For the first time in nearly two weeks, sleep had been glorious. It had felt like all of the things that had been weighing me down simply sloughed off my shoulders while I was enveloped in a warm cocoon of safety. Like all good things, though, it eventually had to come to an end.

  “Rise and shine, beautiful!” Came Curt’s cheery voice.

  Oh Curt…

  While I wouldn’t trade him for the world, every once in a while, he had an uncanny knack for saying just the perfectly wrong thing. He still got it right more often than not, but this time, as the memories of the day before came crashing down upon my brain, was one of those times that he would have been better off not saying anything.

  Or, at least, that was what I’d first thought. As I opened my eyes, however, I quickly reconsidered.

  Sitting not far from where I had passed out to rest, was Curt. Not the monster that had been made of him, not some other unrecognizable creature or even an injured version of him. Just Curt, sitting up against a wall, happy as can be.

  My still sleepy brain had to do a double and triple take to process what my eyes were feeding it, and before it could start doing a fourth, Alice bulldozed her way into the center of my thought process by crouching in front of my face and talking in an excited tone.

  “Sarah! Look!” She said, pointing at herself, followed by Curt and then me. “We’re back!” She finished.

  Sure enough, she looked perfectly normal, and after a quick moment of hesitation, I looked down at my own hands.

  My perfectly normal, human hands.

  I stared in stunned silence for a quick second.

  Then I turned my hand around to look at its other side. It still looked normal.

  No wicked claws, no slimy dark green tint, just my regular old hand that I’d had since the day I was born.

  I stood stunned for a few seconds more as my brain rebooted itself and an overwhelmingly infectious excitement started bubbling up from the pit of despair that had formed the previous day.

  “EEEEEEE” I explained my excitement to the group, grabbing Alice in a tight hug while Curt just watched with a smirk, waiting for his turn. When I was done, I walked over to sit next to him and give him his own hug - one much more tender and filled with the relief we both felt - which he reciprocated.

  Eventually we had to separate as it became apparent that Alice’s excited demeanor was shifting into something more wistful.

  “This means we can go back to the others!” I said, hoping to bring the general mood back into something more cheerful. “Also, we are all in agreement that the noise I made earlier never happened.” I joked, which finished cementing Alice’s smile back onto her face.

  “Speaking of, where’s the captain?” She asked, her smile not faltering and no doubt thinking of showing off her restored humanity to as many people as possible.

  “Went out to check on the pod a while ago, told me to keep watch until you woke up. Should be coming back any second.” Curt explained, and as if summoned by his words, Captain Chloe Paxton emerged from around a bend in the tunnel leading to where we had made camp for the night. She was met with the sight of Curt and I relaxedly cuddling into each other, and an eager Alice bouncing on her toes with a beaming smile on her face.

  “You all look happy.” She said, still catching her breath, but a small smile forming on her lips.

  “Yeah! Captain, look!” Alice shouted, practically giggling, pointing at herself and us.

  “I see.” Was her answer, her smile becoming the slightest bit warmer.

  “So did you manage to get to the rest of the squad?” Curt asked, shifting the conversation to more important matters.

  “No joy, the place is swarming with Guardians, couldn’t even get close. They were distracted before, but now they’re out in force.” Chloe summarized her little solo expedition. “So, unless someone’s got a better idea, I say we find a proper hidey-hole and either wait for them to clear out of the pod, or make a racket somewhere else to drive them away. Thoughts?” She finished, looking pointedly at Curt, whose expertise was most relevant for the task at hand.

  “Seems about right, though if we can’t physically reach the others, then we should definitely try to at least get them on comms before we do anything.” He answered, and neither Alice nor I had anything to add. The captain, though, winced before delivering some bad news.

  “About that… My comms device got smashed when I fell through the ceiling of the prison, same with the location beacon and a few others, so we are on our own. Unless you still have yours…?” She trailed of her question, and when no one answered, I was the one to step up.

  “They tore off our gear and dumped it all over the place, where would we even be holding it?” I asked. Her answer was just a raised eyebrow. Alice had the decency to look embarrassed while Curt just chuckled. When I finally got her implication, I could only groan.

  “Right! So, the plan for now is to find a safe haven where the Guardians can’t get to us, rest and recover before checking out the pod again, and either regroup with everyone or create a diversion if necessary. Move out!” Chloe ordered, back in full commanding officer mode.

  …

  The search for some sort of cave or something similar took us through many winding corridors, and our pace was fairly slow. Both because we were being extra careful to avoid patrols, and because, lacking a Navigator, we all had to make extra sure we didn’t stray too far from the pod and the people we were hoping to eventually reunite with.

  The ubiquitous slime that seemed to cover everything in this space tree was also a factor in slowing down our pace, but after nearly two weeks of trudging through it, it wasn’t nearly as annoying as it had been.

  After what felt like easily a few hours of walking near aimlessly, it was Alice who called out something unusual.

  “Hey… What’s that over there?” She asked

  At the end of a tunnel we had almost passed by, deeming it unremarkable, was a light. That in itself wasn’t anything special, this entire place was dotted with those sickly yellow glowing pustules that emerged from the walls, ceiling and floors, but what had caught her attention, and later all of ours, was that the glow wasn’t the same sickly yellow but a pure, dazzling white.

  “Dunno.” Answered Curt. “We should probably check it out?” He asked the group, and the captain nodded, deferring to his expertise.

  When we reached the light at the end of the tunnel, the sight we were met with took all of our breath away.

  Nestled into the slimy depths of an alien space tree, looking entirely out of place, was a bustling city, filled with people going about their daily business, walking in and out of clean buildings, stopping at food stalls that littered the streets and emanated an absolutely tantalizing aroma, while some walked their kids to a nearby park covered in carefully trimmed grass and dotted with shade giving trees, and also equipped with a complete playground, whose climbable walls, slides and sand pits were always in use.

  It was a sight that contrasted so completely with everything we’d seen up until that point, that it drove all of us into stunned silence. Eventually, I was the first to break it.

  “It’s beautiful.” I spoke with no small amount of reverence in my voice, and looking at the others, it seemed they shared my opinion of this place.

  I was about to turn around to glance at Chloe’s expression, when my whole world suddenly spun.

  O??????W??????

  [DATA CORRUPTED]

  A painfully hard smack to the back of my head drove me to my knees, where an uncomfortable amount of vomit came rushing to escape my mouth and fall in front of my face. Its smell on the ground was only eclipsed by my sheer confusion on what the hell was going on.

  “Captain, what the hell?!” I heard Curt’s voice on my side, followed by his footsteps moving behind me while Alice came to my side to check on me.

  “Anyone else think this is in any way beautiful?!” She asked with fiery venom in her words. The sheer intensity of them left Curt and Alice stunned, and as I turned around, I saw her brandishing one of her sharp polymer sticks pointed just a few centimeters away from Curt’s throat.

  After a while of not receiving an answer, she put it down with a sharp “Fuck!” coming out of her mouth, and tensions eased, though didn’t disappear, as Curt came down to check on me and Chloe seemingly lost herself in her own thoughts while still keeping an eye on the three of us.

  Slowly I got back to my feet, their wobbliness quickly fading away and I could stand without help. As I gathered my thoughts, I went to ask the question that was on all of our minds.

  “Captain, what was th-?”

  “OKAY!” She interrupted me. “We need to find a safe spot, and we need one RIGHT NOW! Once we know we are safe, we can talk about what the hell is going on…” She ordered with an intensity only seen in times of crisis, but lost her energy and her words trailed off. A few seconds later, she recovered. “Fuck me… We need to split up and find a spot as quickly as possible. Look around, but stay safe, and we’ll reconvene here in an hour. Understood?”

  She asked, and was met only with stunned silence.

  “Well, if you’ve nothing to say, get to it! Time’s wastin’!” She ordered, and we all took off in different directions, but with the same doubts in our minds, our image of the ever-reliable Captain Paxton contrasting heavily with the almost manic energy she had just shown.

  Whatever was going on with her, it wasn’t normal.

  “So, you think they’re gonna get tired sometime today, or…?” I asked the two who were stuck in the pod with me.

  The creatures at the gate were still throwing themselves against it, but the airlock held on with no signs of damage. This had been going on since Alex was unceremoniously booted into the pod by Chloe, who took off immediately after, forcing me to lock the door before something could jump at us. The number of monsters outside had only grown since then, but more and more seemed to give up as time passed, taking a rest before walking off.

  Most they can do is knock the pod into open space, and all that would accomplish would be killing themselves as their atmosphere vented and likely sucked them into the unforgiving void.

  “Dunno about today, but they definitely seem to be getting lazier.” Opined Alex, looking out the window of the airlock beside me.

  Mike, meanwhile, continued to sulk in his sulking corner.

  “We might be able to go out later today or tomorrow.” Alex voiced his thoughts, making Mike twitch.

  “Okay, we’ve got to talk about this. What’s eating you up?” I finally asked.

  “You know, for someone so small, you’re subtle as a sledgehammer.” Alex whispered to me, but I just shushed him.

  “I don’t know…” Mike said in a soft voice, not even looking up.

  Well that’s fuckin’ helpful…

  “Think you can take this one?” I whispered to Alex. He just shrugged and raised his hands while shaking his head with an unsure expression, and I tilted my head in Mike’s direction. He sighed, and walked up to the sulking corner.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Hey, buddy. Talk to me.” He said as he sat down.

  “I genuinely don’t know. I keep trying to recall what happened since we were dragged off but…” Mike began but trailed off after a few seconds. “It’s been such a nightmare that I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not.”

  “Shit, it really was.” Alex answered. “You do know that none of us blames you for what happened, right? And if everyone else were still around, they wouldn’t either.” He finished, placing a large, comforting hand – the organic one – on the smaller man’s shoulder.

  “That’s… not the problem, though…” He spoke, his voice nearly a whisper, and a shiver seemed to shake him from head to toe. “They’re still out there… I think… but-”

  “You think, or you know?” Alex asked far more intensely than the situation called for.

  Aaaand there goes that plan…

  “Y’know, the captain might have said something similar, before she kicked your ass.” I interjected before the conversation could be derailed by Alex’s impotent rage. As someone whose entire job was to keep everyone safe, even going so far as to modify his own body to be better suited to the task, this colossal failure was hitting him especially hard. That said, I was aware that showing him pity would only make things worse, so I defaulted to trying to get him to laugh.

  “Hmph.” He chuckled, making room for me to sit with him in front of Mike.

  Success!

  I mentally cheered myself while trying to come up with a way to navigate this landmine of a conversation.

  Damnit, Mike! You’re supposed to be the Navigator here, so navigate this!

  “What do you remember? Even if you’re not sure if it really happened or not, it’s better than nothing.” I eventually asked.

  “I… Well, they took us to some big chamber above the prison cells, and they had them there… Alice, Sarah and Curt, but… Shit was fucked.” He finished saying with a sad chuckle.

  Oh god, the captain got to him, I guess we’re not getting anything out of him after all.

  “They were holding them, but… They were in pieces. Even if they tried to move, it would all just be wrong, and all the while some huge pillslug dinosaur was probing their brains.” Alex and I were stunned from hearing his words, but he wasn’t done. “Next thing I know, the floor blew up and I passed out. I kept waking up and passing out after that, so everything’s hazy, but… I couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, but everything was shaking, and my entire body felt slick with sweat and gunk. It was like I was tied up and being dragged behind a horse, if that horse was running along the bottom of the ocean. The next thing I remember is waking up here.”

  Alex and I shared an incredulous glance at each other.

  Well shit, maybe the captain didn’t get to him but that still doesn’t help.

  After a long while, it was Alex that broke the silence. “You think they still have them like that?” He said, and Mike flinched.

  And I’m the one who’s as subtle as a sledgehammer?

  “You’re thinking they might still be alive?” I asked the pair, hoping to salvage his question.

  “Chloe did come in asking after Alice.” Alex commented and, for the first time since we locked ourselves in the pod, Mike perked up.

  “So, we’re gonna go find them, right?” Mike asked uncharacteristically excited, his sullen mood and usual apprehension towards rushing into danger seemingly forgotten.

  “At the very least, Captain Chloe is definitely still out there, so we should find her and see if she can fill us in on the situation.” Alex said in an attempt to temper Mike’s unusual excitement.

  “Then let’s go!” He yelled, walking up to the airlock, and showing that Alex’s attempt had failed miserably.

  “Just as soon as the nightmare horde moves away from the door.” I playfully added, causing Mike to shrink back in on himself with a muttered “Oh…”

  Not ideal, but better than him rushing out and getting himself killed. Speaking of…

  “So, I’m all for this idea, but shouldn’t we maybe wait for the rescue party to reach us first?” I asked the group before we all decided to do something stupid.

  “Normally I’d say yes, but we know at least one of us is out there and in danger, so we have to find her as soon as possible. If the rescue party doesn’t reach us first, they should have some good maps and can track our beacons, isn’t that right, Mike?” Alex was the first to answer, finishing with another question for Mike.

  “True, but then the problem becomes getting back to the shuttle with a big group, no shot we can sneak that many people past all the guards.”

  “We’ll figure it out once we’ve met up with everyone and can take stock of the situation, let’s go!” Alex ordered, seemingly putting himself in charge of our little trio, meaning he was just begging for me to rain on his literal parade.

  “Did you forget what I said about the nightmare horde?” I asked with a smirk.

  “Right, so we hurry up and wait! Let’s go!” He said with the same intensity as before, not missing a beat, before plopping his ass dramatically on a seat with a serious face that changed into a smile after a few seconds.

  Disgusting…

  That single word occupied all of my thoughts as I scaled the outside of one of the slimy pillars littered with caves that reached all the way to the ceiling of the large cavern we had walked into, spitting in the face of this tree’s admittedly weak-ish gravity in a way that would make Fae proud.

  Disgusting…

  I was reminded as my grasping hand found a particularly soft and slippery spot on the wall that would not be able to act as a proper handhold.

  It wasn’t just the environment that I found so revolting, however. I was also thinking about my previous actions towards Sarah… And especially what had caused them.

  Not even a day after I made that huge promise, too.

  As we’d stepped into the cavernous space and got a good look at the tall pillars that reached the ceiling and bustled with activity, the three of them had stopped.

  That had been weird.

  Sure, the whole setup was impressive, in the same way that seeing the cast of an anthill is impressive, but it mostly wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before in our time here.

  Something that set this scene apart from the many open cave like spaces we’d seen before was how much this location bustled with activity, with thousands upon thousands of pillslugs moving up and down the columns that reached all the way to the distant ceiling as well as along the ground in the spaces between those columns. Worse was the fact that a solid chunk of them was carrying some sort of unidentifiable material, while several others were moving what were very clearly body parts of both pillslugs and Guardians. How any sane person, let alone Sarah who I’d known for years, could look at this scene and call it beautiful was beyond me…

  What I found truly sickening, however, was not her words or even her face, both filled with awe, but the back of her head, and the thing that was there. Just underneath her now slimy skin, in a spot where the only muscles that should be there were those holding up the head, was something small, twitching.

  It might have even been me freaking out at first noticing, but I could swear I saw it burrowing into her head from the back of her neck. Utterly disturbed, I had to keep away my rising panic attack by smacking the shit out of whatever the hell that was, which caused Sarah to fall on her knees and let out an ungodly stream of vomit.

  I tried to question the others to see if they were going through something similar, but in my nearly panicked state…

  Something tells me they didn’t get my meaning… And I just sent them away unsupervised. Stellar captaining…

  Nauseated once again, I decided I had gone far enough in my climb up the pillar and climbed into the nearest cave entrance, the words of my promise that Dad used to say to me echoing in my head.

  ‘Have I ever failed you?’

  Of course, what I didn’t tell them when I made that promise is that Dad did eventually fail me, but by that point I was already old enough to understand that people are fallible. This, though, was not the promise I wanted to make that fact evident with, so, resting in the mouth of the little pillar-side cave, I settled to take stock of the situation.

  First, the party is split, half of it should be safe as long as they stay in the pod, while we are currently looking for a safe spot to truly rest.

  Second, the rescue party should be on their way, likely tracking our beacons… which we don’t have. So they should meet with the other group before coming for us. If they even do that. Assume they will.

  Third, there’s something weird going on with their heads. As far as I can tell they are still acting normal, but then they go and call something they’d found gross two days earlier beautiful…

  Physically, Sarah, Curt and Alice were barely recognizable, though their features shone through when they started talking. In broad strokes, they looked mostly humanoid, slightly taller than they had been, with longer arms, digitigrade legs, beady eyes and the whole package of wickedly sharp claws and fangs, hairless slimy skin of a mottled dark green and flailing tentacles with an underside covered in myriad insect legs that all Guardians seemed to have… Which pointed to a disturbing origin of those Guardians.

  Their behavior, though was… weirdly normal, for lack of a better word. Someone talking to them on a phone wouldn’t be able to tell anything was wrong, and while they struggled at first to find their footing, their movements are now as fluid as though they’ve had their twisted bodies their whole lives… Which is worrying in and of itself.

  Alice would be the one to ask whether such rapid adaptation to an unfamiliar body structure should even be possible, but given that she’s also the subject of that question, asking it becomes a little more complicated.

  That said, Alice was the one who seemed to most quickly get the hang of her altered body, being able to move without help from the moment she was released and even carry Mike on her back while sprinting with surprising speed. She had six of those weird tentacles sticking out of her back and they seemed to behave as though they were any other limb, working interchangeably with her actual hands, evidenced by how she had used all of them to hug her knees the night prior. A quirk she’d acquired since her capture was that she would occasionally switch from walking upright like normal to doing so on all fours for brief periods, most notably during her mad sprint to the pod with Mike upon her back. Whether all this is because of her familiarity with other body types as a biologist or something else, I’m not sure I wanna know.

  Sarah, on the other hand, was probably the one most shaken by this ordeal. The first night, she had struggled to even walk by herself, with her four tentacles dragging limply along the floor behind her. She’d since recovered somewhat, able to move with the twisted form of grace that her new body allowed, but mentally, there was no telling what’s truly going on with her…

  And that hit I gave her probably didn’t help.

  I’ll have to check with her or more likely Curt to see how she’s holding up.

  Finally, there was Curt, dare I say the most normal of our little group, for however much that word even applied. With only two tentacles protruding from his back and a barely altered gait, he’d been a reliable rock for the rest of this little portion of the team, myself included.

  He didn’t have as many tentacles poking out of his back as the other two, however the pair he did have seemed to have a mind of their own, constantly flailing around and feeling up and down along the walls, I’d even had to duck under their wild swings a few times. I’d chosen to take it as a sign of him being alert, but then started to doubt that was the only reason after my latest freakout.

  And then, there was me, the valiant captain supposed to lead the group to safety and always have a plan to reliably get through even the toughest situations, and at the moment, that plan was exceedingly simple:

  I’unn’fuckin’kno’ I lost control of this situation two days ago!

  Truthfully, this wasn’t even the first time this happened, but all those other times I’d been able to fall back on that supposedly ‘crazy deathworlder strength’ to muscle my way to my goals. I may be a master at bullshitting my way through problems, but this didn’t seem like one where that particular skill applied.

  With a groan, I got up from my seated position and made to explore deeper into the random column-side cave, but quickly came across a problem, in the form of two pillslugs that had apparently claimed it before me.

  If Goober is anything to go by, they might get me right back into that whole prison mess, so… So much for ‘Do not the weird aliens’.

  A while after our spat with Chloe, we had all gone our separate ways. She’d made sure all of us were far apart from each other before taking off herself, so, utterly alone and not feeling up to looking for whatever passed for a ‘safe hiding spot’, I decided to go exploring, which led to my current situation, sitting next to an ice cream stand manned by a kindly old man who had insisted on giving me a generously sized free sample.

  Suddenly, without any warning that I could notice or remember, I felt something. Calling the feeling strange would have been an understatement, as I suddenly felt an overwhelming, all-consuming need to look there, at what might be the sixth or seventh floor of an apartment building, and my head almost seemed to turn to face it without any input from myself. As quickly as it appeared, however, that feeling was gone, and in its place was only the vague curiosity pointing me to try and find out what the hell had that been. So, I said my goodbyes to the ice cream seller and went to investigate.

  Walking up to the base of the apartment building, the doorman let me in without a fuss. I didn’t even need to explain what I was doing there. One quick elevator ride and I was there, faced with the door to the apartment that had yanked my attention away from my little ice cream cone without a warning.

  The door was slightly ajar and a faint shuffling could be heard from inside.

  I opened the door as quietly as I could, resolving to sneak into what looked like a two-bedroom apartment to gauge the situation.

  I’d thought I was being slick, but a fast movement in the corner of my eyes and a small prick in the side of my neck quickly disillusioned me.

  It was all I could do not to jump back when I felt the sharp tip of the captain’s polymer baton digging just the tiniest bit into the skin of my neck.

  “Oh, it’s you…” She said, her voice completely devoid of emotions as she withdrew her weapon from the most vulnerable spot on my body, the events of not even an hour ago rushing back to the forefront of my mind.

  “Jee-sus!” I said, drawing out the word to make my displeasure known. “Captain, what the hell was that fo- Why are you covered in blood?” I began to ask a question but quickly had to backpedal and ask another, much more important one.

  “Oh, this? Don’t worry, it’s not mine.” Was her answer, as if that had been all that was needed. “Were you followed?” She then asked.

  “Followed? Why would anyone follow me? You told us to split up, remem-?” I started asking, but she cut me off.

  “Look, Sarah, this is important.” She started, and I gulped. Between her earlier hit to my neck and now finding her soaked in blood, that was apparently not hers, in some random apartment, there was definitely something weird going on. “I need you to look around this place, and describe exactly what you see.” She told me.

  So confused that my fight or flight response had looped back around to land perfectly in the middle at ‘calmly stand still’, I did as she asked. The two-bedroom apartment was a cozy place, with clean wooden furniture, fresh flowers and framed pictures that made it seem lived in, and then there was the captain, who looked entirely out of place as though she’d walked right out of a horror movie. Not far behind her, I could see a puddle of blood slowly growing out of the doorway to what was presumably the apartment’s kitchen, and walking over to get a closer look, I was greeted to the sight of an old couple, roughly in their sixties, both lying on the floor with circular holes in their chests.

  Chapter 8: The pieces don’t fit.