I could hear a faint murmuring in the background that really needed to stop. Most of it was obscured by the incessant ringing in my ears as they conspired to keep me from going back to blissful sleep, I didn’t even want to open my eyes lest I find some other reason to get up from this comfy, if fairly damp, spot. Eventually, however, as the ringing slowly died down, I could start to make out words being spoken among the background noise; things along the lines of ‘-even are we?’, ‘why haven’t they killed us?’, ‘because they’re gonna feed our brains to the brainslug, obviously’, and ‘I don’t know, that was terrifying!’ and other such nonsense.
As my rebellious brain went through the painful process of forming coherent thoughts against my will, the idea that the background noise that I had tried to ignore might actually be important slowly wormed its way into my mind, prompting me to begin the process of rebooting my ass back into a functioning state.
Where am I? Who am I? What day is it? Why does my head hurt so much?
It was a slow process.
After some amount of time, I managed to open my eyes, and quickly closed them after being blinded by a combination of bright lighting and gunk trying to get into them. That, however, quickly got me up and about. I quickly cleaned my face of all the slime I had been lying on and gave my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light which, in hindsight, hadn’t been as bright as I’d first thought. I found myself in some kind of prison cell, with bars made up of weird tentacle things that protruded from the ceiling and floors, meeting in the middle and gripping their opposite piece, then pulled tightly against each other. The walls and floors were the same slime covered surface I’d got used to in the past week and a half, and the illumination was that same sickly yellow emanated from randomly distributed but consistently disgusting pustules that seemed to be growing out of everywhere.
Pulling apart what passed for the bars of my cell as much as I could, I could make out six other cells just like mine surrounding a wide, circular open space, presumably each holding one member of my crew.
“Somebody tell me what the fuck’s going on.” I ordered groggily, stifling a yawn in the process. Maybe I should have said that with more urgency, but as far as I could tell there were no immediate dangers beside the fact that, you know, we were clearly and purposefully caged, so I figured it best not to act in a way that might cause further panic and instead try to downplay and de-escalate the situation so we could look at it with cooler heads.
“Captain, you’re awake!” Sarah shouted, causing a flare in my slowly receding tinnitus. “Curt woke up some time ago, and Alex just a few minutes after, Fae would not stop worrying. All of us are here, mostly unharmed if more than a little shaken. The three of you were the only ones that got knocked out, while the rest of us got restrained and dumped here. They’ve taken all our weapons and messed up Alex’s arm, but other than that, they didn’t really go through most of our equipment, so we still have whatever random stuff we had on us when we ran from camp, and local comms are still up. We are expecting the rescue team to have been deployed from the mothership, but since they only got incomplete maps from us, their ETA is unknown” She finished her report, quickly giving me all the relevant information, some of it relieving, other parts worrying.
While she was telling me all that, I had been trying to find a way out through the ‘bars’ of my cage. For being made of flexible tentacle-y stuff, they were surprisingly strong, being pulled extremely tightly against each other. I could see the spot where they met and held on, but having lost my knife, my spikes and my handgun, there was nothing I could do to get them to let go.
“Damn, these things are tough. How’re you doing big guy? Any chance at getting out or giving any of us a Swiss-army hand?” I asked Alex, who turned out to be on one of the farthest cells from mine.
“No shot, I can’t get any good leverage, and my arm is all gunked up, can’t fire, can’t change configuration.” He explained.
“So stuck lugging a gun that can’t shoot, and I’m guessing it’s gonna take Fae and a few hours to clean it. You sure there’s nothing you can do with it?”. The answer I got to that question told me that he was never gonna give me up, never gonna let me down, never gonna run around and desert me. Amusing and reassuring, but not immediately helpful, and extremely annoying that of all the frankly uncountable things installed in that arm, the only thing working was the music player.
“Right, well, anybody else have any ideas?” I asked the group that had been staying silent to see if I had a plan of my own or an idea that they could help with. I had a few of those, but none of them were as safe as I’d like.
Curt was the first to speak up. “They didn’t take my bombs, I could get out whenever, just not without killing myself in the process. My cell isn’t big enough to get clear of the blast radius.”
“Then if someone else can get out and you hand them your bombs, they could get the rest of us out, then we book it.” Added Fae. “That still means we need someone else to get out first, though, and without making so much noise that they get thrown right back in.” She finished somewhat quietly, already in deep thought.
“About that, I think I might have an idea.” It was Alice who spoke this time. “These ‘bar tentacles’ are permanently covered in slime, so they must be used to being damp at all times with little to adjust the humidity going in and out of them, like regular earth slugs, so if we can drain the moisture from them, they might shrivel up enough that we can break one and squeeze out.”
“That’s genius!” Yelled Mike, clearly using optimism to mask his fears, although to be fair, he wasn’t wrong.
“Sarah, you got anything that can suck up moisture left on you?” I asked her, to which she replied without as much confidence as I would have liked. “Some anhydrous magnesium sulfate and calcium chloride. I didn’t get to pack up the sulfuric acid since we had to leave running, but if they are anything like earth slugs, it should do the trick?”
“It should!” Alice confirmed.
“Alright,” said Sarah with a rising infectious enthusiasm that led to her taking charge of putting together a plan. “So, this is probably gonna take a while, but once I’m out, I get the bombs from Curt, blast everyone out, and then Mike can lead us back to the pod.”
None of us dared to interrupt her, since she was clearly on a roll, and even I had nothing to add. The plan was sketchy at best, involving running away after a loud blast, which was what had got us into this situation in the first place, but at the moment, it was the best plan we had.
“Right, then we are all set, Mike, you know our way out?” I said with a confidence I wasn’t really feeling so we could all get out of here as soon as possible.
“…Uhm.” Was the reply I got.
Because that was exactly what we needed. “What’s wrong?” I asked him
“Well, I do have our path here recorded but beyond retracing our exact steps I have no idea where we’d be going and… how do we know that won’t get us caught again?”
“We don’t, but it’s still better than sitting here waiting to see what they do with us.” I answered with finality, putting an end to this particular argument before it could even start. It wouldn’t help anybody to worry about things beyond our control.
“Don’t worry, we’ve still got everyone and none of us are hurt, the captain will look out for us.” Alice spoke reassuringly.
“Yeah! And I saw them drop our stuff past that bend on the way over, we can even get our weapons back! I’ll make sure to pick them up while you plot a course.” Fae lied reassuringly.
While Mike audibly calmed down, I would assume visibly too but I couldn’t see him through the ‘bars’ of his cell, I ordered: “Then we have a plan, Sarah, get to work on getting out!”
“Already on it!”
…
“Is it working?” I asked after a little while, once the adrenaline I had built up had worn off.
“It’s doing something!” She replied.
“Something to get us out or…?”
“I said it would be a while!”
I had almost dozed off when I heard some strained grunts coming from Sarah’s cell, so I quickly made a little peep-hole between the bars to see what was going on.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
There I saw Sarah, who had managed to break exactly one of the ‘bars’ and was slowly squeezing her way out of incarceration. Of course, breaking one ‘bar’ meant the opening in between them went from being just wide enough for a couple fingers to just enough to fit an arm through, so it was still a tight fit.
“Come on!” “You’ve got this!” She was cheered on by Alice, who was in the cell right to her left and Mike, in the next one over.
She slowly and laboriously got more and more of her body through the still small opening until eventually-
PLOP!
She flopped down and faceplanted on the soft and damp floors of our prison, from where she cheered to herself for a quick second, almost half her body still stuck between the bars but her top half having breached confinement. The happiness was short lived however, as we all heard it.
Plop. Plop.
The footsteps of something approaching, and the fact that it even produced footsteps we could hear meant it was trouble. With a grunt, I quickly got back to trying uselessly to brute force an opening through my cage I could use to provide some help, and from what I could tell, I wasn’t the only one, but then again, not all of us were doing that.
“SHIT! GET BACK IN THE CAGE!” Yelled Mike, uselessly, since getting back in would require just as much effort as getting out. In fact, that outburst only confused her and reduced the interval between the approaching footfalls.
In a second that seemed to last forever, I saw it, the misshapen face of one of the creature’s ‘Guardians’ came around a corner, followed by another, then another, all wildly different except for the many tentacles flailing at their backs. I could practically see the gears in our warden’s head turn as it spotted one human mostly out of her cage with one foot stuck in it and another prisoner still in his cage, screaming his lungs out.
The thing quickly lunged on the semi-prone would-be escapee. It was yet another of the six-legged wolf things, yet unlike before, where our physical state was evidence that they had kept us mostly unharmed, when it reached Sarah, it began tearing her to shreds, ripping apart her protective equipment with fangs, claws and tentacle spikes, making me redouble my efforts in getting out. This was nothing in comparison to Curt, however, who fought the tendrils blocking his path with a righteous, impotent fury and a shower of expletives that was honestly scary.
The other two monsters followed the first at a casual pace and went towards the cages closest to the one that had been broken out of, those being Alice and Mike’s. As soon as her cage was opened, Alice attempted to make a mad dash past our captors but was quickly restrained and treated just like the previous attempted escapee, while when the last warden went to open Mike’s cage, it revealed him utterly paralyzed by fear, but it didn’t manage to catch him.
“GET AWAY FROM HER YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” Yelled the raging storm that had once been Curt Woodsward, somehow having managed to squeeze between the ‘bars’ without breaking them, and proceeded to punt the one restraining his partner in its cranium. To his credit, despite clearly not being in his right mind, he put up an impressive fight, dodging and weaving between fangs and claws, but, outnumbered and unarmed, he was eventually blindsided by a tentacle that caught him in the back and likely stabbed one of his kidneys. After that, he wasn’t in any state to fight even one of the monsters, much less three, so he was quickly pinned down and treated just like everyone else that had tried to make a run for it.
The repetition didn’t make it any less painful to watch.
Slightly bruised, missing one or two teeth, but otherwise unscathed, the creatures retreated with what was left of three of the members of my crew, and I slumped up against the wall of my cage in defeat.
Nobody else said a word. We were likely all in shock at having watched our friends get brutally murdered in front of our eyes, or, if not that then terrified at the thought of us being next.
“Psst, Hey Cap.” I heard someone whisper to me from the direction of my cell’s front as I sat on the far side with my knees held between my arms.
My first thought had been to tell them to fuck off, since I was too busy mourning my friends, co-workers and housemates, but then I remembered our situation.
The monsters had opened up three of our cages, and taken the lives of three of us, but there had been four people who got out. Sarah had been caught after making it out, and Curt as well, while Alice got caught when they opened her cage, which would mean…
“Mike?” I asked, equal parts hopeful and confused.
“That’s me!” He answered cheerfully.
“How the fu-“ I was about to ask, but he interrupted me, already having an answer prepared.
“Honestly? No idea how I didn’t get caught. They must have forgotten about me when Curt got out, cause I just hid in the far corner of the hall and it worked!”
No way in hell his panic attack is gonna be what saves the rest of us. Fuck it, it worked, don’t question it.
“Any idea how the rest of us could get out? I figured if Curt got out then maybe Fae can as well, she’s even shorter than him so-“ I was pondering when he interrupted me.
“About that, I took a look further up the corridor, I didn’t see our friends but I did find their stuff just lying there. Including Curt’s bombs.”
At that I almost had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
Alright, no time for depression, grown-up pants time!
“You absolute genius! Have you set them up yet?”
“Yup, Fae walked me through it, your cell was the farthest one so… here’s the detonator!” He said, for some reason embarrassed about the fact that his plan could have left me to die while he got everyone else out. I didn’t even blame him, I would have done the same in his position rather than waste time moving back and forth.
As I was about to grab the detonator, however…
Plop.
I barely heard the footsteps of another warden coming around a corner before quickly reaching out and yanking the detonator from Mike’s hand. I didn’t have time to do anything else before it was on him, however, and it quickly had him pinned and was digging its tentacle spikes into his back.
At that moment, I had a choice to make. For all I knew, and having seen what they’d done to the other people they’d caught, Mike was already dead. If I pulled the trigger then, he would definitely get caught in the blast, but so would the creature pinning him down, then maybe the rest of us could make a run for it. But then I looked into the eyes of the man I was about to kill, and I saw a hope there that refused to die, a confident belief that I could still help him get through this, and I just couldn’t do it.
I quickly pocketed the detonator, knowing that with the bombs already placed Fae would have no trouble setting them off even without it, and watched as Mike was dragged off away from my cage, once again feeling utterly defeated.
What I didn’t expect however, was for the tendrils that made up the bars of my cage to release each other and retreat to their origin points, as another of the hulking monstrosities stood there.
Before I could even react, it’s tentacles shot forward and got me right in both shoulders, severely limiting the use of my arms, and just like that, it was over for me too. Unarmed, I didn’t stand much of a chance against however many creatures there were, injured I stood none.
…
I was almost entirely numb as they dragged me and the somehow still breathing Mike along several corridors that I could not have told apart on the best of days, only aware of the fact that we were moving up a slope.
Eventually we arrived at an open chamber whose walls, floor and ceiling were almost entirely made up of those glowing pustules that produced a blinding luminescence it took me a second to adjust to.
“The hell are we?” I muttered to myself, not really expecting a reply, so I was surprised when I got one.
“Roughly above the prison cells.” Said Mike, who in my stupor I had almost forgotten was there.
I took a look at the walls as we were walked towards the far end of the chamber, the short conversation having awakened a feeling of curiosity in me, and I noted that this place, unlike the rest of this goddamn space tree, was almost entirely slime free, thanks to it being covered in the yellow light emitting sacs. On closer inspection I also noted that whatever spots weren’t covered in light sacs, which I had previously thought would be the usual soft and slimy material that had covered everything here, were instead occupied by giant pillslugs, easily more than three meters long, held vertically with their countless writhing legs facing the inside of the chamber. Had I not been disassociating quite as hard; the sight would have made me puke.
As we neared the far wall that marked the end of this chamber, I noted three of the giant pillslugs that, unlike the rest, were sitting on the floor right side up, or as right as these creatures could get, and next to them, waited an amalgamation of every nightmare there ever was, given physical form.
The thing looked like an elongated pillslug, held high above the ground by a pair of dinosaur-like legs, with four clearly endoskeletal arms and four wriggling tentacles poking out of seemingly random spots on its body. With it being a pillslug that didn’t crawl along the ground, its many insectile legs were clearly visible at all times, with the few dozen or so nearest to its front end being longer and seeming to form a freaky set of mandibles. The thing, of course, was much bigger than it had any right to be, easily being able to see eye to eye with Alex.
As we approached, the abomination perked up slightly, and the three pillslugs that had been lying peacefully on the ground were lifted up by a set of tendrils emanating from the walls so that they lay up against it, now perpendicular to the floor. This revealed their undersides and… something.
Held in each of the giant pillslug’s countless legs was… The best way to describe it would be a humanoid version of the Guardians that had caused so much trouble, only… deconstructed, for lack of a better word. They were basically cut to pieces at each of the major joints, which were then connected by a stringy tendon looking material, so while their head and torso were relatively intact, the arms were detached from it, hanging by that stringy material and seemingly ready to fall away at any second, then the forearms were cut off at the elbow, only connected by that weird tendon. The same thing happened at the hands, the pelvis, the knees and ankles. It was a sight that was as terrifying as it was bizarre.
Of course, as the abomination finished getting up and started walking towards these three things, the whole scene somehow got worse. The center creature’s eyes suddenly focused on me, its mouth twisting into a facsimile of a smile. It raised its forearm, moving in the same way a normal arm would bend at the elbow, only leaving its hand behind where it was held by the giant pillslug. The hand that had been left behind by the body part it should have been attached to, gave me a small wave.
“Hi Captain.” It said with Sarah’s voice.
Chapter 6: Falling Apart.
What day of the week should chapters be published?
