"God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers." — DeMarcus Cousins.
From the cells, Tessa took them to a bathhouse. The bathhouse was an open room with stools, buckets of water, soap, and sponges for each stool. The three of them took off their clothes, found a stool, and washed themselves.
Even though he was bathing in the open with people nearby, Alex still enjoyed the experience. He enjoyed it because ever since he came to the Obsidian Maw, he had not had a bath this luxurious.
The normal way to have baths in the Obsidian Maw was to wipe themselves with a wet fabric. Most people bathed this way because soap was too expensive and water was scarce in the Obsidian Maw.
So he hadn’t been able to pour water over his head and watch it fall to the ground before flowing into a drain for nearly two years since he arrived in the Obsidian Maw. Even if he wanted to be concerned about being naked in front of other people, the silky feeling of soap over his skin was too much of a distraction for him to bother with shame.
Besides, there was the worm constantly complaining in his mind for food and reminding him that his current body was no longer sacred. If he could share his body and mind with a symbiote, he felt that he could afford to let people gaze at his body.
After the bath, he and the other two were given a toothbrush and toothpaste. The toothbrush was a piece of carved wood with fibers attached to the top for scrubbing the teeth. The toothpaste was a gray paste of ash, salt, and herbs.
The tools he was given to clean his teeth were a far cry from what he used to use on Earth, but it was a luxury in his current situation. They were things he had seen rich Drones use but couldn’t afford to touch.
The fact that he could now brush without a chewing stick and treated sand nearly brought tears to his face. It also gave him hope that his future could be better.
Unfortunately, the gluttony worm was not so sentimental and didn’t think highly of the things he decided to put in his mouth. It went on a riot, demanding to be treated well.
As it pushed the toothbrush out of his mouth, it said, "Food! Food! Food!"
It was behaving like a disgruntled worker on strike, protesting for better working conditions. But like a merciless overlord, Alex used force to break the protest.
He wrestled control of his tongue and stuffed it down his throat to create space in his mouth for the toothbrush. The battle didn’t end so easily, though. The gluttony worm continued to resist and protest.
’You fool!’ Alex thought in anger and heartache. ’You’re wasting our energy.’
As usual, the worm didn’t listen to him. It wanted real food in its mouth, not a stick and some kind of astringent paste that tasted awful, and it wasn’t willing to take no for an answer.
Alex also didn’t like the taste of the toothpaste and wished that there was something better. But since the worm hated it, his only recourse was to like it and put more of it into his mouth.
’How do you like that? Do you think you’re the only one who can be unreasonable? I can be unreasonable and self-sabotaging too!’ he said in glee.
His mouth tasted like shit, but he was happy. It looked like he was brushing his teeth, but it was actually a battle, and he was winning, albeit it would be a pyrrhic victory.
When he looked sideways at the other two, he was surprised to see that they weren’t struggling with their tongues. Their tongues were behaving well, which confused him.
’Aren’t they hungry too? Why is their worm not giving them a hard time?’ he asked himself in confusion.
But then he remembered that these two had subdued their worms on their own while he had only survived by sacrificing a Life Anchor and gaining an immunity that made it impossible for the worm to eat his mind.
’Their minds should be stronger than the minds of their worms,’ he thought in realization.
’My mind was initially weaker. Plus, my worm’s mind has grown stronger from eating my mind. So I am in for twice the trouble.’
’As long as the only way I can lose control is for the worm to eat my mind, then I will be safe. But if the worm has any other tricks up its sleeve, I am screwed’’ he thought with a sinking heart.
This realization that he was sharing his body with a ticking time bomb ignited his will to resist and motivated him to shove more of the sour gray toothpaste into his mouth.
By this point, his mouth was burning, and the servants were glancing at him with strange gazes, but he didn’t care. He was determined to show the worm who the boss was, even if he had to pay the price of annihilating all of his taste buds.
Eventually, this battle came to an end, and he put the weapons of war, the toothbrush and toothpaste, away. Then he rinsed his mouth while listening to the complaints about a burning tongue from the worm.
He could feel the fire in his mouth too, but he still grinned and said, "It feels good."