surging right towards him.

“Oh. Fuck.”

They clamped onto his leg, sweeping him through the water. He couldn’t believe how much bigger she’d got that she could grip a limb with her teeth like that. Her eyes were dark, a contrast to her illuminated body. He tried to push from her even as she slammed him against some underwater rocks. It contorted him painfully.

“Welp, that’s definitely - ughh - gonna bruise tomorrow.”

Irshad didn’t find any humour, either because she couldn’t hear him or because she was in full monster mode. He noticed she kept one hand upon her distended belly, a mother protecting her young.

“Shit, I’ve set off your mother bear instinct, haven’t I.”

He changed tactics, even as the warning lights buzzed anew, warning of a second tank breach; the only other tank he had. He managed to get the stone tablet out, hold it up before her. He tried to make his body language as unthreatening as possible. Irshad swam forth, her tail containing enough muscle and power to flatten him.

“Please let this work, please let this work!”

The broodmother stopped just before him, pressed her hands against the rocks either side of him to arrest her incredible momentum. She seemed to sniff the water, search out the scent of what she was looking at, and then her eyes shifted to gaze upon the stone.

For the alien mother, it was a strange moment. She had been determined to snuff out the life of her former mate. There was a sadness in it, yet, but at the same time she had to protect her young, and her plans. But now, on the verge of death by drowning, totally helpless, his metal suit broken irreparably, this little man was holding up a placard of stone. She couldn’t help but sniff it, scent it for traps, but there was no indication of such. It was ordinary stone. Primitive, befitting his kind.

She drew closer. He was no threat now, not with his oxygen so low. It was inscribed with something. With small writing. She recognised it.

Arturo,

Need your help with something. Little side project I’ve been cooking - been looking into residual specimens of interstellar explosions and their warping effects. If you’re interested, I’ve got a cozy cabin on the Olympic Peninsula right now. If nothing else, we should reconnect. If you want to come visit, it’s a wonderful stay with an exciting view of things. I’ve attached the address below.

Sincerely,

Irshad

They were her words, the ones she’d sent to him. They stirred memory and personality from her, reminding of her of how she came to this point. But then there were more words below.

Irshad,

I answered your call and came. I don’t regret it at all. I have loved you for so long, and no matter how crazy all this is, knowing you came to love me back has made it all worth it. I won’t to be with you, and our children, whatever it takes. Just come back to me. You don’t have to choose between the water and the bank. We can have both.

P.S. Chiselling is hard, especially at this size. I know you like the aesthetics of stone tablets tho, so it was worth the effort.

Love,

Arturo

Once more, that stirring of remembrance and longing, the will to resurface in mind and form. Something broke the surface in her, and to Art’s surprise, the man saw her actually laugh underwater, breaking into silly guffaws that sent showers of bubbles up to the surface. It was him. Her Arturo. The silly, ridiculous man who cared too much for his moustache and too little for professionalism. The man who had pierced the armour around her heart and broken through to capture it. Who had helped her through all these transformations, through the alien pregnancies, and had done all he could to amuse her, test her, lift her up and make her comfortable. Who had done all he could to love her.

And she had almost lost him, and herself with him.

Arturo Diaz smiled as he saw the change come over her expression. She reeled back, a look of incredibly guilt appearing on her face. Even her bioluminscence changed, glowing a radiant pink and purple that danced across her form in joyous celebration. Even through the cracks slowly appearing over his helmet he could see the word she was mouthing: Arturo!

And then he heard it in his mind as well.

Arturo! I’m so sorry!

He checked the oxygen gauge. He was running out, fast. Add on the minor concussion, and it made sense he felt so light-headed. But he was certainly she had actually talked to him just then.

“Irshad? You can hear me? Is this - are we connected?”

I - I think we are, my love. I’m so deeply sorry! The alien took over. I don’t know how, but it saw you as a threat. It had such plans, and not all of them kind. It was fearful and protective and not me at all and - and you saved me, Art. You saved me!

Tears streamed down Art’s cheeks. He had managed it. To get through to her. It was ridiculous and silly, a plan born of desperation and risk, but it had worked.

It was too bad he was going to die.

He reached out to glide his glove along her side, where more of their children were still growing.

“I dreamed of you,” he said, as if it said everything he needed to say.

And then he began to go even more light-headed, and the great underwater beauty that was Irshad Khan began to fade into a glowing light before him.

Art! Art! I’m here, Art! Just hang on!

The broodmother tried to rise once more to seize her consciousness, but now that she had been returned, Irshad had no intention of ever letting it take the driver’s seat again. She understood now what Arturo meant: the Gamma aliens had allowed their minds to steer their own genetic programming, and she did so now, forcing down the instincts to serve her, instead of giving control over to them as she had. It took precious seconds, but it was necessary to save her love. With one last gasp of pressure, the alien shackles on her mind were cut away, and she was free once more.

She acted with immediacy, grabbing Art and pulling him upwards to the surface. She tried to go at a steady pace, not taking him too quickly to avoid complications from pressure change. But she was desperate, and scared, and while she could not cry anymore, her skin glowed with urgency, curving lines of pale red coursing over her form.

She broke the surface right near his new boat, and placed him atop it with ease thanks to her giant side. She was terrified to break the seal of the suit, particularly as the coming rain made it more difficult, not to mention her own heft.

“Please Art! Diaz! Come back to me. I’m sorry for everything. For not loving you sooner, for deceiving you into coming her, for hurting you so badly. I have to make it up to you, do you understand? I have to! Please come back, or I swear I will kick you in the next life!”

Her hair glowed in anger at just the thought, then dimmed immediately as his figure stirred. With some difficulty he removed his helmet, undoing the seal. Art looked pretty worse for wear, and yet even in his ridiculous suit, he had never looked more handsome to her. She nearly capsized the boat in sheer relief as she leaned against it, and he yelled out loud.

“Wooahh! Irshad, try not to kill me twice!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Are you okay, my love?”

“That depends, am I talking to the woman I love?”

She reached over the boat to rub softly at his cheek with her finger. He was so small to her now, so precious. Her body yearned to be filled by him again, but now was not the moment. She smiled through the rain.

“Yes, you are. The woman you saved, as well. Quite gallantly. And stupidly.”

“Well, you were always the smart one. It’s good to have you back, Irshad. I was lost with you.”

“But you heard me,” she said, her smile so wide it hurt. “You heard me in your dreams. I called to you through them. Thank you.”

He nodded, still a bit delirious.

“Let’s go home, Irshad.”

She took the boat, and began to push it to shore. The two had a lot to discuss, and a lot of making up to do. But for now, they both just wanted to rest.

Aftermath

Irshad pushed, pushed, pushed her babies from her body. Each one was exquisite, not just in feeling, but in the knowledge that she was continually making new life. But unlike before, she was not slave to her instincts, and her broodmother identity was only part of her. She had not needed to birth her young deep in the lake, in some forgotten cave. That had been a result of her alien mind taking over. Now she was doing as she should always have done: allowing her beautiful boyfriend to be with her as she strained through the contractions, and see their new babies come into the world.

“You’re doing amazing, my love,” Art said, stroking her left flank.

Thank you, my love. It f-feels quite n-nice actually. Even better now that you’re h-here. I - ohhhhhhh - I never thought birthing could be so p-pleasurable!

“I’m glad it is!” he laughed. “Otherwise several days of laying eggs might be difficult!”

They were at the edge of the pool’s shallow side. She was beneath the water, but her back rose from the surface, allowing Arturo to stand beside her in his swimming gear, bringing her comfort and massaging her flesh. It was surprisingly intimate, especially since Art had insisted on once again overhauling the bunker pool to be more warm and comforting. He had even had the idea of bringing rocks and lakeweed up to sit and grow upon the pool floor, to give their eggs a great sense of a real environment. The space was safe, it had always been safe. It was just her Gamma instincts that had led her astray. But now they were conquered, and she had moved all hundred and fifteen of her eggs to the pool in the following days since her saving, a process which was tiring but worth it, so that Art could see them and marvel.

You’re going to be the father of quite a number, I’m afraid. Nnghh!!

“Big one?” he chuckled.

Y-yess. Oh G-God. Big ones. Not b-bad. Just a lot of p-pushing. It’s a good thing this body is so g-good at - ahhh - birthing, and that I enjoy it! Otherwise I’d be - MNmhmm - pretty horrified!

“Well, you look radiant, my love. And I’m prepared to be a dad. I’ve got silly jokes lined up already. Though from what you tell me, these kids will be a lot more independent even from the moment they hatch, so I guess some of the work is done for me.”

L-lucky you! You don’t have to - ugghhhhh - birth th-them!

“Oh please, like you just said. You enjoy it! I’m more worried about how full your, um, chest is. You were always a lithe woman before, Irshad, but you’re looking quite prodigious now!”

He saw her grin beneath the water, even as she struggled with her next egg.

I know what you want. Go on and drink. I n-need a bit of r-relief there anyway. Especially on the l-left side. Ahhhh! Here comes another - uughh - one!

Another egg pushed through her distended opening, plopping into the waters of the pool and joining the clutch of others all stuck together. She heaved as she did so, her great tail rising and falling quite impressively in the water. Even as she did so, she rolled slightly on her side, bringing her head above the water so she could stare at him directly, and allowing her enormous, almost torso-sized tits to wobble hugely before him.

“Mmhmmm . . . do you like what you see, little man?”

Arturo chuckled. “You know I do, Irshad. You know I do. Can I say again how happy I am that we’ve got you back, and with a bit of humour to boot!”

“Oh, shut it. You can either suckle on me or talk, but I will not take teasing right n-now. Not in my - UGGHH, that was a big contraction - not in my c-condition.”

She must have been able to tell that Arturo was about to say something cheeky and clever, because she swept out an enormous webbed arm and pulled him against her, practically squashing him against her enormous left breast. She aimed well: his face was right in her huge nipple. He took it into his mouth, the size of an apple, and began to suck at her glorious breast. He rubbed his crotch as he did so, incredibly turned on by her body and moans of pleasure. Sweet, life-giving milk spurt into his mouth, and he squeezed her breast with both arms spread wide around it, expelling even more milk. It was one of the most pleasant-tasting things in the world, and it only made his erection rage harder.

“Nnghhh,” he grunted, as he was transferred to her other breast. “I’m in h-heaven!”

“M-me t-too,” she moaned, approaching another orgasm herself. She felt divine. Human and Gamma in perfect balance, her alien instincts guiding her instead of controlling her. After she was returned to Arturo, they had spent a long time talking, cuddling, checking that they were both okay. And then only when they were ready, they had made passionate love. Not just baby-making sex like her body wanted, but true romantic love-making as Irshad wanted.

Of course, it had resulted in far more babies than ever before anyway, so it turns out her instincts could go wrong, and her human side could be right. In fact, she had been in labour for four days now, slowly pushing out egg are egg, falling asleep (though she still expelled a few while unconscious, and dreamed of that very action), and then waking to more contractions. As uncomfortable as it could be, and as much as the deep was preferable for birthing, she still wanted Arturo by her side. She wanted her lover to experience her labours with her, and to celebrate each new Gamma alien she bore into the world. Indeed it had excited him, because he spent just about every second with her, never becoming bored of her process. The two even found time to watch one of his dorky superhero films, and she play a classical album in revenge. And, in true romantic fashion, she had woken after a time of rest to find her favourite ocean fish prepared as a platter to soothe her hungry stomach.

Already she had passed her record sixty eight children. She couldn’t quite sense how many she had within her. No matter how hard she tried, she lost count when the orgasms came and overwhelmed her tired mind. It didn’t matter. She was excited nonetheless, and while her Gamma instincts were under control thanks to her boyfriend, she still felt that wonderful urge to breed, though thankfully as an act of love as much as one of lust.

“NNghhhh,” she groaned, pushing again. “N-nearly f-finished!”

“M-me too, Irshad!”

She pulled him against her, right into her rubbery cleavage, and it was enough to send him over the edge, lost in that pillow heaven. He came, and his while he was wearing his swimming shorts, he had pulled them down to pleasure himself, and his seed erupted against her chest.

“OOhhhhhh . . . that’s h-hot,” she said.

It was a very un-Irshad thing to say, but then she’d been trying to be less frigid and more open lately. Still, hearing her at least try to talk dirty still did a lot for him. He came several more times.

“Oh G-God, Irshad!”

“Mmhmm - OH!”

Her last egg plopped out, exiting her tunnel easily. She grunted a little at its passage, but in truth, it was Art’s pleasure that brought her over the edge. The mental connection they somehow shared, like a genetic footprint of sorts, also exchanged a little pleasure too. She felt his, and it erupted through her.

“MMHPPPHHMH!!!”

Art was knocked off his feet by the resulting wave, and sent several feet away in the pool. He managed to stumble his way back up the pool ramp.

“Sorry,” Irshad said.

“First you bust up my epic diving suit, which cost a pretty penny by the way, and now this!”

The two shared a laugh, and she reached an arm out to pull him against her side.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she said.

He looked past her glowing form - literally glowing - to the mound of eggs she had laid within the pool, each of them just underwater further down the ramp. The life nestled within squirmed softly, still growing.

"They are," he said. "Are we going to name them all?"

"Well, Gamma aliens don't have names so much as distinct light signatures. So . . . maybe? We'll cross that bridge when we reach the ocean."

"Are you sure that's the plan, then? To go to the ocean? You don't want to stay in our bunker?"

Irshad smiled, but in that resolute way that told him her decision was firm. "I'm sorry, Art, but I have to. I'm not going to stop laying eggs, and the lake can only support so many of us. The ocean is where we can build a safe future, and reveal ourselves to the world when we're ready. We can even do a lot of good by reversing the damage civilisation has done to the oceans and their sea life. Besides, someone has to teach these babies how to respect the planet and eventually introduce themselves to humankind."

Art stroked his girlfriend's flank, kissed her burgeoning belly, eliciting a soft coo from her.

"Si, that makes sense. It's just . . . I was starting to think of this as home, you know? Even if you did almost drown me in the lake in a lover's quarry."”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

He grinned. “Naturally. Besides, I did forgive you. You know I like bigger women.”

She just scoffed, pushing him aside slightly in a joking manner.

“But seriously, I will miss this place. It holds a lot of strange, interesting, scary, and most of all wonderful memories. I’m glad I came.”

“Me too. I wouldn’t go back, you know. To being human, I mean.”

He nuzzled against her a little more, stroking her enormous breast idly.

“Me either, Irshad. Me either.” He gazed out across the numerous eggs filling the pool. They’d have to take inventory of the new lives Irshad had just birthed.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?”

“Our young ones? I don’t know, Art. I worry about them. They’re a different species, I’m a different species. But we’re just as intelligent as humans, and our domains of living won’t overlap. We won’t even consume resources wastefully like humans do.”

“I take offence to that.”

“Yes, and you’re bad at dealing with recycling.”

“I withdraw my complaint.”

She chuckled, gliding her finger along his back. She lifted him up, rolled slightly so that he was perched on her chest, sitting in her cleavage, looking down at her gorgeous giantess features.

“But I think things will be okay. Difficult, perhaps. And very busy, once they start to hatch, but they’ll be able to form a hidden civilisation until the time is right, one that can get along with and even help human society.”

“Very optimistic for you, Irshad.”

“What can I say? I’ve been in bad company lately.”

“Can I remind you who was the one that literally tried to drown me a week ago?”

“Now I withdraw my complaint. And that joke has a lifespan of three months, that’s how long you get.” She shifted her view to take in her eggs, and smiled in what Art viewed as a quite maternal way. “They’ll be fine. And so will we. Once they’re hatched and ready, they’ll only need me for occasional guidance. We’ll find a hidden shore somewhere, and you can live in a nice holiday home with the money we’ve stashed away, and I won’t leave you like I did ever again.”

“Living between bank and river?” Art suggested.

“It’ll be a dream,” she said, giving an uncharacteristic giggle. “Now hurry up and fuck me again. My instincts are going crazy.”

He sighed in a sarcastic manner. “Ah, work, work, work . . .”

The Future

The Gamma aliens broke through their eggs, chewing their way through the translucent sacs and emerging into the light of the surface, breathing a mix of seawater and pure air for the first time. They were grey, blue, violet, even the occasional shade of pink in colour, and all of them were eager to taste the delights of the ocean, to hunt and grow and search and discovery, and plant and create and build. As they reached the surface, however, all made sure to raise their heads above and wave in the human-like fashion they had been taught to their broodmother who had given them life.

It was a joyous sight for Irshad and Arturo, who were relaxing upon the beach, she with much of her tail in the deep blue waters of the Pacific, and he on top of her belly, sipping a pink margarita and wearing a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. Their children giggled at the sight of their broodfather, who was so different from their mother, so much smaller, close to their own size. He waved back, whooping and cheering and causing their broodmother to blush with her bioluminescence in the afternoon light. She was already pregnant with many more of their clutchmates, and so many more were beneath the waves, yet to hatch. She had taught them all she could though, her memories and vast knowledge spilled into their minds through her intricate displays of light. Their father had tried his best also, though the use of puppet theatre and sing-a-longs mainly brought a sense of humour.

Humour, and perhaps a good understanding of human life and its strangeness. Something they would need to know of in the future, when the time came to reveal themselves. For now, they simply took a moment to appreciate the two very different individuals who had helped create them. Their own bioluminescent skin glowed and rippled with patterns, expressing their shared sentiments to their broodmother.

“They’re saying goodbye, but not forever,” Irshad translated. She couldn’t cry, but sometimes she wished she still could. She communicated back to her babies, wishing them a plentiful and successive life, and knowing that she could see them again. At least, so she hopes.

And then, with a flurry of fin and tail, they were gone, leaving the two lovers on the beach alone but for each other.

“That’s it then?” Art asked, more than a little astonished.

“For now,” Irshad answered. “For now. They have their world to build, just like we have ours. We’ll make it all work.”

“Haven’t we always?”

The two lovers stayed watching the sea for some time, imagining all that might be happening under their surface, and knowing all the eggs yet to hatch their young.

And all the babies they would go on to make.

The End