Parasite

“Do you think it’s safe?” asked Steve, as he peered into the dark mineshaft between the loose planks.

“It’s been there for over a hundred years, it’ll probably be around for a hundred more,” said Ben, digging through his backpack for the flashlight. 

At 17, Ben was the older of the two by three years.  He was everything Steve wanted to be: Tall, blonde, and sinewy.  His voice had already changed, and he sounded commanding and reassuring. 

In contrast, Steve had shaggy dark hair that he could never keep combed down, and had a slightly rounded face that combined with the ever-tousled hair to make him look even younger than he really was. 

Ben pried off the bottom two planks, and crawled through the opening.

“What’s it like in there?” asked Steve, his voice squeaking with excitement and fear.

“Cool,” said Ben.  “Come on!”

The old tunnel was much cooler than outside, and Steve wished he had brought his jacket.  The wooden trusses that held up the roof were old and misshapen, some of them compressed by several feet.  The darkness that stretched ahead beyond the range of Steve’s flashlight was absolute.

“Are any places we could fall down?” whispered Steve.

“Probably,” Ben’s voice echoed loudly.  “This was a gold mine, and they dug wherever the gold was.”

“Why did they stop?”

“Probably ran out of gold,” Ben started walking, and Steve followed close by his side.

“Of course, there’s the old legend…”

“What legend?”

Ben smiled.  “You know; the legend about how they dug too deep and opened a door into hell.”

“Stop messing around!”

“It’s not my story,” laughed Ben.  “It’s probably just bullshit.”

“What does it say happened?”

“Well, they opened a door into hell and a demon escaped.  That demon was a chick, and she was hungry for men.”

“She was a cannibal?”

“A cannibal demon would eat other demons, stupid.  No, she didn’t exactly eat men.  She just ate the part that made them men, if ya know what I mean.”

“What’s that?” piped Steve as the flashlight beam shined on something ahead.  He clutched Ben’s arm, terrified.

Ben stopped and peered ahead.  “It’s dirt.”

They started walking again, and as the flashlight got closer they could see it was a big pile of dirt filling the bottom of the tunnel.

Ben shined the flashlight upwards, exposing a large hollow in the ceiling.

“Looks like there was a cave-in here,” said Ben.  He climbed onto the pile and shined his flashlight ahead.  “The tunnel’s not completely blocked, this only goes on for about 15 feet or so.  Come on.”

“Is it safe?” asked Steve, covering his eyes when Ben shined the flashlight back at him.

“Come on, this probably happened like 50 years ago.”

“How do you know it won’t happen now?” Steve was scrambling up the dirt to keep up with Ben, who had started walking ahead again.  At the far end, the dirt pile looked like it had been partially excavated. 

“Maybe they dug a dead body out of there after the cave in?” said Ben, who got punched in the arm.

“So do you believe in the legend?” asked Steve.

“Of course not, do you?”

“No.”

Ben looked down at Steve.  “Besides, you wouldn’t need to worry.  Yours haven’t grown in yet.”

“Shut up, dork.”

They came to an intersection where the tunnel split four ways.  There was a wide board on the ground in the middle, and Ben was just about to step onto it when Steve yanked him back.

“Look out!”

Ben shone the flashlight downwards, and there was nothing but gaping blackness on either side of the board. 

“A drop!” shouted Steve.

Ben shined the flashlight up, and there was darkness there too.  “It’s a vertical shaft.” He picked up a rock.  “I wonder how far it goes.”

“All the way to hell,” muttered Steve.  “No, DON’T!”

Ben tossed the rock down the shaft, and they listened to it skip against the walls for over six seconds before it made a loud clunk and stopped.  The noises echoed throughout the mine.

“Let’s get out of here!” said Steve, pulling on Ben’s arm.

“No, wait; what’s that?”  In his flashlight beam ahead, just beyond the board, there was something reddish brown on the floor.

“Hey, check it out!” said Ben; “I think that’s dynamite!” 

Steve looked at the reddish bundle of tubes with distrust.  “I don’t think we should be here.”

“Oh, come on!  Here, hold the flashlight.”

“Ben, don’t do it!”

Ben put one foot on the board to test it.  “Solid as a rock,” he said, and began carefully walking across it one foot in front of the other.

“Ben!” pleaded Steve, shining the flashlight on the board ahead of his friend.

Ben made it to the other side, and crouched down next to the bundle.  “Oh, it’s dynamite alright.  Come on across, it’s easy!”

“No way!”

“Oh, come on Steve!  Don’t be a chicken shit!”

“Ben, what’s that behind you?”

“Oh, I’m not falling for that shit.”

“Ben, I’m SERIOUS!  Something just moved behind you!”

“Steve, that is so lame.  Get your lamer ass over here before I come across that board and kick your sorry ass.”

“Ben, I’m getting out of here.  You can stay if you want to.”

“FUCK!  Ok, fine; we’ll go before you piss yourself or something.”  Ben clambered across the plank angrily, partly to show off how unafraid he was.  The board flexed beneath him with each step, knocking fresh dirt down the edges of the open shaft.

“Ben, be CAREFUL!”

“If you weren’t such a goddamn pussyshit-“ Ben was one step away from the edge when the board started sliding.  Instinctively, he lurched forward, which knocked the board completely out from underneath him and he disappeared into the darkness.

“BEN!!!!!” screamed Steve.  His cry echoed throughout the mine, then faded into silence.  That’s when Steve realized he never heard the thump of Ben landing on the bottom.

“Ben?” he whispered.  “Ben?  Are you ok?”  He crawled to the edge of the shaft and aimed his flashlight beam downwards.  Steve expected to see straight walls all the way down, but there were other horizontal tunnels further down, in intersections just like the one where he was.  Did Ben manage to catch one of the side tunnels?

“BEN!” Steve whispered as loudly as he dared.  He wanted to be outside in the sunlight, far away from this dark place.  But he was afraid to make the walk back alone, and he didn’t want to leave his friend behind.  What would he tell Mrs. Leonard?

Then, Steve felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  There was something behind him.  If he could have commanded himself to die right then, he would have gladly stopped his own heart to escape the terror he was feeling.

“Ben?” he whimpered, not daring to look back.  He clenched his eyes shut.  “Ben, help me!”  That’s when something cold touched him.  He shrieked and fainted…

When Steve came to, he was disoriented.  It took a moment to remember where he was.  It was dark and cool, and smelled funky.  The mine.  He was in the mine.  Slowly, he felt around on the dirt floor, crawling carefully to avoid falling down any shafts.  His fingers touched cloth.

Ben’s backpack!  He continued fumbling around, until he found the cold metal of the flashlight.  His heart was racing at what he might see, and he waited several minutes in silence before he finally switched it on.  Would it even work?

The beam lit up the area around him, and he wheeled around quickly to see if he was alone.  He was in a large chamber, much bigger than the mine tunnels.  The ceiling was probably thirty feet high, and it was about fifty feet wide.  The whole place was criss-crossed with old wooden trusses, and narrow train tracks ran down the center.

The flashlight beam came upon pink – it was Ben!  But he was naked, laying on his back on an overturned ore cart. 

“Ben!” whispered Steve, running over to him.  “Ben, what are you doing?  Get up!”

He stopped short, realizing his friend might be dead.  But no, Ben’s bare chest was moving up and down rapidly, and his eyes were open and blinking.

“Ben, get up!  What happened?  Are you hurt?”  He shined the light down Ben’s naked body, looking for injuries.  Ben’s chest was sweating, in spite of the cold temperature in the mine.  The flashlight beam followed Ben’s flat belly down below his navel, and Steve was surprised to see a tuft of dark pubic hair growing there since Ben was blonde.  Ben’s penis was draped down over his balls, which were much larger than Steve’s and were hanging low enough to rest on the cold iron cart beneath him.  The flashlight lingered there for a moment before continuing down and examining Ben’s legs, but nothing was bleeding and nothing looked broken. 

He shined the flashlight back on Ben’s face, and looked into his eyes.  “Ben, can you hear me?”

Ben made eye contact with him, and his lips pressed together like he was trying to say something.  Then, Ben’s eyes moved past Steve, growing wider.

For the second time, Steve knew there was something behind him, but this time he spun around with the flashlight, screwing up his courage for a fight with some bitch with horns on her head.

But what he saw wasn’t human; not even remotely.  It looked like some kind of large, brown beetle about five feet tall.  Its head came to a long sharp point like a mosquito, and it had pincers on all eight of its legs. 

Steve’s jaw dropped.  He couldn’t believe his eyes enough to be scared.  Was he dreaming?  “Wake up!” he muttered to himself.

The creature moved closer, and Steve stepped back.  The creature moved closer again, and he moved back and to the side.  It was moving towards Ben, not Steve.  In fact, it didn’t even seem to be paying attention to Steve or his flashlight beam.

Steve started looking around for something that he could use to fight with, like a gun or a sword.  There was all sorts of old mining junk laying around; old lanterns and wooden crates, big heavy drilling equipment…  Nothing useful.

The creature was at Ben’s feet now. 

“BEN!” shouted Steve desperately, running back towards it not knowing what else to do.

The creature lowered the long, sharp tip of its nose between Ben’s legs and pressed it down against his right testicle.  Trapped between the huge needle and the cart, the round organ squished outwards until it looked like a pink donut.

“STOP IT! LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Steve picked up a handful of rocks and threw them at the beetle-like creature. 

It ignored him, and continued to squish the center of Ben’s trapped nut until the huge needle tip punctured it.  A second later, the skewered testicle started to shrivel as the creature began sucking out the contents inside.

“NO!” shouted Steve, setting the flashlight down and grabbing a pickaxe. 

Ben’s right nut quickly shriveled to the size of a dried prune as the creature sucked out every shred of hormone rich tissue.  The creature withdrew its needle and began pressing it down on the left nut.

Steve brought the pickaxe up high in the air, and brought it down onto the creature’s back.  He would have put it through the thing’s head, but he didn’t want to risk goring his friend.  The iron tip made a thud and then cracked through the tough shell, lodging firmly into the back of the creature.  Steve couldn’t pull it back out!

As he turned to run, the creature came at him and seized him firmly with its pincers, pinning him to the ground.  He felt a sharp sting in his back, and thought the creature was going to suck his heart out of his chest.  But instead, the sting turned into a numbness that spread rapidly throughout his body with a warm, tingling sensation.  He tried to struggle as the creature ripped the clothing off his body, but he found he was completely paralyzed.  Just like Ben!

The creature seemed to be moving in great pain, and after laying Steve on his back, it spent several minutes trying to pull the pickaxe out without success.

“Die….  Die!” thought Steve, watching the thing struggle.  He could feel himself starting to sweat as if he were laying out in the hot afternoon sun.  He thought of his young balls laying out there exposed, nothing more than a meal for this monstrosity. 

He saw the creature return to Ben, and a moment later he heard the sound of his friend’s last remaining testicle being punctured by the big needle.  In the silence of the mine, it sounded more like a stifled sneeze than it did a ball popping.  Steve’s ears strained to hear the sound of Ben’s nut being drained, but all he heard was his own heartbeat.

Then the creature was moving towards him.  It was moving even more slowly than the last time he saw it; it was dying.  But would it die fast enough? 

Steve’s balls didn’t even have hair on them yet; maybe Ben was right.  Maybe he wasn’t ripe enough for the creature to want.

But then he felt something pressing into his right testicle, and he wanted to scream.  He tried to scream as the pressure built.  It felt like his gonad was being squeezed in a vice!  Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more pressure, the tip of the huge needle broke through the tough inner layer and the pressure was relieved, replaced instead by a deep, painful sting as it sank into the gland. 

But the worst was yet to come.  For the creature to make the extraction, it had to inject a powerful acid to help weaken the tissue so it could be ripped apart and disintegrated by the powerful suction into a pulp that could be drawn through the needle. 

Steve felt a cool liquid rapidly entering the center of his testicle, ripping the tissue immediately around the needle and bloating the entire organ like a balloon.  Seconds later, the sudden burn was shocking and painful enough to almost be numbing as the powerful acid began doing its damage.  Then, the extraction began, which was more painful than everything combined as an organ the size of a walnut was sucked up a tube the diameter of a drinking straw. 

While it started out excruciatingly painful, by the end it hardly hurt.  He felt the outside of his nut collapsing and shriveling in on itself, but never felt the needle pull out.

The creature hesitated for a long time. 

“Why won’t you die already!” thought Steve.  “Leave me with one, just one!”

But then the pressure began on his left testicle, and he lost all hope.  He would never feel the joy of being with a woman, and never be able to father a child.  Steve would have cried if he could have.

In the background, something moved.  It was Ben!  The paralysis had worn off!  “Hurry, Ben, hurry!” Steve thought to himself. 

The pressure became unbearable, until Steve thought his nut would just burst and spew its contents out on the table.  At least then he would be spared the pain of the extraction.  But the pressure was suddenly relieved, and he felt the sharp pang of the needle penetrating the core of his ball.

To his side, a shadow moved, and Steve heard a loud thud and crack of the creature’s shell.  Although it wasn’t nearly as forceful as the other time, Steve felt the distinctive sensation of a cool liquid seeping into the center of his testicle.

“Too late, my friend,” Steve thought to himself, “too late.”  Even if Ben killed the creature before it sucked up everything, the acid injection would surely destroy his last chance at reproduction.

The creature fell backwards, then rolled on its side.

Still no burn.

“Steve!”  It was Ben.

“Steve!  I’m here.”

Still no burn.  How?

“I’ve stopped the bleeding, it looks like you’re still going to reach manhood.”

Suddenly, the fireball sensation erupted within his testicle, and Steve knew there was nothing that could be done to save it.

“Everything’s ok now,’ said Ben as Steve quietly endured the slow but certain destruction of his gonad. 

It took half an hour for the acid to finish running its cruel course, and later at the hospital the doctors removed the useless swollen, purple balloon.