#alien whumper

The beeping pulled Hero out of the lake. Their eyes flew open and they jerked upright.

They tried to, anyway. Something viscous was keeping them down. They glanced down and saw that they were on a bed of gel, covered in a blanket of ooze. The beeping was coming from a series of holograms over their head, showing their vitals and brain activity.

A figure approached them. They appeared human, but there was something… off… about them.

“You are awake,” they stated, “welcome.”

“Who are- what the- how’d I get to this place?” Hero asked.

“Shhh,” the figure said, “you are worthy of our attention. Your planet has been marked for conservation. We have seen your efforts, and the council has deemed you worthy to spend the rest of your days in our direct care.”

“What?” Hero blurted.

“Aliens are taking over our planet and keeping us as pets,” a familiar voice deadpanned.

Hero turned their head. Villain lay in a gelatinous bed nearly identical to theirs. Only their gel was red rather than green.

“Villain!?” Hero shouted.

“Are you gonna get us out of here yet?” Villain asked, “because I’ve tried, and well…”

The alien glided over to Villain and pressed a button on their bed. The gel seemed to almost crush Villain under its weight.

“They don’t like me as much as you,” Villain wheezed.

“What are you doing to them!?”

“They are not worthy of our direct care,” the alien said with disgust, “they hinder your efforts to save your race. The council has determined they will spend the rest of their days as your… what’s the earth word? Plaything?”

Villain chuckled weakly, winking at Hero. Red crept into Hero’s cheeks.

“You seem satisfied with this arrangement.” the alien smiled, “wonderful! We will proceed with our conservation plan.”

“Woah woah woah,” Hero said quickly, “I am not satisfied! Villain is a person, not a punching bag, or… whatever you think a plaything is… let us go! Earth will be fine!”

The alien looked at them sadly. They pulled up a few holograms, showing a live feed of the last few decades on earth.

“Pollution, greenhouse gases, wildfires, overconsumption, greed, overproduction, wars, death of the innocent, oil spills, waste in your oceans, deforestation, nuclear tensions, more greed, political division, violence, prejudice against members of your own race-”

“Okay, I get it, we haven’t been doing a very good job,” Hero conceded, “but uh… what does your ‘conservation plan’ look like?”

The alien beamed.

“I am pleased by your curiosity!” they said, “allow me to show you.”

They pulled up another video, from that very morning as a matter of fact. People were screaming, running from a mothership, from which several aliens came down. Everyone, regardless of class or profession, was rounded up into a large pen. A blast of light hit them, and the screaming stopped. They stood stock-still, slack-jawed, and empty.

“We will return their free will when they have learned to behave,” the alien explained, “they should follow your example, Hero. You’re not perfect, but you’re trying.”

“So are tons of other people!” Hero shouted.

The alien chuckled, patting Hero’s head.

“The masses are swayed by deception too easily. Your powers give you the advantage of being an outsider.”

“Ice powers don’t really… they’re not…”

“You are not aware you are half-Plutonian?” the alien asked, tilting their head.

“What are you saying?” Villain asked, “Are you saying they’re Superman? Like, can I use kryptonite on them now?”

Hero wasn’t listening.

“I’m sorry?” they asked quietly.

“Your alien DNA makes you resistant to violent tendencies and receptive to enlightenment. We thought you knew…”

Hero didn’t speak. Their mind reeled.

“I have distressed you. I am sorry,” the alien said, “I will let you rest and process this new information.”

They pressed a button, and Hero was sucked back down into the starry lake, not even having a second to react. They panicked for a total of two seconds before their mind emptied, and all was quiet once more.

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And there it was. The captain of the ship, its back towards Caretaker. It said something in its own language without turning around, and Caretaker closed the door behind themself, locking it. No one was getting in and no one was getting out.

“Gig’s up,” they said, tossing the alien hand onto the floor. That finally made the captain turn and look at them with all of its beady eyes. “I’m taking this ship.”

It glanced at the alien hand before looking back at Caretaker. “I was expecting you,” it said with an accent not found on Earth. 

“If you were, then you know I didn’t come empty-handed.” They reached into their shirt and took out a base, switching it on to reveal a blade made of light. It was an easy weapon to hide, and while it wouldn’t have done a lot of damage to the guards that seemed to be able to move their insides around on command, it was the perfect choice for the captain. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”

“You humans are so predictable,” it went on. “You think you’re sly, you think we don’t notice when you start filtering your own water, you think we don’t notice you hiding your food instead of eating it, you think you can walk down ten corridors to the cockpit by just pretending to be under our control. And most of all, you think you’ve seen all that I can do by just observing me a couple times whenever I went to check on our cargo — that is, you, enslaved humans.”

Caretaker froze for a moment. “So why didn’t anyone stop me, then? If you’re so smart?”

The captain stood from their chair and started morphing into something beyond human understanding. It looked like its entire body was glitching in and out of the dimensions Caretaker could perceive, it grew, it pulsated, it… It was indescribable. “They didn’t stop you because I’m the captain of this ship, and I said they shouldn’t. Wasn’t it enough that we stopped your little friend? Whumpee, was it? The cleaners must have flung their body into space a few minutes ago.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Caretaker said, voice shaking a little. Their little blade didn’t seem like the perfect choice anymore. “I’m taking this ship and liberating my fellow humans. It’s about time we do something about you parasites.”

“Speaking of parasites,” the captain said calmly. “Your friend was right. We really can’t put eggs into the water. They wouldn’t survive.”

“How do you know what my friend—” Caretaker felt their stomach flip, and all of a sudden they couldn’t keep the contents of it inside. They threw up all over the cockpit floor, the same maggots wriggling and squirming in their puke as in Whumpee’s. 

“Thankfully, they can survive in the air.” The captain walked up to them, going around the puddle on the floor. “With every breath you’ve taken ever since your arrival, you were ingesting eggs. Eggs I control. Eggs that act like my eyes and ears. Of course I know what your friend was saying. It was like I had been there listening. Why do you think I’m in charge of this ship? A seemingly non-threatening, weak ‘alien’? It’s because this ship is my hive. And everything on it is but an extension of me.”

Caretaker didn’t hear half of that monologue over the sound of them retching. When the captain was done talking, they managed to catch their breath just enough to look down at their arms, because they felt a weird sensation. Their eyes widened when they saw their veins… moving. “There’s no fucking way they’re inside of me—”

“They’re inside of every living being on this ship. I let the occasional human stay conscious enough to cause some ruckus from time to time, because travelling several light years can get boring, but honestly? You never stood a chance. Though I must say, no one has ever been quite as determined as—”

Caretaker took their blade and brought it down on their own arm, slicing clean through the flesh and bones. They cried out as the pain reached their brain, blood and maggots spraying out from the wound. “I’m not your fucking incubator!” they screamed before launching themself at the captain, aiming directly at its head. It couldn’t move their insides around. It couldn’t. All their careful research pointed towards the fact that it couldn’t. 

The blade slipped right into the captain’s head. Time slowed down as the entirety of its being turned into grey mush, almost melting away around Caretaker’s weapon. It seemed like… It seemed like victory. It seemed like its arrogance had become its downfall. 

Blood was still pouring from Caretaker’s arm, and they quickly tore off a strip of their shirt to tie around it and act as a tourniquet. Then they rushed to the control panel and attempted to steer it back towards Earth. They would bring the humans home. All of them. They weren’t cargo to be shipped across galaxies. They were people. 

Even Whumpee. It was unfortunate that they couldn’t see the end of it, but some casualties were bound to happen.

“This is my ship,” came a low, rumbling voice from behind them. Caretaker spun around and found themself staring at a half-formed, human-sized maggot that was slowly taking up the form of the captain. “This is my hive. And until you’ve exterminated every single one of me, I will not die.”

They didn’t have the time to scream before the thing lunged at them, tearing them limb from limb. They cried as their blood painted the entire cockpit red, only passing out from the shock when their entire lower half was separated from them. 

They were supposed to be a hero. Their victory was supposed to be ensured. 

So why?

Why was everything going dark as they stared at their own intestines on the floor?

~

Delph had been to the swamp many times growing up, and each time it had the nasty habit of being unpredictably changed while always remaining hatefully toxic to her existence. The streets of old Chicago had not been dry in over 500 years and Lake Michigan in that time had never grown a centigrade warmer in the winter. Nevertheless, it was the people who lived there that made it a worthwhile place to visit.

Outcasts, travelers, people with no other place to call home—all of them invariably ended up carving domiciles in the waterways of the great concrete swamp. Some years Chicago bustled. The next, she sang silent as the wind echoed through hollowed skyscrapers. Delph found beauty in it all, whether it was civilization or nature in the process of reclaiming.

But her visit to old Chicago now was due to a dangerous type of nature festering within. A ravenous, biting, hurting, flying thing which as of late was having disastrous consequences on the local deer and sophont population. It was such rage which had violently cast all denizens of the swamp out in a panicked scramble, lest they fall victim to her insatiable hunger. All denizens, save for a single Chlorophyalien ferrier. It was she who brought Delph to the lair of the beast.

Age and winter had made her color brown, her antennae petalless and her face crooked with degrading Terranplasty, but out of a kindness she ferried Delph anyways; the only cost that her story be known. A country plant hatched and grown, she thought herself an actress before leaving for World City, determined to change people’s minds and hearts. She quickly found herself changed instead, in more ways than one. She came for the swamp not long after, utterly convinced it was the only place a country plant like her belonged. Out of everyone who called it their home, she had been there the longest yet, she would remain longer still.

She brought Delph as close to the beast’s lair as she dared, an old car park roughly a mile away. With thanks, Delph disembarked and asked if she would meet her tomorrow at the same spot.

“If you’re still alive,” the ferrier said, “It will cost you your story.”

Delph smiled thinly, “I’m tougher than I look. I look forward to it again Miss…”

“Ionshera.” She said, “Call me Ionshera.”

And with pale goodbye, she pushed her canoe around and paddled back home. Delph watched as she left, steeling herself to meet an old friend.

…

At the heart of the swamp there lay a dark obelisk that cast shadows across even the tallest towers. It must have been magnificent once, a symbol of pride in the horizon, the old city’s magnificence condensed into one immutable spectre of splendor. Now it sat in the murky waters, crumbling and leaning, destined to fall. And yet it remained tall, no doubt thanks to the various anchors of silk and wood pulp which emanated from it in a securing radius. The tower was silent now, but the new structure within was practically bursting out of the steel and concrete beams. Tunnels, pillars of pulp, hexagonal walls replacing the old. It was a hive in construction, inelegant, but quaint in its novelty. It was not what Delph expected to find.

Delph was not subtle, nor was she quiet as she climbed her way into the nest. She shimmied her way up an anchor, making her vibrations and her approach known to she who was listening; she deserved more than a surprise visitor after all. The anchor brought Delph roughly halfway up the building, around what used to be its fiftieth floor. Fighting a bout of vertigo, she quickly crawled her way through a section of wall which no longer existed and into the ruins of an office floor. So far up, the vibrations of the wind shook the nest steadily and Delph bundled herself close under her jacket and sweater vest.

Winter was always the bane of her existence, but when she was dealing with a fellow ectotherm, it was ideal to meet in low energy conditions. If the reports from the surrounding villages could be trusted, the beast hibernated when the air became cold. Delph could only guess where she roosted, someplace secure, high above the waters, but not so high that the winds sapped her of warmth. As Delph began her exploration, she looked for the signs of reinforcement, superfluous sections of pulp used for insulation. Navigating however, was easier said than done. For anyone without wings, the tower’s interior was an inhospitable wreck of collapsed floors, twisting halls, and dead ends made by the new support running throughout. It was an insidious maze and more than once Delph was forced to hug the outside of the tower and brace the cold in order to climb or lower to a new floor or section.

By the time the sun was setting, she was physically exhausted and the skin around her fingers were numb and red. She needed rest, to regain some semblance of warmth. This would all be for nothing if she couldn’t even form a word from frostbite.

Delph let herself collapse in what was once an employee lounge on the fifty-seventh floor. It was fortunately mostly undisturbed from the centuries and offered a pauper’s collection of chairs of which Delph could take a seat, pour saltwater into a pitcher and calmly use her laser pistol to heat it to a respectable 40 degrees Celsius.

She was in the middle of taking her first sip when the room shook with a sudden thrumming vibration. Delph froze still and as quickly as the vibration appeared, it stopped. But there was no mistaking the cause. She was near.

Delph set the pitcher down and stood. Moving to the doorway of the break room, she was careful to not move quickly, dragging her feet to ensure that she knew where she was. It must’ve worked, because a moment later Delph’s chest hummed to the beat of renewed vibration, followed by a loud crashing in the next door office space. The air fell quiet again, vibration replaced by familiar chittering, nostalgic and simple. A growth near her cranial colony buzzed, barely a zooid in its own right—but still the first polyp Delph had cultivated by herself—it brought to her understanding and tone. The beast searching, speaking to its lonesome self.

“I hear you loud one. Show yourself!”

And Delph obeyed. She rounded the corner of the office and there she beheld her quarry. And her first friend on Earth.

She was imposing, twice the size she was when they last met, struggling to fit her mass between the flooring and ceiling. Her body curled naturally into a unfolded ‘C’, wasponoid body segmenting her spear like head, diamond shaped thorax, and great piercing abdomen. Beneath her body, her legs swarmed; a mass of writhing tentacles which problingly explored the cubicles beneath her even as she sat haunched and prepared to pounce. But her real glory shone in the fan of wings which haloed around her once she spotted Delph. Iridescent, immense, several times longer than Delph herself. It was in her which Delph first witnessed the venomous beauty of love. It was in her Delph learned to love more than just the cosmos.

“Hyssa.” Delph chittered in her language, “You are so beautiful.”

Every muscle in Hyssa’s body suddenly tensed at her words. She halted, in the middle of attack as her colony of eyes rotated together in her head. Suddenly Hyssa was not just feeling for the vibrations in air, not just sensing the subtle shifts in light, but focusing on Delph with all her ability.

“Delph…” she chittered, stunned in disbelief, “It is you.”

“You recognized me before?”

“Your heartbeat.” Her wings flickered, “I thought I recognized it. But it had been so long, and through the walls… I could not be certain.” She approached for a better view, tendrils slithering her closer, “But now I see you clearly and hardly believe it. You are here. You have changed?”

Delph laughed, hardly of her own accord, “It’s been a while, I’m older. You look like you’ve been doing well for yourself.”

“Well? Good? I am pursued. From sky to sky the Terrans follow and bite at me. And now you are here once more in my time of need? Are you too pursued?”

“In a way.” Delph anxiously rubbed her neck, “But, I’m actually here for you.”

This took Hyssa by some surprise. “Here for me?” She repeated with a slight tilt of her head.

Delph nodded, “A few weeks ago I picked up a rumor that some sort of dragon was terrorizing a few towns on the coast. I interviewed a few of the people who lived there and all of them described something very Hyssa in appearance. I figured you were in some kind of trouble and tracked you here.”

Hyssa fidgeted her antennae uncomfortably, “You… you are a noble thing Delph. I… forgive me… I had almost lost hope I would see you again”

As she began to shy away, Delph couldn’t help but reach out, setting her hands on the sides on her mandibles. Her chitin was rough and cool, yet she was already warmer than the ambient air bleeding heat from Deph’s body.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Delph assured, “I know you did what you had to do to survive. Like I said, I’m here to help and… I have good news. I think I know a way to get you home.”

“Home?” Hyssa twitched, “What of my home?”

“After we last parted… I discovered things about myself. I know how to bridge the gap of time and space between this world to yours. You were brought here by accident, but you don’t need to stay here fighting for your life. I can take you home.”

“Home…”

Hyssa thought to herself for a moment, then suddenly pulled back. Delph followed as she glided towards one of the larger windows of the office, shoving aside cubicles and desks that were in her way. She took in the night, staring almost contemplatively at the murky waters below, the broken skyscrapers, and further out: the coastal forests encroaching the Terran ruins. Delph instinctively huddled close, using her great body as a windbreak and for the faintest aura of warmth she emanated.

After this moment of digestion, Hyssa confessed through the flutter of wings and grinding of her jaw,

“I am pregnant Delph.”

The news shocked Delph to say the least. She immediately reeled and put some space between them, looking at Hyssa in a new light.

“Oh Hyssa, I had no idea.” Delph paused. “But… how?”

“I do not know. But… it is so. I did not know my kind could produce without a mate. It confounds.”

“I… understand how you feel.” Delph said, “But some species are capable of parthenogenesis in the absence of another partner. Perhaps your kind is the same?”

“Perhaps.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help…”

“I think… you may indeed.”

Delph couldn’t help but frown in concern. For as long she’d known Hyssa—for as short as she’d known her as well—she had never seen her so despondent. It was an emotion Delph didn’t know she was capable of projecting. But as Hyssa turned to her now, there was something unrecognizable in the way her wings anxiously flicked, how her eyes focused on her so intently.

“I no longer wish to leave Terra.”

Delph’s nectophores skipped a pulse. “Pardon?”

“This world has been cruel, yes. But your aid has given me pause to reflect on my home. My old home.”

“I don’t understand.”

“On my world, I was beholden to the way of solitary survival. I could not cross into another one of my kind’s territory if it was not for the prerequisite of sex or singular war. But here, I have been granted wondrous gifts: knowledge and opportunity. Delph, you taught me to think beyond my culture, beyond my simple nature.”

“Hyssa, no, you were never simple. Your kind’s culture—“

“Is isolating. But the more I reflected, the more I recalled those socialite pollinators. The Terrans here, they call them bees. What compassion I have witnessed with the bees, how they build their nests for one another, shelter each other against those lonesome wasps.”

Delph glanced around at the pulp bursting from the walls, “Is this what this is supposed to be? Hyssa, you’re not some terrible thing just because wasps on Terra are reviled. There’s no one-to-one, any relation you have to them is strictly physical.”

“That is precise!” Hyssa chirped, “I am not like the wasps of this world. They cannot change, they cannot make a home for themself where it goes against their nature. But you have shown me I am intelligent. That I am adaptable. That I am beautiful. I am deserving of more than just hiding away in the forest, constantly checking for the guns of Terrans hunting me. I deserve a world of my own, one that obeys my rules.”

Some level of understanding rose in Delph, but it in itself was twisted in fear and distrust. She wouldn’t let it be shown. She refused to believe it was real. She tried to offer some comfort to Hyssa, taking a tendril into her hands.

“Tell me what you need. I want to understand.”

Hyssa chittered uncertainly, her answer hesitant and unwilling.

“I need you Delph.”

“I’m here. I told you that I’d help.”

“Yes. But I worry. How larval, I used to never worry. But what I need from you is more than you will offer.”

Delph tilted her head, puzzled. Hyssa explained,

“My pregnancy is not new. It began months ago and against better judgement, I gave in. I tried first with a deer, a male I think. But my venom was too strong and it died before my young could hatch.”

Oh god.

Delph stepped back in horror. How could she have not known?

“You’re a parasitoid.”

Hyssa continued without missing a beat, “I’ve been insatiable since. You must understand Delph, I did not want to kill those villagers, I had hoped that one of them would be strong enough. But none of them were, but I couldn’t stop. I needed… I need to do this Delph. And I believe you’re the only thing I know which can help me.”

“I can get you home Hyssa. The life forms there, they’d be better adapted to-“

“But I don’t want to go home. I would not- I wish not to have my young subjected to that life.”

“But I- That’s not-“ Delph stammered, “I can’t help you with that. Unless you- I can help sterilize you?”

Too late Delph’s brains caught up with her words.

Hyssa reeled, her turn to take a step back as she pulled her tendril away and struggled to find her words.

“Sterilize me?! I want to give my young the freedom to grow and to love in a world that is theirs. And you offer to sterilize me?”

Delph cringed, “No of course not! But the future you’re describing, the disorder it would bring, it’s just not possible.”

“Why is it not possible? Why not when for the first time in my life I see so clearly what more I can do? What more I can be!”

“Because you’re-“ Delph stopped. She turned away, deciding that perhaps the view outside wasn’t so bad after all.

“Because it’s not feasible, not in the long run. A generation sure, maybe? But after that… it’s not an issue of culture… it's about the ecosystem- the biosphere. Your nutritional demands are too high.”

“Your tone harms me. Say what you want to say. What the scientists and soldiers were not too coward to say.”

“I don’t think of you that way Hyssa. You're my friend, not an animal.”

“And yet after all I’ve done do for you, you refuse to aid me even this once? Speak of sterilizing me?!”

“What you're asking me isn’t possible. And it isn’t kind! I can’t be a- a host for your offspring.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to! Our relationship should be more than just survival and it shouldn’t involve anything like-“ Delph gesticulated wildly to the swamp “this!”

The wind rolled between them and their silence carried out to the great saltless sea. Hyssa bristled behind, her weight shifting while the floor creaked under her.

Suddenly, after an eternity of silence, she chittered plainly,

“How larval of me, to think you were any different from this world’s two legged torturers. But it seems your false skin hides more than just your shame.”

Delph hung her head and sighed, “I just wanted to help you Hyssa. But what you're asking… You're right, it is more than I can give.”

More silence.

“I understand Delph.”

For a moment, Delph felt the slightest bout of relief wash out the tension in her stem. She could begin to work out a solution to this problem.

And then she felt the first tendril coil around her leg.

“But I am finished with asking.”

“Hyssa what are you-“

But before Delph could finish spinning around, the tendril tightened and yanked her off her feet. The fall jostled her already frostnipped brains and suddenly the world was a slurry of fluttering wings and tendrils binding around her limbs, her body, her neck. The beat of Hyssa’s wings sent powerful, painful vibrations throughout her colonies and Delph in her panic was acutely aware of something hot and sharp piercing her stomach like a knife.

Delph barely managed to croak out a “No!” But it was far too late. Fire roiled through her abdomen like a slow explosion. Bad enough, but instead of bringing even a semblance of warm, she merely felt a lethal disconnect, her abdominal colony went numb and dead, the connection to her legs collapsing along with them. Delph arched uselessly, a gasping scream leaving her mouth.

This couldn’t be happening. Not with Hyssa. Not like this. Delph thrashed and fought like hell, but it was useless. Hyssa’s strength was indominatable and any attempt to shake away just ended with Delph bound tighter against her thorax, smothered.

Suddenly they were outside, the cold blasting against Delph's face. She wound her eyes shut, summoning one last bout of strength, to reach for her laser pistol and maybe-

Her hand fisted numbly against her thigh, her holster empty. She’d left it on the table in the staff lounge, to ensure Hyssa hadn’t mistaken her a threat. For all the kindness that had been.

Still Delph wasn’t defenseless; tragically she was always armed. Pushing through the pain, she retracted her skinsuit as much as she could. Instantly, the little warmth which flesh provides vanished, the heat of her aquariums were sapped away in a flash. It took all her focus, all her energy to retract her graspers and eject her tentilla. They found their targets, hooking against Hyssa tendrils in a painful embrace.

But if Hyssa was affected at all by her cnidocytes, she ignored it entirely. Her flight path continued unbroken and rapidly they were inside again. Suddenly Hyssa’s embrace loosened and Delph was dropped harshly against the floor. Her mind was a mess now and only instinct reminded her to regenerate her skinsuit. Her surroundings were a blur, but she recognized the makings of a lobby, though she couldn’t tell if everything was slanted from the angle of the building’s lean, or the fact she herself was slumped sideways. Encompassing most of her view however, was a vast wall of pulp bisecting the lobby, only a small tunnel showed any sign of entrance. The entrance to the beast's lair.

“I’m sorry for what is coming next.” Hyssa chittered as she strode above Delph, “But I must drag you. It will be easier if you do not struggle.”

Delph struggled anyways, her legs moved discoordinated and on their own, but her arms still obeyed. She dragged herself, reaching desperately for the ruined wall they had sailed through.

Her voice rasped, but she did not have the focus for language, “Hyssa… please…”

“I do not know those sounds. But please, I would not have you discomforted.”

Delph’s useless trial was over in a moment. Hyssa’s tendrils returned, her warmth lingering dangerously close to comfort—even when her stinger pierced both her legs.

Delph’s nectophores beat hard, panic surging through every inch of her body while the frayed nerve highways to her legs gave one last hoorah and brought burning agony to the rest of her. An expulsion of carbon dioxide and argon burst from her lips, the sound of which sounded very similar to a strangled ‘nooooo.’

Hyssa continued, her next target, predictably, Delph’s arms. It was just her luck that she chose their shoulders as the impact point.

And there it was. The shock was too much. They felt their minds splinter and dissociate. Was she hands? The eyes? It was too hard to tell as the venom journeyed far off course and murdered every inch of them.

“Hyssa please…” one of them managed to squeak out.

“Do not be scared Delph, it will soon be painless, and you will heal. I will be here with you all along the way.”

Perhaps more tendrils surrounded Delph then. It was difficult to tell as most of them were numb or in shock. The dissociation was growing worse now, signals which should have been automatic were becoming slower, fractured. Every movement was becoming a vote by committee, and committee of themself—in pain and out of sync. The only thing any surviving colony could agree on was one very present and very simple fact. As their vision failed and unconsciousness began to lull throughout, their mouth opened and closed. Sounds jumbled out, their volume uncertain, but their meaning desperate.

“Hyssa…”