The Karma Creature

There is a reason for everything in nature. It is not like all things are planned beforehand by a higher mind, but nature not only is a collective of ecosystems that inhabits a world. Nature... is sentient... and adaptable.

Humans, with their "rationalizing" minds, their "conscience" and "inteligence", have grew too arrogant and careless, wreaking anyone or anything in their path. Their acts, however, have consequences...

The year is 2512. A proud day for manking, most certainly. The "Cousteau Dream" is the first submarine capable of diving into great depts. After flirting with space, the humans would finally be able to visit the only region around then they never been before: the depts of their own planet.

The "Cousteau Dream" was named after a great and passionate nature researcher, but was filled with men with intentions not even near as noble. Riding from the media, the submarine carried militar men, weapons and equipments ready to strike one or two turmoils. Their plan was to implant a timed bomb in a oponent country, to later leave the submarine inactive and in a few month, detonate the bomb and sink the country like it was an natural disaster. So pitiful, those humans...

The travel was peaceful. Under the great depts, no sonar or other tecnology would detect then. They saw unique and bizarre creatures, citizens of the abyss, almost like they were taken from the human's alien fantasies.

As soon as they reached their destination, they started to drill their ways into the rock under the country. Some days of work have passed until something odd happened. The drill found a cave. The air inside the cave was highly pressurized, and as soon a small hole was open on the cave wall, all the air exploded through it, widening the opening until it became as big as the submarine itself. The vehicle was damaged. The mission had be aborted... but it wasn't.

The captain ordered one of his man to wear a special suit, one made of the "tecnologies" man is so proud to speak about. The man made reports and fixed some of the damages. He complained of a pain on his chest, mumbled a bit and said to have finished his work. The crew received him back into the submarine. It was when all began.

As soon as the decompression room door opened, something came inside fast. Unexpecting such event, the men in the room were caught by surprise. The last of their lifes. In less than 7 seconds, all the inner security camera could show was 5 dead bodies with a hole in their chests.

The red alert echoed. They were invaded. The militar crew took their "sacred" guns in hand and prepared to engage an unknow enemy. One by one, however, they felt. The "invader" was too fast and too strong for their guns. He walked on walls and ceilings, broke guns with one strike, ripped arms with a single hand and haven't been hit by a single bullet.

From the control room, the captain and his men watched in horror. From glipses on the screen, they realized the creature was humanoid and oddly familiar. Their theory was the repair men was infected or domained by something. A loud noise interrupted their dialog. The monster was at their door. The other have failed. They were the last ones in the submarine.

In the third strike, the door felt blunt. Their theories were right after all: the worker had an odd creature entangled around his body. A giant mandibule, like a men-eating plant, was around his head, with tentacles piercing his eyes and mouth. Around his body, countless other tentacles opened holes, making him bleed until he was dry. The first impression was enough: the man was dead, and his corpse now merely was the vehicle for the monster around it. That abyssal, alien-like creature.

That moment of silence was interrupted by the sound of a gun. It hit the vessel, but not the creature. It was a mistake. Less than a blink of the eye, the shooter was already impaled by the fist of the simbiotic creature. As the men felt lifeless, three or four tentacles could be seen moving from around the fingers of the monster, with sharp green stings on its tips. The others tried in vain to draw their weapons - one even died before ever pointing his gun. The only one left was the captain. Mesmerized, he never tried to pick his gun at all. He just looked at the creature, trying to understand it. The creature, much to his surprise, started to do the same.

They stared at each other for a few second. None made a movement. The captain started to get confident he could find a way out of this. The creature was waiting, but... waiting for what? He decided to attempt a conversation. "Can you speak?" he asked. The creature shivered immediately... and the dead men jaw under the monster control started to move slowly.

Throught the lips of the possessed marine, words started to form. First, they sounded like unninteligeble mumbles, but in matter of minutes, it became a clear, distant and emotionless voice. The simbiotical creature stopped near the captain. It wanted to talk. The captain, cornered, tried to dialogue. "Who are you" he asked. The creature twitched and spazzed for a second, and then answered "I tried to find the proper word to express who I am. A few sounded only partially adequated."

"Justice, reckoning, consequence, law... vengeance. However, as this human mind recognized, there is a word that is most beffiting for who I am".

The captain felt a pain in his chest. Mesmerized by the unlikely eloquency of the monster speech, he didn't noticed the tentacle that stretched from its hand and pierced his chest. The pain of the poison burning his inside soon invaded his mind, and the world spinned. He could barely see anything. But he heard the creature speak one last time.

"Karma. I am a creature made of karma, and it is time for mankind to meet us". And with his last breath, his sight became clear for a brief second before he faded forever - just enough to see the dead bodies of his crew stand up, as well as their spinal cords explode, and abyssal mouths and tentacles erupt from the fresh wound and envelop their heads and body, until they became vessels for those monsters... just like the one in front of him... just like he would become in a few moments...

...Just like the whole mankind became in less than a month from that day.

Mankind discovered, too late, that inteligence alone would not be enough to domain a world. The "survival of the fittest" is the only law of the nature, and respect it always was the most reasonable course of action. Mankind failed to be reasonable, and failed understand and respect nature as well.

But nature is sentient... and adaptable... and fair.

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THE IDEAS:

I wanted to join a contest, but had little time to make an attempt. This reminded me of a previous idea I had: browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=terrivel#/d39etb8

Since transparent parts are not allowed here, I had to use a base for it. I used my own tribeman skin, but merely as an illustration of how the Karma Creature takes over an humanoid. I would use Steve, would make more sense, but it is also against the rules. I would not be surprised to be eliminated from the contest because of those details.

The obvious inspiration are abyssal creatures - I seem to have a liking for that when making skins for some reason. It has been source for all sorts of alien in our history, so why not? The second inspiration was a fungus family: the Cordyceps. Those fungus are speciallized in invading certain insect species and domaining their bodies, implementing "commands" in their behaviors and controlling then, only to kill their hosts in the end, when the time to spread has come. Looks cute on Paras and Parasects, but nature is like that: cruel, but fare. This is also the source for the little tale above, explaining what is the Karma Creature.

The devil is on the details, they say. The trick here was to try to make this skin the most detailed as "pixelly possible". The teeth, tentacles and its membranes had to be distinguished from the bodies their domained, yet they had to be many. Different from my old work in DA, this one had thinner tentacles, in order to have more tentacles around it. The stings on its tips was made to give it some contrast.

THE TEMPLATE:
I would put the Karma Creature template - the picture with only the parasite and its transparent parts to "infect" other skins - but since it is against the rules to upload such skin, I accept sugestions on alternative way for doing it.

The template is simple to apply: you cut the "hair" area of the skin of your choice and place it over the "head" area or even delete it; then, you simply paste the Karma Creature template over it and VOILA: a brand new humanoid was taken by the Karma Creature. ;D