The Maw
Artwork by Finnian MacManus, Terraform Studios
” . . . alas, the nightmares have decided to join the fight. And this time, they’ve brought something else with them. Something big. It’s broadcasting on all channels. Calls itself . . . the Maw.” To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
“Every time they appeared, the monsters seemed to take a different set of forms, as if the result of constant mutation. Or, as Kira felt more likely, as if the driving intelligence behind them—the mashing Maw born of the unholy fusion of human, Wranaui, and Soft Blade—was feverishly, frantically, insanely, and randomly experimenting to find the best possible flesh for fighting.” To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
The Maw was formidable, the size of a small moon and equipped with a “crazy powerful laser, particle-beam combo”.
An enormous red, tumorous island of flesh floating through space. Its branching, cancerous mass was made up of various parts of human, Jelly, and Soft Blade material. Its raw, skinless outside oozed fluids, while the edges writhed with a forest of arms, legs, and tentacles that flowed in and out of fractal shapes.
The mouth of the Maw was like a gaping sore: “. . . a jagged slit of skin pulled tight around a ridged beak, which, when parted, revealed row after row of crooked teeth—bone-white and uncomfortably human—that led into a pulsing, gagging redness.” To Sleep in a Sea of Stars