Gullet Lurker

Field account

We heard chewing behind the wall, though the room beyond had collapsed years earlier. Plaster bowed outward around a wet oval. Teeth pushed through before any face arrived. The Gullet Lurker entered mouth-first, dragging a massive unfinished body after it as though anatomy were cargo stuck in a doorway. Floating glyphs kept trying to square its round hunger and failing. It swallowed the corner of the room; not stone alone, but the corner itself. The remaining walls met at an angle no carpenter could name. Every charge made the creature broader. We baited it with a narrow iron safe, then slammed the door across the gullet while most of its weight remained behind the opening. The mouth bit through the lock, but the room refused to admit the shoulders. We escaped through what was left of geometry.

Observed behavior

A Lurker remains behind a barrier until attention, noise, or crowded movement gives its mouth a likely entry point. It widens access through repeated bites and uses the growing body as a ram. Open terrain confuses it because there is no meaningful inside to reach. It chooses compressed groups, closed rooms, and narrow routes, swallowing the space that protects them. The body cannot reverse through an opening smaller than its accumulated shoulders. Rigid frames, nested doors, and deliberately changing angles can trap the gullet ahead of its mass.