《Man Made Mystery》


 Ch 1 - A

    The floor felt cool against her feet as she padded along, quick and nimble.


    But quiet, always quiet.


    The darkness crept up behind her as always and shied away in front, a bubble of light that let her see her path. The food room always felt so far from the safety of her home but she couldn¡¯t live on treats alone and so she had to beat back the darkness once again.


    The noises in the dark made her heart beat faster, but thankfully they were never close, always some unknown distance into the dark. She wished she could find them, the Others, and beg them to let her stay safe and secure in her home again. They had never interacted with her before, always hiding behind the foggy wall, but perhaps she had done something to drive them off and she could say sorry. Anything to not have to venture into the darkness, to have them fix the crack in the wall to her home. If not for her trinket granting her a small bit of light she would likely be stuck in her home regardless, unable to brave the darkness, doomed to hunger.


    Reaching the Food place, she pushed her trinket inside to let it light up the large space. As the light brightened the area, she scooped up her trinket again and padded through the maze of large flat objects inside. Headed for the back area, a wall with a hole in it separating where she was with where she wanted to be, she scrounged through the wall flaps looking for more of the powder that made the hunger fade.


    ¡®Seems like the powder is running out, I¡¯ll have to find another Food place soon.¡¯


    Going to the spout where water came out, she drank her fill and began padding back through the maze and out into the smaller longer area, her trinket held tight and the light flickering around her. She felt that she deserved a treat for making it so far, so she took a detour down an even smaller area, following her memories of where she had hidden a small stash of treats. Her supply in her home had run out and she needed to bring back more.


    The Others had always given her treats when she had figured out something important, before they disappeared. They always slipped it through a flap on the foggy wall. The treats were the only reason she had to believe they weren¡¯t trapped behind the foggy wall the same way the small people were trapped in the little box in her home, the small people in the box had never given her anything. Though both the small people and the Others had never reacted to her in any other way. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    She wanted to help the small people, but she could never figure out how to open the box, so they remained trapped. She hoped they had enough food in that small box. If the wall had not cracked open when the Others had disappeared, she would have nothing left. The tube that had fed her up before the Others disappeared had also stopped giving her food, hence why she was forced into the darkness beyond her home.


    Running her hand along the smooth surface of the wall as she padded towards her stash, head full of thoughts about treats and looking at the Pages once she returned to her home, she was startled quite badly when the lights changed. Instantly she stopped and crouched to look around trying to find what had happened, but as she did a deep chill flew down her spine.


    The noises, they were closer.


    Close enough to be a danger. She had never encountered whatever made the noises, but there was no doubt that whatever it was, it had to be hungry. Maybe it had been trapped like her and had finally gotten free. She couldn¡¯t stay here, she had to run home and close the wall. Hope that it couldn¡¯t find her, or if it did then hope it couldn¡¯t make it through the wall crack. She stood to start on her way back to her home, much more quickly than her walk here, when the noises caught her. A loud clunk through the wall she had her hand on.


    Her breath left her and she began to run, scrambling to get away as fast as possible. If the noises could break a wall, then nowhere was safe, but she didn¡¯t plan to stay and find out. Running through places at random, her trinket lighting the way as the darkness faded in front and chased her behind, she kept going until her legs couldn¡¯t hold her anymore. Collapsing against a wall, the surface cool against her hot skin, she tried desperately to catch her breath, eagerly gulping down air.


    The noises had never been that close before, just on the other side of a wall. It seemed she wasn¡¯t the only one running out of food and she didn¡¯t want to meet anything that could make the noises she had heard. It might turn out whatever it was even considered her to be food. Once her breathing had slowed and she was able to stand again she got up and looked around. She felt it again, that chill down her spine. She had run so fast that she didn¡¯t watch where she was going and now, looking around the long narrow areas that all looked similar, she had no idea where she was¡­


    Or how to get home.

 Ch 1 - B

    Waking up with a bright light on your face was never pleasant. Sitting up to find that the whole _room_ was a bright light was just disorienting. Fortunately, as his eyes adjusted to the light, he found himself in a really white room rather than a room full of light. Still unsettling, seeing as how it was empty of anything else, but better than lights in the face no matter where you looked. He looked down at his cryo pod, did a double take to make sure, then stood up and walked around it to make double sure.


    ¡°Yup, not the one I went to sleep in¡±


    Well, crap.


    He knew that signing up for experimental cryo sleep could be risky, but they could have at least had the courtesy to leave him with his old pod, he knew how that one worked and could tinker with it. This new one they had given him looked like some kinda future tech thing he hadn¡¯t the foggiest idea about. Very inconsiderate, whoever they happened to be.


    ¡°Not like I would know, since there ain¡¯t no one to say hello to!¡±


    He waited a moment, but it didn¡¯t seem like yelling at the ceiling had changed anything or shamed whoever it was into coming out to say hi.


    Without much else to do at the moment, he sat down on the floor, which was slightly unpleasant given that it was metal and he was naked, and proceeded to make sure he was as in one piece as it was possible to determine. Whatever new fancy tech that pod had became very apparent when he couldn¡¯t find any needle wounds from the injections he had needed to get for the old pod. Considering cryo was supposed to mean ¡®no changing¡¯ in his old pod, the mysterious ¡®they¡¯ either had to keep him out of cryo long enough to heal or the new pod allowed some kind of partial state. Whatever that happened to mean in cryo terms.


    Still, considering that he could still feel his heartbeat and didn¡¯t feel like he had lost organs, not that he knew what that felt like in the first place, he figured that he was in the best shape he was going to be in, the lack of obvious food and water in the room being a pretty sharp time limit. Examining the pod in more detail uncovered insights that it was, indeed, a cryo pod.


    ¡°Can never be too sure with mysterious white rooms.¡±


    It also helped that if he could recognize some of the tech, he might be able to figure out the rest. Given enough time¡­.


    A lot of time.


    Of course, he didn¡¯t have that time right now so onto examining the rest of the room. Determining whether he was an experiment or simply abandoned would help him know if he had to annoy the crap out of whoever was watching until they did something or if he had to try to find a way out on his own. A quick sweep of the walls up close showed nothing obvious, and the floor was equally devoid of ¡®interesting things¡¯. Scanning the tops of the walls for obvious cameras also lead nowhere other than to conclude that either the ceiling was low for a large mysterious room or he was getting taller. It took him nearly four hours of basically rubbing his entire side against the wall and slowly walking around the room for him to find anything worth getting excited for.


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    One of the walls had a patch that was a lot smoother than the rest. Glass versus metal perhaps. Closer investigation found that nothing about it changed but the spot really liked it when he stuck his whole hand on it. After quite a few happy computer noises and a promise to buy it dinner later, a portion of the wall popped open.


    Seeing as how he still didn¡¯t know what was going on but leaning towards the ¡®abandoned¡¯ idea, he slowly approached the new door and peered through the crack from a low angle. It appeared to be a hallway and either had no lights or was quite dim compared to his bright room. It would be beyond obvious to anyone in the hallway that the door was open from the light spilling out. Still, he didn¡¯t see anyone waiting on the other side and couldn¡¯t hear any breathing or muffled noises of living things.


    ¡®I¡¯m gonna be pissed if I get mauled by robots.¡¯


    Seeing that no one was about to come in and he certainly couldn¡¯t stay here, he flung open the door, which turned into more of a slow whoosh than what he had planned, and confidently strode into the hallway, a quip ready for anything waiting for his appearance.


    Unfortunately for the quip and fortunately for his dignity, he was greeted by an empty metal hallway and a lot of corners. Corners that didn¡¯t appear to have any helpful signs or other indicators about where he should be headed next. He sniffed the air trying to get a feel for his new, dimmer, life outside the white box but it all smelled like air. No scents or chemical smells he would expect from an empty facility running on old air scrubbers.


    ¡®The mystery deepens. Where the hell am I?¡¯


    Unfortunate. He had been given training on survival in the wilds and survival in an unknown city as part of the cryo program, but empty metal halls were one of the few scenarios they hadn¡¯t gone over.


    ¡®Dunno why they hadn¡¯t. Seems like empty facility was the most likely option for failure considering where I¡¯m at.¡¯


    The walls at least had some kind of marking on them, colors running in lines. Presumably following a line and seeing where it went was the best option. Well, an ok option at least, the best option was to not have a cryo experiment go wrong, but beggars couldn¡¯t choose.


    Good thing he wasn¡¯t a beggar because he was choosing the blue line. He liked its shade of blue and the fact it was exactly the same shape and size as the other lines.


    That and he really had to pee, so he hoped blue was some kind of water thing.


    ¡°Can¡¯t go wrong if even the colors travel in packs.¡±


    He just had to hope the colors liked the comfort of a pack rather than going for the safety. At least he could pee on anything that tried to eat him, that would show um.

 Ch 2 -A

    She crept up to the corner, slowly pushing her trinket past the wall as she listened for anything happening.


    As the lack of noise continued, she padded slowly past the corner she was at and looked down another empty tunnel. She had come to discover that the larger areas she was used to were rare and hard to find. Most places she had been since then were smaller tunnels and little caves, some open and more seemingly closed up tight, all empty as the tunnels as far as she could tell. She didn¡¯t know how long it had been since she had last seen her home, but her eyes kept trying to close on their own and she had trouble keeping a steady pace.


    At this point she was going to have to hide in the next empty cave she found and hope that the noises didn¡¯t follow her this far. She had never been away from her home this long before, she hoped her trinket didn¡¯t stop working anytime soon or else she would forever be lost to the darkness, easy prey for the noises.


    They had changed after she ran from the wall. Where before they had been distant clicks and low rumbles, now she could sometimes faintly make out a low guttural sound and thumping. It was quiet now, but there was no telling why. As she continued her desperate journey down the tunnel she finally stumbled across another open cave. This one had a little base for a nest like her home did and she found a blanket rumpled on top. Looking around at the flaps on the walls, she tried to find a space to hide, not trusting the open cave to protect her like the wall blocking her home. One of the flaps near the nest was barely large enough if she curled up and didn¡¯t completely close the flap, but it hid her from the tunnel and she couldn¡¯t bear trying to find another cave.


    Curling up around her trinket, the cool walls of the hideaway made her shiver a bit, so she went and grabbed the blanket that had been on the nest spot. Dreading what might happen on her first night away from home she fell into a fitful sleep, even the slightest noise making her heart beat faster and bringing her fully back awake. Still, she kept quiet and tried to rest, not knowing how long it would take to find her home again.


    <hr>


    She had gotten used to sleeping in little hideaways now, a handful of sleeps away from her home.


    She had come across a stash of treats but didn¡¯t recognize the area, not sure if it was a new stash she hadn¡¯t made or if she had just come from a direction she didn¡¯t recognize. She still moved around that area a bit trying to see if she could find her way back, but every time she thought something looked promising the noises returned and drove her in a direction she didn¡¯t know. She had kept the scavenged blanket at least, wrapped around her body to keep the cool walls from stealing her warmth. With that and her trinket she felt she had hope to eventually find her way back home, her only worry was the size of the treat stash.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    She had also found another area with water. Though some of the area had seats like that one in her home where she could relieve herself without the smells staying around, the rest of the area had strange spouts that dripped water from above. It was difficult at first to get the spouts to give her water without getting all wet in the process, but she managed to figure it out and could drink her fill¡­


    So long as the noises stayed away.


    She had to be careful as the water area and where she stashed her treats seemed to be the area where the noises were heard the loudest. No longer a distant thing she could sneak away from, those areas the noises could be heard clearly. She had to learn to move very fast without making any noise herself so that she could run away without drawing attention.


    She was determined though, slowly she was learning the area so that she could run around the noises. She was sure that they were between her and her home. She only hoped that she could find another food place, as she dreaded going back along the path that had led to her extended adventure. Perhaps when she made it home she could explore in the opposite direction to the noises. Now that she knew what to look for, she was confident that she could spend a sleep or two away and find things that were farther away than what she could find in a single time being awake. As she was imagining it in her head, the new Food place filled with powder and treats, she froze.


    She could hear them, the noises, thumping up behind her. She panicked, she was at a corner that only turned one way and she didn¡¯t think that she could make it back to the last corner she had passed. Worse still she hadn¡¯t checked this new corner yet, anything could be waiting for her. Her panicked gaze swept back and forth between the corner she had passed and this new one, but the thumping was close now.


    Too close.


    She ran, dashing around the new corner as fast as she could, the thumping behind pushing her on. She flitted around the corner and kept going, her legs pushing her as fast as they could to find a hideaway as all the fuzz on her body stood on end.


    She had seen it.


    As she passed the corner, the very last thing her eyes had captured was the monster filling the tunnel with its bulk.

 Ch 2 -B

    The answer was yes. Blue lines did lead to a bathroom.


    Whether that was intended design was still up for debate as the line kept going well past said bathroom and had several other lines alongside it. Possible coincidence aside, said bathroom seemed to be a communal one with a bank of showers on the other side of the room, so not much for privacy.


    Considering that the toilets were evil, that may or may not be a good thing.


    They weren¡¯t just straight up evil either, they were deceptive. They looked all nice and comforting with their heated seats and bidets. The stalls were kind of cramped, but it was enough room to do your business and enjoy a relaxing break, right up until you had to flush. It was like spawning a black hole in the plumbing.


    They had Suction, capital S required.


    Worst part was that it was an automatic flush. He would give good odds that if they were anything like the sensor flushes he was used to, if he fell asleep on the toilet or took too long on a ¡®break¡¯ he would get his soul sucked out through his backside.


    At least the showers were ok. Clean with adjustable heads and a dispenser for ¡®soap¡¯


    ¡­future ¡®soap¡¯?...


    Some kind of liquid product probably linked to showering at least.


    Guess he would find out next time he needed a shower. Which would be soon if he had to keep doing circles following those darn lines. Other than the large corridor he had taken to calling the ¡®industrial tunnel¡¯, seeing as how it was much larger than any other tunnel he had found, most of the tunnels were the same shape and size and only varied in length. Easy to get lost and hard to orient yourself.


    He had found a lot of weight to put on the ¡®still a growing boy¡¯ theory as well, all the smaller tunnels no more than a foot or two above his head. If he was still six foot that meant they were really low for ¡®mysterious bunker¡¯ tunnels with pipes and such in the corners. Didn¡¯t help that once he found a ¡®crew section¡¯ full of bunks, all the beds were super short. He had no idea what bed feng-shui dictated the size of a mattress for a given person¡¯s height was, but unless future people liked to sleep curled up or preferred that beds matched their height exactly, they were either short, or he was super tall now.


    Still nothing conclusive for either argument but the tall side made him feel better, so he was going with that until proven otherwise. Who hadn¡¯t dreamed of being a giant walking around a city as a kid? Of course giants had needs too and small beds weren¡¯t gonna cut it, several years of his own feet hanging off the end of a mattress said so.


    Fortunately, the colored lines swooped in to help once more and he managed to find a larger bunk room. Other than the small beds and low ceilings all the bunk rooms were decent. They weren¡¯t nice apartment size, but they had plenty of room for a living space found in a mysterious bunker. The larger bunk had to be some head honcho or boss monster room if entertainment media had taught him anything, but if they used regular beds and could live with cramped ceilings like these he wasn¡¯t scared of them. Though it was a good thing he didn¡¯t have claustrophobia. Luckily the room had enough floor space he could tetris some mattresses around and get a comfortable floor bed.


    Finding enough sheets to make a nice thick layer, enough to not feel the points where said mattresses met was another matter entirely. He was not looking forward to laundry day and he wasn¡¯t even wearing anything. He could have wrapped some sheets around himself, toga style, but he didn¡¯t see the point. Togas weren¡¯t much use in his current predicament and he certainly didn¡¯t have enough shame left to care if someone saw him naked. Hell, it was probably their fault he was naked in the first place so they could suffer the eye damage. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    If psychic damage was his only weapon he would abuse the crap out of it.


    Nothing living had made its presence known though so it was a moot point anyways. Which also wasn¡¯t great considering he had nothing to eat.


    Once again he turned to the lines, choosing the yellow this time, because he could. He would have to find some way to thank the almighty lines as well, as they once more deposited him somewhere that was clearly a canteen or mess hall of some description. Typical long tables and benches, even if they were shrunk considerably by his standards.


    Failing to find any screens to entice to dinner, he made his way back to a promising area that may be a kitchen, his early promise remaining unfulfilled. Fortunately for him, said area probably was a kitchen as it had metal parts that got hot. Unfortunately for him, said hot metal parts seemed to lack the necessary organic matter to make it a proper kitchen.


    After a thorough scouring, he concluded that said area was probably for prep, as it seemed to lack a fridge or cold box and most of the obvious storage seemed to be various bits of hardware and utensils. He did manage to uncover a bag of white powder with some text on it, though it could go any which way as to what it actually was.


    Turned out said mysterious bunker had a language he couldn¡¯t read, fantastic.


    Bravely sniffing the powder turned up an offensively neutral scent that could be anything so he made like a drug dealer and stuck his pinky in it. Probably better ways to test if it was a cleaning agent but the lack of burning on his skin meant he had to move on to the not fun part. Taking the offending digit and touching it to his tongue revealed that the powder tasted like flour¡¯s boring cousin.


    Hooray for context clues?


    A bit of utensil wrangling and experimentation later he stood looking down at what could generously be called a flapjack. Taking a cautious bite proved that more generosity was needed for that description, as it tasted like a flapjack¡¯s boring cousin. It was hard to celebrate his sleuthing with so little flavor.


    Putting down his creation, he left wheat¡¯s extended family behind and decided to look farther afield for wherever the food was stored. If he felt fine after several hours he would return and start to ration the powder, but even a cursory glance could tell the bag wasn¡¯t going to last long.


    <hr>


    It was a good thing he hadn¡¯t made a bet cause he would have lost.


    Turns out that the industrial tunnel wasn¡¯t the only different tunnel the place had. His new mysterious home seemed to have some kind of mirrored design. One large tunnel going down the middle, a medium sized tunnel on either side at each end, making a sort of capital I shape or a squished H if you didn¡¯t like your letters fancy, with quite a few smaller corridors linking the various stops in-between.


    Stops like the crew bunks and the bathrooms. There was a second mess hall as well, with its own store of bland pancake mix and lack of cold storage, so he was clearly missing something. It didn¡¯t help that he hadn¡¯t touched a single door since he woke up a couple days ago.


    While he was all for finding better food, the powder stuff would tide him over and he wasn¡¯t about to start recklessly opening things until he figured out why there wasn¡¯t anyone here. He wouldn¡¯t normally be afraid to fight whatever shorties might pop out but that changed real fast when your mysterious bunker was giving off horror movie vibes. Too much TV might be bad for you in normal life, but empty bunker that was possibly doing research was prime movie script territory. The last thing he wanted was to open a door and get swarmed by zombies.


    While he hadn¡¯t managed to find any kind of science lab yet, the presence of his cryo pod in an empty room was a great big red flag. There were other possibilities of course, but the lack of any organic matter besides himself was making it hard to come up with which ones were more likely.


    His meandering had turned up useful information though. He had managed to find text in the same color as the lines, clearly some kind of label on the walls. Not being able to read could be kind of fixed if he could find something to write on, since he could follow said lines to the end and see what the labels correspond to. Not the best way to decipher an unknown language but he didn¡¯t have much else to do while he was wandering and it would keep his mind busy. Better than contemplating the soul crushing emptiness and inevitable demise by starvation.


    Seriously, why hadn¡¯t he got stuck somewhere with some nature?


    Sure he would have been much less equipped to handle nature survival but at least he would have had a chance. Unless the lines decided to be generous and cough up a food replicator that didn¡¯t require any inputs his days were numbered.


    At least he had hot showers. His end would be a nicely groomed one that didn¡¯t wrinkle his nose like whatever had been here¡­¡­


    ..Well, crap.

 Ch 3 -A

    She believed it now. Her home stood no chance against a monster like that. It nearly filled the tunnel and she could feel the weight of it as it lumbered around the corner.


    She wasn¡¯t sure how she felt now. She had finally managed to get around the monster and could recognize the area she was in. Now though, if the monster found her in her home she would be eaten. Her home had only one way in, no way to escape should the monster find her and break the wall. She would need to use everything she had learned to survive now.


    As she padded silently into her home she let the blanket drop. She could at least rest here a while, listening carefully for the noises the monster made. Finding a new place to sleep would be difficult, but maybe that was for the best. Moving every time she needed to sleep would mean the monster couldn¡¯t learn where she was going to be.


    A plan made, she moved quickly over to the Pages and tried to find anything about the monster. She wanted to ask the people in the box, but they made a lot of noise and might not tell her what she wanted to know anyways, so it was best to just look quietly in the Pages rather than risk getting found. It was difficult, the Pages had many shapes in them and she had only caught a glimpse. A large shape, tall as the sky, and big enough to rumble as it walked. Her quick look found nothing that reminded her of the monster. She had seen too little of it to compare with the Pages. If she wanted to know more she would need to see the monster completely, get a better idea of what it looked like.


    If it was going to invade her space she needed to learn as much as possible. Especially if she wanted to stay un-eaten. She stood and made to leave her home once more but hesitated. She had done a lot, she was tired and needed to sleep. Once she had though, it would be time to face her fears and stalk the monster.


    <hr>


    Getting a good look at the monster was turning into a difficult task.


    She had thought it would be simple to listen for its noises and sneak up and peak around a corner. Once she had a good look she could return to the Pages and find out what exactly it was. And how to deal with it. The noises turned out to be deceptive however. The smaller tunnels where she could easily get away seemed to make them fade quickly, which was dangerous if she misjudged where it was, and the larger tunnels seemed to have multiple monsters in them. It was impossible to sneak up on one when there was another making noise behind her.


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    She had managed to catch glimpses of it at a distance, as it appeared to have the same magic as her trinket and pushed back the darkness. Easy to spot something that big when it stood in a pool of light. The problem was that she could never catch it in the smaller tunnels from far enough away to be safe. It seemed to avoid them, or at least preferred the larger tunnels. She could understand that if it was true. It¡¯s bulk making it hard to move around in the small tunnels she would prefer to catch it in.


    Still, she tried over and over again to catch it alone. Every time she slept it was in a different spot. Every time she needed food or water she would go to the far side of her home, away from where she had encountered the first monster. She was there now, a full sleep away from her home. She had found another rain place, somewhere she was sure the monster wouldn¡¯t come. So far from her home and in the small tunnels she felt safer.


    It didn¡¯t help the frustration though. As she relieved the pressure below her stomach, she tried desperately to come up with a plan. A way to maybe lure the monster somewhere it was alone and she could safely run.


    Tried too desperately it seemed.


    She stopped, ceasing all noise.


    The thumping was close. This was the second time her thoughts had made her ears stop working.


    How close was it?


    Could she still make it out of the rain place?


    She began to panic.


    She didn¡¯t have a choice, the rain place had nowhere to hide. The monster may pass but taking that chance was too much. She bolted for the door. Her usual stealth forgotten in favor of speed.


    She wasn¡¯t sure what was louder, the thumping of the monster or the thumping of her heart.


    It was there just outside the rain place. Maybe even close enough for it to reach out and grab her. Rather than find out, she pushed herself more and ran as fast as she could, taking a corner as soon as it appeared and continuing on. The thumping in her ears all the motivation she needed to not stop, even if it seemed to match her heartbeat rather than the monsters steps.


    She felt something rush through her, a feeling she didn¡¯t have words for or understand. She had done it, despite the terror of the situation she had managed to look at the monster.


    Now she just had to survive long enough to disappear and make her way back home.

 Ch 3 -B

    Nothing pulled existential loneliness into perspective like horror movie themes.


    What could possibly be worse than being alone?


    Not being alone, that¡¯s what.


    He sure as shit hoped that what he smelled was a dead body through the vents and not a cloud of scent left behind by a moving person. Though he supposed a person was the better alternative. It had certainly pulled his happy ass out of nonchalant meandering mode that was for sure.


    This place wasn¡¯t big enough to miss someone just casually walking around. That meant either he was being avoided, which begged the question of why? Or something had changed and things that had previously been locked up were not anymore.


    He sure wished he had paid a lot closer attention to which doors had been closed. He had looked for traces where he had smelled whoever or whatever it was but there were no sounds he could hear and the floors and walls seemed to have some kind of coating that prevented stains. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing. The distinct lack of fluids helped quite a bit in calming the paranoia, but he also didn¡¯t know how the vents worked, so he would need to keep a very close eye out for rooms he didn¡¯t recognize or things that ¡®didn¡¯t belong¡¯, whatever that meant in an unknown bunker.


    Grabbing some blankets to act as a mark, he was just going to have to be systematic about checking places. The industrial tunnels helped act as grid lines, but it would be incredibly tedious regardless. His best bet was splitting everything into a quadrant and scanning everything quickly from the main tunnel. If he didn¡¯t spot anything he could then go back and actually search each open room.


    If he was reluctant to open doors before, this certainly hadn¡¯t made it more appealing.


    <hr>


    Archaeologists were masters of patience.


    It was the only thing he could think of. While his engineering brain may appreciate the occasional bit of repetitive data collection, the constant sameness of checking each and every corridor was mind numbing. The occasional bout of excitement popped up when he managed to find something useful in an open room but by and large the search was just walking up a hall and entering each room, only to leave a basically empty space behind to check the next one.


    He did manage to find a notebook and pen, which will help with a great many things, but the major conclusion he was coming to was that, this mysterious bunker had way more rooms than people. At first he thought it was simply that everyone had minimal allowance for personal affects, but as he started to find rooms that actually had personal affects he had to revise that. It seemed that very few of the rooms were actually in use. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    If personal space wasn¡¯t taken into consideration, you could probably stuff over a hundred people here but based on the percentage of rooms that seemed lived in, there might have been less than a couple dozen. A lot of pressing questions and the only answers he had were ghosts and zombies. Both bad in their own way.


    He was more than happy to make friends, but he drew the line at getting his brains munched or possible possession. The logical part of his brain suggested an emergency evacuation of some kind, but that way lay madness. If they had to leave in such a hurry that personal things got left behind, what was it that he wasn¡¯t aware of?


    No, best to imagine fighting zombies and not all the horrible things he couldn¡¯t do anything about in the logical alternatives.


    At least he could punch a zombie. Still, with the automatic lights preventing long range vision, he kept his ears open as much as possible and approached corners with a lot more caution than before. Sound and smell the only real options for warnings in this place. Which sucked, since the second wasn¡¯t exactly a precision thing and the first had to combat the echoes in the larger tunnels. Guess he would have to develop that sixth sense for if he was being watched that got hyped up in media¡­


    If that even worked with ghosts.


    At least once he had found the notebook, the repetitive nature of his task let him note down general locations and build a crude map. Very helpful with remembering which doors were open now that he knew to pay attention to that kind of thing.


    Honestly, he was looking forward to the rationing math he would have to do once his sweep of the halls were finished. It would be a nice break from the tedium. The day to day sameness might not have been so bad though if it wasn¡¯t for the disappointing showers. He could handle a repetitive day¡¯s work as well as the next guy if he got to have a nice long shower afterwards and relax with a decent book.


    Couldn¡¯t have that here though, he had yet to find a water processor of any description, so he had to assume that water was limited. Add in that there were no books and that led to quick showers and empty nights, which led to a great deal of nothing to do outside what was currently considered work. Which was boring. Not hard to guess why math was looking appealing.


    Even with the possible lack of water though, he sure as hell wasn¡¯t going to go out like a slob, so he was on his way to keep his consistent, if disappointing, short shower schedule. Even though food was probably going to run out before the water anyway, it still felt wrong to waste it.


    Ugh, so pessimistic lately, maybe his brain was broken¡­


    Like his heart would be broken if it got shot up with that much adrenaline again. Whatever the shit that was is lucky it didn¡¯t get broken too, scaring the crap outta him that bad. Nothing like jump scares and adrenaline to get the digestive system moving.


    Good thing he was near the bathroom.

 Ch 4 -A

    She feared there was something wrong with her eyes.


    Once she had fled from the monster and made sure it wasn¡¯t going to follow her back to her home, she had made her way back and looked through the Pages. While most of the Pages had no pictures in them, they were magic and the words helped to create a picture in her mind. But no matter how hard she looked through the Pages with pictures she couldn''t find the monster¡¯s match.


    There were far too many Pages to search them all, but she also failed to remember any that had words that made her picture the monster either. She had gotten a clear view of the monster, why was it so hard to find a match? The closest she could find was a picture of a being known as moose, though the picture did not match the monster very well at all.


    Both were large creatures with lots of hair, but the monster bothering her didn¡¯t have the large horns that the picture depicted. It also differed in the way it stood and the picture didn¡¯t show the hands and feet, so there were many parts that didn¡¯t fit or she was unsure about.


    Still, it was her best guess as to the monster¡¯s identity. It had nearly cornered her in the rain room, which she now understood was where it liked to stay. The Pages mentioned it liked water and was big enough to not be stopped, which seemed to fit with what she had observed. She would need to watch it some more to see if she could get a better idea of whether it fit what she saw in the Pages.


    Fortunately, the Pages mentioned the moose ate grass and other plants in the water. She had no idea what a grass or other plant was, but if it ate things in the rain room then she would not be eaten if she avoided getting trapped again or just stayed outside of it. That just left the danger of getting in its way, though that would be fine so long as she was out of sight of the monster.


    While she had only seen one monster so far, the noises indicated there were many more. Perhaps if she could stay near enough to the first monster it would scare off the others and she could simply learn how to not get in its way. A monster that ate in one place and could be avoided easily was much better than dealing with an attempt to learn about all the monsters.


    She would learn all she could. Maybe, if she learned enough, she could even make her home safe again.


    <hr>


    Something definitely was wrong.


    She had spent as long as she could watching the monster to the best of her abilities. She had even found little nooks and small spaces to sleep when she grew tired. Even then she had yet to see the monster rest. It had disappeared several times so it could have rested then, but she had seen it doing something, went to rest herself, only to return and it be doing the same thing.


    It seemed the monster truly was a moose, too big to be stopped, even by tiredness. It also visited the rain room several times during her observations, so clearly the Pages had been right about where it ate.


    Still, her excitement at learning the monster¡¯s true identity was washed away when she had found the food places empty. She had known that the food place she had always visited before was running low, but she thought she would be ok when she had found the second food place with a full sack of powder. Now both food places lacked the powder and she was too afraid of encountering other monsters to venture out to find more.


    It seemed she had guessed right about the other monsters, the moose monster seemed to scare all of them away, as the noises stayed far away when it was nearby. It seemed the other monsters were only scared of it when it was active though. When it disappeared, the noises returned and she guessed that the other monsters were growing desperate for food.


    Eating all the powder so quickly meant that she was not safe anymore anywhere that the moose monster wasn¡¯t active. She did manage to scavenge strange floppy disks in the food place. They were probably scraps left from the other monsters, as they only appeared when the moose monster disappeared, but they were enough to get by for now. They tasted good enough she could also save her treats.


    She didn¡¯t know what the scraps were or how long they would last, so saving all her treats for the time they disappeared for good seemed the best idea. Unfortunately, that meant going to all her stashes and moving them to hiding spots in the moose monster¡¯s area. She wanted to move them all into her home, but if her home was invaded while she was away she would lose everything.


    Best to keep a few stashes close by but protected in the area. She only moved them when the moose monster disappeared though. Anytime she could find it, she watched it as closely as she could without being caught. It might not eat her outside the rain room, but if it cornered her somewhere she couldn¡¯t get away she doubted it would even notice her as it crashed though whatever else was in the way.


    All of her observations had led to some useful discoveries though. Aside from the magic to push away the dark, it also seemed to be able to move parts of the wall with little waves of its hand. It also seemed interested in the words on the walls. The colors seemed to mean something she had never been able to figure out but the words were pointless. Still, the monster seemed hypnotized by them, staring at them for large periods of time.Stolen novel; please report.


    Interesting as that was, the important bit she had learned from it was that the monster sat down on the floor and stopped moving. Stopped for long periods of time no less. She had worked up the courage to get close to the monster a couple of the times it stopped. Still much farther away than when it had almost caught her in the rain room, but close enough to make out its eyes as it stared at the words. Every time she had managed the feat she could hear quite rumblings coming from the monster, the sound so deep it rattled her breath. Every time she had to slink away, quiet as she could, unable to outlast the monster and needing sleep.


    Maybe that was how it rested? Could she have mistaken the open eyes as it being awake? Maybe, just maybe it would be safe enough to get close when it was sitting, staring at the walls. She wondered what she would be able to learn then, when she might be able to get close enough to touch it. Something to consider next time she caught it in its strange task.


    Until then, she had another stash to move and needed to get some sleep. All the learning and pondering tiring her mind and body, somehow. She turned a corner and paused. There on the floor in another tunnel was one of her treats. Her mind screamed that something was wrong, but she was tired enough she couldn¡¯t figure out what. She also couldn¡¯t leave the treat here, it would just be eaten by a monster.


    Carefully she padded closer, trying to figure out what was going on. She needed to check the corner before she walked fully out into the tunnel her treat was in, but listening as hard as she could she still heard nothing alarming. Creeping close to the corner she tried to look as far around it as possible but saw nothing close enough to her treat to be a problem. Her treat was close enough, she didn¡¯t need to fully enter the tunnel, so she reached out to pick up the treat and blinked in surprise.


    Her body reacted before her mind could figure out how the treat had run away and raced to catch it, only for her to stop as abruptly as she had started. There sat the moose monster, her treat in its hand. Again, her body reacted before her mind as she saw it crush the treat, her hand going out and her foot moving forward.


    What was happening to her, why was her body moving without her?


    She was about to turn and run, wanting to flee before it could stand, but a strange movement with its hand and there was her treat once more, the inedible outside gone.


    Magic.


    She had read of it in the Pages, it was how she knew her trinket had some. She had thought she understood. She knew the moose monster had magic as well since it pushed back the dark and could open walls, but this was well beyond what she had thought she understood.


    Too far beyond.


    To crush her treat to nothing and suddenly be holding it whole with its other hand was a great magic straight from the Pages, something she had never managed to grasp. While her mind grappled with this new information, her body once more moved without her input. She sprang forward to try and grab the treat. The monster was sitting down and they weren¡¯t in the rain room, if she was to stand any chance, now was it, the treats were too important to just leave without trying.


    She failed though, watching in despair as the monster swallowed the treat whole. Unfortunately for her, her body had tried too hard to snatch the treat and crashed headfirst into the monster¡¯s bulk. Slightly disoriented and unable to get her legs under her, she turned so her back was touching the monster, brought her legs into a better position and attempted to spring forward once more, it was time to escape.


    It seemed that her luck had run out however. As all of that was happening, she felt a strange warmth passing through her. Looking down in horror, she watched as the monster¡¯s hand pulled another treat from her belly. It¡­


    It was trying to steal one of the treats she had already eaten!


    The strange feeling pushed her limbs forward once more before her mind had time to fully process what she had just lost. She grabbed the monster¡¯s hand and took the treat for herself, stuffing it into her mouth as quickly as possible before the monster could swallow it whole as well.


    She wouldn¡¯t¡­


    she would¡­¡­


    Her mind went blank and the warm feeling from before returned. Only it returned so much stronger and brought with it pleasant tingles that fell all the way down her back.


    She wanted to panic, to kick and scream and run away.


    Her body refused her. It wanted nothing more than to wallow in the warm tingles.


    Her mind eventually conquered her body though and she managed to spring from the monster¡¯s grasp. She landed on her knees and had to scramble to get back to her feet and run away, though as she rounded the corner and looked back to where the monster was, the look on its face caused more warmth to spread through her body and brought back the recent memories of the tingles.


    Before her body tried to rebel again, she started running as quickly as she could. It was not her fastest or quickest escape, but she had gotten away¡­


    Right?


    As her body ran towards safety, her mind tried to replay what had happened.


    She couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that the monster had gotten exactly what it wanted.


    Whatever it had wanted.


    It was clear she had had magic used on her. If the warmth wasn¡¯t enough to convince her, the rest of the encounter did. She had managed to take back control of her body at the end, so she had gotten stronger, but it was a near thing. She didn¡¯t want to imagine what would have happened had she simply allowed it to continue or failed to break free. With some more practice she may even be able to resist every magic the monster had, though it would be a dangerous thing to try.


    Maybe, just maybe, she could even tame the monster.


    If she could control the monster, she would be safe from everything else and wouldn¡¯t even need to worry about being crushed. Maybe she could even learn how to use its magic herself.


    Warmth spread through her at her next thought, as she considered if training the monster to follow commands would let her feel the tingles anytime she wanted.

 Ch 4 -B

    Heart attacks might not be great for his health but at least it had knocked out the more ¡®supernatural¡¯ theories he had.


    That and the automatic flush gong off in the bathroom.


    Unless these high-tech auto-toilets detected ghosts as well.


    In which case, well¡­


    ¡°They were high class apparitions and deserved a high five for being civilized, uh, beings.¡±


    ¡­ Waiting a few seconds and not seeing any ¡®other-natural¡¯ signs or complaints, he felt it was fairly safe to put those theories to the back and try something a little more future centric and a lot less fantasy.


    He had of course thought of the possibility that he was being avoided, but he couldn¡¯t come up with any reason why people advanced enough to build whatever this place was would need to do so.


    Considering his new close encounter, it seemed he needed to reevaluate that line of thought.


    There was always the possibility of generational degradation of knowledge, but he really really didn¡¯t want to consider that scenario. It would mean he had been in that cryo-pod for a hell of a lot longer than he could even guess. Seeing as how the tech wasn¡¯t so far advanced he didn¡¯t understand it, smart money was on that not being the case.


    It still wasn¡¯t something he wanted to contemplate though.


    That meant the only other possibility at the current point was a knowledge gap cause by a disaster, hence his zombie scouting, as disease or attacks were at the top of the list of possible causes. That or he was some kind of human zoo exhibit and his newest discovery was there to keep things interesting.


    He could handle being an exhibit, it meant he would get more food when the stuff that was here ran out, though beyond that there wasn¡¯t much reason to pursue that line of reasoning, as he would never figure it out if he wasn¡¯t supposed to. Outwitting a game master in something this complex wasn¡¯t exactly a productive use of time. The disaster scenario was not nearly as survivable, so it was better to focus his efforts there for now.


    Not much he could do in either case until he got more information though. Just keep making a map and making sure he was paying more attention for small ¡®visitors¡¯ in the future. That and continue trying to decipher the literal writing on the wall.


    He was making progress there, but events conspired against academic pursuits at the moment. With most of the doors being closed, his progress on the map was also going well and he would be done the initial sweep soon. At that point he would have to start opening things that may be better off closed and he wasn¡¯t looking forward to that.


    Maybe starting with the bedrooms, they only rarely hid the horrific science experiments.


    <hr>


    It seemed that automatic things had their perks in a stalking scenario.


    What he had initially put down to lights flickering seemed to be his new visitor spying on him from afar. Hard to miss now that he knew what to look for.


    She was damn good at hiding though, he would give her that. Since he knew about her presence now it was stupidly simple to plate up some not flapjacks and hide the powder somewhere high up. He just had to sit in one of the adjacent rooms that had a view of the mess hall with the light dimmed way down.


    The auto lights seemed to ignore anyone in a room and he could actually control the light in the smaller individual rooms. He hadn¡¯t figured out how to do so in the larger communal rooms yet, but he knew where the panel was. It was just a much more complicated thing than the smaller rooms. He wasn¡¯t about to start randomly hitting buttons in areas that could end with gas explosions or electric overloads.


    Still, even with that it was a simple enough trap to set and sure enough his little jump scare eventually came padding into the mess hall, quiet as a cat and twice as skittish of every little noise. She seemed to be holding a cat as well, or at least a stuffed version of one. It was adorable to watch her push the stuffed toy into the mess hall to get the lights to come on, though he shuddered to think of what kind of life led to her being that scared of an empty room.


    Ah¡­ he supposed she didn¡¯t know it was empty anymore.


    That little bathroom encounter may very well have ruined two sets of underpants, if either of them had clothes of any kind. It at least let him see that the little adrenaline shot was female, though he was quite far away to be able to get any kind of real detail.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Helped him figure out next steps though, as he watched her search for the powder, not find it and reluctantly head for the not flap jacks. If she was eating the powder as well, it was a good indication it was the only thing to eat around here. Probably best than to not let her have any more, as cooking it let them stretch their rations farther than eating it raw, since it was more filling that way.


    He would have to redo his math as well, though he needed to find out how much she needed to eat before he could tell by how much. Making them all the same size and progressively leaving more until she stopped eating them all would be the best way to do it, though it was likely only two or three as he was only eating roughly double that.


    Cutting the rationing in half would just see him delirious then dead as he was already eating as little as possible, so finding out exactly what she needed would let them stretch this out as long as possible. She seemed to have at least a little forethought as she didn¡¯t seem to have much meat on her own bones, which meant she hadn¡¯t just filled up on the powder before now. Assuming she was here before he woke up to begin with, which may be a mistake, but he wasn¡¯t going to change that assumption for the moment.


    Unfortunately for him, the next step to that was getting the girl to trust him. It made it very difficult to plan survival when half the survivors were stalking about the place like it was a deadly jungle.


    It also made him paranoid. What did she know that he didn¡¯t? The initial sweep hadn¡¯t turned up anything that was immediately attention grabbing, but the girl was more than capable of opening doors, as she was tall enough to reach the panels. If she was stalking around all quiet like, there was a good reason.


    If that reason was him that was fine. Seeing as how he hadn¡¯t run into her before the bathroom incident meant she either knew of him before that and was avoiding him or she was already hiding from something else. He wouldn¡¯t be able to find out which until he got her to sit and talk, so they really needed to have a discussion.


    So that¡¯s what he set about doing.


    A bit of revenge stalking later, as she never stopped trying to stalk him, he managed to ferret out that she had stashes of something hidden around the various open rooms. They looked suspiciously like something he had stumbled across in the higher cabinets in the kitchen, though he had dismissed them at the time. They appeared to be edible though, so he returned to check things out.


    They turned out to be some kind of sorta-chocolate bar thing. Not his favorite but calories were calories. They were good enough to lure the girl as well.


    Better than not flap jacks at the very least.


    A few days of trap jacks and watching where she went afterwards, he was fairly sure he could get ahead of her on her little expeditions. He had to channel all his efforts into being silent to do it, as she bolted at the slightest noise.


    Quietly bolted too, the girl needed a damn bell.


    Still, with a string from a picked apart bead sheet tied to an empty choco-stick wrapper, he set the ¡®prize¡¯ in a spot she would see if she came in his direction, while he sat back far enough to not be in view immediately. If she didn¡¯t come this way, he could try again elsewhere but getting it over with was a ¡®faster the better¡¯ kind of deal.


    He picked correctly though, and she poked her hand out round the corner, so he started pulling in the string. She rushed around the corner to catch the errant snack stick and froze when she saw him sitting there. He managed to get a good view this time, but she seemed about to flee again so his brain fumbled for something and landed on kid¡¯s party tricks.


    Too bad he wasn¡¯t very good at them. Still, crumbled wrapper in one hand and the snack stick he was going to give her anyways in the other, he put on the best show he could to get her to stick around. A ¡®disappeared¡¯ snack stick dropping down his back where his other hand was getting rid of the wrapper got her to stick around as expected.


    He did not expect a headbutt to the chest, but she was so light it probably hurt her more than him. Still, it dropped her in his lap and got her close enough he could ¡®appear¡¯ the elusive snack stick from the hand near her stomach.


    Partly to keep her attention away from where she was and focused on the show. Mostly so he could make sure she didn¡¯t appear to have any obvious medical issues to worry about, the food being his biggest worry in this place so far.


    Though, once again she did the unexpected and grabbed his hand. Probably to snatch the treat, but he had been sure she was afraid of him and wouldn¡¯t want to touch him at all. He filed that info away for later and took the chance while she was occupied with the snack to start massaging her scalp, checking if there was anything wrong there as well.


    Best to use the unexpected situation to gain as much info as possible.


    It seemed to spark an internal debate within his skittish audience though, so he continued with both hands to get her used to his presence.


    That seemed to make whatever decision she was debating harder, but she eventually sprang out of his lap and landed unceremoniously on the floor. Her scrambling to stand let him get a good look at her back, which also seemed fine, and off she went with only a quick glance back at him.


    The smirk he had at the plan¡¯s unexpected bonuses probably didn¡¯t help his chances of convincing her it was in her best interest, but it had gone so well he couldn¡¯t help but be happy at the outcome.


    She seemed healthy enough, so either the food had everything she, and by extension both of them, needed to survive long term, or she hadn¡¯t been here much longer than him.


    The lack of talking was concerning, but regardless, he needed to keep enticing her close so he could keep an eye on things, not least of which was how the rationing was affecting them both.


    At least his new life wasn¡¯t going to be boring for a while, she had managed all that and never once lost control of her stuffed cat.

 Ch 5 -A

    She was in trouble.


    Ever since she had fallen victim to the monster¡¯s magic her body would feel warm whenever she pictured the encounter.


    She had been desperately searching the Pages since then, trying to find out how to dispel or resist the magic that had been cast on her. Her plan to tame the monster would not go well at all if she couldn¡¯t even get close to it without her body threatening to rebel.


    Every sleep the tunnels seemed to grow colder and the memory of the monster¡¯s hand seemed like they were the perfect way to get warm again. It was clear that the monster had done more to her at that time than she knew and it was only slowly becoming clear what.


    It was now a race to see if she could tame the monster before its magic finished whatever else it was going to do to her.


    Which was going to be difficult, as she needed to stay far enough away to not be tempted.


    It seemed that the monster was also trying to find her, though she could see no reason as it only had to wait for its magic to do its work. It gave her an opportunity though, as she could let the monster see her, drop a treat and run away.


    Hopefully the monster would see her as the one who had the treats. It might only eat grass and other plants in the rain room but she knew from its display of magic that it would eat the treats wherever it was. She hoped that it was only the treats that it ate outside of the rain room and not other things as well, or she may be in more trouble than she thought.


    She really needed to watch it when it was in the rain room to see what it actually ate, though that was proving impossible.


    It very rarely entered the rain room.


    The only way she had managed to see the monster in there at all was by taking a few treats and sitting in a tight place close enough to hear when the monster entered the room. It took a few sleeps and an uncomfortable time stuck in the tight place, eating the treats to calm her angry belly, but she managed to catch the monster in the rain room.


    It seemed to use its magic to create white air, rain and then it finished by calling a storm. She assumed it was a storm at least, as it was loud and she could see how the rush of air affected the monster, just like the Pages described a storm. She had been asleep when the monster entered the rain room so she missed what it ate, but seeing more of its magic assured her that it was too strong to be defeated by her alone. Taming it remained the only option.


    She would need to follow it all the time now. Until it was tamed she couldn¡¯t afford to return to her home and waste time, allowing the magic to do its work in the background. It would be tiring but if she got close enough to be woken by the noises the monster made, she should be able to find where it rested. Once she knew that, she could use the time it was mesmerized by the wall markings to tame it and simply rest when it went back to its own ¡­


    home?


    Nest?


    Where did a monster live?


    <hr>


    The monster lived in the wall it seemed.


    She had managed to stay awake long enough to follow the monster to its lair. She had decided that lair was the correct word for a monster home.


    She watched as it used its magic to open the wall, leading into a large cave. Bigger than most of the other caves around, though that made sense as the monster was huge as well. She guessed that it had used its magic to clear the wall away to make the cave and had taken things from the small caves around it.


    The strength needed to do so was impressive, she could pull the blankets off, but the beds were too heavy to lift and it seemed the monster had found a massive bed larger than it was. She couldn¡¯t imagine how heavy it must be.


    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Her tiring journey had also shown that it was the monster who made the disks she had been eating as well. After finding its lair she had followed it to the food place where she had watched from afar as it used even more magic to make the disks. It seemed to make them multiple times a day, but only once would it make too many to eat and leave them to be scavenged by others.


    This made her less certain the monster was a moose as she had suspected, but as she had no idea what it was, she would stick with moose until she could find a real match. She decided that rather than when the moose monster was staring at the walls, as it might not even see her, the best time to tame it would be when it was making the disks.


    So she gathered her courage, took a treat and got close enough to be seen clearly by the monster. When it looked up at her she placed the treat on one of the long surfaces in the food place and quickly backed away to hide near the entrance while keeping it in sight.


    Unexpectedly, the monster didn¡¯t use its magic to grab the treat, it instead finished what it was doing and brought a flat thing with a disk on it to the treat and exchanged them. Leaving the flat thing and disk behind it took the treat she left and walked out of the back, opposite where she was hiding.


    Unsure if this was a success or a misunderstanding, or simply another trap, she very carefully approached the disk. As she didn¡¯t hear any noises and couldn¡¯t see the monster anywhere, she grabbed the disk and quickly left. The disk was strangely warm, almost too warm, but she ate it anyways and thought about how to make the monster understand her.


    She stopped.


    The disks had been ok before, but when they were warm they tasted much better. Was the lingering magic changing the taste?


    Could¡­ Could she resist it if it was magic?


    Perhaps she had been too hasty deciding that it wasn¡¯t a trap. It seemed the moose monster was a tricky kind of monster. Her belly grumbled at her, seeming eager for more of the warm disks. She may have less time than she thought before her body simply rebelled and gave in to the magic. The People in the box seemed to speak some of the words in the Pages, maybe she could speak to the monster.


    She had had to learn the sounds of the words from the box people, perhaps she could make the monster understand in a similar way. It seemed fascinated by the words on the wall, maybe words were a better method than treats, though she would keep trying both.


    Waiting for the monster to fall for the wall words again, she quietly got as close as she dared. Hopefully far enough away to run but close enough to not draw anything else to them with the noise. She didn¡¯t want to get caught up in a fight between monsters.


    With her heartbeat loud in her ears it was hard to tell how quiet things were, but she had to try. She would start simple, no reason for a lot of words it didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°Moose monster.¡±


    She jumped back as the monster¡¯s head quickly swung to look at her. Its eye locked with hers and she felt her heart sink.


    She had made a mistake, already the monster¡¯s magic was starting to warm her face as its eyes became impossible to look away from.


    She wanted to turn and run but her body had rebelled again. Something drew her to the monster and the deep rumbling noises it made in response made the warmth spread further and her ears began to tingle. It lifted its hand and rumbled again, pointing with its finger.


    She needed to stop the magic.


    Maybe it was a magic word? She had read about different kinds of magic and how some words had power. She tried to copy the monsters rumbling as best she could while the rest of her refused to obey. A treat slid to a stop near where she was crouched in the tunnel, unexpected enough to cause her to look down in shock.


    She grabbed it quickly and looked back up, careful to avoid its eyes, though that didn¡¯t help much with what her eyes did land on. The monster¡¯s hand was stretched out, hanging in the air as if inviting her to touch it. It caused her to remember the tingling warmth she had felt the last time and her will nearly failed her.


    It was only the crunch of the treat in her hand that saved her in the end. The noise causing her to jump slightly, breaking the spell and letting her turn and run.


    She was truly lost now.


    Speaking the monsters rumbling aloud seemed to cause a treat to appear. She had clearly messed something up as the monster¡¯s spell was much more powerful, but the chance that she used it correctly the first time was low to begin with.


    Had the monster caused the treat to appear in order to draw her close or had she actually managed to use the monster¡¯s magic?


    Maybe she had dismissed the wall words too soon. She knew the monster was smart and she had felt its power herself. If the words spoken of in the Pages had magic in them she needed to test as many as she could.


    Though the box people had never done magic with their words.


    Maybe, just maybe, the box people were speaking wrong and the monster was trying to learn their words the right way to learn even more magic. It would explain why it stared so long when it was as strong as it seemed.


    She would need to listen to every noise the monster made from now on. If she could learn to copy the way it rumbled, she might be able to break the hold its magic had on her.


    If even that failed¡­.


    She hoped she would get to feel the tingles one last time.

 Ch 5 -B

    This would be both harder and easier than he had thought.


    Easier as the cat-girl- in-training seemed to be attempting to get closer to him on her own. Whether it was simple curiosity or she just really liked his magic tricks was irrelevant to him, as long as she got close enough to interact with. His main concern was keeping everyone alive, so while he wasn¡¯t focused on making friends, interested people made everything easier. If he could get her to come to him on her own if something was going wrong, it would make his job so much easier in the long run.


    Unfortunately, miss cat girl seemed to be the very skittish type and any attempts to get close to her failed miserably, sometimes even making her drop some of what she was carrying. She very much reminded him of an abused animal that wanted a friend but couldn¡¯t trust anybody. It would be a long time of coaxing and ¡®retraining¡¯, seeing as how therapy wasn¡¯t really an option, before she would trust him to that extent.


    Fine in a rescue home, not so fine in a seemingly dire survival scenario.


    Assuming that was the problem at least. It could be an insane number of other things, but he wouldn¡¯t be able to figure out exactly what until she talked to him about it. If she even could. Her lack of sound wasn¡¯t just a comment on her sneaking ability, she literally made no sound at all outside what physics demanded. No squeaks when surprised, no grunts or groans he had been able to hear.


    Nothing.


    Even her breathing was quiet. It painted a grim picture on the communication front. At least there didn¡¯t seem to be any immediate problems to address. His ¡®examination¡¯, if it could even be called that, when she stayed for his magic show revealed a fairly healthy, if underfed, young¡­.


    woman?


    Age guessing not being his strong suit, he was really thrown off here. She could not even be a human as he knew it and he wouldn¡¯t be any the wiser. Visually she seemed to be a woman in her early to mid-20¡¯s, physically fully grown without any of the childish features he would expect in a pre-teen or the gangly ones he expected in teens and nothing indicating middle age or later.


    Her height put that to a major test though. If, and it was a big if, he was still six foot, she would likely be in the very low four foot range. If she had had any signs of dwarfism he wouldn¡¯t have batted an eye and her age would be more obvious.


    But she didn¡¯t.


    She looked as if someone had taken a normal woman and shrunk her down or grabbed a child sized body and made an adult woman out of it. Hence his difficulty not only with age but even species. He wasn¡¯t entirely convinced humans could even be that size without some kind of physical indicator.


    If aliens were on the table, everything he knew went out the window as well. His lack of training in xenobiology put a quick stop to following those ideas though, seeing as how the subject hadn¡¯t even really existed when he got frozen.


    If treating her like a human failed, he literally had no idea what to try next. He had EMT training from the cryo program, but it mainly consisted of how to use a bandage correctly and what drugs to use from a trauma kit. Basic stuff to keep him from dying until someone with more training could take over.


    In fact, other than what he knew of computers and engineering from his degree, all of his training in the cryo program had been like that, basic knowledge with the assumption that there would be someone else with more knowledge coming to help soonish.


    He would be really pissed if he had to work out all of human knowledge from first principles again. That would not be a fun time. Putting his ambitions of immortality aside, he returned to the problem at hand.


    The kitty-cat and her muteness. With her reluctance to get near him and running at the slightest sound, he may have to resort to pictures and charades.


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    This¡­. This was going to be one long slog of a project; he could feel it in his bones. He just hoped they didn¡¯t run out of food before she even figured out how to say hi.


    <hr>


    His best chance to get her to trust him was doing nothing. He wasn¡¯t just saying that because he was lazy either.


    He couldn¡¯t get close without scaring her or her hiding, which defeated the purpose of getting close, and she couldn¡¯t understand him to begin with so no talking from a distance. Especially if she was quiet for a good reason.


    Being openly ¡®around¡¯ and not paying any attention to her seemed the fastest method to gain her trust. He had always thought that attracting female attention by ignoring them was moronic, who knew he would be trying it himself.


    Couldn¡¯t argue with results though. Not long after plan ¡®ignore the possible alien¡¯ went into effect, said possible alien came reluctantly padding into the mess hall while he was cooking some disappointment jacks. She even came a lot closer than she had ever gotten voluntarily before, which was a bonus.


    Feigning disinterest and only watching her out of the corner of his eye was incredibly difficult when she started fiddling with something in her hand. Pretty much impossible when she slid a choco-stick across a table near the kitchen. Both her and the stick were well outside arms reach, so she either wanted another magic show, which he hoped not as he had run out of tricks, or something else was going on.


    A trade maybe?


    Trying his luck, he plated up the trade jacks and walked slowly out of the kitchen to the other side of the table the girl had been at. She eyed him from her spot and stayed well out of reach, but she seemed to be waiting for something, so he put the plate down on the table, grabbed the stick and slowly walked out the back of the kitchen.


    He waited around the corner to listen to what was happening but heard little more than her nails scraping the plate. He waited some more, but with nothing other than silence coming to him, he peeked around the corner again. There was a distinct lack of both kitty cats and food.


    She left the plate though.


    Well, nations cemented relationships through trade right? Guess he was starting there. She may be more willing to trade things she doesn¡¯t understand for food, which would both make sure she had enough to eat and let her bring him more information he may not be able to find on his own. A win-win as more information may let them find a way out of this place and she was actively working towards her own survival rather than being dead weight.


    Welp, time to scrap the original plan, plan ¡®trade time¡¯ was officially a go. How he was going to get her to trade with him remained a mystery, but the best plans had wiggle room. He would feel better if the entire plan wasn¡¯t made out of wiggle room, but needs must and all that. For now, he would just have to carry around a choco-stick and he just so happened to have one right here.


    <hr>


    Keeping said trade item for multiple days was completely unreasonable of course. Turns out food doesn¡¯t like being exposed to open air. Who could have guessed. Since they were not designed for long-term handling, he had to resort to getting a new wrapped one every morning. Or at least a new one to him, he didn¡¯t just throw them away if they weren¡¯t opened.


    It took the girl only two days to approach him again though. He still had to leave some food out so she could eat as she hadn¡¯t yet come back to the kitchen, but she seemed more inclined to come close when he was trying to decipher the walls.


    If he tried, he could probably come up with reasons as to why that was, but the fact she did was all that mattered at the moment. When she approached him, he kept still and mostly ignored her, keeping his eyes on the wall and watching from the corner of his eye again. It had worked last time, no reason to fix what ain¡¯t broke.


    He also failed miserably again when she squeaked at him. It was clearly speech of some kind, as the squeaks had structure to them rather than just some random noises, but he didn¡¯t understand a word of it.


    Still, it drew his attention real fast. If she had it in her to squeak at him, she had the ability to learn to talk in a way he could understand. Considering the circumstances, going the other way wasn¡¯t going to happen and it certainly wasn¡¯t happening any time before they starved to death.


    He slowly lifted his arm and pointed at her stuffed toy, trying not to scare her off again, and tried for something small she could easily copy.


    ¡°Kitty.¡±


    He nearly ruined all his previous work when she managed a rough approximation of the word.


    It would have been unrecognizable without the context, but it was a great start and it took all his willpower to stay seated. He slid the choco-stick over to the girl as a reward in an attempt to get her interested in saying more words. When she looked down to grab the stick he stretched out his hand, rather than pointing at her, he figured that an open hand she could investigate on her own was a better option.


    He was about to try another word when the wrapper on the choco-stick crinkled and she startled. He sighed as she took off down the hall away from him. Lowering his hand, he had to console himself with the fact that it was early days yet. She needed time to not get frightened by everything.


    On the bright side, she was at least capable of speech, even if she seemed allergic to noise.


    ¡°Note to self. Unwrap the treat before you give it to her.¡±

 Ch 6 -A

    Maybe the people in the box talked the way they did because it was easier.


    After she had fled from the moose monster¡¯s attempt to magic her in the tunnels, she had thrown herself into learning its rumblings. It was very difficult to match it. She was beginning to see why she had no magic and why the people of the box never did any either.


    The rumblings of the monster were too deep to copy.


    She thought she had the right ¡­. Shape? ¡­. for the monster¡¯s words but she couldn¡¯t match the sound.


    It didn¡¯t help that she couldn¡¯t ask the monster for its secrets. Even the pages would not help her here as all the Pages were silent. It seemed the monster was scheming something though. Ever since she had nearly failed to run, the monster would sit in the food place. The disks would be on a surface far enough away that she could reach them without the monster being able to reach her, but it was clearly a trap.


    One she avoided at first, but after realizing that her treats would not be enough without the disks, she had to risk it.


    It was even more obviously a trap when the monster started rumbling when she entered the food place. She nearly ran right then, but she waited as it only made her ears tingle. Clearly not a powerful spell like before, it would be the perfect place to start learning directly.


    She crouched and watched the monster as it continued to rumble and not move from where it was. Unfortunately, her belly complained not long after and she had to make a difficult decision. Did she attempt to get the disks or did she just leave and go back to the treats she had hidden away.


    Ultimately, she decided that her time was running out, the potent magic from before still causing her issues. If this _was_ some kind of trap, she would just have to be faster than the monster. It seemed to be interested in words, so if she found herself in trouble she could offer some in an attempt to get away.


    Moving carefully towards the disks, she grabbed them and ate them quickly.


    That was when the monster sprung its trap, and it was a dangerous one. So dangerous in fact she wasn¡¯t sure how she would deal with it.


    The monster had used its magic to trap water, and it slid the trapped water slightly out of its reach with an accompanying rumble. She had always before drank the water from where it flowed and never been able to carry it with her. While the disks were much better than the powder, they still left her mouth dry and she craved water afterwards.


    With the monster sitting between her and the waterspout, she had no way to get that water. She could make her way to the rain room, but that was a long journey and may be even more dangerous, as she would be directly in the monster¡¯s feeding area while it was aware of her. If it followed her, she would have no way to avoid it and would be in need of water the whole time.


    She had no idea what accepting the magicked water would do to her though. She looked around the food place, seeing if there was a way around the monster, but it had put itself in the perfect spot to stop her from getting behind it without getting closer than the trapped water was.


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    The monster was proving itself more and more cunning.


    If she wasn¡¯t careful she feared that she would find herself tamed by the monsters magic long before she could tame the monster. She hardened her resolve and carefully stepped forward to snatch the trapped water. Slowly bringing it to her lips she drank a small bit and waited. The monster rumbled at her and she began to feel the warmth spreading again. She quickly made sure not to look at the monster, only watching for movement as she drank what she could of the trapped water.


    Once she had as much as she could take, she carefully placed the rest of the trapped water down and fled the food place. As she got far enough away from the monster to feel safe, she felt a slow but painful realization take root in her mind.


    The moose monster was far too cunning to tame before she fell to its magic. Something it seemed to realize before her, as the trap had clearly shown.


    Not a trap at all, but a show that it wasn¡¯t worried about what she did.


    If the moose monster was truly unstoppable, how could she even hope to win?


    <hr>


    She understood now.


    She couldn¡¯t win.


    The only thing left to her was choosing how to lose. She was not cunning enough to out trick the moose monster in the short term and she didn¡¯t know enough about it to tame it before its magic finished doing whatever it was doing.


    Still, if she was going to lose then she was going to choose how. The only way she saw to lose and not completely fall to the moose monster was choosing which things she lost in while she slowly tamed it in other things. It wouldn¡¯t be ideal and she would have to give up on some of her plans, but it was better than the alternative.


    Whatever that happened to be.


    She didn¡¯t need to win everything in the end. So long as the moose monster was scaring away all the other monsters, she could just stay near it rather than being in complete control. She would miss her home, but she didn¡¯t see any other way forward. So long as it didn¡¯t eat her and kept the other monsters away she would be ok and could slowly learn its rumblings. Maybe one day she would learn how to break free of the magic bothering her.


    Until then she would let the monster¡¯s magic do what it would to her and only fight it when she tried to teach the monster how to do what she wanted. If the monster relied on its magic, it might not notice when she tried to teach it how to listen to her without any magic at all. A quiet approach as she fell to the magic was the only way forward. Learning as much as she could and small tricks that wouldn¡¯t be noticed every now and then may let her get what she needed even while the monster thought it was winning.


    Having come to that conclusion and trying to plan a way forward she realized a flaw in her long-term plan. How did she fall to the magic and still maintain enough control over her body to learn and do what she needed to?


    It was one thing to plan for it, but when the magic had her in its grasp her body simply refused to listen. Could she still use her senses if her body rebelled and did as the monster pleased?


    A dark thought came to mind.


    Perhaps she should just wait in the rain room and let the magic take her. At least then she would know what was going to happen to her at the end.


    She shook her head.


    The magic had taken root far deeper than she had guessed. For that to be her first plan did not bode well for the future. She struggled desperately for a moment, determined to find a better thought to base her plan off of, but all she could think of was not becoming food.


    Maybe that was the answer, her mind rebelling against the magic?


    The moose monster was safest when it was sitting and going to it outside of the food place should mean it wasn¡¯t thinking about food. The more she thought, the more this seemed like the best idea. If the monster was focused on the wall, she could get close and let the magic take her with the least danger. It would be focused on learning words and not eating, so she would not be seen as food. It would also be sitting so it wouldn¡¯t squish her on accident. She may even be able to grasp its rumblings while her body was immersed in the magic.


    The only part left that she hadn¡¯t figured out was how to escape when the monster was done its task.

 Ch 6 -B

    If he could kick himself he would have.


    Of course trade required communication. You had to communicate interest and value if you wanted to trade. That means using trade as a means to communicate required that you have a way to communicate in the first place.


    Something he currently lacked and was using trade to establish.


    Curse him and his half circular thinking. That¡¯s what he gets for being too lazy to come up with the second half of the plan. Too bad it took a full day of being avoided and a very nervous cat enthusiast to point out the flaws in his brilliant plan. Big waste of time all around.


    On the bright side he managed to get the girl to approach him while he was talking. It had just been soft rambling to get her used to the sound, but she had come and eaten and then got a drink.


    It was a good thing he had been sat there a while. He forgot to leave a drink out for her near the food, so he had to slid the one he had gotten for himself over so she didn¡¯t have to get in arms reach. He didn¡¯t expect her to get even that close, but she surprised him again.


    He was beginning to suspect that the analogy was less ¡®abused animal¡¯ and closer to ¡®feral child¡¯.


    It would be much better on his end, as teaching her how to talk in the first place would be easier than having to deal with a past that had been locked away due to trauma. Wouldn¡¯t be much quicker to the finish line, but the situation would improve a lot faster in the beginning. Seeing as how the beginning was the important part in survival, he was fine with the tradeoff.


    All that time sitting in the mess hall waiting for a visit did give him time to get a very crude translation going though. Turns out you could get up and running pretty fast if the signs you were trying to translate where literally pointing at the thing they were a sign of. Some quick and dirty letter swaps got him some understandable, if untrustworthy, single word translations for the wall signs.


    Great for orienting himself and getting an idea of where he was, not so great if he encountered full text of any kind.


    He would probably have to start over from scratch if he found some, letter swaps probably not the greatest way to understand a language. Other than the bathroom being called the ¡®comfort room¡¯ though, everything seemed to line up with his own sensibilities.


    Or they would have if he was fancy, he wasn¡¯t about to go around calling them ¡®dining quarters¡¯ or ¡®living arrangements¡¯.


    There seemed to be another line though, one he hadn¡¯t managed to find a label for. He could just be paranoid, but there was a space the exact distance needed to have another line between two of the colors. It was near the bottom, so he could be off his rocker, but the space bothered him something fierce.


    Other than it driving his OCD mad, he hadn¡¯t managed to find the purpose of that space though. It wasn¡¯t present everywhere and the places where it was present didn¡¯t have any hints. He would have simply dismissed it as shoddy craftsmanship even then, but for two bits that made it stand out.


    First, his brain was rotting due to lack of stimulation. Unless he managed to find more words, or even better, a way out, he had nothing to really occupy his mind. Mindlessly ransacking empty bunks all day everyday was soul crushing and the random finds in the ¡®occupied¡¯ bunks didn¡¯t have enough clues for him to put his archaeologist hat on.


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    Not that he had one.


    The not-line gave him a mystery that he might be able to solve by simply exploring. He had avoided opening anything that didn¡¯t look like living space up to this point, but that would need to come to an end soon if he wanted any chance to keep them both alive.


    He couldn¡¯t wait for the food to run out before he started opening potentially dangerous areas. If fighting for their lives was going to be a literal thing, they would need the calories. It might just be stalling, but as he had yet to find a food storage area, he could hope that the not-line was a miracle fix to all his problems.


    The second reason?


    Well, the not-line was only in the area where his cryo pod was. The cryo pod that had looked like it was in the middle of an empty room without doors.


    Maybe it was the brain rot talking, but something didn¡¯t sniff right about that, and he was pretty sure it wasn¡¯t the kitty-cat in desperate need of a bath.


    <hr>


    It seemed the not-line would have to wait.


    It turned out that the stuffed cat and its owner did not appreciate forgetting the drinks with their meal. Considering that he didn¡¯t think it was a great way to go about gaining trust, he had stopped planning to trade the girl for her meals. So when she stopped showing up in the mess hall with him present he wasn¡¯t all that worried about it.


    He probably should have been though.


    She had decided to, uh, glare? her displeasure at the thoughtlessness the next time he was staring at the not-line, willing it to reveal its secrets.


    She had come close. Much closer than any time in the past. Any time that wasn¡¯t a trick at least. She was in arms reach for himself and she could probably reach him if she leaned a bit from her crouch.


    Suffice to say she was in nasal range and she decided he needed a good staring. He ignored her at first, hoping for a repeat of her previous visit in the tunnel, but as she kept silent he had to reconsider.


    If she squeaked at him, he might be able to learn some words, but she seemed disinclined to talk his ear off. If he kept ignoring her, he wouldn¡¯t be able to get her talking at all, but if he did the wrong thing she might run away again.


    Why was getting used to his presence and useful interaction such a difficult line to walk?


    Ultimately it was his nose that decided. She needed to be ¡®civilized¡¯ at least to the point where she took care of her hygiene. He didn¡¯t care if she showered every day, but at this point he was worried it might turn into a bio-hazard.


    Nothing worse than dying to an infected paper cut because you didn¡¯t wash your hands.


    He turned his eyes to look at her without moving much at all and ¡®rumbled¡¯ a bit in his chest, again getting her used to the noise. It did seem to catch her attention though, as she tried to ¡®rumble¡¯ back.


    Well, it was sorta communication, right?


    It seemed that she wasn¡¯t averse to noise so much as she was averse to sharp noises. He kept his voice deep and low and kept repeating ¡®kitty¡¯ over and over again. If she could at least recognize a word, he could get her attention. If said word was the name of her stuffed toy, it might make her more interested in learning more.


    He kept it up long enough for the girl to be able to vocalize a sound with a close semblance of kitty. It would take a while to get her vocal cords used to speech it seemed. She was clearly not used to the act. Once he stopped, she kept going a couple more times before she fell silent as well. He figured he may as well push his luck and hid a choco-stick in his hand before slowly reaching out to her.


    She eyed his hand pretty closely, seeming to debate whether she should run or not. His plan was to touch her knee, it being the closest body part to him, and give the choco-stick as a reward. If he could get her used to his hands, he could lead her to the showers and at least get her to wash her hands. Sadly, it wasn¡¯t to be as she seemed to lose her nerve before he touched her. It was close enough that his hand brushed her thigh as she turned and sprang away, running off down the hall.


    Hmm, this was tricky. He was sure he could simply overpower her and manhandle her into the showers if needed, but he wanted her to enjoy the showers so she would go herself and he didn¡¯t need to do that every time she got a bit ripe. Scaring the crap out of her and traumatizing her towards water kind of went against that purpose.


    While he could file that way as a last resort, finding a better plan to try first seemed like the best option.


    Maybe if he got his hands on that cat toy.


    ¡°I wonder if its waterproof.¡±

 Ch 7 -A

    Her leg still burned.


    The Pages had called burning an ¡®affliction¡¯. She hadn¡¯t understood how something could be too hot to touch. If you couldn¡¯t touch it, it couldn¡¯t be hot, since hot was how it felt, right?


    She understood it now. The place the moose monster had brushed with its hand felt as if the rest of her body was cold. She was afraid to touch the spot, afraid that it would burn her. She didn¡¯t know what kind of powerful magics the moose monster had been attempting, but she was glad she had run.


    At the time she had felt weak. Felt as though her courage had crumbled away at facing the monster head on. It had taken her time to gather that courage, time to push herself to face the monster as it sat, watching the words.


    She had even succeeded in getting close.


    It was likely helped along by the part of her that wished to feel the tingles again, but she had done it all the same. She even thought she had done well in learning the monster¡¯s words. It had spoken the same word many times, almost as if it was teaching her. She knew better now. Whatever it had been doing, the magic had built stronger than anything she had yet to experience, save the tingles.


    Her ears had felt it, her neck had felt it after she tried repeating the words to the monster, the magic leaving her sore. As it had reached out with its hand, she had watched it closely. Her body wanted to feel the tingles again, wanted the monster to reach her.


    In the end it was her mind that panicked.


    She had managed to force her body to obey and turned to run. Too late she realized, as its hand brushing her leg left a burning trail of magic. She shuddered to think what might have happened had she stayed. Resisting a magic that powerful was beyond anything she could hope to achieve right now.


    Maybe she hadn¡¯t lost her courage after all. Maybe it had been her mind warning her of the coming danger. It felt better if she thought that. Thought that and ignored her leg and all it implied.


    She wasn¡¯t sure if this had been a good thing for her plan or not though. She had learned a word. She had also managed to get close to the monster. It wasn¡¯t bad for a first attempt, but it was marred by the increased magic she now had to deal with.


    Did it shorten her time?


    Would she not be fast enough to escape next time or would she simply fail to notice any danger at all?


    Did it matter in the end?


    She knew she needed to go back and face the monster again. She had hoped that a sleep would set things back to where they had been, but it took four sleeps before the burning faded and she felt she could face the monster again.


    Something she very much didn¡¯t want to do when she found it sat watching the words near the rain room.


    She could see no way in which this was not a trap. She didn¡¯t see how though. The moose monster was unstoppable and could easily move her where it wanted, but it never had. For all its strength, it seemed more inclined to face her with its mind and magic rather than its body.


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    She could maybe understand a little. Why waste strength when she fell so easily to its cunning instead, but the choice still baffled her in how patient the monster was. If she was as strong as the monster, she would not wait so long to get what she wanted.


    Trap or not, her body still pushed her on. Her mind, not wanting to feel like it had failed again, let her body guide her movement for now as it tried to find the trap. She concluded that it must be a magic trap as the monster began its rumbling once more as she got close. Instead of one word this time, the rumbling went on for some time as many words were spoken. The monster looked at her and moved its hands in a gesture. She felt herself compelled to crouch near the monster.


    By the time her mind had worked through the bewilderment of doing as the monster seemed to want, it was already too late. As she had feared, she didn¡¯t even see the trap spring closed this time.


    She wasn¡¯t sure that she cared right now though, the monster¡¯s fingers sending intense tingles through her head and down her back. She barely noticed as something familiar appeared in her hand, but the sensation was enough for her body to reach up to grab the treat.


    As the first bite of the treat began to clear the fog from her mind, she realized how badly she had been caught. The monster was already standing and had moved a step away. The panic helped to clear her mind completely and she spun to get ready to run while watching the monster¡¯s movements.


    Everything came crashing to a halt though when she realized what was in the monster¡¯s hand. She quickly looked down to make sure, but it seemed the trinket that the monster held was real. The shivers raced through her body.


    She had never even noticed it leave her hands.


    Her trinket had always been something she guarded closely and only ever let go of when she was in her home or using it to push away the darkness in a large room. For the monster to take it without any notice from her was terrifying.


    Worse yet, it seemed the monster was taunting her with it. A step out of her reach, it seemed the monster wanted her to follow it. She looked around frantically, but the darkness had already crept back in while she had been under the spell.


    With nowhere to escape without her trinket and thoroughly incapable of taking it back from the monster, she was completely out of options. The monster¡¯s trap had been complete. It had left her no options and it didn¡¯t even have to wait for its magic to finish.


    Utterly defeated, she reluctantly followed the monster, trying to guess where it was leading her. She truly wished for anything else, but everything was looking like it was leading her to the rain room.


    Her mind raced, trying to figure out if it was better to be eaten by this monster or to be eaten by the darkness and whatever else it hid. The only thing that she could come up with was that she knew what this monster liked. She knew nothing about the darkness or the other monsters it hid.


    She would need to be very careful of how she went about it, but it was possible that she could surprise the moose monster with a word. If she did it right, she might be able to get the monster to drop her trinket and grab it before she could be stopped. Despite everything, she was still confident that she could outrun the monster.


    She nearly panicked and ruined all her planning when the monster made it rain. She knew the rain place could make water, but she had only seen the full downpour of the monster¡¯s magic from afar. Being in the downpour itself was¡­


    an experience.


    One she would have preferred to have without the monster looming over her, causing her to worry about everything.


    Unfortunately, she realized it was her end when the rain started to blur her eyes.


    She stopped caring about the slight sting in her eyes when the warmth embraced her entire body all at once, the magic finishing its work.


    She knew why the moose monster wanted to live in the rain room now, what she learned from the Pages clearer than ever.


    When the tingles began once more, she forgot all about escaping and stopped knowing anything at all.

 Ch 7 -B

    It was a massive waste of precious water, that¡¯s what it was.


    Of course, when he had to wash his hands every time he touched the poor girl for fear of contracting something, there could be an argument made that it evened out in the long run. Those arguments fell well short when questioned why he had let the water just run rather than turn it off when not needed, but you could still make them.


    Which he did, several times as he regretted letting the shower wash over them for that long.


    Miss Kitty seemed like she needed it though. Once the water was going, he had expected her to fight and scratch and make a fuss. She had utterly surprised him once more when she seemed to go catatonic.


    He really should be used to getting surprised by her at this point, since it seemed to happen every time they interacted but somehow, he never got it through his skull that he was bad at predicting her.


    Still, the semi-mute girl had taken the wildly unexpected path of leaving home while the lights were on.


    He really hoped she hadn¡¯t passed out from fear, that would make things so much more difficult in the future.


    She was still on her feet, so it didn¡¯t seem like she had passed out, she just went all limp and stopped responding. Not great for his current plans.


    He had sat outside the showers working on his translations and map, waiting for the girl to come poke at him again. She might be scared of her own shadow, but she seemed to have enough curiosity to kill a dozen cats. Proven when she had indeed turned up again and in the interest of getting her bathed, he had offered his hand and indicated the ground near him.


    She had seemed quite fond of scritches, so he figured if he offered and distracted her with them, she would let her guard down. When she was good and invested, he stuck one of the wrapped treats in the hand holding her cat toy, pulling it a little to get her to loosen her grip. Once that was done, he slipped the toy out from where she had been clutching it against her chest.


    She started to eat the snack and look down, so he gently stood with her toy and started backing towards the bathroom, making sure she could see he had it. Didn¡¯t want her to think she had lost it in the halls or something as that could ruin the whole plan.


    She did seem quite agitated at first, though he wasn¡¯t sure if it was because she didn¡¯t notice him holding the toy or because she felt vulnerable without it. Once she calmed down a bit and started following him, he got her maneuvered into the shower space.


    It was fortunate there were no stalls for the showers, given the size of everything else they may not have both fit. He contemplated giving the toy back at that point but the chance she would bolt the moment he did was too high to risk it.


    Besides, the toy needed a bath as well.


    Which he had intended to give it as a demonstration of how to wash. When the shower started though, all those plans went off the rails. As soon as the water hit her, she froze like a deer in headlights.


    Not a great start, but so long as she wasn¡¯t running off he could work with it.


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    The real problem started when he got some soap on his hand and started to wash her hair.


    ¡®What a great place to start¡¯ he had thought at the time, only to panic a moment later when she went all limp. He was afraid she was going to hit the floor with how quickly it happened.


    Now here he was stuck with an unresponsive cat-girl, attempting to find a solution on how to clean everyone involved without making things awkward after the fact.


    ¡®Damn cats and their aversion to baths¡¯


    He sighed and got to work.


    He couldn¡¯t leave the water running long enough to get her to come back to her senses. If he turned it off she may bolt and he wouldn¡¯t see her again.


    So option three it was.


    It had clearly been a long time since she had a proper wash as well, taking nearly three shampooing¡¯s to clean her hair alone. He also had to get far more intimate with the girl than he ever intended too as well. Good for a health check, not so great for his sanity. She spasmed a couple times during his uh, less publicly safe, bits of cleaning, but when he stopped to check each time, it seemed involuntary rather than a conscious reaction, seeing as how she was still very much blanked out.


    When he finished with the girl, he had her lean against him as he cleaned the stuffed cat. She might have been fine just standing there, but he wasn¡¯t going to take the chance she fell over in the shower.


    Despite having his hands in places he probably shouldn¡¯t have, he still didn¡¯t know if she was fully human, so he intended to avoid first aid as long as possible. She very much seemed human on the outside, so the possibility was shrinking, but he didn¡¯t want to take chances he didn¡¯t have to.


    Once he finished the process of thoroughly scrubbing all three bodies, and ringing the extra water out of the toy, he got to the part he was afraid of.


    Well, afraid of at the start, the whole thing wasn¡¯t really working out at this point.


    He figured that the ¡®wind drier¡¯ thing that the showers used instead of good ol¡¯ towels was going to scare the crap of the poor girl. They were loud, though he guessed it was mostly just the ambient quite that made them seem that way as the only real noise was the air moving, so he expected her to not like them one bit. Considering there wasn¡¯t really an alternative meant it didn¡¯t matter though; she had to endure it.


    To reduce the shock as much as possible, he turned her sideways and faced her head away from the wind before he turned off the shower. She was still out of it when the water stopped but she tensed up real fast when the wind started.


    To keep her calm, and because it helped her dry faster, he started massaging her scalp, which seemed to send her right back to wherever she had been this whole time. Not particularly helpful seeing as how she wasn¡¯t turned to take advantage of the drying. Once her hair was dry, he ran his hands up and down her core, doing his best to get rid of most of the water. It was fine if she was a bit damp, the only thing that mattered was making sure she wasn¡¯t dripping all over the place anymore.


    ¡®This is why you always bring your towel damn it.¡¯


    The thought made him contemplate where his stuff was at the moment. He had packed a towel in his go-bag, though where that or his stuff in deep storage was he had no clue. He had checked the cryo room a couple of times but didn¡¯t find anything helpful.


    ¡®So much for everything will be there when you¡¯re woken¡¯


    Despite his distracting thought taking up time and the drier being finished the girls back was still pressed up against him. Peeking at her eyes showed the same glassy stare as before.


    It seemed it had been a hard day of being man-handled for the poor girl. Seeing no other options, he scooped the girl up in a princess carry and brought her back to the boss bunk. He set the stuffed cat near the door so the air flow could continue drying it, he didn¡¯t want it to get moldy after he spent so much energy cleaning the thing.


    He set the girl down in the bed. It was big enough that she could have her own section without him bothering her. He made sure she had a clear path to the door as well, he didn¡¯t want her to panic and be trapped between him and the door.


    Setting the lights to dim, enough for him to read but dark enough someone could still sleep if they tried, he took up the section of the bed close to the wall and started on his paperwork again after getting comfortable.


    ¡®I hope I don¡¯t fall asleep before she wakes up, this is the perfect time to get her learning more words.¡¯

 Ch 8 - A

    She felt¡­.


    empty.


    She knew it was the end when the monster lured her to the rain room and yet here she was. She didn¡¯t know what kind of powerful magic the Moose monster had used, but all she could remember was the panic beginning to set in as the downpour started to sting her eyes and then waking here on the soft ground.


    Everything else was a haze of heat.


    She was too afraid of alerting something in the darkness if she moved, so she had laid there quietly trying to guess what had happened between then and now.


    Did the Moose monster eat her soul, was that why she felt empty?


    The Pages mentioned it a few times as important but never told her why or how to find it. If she was still alive was it really that important? Maybe she could get a new one if it was. She guessed that feeling empty was supposed to be a bad thing and that was why it was important, but it didn¡¯t bother her at the moment. Too many thoughts in her head to worry about feeling empty.


    She needed to find her trinket as well. She hoped the monster hadn¡¯t eaten her trinket instead and was saving her for later.


    Maybe the monster ate magic?


    It would explain everything. If the moose monster ate magic, like her trinket, then it would need some way to make more magic to eat. Maybe the magic it used on her was meant to grow within her so it could be eaten, rather than eating her body like she had assumed.


    Her heart started to beat a little faster, if she could get the moose monster to keep her close and protected and all she had to do was grow its magic food like she had been, it would be perfect!


    She may feel empty now, but if that empty feeling is where the magic was before it got eaten then it would simply fill up again before the monster ate it. Not very pleasant going from what she felt before to being completely empty, but a small price to pay for protection.


    And maybe even some magic of her own.


    The more she thought about it, the more ideal it felt to go along with the monster¡¯s ¡®plan¡¯. It might be residual magic changing her thoughts and turn out to be a terrible idea, but she really had nothing else to try. The moose monster offered far too much protection to avoid it completely and the darkness had yet to change at all, preventing her from doing anything without magic of her own. The moose monster was still very dangerous, but she was learning quickly how to avoid that danger¡­.


    Maybe avoid was wrong.


    Survive the danger?


    That felt better, seeing as how she had fallen into pretty much every trap the monster had set so far. She felt her face heat a little, thinking about all the times she felt she had the upper hand and lost miserably.


    At least she had survived, that was what was important. So long as she survived, she could learn and outsmart the monster eventually. At the moment though, all she could do was contemplate her latest defeat.


    She could tell the monster was close, very close. If she turned around she was sure it would be right there, able to reach out and grab her if it wanted. Trapped as she was beneath a blanket, she expected that any attempt to flee would fail quickly. She had been listening for any signs that she would have a chance, but the monster was surprisingly quiet for being so close. All she could hear was its breath.


    As slow as she could, she turned her head to try and see what was going on. This seemed to be the monster¡¯s lair, as she saw the monster asleep for the first time. It was strange to see the monster¡¯s lair open while it was inside, it always magicked the wall back after it had passed.


    Did it forget? What had changed?


    Her eyes widened when she realized what was different. She was here, empty, after being in the rain room. She was the change. Had the monster eaten too much magic from her and fallen asleep? She had eaten too much once, it caused her to grow very sluggish and feel terrible. If the monster had made a mistake and eaten too much at once, she would have a chance to run before it could catch her.


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    She needed to be very careful though, it didn¡¯t take much for it reach out with one hand and hold her in place. She started to wiggle her body into a better position to leave the blanket and reach the opening in the room. All her efforts came to nothing though when she felt the monster¡¯s hand brush her arm. There was panic at first, as she thought her plan was discovered. That panic faded quickly with a glance at the monster, but it was replaced with something far worse.


    Its hand had caused a tingle to race down her back. A tingle that pushed back the emptiness she now felt. While the panic had masked it at first, that tingle had shifted her goal. Running was no longer the only thing she could think about. Slowly, careful not to move it very much, she reached out and touched the monster¡¯s hand.


    It wasn¡¯t enough.


    She needed to do more than poke it with her fingers. She moved the blanket as off of herself as possible without a lot of movement, she wanted to be able to flee if the monster woke and the blanket was in the way. With that done she wiggled closer to the hand. The closer she got, the more heat she felt on her face, even though it wasn¡¯t as near the hand as other parts of her. She would have pondered about it more, but as she pressed the hand against her chest it became the least of her thoughts.


    As soon as the touch became firm, the heat spread and the emptiness faded to almost nothing. The tingles returned, radiating out from the touch itself, rather than falling down her back. Her mind flashed back to the hazy heat that had found her here in the first place and her body curled around the contact, reluctant to listen once again.


    It seemed that touching the monster caused its magic to return. Magic she was now desperate to welcome. She hadn¡¯t realized it before, how very cold she had been. The emptiness had tricked her. It had felt like nothing, a minor inconvenience to ignore and go about her life. Now that the magic was flooding back and the emptiness fading, she realized how cold and truly empty she had been.


    Maybe it was a bigger price than she had realized.


    Now she was stuck. Had she fallen for _another_ trap? If the emptiness stayed until the moose monster filled it with magic she would have to stay close and do whatever it wanted of her. Including feeding it the magic she now so desperately wanted to keep inside herself. Which would make her empty once more and require that she stay within arm¡¯s reach of the moose monster to get refilled.


    She shuddered at the thoroughness of the trap. The magic never had to change anything, it just had to fill her up. She would do the rest on her own. Willingly do what the monster wanted just to push away the emptiness. All the times her body had rebelled wasn¡¯t the magic, it was her recoiling away from the emptiness. Exactly what was happening right now, why she couldn¡¯t let go even though she had realized all of this.


    All of the plans and thoughts she had up to now spiraled and lost control.


    How could she hope to fight against a magic that didn¡¯t do anything?


    She couldn¡¯t learn to counter something that was just there. Even if such a thing was possible, doing so would invite the emptiness back in as the magic was what was filling that space. All of her plans had involved besting the monster in some way. Learning to overcome it and gaining her freedom. But that was all pointless if what she needed to overcome was the emptiness, not the moose monster.


    It was painfully obvious now why the monster had let her do whatever she wanted. Why it never bothered to capture her and simply displayed its superiority rather than use it in anyway. All the way back when it first used its magic on her it had already won. As soon as she had felt the magic seep in and fill the emptiness, everything she had done had revolved around that.


    Around getting more.


    Which she had gradually learned came only from the moose monster. Nothing else she had done, seen, tasted, none of it had filled the magic more. It came only from the moose monster.


    She felt movement as the moose monster stirred. Panic started to settle in again. She quickly wiggled off of the soft floor and moved towards the opening. She wasn¡¯t sure if the monster had noticed its magic getting taken or if she had moved too much, but it didn¡¯t matter. It didn¡¯t seem to be awake yet but she didn¡¯t want to stay and learn what it was like after eating too much.


    Unfortunately, the darkness didn¡¯t seem to be as afraid of the monster as she thought. It had been trying to suck all the light from the room since she became aware again. It seemed to be doing well now that the monster wasn¡¯t awake but that meant she had no way to leave without waking up the monster to recast its magic.


    She truly hoped it hadn¡¯t eaten her trinket. If she could find it, she would have a way to stay away from the monster. She edged as close to the opening as she could get without entering the darkness.


    At least she tried, until her foot hit something damp and fuzzy and she nearly ran right back to the monster and soft floor. Her scare caused her to trip and fall into the darkness though. Something she was terrified of until the light burned her eyes.


    Using her hand to shield them she tried to figure out what had happened when she spotted her trinket, the very thing that her foot had touched.


    Of course!


    The moose monster ate magic, it had eaten the magic out of both her and her trinket but as soon as she had touched it with the magic she had taken from the monster it had started to work again.


    She quickly grabbed her trinket and raced quietly down the tunnel. She had so very much to think about and she didn¡¯t want the warmth of the monster to cloud her mind while she thought.


    That and she didn¡¯t want to see what the monster would do when it woke.

 CH 8 - B

    ¡®Of course I fell asleep, how could there be dramatic tension if I didn¡¯t?¡¯


    Rolling over with a groan, he checked the part of the bed he had set the girl on. There was only a hint of body heat left so either he had been out of it for a while or the girl had taken off the moment he conked out.


    ¡®Probably a bit of both. This lack of light control is playing havoc on my sleep cycle.¡¯


    Stretching a bit and shuffling off of the floor art he called a bed, he grabbed his notebook and plodded off to begin his ¡®day¡¯.


    ¡®Gonna have to cut back on showers for a bit, nothing but quick wipe downs until we get the rationing back under control.¡¯


    He wanted to kick his past self.


    As much fun as he had using the rationing numbers as a brainteaser to keep his mind active, actually living the rationing was terrible. While he could handle the food restriction so long as he kept relatively low energy, that was the easy part. He had yet to find a water tank of any description and even if this place had a recycler of some kind, water treatment took consumables. Ideally it was solar powered with UV or some other kind of energy-based filter and could last until he found it for maintenance. If that was the case, it was just a matter of keeping things running. Things rarely worked out that well though and if the filters or other consumables ran out before he could find _both_ the active ones and their replacements there wasn¡¯t much that could be done. The toilets were all tank-less and the sinks didn¡¯t have stoppers that he could find. The only thing he had found to hold water was small drinking glasses.


    They seemed like fancy kids cups so they had to be refilled three or four times to get enough water to satisfy after a meal, there just wasn''t enough to hold a significant amount of water. It would have to do if he couldn¡¯t find anything, cycling through the cups was better than simply guessing, but it was impractical and possibly dangerous.


    The same reasoning went into why he continued to take showers and had let the girl take such a long one. With no natural bits or any way to make things, getting sick was pretty much a death sentence.


    If it was a forest or other natural setting and he could forage for medicinal plants it would be a different story, he could play more fast and loose with his estimate. Not so in this place. When your choices when sick are ¡®drink lots of fluids and rest¡¯ or ¡®just die, I guess¡¯, it¡¯s a no brainer to pick the former.


    Right up till you hit that pesky water rationing problem and might die either way.


    It just seems to take less water over all to wash and keep clean than it does to risk it. Hopefully he could convince the girl that showers weren¡¯t so bad next time. Maybe the quicker wipe downs would scare her less.


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    Either way, leaving water out in uncovered cups seemed counterproductive. It could work in a pinch as a warning system but the chance of getting sick went up. Hence the dilemma, they could either ¡®suddenly run out of water¡¯ or ¡®suddenly get sick¡¯.


    Terrible choices all around.


    Boiling could have been a good work around if he knew how the energy was getting supplied, but with the chance that the energy to boil the water was also what was used to clean it the first time, it was too much waste to attempt it.


    All of that to say, ¡®if only I had more info I could make a better choice¡¯.


    It kinda made up his mind for him at this point.


    Using the time he was cooking the thinkin-jacks to ponder his next moves was helpful, so long as he didn¡¯t burn anything. It let him really contextualize the problem. He needed to find the water and power sources and they were most likely located in the one place he really didn¡¯t want to go.


    But needs must and he now had a lover of cats relying on him as well!


    Maybe.


    Hard to say what she relied on or needed. But it might be him and that would be disappointing if he possibly let her down. So, stuffing his face and leaving the obligatory cat treat for said girl, he picked up the hot pan and made his way to the one place here he hadn¡¯t really explored yet.


    ¡®Maybe if the pans hot it will kill the zombies faster.¡¯


    <hr>


    He wasn¡¯t sure if the lack of zombies was a relief or a disappointment.


    Sure, not having to fight zombie horrors was a good thing, but now all his delaying just felt like excuses and he just looked dumb. Upside was that there wasn¡¯t anyone who saw him being scared of nothing, so maybe he got away with it?


    Bonus, he even found something that could hold water!


    Ignoring that fact that it was built into the wall and seemed very much like a growth vat for zombie horrors, if he could find a way to get it holding water it might be enough to survive on until they could find another source.


    Done admiring his find and squishing the paranoia that seemed very justified right now, he made his way back to the desks he had found. Desks that actually seemed used and not the sterile display pieces he had been finding in the other rooms.


    He would need to gather up all the paperwork here and see if he could find what they were working on up till now. It might even let him know where everyone went. When he had taken a quick glance on the way in though it had seemed to be a different language to the wall labels. He couldn¡¯t exactly sit and read anything here, the desks were too small, but if he got a good sampling he could take it back to his boss room and see about deciphering it as well.


    Grabbing as many loose pages that had pictures and poking through the books to see if any would help led him to a dusty old filing cabinet though.


    Well, not so dusty. There was very little dust anywhere to be fair. Whoever had been here had kept the place clean.


    This cabinet was clearly seldom used however. Tucked in a corner and piled with ¡®extras¡¯. Clearing off the extras, which appeared to be more paperwork, and testing the drawers proved to be pointless. It was locked tight and didn¡¯t seem to want to move very much. Some investigations didn¡¯t show any welding or outside bolts, so it was either really heavy or attached on the inside somehow.


    The investigation did turn up something far more interesting though. Investigating had found a lone page lost between the cabinet and its surroundings. With a great deal of coaxing, a bit of ingenuity and some cursing thrown in for good measure, he had managed to get the page out without damaging it too much. It was a good thing he did too.


    The dialect was off enough he might as well have been reading middle English, but he was reading it.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s not ominous or anything.¡±

 Ch 9 - A

    Her body wanted to run and hide, her mind full of nothing but panic and frustration.


    She had rushed to her home, her trinket faithfully lighting the way despite its brush with the moose monster. While she knew the Pages would likely have an answer to her current problems, she didn¡¯t have the time to look through them all.


    She had turned to the People in the box and intended to ask for their help, but no matter how she manipulated the box the People remained trapped and would not respond to her questions. She was pacing about now, the People babbling in the background, trying her hardest not to panic.


    She really had only two choices.


    Let the moose monster have its way or find another source of magic to beat back the emptiness. Even now she could feel it slowly draining from her, the cold beginning to take hold again. Even if she now knew that the magic didn¡¯t change her mind, she was still reluctant to simply let the moose monster do whatever it wanted with her.


    She sunk to the floor and stared to look through the Pages once again. All the times she had looked before she had sought to tame the monster and become its master. Having a monster with magic like that doing as she told it would make everything trivial.


    Now, she wasn¡¯t so sure that the monster lacked enough intelligence to be tamed. If it was like the Others or the trapped People and could simply outsmart her, she wouldn¡¯t be able to tame it. She knew that the Pages mentioned trading between people, but she had never seen a people outside of the box. While the Others may be close enough, they seemed just as trapped as she had been before the wall cracked open and the box People even now.


    Was that where they had gone, they had been trapped and found a way to escape just like her?


    Maybe she could find where they had been trapped and escape that way?


    No, that would never work, she still needed the moose monster for its magic. She had to find a way to keep it close without letting it do anything that popped into its head. If this ¡®trading¡¯ worked between people, maybe she could modify it to work with the moose monster as well. She just had to find enough examples to understand it. If she could establish trade with the moose monster, she might be able to trade her cooperation in holding the magic it wanted with its cooperation in helping her the rest of the time.


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    Moose¡¯s were supposed to be slow and lazy monsters and her moose seemed to fit that part at least. It might not like doing everything she wanted it too, but it may find that keeping her close and compliant was less work than trapping her whenever it wanted to eat the magic in her.


    It seemed like a good trade to her, she didn¡¯t want to give up the magic and wanted the monster to do things for her, the monster wanted to eat the magic and be lazy. They both gave up something they wanted and got something that was almost as good.


    At least so long as the monster wanted the magic more than being lazy, it was hard to tell at this point.


    Sheer panic gripped her and she whirled around when she heard the monsters rumble. The panic faded to confusion as she looked at the opening to her home, finding it just the way she left it when she came in. More rumbling made the confusion worse as she looked around and found nothing moving. All of that faded as she turned towards the trapped box.


    There was a people she had never seen before and as she watched, it rumbled in a similar way to the monster.


    This¡­ the People in the box had never spoken like that before. Always they had spoken in a high chirp, not the low rumble the monster used.


    Was this what it was looking for?


    It had been looking at words the whole time she had seen it, always staring and rumbling to itself. Had the box trapped something the monster wanted?


    Maybe, was the box a safe place as well as a trap?


    It could explain why the People in the box never tried to escape, always seeming happy to stay right where they were. What could she get from the moose monster if she traded it this box?


    Its magic might even be powerful enough to free the People inside.


    Trading it would mean letting the monster into her home though. The box was far too big for her to bring it to the monster. She still sat and listened though. If she could manage to learn the secrets of how the monster rumbled like that, she would be in a much better position to get what she needed in a trade. This new people she had never seen before rumbled for quite a long time and she managed to grasp a lot of the words it was trying to¡­teach?


    It seemed like it was teaching at least. She couldn¡¯t tell who or what it was teaching but that seemed like the overall goal.


    With her new words and a plan to trade herself for the monster, to the monster, she set out to find said monster. Even she understood it was a terrible plan at this point, but the magic insider her had faded enough to be uncomfortable and she needed to try something. Anything that would change the situation she was in and give her more options to work with. Something to help push forward¡­¡­


    If only she could find the monster.

 Ch 9 - B

    Well now he just felt dumb.


    After running his hand along what he had previously thought was a support pillar, he found a patch that felt different. Investigating that patch led to him discovering a panel similar to that in the cryo room. Invisible to the eye until it was activated by his hand, at which point it formed some kind of tactile hologram. The pillar he now knew to be a large elevator shaft seemed to be where he needed to investigate next.


    After he had found that mysterious page with future english on it, he had taken the other papers he had collected to try to learn the language back to somewhere more comfortable. It seemed that whoever had been here really didn¡¯t want anyone to know what they were up to. The pages had been filled with code and possibly even misdirection.


    He knew there was code because they mostly stuck to one language, that being the one he couldn¡¯t read and similar to the wall markings, while bits and pieces were in the future english that he could parse, barely.


    And what they said was¡­enlightening.


    He couldn¡¯t understand much of the other language used in the papers as it wasn¡¯t just simple words and required context. While he could recognize a word here or there that he had run into before, they lost all meaning in the greater mass. The bits in future english though gave him enough insight. He still had to fill in the blanks, but it seemed they were doing some kind of genetics testing. The mad scientist pods he had found alongside the papers were exactly that, some kind of artificial environment for testing.


    Probably people testing if he had to guess, as there were mentions of sickness and immunity.


    Really didn¡¯t help the paranoia when you are basically dropped into a Resident evil plot. If any of the pods had been broken or dirty in any way he would be treating things very differently right now. Fortunately, everything seemed clean and sanitized, so his running theory right now was that everyone had been caught.


    The contents of the paperwork may not be clear, but the intent to hide very much was. Mad scientist labs combined with clandestine paperwork painted a pretty clear picture of wanting to remain uncaught. State projects didn¡¯t tend to hide from the people that gave them funding, so there would be no reason to hide from authorities if they had that kind of backing.


    Seeing as there was a lack of mess or of things left out, it couldn¡¯t be some kind of surprise raid or unexpected catastrophe due to the research. At least on the level he was on, everyone had left mostly calmly. This of course prompted him to consider why he and his partner in feline crime were still here.


    A quick glance at the cryo room with this new info made the answer blatantly obvious. The color line that wasn¡¯t there led to rooms that ¡®weren¡¯t there¡¯. When the cryo room was closed it looked like a normal wall. There was no indication it existed until you found and used the invisible panel.


    Why the main elevator was unmarked he had no idea, maybe this whole level was supposed to be ¡®unknown¡¯, but it was the same. You couldn¡¯t even tell where it was until you found the panel. Fortunately, thinking back to everything he had explored up to this point, the only places left for invisi-doors were in the lab. If this place still followed the laws of physics he could account for any ¡®room sized¡¯ places elsewhere.


    So, having confirmed his suspicions that things were not great and not wanting to waste all that courage he had spent time gathering, he had wrapped a sheet around his face and shoulders, making a makeshift bandana and poncho. It wasn¡¯t much for protection, but it was better than nothing and his trusty pan would do most of the work anyways. Even if it had cooled down by now.


    It took him a bit to find the panel inside the elevator, it having been placed on the side in a non-obvious spot. He nearly gave up right there as well, the choices not being an obvious ¡®floor x¡¯ button but a rather a confusing block of text. Fortunately, the ¡®code¡¯ seemed to be a universal thing, bits and pieces of future english in the text.


    There seemed to be three distinct ¡®codes¡¯, one for a ¡®hold¡¯, probably cargo receiving if he had to guess, one for a ¡®deck¡¯, no idea where that went, outside maybe? And the last one was pretty cryptic as all it said was ¡®hope¡¯. At least that¡¯s what he thought it said, that last one was harder to parse than the others.


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    Given he had been looking for a way out this whole time, picking deck seemed the most pertinent move. Hoping he wasn¡¯t dooming the poor girl to starving alone, he touched the hologram where it said deck and crossed his fingers. When nothing happened he went to try something else but accidentally brushed another part of the hologram.


    When the doors closed he figured he was on the right track, even if he had fallen into it. When they opened again a few moments later, he wasn¡¯t as sure as before.


    It looked exactly the same. Peeking his head out to look for any differences he still couldn¡¯t be sure he had moved at all. It seemed like he would have to spend a lot more effort to decipher this elevator. He may even have to reevaluate if it was an elevator.


    ¡°This is seriously hurting my smart guy image.¡±


    After copious amounts of staring blankly, sorta-educated guessing and some tactical littering, he had determined that whatever this was did indeed move. Wiping his brow after such immense progress, he felt pretty pleased with himself. He now even knew that ¡®hope¡¯ was the floor he woke up on, or at least looked very similar around the elevator, and ¡®deck¡¯ was a yet unexplored area.


    ¡®Still no idea what ¡®hold¡¯ is though.¡¯


    Hefting his trusty pan, he confidently walked to the first intersection on the ¡®deck¡¯ level. Seeing that the lines weren¡¯t labeled at this part, he quickly shifted gears to start mapping the corridors with his notebook and let the pan be relegated to a clipboard.


    It didn¡¯t take him very long to figure out that the floor plan here was completely different from the other floor. Sighing heavily, he settled in to do a quick check of the floor to get a rough map. If this floor was anywhere close to the size of the last one it would take him days to fully map the rooms here.


    He was somewhat looking forward to the project. Not only was it something to do, he could also hear more industrial noise on this level than he could back in the ¡®living quarters¡¯ he had first explored. Hopefully that meant he would be able to find something he could use to make or repair the things he might need, like say, a knife to fight off any nasties he may yet encounter.


    Still, something to do other than wait for his inevitable demise was a welcome distraction, even if it set his hairs standing straight up from paranoia.


    <hr>


    Several hours and a quick nap later, he realized he had completely underestimated the size of this area. He hadn¡¯t taken into account that the ¡®hope¡¯ level seemed to be a ¡®secret¡¯ area and could have been quite small. Because it was tiny compared to the ¡®deck¡¯ level.


    It was starting to make more sense where every one had gone. The ¡®hope¡¯ level hadn¡¯t had many people to begin with and they seemed to be a secret level without a lot of common access. The ¡®deck¡¯ level on the other hand was a full working level meant for a larger number of¡­. Workers?


    He wasn¡¯t sure at this point as it was just as empty, though a large place like this getting shut down and the secret area above having to be abandoned to maintain appearances made a lot more sense than a raid leaving crucial evidence behind. This level was clearly more ¡®used¡¯, as there were markings on the walls and floors that were likely caused by logistics, moving large amounts of stuff from one place to another kind of logistics. That meant it would be easier for things to get ¡®lost¡¯ and end up somewhere less populated, like a secret level few people knew about.


    He had yet to find any living areas for this level, but with the size of the space that wasn¡¯t surprising. All the doors on this level seemed to be closed as well. He couldn¡¯t tell if that was just protocol or if it was something more nefarious going on. He continued to make notes as he made his way back to the elevator.


    As much as he wanted to do a quick pass, there was too much ground to cover in one session. If he wasn¡¯t on strict rations he could just go hungry for a bit, but the lack of extra food made missing even one meal dangerous, especially when he was moving around like he was.


    Getting off the elevator back on level ¡®hope¡¯, he made his way toward the showers. He was looking forward to a quick shower and a nice relaxing snack in his little nest while he studied what writing he had found and tried to consolidate his notes on the ¡®deck¡¯ level. Things would go faster if he could tell where he was.


    What he didn¡¯t expect was to see little miss Kitty looking lost and spooked near the bathroom.


    Had he really scared her that much?


    It was a shame he didn¡¯t have a choco-stick on him, he might have been able to entice her to shower again. He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers a little while he gave her a quick ¡°here, kitty, kitty¡±, though without much hope in it. He expected her to bolt and he would get to shower in peace.


    Suffice to say he was quite shocked and nearly dropped his pan shaped clipboard and the notebook he had been looking at when she slammed into his hand and proceeded to try to both wrap his hand around her chest and herself around his hand at the same time. She was comically unsuccessful at both, but clearly something had spooked her worse than his little stunt with the shower.


    Given he had zero hands at the moment, one holding his notebook and the other being glommed by a feline enthusiast, there wasn¡¯t much he could do about it other than make some comforting noises.


    She did still seem wary of him, her attempts to steal his hand happening at a distance she wouldn¡¯t accidentally touch the rest of him, so he didn¡¯t want to try to pick her up or hug her, but he needed to at least get to the bottom of what had spooked her.


    Doubly so when she appeared to be trying to give him the stuffed cat.


    ¡®So much for a relaxing night of reading, I guess today is a charades day.¡¯

 Ch 10 -A

    She couldn¡¯t find the moose monster.


    At first she didn¡¯t think it was a problem. She had checked the rain room and the food place, but while she had found some disks in the food place they had both been empty of anything else. Checking each of the wall words had also not found the monster. The only other place she could think to look was its lair but the wall was closed. If the monster was in its lair than there was nothing she could do and would just have to wait.


    That waiting began to turn into panic after she had woken from a sleep. A quick check of the food place and a lack of disks pointed out that the monster had not returned to the food place while she slept. It also had not woken her if it had come out of its lair. She tried to think of a time she had seen the moose monster after it had eaten the magic inside her but she couldn''t.


    Had she taken more magic than she realized?


    She had no idea just how much magic she could hold or how much magic was in her trinket. She had thought that after eating the magic in both herself and in her trinket the monster would be full. Had she been wrong?


    She had to admit to herself that she just didn¡¯t understand anything about magic. Perhaps there was another step in eating magic that she didn¡¯t know about and she had taken too much before she fled its lair. If she had left the moose monster vulnerable and it had been defeated by other monsters¡­.


    She didn¡¯t want to think about that anymore.


    The moose monster was still the only source of magic that she knew of. It was easy to avoid if she needed to and its danger was understood. The moose monster represented the only real path forward for her that she could think of. Trying the same things with any other monster was likely to be the end of her.


    She wanted to go back and look through the Pages again but she couldn''t. She knew that the moose monster did things much longer than she could so she would need to spend more time watching its lair. Though the end of the second sleep seeing no sign of the moose monster made the panic that much worse.


    A combination of her angry belly and a need for more knowledge sent her back to her home. Though that journey was far more dangerous than she could have possibly known.


    As she was padding through the tunnels, trying to think of reasons the moose monster may not appear or what she could do if it didn¡¯t, the darkness attacked her. It was only for a heartbeat and her trinket protected her, but it was something that had never happened before. To have the trinket she trusted her life to tested so thoroughly scared her more than the moose monster.


    She sped up and worried less about being quiet. If the darkness was getting that bold she wanted to be in her home before it tried again. She did manage to return to her home without further attacks. Her heart was still beating faster than normal at the encounter so she made sure the wall crack was as closed as possible before she set her trinket down and moved to start checking the pages.


    She was thoroughly unprepared to be attacked again, which is likely why the darkness tried. She had thought her home safe from the darkness and her trinket able to fight it off. A double layer of protection. When the darkness invaded she panicked badly. It lasted longer this time, no more than a few breaths but still longer than the blink that had happened before.


    Clearly something had changed.


    Could the reason that the moose monster was missing be because the darkness had become more aggressive?


    She had thought she fixed her trinket with the magic she had stolen from the moose monster, perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe she just hadn¡¯t taken enough magic and her trinket was struggling now. The darkness had certainly never been bold enough to invade her home before.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    If her trinket failed now and left her to the darkness when she had no idea where the moose monster had disappeared to she would be easy prey to the other monsters.


    As her new reality settled in, she realized that it didn¡¯t matter what she wanted. If the magic of her trinket was damaged or lessened because of the moose monster then she needed the moose monster more than she needed to be in control. She simply couldn¡¯t face the darkness without its magic, regardless of the emptiness slowly growing inside her.


    Her breath hitched as she realized how little magic she had left inside. Was that why the darkness was attacking? Always before she had been either empty and protected by the trinket or full of the moose monsters magic and still protected. Either not worth the effort or too well protected.


    She had been hasty. Too hasty. She never should have left the moose monsters lair. Not until she had made sure she was full of magic and her trinket was working properly.


    With her trinkets power waning and the magic inside her draining away, she desperately needed to find the moose monster again.


    Find it and never let it leave her sight again.


    <hr>


    She didn¡¯t know what she felt anymore.


    Terrified was a good start, as it took two more attacks and a fitful sleep near the moose monsters lair before she found it again.


    Strange was also a good way to say it, as she found the moose monster outside of the rain room. While her body desperately wanted to experience that again, her mind understood that it was how she had gotten into this situation in the first place and warned about the danger of her body being eaten as well.


    Desperate was also in the mix, as the magic inside her was nearly gone and she feared what the darkness would do if her trinket failed before then.


    All of that on top of the relief she felt to finally find the moose monster again. It had held out its hand, likely to start some kind of magic on her, though she didn¡¯t give it the chance. She rushed up to it and grabbed its hand, pressing it to her chest.


    Instantly the emptiness fled and the tingles began to radiate from the contact. She could feel the magic filling her once again. It was surprising how much comfort the monster¡¯s large hand gave her when it was enveloping her like that.


    Realizing that she was draining the moose monsters magic again and she didn¡¯t know how much it was willing to give, she desperately tried to find a compromise. If the monster stopped giving her magic she didn¡¯t know how it would affect her, but she never wanted to be empty again. The attempts by the darkness were more than enough to convince her she would do anything to avoid that fate.


    In a desperate attempt to continue receiving magic and to distract the monster she offered up her trinket. If the darkness was close to defeating it and she couldn¡¯t fix it with her meager knowledge anyways, she would rather offer its remaining magic to entice the moose monster. She didn¡¯t want to know what it was going to do with her trinket though, so she looked away. So long as it wasn¡¯t destroyed there would always be another chance to fix it.


    When it started to rumble and still hadn¡¯t taken her trinket she grew nervous. She was still wary of looking into its eyes, as they seemed to hold the most potent magic, but she looked up to see what was happening. When she noticed that its other hand was full she grew confused. Could it not take her trinket with magic, or simply eat it on the spot?


    As things continued, the monster rumbling and her holding out her trinket, she started to get a bad feeling. Something that was confirmed when the monster started to pull away. Desperate as she was to not lose the contact, she very nearly spoke, though she realized quickly and it came out as more of an ¡®eep¡¯ than any kind of word as she tried to hold its hand in place.


    It seemed to mean something to the moose monster though, as it breathed out noisily and turned toward her. She looked towards the floor as the monster came to loom over her, not wanting to get caught in its magic or see what it did to her trinket. That didn¡¯t last long though.


    She had known that the moose monster was unstoppable and beyond strong. She was given a good example of that strength when it swept her legs from under her and lifted her into the air. She was so stunned by the quickness and ease that she didn¡¯t even think to try and escape. Not that she wanted to once the warmth and tingles started in earnest. If she had thought touching its hand had filled her, she saw now how empty she had been.


    The heat coming off the monster¡¯s chest was much warmer than its hand. So warm she started to worry about being burned. It was even better than the warmth from the rain room. Not to mention that it was accompanied by the tingles racing around her body.


    Her body that wanted nothing more than to curl up and embrace the heat and tingles. Her mind raced trying to figure out what was happening, but the warmth was fogging her mind again and she was having trouble thinking about anything other than how to get more.


    Maybe¡­ Maybe giving in to the moose monster wasn¡¯t such a bad idea after all.

 Ch 10 -B

    He really wished his new responsibility could converse.


    He had given her a bit to calm down, but they couldn¡¯t sit there in the hallway doing nothing all night. Once she had a chance to breathe, he had started back towards his room so he could drop off the important bits he was carrying. He didn¡¯t wait long enough it seemed, as she chirped at him and tried to hold him in place when he went to leave.


    At that point all he could do was sigh and pick her up.


    While he was more than happy to work with the girl to get her interested in survival, her own specifically, things weren¡¯t cozy enough that he could just let her do as she pleased. So long as she was off doing her own thing and not blocking him it didn¡¯t matter much, but once she started to slow down progress on finding food and water he had to make some hard decisions.


    While he understood that bodily moving her around like he was would just scare her more, he needed to start work on the second level he had found. Work that would need food considering how long he had been down there. He didn¡¯t know how long she would need him to sit there to calm down, but it was longer than he was willing to spend if his first pause wasn¡¯t enough.


    So here he was, fighting a headache from lack of food and a crisis waiting to happen huddled in his arms. He didn¡¯t know what had spooked her so badly that she needed to stay right there, but whatever it was would get a pan to the face if it showed up again.


    Seeing as how she didn¡¯t make a peep during the entire trip to the mess hall things weren¡¯t looking good. If he had managed to scare her as much as whatever it had been, then she wasn¡¯t going to tell him squat. That was even considering she could get any information across at all. He hoped he could coax her out of the fear coma she seemed to be in with a choco-stick.


    ¡­. Maybe not a fear coma then.


    He had gone to put her down on a bench in the mess hall but she had clung to his chest like a monkey, refusing to let go. Maybe she really was a cat? She certainly demanded attention like one. Now he really had no idea what was going on.


    She had clearly been wary of him in the hall, as she had refused to get closer even while she was grabbing his hand. Now that he had her attached to his chest though he had to reevaluate that entire exchange.


    Had she refused to move from a spot, rather than be afraid of getting closer to him? It would explain why she had changed so drastically.


    Fuck it, he needed calories and miss clingy kitty wasn¡¯t letting go. He set his notebook and pan down on the table and went into the back with the rest of his baggage. At least he had hands to work with again. Not enough dexterity to make food, but it was enough to grab several choco-sticks. He stuffed two into his mouth right there to start with and had a handful more set for later.


    Drinking as much water as he could stomach, he grabbed the rest of his stuff and headed for his room. If his hangers on wanted water she would just have to let go and get some. Though she didn¡¯t make a peep on the way to his room either.


    He didn¡¯t get his first clue until he got into the room. After he had closed the door, which he was sure would get a reaction since it made noise, he set the lights to something less eye searing. While he did that both to conserve power and because he liked things less bright, it seemed to be quite terrifying to his guest. She very much went from ¡®I¡¯m not moving¡¯ to ¡®bear hug until you can¡¯t breathe¡¯.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡®Ah, she¡¯s afraid of the dark. I imagine the auto lights are the worst thing ever for her¡¯


    Well then, how to deal with this little dilemma. The fastest way was to show he had control of the lights, though considering that wasn¡¯t entirely true it probably wasn¡¯t the best choice, but it would probably stop her from being clingy.


    Did¡­did he need her to stop though?


    Sure, it was inconvenient to have her attached to his front, but if he could get her moved around to cling to his back it wouldn¡¯t matter much. She was incredibly light, so while he would certainly work more to haul her around, she would work less, a kind of canceling out of work. If being there helped her to not panic and kept her calm it would be a net gain on calories in the end.


    Huh, clearly his brain was frazzled and not thinking of everything since it was sounding more and more like a good idea. No, it would be best to show how the lights were controlled¡­


    When they didn¡¯t flicker like that at least.


    Seems like his stroll on the other level had powered something up. Could be what had spooked the poor girl as well, since her grip had just gotten tighter.


    This did not bode well for their power lasting. He would need to find whatever had booted up and shut it back down. Or at least determine if there was a main power plant to start up. It seemed that exploring that level had suddenly become more important. He sighed again, so much to get done.


    First things first though, he needed to convince a skittish kitty that lights didn¡¯t need to be bright. Flickering lights aside, if he could have her overcome her fear of the dark it would go a long way to get things started.


    Seeing as how he had manhandled her up to this point and she was already scared out of her mind, he turned the lights down dim enough that his eyes would need time to adjust. Doing so seemed to spook the girl worse, but he just pushed on and covered her eyes with his hand. With her thoroughly blind and attempting to crush the air out of his chest, he went and sat on his bed with the girl on his lap. Putting the pan down and opening his notebook, not that he could really see it at the moment, he spent the time contemplating what he had found down there.


    The girl tried to squirm a bit, but considering she never let go he wasn¡¯t sure what her plan was. After his eyes had adjusted enough to see his notes better, he let his hand covering the girl¡¯s eyes fall away.


    Considering the only lights in the room were dim night lights and the overhead was dimmed enough to see them, he expected the girl to need some coaxing and treats to gather her courage.


    She didn¡¯t need them, but he wasn¡¯t exactly sure she had gathered anything resembling courage either.


    Her stance on his continued breathing didn¡¯t change for a bit, but slowly she loosened up. When she had let go enough to look around, he figured things were on the right track and got ready to start the coaxing. When she jammed the stuffed cat into his chest and tossed it towards the door he got a bit derailed. When she started to talk a bit in her rumbly voice he recognized some of the words, though it seemed she was just spitting them out at random. Suffice to say he was thoroughly confused at this point.


    He was not to be deterred though. Once she stopped, he stuffed an unwrapped choco-stick into her hand in an attempt to get her to fully release her grip. This seemed to derail the girl a bit, as she seemed just as confused about the treat as he was about her randomized speech. Didn¡¯t stop her from eating the treat though.


    After it was devoured, she huffed a bit and looked around. He wasn¡¯t sure what she was looking for, but as he was trying to get her used to the dark he decided that head rubs and a good night¡¯s sleep would do her good.


    He would need to be careful of course, he didn¡¯t want to leave the door open in case whatever had spooked her wasn¡¯t light-based and she had just spent the last little bit cursing it out. That unfortunately required that the girl have a door between her and freedom. She seemed fine now, but once the fright had worn off and she realized where she was that would probably change quite fast. He wasn¡¯t looking forward to a night with one eye open to keep watch on the girl.


    She didn¡¯t seem to consider any of that though, leaning into the head rubs like she was an addict. His plan in the process of backfiring on him, since he was trying to get her to let go and she was doing the opposite, he really had no choice but to double down until she passed out.


    ¡®I really hope that whatever turned on won¡¯t end us before I get the chance to go back down there¡¯

 CH 11 -A

    The moose monster made it very hard to think. Its warmth fogged her mind and made her thoughts come slowly, if at all. She hadn¡¯t even realized that they had moved until she felt the monster shift and its arms start to come loose. Her body clearly didn¡¯t want that though, as it immediately wrapped itself around the monster¡¯s chest.


    She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings at the time, her mind too full of fog and warmth. It wasn¡¯t until her ears heard the sound of a wall moving with magic that she even started to think again. It took her some time to understand that they had entered the monster¡¯s lair.


    It took less time for her heart to speed up when she realized that the wall wasn¡¯t open this time.


    Her faster heartbeat helped to clear some of the fog from her mind, but she was still confused as she hadn¡¯t paid any attention before that moment. She didn¡¯t get much time to try and work things out though, as the darkness attacked again.


    It attacked the moose monster in its lair.


    That alone was more terrifying than anything that had happened to her before. For the darkness to have gained enough to attack something like a moose monster in its own lair just showed her how vulnerable she had been.


    When the darkness finally won and banished all the light, she thought everything would be over. The darkness had won and it would now devour them both.


    How wrong she had been.


    About everything.


    Instead of the panic she would expect from something defeated, the moose monster simply placed its hand over her eyes. She was baffled. How could it be so calm? They were both about to be eaten and it seemed to care not at all.


    The panic and puzzlement faded as the monster made its way to its nest and sat down. The panic spiked a bit as she heard a noise, sharp and close, but nothing changed in how the monster acted.


    It seemed like she was there forever counting heartbeats, her skin starting to meld with the moose monster. She wiggled and tried to stop the process, but it was a difficult thing to do when her body and her fear refused to let her arms and legs move away.


    Was this just normal to the moose monster?


    It seemed to have no fear of the darkness. She knew it was supposed to be unstoppable, but how did you fight darkness but with light? Was it so unstoppable that it didn¡¯t matter what attacked it, it would simply ignore the damage?


    Perhaps it was just a normal fight among monsters?


    She had never seen the moose monster outside a bubble of light, but how could she be sure that it had never been there in the darkness, since it was darkness after all?


    She got her answer. Once that moose monster lowered its hand and she had the chance to look around, all she could do was stare. It was as if many tiny lights were fighting against the darkness. She didn¡¯t know if the moose monster had used magic or if she was simply so full of magic at this point that the darkness couldn¡¯t touch her eyes. It was something that hadn¡¯t happened even the last time she was here.


    It didn¡¯t matter in the end. There was a great struggle happening between the darkness and the tiny lights. One she may even be able to influence. Quickly, so she didn¡¯t think too deeply about it, she brought her trinket to the monster¡¯s chest to take in as much magic as it could. Before the monster could take its magic back, she threw her trinket towards what she recognized as the wall the monster had come through.


    A meaningless act it seemed. Either her trinket was truly broken or the monster was simply faster than she was and took all its magic back. She had fought the darkness for as long as she had walked the tunnels though, so she didn¡¯t give up. She was still gripping the monster¡¯s chest with her legs and could feel the warmth and tingles pushing through her. She thought of all the magic words she had learned so far. She may not know how to use the magic, but there was nothing stopping her from trying, the moose monster strangely silent this whole time.


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    She did her best to speak all the magic words she knew, attempting to get as low as the monster¡¯s rumble. She never managed to, but she felt the magic begin to sting her neck. Clearly she was causing some effect, even if the darkness didn¡¯t seem intimidated.


    She had to question what that effect was when a treat appeared in her hand. She had felt the moose monster move beforehand, so it was possible it had contributed in some way, but it was still confusing. She ate the treat quickly, though it seemed to be a normal treat and not filled with magic.


    Releasing a breath, she took a quick glance at the moose monsters face to see what it thought of everything. She had to quickly look away as it appeared to be watching her. Looking about the lair gave her a chance she hadn¡¯t had the last time she was here though.


    While knowing that the moose monster was watching her brought more warmth to her face, she was too curious to stop. Its lair seemed like nothing more than a larger version of the other rooms scattered across the tunnels. It was hard to say if the lights were the same, as she had never been so surrounded by the darkness before, but they were certainly pleasing to look at.


    Her curiosity was soon shattered though. As she was growing used to the warmth and coming to terms with the darkness, she felt the monster moving again. Bracing for whatever came next, she was still unprepared for the tingles to return in earnest.


    She still didn¡¯t know why the monster bothered to spend its magic while it was rubbing her head like that, but she didn¡¯t much care either. As she leaned into the monster¡¯s hand, she accidentally pushed her chest into the monster, causing the tingles to come from two directions at once.


    Something she was wholly unprepared for.


    Pushing against the monster¡¯s body with her own and following its hand with her head, her mind fell into the fog once again. She couldn¡¯t tell how long it lasted, as the fog deepened and the tingles overwhelmed her, all the fear and tension from the attack by the darkness seemed to drain away.


    The fact she had stopped being upright a slippery thought, barely recognized.


    <hr>


    She didn¡¯t want to open her eyes.


    As she had come back to awareness, she realized that she had been sleeping. As her body and senses began to work again, she could tell she was smothered by warmth and was too comfortable to even attempt to move.


    The only things she didn¡¯t like were the uncomfortable feeling in her head and the dryness of her mouth. If she opened her eyes and the darkness was still there and the wall closed, she knew it would make things worse.


    She could tell that some of the warmth at least came from the moose monster. She had her back pressed against it and could feel it moving with every breath. While she had no idea what it had planned for her, it didn¡¯t matter. With the wall closed and herself pressed against it there was no chance she could escape. She knew there would be no luck helping her like the last time she had been here.


    Finally deciding to open her eyes, she had to pull the blanket down so she could see. It didn¡¯t raise her hopes in the slightest. The darkness was still doing its best to banish all the light in the room and the tiny lights still fought bravely.


    In fact, she could see very well right now.


    The thought stopped her and she had to puzzle it out. Why did everything seem so bright when the darkness was doing its best to make it the opposite? Was there just that much magic in her eyes now?


    If this was what the moose monster could always see, then it made sense that it wasn¡¯t afraid of the darkness. That could also explain why there was so much magic in its eyes. It was almost as if the darkness was a lesser monster and couldn¡¯t beat the moose monster even when it ate all the lights.


    Something to think about when she wasn¡¯t in its lair.


    It didn¡¯t take long for things to get worse unfortunately. The pressure below her stomach made itself known and demanded that she do something. The thought of making a mess in the monster¡¯s lair was a frightening one, something she was desperate to not experience.


    It got bad enough to nearly bring tears to her eyes before the moose monster began to stir. Too afraid to do anything, she lay there and let things happen. Though it seemed the monster had no interest in her.


    She watched as it walked to the wall and opened it with magic. She very nearly ran up to and clung to it like she had before. Fortunately, the fog in her mind had settled. While the warmth was still slowing her thoughts, they were at least clear. The pressure didn¡¯t let her stay still though. She was up, doing her best to remain quiet, though she doubted it mattered, and right behind the monster when it stepped into the tunnels.


    She did cry at that point. Her tears and her voice both forced out of her as the light attacked the darkness. Never before had the light been that painful or that angry at the darkness. Clearly there was more going on between the two than she was aware. It didn¡¯t help that the rest of her body protested just as much as her eyes, though for different reasons.


    Using her hand to shield her eyes from the light, she did her best to follow the moose monster. While she might have a better understanding of what happened in the darkness, she had no interest in encountering another monster. She just hoped the moose monster was going someplace she could relieve the pressure that was quickly growing painful.


    She also hoped she could find a way to fix her trinket soon.


    If she had to follow the moose monster everywhere it went, she didn¡¯t think her body would be able to keep up.

 Ch 11 -B

    Damn cats. He needed to find that bell.


    He had nearly pissed himself when the girl had squeaked right behind him. After he had got her to bed and settled in himself, he had rested as best he could without fully going to sleep. He figured it was a better option and his schedule was moving towards a double sleep schedule anyways. The lack of a daily cycle had pushed his body to simply do what it needed regardless of what time it was and the low calories had pushed him more towards resting a lot. He had trouble staying asleep for a full ¡®night¡¯, so he generally got up for a couple hours to work on his notes and then fell back asleep.


    It worked out this time as he could keep an eye open for the girl, who had seemed to be in a deep sleep. He had either spooked her when he got up for the bathroom or she wasn¡¯t as asleep as he had thought. With how quiet she was it was hard to say. He certainly hadn¡¯t heard her come up behind him when he opened the door.


    She was lucky that he hadn¡¯t been fully asleep, a scare like that would have brought out a bigger response if his mind had still been waking up. Still, it was a good thing the girl had learned the meaning of ¡®eye searing¡¯ here rather than scare him out in the corridors. He knew the room well and hadn¡¯t found any secret passages to worry about, but out in the corridors and other rooms he would not have been so passive if he got snuck up on. Though at this point it was more the girls¡¯ actions driving his paranoia than anything concrete he could point to.


    He trudged down the hall, letting the girl battle the demon that was fluorescent lighting. Maybe. He wasn¡¯t really sure what kind of lights they were, but they were bright enough he was desperate to find a dimmer switch. It was possible they were attempting to mimic sunlight, since this was clearly somewhere without it, but if so he needed to find an alternative or make a pair of sunglasses.


    He knew that he would need sunlight at some point. Unlikely as that was, it would be easier to find than vitamin D pills. He wasn¡¯t exactly sure how it worked, but he was pretty confident that the heat from sunlight was part of that production chain. Unless these future lights had managed to skip that part and still work anyways, or he was completely wrong on how it worked in the first place, he didn¡¯t feel any heat on his skin from the lights, so they were unlikely to be what they needed.


    Great to avoid skin cancer though. If they lived that long.


    Finishing his business and getting startled again before he realized that the girl had followed him all the way here, he had to contemplate if he wanted to try a shower again. On the one hand, the girl was already here and seemingly following his lead. On the other, he couldn¡¯t let the water run this time. It was one thing to bathe a semi-conscious person and not talk about it after. It was entirely another when said person was fully focused on everything he was doing and would probably run away covered in soap if he tried again.


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    Washing his hands at the sink didn¡¯t give him enough time to come up with a plan, so he put it off longer and headed to the mess hall. At the very least he couldn¡¯t think of a good reason not to do food now.


    With his new shadow and very much in need of something to eat, he started on the ¡®batter¡¯, if it could even be called that, and tried to come up with a better plan for the showers. He supposed that he could simply take one himself and let the girl watch. It wasn¡¯t really a hobby he wanted the girl to get used to, but it would at least make sure she didn¡¯t bolt halfway through.


    If the corridors weren¡¯t made out of metal he might not care so much. Let the girl bolt and find out that soap was quite uncomfortable after it dried. Since they were metal though, the chance the girl would run away and slip was pretty high. If she took a bad fall while she was all soaped-up things would go down hill fast. Blocking the door also wasn¡¯t a good option for similar reasons. At least the halls were mostly flat, if she got spooked and tried to escape in the bathroom she could run into any number of things that were bad for the body.


    His contemplating was sadly interrupted again when the girl chirped at him. Distracted as he was, he wasn¡¯t really sure what she was worked up enough about this time to know what she wanted. Considering the dilemma-jacks were done and cooling off a bit, he watched her to see what she wanted. Kicking himself after realizing that this was a great opportunity to teach her words again and seeing that she wasn¡¯t looking at him, he chose to see what she would do.


    ¡°Kitty¡±


    Not really the best word considering she didn¡¯t have her stuffed cat with her at the moment, but it was the one he started with so best to keep on course. It got her to shift her attention towards him at least, though she seemed averse to looking him in the eyes.


    Seeing as how the girl was now quiet and watching him, he guessed they had entered a kind of stalemate. After checking the food to see if it had cooled down enough, he said the word again and took a bite. He also grabbed another and gave her a pointed look. The look was comically ineffective since she wasn¡¯t looking at his face, but a second round of speaking and taking a bite seemed to spark something.


    She rumbled at him and while it didn¡¯t really fit, it was as close to kitty as the food was to tasteful so he handed it over. She seemed to think long and hard about that for some reason but eventually ate it. As he got a glass down to get a drink, he noticed her attention shift wholly to the sink. Figuring she could use a drink as well, he tried again and got another rumble, this one closer and at least legible.


    Was legible the right word for something spoken?


    Eh, it was the blind leading the blind around here, it was close enough for him. Best not to try anything too complex though. Giving the girl her glass of water, he got a surprise when she held up the drained glass and rumbled again. It was about the same as last time, barely a word, but it showed she was quick on the uptake. He refilled the glass and handed it back.


    ¡®Hm, if she could pick things up that fast maybe teaching her to shower wasn¡¯t out of the question.¡¯

 CH 12 -A

    The moose monster felt strange.


    She knew it was the wrong word as it wasn¡¯t anything physical.


    ¡­ Or not. The warmth and tingles she got from touching it were certainly odd.


    But that wasn¡¯t what she was thinking about. The monster itself felt strange. It didn¡¯t act like she had assumed the monsters in the darkness acted. She knew that the description from the Pages also didn¡¯t fit what she had assumed monsters acted like, but the moose monster had just as many differences to that description as it had similarities. She had assumed that she simply failed to understand something in the Pages or the monster¡¯s actions.


    That didn¡¯t explain the underlying strangeness she felt though. Why did the monsters make such noises? Why did they eat the powder? Why didn¡¯t they come into the light?


    Why, Why, Why??


    So many questions she had that she couldn¡¯t possibly find all the answers in the Pages. Questions like what made the moose monster different. Why did it come into the light when others didn¡¯t. Questions that got some answers now that she followed it so closely.


    The first answer she got was that the rain room had many different uses. Something the moose monster understood without her input. How did it know that the small rooms with seats would take away waste? Who could say, but it did. It seemed the moose monster knew how it worked better than she did. Once it finished relieving itself it used the small basins she had drank from to do something to its hands.


    She copied it of course. Learning everything she could while she followed the moose monster around was a given. She had no idea why rubbing her hands in water was important, but important didn¡¯t matter right now, just watching and learning. Watching that led to a shock and her next answer.


    The moose monster ate the powder as well. As she had always called it ¡®the powder¡¯ she had never stopped to consider if it had another name. It seemed clear that it was called ¡®grass and other plants¡¯ though, as that is what a moose ate. It seemed long so she would still call it powder, but it was good to know if she ever could speak to the moose monster. Though the shocking part came when the monster took the powder from a wall space high up.


    She had never thought to look there as everything had been low and in easy reach for her since before leaving her home, but if the moose monster was protecting the powder from others, it made sense to put it somewhere less reachable.


    Less reachable for others at least, the moose monster had no issues.


    It didn¡¯t even have to reach that far, the space being about as high as its head. If there were other things that the moose monster wanted to hide or protect, she would have to remember to look in high places. It could be why other monsters stayed so far away. The Pages said that a moose was very large, the chances that all the other monsters were much smaller and couldn¡¯t bother the moose monster any more than the darkness had were high. It didn¡¯t mean she was safe, being much smaller herself, but it would explain a lot.


    She also understood now why it could eat outside of the rain room. The Pages had said it ate in watery places. She had taken to understanding that meant the rain room, as no other place could be called ¡®watery¡¯. But it seemed she had either misunderstood the Pages or the Pages had misunderstood something in their own learning. The moose monster didn¡¯t eat in watery places, it ate watery things. Something she saw firsthand as it mixed a lot of water into the powder.


    She wanted to try that herself the next time she got her hands on the powder, as it would fix the problem of it being too dry. Though that desire didn¡¯t last long as the moose monster used its magic to heat a flat section coming off the wall. Watching magic up close like this was a much more intense experience than seeing it from afar was. Seeing it making changes and feeling the heat as the magic worked drew her full attention.


    As did the monsters¡¯ next actions. As it poured the water and powder mixture onto the hot surface, she heard it hissing. As the monster continued its task, she watched the mixture transform into the disks she had been eating. All desire to try the wet mixture was gone as she came to understand how the disks were made. She had thought the wet mixture would be similar to what she had eaten in her home before the wall cracked open, but the disks tasted far better than that and she had no interest in using the wet powder before it was transformed. The only difficulty being she would need magic to achieve that transformation.


    As she watched the moose monster work, she was tempted to touch the surface to see just how powerful the magic was, but she held back as she didn¡¯t want to interrupt the monster and miss something important. Though it seemed the monster had other plans.


    As she was staring at the disks, attempting to figure out how much magic they held, she heard the monster rumble. It was unexpected and she looked at its face before she realized what she was doing. Fortunately she avoided catching its eyes. It did seem like the monster wanted something though. As it rumbled again she recognized the word. One of the first words it had spoken in her presence, it was short and didn¡¯t seem to have much power to it. Not sure what was happening, she did her best to rumble it back to the monster, hoping to counteract whatever it was doing. She was very much surprised when she was handed a disk.


    Still warm from the magic, she ate it quickly and readied herself for whatever came next. After a bit of nothing happening, she began to suspect something was going on that she hadn¡¯t understood. While her dry mouth made her look longingly at the spout behind the monster, she did her best to try and unravel what had just happened. Though her thoughts themselves unraveled as the monster handed her some trapped water.


    Was the monster reading her thoughts?


    She expected that it was a simple thing to do with magic, but why would it care what she thought. Too much, far too much that she didn¡¯t know or understand. Though it did spark an idea. Maybe that word didn¡¯t have less power, it was simply a more subtle power. It could be the word that let the monster read her thoughts and she thought it was weak because it didn¡¯t have big changes.


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    Testing her theory, she rumbled the word again. She didn¡¯t know what to expect but she had hoped that being the only one to say it would give her a better idea as to the power it held. She was not prepared for the monster to take the trapped water out of her hands and trap more water in it. As it was handed back to her she had to stop and really think about what was happening.


    Clearly the word had meaning. While she still couldn¡¯t sense any power from the word, she didn¡¯t know if that was because it was weak or subtle. All the times that the moose monster had used it before had other words that followed it. This time was different, but she didn¡¯t know why it was different. Had her saying the word ruined the effect?


    ¡­Or was the word a label?


    The strange thought had struck her fast. The moose monster had gestured the last time it had spoken those words. At the time she had thought that was part of the magic that trapped her. As she looked back though, she understood that she had been trapped by her body, not the magic. That didn¡¯t mean the magic had done nothing though. Had that magic been to apply a label to her, a way to more easily do magic. This time the moose monster hadn¡¯t gestured, but if the label was already set then did it matter?


    It would make sense if she couldn¡¯t detect the magic of that word if it was simply an extension of herself. A way to call her and make her pay attention. Like she had when she nearly looked into the monster¡¯s eyes. The first rumble had fully pulled her attention to the monster, the rest could have been an attempt for something more and she had resisted. Maybe. It could have been that her lack of other responses confused the monster. Maybe it had expected her to speak?


    It certainly expected her to follow. The moose monster had rumbled again and walked out of the food place, watching what she did. If she had resisted, she didn¡¯t want the monster to know, so she followed it and kept her thoughts to herself. Or at least she tried, if the monster could read her thoughts then it was pointless to hide them.


    When the monster returned to the rain room she began to have second thoughts. While her body still wanted to experience everything again, her mind was much clearer than it had been when she woke. Her mind would be happy to experience things again as well, but it could think farther ahead than her body and remembered how she had felt afterwards and everything else that had happened. She would prefer to hold onto the magic for a bit longer.


    It seemed that wasn¡¯t meant to be however. Whether she had simply taken in magic much faster than this time or had struggled against it longer the last time, it seemed she was full and the moose monster was going to eat the magic insider her again. It had brought her to the same place as last time. Even if she was more aware and knew what to expect this time, she doubted it would go any different.


    Different seemed to be too soft a word though. She knew she had been much closer to the moose monster last time, attempting to find a way to recover her trinket. This time she was farther back because she knew what was coming and wanted to delay it as long as possible. Far enough back that the moose monster didn¡¯t bother to make it rain on her. A confusing turn of events.


    She also didn¡¯t think the moose monster made it rain nearly as long either. While she might not have been fully aware of exactly what happened last time, she had felt that things had lasted a long time. Not that she was sure, everything had felt far to fast for her bodies liking, but this seemed¡­not enough. The moose monster had barely gotten itself wet, let alone the full downpour she thought she remembered.


    Once the rain stopped, it did something near the wall and rubbed its hands again. More rubbing of hands that she didn¡¯t understand. Her curiosity getting the better of her and pushing her closer to the monster, she strained to see why it was rubbing its hands. Something she only realized was a mistake when the monster made it rain on her as well.


    Once the rain hit her, she expected everything to go fuzzy again and to wake up drained. She didn¡¯t expect the warmth to be¡­


    disappointing.


    After the heat and smothering warmth that she had felt touching the monster, the warmth from the rain was underwhelming. The severe disappointment her body felt and the confusion in her mind swirled together as she tried to understand this latest discovery. Her poor overworked mind got even more work as the monster took her hand and dropped some kind of strange¡­something in it. It was like slow water, except it wasn¡¯t clear so it couldn¡¯t be water.


    She looked up to see what the monster was doing and where it got the ¡®not water¡¯, but it was simply rubbing its hands all over its body. Her mind spiraling out of control to understand this new strangeness seemed to be clear to the monster. It stopped its own rubbing took her hand from earlier and pushed it and the ¡®not water¡¯ against her stomach, after which it rubbed its own hand on its own stomach while looking at her.


    Clearly things were not to go the same way as last time, and she was meant to rub things. Her hands mostly, though she couldn¡¯t begin to guess why. She began to move her hand around on her stomach only to find that the water and ¡®not water¡¯ was turning into something very slippery. At least she understood why she needed to be rained on first.


    Copying the moose monster as best she could, mostly to keep up the appearance of not resisting but also partly because she had no idea what else to do, she used her hands to rub the slippery feeling all over herself like the monster was doing. The monster looked different to her so it wasn¡¯t an exact thing, but she didn¡¯t think she should be found out because of that. At least she hoped.


    When every bit of herself was slippery, she went to look up at the monster to see what happened next but got rained on instead. Rain that lasted longer than the last time. The warmth might not have felt as good as the last time, but she did still enjoy it. Maybe too much, as the monsters hands shocked her out of her thoughts. The monster had begun to rub her arms and sides, though she didn¡¯t know why. Had she not rubbed good enough?


    She got her answer when the monster noticed her looking at what it was doing. Once she had started paying attention to it, the monster had returned to rubbing itself all over again. It seemed she was supposed to do the same and had been caught up in the warm rain. She hoped that hadn¡¯t ruined what she had done up to that point. If the monster found out she wasn¡¯t under its control because she had been caught up in some warm water she wouldn¡¯t be happy.


    The monster seemed to focus its rubbing on areas the water couldn¡¯t easily reach this time, so she did the same. It seemed the slippery feeling was getting undone by the rain, so that was probably the goal. At least she hoped it was the goal. She would hate to go around all the time feeling slippery.


    Even if it might let her escape other monsters.


    Once the monster was finished, it stopped the rain magic and started the storm magic. Along with more rubbing. It seemed the moose monster liked rubbing. Maybe she could use that somehow?


    It didn¡¯t take long for the storm to finish and while she had no idea why it would bother with all of that for some rubbing, she would admit that she felt dry now that it was over.


    She would need to figure out why the moose monster rubbed so much, as well as why it seemed to want to do so in the rain. Maybe it needed to be wet to be strong?


    So much confusing information, causing so many questions to come up. It was clear that she needed to do some testing of her own.


    She just needed to find a way to not be near the monster, just in case.

 Ch 12 -B

    His plans recently had a terrible habit of utterly backfiring on him.


    Sure, they started out not so great, but most of the time they got the main objective completed and that was what mattered right?


    If only the aftermath wasn¡¯t so difficult to deal with. His plan to get the girl to be more comfortable around him had gone well. She didn¡¯t bolt at the slightest noise and she was a quick study. Learning what he needed her to know to get by and staying out of anything dangerous.


    Well, now he had a shadow he couldn¡¯t get rid of. It was all nice and good when he needed her to practice her survival, not so great when he needed to do something she really shouldn¡¯t be apart of.


    Like exploring an unknown and possibly hostile floor.


    Having her trail him all the time let him try and teach her more words, but like his own language studies, single words were easy, conversation not so much. He was pretty sure she could reliably tell when he actually said a word rather than just making a noise, which was good, but there was no way to convey the meaning of a word, which was not so good. At least no way besides gestures, which could be misinterpreted.


    Granted it had been less than a day and he had gotten her into the shower and washed, so progress was good? Other than a little hiccup near the end where she zoned out in the rinse part of the shower, she had picked it up fast enough he wasn¡¯t worried about water usage. She also seemed to pay attention when he said ¡®kitty¡¯, which was good enough, though also not ideal.


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    It worried him somewhat that she wouldn¡¯t look him in the eye. Most survival related trauma didn¡¯t stop you from doing that, it was pretty much only a people trauma thing. If he had been the cause of the people trauma that needed to be resolved as soon as possible. Unpacking old trauma could wait until things were more settled and he didn¡¯t need to make sure their power was going to stay on. If he had been the cause though, it could cause her to fight him at a crucial moment or push her towards some other action that could cause bad things to happen.


    The question was, how did he find out.


    While the power had stopped flickering for the moment, he didn¡¯t trust that the problems had gone away. He could afford to spend the day bulking up and preparing for his adventure. If he could figure out the problem, or at least the cause, in that time then great. If not, could he afford to spend longer on it?


    How much time was risking their lives?


    All things he pondered as he made rope from the sheet he had split before. He needed some way to carry more to the other level and a basic pouch was the best he was going to get at the moment. He knew that there were areas on this level that still needed to be looked over and catalogued, but the power needed to be sorted out. Everything else hinged on there being power.


    That urgency would also prevent him from the slow methodical approach he had taken on this level. He would basically just be opening doors and giving the rooms a quick glance. Getting jumped was a very unpleasant possibility he had to consider. It was also why he couldn¡¯t take the girl.


    Even if she trusted him to protect her, which was not only a long shot, he had no way to even know, the likelihood of her bolting the moment something stressful and unexpected happened was very high. If she took off on that level there was almost no chance they would find each other again. Even with his map he didn¡¯t fully trust his ability to navigate.


    He glanced over at the girl who seemed to be watching his hands intently. If only he could find a way to get her out of his hair for a while and not have her panic if he was gone for a couple days.


    ¡®Maybe I can make a cat toy.¡¯

 Ch 13 -A

    It was clear the moose monster suspected something.


    Ever since it had brought her into the rain room it had been watching her. She wasn¡¯t sure if it had simply known that its magic wasn¡¯t working from the start or if she had done something to make it suspicious. Either way, it was hard to escape its eyes.


    Since it clearly knew that she wasn¡¯t being controlled, she decided to simply learn as much as possible. The moose monster had always used cunning before, having it know its plan had failed just meant it would come up with a new plan. A perfect opportunity to gather as much knowledge as possible. She had no doubt she would eventually fall under the monster¡¯s control, but the more she learned before then the better chance she had of breaking free later.


    If she could even work up the desire.


    While the idea of being food for a monster wasn¡¯t all that appealing, all of the other benefits she had been receiving made it a much harder choice. Paying close attention as she followed, she had learned a number of new words. Even if she couldn¡¯t use them yet, just having them was a boon. That alone would be enough to consider offering herself, but to also receive the disks that needed the monsters¡¯ magic to create and the smothering warmth from its nest made things all but certain.


    If only she gave up her freedom.


    A terrible decision to have to make, which is why she had been resisting. So long as she could walk along the possibility rather than make a choice one way or the other than she could take all the good without consequence. Unless the monster had only shown her the bare minimum to get her interested.


    Which very well may be true, considering what she was watching.


    She was crouched in the monster¡¯s lair, watching as it took strands and used its hands to make them larger. She couldn¡¯t guess the purpose, but the implication that the monster had much more magic she wasn¡¯t aware of made her second guess her stance. Did the monster let her be passive and not make a choice because the reward came from the choice, not as a way to entice her?


    Was¡­ was she robbing herself of something better by not choosing?


    A worrying thought, both in that she had thought it and in what could be better than what she had experienced. There was a distinct possibility that the monster¡¯s cunning had not faltered yet, its plan not so much failed as incomplete.


    As she was pondering her ultimate fate, the monster finished what it had been working on. A blanket now accompanied the strand, folded in a strange manner. She tilted her head slightly to try and comprehend the purpose of this new creation. Something that didn¡¯t take long as the monster moved the strands in a way that opened a hole in the blanket. When the monster put the small book it sometimes carried into the hole, that purpose not only became clear but also very interesting. How many treats could she fit into something of that size, all of them? Even if it was only half, it would be several sleeps worth of food and a much better way to carry things she needed.


    As she pondered all the things she could accomplish with such a creation, she failed to notice the monster pick up her trinket.


    Once she realized that the monster was doing something to it, she quickly lost interest in future possibilities and tried to determine what the monster wanted with it. Ever since the trinket had stopped working, she had put it to the back of her mind. As far as she was concerned, if her trinket didn¡¯t work then she needed to stay by the monster¡¯s side forever. The trinket was protective, but it had clearly never worked against the moose monster, so there was no point in having a broken trinket try to protect her from something a working trinket failed at.


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    She had also realized that nothing would dare to attack the moose monster, not even the darkness.


    After the rubbing in the rain room, she and the monster had returned to its lair only to find the darkness still inside. While the darkness lingering in the corners of a room before it was banished was nothing strange, the darkness in the moose monsters lair was resisting the light. As the light in the tunnel had fallen to the darkness, she realized that the darkness inside the lair was similar to what it had been before she had left. She could see clearly and the tiny lights still fought, though they were more dim.


    As the monster worked, the tiny lights seemed to gain some strength, though not as much as they had when she woke. She had felt it obvious at that point that the moose monster was interfering somehow. Clearly the darkness had not attacked the monster in its lair. It didn¡¯t dare to attack the monster at all it seemed. The tiny lights in the lair were the prey that the darkness was chasing and the moose monster was¡­.


    Prolonging the conflict?


    What was the moose monster doing? It clearly didn¡¯t want the darkness to win, as the lights dared to live in its lair untouched. However, it didn¡¯t let the light win either, as she had seen the light banish the darkness completely before. Was the monster enjoying the conflict?


    More mysteries to figure out later. She still hadn¡¯t determined what the monster was doing to her trinket, though it seemed to involve a small blanket. While a broken trinket couldn¡¯t protect her from anything and her following the moose monster made it irrelevant, she would still prefer it stayed intact. It could be a valuable thing in the future if it could be fixed.


    She was wary of what the monster planned when it stood with her trinket in its hand. She stayed crouched where she was as it walked into the tunnel, prepared for what it might do. She was not prepared to be attacked by the light, however.


    She had been too uncomfortable when the moose monster woke to really think about what had happened, but as the light and darkness had always fought, she thought it was easily understood. Now, as she covered her eyes to stop the painful light, she had to once again question everything she knew.


    Had the light attacked her and not the darkness?


    Or had it attacked both?


    If she had been marked by the darkness somehow and that had made her an enemy of the light, it would explain why she had never been attacked before. The fact it only attacked her eyes meant that they could be what was marked. It was strange, as the darkness had never been painful when it attacked her, it only stole her vision. She already knew she needed to learn so much more about the conflict between the two, but the more she learned the more she believed she had chosen the wrong side.


    As the pain subsided, she noticed the moose monster looking at her. It gestured and walked a bit away from the opening. She scrambled to follow it. As safe as she felt in the lair, there was nothing preventing other monsters from catching her there if the moose monster was gone. She believed that nothing would bother the moose monster¡¯s lair, but she didn¡¯t want to test it.


    Once in the tunnel she watched the moose monster. She couldn¡¯t see what it did, as she was behind it, but she definitely saw her trinket fly far into the tunnel, the darkness falling away as it went.


    It¡­ it worked again?


    The monster had fixed it. Why had the monster fixed it?


    She stood stunned by the turn of events. Her mind unable to figure out the monsters plans, even in the short term. She had thought she had grown better able to predict the monsters¡¯ next steps, but this made no sense. When she noticed the monster watching her, she was startled out of her swirling thoughts.


    Was it a test?


    It didn¡¯t matter. If the trinket was working again she couldn¡¯t afford to let it be lost. She scrambled and picked up her trinket, seeing the changes the moose monster had made. It seemed the small blanket was attached to the trinket¡¯s arms with the strands. When she looked up to see what the monster was doing, it had disappeared. While it was likely that it had simply returned to its lair, she now had a difficult choice to make.


    The thought caught her breath. A choice to make. Was that the monsters plan, to force her to make a choice? She struggled for a moment, but the choice was clear. She had so much information to parse, so many new things to think about and new things she needed to test without the monster¡¯s interference.


    She padded down the tunnel out of sight of the monster¡¯s lair. There was so much to do when she got back to her home. Enough treats to last for some time and her new understanding of the darkness meant the only thing to fear were other monsters.


    She just hoped the monster would let her return after she finished.

 CH 13 -B

    ¡®I knew no one could resist the parachute soldiers.¡¯


    Lacking a laser pointer, cat toy production had been limited. Considering his audience, he figured kids toys could work too. Not really having much material to work with left him with simple stuff and he had a nice base in the stuffed cat. Grabbing a pillowcase and some leftover rope from his pouch, he had made a pretty basic parachute. After he had coaxed the girl into the hall, he had punted the toy as far as he could manage with the space.


    Sure, kicking the toy probably wasn¡¯t the best, but between the very low ceilings and his desire to get the parachute working, which would need an arcing path due to those ceilings, there wasn¡¯t much he could do about it. It certainly wouldn¡¯t have gone that far with a throw. Besides, the girl didn¡¯t seem to mind much.


    As she ran off down the hall to grab her toy, he returned to his room. Expecting to have to show her how the thing worked a few times before she started enjoying it herself, he grew a bit worried when she didn¡¯t come back. A quick peek out the door showed empty hallways.


    ¡®Guess she only needed the one demonstration.¡¯


    Probably for the best. The industrial tunnels would be a much better place to throw the toy around, the ceilings allowing a longer fall. If he ran into her on his way down he would make sure she had what she needed. The things he could help with now were a limited list, but he could at least make sure she had choco-sticks and some entertainment. He was only gonna be gone a day or two before his own stores would require him to return, problem fixed or not.


    If he found any wood on his way there he would knock on that as well.


    ¡®Can never be too safe.¡¯


    <hr>


    He didn¡¯t run into the girl on his way to the elevator, so he made sure that there was something to eat in the mess hall¡¯s lower cabinets. He was fairly sure at this point there wasn¡¯t anything that could physically attack the girl on this level. Once she had that first shower and he had a chance to look around he hadn¡¯t found any evidence of life beyond the two of them. So long as she didn¡¯t open any doors while he was gone, she was safe. Well, safe from outside threats, she could still hurt herself.


    That was all a bit too much good news though. His trip back to the other level didn¡¯t have any hiccups and he was in a strong position now that he was here due to having had the time to do a little translating. Something would need to go wrong. The sooner the better, as the longer things were going his way the worse the bad thing would be.


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    He decided not to follow in his footsteps from last time, thinking that it was better to cover new ground. He was tempted to follow his ears and ignore the markings, as machinery that could take enough power to flicker the lights should be pretty loud. He settled on a compromise approach though, following the markings in the direction with the loudest noise.


    Opening every door he came across with his pan out in front, he decided that he had to be in some kind of bio lab area. He wasn¡¯t sure what made this lab different than the one on his level, but he made sure to close all the doors once he passed, no reason to tempt fate more. The only worrying part being that nothing was active when he opened the doors.


    He seemed to be going in a good direction though, the background noise now included liquid sounds. Either pipes or some kind of open plant. He wished he had the time to examine some of the rooms he was looking in, if they were actually bio labs they could have medicine and other chemicals he could use. Like something to clean water for example.


    He stopped.


    The room he had just opened seemed to have some kind of glassware. The temptation to go in and start looking around for things was hard to resist, but this wasn¡¯t what he was here for. The best he could do was mark it on his map as he updated it and move on. This level was going to be a treasure trove once he found that pesky machinery.


    It took him several hours of being an aggressive door to door salesman before he made his next big find. The rooms stopped appearing and the markings on the wall slimmed way down. There was only a single line left heading off into the wide hall in front of him. He hemmed and hawed a bit but this was much too intriguing to ignore.


    As he walked down the hall that seemed to be much longer than he imagined, the auto lights making the distance hard to judge, he could hear the liquid noise grow louder. Any other day he would consider this a jackpot. Even if this was a dead end, he knew there was a lot of liquid flowing behind the walls in this location. He even made a note in his book as he was walking, making sure he knew to check back here.


    It seemed the note would be irrelevant though, as he came to the end of the hall and a large door. He really wasn¡¯t used to things around here being properly industrial sized, but he had to give it to the door.


    ¡°This is clearly a boss arena.¡±


    Hefting his pan, that felt a bit lacking now, he approached the wall on the right side. Looking around for a while he managed to find the panel. Said panel seemed to have questions for him though, obviously angry that he had yet to take it to a nice restaurant.


    Or maybe it preferred something more intimate, wine, candlelight and all that?


    Whatever its preference, the only part of the text he understood was the very universal yes/no at the bottom. Seemed like that hadn¡¯t faded into history at least.


    ¡°Course I meant it when I said I would take you to dinner!¡±


    Admonishing the panel for being impatient and hoping he couldn¡¯t sign his soul away to technology yet, he hit the yes button. It seemed to be enough for the computer, as the door started to open after a series of unlocking noises.


    He hoped they were door noises at least, his pan wasn¡¯t gonna cut it otherwise.


    Stepping up to the threshold of the door as he squinted against the ever-present brightness, all he could do was stare at what he had found. Breaking out of his awe-inspired staring he thrust his hands into the air in triumph.


    ¡°Fuckin yes!¡±

 Ch 14 -A

    It was becoming more and more clear just how much she had to learn about the conflict between light and dark.


    It was also now clear that the moose monster had not fixed her trinket. When she attempted to call the darkness to herself in the rooms like the monster had, it never came. However, when she left her trinket in the hall to avoid its protection, the darkness did find it. A confusing turn of events to say the least.


    A few more tests and she found that the darkness would never enter a room she was in, almost as if it was afraid of her. It had no problem finding her trinket when it chose to, which only made things harder to understand.


    Had she been wrong all along and the darkness was a timid thing?


    The darkness had always frightened her. Always hiding the noises and stealing her vision. She could understand the moose monster not being afraid of that, but if she couldn¡¯t see, how could she run away.


    But now?


    Now she had to think about things from a different perspective.


    The Others had always been watching her. Moving about on the other side of the foggy wall, they had always been interested in what she did. But the foggy wall was not always foggy. When it was bright and she wasn¡¯t close to it, it showed her herself. Showed her a copy of her home. It was only when she got close to the wall and the light was blocked that she could see the fogginess and the Others.


    Her test now showed that she didn¡¯t need the trinket to call the light to herself. While the darkness was happy to swallow her trinket once she left it behind, it would never allow her to touch it. She knew that the darkness hid things. She had never once considered that it might be hiding them from her.


    Had she been cursed with light?


    It seemed that the light was far more aggressive than the darkness. It was also clear the light did not like it when the moose monster banished it with its magic, painfully attacking as soon as it was able. If the light had been attempting to blind her from seeing things, what else had she missed because of it?


    With the moose monster prolonging the conflict between the two, it was clear that there was a benefit to having both. She had no doubt the monster could simply choose one to win and the other would have no way to prevent that. Since that was not the case, it meant it was better to be in conflict, though she didn¡¯t know why yet. The moose monster was too cunning for any other conclusion.


    She would never be able to figure out why either if she couldn¡¯t chase away the light.


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    These revelations swirled in her mind as she padded back to her home. She had been eager to find the mysteries in the darkness, how the tiny lights survived if at all. Now that she had realized that it was the light that attacked, it answered some of those questions but raised many more. How to escape the light without the moose monsters magic being one of the first.


    Now that she knew her trinket had not worked from the start, she also needed to undo the monster¡¯s work. While she was curious about the monster¡¯s intentions in altering her trinket, how it did and with what were far more important at the moment.


    Settling onto the floor of her home after closing the wall behind her, she set about examining her trinket much more closely than she had before. It seemed the monster had wrapped the strands around the arms and a moment of working those strands saw them slip off. Left with her trinket as she remembered it in one hand and the addition in the other, she set her trinket down.


    When she tugged on the strands a bit more to see how they were attached to the small blanket, they came off with the end in a small circle. It didn¡¯t take her long after that to discover that the small blanket had an opening just like the creation of the moose monster. Growing excited at the discovery, she set about trying to make a copy of the creation.


    ¡®It might be smaller but so am I.¡¯


    <hr>


    She was not happy.


    The creation that the moose monster had made seemed so easy when it had been making it. All she had to show for her long stretches of work was a blanket with an opening it had when she got it and some strands she didn¡¯t make. It was frustrating to know her creativity was less than a moose monster.


    She padded through the tunnels once more. It was a strange feeling to be alone without her trinket, but as she had thought, the light refused to leave her behind. A thought that gave her far less comfort now than it would have even a few sleeps ago. She clearly needed to learn more about banishing the light from the moose monster. Among other things.


    The small blanket proved very useful even without the strands attached though. It was even carrying those strands inside itself right now, along with a few of the books from the Pages. She had been hesitant before, the moose monster being a dangerous thing she had tried her best to avoid. As she had watched it and learned of things she had been unaware of however, she realized that she didn¡¯t know what dangerous even was. While the moose monster was indeed dangerous, what else was also dangerous that she had thought safe? The powder? The noises?


    The light?


    She still trusted that the knowledge in the Pages was useful. She didn¡¯t trust that she could understand or find that knowledge on her own anymore though. Perhaps if she kept watching the moose monster, the knowledge in the Pages would become clearer and she would learn on her own. But how long would that take? How many dangerous things would she not know to avoid before then?


    No, it was best to try and speed things up. She had taken only two of the books from the pages, the one that had the depiction of the moose and one that seemed to combine pictures and words. She would show the moose monster the book that spoke about it, show that she knew what it was. Then she would see what knowledge the moose monster could gain from the other book. It had eluded her what that book had been made for, the knowledge in the words made useless by the pictures, but it would be interesting to see what the moose monster could gain.


    It would tell her if she had been looking at the Pages wrong. Tell her what else she may be able to learn.


    When she found the moose monster¡¯s lair open, she began to get excited to see what else she would learn.


    If only it wasn¡¯t empty.


    Again.

 Ch 14 -B

    In hindsight, he probably shouldn¡¯t have been so excited.


    Finally finding a water processing area had made him lose sight of the bigger picture for a moment. The actually large area seemed to be some kind of aqua-culture loop. A large opaque tank he didn¡¯t know the purpose of, several other large tanks that seemed to be made of a transparent material and a lousy amount of pipes.


    A couple of the transparent tanks seemed to have aquatic life of some description. Fish and shellfish most likely, but he didn¡¯t immediately recognize any of them. All but one of the others seemed to be plant-based tanks with what looked like seaweed but was probably something else. The last transparent tank was doing some kind of mixing.


    It all seemed clear water to him, though following what pipes he could the system seemed to recirculate the water. He would need to know what was in the last tank eventually, but this find pretty much ruled out running out of water. So long as it was just the two of them, they could live on this much water for years without running out and that didn¡¯t take what the system was doing into account.


    He wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the habitat tanks were a bio filter of some kind. He would still have to poke around to see if there were any filters or separation tanks that needed maintenance, but from the look of things the system didn¡¯t need to be touched. It would explain why the future soap was so strange, it was meant to play well with the overall system. The only worrying part was that he didn¡¯t see any sanitizing systems. All of the pipes that seemed to leave the room were large enough they could have one, but it was strange it wasn¡¯t labeled if that was the case.


    He did have to sigh once a thought struck him though.


    ¡®I am going to have to count every living thing in those tanks, aren¡¯t I?¡¯


    Not a task he looked forward to. Never anything for free. Unlimited water budget paired with the torture of learning all the things about the system. Possibly a power crisis as well, as the system was way too big for just two people. He hoped that wherever the power was coming from he would be able to understand the readouts, it probably wasn¡¯t a great idea to shut this system down even if he could figure out how. He didn¡¯t think the critters would do so well if things stopped and he didn¡¯t know where to get more. Best to just do what he could to keep everything alive.


    <hr>


    It took him several hours to copy down all the labels he found in the water treatment room. That along side a rough estimate of the numbers in the tanks should give him a fair amount of work to go through once he found a power area.


    He had come down here to fix a problem with the power. Not having to worry about water any longer was a good thing, but it didn¡¯t touch the immediate problem. Either that water system had been working in low power mode and he had screwed up by hitting yes at the panel, or it had been working the whole time. He had been out of cryo long enough for sensitive water creatures to be having issues had that system been off completely. Barring future tech of course. Still, he doubted it had been the thing to change the power situation, as it didn¡¯t appear to be a system that had an ¡®off¡¯.


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    Stopping at the panel on his way out, he tried to close the big door. To his not surprise, the panel popped up with something similar to the other large areas he had come across. A lot of words and what were probably options to select and not a bit of it that he understood. Sighing as he continued on his way, leaving the room open, he could only shake his head.


    ¡°I hope that wasn¡¯t a clean room. Or at the very least the whole place is filtered.¡±


    In normal operations it was probably a terrible idea to leave open systems like that exposed. Seeing as how he had yet to find any terrestrial life on this level, it was likely not worth the risk to press buttons and hope for the best. He would need to translate the panels before he selected anything on them.


    Another project that kept being pushed down his to-do list.


    Making his way back to more unknown parts of the level, he began working on his map again. If he found more areas like the water one, he would need to think long and hard about opening them. If they were dormant and he started them up again he wasn¡¯t sure things would turn out all that well.


    <hr>


    Tiredly trudging back towards his room was probably not the best course of action. He needed a shower before he went to sleep and he doubted he would want to make the trek after he got back. He had already done far too much walking for his liking.


    He had managed to find two other areas like the water treatment one. Large closed industrial doors, though much smaller than the water area, and a suit of rooms that seemed to hint at a purpose. He assumed the labs near the water area were testing and treatment labs now that he knew where they were located, relative to everything else. These new rooms had no context to help him, as he had not opened the other doors. When the panel popped up asking questions he didn¡¯t have answers to, he had simply copied down what it said and left it behind.


    Once he had gotten some rest and done what translating he could, he would either return to them or continue looking for more, depending on what the panel said. He had needed to return to his level though because he ran out of supplies.


    He really couldn¡¯t justify taking the shelf-stable choco-sticks down with him en-mass, so he only took a couple. It was better to use up the powder first as it was an open bag. Not to mention it gave him a chance to rest and puzzle out the translations. That meant he couldn¡¯t manage more than two days on the other level though, limiting how much he could find at a time.


    What he found when he made it back to his room might have been more surprising than anything on the other level though. He had expected the girl to be off playing with her new toy. Finding her crouched in his room, staring at him with strings in her hand was quite the shock. She almost looked guilty, though he had no idea why.


    He didn¡¯t put much thought into it though.


    The items spilling out of the pillowcase she seemed to use as a bag were drawing all his attention.

 Ch 15 - A

    She had grown tired of waiting for the moose monster to return.


    She had looked in all the normal places she had seen it before, though she was beginning to think that they weren¡¯t normal places for the moose monster. When the monster had proven itself absent from anywhere she cared to look for it, she had returned to its lair.


    She had spent the rest of her time awake trying to scavenge the lair in search of the materials the monster had used in its craft. She didn¡¯t find them, but she did find a small stash of treats. They were in one of the high spaces in the room, just as she had seen when the monster took out the powder, but there weren¡¯t enough to move them elsewhere.


    ¡®If there is a stash here, I don¡¯t have to worry about my stashes.¡¯


    That led to an intriguing thought though. She had not found anything in the low spaces in the room. If the monster simply didn¡¯t look in them because they were too low to the ground, would her stashes be safe there?


    She spent a sleep thinking it over, but it was foolish not to try. She spent the remainder of her time before sleeping again going to the stashes of treats she felt were the least protected. The stash in her home was safe and the one near the rain room should be safe as well. The ones near the food place and farther out needed to be relocated though. She also had to determine where the moose monster had marked out territory.


    The Pages said that living things had territory. They all marked them differently but if you knew what to look for you could find it. At first, she had thought an unstoppable moose monster wouldn¡¯t care and that there was a mistake. But the moose monster had a lair and that was territory, right? Clearly territory wasn¡¯t just to keep others out, it could have another meaning. The moose monster might not care if others came into its territory, since they couldn¡¯t do anything to it, but if she made a big mess in its lair, she imagined that would cause it to be angry. Just like she would be if something made a mess in her home.


    Since she had a territory in her home and the moose monster clearly had a territory as well, the Pages were likely correct on this. It would be strange for something that big to have a small territory though, so there had to be some way it was marked. How did the other monsters know not to intrude on the moose monster?


    It was possible that the moose monster used magic to mark it, but she thought that was probably wrong. If something couldn¡¯t sense the magic, like her when she first encountered the moose monster, it wouldn¡¯t know to be afraid. It was possible smell was used, as she could smell the moose monster clearly in its lair. The tunnels seemed to whisk away all smell though, so something like that wouldn¡¯t last long. While that could be why the moose monster was gone so often, she thought that a combination of things would work better in that case.


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    If the words on the walls had not been there before the moose monster shown up she would be convinced that was how it marked things. It was possible that this area had belonged to another monster before though and the moose monster had simply taken it over. Things had changed drastically once the moose monster had come to the area. If that was true then everywhere was the moose monster¡¯s territory and she was back to the beginning, if it was everywhere than no where was special. Since its lair was special there had to be a limit.


    The only way forward was to find another monster.


    If she could see what it did to be afraid of the moose monster, she would know what to look for. She could think of only two ways to accomplish that though. She either had to use herself as bait, most likely in the food place, to lure the monsters in and see what happened or she had to wait in the moose monster¡¯s lair.


    She had no interest in the first way. Not only did her curse of light make it impossible to not see her anywhere but the moose monster¡¯s lair, it made it difficult to see what was stalking her. If she was to make herself the bait, she would only draw in monsters that needed food and couldn¡¯t find it. If a monster was that desperate it might not be afraid of anything other than the actual moose monster.


    Since she only had one good option to choose it would have to be what she did. Using the blanket with the opening made moving her treats all at once fairly easy. She found a low space that seemed unused and made her first stash there. Just to be safe and make sure the moose monster didn¡¯t get them all, she made another stash in a room nearby.


    Once her task was complete, she left her small blanket on the floor near the opening and crawled under the blankets in the moose monster¡¯s nest. It smelled the strongest of the moose monster, so she felt it should hide her. Combined with the darkness in the moose monster¡¯s lair and she felt well hidden. It gave her a sense of comfort and a strange wiggly sensation once she had settled in.


    ¡®If all the darkness feels this good then the light really is a curse.¡¯


    She could understand why the moose monster allowed the darkness into its lair.


    Once the light lost interest and fled the darkness in the tunnel she began the slow part of her plan. She didn¡¯t know how long she would need to wait, but she hoped she would hear the monsters before they came to the opening. She didn¡¯t know if she could keep quiet if they surprised her.


    Of course, it didn¡¯t take long for her first mistake to make itself known.


    As she lay there waiting, the warmth grew more and more. With the softness of the floor and the warmth from the moose monster¡¯s nest, she began to feel the tingles she associated with magic.


    ¡®Of course the moose monster¡¯s nest has magic in it!¡¯


    She was torn. She really had no other idea to test and if she stopped now she may never be strong enough to try again. If she didn¡¯t stop though she may well fall into a haze and not notice another monster invading the lair. She felt safe enough, shrouded in the darkness, but if she couldn¡¯t react than no where was truly safe.


    She debated too long though, the decision stolen from her as the warmth pulled her into sleep.

 Ch 15 -B

    He had put his full attention on the books, but he probably should have paid more attention to the girl. As he set down his own makeshift sack of goodies to move toward the books he was assaulted by a verbal deluge. It seemed the girl had a lot to say all of a sudden.


    He didn¡¯t understand a bit of it of course, nothing more than chirps and squeaks entering his ears. He wasn¡¯t sure why she was using that language and not her rumbly voice, as he had never indicated he could understand it, but it was still the most he had heard her talk. When she picked up one of the books he became a lot more interested though.


    He turned the lights up a little, they were still at a quite dim setting from the attempt to acclimate the girl to the dark, since it seemed they would be doing a bit of reading and he didn¡¯t want to bother with eye strain. It had the side effect of derailing the girls monologue though. She seemed to brace then get confused and forgot whatever she had been babbling about.


    Her bout of confusion ended with another round of being excitable though, as she opened the book and turned it to him. She also seemed to be pointing at the other book as well, even if he was still processing. The book he could see seemed to be some kind of nature book with a picture of a moose in it. He recognized the lettering but couldn¡¯t read the words. The heartbreakingly low number of words indicated it was either a children¡¯s book or a picture book of some kind. Not really helpful, as he had a way of working out the individual characters, what he needed were the rules for grammar and structure. It wasn¡¯t a total waste of time, but it was more of a sideways move.


    ¡°Moose.¡±


    Going off a whim and trying to get the girl to find a point he could understand, he tried to get her focused on the book in her hand. His word made her stop and think for a moment at least. As he went to point and say it again she actually beat him to it. Pointing at the book and copying him, she was clearly getting better at speaking. Her word was understandable the first time, even if she ruined it a little trying to make her voice low. As he hummed his approval and was about to congratulate her, she surprised him again. She pointed at him and said ¡°Moose¡± all on her own.


    It took him a second to figure out she thought he was a moose, so he pointed at himself and tilted his head in question. He wasn¡¯t really sure why she thought he looked similar to something that had antlers, but her chirp and repeating of the word seemed to confirm she was quite sure of it. He checked his own head to see if something had grown since the last time he looked, though all he got was a handful of smooth black hair.


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    ¡®I need to find a way to shave.¡¯


    Since he didn¡¯t seem to have sprouted anything unknown, he assumed the girl was taking creative liberties. He wasn¡¯t sure just how substantial those liberties were but as the girl seemed unreasonably happy at the moment, he would let it slide.


    Happy enough to drop the nature book and rush back to her pillowcase bag. He frowned a little at the mistreatment of the poor book, something he would need to train her out of, but he didn¡¯t say anything as it let him pick it up himself. She seemed to want him to do something with the other book, though he was more interested in poking around this one a bit.


    As he looked through the pages, there seemed to be quite a few animals. The book itself was thin, clearly meant for children now that he had it in hand. No more than a small blurb near each picture. It was possible he could gather some grammar rules from the blurbs, but if it was meant for children he would never be able to tell if they were ¡®correct¡¯ or just easy to understand. At the very least it would let him learn the common stuff like ¡®the¡¯ or ¡®a¡¯ and how to end a sentence. Not much when you had technical documents to go through, but it was a great start he wished he had a while ago.


    It did seem the poor girl was taken aback by that fact he was more interested in the book in his hand than the one she seemed to want him to read. He started to worry that he had given her the mistaken impression that he could read the books to her. It was clear that she knew enough to speak¡­.


    .. or was it clear?


    For all he knew she was spouting as much random babble in her chirpy language as she did when she spoke all rumbly. For her it might make sense, but he had no way to know if she was just making things up and he was reading too much into it or not. She might have no idea what the book said and wanted him to read it to her. His short language lessons might be the first bit of structured speech she had ever heard.


    He sighed and rubbed his head. This was going to take forever to work out and he wasn¡¯t going to do it standing. It was clear that whatever the girl knew it, he would need to teach her his own language to be sure she wasn¡¯t talking nonsense. She had at least reacted to English when he spoke about her book, so he wasn¡¯t starting from nothing anymore. If he could get her to talk in at least broken english, teaching her would go much faster. The only problem being he didn¡¯t have the time while he was searching the deck level and she couldn¡¯t follow him until she understood not to run away. There was just more and more that needed to be done and it all seemed to want to be done now.


    ¡®I can at least see what she says as I translate what I found. God, I need a damn shower.¡¯

 Ch 16 -A

    Her plan had failed miserably and she still couldn¡¯t figure out why.


    She had been hesitant at first.


    When she woke to the warmth of the moose monster¡¯s nest her thoughts had been slow and far apart, the same as the other times. As the fog cleared and she realized that she completely missed her opportunity to see another monster, she got angry with herself.


    ¡®Why didn¡¯t I think about the moose monster¡¯s nest having magic when I always feel so warm and unable to move in it?¡¯


    It was so obvious to her. Even looking back it had never been hidden or any kind of secret. Always the nest had smothered her with warmth and fogged her mind. It made her not want to leave it and simply lay there forever. She didn¡¯t know how it could be more clear that it had magic.


    Once she had finished with the rain room and calmed her angry belly, she had returned to the lair. It seemed every time she slept here in the moose monster¡¯s lair she became unreasonably hungry and her body felt as if it had gone a full day without care. It was likely the magic in the nest, but she would need to keep such things in mind.


    She had planned to take her carrying blanket and return to her home for the day, but she stopped and considered things. There was nothing in her home she needed right now and the things here showed promise. Why return and waste the time walking?


    That was where the moose monster had found her, crouched over the strands it had used on her trinket, attempting to figure out how it made the thing it was carrying. Since her blanket already had an opening, she didn¡¯t think it needed the strange folding the moose monster had done. Her repeated failure quickly removed that notion from her, but she didn¡¯t get to test anything.


    Her heart had started beating faster when she had noticed the light in the tunnel come on then fade. She calmed somewhat when she saw it was the moose monster in the hole in the wall. Her fast heart was replaced by a strange feeling she didn¡¯t like much as she was caught holding the parts of the monster¡¯s creation in her hands. It faded quickly enough when she noticed that the monster was looking at her carrying blanket. Or rather the books from the Pages that had partially spilled out when she had retrieved the strands.


    As the monster was clearly interested in them, she was sure her plan would succeed. It always was fascinated by words and the Pages were nothing but words. She had clearly underestimated the moose monster though.


    As she didn¡¯t have the words in the moose monster¡¯s low rumbly language, she chose to speak the same way the People in the box spoke.


    ¡°Moose monster, I know what you truly are and I will trade you my words for better learning. I know you want me to make a choice, but this trade is all I can give for now.¡±


    The reaction she got crumbled her confidence in the plan a bit, as the moose monster simply looked at her for a moment before looking back at her books and placing down its own carrying blanket. She clearly needed some proof or way to collect its attention. She grabbed the book that showed the moose in it and tried to hold it up to show she was serious.


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    She was not ready when the moose monster let the light back into its lair. Her hand went to cover her eyes before she could think, but the light had not been harsh or painful. It took a moment for her to see that she wasn¡¯t about to be attacked. Had the moose monster just shown that it could stop the light from attacking her?


    The monster must have known about her curse as it was the one that helped her find out. Had it shown her a problem she didn¡¯t know she had in order for her to be desperate enough to reveal her secrets? A way to make her give more than she intended?


    Such a long plan made her brain stutter. She needed to continue with her plan as she had already started, but how much had the moose monster already prepared for? She ignored her doubts, they were no help right now, and opened the book.


    ¡°I know what you are like, moose monster. I will trade you the words in that book for the same amount of knowledge.¡±


    She had pointed to the other book she had brought in an attempt to distract the moose monster as well, even though she had no idea how to measure an amount of knowledge. So long as she got the knowledge from the book and a little extra she would be happy. She didn¡¯t expect to get that much though.


    She did feel a thrill run through her as the monster rumbled a word after looking at the book in her hand though. She hadn¡¯t expected to receive a new word herself, so she didn¡¯t know if the monster was distracted or trading.


    Or simply reading the page.


    It was hard to say which, so she repeated the word instead.


    ¡°Moose.¡±


    She nearly dropped the book when the monster rumbled in its chest. It didn¡¯t sound like a word and the Pages had mentioned creatures doing that, so she was sure it was something else. She made the same gesture as the moose monster the first time it had used a word on her and spoke again.


    ¡°Moose.¡±


    She did drop the book this time as the moose monster¡¯s eyes found hers. She was even so excited by what she had just done that she barely felt the pull from the magic found there. She had managed to use the same spell that the monster had when she first approached it. It was clear now that ¡®kitty¡¯ was some kind of label that had been attached to her by magic and she had just managed to do the same to the monster. Saying it a second time confirmed it had worked, just by seeing the monster¡¯s gestures.


    She quickly went to pick up the second book she had brought. Now that she had successfully cast her first magic she needed to keep going while the monster was wary of her.


    At least that was what she thought as she turned to hold up the second book. The monster had picked up the one that showed pictures and was looking though it. Right, that was something she had not really considered. While the moose monster had never used its strength to get what it wanted, it was still a moose monster. She had no way to stop it from simply using the books anytime she wasn¡¯t holding them. She was glad now that she had only brought the two.


    She would need to hold onto the one in her hand so long as the moose monster was around to avoid it simply taking the book and ruining her plan to trade. Something that was almost immediately put to the test as the moose monster closed the book it held and turned to leave.


    Had she made a mistake somewhere?


    She really did have to cover her eyes as the moose monster went back into the tunnels, something she confirmed by going to the opening and seeing it walk away. She thought about it quickly but decided to leave the book here and follow the monster. So long as she was with the monster it couldn¡¯t get to the book before her with its slow pace.


    She just really needed to find out what was more interesting than her offer of words.

 Ch 16 -B

    While he wasn¡¯t happy to say they had unlimited water, any competent system shouldn¡¯t use the same filters for grey water and drinking water. With the huge system he had found, there was no chance they would be able to contribute enough to either stress the system or feed it, however it worked exactly. He would still be cautious of drinking water, but he wasn¡¯t afraid of long showers anymore.


    Especially since there was no dirt or other detritus that came from outside. It was just them and the future soap.


    In fact, his over-excitement in finding the water system was pretty much centered around all the long hot showers he could now take to relax. Padding into the bathroom, he went to the showers after taking a quick pit stop. Holding everything in for however long he had been down there was rough. He might have a gamer bladder, but if he wasn¡¯t on severe rations he wouldn¡¯t have made it.


    The dual assault of not having to hold it anymore and the hot water from the shower was almost too much. He had barely noticed that he had company. As the hours of exploring washed out of his muscles he finally looked to see what the girl was doing. In hindsight, probably not a great move for his brain.


    At first he thought she was feeling herself up. Though his tiredness made it take a second, he eventually realized she was probably doing what he had shown her the last time. He hadn¡¯t really intended to have this be another shower lesson, but if the girl wanted to be clean he wasn¡¯t going to stop her. He got some soap from the dispenser, briefly wondering how much of that they had, and rumbled a bit in his chest to get her attention. No words, just noise. When she looked at him, he held out his hand and let the soap fall into hers when she reached for it. She seemed a lot more inquisitive this time, so he let her play and went back to staring infinite existence in the face. As the last of the knots left his muscles, he sighed and started soaping up. He wasn¡¯t really sure what was down on the other level but better safe than sorry.


    He didn¡¯t really think soap was necessary for a rinse job when he had only been on this level, which was the reason he hadn¡¯t rationed the soap, but until he had more information it was best to be safe where the other level was involved. He had no doubt that if one of them got sick they would both be down before long.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    His deep shower contemplations were interrupted by a rumbly but high-pitched voice calling him ¡®Moose¡¯ and a hand rubbing his side.


    Scratch that, two hands.


    Hmm, this was going exactly like his last little lesson. Had he not managed to show her the wonderfulness of a good shower? Knowing that all work was bad for the body, he decided to show her there was more to a shower than soap and scrubbing. The girl seemed to have ignored her hair, likely because he hadn¡¯t covered that topic the first time, hers being much longer and therefore in more need than his.


    A little more soap and a quick check to make sure it wasn¡¯t still dry anywhere and he soon was scrubbing away at the girl¡¯s scalp with his fingers. Unfortunately for him he had forgotten how the girl reacted to head rubs. He was reminded soon enough when she basically melted into him and did her best to follow his hands with her head. His plan once again completely derailed by his lack of foresight, he had to switch to using one hand to rub her shoulder and the back of her neck while the other made sure all the soap was gone and turned off the water.


    She still seemed to not like the air dryer much, but his hands rubbing her head again to dry her hair seemed to counteract the dislike. Enough so that they were both basically dry when they left the bathroom. Though he found it a little harder to walk with the girl doing her best to ensure his hand and her head remained connected, they managed to both make it back without incident.


    Sitting down on the bed didn¡¯t help much. Once he became stationary the girl tried to get both hands working again and basically draped herself on him in the effort. In an effort to rest his tired fingers and get back the use of at least one hand, he maneuvered his mostly liquid companion into a position he could rub her back. This seemed to have the unexpected side effect of hitting her off switch as she went limp pretty quickly.


    Having regained the use of his hand, and a bit of mobility seeing as the girl was lying on the bed and not him, he picked up her other book to take a look. It seemed promising, though there were no pictures on the page he looked at, so it would have to wait for him to finish his other translations. Setting the book back down and retrieving his notebook he set to work.


    ¡®How terrible would it be if it had just been a trespassing notice.¡¯

 Ch 17 -A

    She had stood no chance.


    When she had realized that the moose monster was headed towards the rain room she had understood. It had been gone for a long time, it most likely had to get wet again. Her theory seemed to be true when the monster started its rain magic. As she somewhat enjoyed the magic and didn¡¯t see any reason not to, she had copied what the monster had taught her the last time. When the monster rumbled and held out its hand, she had reached out to grab it.


    What she got instead was a handful of slow water.


    It had sparked her curiosity the last time as well, but as she was trying to hide, not very well she realized now, she hadn¡¯t spent the time to examine it. Poking and manipulating it in as many ways as she could think of, she had only one conclusion to reach.


    It was exactly what she had thought the first time, slow water.


    She still had no answer for why it was a different color, even if she could still see through it, but she had seen the moose monster mixing the powder into water as well. She had also seen it trap water, making it hard enough to hold more water. It was clear that the moose monster was deeply connected to water. If it had mixed something or used its magic to make water slow, that seemed perfectly natural. The fact it made her slippery wasn¡¯t all that strange either. As she had been rubbing herself before she got the slow water, she knew that she became more slippery as the water fell on her.


    Everything made sense.


    As she rubbed the slow water all over herself like the last time, she noticed that the moose monster wasn¡¯t moving. It seemed as still as the walls. She watched for a little while, trying to puzzle out this new behavior, she could find nothing that made sense. Especially since the last time it had seemed to be in a hurry.


    A desire to test her new magic and pure curiosity made her move her hands to the moose monster. She couldn¡¯t reach all the way around the monster the way it had reached around her last time, so she put both hands on one side and said her magic word.


    ¡°Moose.¡±


    It seemed to work. Either her hands rubbing its side or the magic had pulled its attention back to her and it started moving again. Something she regretted almost immediately.


    Well, her mind regretted. Her body was perfectly happy with the new turn of events.


    It seemed that by calling attention to herself she had made the moose monster actually pay attention to her. After which it seemed to decide that she didn¡¯t have enough magic. The monster got some more slow water and started rubbing her head. The combination of the warm water and head rubbing instantly sent tingles all over her body. Again.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    She really should have learned not to make herself so vulnerable during her experiments. By calling the attention of the monster she now had lost control of her body as it sought out more head rubs. She didn¡¯t know how long that lasted, but she did know when it changed. At some point, the monster had stopped rubbing her head and was using only one hand to squeeze her shoulder. It wasn¡¯t as good as the head rubs, but it still sent tingles down her back.


    That was a good thing, as the storm magic made her tense up. She would have run had it been the first time, but she recognized it since she had done this before. She didn¡¯t stay tensed long though, as the head rubs returned and her body did its best to make sure things stayed that way. She only vaguely noticed that they were returning to the monster¡¯s lair.


    Once the monster sat down on its nest, her body decided to get as close as possible, her mind supplying memories of the warmth she had experienced a few times now. The closer she got to the moose monster the more warmth she could feel and the better the head rubs and tingles got. Right up until she realized she had lost.


    Once she was at the point where her mind had started to turn foggy, the monster moved her onto the bed with her back facing up. It then did something with its hand that made the head rubs fade into nothing. She could feel the monster¡¯s hand doing something on her back and then she lost all strength, the tingles too much to endure.


    Strangely, while her body was very happy and utterly powerless, her mind seemed to be clear. It was slow, but fully clear. It was the only reason she was able to understand she had fallen deeply into a trap.


    As she watched the monster pick up the book she had intended to keep from it until the trade, she wanted to protest. To snatch the book and demand it trade. Insultingly, the monster hadn¡¯t even moved fast. It seemed the water had made it ponderous and relaxed. She had plenty of time to stop it, plenty of time to move or do anything.


    She couldn¡¯t even work up the energy or desire to speak, let alone move.


    This was the answer to her question she guessed. What could be better than before? This. This was better than before. Was it worth the trade? She had no idea, it was too much work to think that much right now.


    Even more insultingly, the monster didn¡¯t seem interested in the book. The first book she had shown had earned at least enough attention to look through it. This one got nothing more than a short peek before it was set down again.


    The monster pulled the book it normally carried with it out of the blanket creation. When the monster opened it, she could see why her book was discarded. Every page seemed to be filled with enough words to make her book seem as empty as the word walls. The monster didn¡¯t even try to hide it from her vision, though she couldn¡¯t muster enough anything to do something about that.


    If she could steal some of the words in that book then everything would have been worth it. She could only imagine what she could learn, it might even have as much information as the Pages. She would need to come up with a new plan, a way to see as much of the book as possible.


    Soon. She needed a plan soon. Later. After¡­. yea, after.

 Ch 17 -B

    ¡°So, hear me out. It wasn¡¯t a trespassing notice exactly.¡±


    As he had not only an eager learner but a captive audience, he had decided to think out loud for the time being. His translations had required the use of both hands from time to time, something the girl had protested. It had only taken a few moments after he stopped the first time for the girl to follow his escaping hand.


    She was currently situated in, what looked like to him at least, a very uncomfortable position draped over his knee. She may very well have had other intentions that first time, but as she had tried to follow his hand into his notebook he had simply returned to his back massage. As she went limp pretty fast, he had simply continued that course of action. If he needed both hands, he switched to rubbing her back with his arm and elbow instead. She was either quite pleased with the situation or had fallen asleep. Both worked for him, but he would continue to think out loud just in case she could absorb the lesson.


    He really didn¡¯t like what he was finding in the translations anyway, so this way at least he was accomplishing something. The large text block the panels had shown were some kind of access control. He couldn¡¯t translate the entire thing, but what he had managed basically said, it was a restricted area, his access had been logged and he had to override security. Which was the yes/no at the bottom.


    All fantastic access control things in a working facility.


    Well, aside from a rando like him being able to override it.


    Those words meant something very different to him now that he had been here a while. The first was that wherever they were had restricted access. That meant either under-qualified people would be a danger to themselves or others, or there was something not everyone in the facility was allowed to see. Given that he was currently in what he was assuming was a secret area, it didn¡¯t make much sense to have information control on certain areas on the main level. What he assumed was the main level at least. It would make more sense to simply put those areas up here.


    The second thing it said was that those areas needed special considerations, and likely training, to operate and maintain safely. Probably involving safety gear and the like as well. Areas he had wandered into with nothing but a makeshift backpack. He was lucky the first one he had found was a water area. Had he wandered into a radioactive stockpile or a high-voltage area and poked around like he had, he would be toast. The need to find the purpose of those rooms before he entered had made itself all the more apparent.


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    The third thing he was forced to face was the fact he could get in at all. It had to mean one of two things. Either someone had given him full access or access control had been suspended. He wasn¡¯t sure which scared him more. If access control had been suspended, that meant something had happened to all the qualified people that made this place function. There was either an automated system that noticed the lack of maintenance or someone had started an emergency protocol before whatever happened¡­ well, happened. He was somewhat ok with an automated system. He couldn¡¯t figure out why it hadn¡¯t been shut off before everyone left, but if there was an oopsie that resulted in the emergency systems staying functional he could live with it. It noticed no maintenance being done, opened his cryo-pod and made him the ¡®fix-it¡¯ guy.


    No idea how his leg warmer fit into all of that, but it was workable.


    If it was an actual emergency protocol and hadn¡¯t been simply forgotten but had gone off properly, things weren¡¯t so peachy. An emergency that emptied a place this extensive had to be catastrophic. It would probably be invisible as well. A gas leak, radiation bloom, epidemic. The list went on but none of it was good. Given that the girl was most likely awake before him, given the stashes of choco-sticks, he didn¡¯t think it would be a quick fatality.


    It was possible that whatever it was had caused an evacuation and an automated clean-up, in which case they would have visitors soon enough or he was back to his first theory only it hadn¡¯t been forgotten, simply overzealous.


    Regardless, if a hazard had occurred that cleared the facility, he needed access to the computers as soon as possible to find out what that hazard was. He couldn¡¯t be wandering around trying to find a power plant if there was a radiation leak.


    The last option¡­. That one gave him shivers.


    He could think of a couple legitimate reasons to give the man in a cryo-pod full override access to everything in a secret facility. They all revolved around tests and last resorts. If you had a body in cryo sleep and something happened, like they were completely forgotten, that person had to be able to go anywhere they needed in an abandoned or mothballed facility. The optimist reason being that they needed to be able to find a way out. The pessimist reason was that a locked door could prevent them from being able to survive that journey.


    The part that scared him was that kind of override access was likely to be the one, and possibly only, clue to a mastermind or game-master running a human zoo. That or some other entertainment setup. As he had no indication before this that override access had been activated for everyone or that there was a need for it at all, it meant it hadn¡¯t been part of a narrative he was in the middle of or he had missed crucial information that had been laid out to push him in that direction. Him finding out with this translation and no hints beforehand meant he wasn¡¯t really supposed to know.


    ¡°Who would have believed that I would find myself in a situation where the radiation leak was the less scary option?¡±


    Unfortunately, his smaller companion didn¡¯t seem to have an answer to that question.


    ¡®Good thing it was rhetorical.¡¯

 Ch 18 -A

    She wasn¡¯t sure the book she had brought was worth a trade any longer.


    There were certainly books in the Pages that had a lot of words in them. Books that had meanings and knowledge she felt she had never gotten a grasp on. Even the smallest of the books that were all words could hold so much that her mind failed to take it all in.


    She felt that now as she looked at the small book Moose held in its hands.


    Once the hand at her back had stopped, she had gathered the energy in an attempt to grab the book Moose had set on the floor between its legs. The attempt had found her mostly lying on its leg instead. As she had reached for the book, she had felt the hand return and resume whatever it had been doing before.


    And just like before she had felt all motivation leave her.


    Luckily for her she had landed in such a way that the small book in Moose¡¯s hand was clearly visible to her. That hadn¡¯t been her plan, or really any plan, but she would take the victory for what it was. Especially as Moose slowly added more words to the book.


    There was a near constant rumble going through her at the time, Moose speaking many words, though she didn¡¯t know if they were meant for her or just another spell that was being cast. Her position and whatever the hand was doing making those rumbles turn into even more tingles. She did her best to listen to each word that was spoken, but the words in the book were far more interesting.


    She could read some of them.


    Those words seemed to offend Moose though. It spent a long time in what seemed to be an attempt to change those words. She had seen some of the letters that were being used before but had never seen them made into full words. Which was what Moose seemed to be doing. She didn¡¯t know what was wrong with the words the way they started, but as Moose had yet to do anything that didn¡¯t turn out well, at least for it, she felt a need to pay attention. Or to at least try.


    She was having a very hard time keeping her eyes open.


    Between the warmth flowing into her from her spot on Moose¡¯s leg, whatever was happening to her back, the lack of motivation and a desire to simply ¡®let go¡¯, keeping her eyes open was a serious battle all on its own. When Moose finally rose, it took her a moment to even realize she had been moved back to the soft floor. As it banished most of the light from its lair, it seemed to wait near the opening in the wall for a moment. Though what it was waiting for escaped her. As the wall was magicked back into place, Moose returned to its nest after placing the small book into the blanket creation.


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    She debated what to do for what seemed like a long time.


    What would Moose do if she tried to take any of the books?


    She was fairly sure she could move the books she had brought without issue. Moose had not seemed to care what she did with them. As her recent experience had shaken her belief in their value, that could very well be the case. They held nothing that Moose wanted so why would it care what she did with them. It was possible that she could still trade them as a place for Moose to make new words, there was plenty of space in both books for that, but that was much less valuable than knowledge itself. Something that Moose seemed to believe those books lacked. And which she was starting to agree with. She could return them to the Pages and bring back a more valuable book, but her utter lose to Moose when it came to keeping the contents of the two books she had brought secret made her reluctant to do such things before she knew their true value.


    No, the only book that she really needed to consider was the small one Moose had been using. What would happen if she tried to move that one from where it had been placed? Did she want to risk something when the wall was closed? Was it better to wait until she could properly judge any reaction to getting close?


    It didn¡¯t matter in the end.


    She had once again failed to notice that her body had plans of its own. Only once her eyes slid shut and refused to open again did she realize she was pressed into the warmth of the nest and the heat coming off of Moose.


    Something that she was coming to find she craved almost as much as the magic chasing away the emptiness.


    <hr>


    Watching Moose create the disks as closely as she could, she was determined to learn this spell as her second one. The disks were far to useful and filling to ever use the powder on its own again.


    Sleeping in the nest at the same time as Moose had once again made her body protest, but it seemed to very refreshing for her mind. It had allowed her to come to the conclusion that the small book Moose carried was far too complex for her to get any use out of, especially if she couldn¡¯t even understand some of the books in the Pages. It was much better to watch Moose as more words were made than to try and decipher anything for herself.


    She had followed closely after that. Making sure to always keep it in sight. At least for the most part. Her own bodies needs forced her to act without being able to see Moose some of the time, she could only hope it wasn¡¯t enough to miss something important.


    It was a good thing as well. If she had missed when Moose put some treats into its carrying blanket, she wouldn¡¯t have been able to do the same.


    Her constant attention did seem to affect Moose though. It stood and looked at her with a few strange looks on its face for some time. She had no idea how to interpret those looks or even what might be the problem, but eventually it carried on.


    When Moose entered a room with nothing in it and magicked the wall shut, she thought she was in trouble. That feeling lessened when the wall opened again, though it rose when she didn¡¯t recognize the tunnel she stepped into. Not only her feelings but her mind having trouble settling on the situation.


    They walked a long way as her mind swirled and her emotions went back and forth. Eventually coming to a long tunnel without any rooms. At the end of that tunnel, she no longer had to worry about the turmoil in her mind or feelings, all of it swept away by what she saw.


    ¡®Maybe the rain room wasn¡¯t a watery place after all.¡¯

 Ch 18 -B

    His translations had hit a snag.


    As he didn¡¯t know what things said, his only choices were to copy down everything that seemed important in order to go over them elsewhere or to try and translate them on the spot. As ¡®on the spot¡¯ was often not an ideal place for academic pursuits, he mostly chose the first option.


    Since he could copy down enough to occupy himself for a while and his goal of saving energy was best achieved in his room with the lights somewhat dimmed, he felt that had been the ideal option. With the girl now spending most of her time in the room as well, it meant there were no super bright lights flickering on and off. He didn¡¯t know how much energy they took, but off was almost always less.


    The only downside being that he had a limited amount to work with. He had done his best to fully translate all the text he had found on the deck level, most of it either unintelligible due to missing context or not that helpful. There wasn¡¯t much point to a safety warning about moving objects if there weren¡¯t any moving objects. He assumed it meant vehicles, but that word didn¡¯t really translate well, so he went off context. Could have been golf balls whizzing past for all he knew.


    They did tell him that poking around uninformed on that level was ill advised. He would need to do a lot more work before he really got to opening things up. He would need to finish looking around on this level and return to the lab that he had found. He hadn¡¯t noticed any obvious computers in that lab he could work with, but unless everyone that had been here used handhelds he hadn¡¯t managed to find yet, that was his best chance of accessing any kind of network.


    He had hoped to find a power station or a generator plant to gauge how much he needed to worry about power. With the possibility of a leak or containment breach being high though, that would be a suicide mission. This facility was massive, there was no way it was powered by a national grid like a house would be. It would need its own generation in some form. If that was solar or water, he would never find out before he managed to leave the facility. Even if he found a battery or other energy storage, it wouldn¡¯t be a decisive clue. It was possible the facility was powered by fuel of some kind, but the ¡®secret¡¯ nature of the level he was living on and that fact no one had shown up yet put those possibilities pretty low on the list. Constant or massive deliveries made hiding more difficult than it needed to be.


    That left nuclear options and future tech he didn¡¯t know about. Both were incredibly dangerous to him if he went poking where he shouldn¡¯t. If it was a fission plant, he could only hope the automated systems were working and didn¡¯t need his input. The only reason he didn¡¯t consider a meltdown as the reason everyone was gone was the fact there was still power. Being the future, he was putting his money on a fusion plant of some kind, though he figured that something external like solar or geo-thermal was also involved. That would be the best way to hide things and keep people from having to come and go all the time.


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    It would also explain why no one had shown up yet. If the area only got deliveries once or twice a decade, they could be waiting a long time before their next set of visitors showed up. Assuming there wasn¡¯t some distress call or abandonment going on. It could explain the water system as well, since that was a good source of recycled calories. It would still need inputs, but it would be able to get away with far less than simply hauling in and storing all the food and other needs. Enough less that it could be handled by once in a long while deliveries.


    He was assuming all of this off of the secret keeping and access controls though. There was every possibility that he found a secret button in the elevator that dumped him right onto main street.


    Not something he would be looking for today though.


    He had hemmed and hawed a bit when the girl had followed him everywhere after he woke up. He really didn¡¯t have any way to distract her again, as she seemed to have left her stuffed cat somewhere else. Maybe she didn¡¯t want him playing with it again? Or maybe she just got it stuck somewhere, who knows. She didn¡¯t seem overly concerned about it, so he didn¡¯t pay the situation much mind, but he now had a hard decision to make.


    He needed more to translate to keep things moving and hopefully make sure they didn¡¯t lose power. His only choices at the moment were the deck level and the lab, both of which could be dangerous if the girl got out of hand. In the end he figured it didn¡¯t matter much. If she was going to follow him as closely as she had been, then there wasn¡¯t much problem. He intended to return to the water plant to translate the panel in real time. The information that it held would be the most useful at the moment, as he could compare it to the panel in the mess hall. There was every possibility that his override access meant he could get everything he needed right there in the mess hall if he knew the right buttons to press. He just needed something to compare it to.


    The girl seemed a bit troubled as they made their way to the water plant. No doubt confused about entering a door in one hall and exiting that same door into another. He could only imagine that elevators were a mindfuck to people that had never experienced them before, and this one didn¡¯t have any feeling of movement. No idea how that was managed, though it was the reason it had taken him time to confirm it was actually an elevator.


    Once they came upon the water plant, the girl seemed a bit awestruck. If he had to guess this was probably the most water the poor girl had ever seen. He certainly had seen aquariums with less. He settled in near the panel while keeping a close eye on her actions and reactions. She was small enough he wasn¡¯t worried about her getting into a tank before he could stop her, but he did still need to be aware enough to stop her. Though after a bit of staring, the girl seemed to prefer to stay near him as he brought his notebook out again.


    It made his job easier, so he didn¡¯t complain.


    ¡°Let¡¯s hope I don¡¯t run out of ink, huh? Paperwork would be really hard without something to write with.¡±


    As the girl just stared at him, he figured the sarcasm was lost in translation. Or just lost.


    ¡®Need to teach that girl some humor so she isn¡¯t serious all the time.¡¯

 Ch 19 -A

    It was clear that Moose had used a lot of magic here.


    The trapped water seemed to be doing a lot of things. It held a lot of colors she didn¡¯t normally see as well. At first, she had thought the small creatures in the water were baby monsters. As she watched them on and off the whole time, she now thought they were simply creatures. She didn¡¯t recognize any of them from the Pages, so they must be minor creatures that weren¡¯t worth mentioning.


    At least that was what she assumed before Moose spent quite a while staring at them.


    She still didn¡¯t understand why Moose had come here. There was certainly a lot of water around, but Moose never entered any of it, staying dry the entire time. There were no wall words, though Moose found one spot on the wall to be very interesting and had used magic to make words appear. Everything she knew about Moose said that this wasn¡¯t what it should be doing. The only time she had seen it sitting for long periods of time before was at the wall words. It was clear this was something new.


    The Pages had mentioned a ¡®garden¡¯ several times, but when she tried to discover what it was, she had been disappointed. All she could find was that a ¡®garden¡¯ was a place that was cultivated ¡®for food, ornament or relaxation¡¯. She understood each of those words individually, but that explanation made no sense.


    What was cultivating?


    Why did you need a specific space for pretty things or relaxing?


    How did the treats or powder fit into a garden?


    Did that mean the food place was a garden?


    She had so many questions that she had given up on understanding what a garden was. As she crouched watching Moose make new words in its book, she went back to those questions. What did a Moose eat? Watery things of course. Even her book that showed a moose had it with green things in its mouth. Green things that she now found floating in the water. Watery green things meant food for a moose. That meant this was clearly a moose garden.


    The words used to describe a garden were starting to make sense now. They were vague and hard to understand because a garden needed to be described by the creature ¡®cultivating¡¯ it, not what was ¡®cultivated¡¯. She still was unsure what that word meant exactly, but she guessed that watching Moose would lead her to the answer at some point. She also didn¡¯t understand why Moose ate the disks when it had so many watery green things right here.


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    Maybe they tasted better?


    Her new understanding of gardens also found the small creatures difficult to place. They were clearly small things. None longer than her arm, though there were many different sizes. Were they a part of the garden? That didn¡¯t make sense. While a moose might eat watery things, the creatures moved around a lot while the green things didn¡¯t. It wouldn¡¯t make any sense to try and catch a creature when the green things could be taken so easily. She supposed that the creatures could be the ornament part that she had trouble grasping, but she didn¡¯t find them all that pretty. She wasn¡¯t a moose so that may be why, but the Pages seemed to think that everyone found ornaments pretty.


    Could they be the relaxing part?


    They certainly didn¡¯t seem to be in a hurry, even with all the movement. Was that how it worked? She would have thought a moose garden was supposed to be relaxing for a moose, not for the creatures that were part of the garden. She would be the first to admit she didn¡¯t know much about gardens though, so it was possible she got that part wrong. That didn¡¯t explain why Moose let them into the garden though. She just didn¡¯t see any reason to let creatures smaller than herself hide in the green stuff.


    Oh.


    ¡®Why do they have to be a part of the garden when I am here and not a part of it?¡¯


    She had only been thinking about gardens. She hadn¡¯t even tried to think about other possibilities. Those creatures were so small she had no doubt they would be eaten by monsters without a fight. Even smaller monsters. Why where they here? The same reason she was, they were using Moose to hide. If Moose only cared about the green things, all the other creatures in the garden were basically safe. This would clearly be a part of Moose¡¯s territory, so other monsters would be reluctant to make a mess.


    Which they would have to.


    She had been looking at the hard water that held everything and she hadn¡¯t found any way to get to the creatures without making a mess. Something that would anger Moose. Those small creatures were smart. And lucky. She would love to live in the water with them, safe behind Moose¡¯s magic and territory. She didn¡¯t know what the watery green things tasted like, but for safety like that she would eat them regardless.


    It would be small for something her size though. Maybe Moose would make her a place like that in the garden? She would be happy so long as she could¡­


    .. Was her home a garden for the Others?


    She looked back that the large bits of magicked water.


    What did those little creatures see?


    Was it a foggy wall?


    She shivered as the thoughts raced through her mind. She had never connected her home to anything other than being her home before. Seeing the garden that Moose had made changed all of that. She could see things from the other side now. See what the foggy wall looked like to those outside. Were those little creatures like her, content with their lives because they were safe? She didn¡¯t know what such small creatures ate or did the rest of the time, but she had just imagined herself doing exactly that. Surrounded by magic and left to herself, safe and apart from everything.


    ¡®I wonder if they are empty? Could I give up the magic inside me for that kind of safety, now that I know?¡¯


    The fact she couldn¡¯t decide made her body press into Moose¡¯s side.


    ¡®Why can¡¯t I just be safe and full..¡¯

 Ch 19 -B

    After a painful, but thankfully relatively short, time trying to get the numbers for the aquarium tanks, he had a fairly good estimate of the numbers in each of them. They weren¡¯t anywhere near what he would like for a healthy ecosystem, but he supposed that was what the labs nearby were for. There was enough to be self-sustaining, so long as he didn¡¯t change anything, but that was a big gamble with how little he knew about the system. Or genetic engineering.


    There was a chance he could do something with those labs, he had some training on what things did what, but it would be like following a recipe. He would need step-by-step instructions. Lab work had never been his strong suit, his focus on computer engineering favored the software side. Microscopes and spectrometers didn¡¯t change much across disciplines though.


    At least not that he had seen.


    He would feel a lot better with a soldering iron and a circuit board than a micro needle and gene splicer though. Their needs didn¡¯t really care what he favored unfortunately. If he had to learn how to genetically engineer a fish so they could eat, that¡¯s what he would need to do. Of course that all depended on learning to read the language. Something he wasn¡¯t really getting better at.


    Once the easy translations and letter swaps were out of the way he hadn¡¯t really made any progress on his quest to fully translate the things he had found. To be honest, the papers he had found in the hidden lab were the only thing that had gotten him this far to begin with. With them using future english that he could read, it gave him a lot of context on the words around those parts.


    Maybe he should have returned there to begin with.


    He was running up against his ability to manage the translation on a lot of the parts in the panel. There was clearly a lot of technical data and commands he wasn¡¯t equipped to handle with his limited understanding of the language. It gave him hope, since it would mean that the panels had access to a central database and could probably give him a lot of information.


    Unless they were super future tech and had some kind of general A.I. in every panel. That would be a waste if you asked him, but he wasn¡¯t trying to hide a secret genetics lab in the middle of wherever they were. Either way, the panels represented the best place to get information. They also represented the most dangerous place.


    He had mostly determined that he and the girl were alone. Barring a human zoo scenario, but he wasn¡¯t counting that. Everything he had explored had been clean and unbroken. There were things that hadn¡¯t been put away yet and personal artifacts left in rooms, but nothing that indicated a struggle. If there had been a mutant genetics outbreak and everyone had been eaten there would be a lot more evidence of that. Even if they were smart and covering their tracks, there would always be small signs or clues that couldn¡¯t be covered up or removed. Things that he had yet to find. Even the girl, as quiet and elusive as she was, was easy enough to track when he knew there was something there.


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    Needless to say, he wasn¡¯t worried about being jumped or attacked by living creatures so long as he remained on one of the two levels he had been exploring. Robots were something to consider, but he hadn¡¯t seen anything to indicate they existed either. That was less clear than living things though so he would keep his eyes peeled.


    It was why he was fine with bringing the girl down with him. He had explored the water plant before and knew mostly what to expect. He didn¡¯t think there would be anything that would spook her so badly she ran off. He also didn¡¯t think she would be able to hurt herself here before he had a chance to stop her. That left the only danger in this journey as something he made for them both. Like pressing the wrong button on the panel. Hence the panels being the most dangerous.


    With the girl basically glued to his side, he wasn¡¯t afraid she would get stuck in something without him. The chance they both got stuck though was pretty high. Every time the panel asked a question, he would note down everything and translate it as thoroughly as possible before selecting an answer. If it had the words activate or initiate anywhere, he would say no. In fact most times he said no, even if those words weren¡¯t present. He wanted to see all the options the panel gave him so he could translate them all at once, agreeing to things he wasn¡¯t sure about wasn¡¯t going to happen.


    He lost track of time for the most part, one eye on the girl and everything else on his work. When the girl pressed into his side and shivered, he figured that it was time to wrap things up. It wasn¡¯t cold exactly, the temperature well within a safe range, but it wasn¡¯t all that pleasant either. Especially after all the time they had spent in his own room that held the heat in nicely. He assumed the large amounts of water were acting as a thermal battery and keeping the temperature at a stable point that was good for the aquatic life, even if it was a bit low for them.


    Which would explain why the door was a thing as well. Evaporation could be a huge problem if any of the metal around here was susceptible to corrosion. The humidity in the hall was noticeably higher than his last visit. Fortunately, this trip wasn¡¯t a waste.


    He had learned how to close the door.


    Something he was happy about until he remembered the girl was skittish.


    ¡®Hmm, how do I handle that little dilemma.¡¯


    If he held her tightly enough to prevent escape, it could scare her. He could pick her up, which she seemed to not mind the last time, but then he might not be able to put her down until they got back. In the end he chose a compromise. Getting the girls¡¯ attention with a pat on her head, he started to give her scritches. Once she was invested, he freed up one of his hands and navigated the panel to the door controls. As he suspected, the girl did not like the noises an industrial door that big made. He very nearly had to pick her up, the scritches not enough of a distraction.


    On the positive side, she didn¡¯t bolt. On the less positive side, he now had a semi-permanent attachment to his side. Even once the door finished closing, the girl seemed reluctant to stop. As they made their way back to the elevator, she stuck right where she had been, unwilling to let go and walk on her own.


    ¡®At least she is using her own legs.¡¯


    It was an awkward walk, considering he was doing his best to not trip or step on the girl¡¯s foot. At least now he knew what she would do in a situation where she got spooked. It was a lot better to have her nearby if something happened, so that he didn¡¯t have to worry about her getting lost. Though if he needed her to escape that would backfire quickly.


    ¡®At least she can have some nice relaxin-jacks while I fiddle with the panel in the mess hall. A warm meal should get her mind off of things.¡¯

 Ch 20 -A

    Moose wasn¡¯t watching her any longer so she slipped back to the place where it had made the disks.


    All through the time they had spent in the watery place, Moose had kept its eye on her. She wasn¡¯t sure why, Moose had never paid her that much attention. Maybe it was making sure she didn¡¯t break anything in the garden?


    That attention became even more clear when Moose had used the big magic near the end.


    She was surprised at first. When Moose touched her head, she had been thinking about her home and hadn¡¯t expected it. Once Moose started to rub her head and the tingles began again, she understood that something was happening. She had thought Moose was just giving her more magic. That she didn¡¯t have enough or wasn¡¯t growing it fast enough.


    All of that was forgotten when the noises started.


    Even her mind hadn¡¯t known what to do. With noises so close, she normally would want to run away. To escape whatever was coming. But these. These noises were far worse than anything she had heard before. Her body refused to move and her mind was filled with nothing but the noise. It pushed out all her thoughts and made it hard to do anything but hear more. It was only Moose and the head rubs that let her do anything at all. All she managed to do even then was to cling to Moose and hope it was strong enough.


    It wasn¡¯t until the heat from clinging to Moose started to loosen her body that she realized there was nothing coming for them. That Moose wasn¡¯t giving her more magic. Everything had been Moose from the start. It had used some great magic to make a wall between them and the garden.


    It wasn¡¯t like what happened at the lair. The small magic there was quiet and the wall closed up fast. It was only a small piece and didn¡¯t seem difficult to do. Moose only needed a moment before the magic was done and the opening closed. Here? Here it was very different. The magic took a long time to finish and Moose seemed to need the magic in her for some reason.


    No, the reason was obvious.


    The wall that formed before her was enormous. Far larger than even Moose. It filled the entire tunnel with its bulk. She doubted even a monster as large as Moose would be able to break it. The tunnel as well was much larger than almost anything she had seen before. It was clear that this was where Moose spent its time. And where other monsters that could compete with Moose also lived. She could see no other reason to use all that magic on such a big wall otherwise.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    How terrifying must the monsters here be, to compete with Moose?


    She didn¡¯t want to find out. If this was what it took for the garden to be safe, then she would rather not stay here. Not have to deal with the reasons it needed safety in the first place. She made sure to cling to Moose for the rest of their walk. She didn¡¯t recognize any of these tunnels and didn¡¯t want to risk being separated. She didn¡¯t think she could survive here on her own, especially with her light curse. She would be easy prey.


    She should have been far more wary when Moose used magic on the room that brought them here. It had been strange, but she was more curious than anything. How had Moose made the same opening in the wall lead to different places? That would be an amazing power to have. To use it to make the opening in her home lead to Moose¡¯s lair. She would never have to walk the tunnels again. Simply appearing where she needed to go.


    But maybe there was a reason. Maybe if Moose did it, other monsters could do it too. If Moose used the magic, other monsters could find it and appear where Moose had been. It would be a good reason. Even Moose couldn¡¯t be everywhere at once. At least she didn¡¯t think so. Even if another monster couldn¡¯t defeat Moose, they could just wait and do whatever they wanted when Moose wasn¡¯t there.


    She would need to memorize exactly where the opening that brought them here was. If other monsters could find it because of the magic, she needed to stay away from it. To run if she heard any noises coming from that direction. After what she had seen, her life might depend on it.


    Even after they had returned to the tunnels she remembered, she had stuck to Moose¡¯s side. She had no idea how the magic worked and didn¡¯t want any mishaps. It wasn¡¯t until Moose started to make more disks that she stepped away.


    It was hard to watch what was happening when she was that close and she wanted that spell.


    It was clear it was complex magic. Not as big as what had been done in the tunnel, but more difficult to do. At least from what she could see. Whenever Moose made a wall, there wasn¡¯t much hand movement or concentration. It seemed that making a wall was simple but took a lot of magic. This seemed to be the opposite, not much magic but a lot of hand movement. Still, it would take more time to memorize it exactly. She didn¡¯t dare try more magic in front of Moose. Even if she was protected for now, if Moose found out she could do lots of magic at some point, it might not give her enough. Or it might not give her any. She didn¡¯t want Moose to know what she could or couldn¡¯t do until she was ready.


    Experimenting on her own was different though.


    Once the disks were finished, Moose set them on one of the surfaces in the food place and went to the wall. Where it then proceeded to make words pop out. Again. Maybe that spell should be something to study as well. To simply make words appear anywhere would be a great help in learning them.


    As Moose had stopped paying close attention to her after it had set the disks down, she used the distraction caused by the wall words to return to where Moose had made the disks. If she could learn to make the disks on her own she wouldn¡¯t need to worry where Moose had gone.


    ¡®Moose used its hands like this, right?¡¯

 Ch 20 -B

    ¡®Ha, finally found the light controls. Too bad they don¡¯t make any sense.¡¯


    He had spent a while trying to determine what the differences were between the water plant and the mess hall panels. He had managed to narrow down the similarities between them to be something about ¡®room controls¡¯. It had thrown him off at first, as the whole thing seemed to be room control, but it appeared he had simply translated it wrong. Or the translation was right and the future just had a weird taste in labels. Still hard to say.


    The category seemed to have a lot of things inside of it as well. A lot of options he wasn¡¯t goring to explore at the moment. Even the sub-categories for the lights had a lot in it. Lacking any convenient slider or other recognizable element, he didn¡¯t want to play with it and blow out a light bulb.


    He didn¡¯t really have any replacements.


    He would need to check the panel in his room next, to see if he could ¡®exit¡¯ the category for controlling the room stuff and ¡®go up a level¡¯ into the other things the panel could clearly do. Well, maybe not his room. He didn¡¯t want to brick a panel he actively needed for his room. Sleeping with the lights stuck on would be terrible. His sleeping was already messed up enough.


    Unfortunately, the rest of the panel in the mess hall had different options to the water treatment one. The translation here was a bit easier, far less complicated words to parse, but it didn¡¯t give him nearly as many options or information as the industrial panel had. There seemed to be some information at least, as well as something he was guessing at being a P.A. system, but he was working off of pure context for both. While he got a lot more words translated here, it was still only one or two in a sentence. Much better than one or two in a paragraph, but still not great for messing about with commercial panels. The information didn¡¯t help him much either. His best guess was environmental information. Temperature, humidity, that kind of thing. Considering he didn¡¯t know the numbers or anything about the units, it was pretty much useless. He could guess at the temperature if he needed to, but temperature units didn¡¯t translate well to power grids or chemical percentages. The things he actually needed to know.


    Not to mention the numbers would just be a rough guess, not nearly enough precision for important things.


    He stretched and yawned as he got up. It had been a long day and he needed a shower. And a good nap. He walked back into the kitchen where the girl was sucking on her finger. A quick glance at the griddle top showed she had been messing with it, so she probably scalded herself. He didn¡¯t hear her make any noise and didn¡¯t see anything that would indicate it was bad, so he counted it as a lesson on hot things and shood her out the door to the bathroom.


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    ¡°I can¡¯t be teaching you everything, but this should make you think twice at least. Let¡¯s go take a shower.¡±


    He made sure everything was off before he left himself, it being pretty obvious the girl had tried to put everything back to the way it was.


    ¡®I can¡¯t teach her to cook or the rationing will go all out of whack. It¡¯s a shame as it could free up a lot of my time.¡¯


    <hr>


    He didn¡¯t know if the girl knew what snuggling was, but he was almost certain that she didn¡¯t realize how badly she wanted it. She seemed surprised every time she woke up. She also didn¡¯t get close to him until she was mostly asleep. Whatever she had been through it was clear human contact had not been a thing for her.


    She didn¡¯t seem afraid of it, clinging to him when she was scared or unsure and leaning into him if she wanted something. But she didn¡¯t seem to be aware that she wanted it either. Almost as if she didn¡¯t know what it was. The more time he spent with the girl, the more certain he was becoming that ¡®feral¡¯ wasn¡¯t just a handy description. He still didn¡¯t know why she avoided looking in his eyes, though that could just be shyness for all he knew, but everything else screamed complete isolation to him.


    He wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she didn¡¯t even realize he was a person.


    Er, well aside from believing he was a moose. Did she think moose were people?


    His sidekick¡¯s wild imagination and strange quirks aside, he was sure he would need to do a lot of work to bring her around to acting like a person. Or a civilized person. He didn¡¯t care much for stuffy manners or ¡®societal expectations¡¯, but she would at least need to be able to hold a conversation and understand you don¡¯t walk in front of cars. Or whatever was used for transportation in the future. The basics so that she wouldn¡¯t get pancaked or shot¡­ blasted?... if they ever got out of here.


    Common sense could come after he figured it out for himself.


    Of course that all hinged on them getting out of here. Or even finding out where here was. He had headed to the labs after a pit stop and a food break, intent on finding more papers he could actually read. He needed to find more examples he could use to translate so that he could be safer on the deck level. Radiation leak or no, he would need to find the reason for the power fluctuations at some point. He wasn¡¯t the heroic type, but if they were both gonna die anyways, it would be better for him to jump on that particular grenade. He didn¡¯t think the girl could learn electrical engineering quickly enough to matter.


    She would last longer on what was left anyways. For whatever that was worth.


    With said girl being suspiciously fidgety on their trip, it was clear something was up. Could just feel guilty about the kitchen thing though for all the information she gave off. It is always hard to read someone that had a completely foreign thought process.


    He put it from his mind though, he had a genetics lab to ransack and a mysterious facility to keep from shutting down.


    ¡®If someone was actually watching us, I hope they got their monies worth. All this constant reading is giving me a headache.¡¯

 Ch 21 -A

    She had learned her lesson about playing with magic.


    She had thought that by mimicking Moose she would be able to learn something of the magic it had used. Something of the spell to make the disks. Well, she had learned that the spell was dangerous.


    She had managed to get the magic to do something. She had seen the haze above the surface as the magic took effect. It looked almost like she had gotten water in her eyes but only when she looked at the space directly above the surface. She didn¡¯t know the significance of the way her hands had moved, or why they needed to move where they did, but she had accomplished her second spell!


    As she had moved to brush at the wobbly haze atop the surface, she had also learned her first great lesson.


    Magic was dangerous.


    Luckily, she had felt it before it got worse. The build up of heat, the start of pain. The overload of her sense caused her hand to jerk back. This magic had been potent. Or simply used incorrectly. Possibly both. She would have to be extra careful anytime she was experimenting with magic on her own. It was clear that Moose had a grasp on things she couldn¡¯t replicate and her lack of knowledge was holding back her abilities.


    She could clearly use the magic that Moose did. She had just proven it to herself. Not knowing or understanding the significance of what she had done meant she couldn¡¯t use it the way Moose did, or perhaps even the way it was intended.


    She had no idea if even Moose was using the spells correctly.


    Moose did seem to know she accomplished something though.


    Even when she had done her best to return the area to exactly how she remembered it, it was clear that Moose could see changes she couldn¡¯t or didn¡¯t understand. As if it knew exactly what had happened. Moose rumbled at her a bit and turned her towards the door. She caught it doing something out of the corner of her vision as she was turned, but didn¡¯t get a clear view of what.


    She would need to be careful not to leave mistakes for Moose to correct. She may be deemed as too much trouble and abandoned otherwise.


    She didn¡¯t want to try and survive without the magic she was coming to rely on anytime soon.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    <hr>


    She looked at the wall where the opening to her home was.


    Or at least had been.


    ¡®Maybe it wasn¡¯t a good idea to close it now.¡¯


    When Moose had come towards her home she had started to worry. If it found the Pages and could somehow block her from entering before it, she would lose all ability to trade. As she had closed the wall to block off the opening she had run into an unexpected problem though.


    How did she open the wall from this side?


    All the times she had pulled the wall in to hide her home there had been a small gap where her hands had been. That gap had always worried her, if a monster found it there was nothing she could do to stop the wall from being pulled back to reveal the opening.


    She didn¡¯t have that problem now. She had snuck away from Moose as it did whatever it was doing nearby. She was afraid that her home had been found or that Moose had sensed the magic inside her coming this way. When Moose had gone towards another area nearby, she had taken the chance to sneak back to her home and tried to hide it.


    She had worried Moose would see the gap, but as she had pushed the wall into the opening that led into her home to close it, the wall had completely melded with the walls around the opening. It now looked as if there was no opening, that it was just a stretch of wall the same as all the rest.


    To get out of her home after she had closed the wall was easy enough, she just pushed it open. But this? She was looking at just a wall. There was nothing to grab and no way for her to pull the wall from this side. She supposed that meant her home was safe from pretty much everything, but it also meant she didn¡¯t know how to get back in. Not until she learned the magic to move walls from Moose.


    If she was going to follow Moose to learn everything she could, then the only real loss was her stash of treats. She didn¡¯t know enough about anything to say which books from the Pages to trade and the People in the box didn¡¯t seem interested in being all that helpful anyways.


    It did mean she couldn¡¯t use her home to hide from monsters until the situation was resolved.


    Was she happy about that? She didn¡¯t want to lead monsters to her home to begin with and couldn¡¯t close it completely from the inside. It wasn¡¯t a great place to hide if something was actively searching for her. It was safe if nothing knew to try looking, but there was nothing preventing her from being hunted like the wall around the garden.


    She pondered this new situation as she padded back to Moose. It didn¡¯t look like anything had changed while she was gone. It was clear that Moose was creating new words and taking words from the many things scattered around the area. She had always thought this area was strange but had never had any context to know why. It seemed that Moose had that context and was gathering a great many words.


    Could Moose be making a new spell?


    She didn¡¯t know, but there was certainly a great deal to learn from what was happening. Moose had sat on the floor with the debris spread out in front of it. Making more and more words in the small book it carried.


    She wanted to watch, but she had been standing a lot and didn¡¯t know how long they would be here, so she couldn¡¯t stand behind and watch over Moose¡¯s shoulder.


    ¡®The floor is cold and Moose is warm. I¡­I don¡¯t like sitting on the cold.¡¯

 Ch 21 -B

    To say he was surprised when the girl crawled into his lap would be an understatement.


    While he had sat on the floor because the chairs present were too small be too comfortable, he was still close enough to the desks to use them in his attempts to translate more things.


    It was only a little disconcerting that they remained at a usable height even when he was sitting.


    They were a little high for writing on, but they were perfect for keeping the important reference papers he was working with at an easy glance. He had been sitting cross legged so he could write on his knee, as he had still yet to find a decent writing surface. It also let him lean down and reach the papers in front of him without having to move from his spot. It wasn¡¯t the most comfortable, the metal being cool, but the only other real choice was to haul something. Either the papers to his room or a mattress to the lab. The blankets were thin enough to need several if he wanted any kind of thermal protection, so more hassle than the other options.


    Laziness won out, so the floor it was.


    It seemed that it put him in the perfect position for the girl to make herself comfortable as well. He still didn¡¯t know why she seemed uncomfortable before, but it was entirely possible she found this place frightening. He could understand that. With the growth vats and other scientific equipment alongside the rows of desks, it wasn¡¯t the most inviting area.


    He couldn¡¯t rule out the possibility that it wasn¡¯t her first time here either. All evidence pointed to her being awake before him and this lab was here for a reason. For that matter it might not be his first time in the lab either. Something had changed the expected outcome of the cryo experiment. While he still didn¡¯t really have the time to be looking into it, there was every possibility he was a subject of study for the lab. The only reason he knew he had never been in a growth vat was because he had yet to find one large enough to fit.


    That didn¡¯t hold true for the girl.


    He might have been a full-grown adult before he went into cryo, but there was nothing saying the girl hadn¡¯t been stuck in one of the vats before she outgrew them. Hell, she could probably fit in one now, though it would be a little cramped. This place could very well bring up unpleasant memories.


    Why she had wandered off on her own in that case he didn¡¯t know. She might be a lot of things, but one thing she wasn¡¯t was a coward that was for sure. He didn¡¯t think for a moment that an unpleasant past or fear of the area would stop her from doing whatever thing she got into her head.


    Actually trying to guess what thing she got stuck there was basically randomized guessing at this point though.


    Her little jaunt through the area seemed to require comfort though. She might not let fear stop her, but that didn¡¯t mean she was ok with it. She seemed to have goosebumps, but as soon as she sat down she relaxed and took an interest in his notebook. He wished it wasn¡¯t just random scribbles at this point, putting translations wherever he had room to conserve paper. He might be able to teach her some words if there had been any order or organization to it. As it was, it probably just looked like random scribbles to anyone that could read, he didn¡¯t want to know what it looked like to someone who couldn¡¯t.


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    He was happy to let her try and parse what she could, though he moved her around so that she wasn¡¯t in the way. She might need a hug, but things weren¡¯t getting less desperate and she was comfortably enveloped. Well, enveloped at least. Comfortable was debatable. He had to keep moving her to weird angles to grab the right papers or see something on the floor.


    Not a prime therapy environment, but he doubted it ever would be.


    If she could read the papers she would be able to celebrate with him, he was having a very good session gathering information and learning things. The downside being that the things he was learning were¡­. Not great. It also didn¡¯t help that he wasn¡¯t learning to translate better.


    No, the more he learned, the more it seemed he had found the very important papers. They had things that would be critical¡­. If they ever managed to survive long term. They were also very heavily written in future english, little of the other language present. There was enough to frustrate his reading though. It was clear that some of these papers were not meant to be read beyond a very specific group with a very specific training. Something he didn¡¯t possess. Said group was also likely attempting to destroy the world¡­


    ¡­Or save it. It honestly could go either way.


    He had learned where they were. It made him very glad he hadn¡¯t been opening doors on the deck level after that first mad dash. Very glad and very lucky. It seemed they were somewhere code named ¡®Atlantis¡¯. Unless the future people had lost the desire to code name things with something meaningful, that meant the two of them were very likely not leaving the facility.


    Not in anything short of a submarine at least.


    It seemed he would be learning genetics engineering then. He didn¡¯t really see any way to have a consistent food supply in a submerged facility that didn¡¯t involve that water plant. The sea food would likely be their only sustainable calories until someone sent a resupply mission. Or he found a grow area he had yet to find. That and seeds to actually grow in said area.


    He wasn¡¯t entirely worried about food. The new revelation meant that there was definitely a freezer or other food storage somewhere. Water should be ok as well, the water plant more than enough for their needs if he didn¡¯t miss his guess on the purpose. The only problems now were just finding that food storage and discovering whatever reason had left them alone on the seafloor.


    ''No big deal, right? All you have to do is discover the mystery of a submerged facility and find enough food to last until you can literally create life. Easy¡¯


    Waking up in a genetics facility hidden on the sea floor that was working on deadly plagues sure as hell sounded like a story and it made it very difficult to be objective. He wasn¡¯t sure that meeting the people that operated this place was in his best interest anymore.


    He certainly didn¡¯t want to find out how badly they would want to keep the information in his head and not on his lips.


    ¡®I¡¯d rather take my chances with the radiation leak. At least that one can¡¯t stab me in the back.¡¯

 Ch 22 -A

    ¡°Moose.¡±


    She held up the page she had found.


    She didn¡¯t know what it said or why Moose was looking for them, but she got a small treat every time she brought one. She never went far. At least not here near the garden. Moose must have found everything it was looking for in the area near her home, having left and not returned for some time now. They now made frequent trips to the area near the garden.


    She had looked around as best she could in the area near her room, she felt safe and had memorized it. So long as she never entered the magic room with Moose, she had yet to find any dangers lurking. She was quite sure that Moose had fought them all off.


    The area near the garden though?


    She shuddered just thinking about it.


    Moose had only opened the wall once while she had been present. Seeming content to leave it blocked away, Moose rarely even ventured that far. She didn¡¯t know if it preferred the smaller rooms or if there was something it was trying to find. She suspected that Moose was looking for something specific. Even though she got a small treat for every page, most of them were only glanced at before they were set aside and forgotten.


    She had wanted to search in more places. She had been dissuaded from doing so by Moose though. When she had tried to search in a wall space that was too low for Moose, she had been stopped. She hadn¡¯t understood why, not until Moose took a piece of hard water from the space she had just opened.


    When Moose held it up about as high as its shoulders and let it go, she had been confused. When the hard water touched the ground and broke into a great many pieces, she had begun to understand. Moose didn¡¯t want her searching like she had been. It seemed that Moose didn¡¯t much care for the hard water, but the demonstration was clear enough. Whatever Moose was searching for was fragile. If the hard water could break so easily, she didn¡¯t want to see what happened to something that wasn¡¯t water.


    She had stopped opening things to search after that. If she couldn¡¯t see it from where she was, she wasn¡¯t going to bother it. That had limited her ability to find things of course. She had to go farther away from Moose than she liked in this area. Never far enough to not hear Moose. But sometimes she was behind a wall or corner and that made her heartbeat faster.


    Would she be able to outrun something that would challenge Moose?


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    She hoped to never find out. For now, she just enjoyed the small treat Moose handed her and watched as the page was looked over and put aside like the others. She picked it back up and read what she could. There were a lot of words that she had never seen before. Words that seemed to have meaning, but she couldn¡¯t understand what that meaning was. What even was an ¡®incubation¡¯ anyways? It seemed to be going well, whatever it was. At least according to the page.


    She had been spending as much time as possible trying to figure out the secret to the book that Moose carried and used to make more words. Truth be told, she much preferred when Moose sat in its nest and did whatever it was doing with the pages that had been brought there. When Moose was in the lair and settled in its nest, she could sit with her back to Moose and read the small book.


    It never ended well of course. The warmth from Moose always fogged her mind somewhat, even now after all the time she had spent in that position. To make things worse, sometimes Moose would rumble as she was trying to read. The feeling of the words Moose was speaking always turned into tingles as they hit her back, making it even more difficult to focus.


    She always wanted to scold her body for distracting her, but at this point she had to admit that her mind enjoyed it just as much. Not as much as the rain room though. She didn¡¯t know what ¡®good¡¯ was, but if she repeated the word to Moose, it would rub her head. That never failed to send tingles all over. The warm rain and the tingles from a head rub often left her lost and confused when they stopped and the storm started. They were worth it every time though, that was something she couldn¡¯t deny.


    Things may have been a bit different if she had not accidentally prevented herself from entering her home. Ever since then, she had followed Moose everywhere. Before, if Moose went somewhere she was scared to go, she would simply return and look through the Pages. Now, that wasn¡¯t an option. She couldn¡¯t return. If Moose went somewhere and she didn¡¯t follow, she didn¡¯t know if she would ever see it again. As she still relied on Moose for its magic, she just couldn''t take the risk. All of that extra time spent with Moose meant she was exposed to more magic. It was why she could no longer say her mind didn¡¯t like it.


    She barely even thought of her home anymore. Moose¡¯s lair was more likely to come to mind if she even thought of the word.


    She followed Moose down another tunnel. Everything really had changed when she had magic used on her that first time. Thinking back, she had been so afraid of it taking her mind. Of losing the will to say no. Had that happened?


    Was she not able to say no, or did she simply not want to?


    She wanted that thought to be scary. To not know if she didn¡¯t want to or wasn¡¯t able to, should make her panic and do everything to find out. But it just¡­ didn¡¯t. What would she do, give up the warmth? Run away from Moose and never get a head rub again?


    Let the emptiness back in?


    If she couldn¡¯t say no, did it matter, when she was pleased with what she had?


    Her pondering was interrupted by Moose rumbling. There seemed to be another wall like the one near the garden. Moose was doing something near the wall to the tunnel, rumbling things she didn¡¯t catch. It did seem that Moose was having trouble with whatever was going on though.


    Was Moose trying to break into another monster''s territory?


    Maybe she didn¡¯t need to stand that close after all.

 Ch 22 -B

    Trying to figure out the translations really set into perspective why he had gotten into computers in the first place. Human language sucked. Especially if you didn¡¯t understand most of it. He had spent almost a week sifting through the papers in the lab, desperately trying to find help with the translations. Every day he spent there he could swear he heard a clock ticking down. He was pretty sure it was in his imagination, the girl seeming to not notice anything, but that either meant he was finally losing it or had gained superpowers.


    It probably didn¡¯t matter which with the situation they were in.


    After the first set of bad news he had managed to translate, he had stopped reading as deeply. It didn¡¯t matter where they were or what was going on here. He needed to know why they were alone and how the facility was powered. That was it. The rest of it could be gone over once he was assured they weren¡¯t in immediate danger. He didn¡¯t know how the facility had been built, but if they were under literally tons of water there was a good chance that a pump going out would be catastrophic.


    It would be especially bad if said pump kept them breathing.


    Unfortunately, the lab had been a bust. He had brought a large stack of papers back to his room for bedtime reading, something to keep the translations going at least. He was sure the information was incredibly valuable in the right context, but this wasn¡¯t that context. He was going to have to go back to the deck level and search. He was sure it would give him nightmares.


    While he had been hesitant to bring the girl the first few times he had ventured down, now that he knew the stakes he didn¡¯t care much. If he screwed up and pressed the wrong button the whole place could implode like a tin can. It didn¡¯t much matter where she was in that case.


    She did seem to have lost all fear of him though. After she had crawled into his lab the first time, he had thought she would get annoyed at all the man-handling he had to do to make sure she wasn¡¯t in the way. After the third or fourth time, he had guessed she had decided to make it a permanent seat. While he decided that he would need to stick biology and personal space on the teaching list, for the moment he was in too much of a rush to care. If she enjoyed it and they might both turn into goo at any time, let the girl have her fun. So long as she wasn¡¯t the reason they might both die, she had fallen pretty far down the priority list. She was fed and present, that was all he had time for.


    She did earn a higher spot when she had gone poking about a cabinet in one of the deck-level rooms. It had just been beakers, so not a big deal that time, but it highlighted the need to teach her to be careful. After her incident with the griddle, she seemed to be careful around him, but her curiosity still got the better of her. He didn¡¯t know what the beakers were made of, so he did a drop test on a small one. It seemed to be glass. Not future glass either, just regular glass. He guessed it was optimized for temperature, not impacts. He should have expected it for a lab, but he hadn¡¯t wanted to dismiss future advancements out of hand.


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    After he had cleaned the glass up a little bit, they didn¡¯t really have a trash system, at least that he had found, he had turned to give a lesson to the girl. She seemed to have been spooked by the glass though and wasn¡¯t poking things like she had been. He shrugged and returned to work, figuring it was enough. When she found a paper that could have important information, he had to bring his focus back to her though. He needed to see it, but he didn¡¯t really want to wait until she got bored or just take it from her. He compromised and broke off a small piece of a choco-stick and motioned for a trade. She seemed to agree and took the piece and basically dropped the paper.


    It turned out not to matter of course, the page some kind of data sheet. It had too many numbers to be anything else. He put it aside and went back to his searching. When he heard a chirpy ¡°Moose¡± behind him he was a bit startled. When he was offered another paper, he was thoroughly confused. It took his brain a bit and a failed attempt to take the paper to realize he was being propositioned for a bit of chocolate. He handed over another small piece and received a page in return. Also useless, some kind of inventory. The girl had disappeared again before he finished figuring that out though.


    The third times the charm. Or enemy action. Depending on who you asked.


    He would need to bring more choco-sticks if she was going to be this useful. The only problem being that the rationing really didn¡¯t like treats being snuck out in exchange for hostages. He would need to move up his plans to harvest some of the seafood in the water plant if he needed to keep spending chocolate on papers.


    A tiny handful of choco-sticks and a short story worth of pages later and he was looking at another ¡®industrial¡¯ area. Or at least an area with a bigger door. It was small enough that he was confident that it didn¡¯t have ¡®deliveries¡¯, it didn¡¯t seem to need logistics and was only large enough for several people to leave and enter at the same time, rather than the several vehicle sized doors the others had. The panel seemed to confirm this. It didn¡¯t flash the same warning that the other doors he had found did.


    He spent some time looking through the options for the panel, but this one seemed pretty bare-bones compared to the others. Placing his hand on the door and placing his ear to the door also didn¡¯t reveal anything new.


    ¡°What¡¯s the worst that can happen, we all die? Who wants to live forever anyways.¡±


    Trying to hype himself up, he went to the option to open the door.


    It was pretty anticlimactic when he was denied.


    ¡°Cool, that¡¯s probably the universe telling me to stop.¡±


    It was a shame he had authority issues. Writing down the denial and poking around a bit more got him pretty much squat. The door simply refused to budge. It looked like he would actually need to read what the panel was telling him in detail.


    Seeing as how they were currently busy, that would just have to wait. He marked the door down on his map though. It was clear that it was important in some way.


    ¡®I guess on the bright side we aren¡¯t dead.¡¯

 Ch 23 -A

    She didn¡¯t need to wonder anymore. She knew now. Knew that the magic had made her different. Had changed her.


    She was thinking in the rumbly words that Moose spoke.


    She hadn¡¯t noticed when it started. It was only one or two words. Only when she didn¡¯t have anything better to think. It was more now. Almost all the words she thought were the rumbly ones. She only went back to the other words when she didn¡¯t know which rumbly ones to use.


    She couldn¡¯t talk with them yet. The rumbly nature making them difficult for her to say aloud. She also didn¡¯t know how they went together. She knew the words, but the words were always alone. They were all labels of some kind. Always the same magic. Find an object and use your finger to direct the word and its magic. It seemed so simple. Everything had a word. Every word had a place.


    She knew there were more words, of course. Moose always spoke in the rumbly words. There were clearly words that had not been given to her. Complexities she didn¡¯t grasp. She always knew when he was speaking of a thing they had seen. Knew what was spoken about. But trying to understand what Moose wanted her to do with that thing wasn¡¯t something they had managed to figure out yet. It always came down to gestures in the end. If Moose didn¡¯t simply do it himself.


    There seemed to be some problem with the powder as well. Moose had stopped making the disks as often. When she had watched him eat part of the green stuff in the garden she hadn¡¯t thought that much about it. She had thought it was expected.


    Natural.


    She had expected to return and to eat a disk, the same as any other time. When they returned and she was given some of the green thing after Moose had used magic on it, she had been very confused. She wasn¡¯t a moose, why would she eat green things?


    But the magic had changed her. She couldn¡¯t argue that.


    Had Moose been changing her into a moose?


    Could¡­. could that happen?


    The thought both thrilled and terrified her. It was terrifying to be changed. Made into something else. Something you didn¡¯t understand. Couldn¡¯t understand. How could she still be herself if she was something different. But¡­ that power. To be given the power that Moose wielded. To have that not as a follower of Moose, but at her own command. As a piece of herself. That sent a thrill through her that she couldn¡¯t ignore or explain away. It left only one question really. Did she have to give up everything¡­


    ¡­Or could she choose how much she would give away?


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    To never have to worry about other monsters again, that was worth a lot. She was more than willing to give up the parts of herself that were scared. That wanted to run at every surprising sound. That were lost or confused about what was happening.


    She didn¡¯t want the parts of herself that made things feel bad.


    Moose could have them all. Anytime he wanted.


    She had no way to control things like that though. Even if Moose could speak the other words like her, she wouldn¡¯t know how to communicate her desire. Didn¡¯t know if Moose would even bother to listen. She was already being given magic and food. Already had the emptiness filled and warded away. Demanding more would just be¡­wrong. If even she didn¡¯t want those parts of herself, how much value could they have?


    That was all assuming that Moose had control over what was happening. She thought he did, had believed he was directing things. But it could be like water, you could stop it going one way but that didn¡¯t mean it would go where you wanted. Moose could just be giving it the right direction.


    She hoped so at least. Moose had seemed very busy lately and hadn¡¯t paid much attention to her.


    If Moose had been directing things and suddenly stopped, she hoped it wouldn¡¯t go out of control. If Moose had a plan and she was being changed for a purpose, she could enjoy the benefits. Even if they came with downsides. If she was just changing at random and she could end up any which way, she would just prefer to remain herself. It was a bit late to worry about things like that though, things had already started. They would end up however they ended up.


    She had thought the green things were the next step of course. That she had enough magic, she now needed to begin eating green things. Whether the change wasn¡¯t as far along as Moose thought, or she had misunderstood why moose ate green things, she found that she didn¡¯t much like the taste of the green thing. She didn¡¯t care much for the texture either. She didn¡¯t know how something could be both chewy and full of strings, but she guessed magic had something to do with it.


    Maybe they were a way to get her to hurry up. After a couple of meals with the green things she was ready to give up just about anything to make the change happen faster. Maybe if she was a full moose they wouldn¡¯t be so bad. She didn¡¯t think she had much hope there, as even Moose seemed to be looking for ways to make them less¡­everything.


    It was only after she had complained and refused to eat the green things, tried to make her own disks, that she had learned the problem. Had learned just how little powder was left. She truly regretted closing her room at that point, the stash of treats could have washed the taste from her mouth.


    At least she now knew why she had never seen Moose eat green things before.


    She padded into the new room that Moose had taken over. She didn¡¯t know which monsters were creating the large walls. She assumed they all could, since Moose had been the first one she had seen do so. Following Moose, she had seen a handful of them so far. Moose had tested each of them. It seemed the large wall was enough to slow even Moose down. She guessed that made it a very good wall. They still fell to Moose if he chose to try though. That was probably why no monster attempted to reclaim them.


    Crawling into Moose¡¯s lap, she wiggled into the warmth. She hadn¡¯t been able to find any more pages in the area. Moose had spent a lot of time here, seemingly fascinated by the strange things in the room. She had wandered as far as she dared in that time and scavenged the area clean of things Moose would trade a treat for. Her scavenging this time had turned up nothing and had left a chill on her skin, so she did the only thing left to do.


    ¡®I hope I don¡¯t leak before we get back to the rain room.¡¯

 Ch 23 -B

    He had finally found the power room!


    Too bad he didn¡¯t dare open the stupid thing. The panel had flashed so many warnings at him when he went poking about, he had basically just given up. The panel itself had what he was coming to think of as numbers. There appeared to be ten different symbols at least. They didn¡¯t do him any good as the labeling for the panel wasn¡¯t something he could read, but if he could find the information without opening the door, he was happy to keep it closed.


    What he did instead was note down all the numbers he could find, stay near the door for roughly an hour watching said numbers the whole time, then return twice a day to record any changes. While it was very possible that all the numbers had nothing to do with power or were negative or some other situation where looking at them didn¡¯t help, he would at least be informed should they become alarming.


    Alarming to him at least. They could already be heart-stopping for someone who knew what they meant.


    The number that was currently heart-stopping for him were the ration numbers. Between checking the water plant and the power panel every day, he didn¡¯t have a lot of time left over for searching. Add in all the walking and that he was sacrificing the calories in his share of the choco-sticks to give the girl trade fodder and he wasn¡¯t doing well. His energy was bottoming out and he could tell he was on the verge of starvation. He did his best not to go that far, aware that he wouldn¡¯t use the remaining food as efficiently if he did, but it was a close thing. They needed to get more calories somehow.


    While his first thought was a fish thing, he didn¡¯t know the purpose of any of the ones in the tank. If he guessed and picked one that was supposed to clear out poisons, food would be the least of their issues. Truthfully, with the numbers he had managed to gather on the various tanks, he didn¡¯t know that there were enough fish things left for eating. Not that would solve the problem anyways. One or two small critters a week would wipe out the tank pretty fast and wouldn¡¯t be enough to notice a change in the rations.


    The seaweed was really the only option. He would need to watch the growth rate, but as long as it wasn¡¯t sucking up poisons, it was large enough to make a difference. He would just have to use the tank that was farthest from the in-flow and hope for the best. So long as the system was designed to filter things out progressively, the last visible tank growing the seaweed should be mostly clean.


    It did leave him with several problems of course. Considering the tanks were large enough to swim in and tall enough they may as well be in an aquarium, just getting to the plants was going to be a¡­. task. It had been the original reason he hadn¡¯t thought of using the life in the water plant as food. If they were meant to come out of the tank on a regular basis there would be a way to get to them. Considering he couldn¡¯t spot it, that meant it was locked away somewhere or they were meant to be undisturbed. It was always possible there were automated processes or holding tanks of some kind that he would be aware of if he could read, but he couldn¡¯t.


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    He sure as shit was going to learn before he tried to get another plant though.


    The tops of the tanks were high enough even he didn¡¯t think a fall would leave him unscathed. It was refreshing to have things be proper sized again, he just wished it wasn¡¯t the thing he had to scale just to eat. He did get it though. Climbing and getting the tank open were the hardest parts as well. It seemed the plants weren¡¯t anchored all that deep in the tank bottom. A bit of metal and a long string with a loop on the end managed to be enough of a fishing rod to snag the plant well enough to hold through fighting it out of the tank. The plant was long enough it was between 2 and 3 times his own height, whatever that was nowadays, and probably weighed more than the girl did. He took a small bite of course, best to start the testing as soon as he could. He would need to do a lot of work to get it palatable though. The only thing he could compare it to was the strings from fresh celery mixed into chewy mush.


    It was a shame they didn¡¯t have any oil. Deep frying may be the only thing that could save it.


    His only ideas were to make a stock or see if cooking it changed anything. Considering it was already mushy, he might try drying some as well. Scratch that, he would need to dry some. There was far too much to eat all at once and he didn¡¯t have a cold box of any description.


    He would keep the root end in a pot of water for now while he experimented though.


    <hr>


    Aside from one fit from the girl about the seaweed, which he wholeheartedly agreed with, things were not terrible. When the seaweed had begun to disintegrate as each part of it died, he had panicked a little. It was clearly not food and was meant to leave the system if it wasn¡¯t alive anymore. Given that it only caused a grumbly belly, he was sure it wasn¡¯t acute poison, but he didn¡¯t want to risk things.


    When he finally managed to translate some pages from the labs near the water plant, he was terribly disappointed in his priorities. There seemed to be some kind of filling area nearby, but it wasn¡¯t until the girl excitedly brought him a bag that he had managed to work anything out. Though she seemed more interested in the treat than the implications.


    There seemed to be a food lab of some description near the water plant that had an area to fill the bags the powder came in. He still didn¡¯t know how it worked, but there was clearly a renewing supply of the powder. It would explain what happened to the plants and why they disintegrated.


    A good system if he could make it work.


    He didn¡¯t really start to kick himself until he translated the rest of those papers from that lab area when one of them mentioned a long-term edibles storage. It even gave him an area to look in. Such easy success was not making his decision-making look good, that was for sure. It still took him a couple of days to find it of course. One of the large industrial doors he had left behind before. Now that he had an idea of the area and a hint about what it was, he wasn¡¯t as afraid to open it.


    He would be pretty busy now, there were a lot of numbers to record.


    ¡®Once food is out of the way, I am definitely going to check that door that didn¡¯t let me in. Anything with central in the panel has to be important.¡¯

 Ch24 -A

    She pressed further into Moose, letting the rain pull the tingles down from her head and throughout the rest of her body. No matter how many times she had stood here under the rain, it never felt as good as when Moose was forcefully involved. Mostly by her.


    ¡®Ah, according to Moose it was a shower, wasn¡¯t it?¡¯


    As always with head rubs, it was hard to really think. Her next thought had to do with licking the water trailing down Moose beside her head. She was too comfortable to move enough for that at the moment, but if Moose kept making her drink the green stuff, she might change her mind.


    It seemed Moose had truly wanted to eat green stuff. So much so that he used too much magic and the green stuff turned back into water. Only now it was green water. Green water that had strange feeling bits that sank to the bottom. The taste at least had become neutral. She didn¡¯t hate it like the green stuff before it turned back into water, but it wasn¡¯t like the disks or a treat either.


    She had really grown too dependent on Moose and his magic. Even now she didn¡¯t want to go back to how she got water before. With Moose¡¯s hard water it was incredibly easy to get as much water as she wanted. Trying the old way was difficult and time consuming. She may not even get enough water if she did things that way!


    Fortunately, Moose had gone back to making the disks. She didn¡¯t know how long the powder would last, but if the green water made it last longer, then she was happy enough to spread things out. The green stuff alone would be too much. She had stopped eating her treats altogether unless she absolutely needed to. It was better to save them for last.


    At least they tasted good on their own.


    Once the storm had dried her, she reluctantly padded behind Moose. Having lost both the warmth from the rain and from Moose, she didn¡¯t like walking back to the lair after their time in the rain room. She wished the large room Moose used as a lair had been closer at least.


    As Moose got into his nest, she crawled in as well and got on top of him. She didn¡¯t know why, but the sound of Moose under her ear made sleep so easy. She decided to leave thinking for the next day and let the warmth pull her eyes shut.


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    <hr>


    She listened the best she could as Moose spoke to her with his rumbly words. As best she could tell, she needed to hold onto Moose or herself and be careful. The rest just left her confused. And slightly worried.


    It seemed there was another wall in the wall they stood before?


    One of the many big walls they had encountered on their travels had the dubious honor of Moose giving it the label Danger¡¯. It seemed that wall was here in this other wall. How or why that happened she couldn¡¯t figure out, but she did get the impression she wasn¡¯t supposed to touch either wall. Mentally shrugging off the bizarre magic situation she grabbed Moose¡¯s hand with hers. She still held her carrying blanket, which Moose had labeled her sack, but that didn¡¯t stop her from using both hands. With magic this hard to understand she didn¡¯t want to take any chances.


    When Moose finally opened the door, he stood still for what seemed to be a long time. Perhaps he was fighting some magic? The other wall was also not present that she could see, maybe that had something to do with his hesitation?


    She didn¡¯t know. All she could see was a great many small lights. A big light had come once Moose had opened the door, but only near the opening. The rest of the room was a mess of blinking small lights.


    Small lights that seemed to be in the shape of words.


    It was very interesting, but she didn¡¯t see anything dangerous. She would never take a chance with the warning Moose had just given her, but she didn¡¯t think she would be targeted at this point. Whatever battle was happening between Moose and the other wall called Danger¡¯, she wasn¡¯t involved and she believed everyone nearby that was involved preferred it that way.


    They would have dragged her into the battle otherwise, right?


    She really did not know how to feel in this situation.


    When Moose had carried a nest into the food place and told her to not leave, she had thought she misunderstood something. Moose closing the walls to the food place behind him put that thought to rest and gave way to utter confusion.


    Why did Moose want her walled into the food place?


    She couldn¡¯t figure that out, so she decided to give her time to practicing the spell for the disks. She had learned a lot of valuable information last time and she felt confident she could accomplish something today. Unfortunately, she had not managed to find all the tools Moose used every time he cast any spell in the food place. Not before Moose had returned anyways.


    Her confusion only grew more as Moose had her follow him.


    At this point her lack of understanding and the confusion surrounding everything made her start to panic. She had clearly missed something important. It was most likely information, but if she had missed some kind of action she wanted to know where she could run to and hide. As Moose slowly moved into the new room she trailed behind. Still clutching Moose¡¯s hands of course. He was still the safest place to be right now.


    ¡®I never want to face something that makes Moose this cautious.¡¯

 Ch 24 -B

    The edibles storage area, while a tremendous find, turned out to be a disturbing set of discoveries concerning their long-term situation.


    There were no fresh consumables.


    He had started his recording of the storage room with the hope that something, anything, would give him a clue to location or time period or anything else he could use determine the situation. There was nothing like that. Almost everything in the storage was non-perishable. His hopes of finding a nice apple were cruelly dashed.


    ¡®I could kill for a nice fruit salad about now.¡¯


    There did seem to be large ¡®lockers¡¯ of things he would think should be frozen, but a quick test with the seaweed seemed to indicate that those ¡®lockers¡¯ were some kind of cryo chamber. There were a number of them and they were built in such a way that people couldn¡¯t get in, so they obviously weren¡¯t as advanced as the cryo-pod he had been in. Or at least not as suitable for sapient beings. He didn¡¯t know what half the things in the storage room were, let alone what needed to be cryo frozen, so he didn¡¯t mess with anything but the powder they had already been eating. There seemed to be several boxes with bags of powder in them, so either the system needed to remove that powder every so often to keep functioning or there were enough people to need that kind of supply on a regular basis.


    Or emergency basis, considering the boxes had the word written on the side.


    He would have to slowly test everything here in the storage area after he had reduced the rationing he and the girl were under to be less strict. Once they had both stabilized, he would be able to tell if something was affecting them better. For now, it was best to just use the powder he knew. He did find a few boxes of the choco-sticks as well, though he kept them high up on the shelving and didn¡¯t open anything with the words the box had on it. It was best the girl not realize she could eat nothing but chocolate. Diet problems aside, he didn¡¯t want to worry about her system collapsing from only eating a single thing.


    He still didn¡¯t know if the seaweed was edible, or supposed to be edible at least, seeing as how they could eat it. He didn¡¯t bother getting any more and the one he did have had mostly disintegrated at this point. He managed to use some of it for tests, like with the cryo-freezers, but considering the taste he saw that as more than acceptable. His initial thought to dry it out in the oven saw most of it gone, burnt to ash.


    Turned out it was very difficult to dry things when you didn¡¯t know what temperature your oven was at. It took a lot of trial and error, fiddling with the numbers until he figured out which direction they seemed to go in. He had thought he was a better judge of temperature than that, but for some reason the oven always felt similar to him. There might very well be some advanced tech that kept the heat in really well, but all he could feel when the oven was open was hot air. Air that was all a similar temperature hot as well. Other than sticking his hand into the oven, which he avoided doing without a blanket to protect his hand, he just couldn''t make out a difference from what came out.


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    The sacrifice of the seaweed wasn¡¯t without benefits though. By figuring out where the seaweed burnt or just dried out, he was confident he had managed to work out the numbers. He was guessing of course, hypothesizing that the seaweed would not burn under two-hundred-degrees. Well, in Fahrenheit at least. He figured Celsius would be more accurate, but he had no idea where the different cooking reactions took place in Celsius. He knew where water boiled, froze and that was it. Same reason he wasn¡¯t using the Kelvin scale.


    As far as he knew, organic matter started to reduce to carbon around the three-hundred-degree mark. He didn¡¯t know the exact number, but since he was figuring that water wouldn¡¯t boil under two hundred, he could make the guessing narrower by testing exactly where things turned into burnt charcoal. Considering most of it was guess work, he figured that it didn¡¯t really matter how accurate the temperature was. He couldn¡¯t even tell what the pressure was so everything could be off by fifty degrees or more.


    All that guess work aside, he basically just turned the oven all the way down and guessed that the symbols were zero. Once the seaweed started to burn, he marked the symbol the farthest left as a three and when nothing happened after a night in the oven he marked the farthest left as a one. He did make sure there were the same number of symbols, so he should be between one hundred and three hundred. He doubted that was what they actually were, the system and numbers were clearly meant for more accuracy than that, but it helped him with translating things to have a direct comparison to what he knew.


    He did manage to get some dried seaweed out if it as well he guessed, but that wasn¡¯t nearly as exciting.


    The dried seaweed didn¡¯t taste any better and they didn¡¯t really come back after they were dried. If they got wet, they just turned into mush. Considering it mostly a lost cause at that point, he made a stock out of the rest of the dried seaweed. It disintegrated in that much water, but that worked fine for him. It would last them a few meals and he could test things, like mixing some into the powder, but he didn¡¯t expect there to be much improvement where the seaweed was concerned.


    He did go back to the power room with his new grasp of numbers. He didn¡¯t know why he bothered, considering they were just as meaningless now that he could guess a couple of them. The only real way to progress there was translating the words and gathering the numbers to add to the data he had collected. He wouldn¡¯t know if there was a problem if he didn¡¯t have a nice large base line. He wasn¡¯t worried much as he was distracted anyways.


    There were other nuts to crack. Like the one in the shape of a door.


    It took him three full days of poking, translating and re-poking things for him to understand what was going on. The door seemed to be very important, which he expected with the word ¡®central¡¯ popping up on the panel. As far as he could tell, he wasn¡¯t allowed in because he needed to ¡®authorize¡¯, uh, well¡­. something. That was where he was stuck. He expected bio-metrics to be around before now, so not a huge surprise. He didn¡¯t know if things before were being overridden because of his access or if it was built into the panels when he touched them.


    Just to be extra sure, he took his now very clingy kitty and sat her in the mess hall. With the doors closed he figured she would be able to survive pretty much anything that didn¡¯t destroy the entire place. A short prayer to appease Murphy and a blind guess later, he held his hand on the panel while he hit the open button and clicked a few yeses. It was hard not to stare as the door hissed open.


    ¡®Well now, I guess I need to figure out which of those words is ¡®command¡¯. That, and make it very clear to the girl that she shouldn¡¯t touch anything.¡¯

 Ch 25 - A

    ¡°Moose. Food.¡±


    A strange word ¡®food¡¯. It seemed to be a label, like many of the other words she had learned, but it was a label shared by many things. She had yet to learn the extent to which the label applied, but since the green stuff fell into that list, she wasn¡¯t eager to learn just how far it went.


    It was still an effective word though. All she needed to do to eat was use the magic to call Moose¡¯s attention then speak the word. She might not like what Moose conjured up, but it always filled her belly and saved her from having to eat more of her treats. Treats which were getting very low. As she slid off of Moose and waited for him to begin lumbering back to the food place, she thought again about her plans to get back into her old home.


    It had been a great many sleeps since she had last been there. Moose called them ¡®nights¡¯, but that was just confusing to her. She didn¡¯t know what a moon was and she had yet to see any armored people involved, or armor in general. Not that she really knew what that was either. Or any monsters as well. At this point she was quite sure Moose had pushed all the lesser monsters to the very outskirts. Only the light and dark still did battle where she and Moose could witness them.


    Even that battle had annoyed Moose in the end.


    He had banished the big lights. The big darkness as well. It had allowed her to see much farther than she ever had before, but it was much dimmer than it had been. A blow to both sides. It seemed that Moose had grown tired of the back-and-forth nature of the battle and pushed both sides to be equal, as the light no longer came suddenly or was beaten back just as quick. It was all a steady thing, the battle ever present.


    It could be why she had yet to see any small creatures like herself as well, at least not outside of the garden Moose still protected with the large wall. That and the noises she sometimes heard were the only reason she had not assumed that Moose had completely destroyed all the other monsters. It was clear that Moose didn¡¯t think they were alone. It seemed far too excessive for small creatures.


    She hoped she would finish turning into a moose before she got unlucky enough to stumble on one of those other monsters. She had yet to see any visible difference on herself yet, but she still expected them. As it stood, she only needed to think about Moose and the tingles would come back. Not as intense, but they would be there. A clear sign the magic was progressing. She didn¡¯t know what changes she should expect first though. Other than the hair all over and the strange bits of himself that changed shape, seemingly at will, she felt the height would be the most obvious change. It would also be the most useful. She clearly didn¡¯t have enough magic yet, Moose changed much faster than she did. The hair on his face nearly as much as the hair on his head. Something that she didn¡¯t even have yet. It was almost disappointing, how slow things were progressing.


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    It could be why she had so much trouble matching Moose. Perhaps the changes were happening on the inside first?


    Once Moose had forced the light and dark to fight steadily, he had begun to run up and down the largest tunnel near his lair. She had been so frightened the first time, thinking that Moose had seen something and was running from it. She never wanted to see something that Moose would run from. No matter what happened during the encounter, she didn¡¯t think she would ever be able to escape that kind of nightmare. It had been even more frightening when she couldn¡¯t keep up with Moose. As she fell farther behind, she could feel the panic pushing her legs harder. Right up until Moose passed her going the other way.


    That had been so confusing she had fallen over. Between the confusion and sitting on the ground, she had a chance to look around. As she saw nothing and Moose seemed to not be running scared, at least from her perspective, she had to stop and re-think things. The second time Moose passed her, she could tell he had slowed down. He was still running, but he seemed to be running without hurry. It was bizarre to see anything being lazy while running. She had to admit that the words fit Moose though.


    Once the lingering panic had faded and the confusion had turned into curiosity, she did have to face reality. She had been slower than Moose. Slower than a lazy run, while she had been going as fast as she could in her panic. That¡­ was unsettling. That would mean she had only survived as long as she had because of her stealth, not her ability to escape. Moose had simply never bothered to chase her. Not to mention all the other monsters she may have come across and not realized.


    Once the realization had settled in, she had decided to follow Moose and practice, both running and stealth. More things on her list to do so she didn¡¯t have to worry anymore. It was nearly impossible at first, Moose simply kept going when she had collapsed from all the running. All the running made her belly complain much more as well, demanding more food than she had ever eaten. She continued despite all of that though. The safety being faster could provide too much to ignore. That was all the motivation she needed.


    That and the sheer pleasure she found in the rain room afterwards.


    Those thoughts and a full belly made her long for the nest, her body now focused on warmth and sleep. She felt it was late enough and was tired of the cool tunnels. While she never bothered to hurry Moose along, finding it an utter waste of energy, she did still try to find a comfortable way to steal his warmth without getting in the way of him going to the lair. She was to be disappointed though. Moose didn¡¯t even bother to go in the right direction. When she made questioning noises at him, she didn¡¯t much like the response.


    ¡°Noises. Danger.¡±


    Obviously.


    She didn¡¯t like that Moose had taken notice though.

 Ch 25 -B

    He resigned himself to the fact that he was missing something important and he probably wouldn¡¯t find it here.


    It had been a couple of months since he had opened the central command room and his translating had hit a wall. At least he assumed it was a ¡®command¡¯ room. It was a room with ¡®central¡¯ in the name and a bunch of monitors, he didn¡¯t really know what else it could be. His efforts had sped up at first, having finally gotten access to a lot of disparate information that he could cross-reference. It helped him figure out some of the basic things he was having trouble with and gave him a great deal of data to note down. He now had an average for power use and water use, according to the screens in the room. He had cross-checked the power numbers and they seemed close, so he was willing to trust them for now. The command room also had a couple of consoles that were in future english, numbers and all. That was a huge find, though they didn¡¯t seem to be controls he was familiar with.


    It had taken nearly a month and the discovery of more rooms on both levels to really understand what they were showing him. Between discovering the cleaning facilities like laundry and automated bots, which seemed to clean the floor when no one was present, and the living quarters on the deck level he had realized that this place was completely self-sufficient. He still refused to see what was on the hold level, now with even more conviction, as he had discovered where everyone had gone.


    Something he would never tell the poor girl.


    He had found a group of decomposed bodies in what could only be described as an airlock. An airlock he promptly confirmed led to space.


    That had been a harrowing experience. He had stumbled his way through the panel with a makeshift mask on his face in an attempt to find what had killed the people. He could see the bodies and that they were mostly just piles of bone and a mess of biomass from the small window in the airlock, but that didn¡¯t tell him why they were there or how the died. If they had been locked in, he wouldn¡¯t find much, but if they had been killed elsewhere and dumped, he might need to know.


    He never would now though, his poor understanding and the strange wording had seen him vent the bodies. He stopped touching the panel after that. If he accidentally opened both doors and didn¡¯t know how to close them, it wouldn¡¯t really matter what had happened. Fortunately, the outer door seemed to be on a timer and closed by itself while he was still coming to terms with the fact that the outside pressure wasn¡¯t going to be a problem. Er, wouldn¡¯t be a problem so long as they didn¡¯t step out of the door themselves at least.


    That, alongside the self-sufficiency and lack of other people, meant they were either on a ship or a station in deep space. That was the only other clue he needed to figure out the remaining panels. One panel was clearly automation of some kind for the outer hull. Or maybe just in general. With the size of the ship¡¯s insides, there was no practical way that the number of bunks he had seen would hold enough people to keep up with repairs. There were robots inside, it only made sense that there were some outside as well. He knew it was a ship because of the second panel. Now that he knew what to look for, he somewhat recognized gravitation and orbital equations. The symbols for the math were a bit strange, but math was math, he could figure it out. There might be some definition he wasn¡¯t aware of, but as far as he was concerned, if it could move enough on its own to change orbits, it was a ship.


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    Even if it was the size of a small city.


    Which meant he was now in charge of a massive ship. Probably somewhere out in deep space.


    There was a map. Something he also didn¡¯t recognize at first but made perfect sense now. He couldn¡¯t read the thing, but it made sense. They seemed to be in some sort of dead zone between stars, but he only got that from looking at the graphics, he had no idea the distances or times involved in moving anywhere. It would take him a lot of time to figure things out.


    Time and attention.


    One he had in abundance, now that food and water weren¡¯t going to dry up anytime soon. Attention, not so much. Once his erstwhile companion had discovered she enjoyed talking now that it didn¡¯t hurt, she demanded attention quite often. She also only responded to ¡®Kitty¡¯ of all things. He had no idea how that had become a thing, but he was willing to accept it was probably his fault somehow, considering it was an English word. Not that he could really change things now.


    ¡®There¡¯s nothing to it but to hunker down and get to work I guess.¡¯


    <hr>


    The ship seemed to have a great deal of automation. So much so that he wasn¡¯t really comfortable saying he was flying it. Fly it he did though. After working out what the symbols were in the math, he could pretty easily follow the computer through the various calculations it did for travel. It also helped him check his translations for the future english numbers. A few stars later and he had a pretty good idea of how to work what he was calling the ¡®navigation¡¯ panel, though it seemed to involve everything about moving the ship, not just FTL travel. Which was indeed happening, if the map was to be believed. He doubted stars were that close together, even in unknown parts of space. He didn¡¯t do much flying, the panel doing most of the work. He had found maneuvering systems, but they only seemed to work close to a star.


    Considering the massive change in power he saw when they were in a system, that made a lot of sense. He practiced maneuvering while in each system, alongside the automated things the ship had on offer. It seemed to be able to take in and refine asteroids, a panel showing scans of things he targeted. He didn¡¯t know what the scans found or if it was any good, but he liked the practice and it helped him figure out the repair and other automated systems outside the ship.


    Well, he figured it out so long as he wasn¡¯t being fooled into a false sense of competence. It¡¯s pretty easy to fly a plane if you don¡¯t have to land or interact with anything else. Anything¡­ like the new ping the map system had picked up. The one that looked suspiciously like another ship.


    ¡®Welp, time to put all that practice into, uh, practice.¡¯

 Ch 26 - *

    He was not having a good day.


    ¡°I want an estimated repair time as soon as there is one!¡±


    Not only could they still have pursuers after them, they now couldn¡¯t move due to an unlucky combination of an unregulated jump and a stray shot that hit the drive. If they had completely lost the ability to get back to an occupied system, they would have to send out a distress call. One that could be tracked by the people that put them into this predicament in the first place. It would be completely random who would show up first. Which meant it was the last thing he wanted.


    Of course, if they took too long to repair the drives they could be caught anyways. Their pursuers would need to check a great many places or spend days analyzing the drive trail, but they would find this place eventually. The only reason it wouldn¡¯t be sooner was the same reason they couldn¡¯t just leave as soon as the drives reset. A blessing and a curse all rolled into one.


    ¡°Sir! Engineering needs your input. They say they can make emergency repairs in an hour or so, but we would only get one more jump and would completely lose them. If we want more than that they would need to tear the drives apart and it could be days before we could move again.¡±


    Curses. That was a terrible decision to make. How much time could he spare until he was pushing his luck. If only he had a better time..-


    ¡°Sir! Ship on radar!¡±


    ¡®What? How had they been found so fast?¡¯


    ¡°How long until they are in range? Navigation I want jump options, now!¡±


    If he was only to get one jump, so be it. It would just have to be a very good one. He hoped he had the time at least.


    ¡°Uh, sir? None.¡±


    ¡°What?!?¡±


    ¡°The ship is right on top of us sir. We are almost certainly in range.¡±


    ¡°Why was I not informed of an approaching vessel?! Comms, tell engineering to start the emergency repairs!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry sir, there was no approach! They just appeared on top of us. The only reason we even know they are there is the alignment ping on their docking umbilical. Sensors found nothing and the ship is far too close for opticals. It¡¯s almost as if we landed right on top of them!¡±


    What? What was even happening right now? A ship that didn¡¯t show up on sensors was unheard of. Not to mention that anything in the immediate area of their landing would have been vaporized by the drive wake. That was the whole reason to regulate jumps in the first place! It was possible the other ship had ridden the wake out of the harmful area, but only an A.I. or an insane pilot would even attempt something like that. They had been here long enough to be approached, but that didn¡¯t explain how they hadn¡¯t spotted anything!


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    ¡®Wait, did he say docking ping?¡¯


    ¡°Prepare for boarders! Someone fetch me my weapons. Sensors, which docking clamp are they attempting. Comms, report anything on any external frequency.¡±


    ¡°Comms, sir! We are being jammed. Nothing in or out.¡±


    ¡°Sir! Readings indicate they are near external airlock RN-6 and closing! They aren¡¯t even trying for a docking clamp!¡±


    ¡®Insane. These people were insane! No one attempts a boarding action on an air lock!¡¯


    He shuddered. Whatever was happening was not something he wanted to be a part of.


    ¡°Navigation, find us a way out and jump as soon as engineering gives the ok. I want a defensive position at that air lock now! Anyone that isn¡¯t vitally important grab a weapon and follow me. I want updates if something happens!¡±


    A chorus of ¡®Yes, sir¡¯s followed. He made his way out to the designated air lock and was pleased to see there was at least some attempt to fortify the area.


    ¡°Report!¡±


    ¡°Sir! There were two loud thumps and ¨C¡±


    The words were cut off as two thuds hit the air lock door, so strong that they rattled the plating. As if someone was trying to break in with brute force alone.


    ¡°Like that sir!¡±


    He got behind an improvised emplacement and aimed his weapon at the door. Hopefully it would give them most of the time they needed to get the drives repaired. His hopes didn¡¯t last long though as the air lock gave a happy beep and slid open.


    He didn¡¯t blame his men. He really couldn¡¯t. The scent of fear and anxiety that had lingered in the area started to mix with the distinct scent of wet bottom wear. It was only as the screaming was fading into the distance that he realized he had lowered his weapon.


    What was the point? Nothing he did would matter.


    ¡°You. Send help. Many things. Speak slow.¡±


    Confusion joined the mix of despair and helplessness as the figure filling the air lock door growled out the words.


    ¡®Were they being captured? More valuable that way maybe?¡¯


    ¡°fetc¡­.*cough Fetch one of the younger ones¡±


    Two of those that had frozen up like him happily scurried off to fulfill the order. There might be a way out of this. If he could take his time sending people, they might still have enough crew left when the drives were back online.


    After what seemed like an eternity being stared down, but was far too short a time in reality, the first sacrifice walked into sight of the air lock and froze. He could understand the sentiment.


    He pointed and barked a quick order, ¡°Go, do what it says.¡±


    The younger girl looked back at him with utter terror, but a push from one of the men that had fetched her sent her stumbling towards the air lock.


    And her fate.


    He did not expect the girl to faint as soon as the growling started. He expected it even less when a shadow moved and the girl was hauled into the air and disappeared past the air lock. He liked it not at all when the figure gave him a strange look he didn¡¯t understand and then turned and disappeared as well.


    They needed to leave.


    ¡®What kind of madman tries to board a ship with more than one of those nightmares!?¡¯

 Ch 26 - C

    She didn¡¯t know how it had happened, that she was the only one to be allowed to clean the delicate electronics while the others around her were scrubbing the walls and floors. She might have been the only one indifferent enough to endure the old slave¡¯s teachings, but surely he wasn¡¯t the only one that knew how right? The lessons weren¡¯t even that bad once she had stopped making mistakes. She could be thankful in the future, when she wouldn¡¯t have to hurt her knees on the hard floor in her old age. It only meant cold eyes and whispered envy now though.


    If they were allowed to talk at all.


    She preferred it when they couldn¡¯t. She had never known anything else and conversation was difficult for her. She could handle orders or give a short report, if she had to, but she preferred to keep her mouth shut. It meant fewer painful nights, even if she caught stray punishments from others nearby for opening theirs. A quick lash or beating could be ignored if it happened nearby.  The collar though, it never cared if she had been the one to open her mouth, it only mattered if she was in range of the button when it got pressed and it was the easiest way to punish a group for talking. It was always pressed when she was in the middle of cleaning as well, since she did her best not to get involved when others got caught or reprimanded.


    That always led to more punishment for everyone as she inevitably hit a switch or other sensitive part on the electronics she was cleaning. She didn¡¯t know why they all blamed her for it though, she hadn¡¯t been the one to get in trouble in the first place. If only most things could be like the bridge, where she could quickly and quietly undo whatever she had hit. So long as nothing needed cleaning when everyone was awake, it was the only place she rarely got a second punishment.


    She was glad no crew were around this time. When the ship had moved beneath her as she was cleaning, she had hit something. It had to be something sensitive as well, since the alarms started blaring soon after. Quickly undoing it hadn¡¯t changed the alarms much and the worried whispers from the others around her were sure to lead to a punishment. She may even be called out by the others in a vain attempt to avoid something worse.


    She moved a little bit away from where she had hit whatever it was and got back to cleaning. Maybe the people in charge would think it wasn¡¯t her fault if she kept working. A vain hope, but she had never caused an alarm before. The ship rocked a second time, also something that had never happened before, but she wasn¡¯t near anything she could hit accidentally this time. She kept her head down and kept cleaning. If they found out it was her fault, she was sure they would never turn the collar off again.


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    She wasn¡¯t sure how she would keep cleaning if it was always shocking her.


    Thoughts of endless punishment kept her head down when she heard the crew walking toward her.


    ¡°You, come with us.¡±


    It took a rough hand on her shoulder to realize they had meant her. A quick look found out why. She was alone now, the others had disappeared. At least she hadn¡¯t been shocked yet. She started to listen again, just in case. There was no reason they wouldn¡¯t if she ignored them again.


    ¡°¡­but why the air lock? Those monsters could take out anything.¡±


    ¡°Why not an air lock? Protocol says they can¡¯t be locked. If both sides are equalized the outer door must open. Why waste time on an armored clamp door when they could just hit a button. Just our bad luck they picked one that had a broken inner door.¡±


    ¡°I guess that and we¡¯re helpless. Could just move and suck those things into space otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Maybe? Rumors say space can¡¯t kill them either.¡±


    She didn¡¯t know what was going on, but she didn¡¯t want to be near an air lock. They were the worst places to clean. Most of them were broken in some way and she had heard that another slave had been sucked out when they bumped into the control panel. She always made sure not to linger near them, doing her work quickly and leaving as soon as it was done.


    When she got to the air lock and saw the mess on the floor, she cursed the others in her head. It was just body waste, they didn¡¯t need her to do the cleaning. If the others hadn¡¯t run away, she could still be working elsewhere.


    At least that was what she had thought, until she got her order.


    ¡°Go, do what it says.¡±


    She looked up and saw with horror that it was the captain that was looking at her and pointing towards the air lock. The man frightened her to no end. So much so that she was shaking by the time she got to the opening.


    And saw the monster.


    She froze. The captain might haunt her mind, but this¡­ all her instincts screamed to run from this.


    She would take any punishment, but she wouldn¡¯t get closer.


    She hated the push she felt from behind. But the man that did it was big enough to force her to move. Right into the air lock and within reach of the monster. Which started a low growl that sent terror down her spine. Her ears folded back and she felt her tail curl between her legs. She could feel it as it grew wet and a strange thought about the mess flitted through her mind.


    When the deepest growl she had ever heard outside an engine room fell from above her she looked up. And up. As her head craned back as far as it could go, she felt a strange sensation. Like she was falling. The world was also being covered in shadows. It took her a moment to recognize the feeling of the floor.


    ¡®Why can I feel the floor.¡¯


    Her mind really wasn¡¯t working right. Maybe she wasn¡¯t awake.


    Best to just close her eyes then.

 Ch 27 - A

    She didn''t know how to take the new creature that Moose had dragged in.


    When Moose had taken her to the long hallway, even she had felt closed in. The roof seemed to be very close to Moose¡¯s head. Far too low to be a place that monsters could live and she didn¡¯t think that they could cause much trouble with the size. It wasn¡¯t until they got to the other end and found a door that was so small it seemed like _she_ was the monster. It was almost as small to her as the long tunnel was to Moose.


    She didn¡¯t know what danger Moose was afraid of coming from somewhere so small but she would keep her eyes on the lookout. It seemed like she had been brought because of the size though. Moose couldn¡¯t fit at all.


    ¡°Stay. Ask, need help. Find danger.¡±


    Ah, Moose didn¡¯t think there was danger to them, Moose thought others were in danger. That made much more sense. She had seen the small creatures in the garden. They had to come from somewhere, right? If this was how Moose found other creatures, he would need to find some that wanted protection. As Moose tapped on the small door, she tried to figure out the best way to convey the rumbly words to these new creatures.


    After Moose had tapped a second time and nothing changed, she decided that maybe they were afraid of Moose just like she had been. As she reached out to tap a different place to Moose she told him to stand behind the separation near the end of the long tunnel.


    ¡°Moose, find. Darkness. Quiet.¡±


    It seemed she was right as well.


    As soon as she tapped, there was a beep and the small door opened. The noise made her nearly jump behind Moose. There was a brief moment where she was looking over the small creatures, though they weren¡¯t nearly as small as those in the garden, before the small creatures started making a great deal of noise. They also started running around strangely. The suddenness had spooked her, but as they all seemed to be going away from her, she held her ground.


    How could she know the minds of creatures like them?


    There were some left after all, the loud ones probably had things to do. She could understand not wanting to stand around looking at each other.


    Though she didn¡¯t really understand the noise.


    ¡°You. Send help. Many things. Speak slow.¡±


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    She pointed to one of the creatures as she spoke. The loud ones seemed to not use the rumbly words of Moose, so she had needed to find words in the lighter language from the Pages. She felt she had done a good job. She had told them they were helping with anything! So much said with so few words. She would feel much prouder if she didn¡¯t need them to speak slowly, she hadn¡¯t used this language for a while.


    When the creature she had pointed to spoke too fast for her to catch everything, she started to lose confidence that she had been understood. She had asked them to speak slowly, why talk that fast? Sure, they didn¡¯t seem to be talking to her, since a couple of others quickly waddled away, but if the creatures didn¡¯t listen, then how would they help?


    At least they seemed to be fetching something. Something about young? Were the baby creatures in danger? She was impressed that Moose had sensed that from so far away. She hadn¡¯t even heard the noises that Moose had been talking about.


    She still had a long way to go it seemed.


    By the time the ones that had waddled away to fetch returned, her eyes had adjusted to the lights that were much brighter than she had gotten used to. Now that she could see more clearly, it seemed there was something on the ground around the creatures. If they had been injured, why didn¡¯t they ask for help first?


    When the small creature that had been brought, the young one?, she started to think there was something more serious going on. The new creature stumbled before her and started shaking. It clearly had something wrong with it. She told Moose as much.


    ¡°Moose, find. Danger. This.¡±


    Moose didn¡¯t seem to agree, as he rumbled deep in his chest, he seemed to be thinking things over. He didn¡¯t have much time though, as the creature before her seemed to tip over backwards and landed on the floor. And stopped moving.


    Yes, clearly something wrong.


    Moose rumbled a new word she didn¡¯t recognize. With what he said next, it seemed she had used the wrong word.


    ¡°This. Not Danger.¡±


    Hmm, she would need to learn that new word. She watched as Moose reached down and lifted the new creature. It seemed to have some wetness on its tail and midsection, the injury most likely. Moose seemed to have no issue with taking the small creature back along the tunnel, so she turned once more and looked at the other small creatures. She gave them a questioning look, as they all seemed strange for one reason or another, but they didn¡¯t seem to have anyone else that needed help.


    Or at least they weren¡¯t in a hurry.


    She turned around and hurried after Moose, the small creatures could follow if they had anyone else that needed something.


    It seemed that Moose was taking the small creature to a strange room with nests that had stuff attached to them. She never managed to figure out what the room was for, but if it was for damaged creatures she understood why. There was no reason for Moose to come here and she was too careful. Moose seemed to check the small creature over and got a confused look on his face. Hmm, it had to be serious if Moose didn¡¯t know what magic to use.


    ¡°Kitty. Stay. Watch. Get water.¡±


    It seemed Moose would need strong magic then. She didn¡¯t know why the small creature needed watching though. She couldn¡¯t stop a monster. Ah, she could carry the creature she guessed. She had changed enough to be that strong, especially with a small creature like this. If only the creature didn¡¯t start shaking as soon as it opened its eyes.


    Moose better hurry, this one desperately needed help.

 Ch 27 - C

    She was terrified.


    When she opened her eyes again, she realized she was no longer on the floor. Quietly looking around, she saw the monster facing the other direction. She curled in on herself. She didn''t know what was happening, but she was terrified.


    Where was she?


    Had she been sold?


    It didn¡¯t make any sense for a new owner to have protection for themselves when she still had a collar on. A single button would make her unable to move. She must be near the remote, or the collar would have been punishing her and putting out a location signal. Had that been what the ship shaking was, a buyer docking? It must have been. She didn¡¯t recognize anything around her.


    She seemed to be in some kind of medical bay. It was massive for a ship. No, it was massive for anywhere, it was unheard of for a ship. Even the giant that was now looking at her didn¡¯t need this much room.


    She shivered.


    She didn¡¯t know what species the giant was, but the eyes seemed to bore into her, as if her thoughts were laid bare. She could tell the giant was female, as she had the same characteristics as herself, just scaled up. Minus the fur and tail of course. She had no idea why the giant wasn¡¯t wearing anything though. Or why these beds seemed to be so large. Or the doors. Or anything at all really.


    She was so lost that the panic was starting to hurt. What was going to happen to her?


    She could see the darkness start to edge into her vision again when something even bigger ducked through the door the giant had been looking at. Could there be small giants?


    Because the new being would need another word otherwise.


    It was so tall she could see why the room was that big now. Even with the room¡¯s size the newcomer filled it, not having much space above its head.


    His head.


    Why was everything naked?


    His eyes though. They stole her attention.


    She found it impossible to look away. Whatever quality the smaller one had that made her gaze feel like it could see every intimate thing, the big one put it to shame. His eyes seemed to look into her very being. As if no matter how she tried, nothing was hidden from him. She could feel her instincts taking over. Feel her body rolling onto her back, with her tail curled and submissive.


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    She had heard the whispers before. How the slave races had instincts they couldn¡¯t overcome. How they would fall back to animal acts if they weren¡¯t collared and taken into strict hand. She had dismissed them. She had never felt these so-called instincts. Never experienced the desire for these animal acts.


    She couldn¡¯t deny them anymore.


    As the male giant came closer, every fiber of her being told her to freeze and expose her neck. Her mind couldn¡¯t really figure out how to do both, but fortunately her body was already on it. It was a good thing there was nothing left in her bladder. Not only would she have gotten it all over herself in a bid to not move, she would likely have been the one to clean it up afterwards. She hoped whoever her new owner was came soon. She was very much on the verge of whimpering and she didn¡¯t want to draw the real giants attention.


    Seemed she failed though.


    She really did whimper as the giant put down something nearby and lifted her into a sitting position like she weighed nothing. She was too afraid to look at what was happening, but she could feel giant hands pushing and touching all over her. The giant seemed to start near her tail and worked its way up.


    Right up to her collar.


    The collar seemed to get in the way, though she wasn¡¯t sure what the giant was looking for on her neck. She wasn¡¯t even sure she was feeling everything correctly.


    "Uh¡­¡±


    Had¡­. had that been her collar?


    She had felt it more than anything, not much noise beyond a soft crack. When she felt the collar fall from her neck, her head was pulled down by the weight of sheer incredulity. She didn¡¯t see anything, so she looked up and saw the giant looking strangely at her collar, the back portion crushed too almost nothing.


    That wasn¡¯t possible.


    If someone messed with the collar without it being turned off, it gave a powerful shock to everyone involved. So much so, she should be writhing on the floor. When the giant handed her the collar and she felt, more than heard, a rumble, it returned to putting its hands all over her.


    She was only barely conscious of it.


    The collar was in her hands.


    The collar that had dominated her entire life.


    Had given others so much power over her.


    Had given her so much pain.


    Had it always been so easy?


    Such a minor movement and she could have been free of it?


    She felt something drop onto her fingers. When she looked, she was shocked to see water there. She was even more shocked when another drop joined it. When she reached up to see where they were coming from, she found her cheeks wet.


    Were they tears? She was crying?


    ¡°Safe. Not danger.¡±


    She startled when she heard the female giant speak. They could talk? Was she allowed to talk? Should she ask?


    She opened her mouth to ask and promptly forgot what she was doing. Her tail wanted to move a little. What was happening right now?


    When the moment passed, she looked back at her surroundings only to realize the male giant had undone the fastener for her suit. When he pulled the top down exposing her back, her tail was still curled between her legs, he rumbled a bit more.


    She only realized it was speech when the female giant rumbled back.


    The male giant seemed to need something and left the room, while the female giant moved towards her.


    ¡®I guess the naked thing applies to me as well then.¡¯

 Ch 28 - B

    [Moose]


    He very much did not like the implications.


    It had been too easy.


    Flying up to the new ship that the map had picked up? Too easy.


    He barely had to do anything, the controls were essentially a point and click. He targeted what he assumed was an air lock and marked the area for docking. Or rather he pressed the docking button and targeted the area when the screen changed. There weren¡¯t even speed controls or maneuvering changes he had to do. Something he had been practicing with the asteroids for this very reason. At least a reason similar to this. He figured that interacting with other ships and stations would be the hardest part of flying, but no, everything had been automated.


    He could get behind that he supposed. Automated vehicles had almost been a thing when he got frozen, how hard could a spaceship be?


    Interacting with aliens who didn¡¯t speak his language? Too easy.


    He had no idea what all the noise had been about, but he had told Kitty to ask if they needed help. It was a pretty safe bet, seeing as how the ship seemed to be stranded and he could see red boxes on the scan. He had no idea what those boxes said, but red was usually bad right? He had figured that they could dock up and ask if there was any help they could provide. It had taken a bit for someone to get to the air lock and open it, but they seemed nice enough.


    Not that he really saw anything. The door had been so small he was afraid even Kitty wouldn¡¯t really fit. The docking tunnel itself was almost too small for him to walk upright. According to Kitty, it seemed they had brought out someone that needed help, though she got the word for casualty wrong. Or victim, he guessed it depended on what had happened. When he had bent over to pick the alien up, he had seen the ones still on their feet. There must be multi-species crews since the standing ones seemed to be reptilian in nature, scales and no hair, while the one on the floor had fur on the arms and legs. A tail and dog ears as well.


    He had left Kitty to see if they needed more help while he took the first one to an examination room. Though he guessed Kitty hadn¡¯t really understood that, as she came up behind him soon after. It didn¡¯t matter though, once he had done first aid for the one in his arms they could return and make sure. The examination room itself seemed to be for dissections or hostile biopsies. It definitely wasn¡¯t for cooperative patients, but he hadn¡¯t found anything else yet and this one was close to the docking area. He could just not use the restraints and such built into the room. He hoped it wouldn¡¯t scare the patient though.


    Though how much of a patient was hard to say. There was a wet spot he thought might be blood, but he couldn¡¯t smell any iron or see any color in the jumpsuit. A quick check for a pulse and search for rips in the suit left him puzzled. He left Kitty to watch over the patient and went to get some water. They could either use it for treatment or just drink it, depending on what was wrong.


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    The strange reaction the alien had when he returned to the room made him doubt he could give more than superficial first aid. He examined their back and stomach for any internal soft spots or oddities, though he was just guessing for the most part. When he got to the neck, he could see something, but the collar got in the way. As he went to move it around and check underneath it, he must have terribly underestimated the strength of whatever it was made of, as he squeezed a bit to hard and shattered the thing between his thumb and fingers.


    He felt terrible, he really did. The collar zapped him as well, so it was clearly electronic in some manner. It probably cost a lot. He handed it back to the poor owner with a short apology before resuming his work. It tugged at his heart strings when the poor thing started crying while looking at it. He hoped it wasn¡¯t like a family heirloom or something. He would need to see about repairing it or getting another one. If he had cost them all their contacts he had no idea how he could undo that.


    Not that he had any money to begin with.


    His rough examination done with nothing to show for it, he scritched behind the dog ears as he worried about what was next. He really didn¡¯t have any way to indicate that he was going to take their clothes off.


    Kitty hadn¡¯t learned anything about clothing, seeing as how he hadn¡¯t found anything that fit her and had just turned the temperature up a little rather than run around in bedsheets. Not that he would have allowed that. Flappy things like that around some of the machinery was a death sentence, better to just go without. They weren¡¯t exactly working in a chemistry lab, and the sheets wouldn¡¯t protect them from anything else around here. It was kind of awkward now though.


    Even if Kitty didn¡¯t seem to care.


    When he got over his momentary introspection, he noticed that his patient had frozen.


    ¡®No patting the dog aliens. Noted.¡¯


    He hated saying the same thing over and over again, but nothing to it. He would just have to jump in headfirst. Still, once he had undone the back of the jumpsuit thing his patient was wearing and saw what he was working with, he basically stopped and went to find a disinfectant and some cloth. He made sure to tell Kitty to give help.


    They had clearly been in some shit over there.


    When he got back with a ripped-up pillowcase and what smelled and tasted like lab grade alcohol, it seemed Kitty had gotten the wrong idea.


    The girl, as it was clearly a girl now that she didn¡¯t have a shapeless jumpsuit on, was hugging her tail and mostly curled up on the bed. He would need to teach his overeager companion about bedside manner, but that could wait until the first aid was finished. The poor girl must have been traumatized as well, considering the lack of response to his dabbing and wiping the bruises and scars. Some of them seemed to be old to his eyes, but he had no idea how aliens healed or how long the other ship had been in trouble.


    ¡°Find. Blanket.¡±


    As he worked, he had Kitty go and fetch a blanket so the girl could rest. He didn¡¯t know how long the other ship would need to get back on their feet, but he could just carry the girl if she fell asleep. When he finished and made sure the girl was tucked in and comfortable, or at least he thought that¡¯s what they were doing, who knew what the poor girl thought, he returned to the docking tunnel.


    The one that had retracted.


    The one that didn¡¯t have another ship on the other end.


    ¡®Crap... I hope they didn¡¯t try to message us. They must be worse off than I thought.¡¯

 Ch 28 - A

    [Kitty]


    She had been so excited to show the creature to its new home in the garden.


    It took a long time to realize that Moose had other plans.


    When Moose had been looking over the creature she had been watching closely. If she was going to be a moose one day she may need to know this. Though to her it seemed like Moose was just prodding the creature all over, so she had no idea what was happening.


    It did become clear that Moose didn¡¯t like the covering that the creature was in. She didn¡¯t know if it was because some of it was wet or if it was because it smelled bad, but she actually agreed with Moose. Normally she wouldn¡¯t take notice, but the smell was stinging her nose. The creature would need to visit the rain room just to remove the smell of its covering at this point. She could just help get rid of the covering for now.


    She had learned how good the rain room was at removing smells when she had found a place with very bad smells in it. Moose had taken her to the rain room after that and used the slow water, which he named soap, and the smells had disappeared. She had thought the rain just felt good, now she understood there was a lot of magic there as well.


    She would still follow Moose for now though, she didn¡¯t know everything she needed in order to bring in a new creature.


    Once she had tossed the covering back into the long tunnel and returned, she found the creature wrapped around its tail. Moose came back with more smelly stuff and rubbed it all over the creature.


    ¡®If he wanted the smell to change, why take the covering?¡¯


    She was very confused now.


    It didn¡¯t matter. There were many things she didn¡¯t understand yet. She assured herself she would in time, but for now it was best to just watch and copy. She could learn the why after she was strong enough to not care.


    ¡°Find. Blanket.¡±


    Hmm, did Moose want to carry the creature in a blanket? Why not just let the creature walk?


    Though as she went to fetch the blanket, she reasoned that the creature had fallen over after a few steps, perhaps carrying would be the smarter choice. It would take less time. When she handed the blanket to Moose and watched the creature be covered in it, she thought they would go to the garden then.


    But Moose didn¡¯t.


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    He left the room. She lingered a bit, trying to puzzle out the use of this new creature, but gave up and padded after Moose. It seemed he didn¡¯t need any more creatures though, as he had closed the wall to the long tunnel. Curious. She wondered how Moose knew the other creatures weren¡¯t in danger and wouldn¡¯t come.


    ¡®It has to be some kind of magic.¡¯


    She felt she had learned a lot of words, but Moose always seemed to have more.


    Moose seemed to stare and contemplate the wall for a bit, but it didn¡¯t take very long for her belly to complain. She didn¡¯t know why. She should feel the pull on her eyes instead, they had been up much longer than she preferred. She doubted that Moose would notice the extra time though, he never did sleep as much. Still, she would not face the wrath of her belly.


    ¡°Moose. Food.¡±


    He turned and looked at her for a bit.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Moose had never answered that with words before. Strange.


    Even stranger, Moose returned to the room with the creature instead of heading towards the food place. They weren¡¯t going to eat the creature, right? She wasn¡¯t sure she was moose enough for that.


    ¡°Kitty. Follow.¡±


    She tilted her head at him. She was following, why would he tell her to follow more?


    It took a couple more repeats and a lot of hand motion for her to understand Moose wanted her to tell the creature to follow.


    ¡®So the creature can walk?¡¯


    ¡°You. Follow.¡±


    She pointed as well, to make sure the creature understood. The creature pushed back the blanket, which made her feel conflicted. She was glad she was understood, but then why did she get that blanket? Her belly grumbled again and she sniffed. Food was more important anyways. Once she was sure the creature could stand on its own, she looked back at Moose. He seemed to be deciding something, his head tilting back and forth. She hoped whatever it was was quick. She just wanted some disks.


    He sighed and started his lumbering pace out of the room and hopefully to the food place. She happily padded after him. A quick glance showed that the creature was keeping up, but it didn¡¯t look like it was easy. With how small it was that made sense.


    After an agonizingly slow walk back to the food place, Moose satisfied her with some disks and even made one for the creature. It seemed that Moose was also tired of all the smells, because he went to the rain room next. A little confusion and a lot of gestures later and she figured out it was her turn to teach about the rubbing. She made sure to point at everything just in case.


    ¡°Rain. Slow water. Rub. Lots¡±


    Alongside her words she gave a demonstration, using Moose as much as possible. Mostly for his hands. Though the creature seemed to instinctively know what to do.


    Was she weird?


    Why hadn¡¯t she known how to use the rain room until she was taught by Moose?


    Difficult questions with Moose¡¯s fingers working magic.


    After the storm dried them off, she got tired of waiting for Moose and went ahead to the lair. She doubted she needed to be involved in anything else for now. It seemed she had been understood too well though, as the creature continued to follow her. It seemed out of breath as well. An effect of the magic Moose used maybe?


    She could figure it out after she woke up.


    ¡°Moose lair. Dark good, sleep. Quiet place.¡±


    It was best to make sure the creature knew not to make a lot of noise here. She didn¡¯t want Moose, or even herself to get woken up. When she got into the nest and smothered herself in blankets, she felt the nest move slightly. Looking out she saw the creature curled up at the edge.


    ¡®I should tell it to not follow when I get up. That could get annoying.¡¯

 Ch 29 - C

    She had never seen rain before.


    A slave only got a sanitizing cloth with their rations. It was very effective, but she had never heard of anyone that preferred it. Water was scarce though and needed to be conserved. Especially on a ship small enough to need slaves. Automated systems were always bulkier than another bunk. She had used water once, back when she had been very young and living on a station.


    Before she had been sold.


    It had felt nice, as far as she remembered. Though it hadn¡¯t been much different to the cloths, other than taking her fur longer to dry. It didn¡¯t clean as quickly either and the water needed to be gotten rid of in a special way, even if she didn¡¯t remember exactly how.


    She was sure it had been nothing like the rain.


    She had heard stories about being on a planet¡¯s surface. How the weather could be different, changing seemingly at a whim. She had thought water just falling from the sky to be absurd, a strange fantasy of people stuck on a ship for too long.


    The female giant didn¡¯t seem to care much for the difference between reality and fantasy.


    She had been so shocked to see water falling that she had even forgotten where she was and how she had gotten there. Stepping into the rain had been an afterthought, something she had done without a reason. When the giant had spoken and told her to rub slowly and shown her the cleanser, she had been spooked out of her awe.


    Of course she wasn¡¯t there to enjoy herself.


    Getting enough cleanser for her tail and cleaning herself thoroughly, she still enjoyed the warmth pouring down on her. It wasn¡¯t strange for a slave to need a deep clean when switching employers. It would be a disaster to bring a sickness onto a ship with limited supplies and lacking medical care. Most flyers spent the time and resources to cleanse themselves every time they left a station. Staying off the ship and doing a cleanse before leaving kept things pretty safe. Off ship housing was expensive though, so slaves rarely left the ship at all unless something was happening to the ship, or they had been traded or sold off.


    This wasn¡¯t the first time she had been sold. Even if it hadn¡¯t happened much, she should have still expected this to be the first thing to do. Especially after she had messed her¡­.


    She stopped that thought, pink tingeing her cheeks.


    The two giants had thrown her thoughts into disarray. Whatever the male giant had done had confused her so badly that she hadn¡¯t known what to expect and the female giant didn¡¯t seem to make much sense at all. Even though she was the only one to speak.


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    It would have been nice to get her suit back though.


    She didn¡¯t know what the female giant had done with it, but she wasn¡¯t used to being unclothed for so long. Cleaning it would be difficult, but with this rain she could do two things at once. Though it was the lack of a collar around her neck that made her feel truly naked. She had struggled with herself about whether she should have kept it. She didn¡¯t know why the male giant had broken it, nor what his goal was, so it was best to just leave it in the overly large medical bay for now. With so many unknowns and no way to carry it, it was probably just fine where it was.


    The only worry she had being naked was if her new master was cruel enough to make her clean without protection. Most delicate equipment needed cleaners or other things that were harsh to flesh. The fur on her hands was a patchwork of muted colors due to spills and mishaps. It had been even worse when the liquids had touched her skin. She didn¡¯t want to feel that kind of itching burn anywhere but her hands.


    Though maybe once in a while, if she got to use the rain again.


    The blow drying helped to speed up a process she remembered taking a long time, meaning she could get back to work quickly. With no idea what her job was and having not seen anyone else, she kept following the female giant. That was who she had been told to follow, so that was what she did.


    The female giant led her to a large room, clearly an officer¡¯s quarters from the way it was laid out. She had seen her share of high-ranking rooms, being the one that was called to clean them due to the other slaves not being trusted around delicate equipment. Not that most of those rooms had delicate equipment. It was always normal messes she had been called to clean. A waste of her time and it always meant some kind of pain, so she hated going there.


    It didn¡¯t seem like she had any more choice here though.


    ¡°Moose lair. Dark good, sleep. Quiet place.¡±


    ¡®What is a moose?¡¯


    This room at least had some differences. The absolute mess on the floor for one. Not that she could really make it out. This whole area had been dim. Not dim enough to be blinding, but it would take a long time to get used to these levels of light. This room was nearly pitch black. She could see the shapes around the room of personal storage and what seemed like a bunk, as well as the mess on the floor, but detail was lost to the gloom.


    The female giant was very literal when she said it was dark.


    Dark and quiet.


    She watched the shape of the female giant borrow into the mess on the floor. It took her a moment to figure out that the mess must have been a sleeping area. A look at the bunk showed it would be very uncomfortable for the female and nearly impossible for the male to sleep there, as it was nestled between cabinets.


    ¡®It seems this is where I will be staying for now.¡¯


    It didn¡¯t look like the female giant was all that interested in taking her to someone else that may give orders and the male giant wasn¡¯t here, having not followed them.


    ¡®Did I follow the wrong one?¡¯


    Very aware of the noise her claws made on the floor, she walked as quietly as she could to the sleeping area. Until she got other orders, she would keep following the last one. She didn¡¯t know if she could follow the female giant into sleep, but she could at least rest.


    She had learned a long time ago not to pass up a chance to do nothing.

 Ch 29 -B

    [Moose]


    ¡®I need some scissors.¡¯


    He idly pressed the forward thrust button until the asteroid was even with the reticle, then cancelled out the momentum with a reverse thrust. Not that it mattered. The collection drones didn¡¯t need the ship to be in a specific spot, just close enough to make the trip. He liked to move the ship when he could though. Getting practice manually moving something this large was bound to come in handy eventually. It meant he could scoop the smallest asteroids himself as well.


    Which was much faster, even if the ship complained about possible collisions.


    Absently scritching the head that appeared under his other hand, he watched the drones dismantling the larger chunks of the rock that they couldn¡¯t fit through the collection area on the ship. Reading the information on the panel before him was still out of his reach, but he had managed to identify which parts were the ¡®elements¡¯ found in the asteroid. It was probably a breakdown of the ore or alloys in the rock, but it gave him an idea of what the colors on the panel meant.


    It seemed blue was something needed or used by the ship, red was slag or waste rock and orange and purple were¡­ something. He was pretty set on them having to do with value, but what exactly they depicted he wasn¡¯t sure. His current plan was to use purple as high value, just because of the whole royalty dye thing. It didn¡¯t really matter in the end, since he couldn¡¯t communicate what he had or what he wanted for it, but it gave his practice more meaning.


    ¡®I can deal with long hair I guess. The ends curling is annoying, but not a huge thing. It¡¯s the beard that is quickly leaving behind caveman and approaching ¡®living thing actively trying to choke me¡¯ that is the problem.¡¯


    He glanced at the progress bar, that he was currently attempting to work out the purpose of, go up. It lasted after the rock was gone, so not a collection progress. His best guesses were either refining or internal movement of whatever was collected. Both were good to know.


    He had yet to experience any difference between FTL and normal space. That meant he could probably rule out dimension hoping and wormhole travel. There didn¡¯t seem to be any instant movement or change of location. Folding space was still a possibility, he supposed, but it was probably a more mundane method. Either simply ignoring lightspeed limitations somehow or a gravity wave type of device. That or something really exotic that he simply didn¡¯t have reference for.


    The drones finished up with the rock he had targeted. He had found this one that seemed to have a lot of water ice and what he was pretty sure was elemental gold. At least that was what he got from the display, alongside the other incomprehensible bits. Water seemed to be the thing that got ¡®used up¡¯ according to the readouts, probably for either power or non-FTL propulsion. Maybe both.


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    That was both good and bad, as far as he was concerned. It meant they wouldn¡¯t run out if they stayed still, but they couldn¡¯t go find more if they ran out. It was something he was keeping a very close eye on.


    Once the drones flashed a pop-up that he was treating as an all clear, he started maneuvering the ship back towards the direction he had planned out.


    ¡®I sure hope it¡¯s the next one. If someone had told me that I would be worried about running out of stars, I would have laughed at them. Or demanded to know how I got into a spaceship in the first place. Hmm, no, yea, definitely the second one first.¡¯


    It didn¡¯t take him long to get the ship pointed in the right direction, then it was just waiting for the progress bar to finish. It was probably fine to jump now, the ship had never sent up a complaint and probably would do whatever automated things it had to regardless, but he liked to be extra careful. Seeing as they lacked a mechanic. Or just anyone fluent in the languages. Or really any part of the hundreds of crew he expected would be needed for a ship this size. The robots help immensely, but he didn¡¯t kid himself into thinking that was a long-term solution.


    His practice did give him plenty of time to think. He even managed to get some things translated while he was waiting a few times. His navigation plan was also something he had come up with while he was sitting here watching the ship do its thing.


    He didn¡¯t know where their newest passenger¡¯s friends had gotten off to. They likely could read their map and just jumped straight to wherever the help was. He had just assumed that they went in the direction they had been facing, seeing as how there had been less than an hour and no real reason to do any kind of crazy maneuvering. He took the heading of his ship and plotted out all the stars that were in an absolutely straight line. That had probably been a mistake, a little divergence likely wouldn¡¯t matter to the FTL drive, but it was the only way to narrow the possibilities. Once he had jump data for all of them, he had stuck the first one in the flight computer and off they went.


    That had been several stars ago and the jumps weren¡¯t quick.


    On the plus side, that did at least give the girl a chance to not cower at every little movement. He didn¡¯t really blame her, when everyone around you could seriously injure you by not looking where they are sitting, he would cower a bit too. The girl barely came up to his hips and that was only if she was really trying. His paranoia of being turned into a giant had resurfaced hard once the dust had settled. Though that did raise questions of why Kitty was so much bigger than the other girl.


    As his scritching fingers brushed an ear that flicked away, his mind stuttered a bit.


    ¡®Wait, wha¡­.¡¯


    Looking down he spotted the tiny girl in question. She had a complicated look on her face and ruffled hair on her head.


    ¡®Crap. Has she been here the whole time? I thought that it was Kitty being strange again. I am going to have to find a way to apologize.¡¯

 Ch 30 -A

    [Kitty]


    She found she didn¡¯t much like the quiet.


    Which was a conflicting feeling, seeing as she didn¡¯t like the noises either. They made her nervous and she much preferred to avoid them. Moose could handle whatever the noises were. When she fully became a moose, then she could go find out. Until then, she was happy to hide behind Moose and let things play out.


    That was the problem though.


    Moose always handled the noises. He always handled everything.


    And if he was off handling something, he wasn¡¯t there with her.


    The lack of his presence was always so silent. All she could hear was her own heartbeat. And the noises, on occasion. When he was nearby, she could hear his breathing. Or hear him walking or talking or doing magic. Even when she slept, her ear to his chest brought her a constant stream of sound from him. To be without that sound, things were so quiet.


    So empty.


    She had dealt with the emptiness before. Had used the things Moose gave her to overcome it. She had used Moose to overcome it. So how did she overcome it without him? The new creature didn¡¯t have magic. It didn¡¯t have much of anything, always following either her or Moose. Never using its own mind. Not to mention that the creature took Moose¡¯s time away. Even if the creature fell back or didn¡¯t try to contest her, it was inevitable that Moose would need to spend some of his time on it.


    Making food took longer, even if not by much. The rain room took longer, the creature needing more care. Settling in for sleep took longer, as more bodies took time to arrange. Even her time with Moose in the strange room he had taken to spending much of his attention on could be cut short. She much enjoyed sitting on Moose, listening to words or sounds. Doing her best to train Moose to listen to her as well. The heat and tingles she took in were what kept the cold at bay.


    Kept the emptiness back.


    But even that time wasn¡¯t safe. Should the creature come to need something, or any new routine happen, her time sitting on Moose would end. She didn¡¯t care to count how many times she had been told by Moose to help the creature with some small thing or other. Even worse when it was something she had no interest in. Why should she have to help the creature relieve itself in a rain room? Why should she have to guide the creature to that odd area for bedsheets? As if the creature had no ability to do things itself, she was told to accompany it. She wouldn¡¯t be surprised if next she would need to carry it around like her trinket.


    Why did Moose dote on this little creature?


    Had he grown bored? Found her lack of turning into a moose to be a failure?


    Had she failed?


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    She could give the creature a grudging acknowledgement. Every command was followed, even if most of them required more explanation. The creature didn¡¯t stop until it collapsed, even if that didn¡¯t take long. The creature was not smart or sturdy or fast or even all that impressive. But that didn¡¯t seem to be from a lack of trying. The creature almost reminded her of herself. The time before she had met Moose. When she had been watched by the Others.


    When she had been alone.


    It had been the only reason she had not rebuked the creature. It was almost painfully clear to her that the creature was empty. She could see it in the eyes. In the way it stood and walked and acted. An emptiness she recognized. One that scared her.


    Had this been what she looked like before, a tiny pathetic shell?


    She might begrudge every moment that the creature stole Moose from her, but the painful reminders always kept her quiet. It was better for the creature to understand what it was depriving her of. Maybe then it would stop being so needy.


    <hr>


    She had no idea how long the creature had been with them. The female. Moose labeled her ¡®Pup¡¯, something about ¡®girl¡¯ being wrong? It had been a confusing conversation. What was wrong with the label ¡®girl¡¯? She guessed it didn¡¯t matter much, one label the same as another.


    ¡®Pup is easier to speak, maybe that¡¯s why it¡¯s better?¡¯


    Easy magic for a small creature. It made sense.


    She was sitting on Moose, idly listening to the sounds as she watched the lights dance about. She would never give up the chance while they were both in this strange room, even if she didn¡¯t much like it down here. It always chilled her skin, made her tense. Stealing heat from Moose was the only solution. She enjoyed the tingles as well, even if they had changed a bit recently. She knew the creature was responsible for that, though didn¡¯t know why or how. She thought they felt more¡­ intense¡­ though that wasn¡¯t really the best word. Worse she didn¡¯t know if it was some scheme of the creature or simply a change in herself.


    She watched the lights flash a bit and turned her thoughts to the creature again. Something that had been happening often.


    ¡°Uni¡­¡­¡­¡­ip, thi¡­¡­¡­.ity off¡­¡­¡­.. Respo¡­¡­¡­¡­.ance or be t¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­... I repeat¡­.¡±


    She perked up at the sound. As did both Moose and Pup. There was a great deal of noise and crackling, making the words basically useless. Moose shifted under her and she braced as she slid to the floor when he rose. Walking over to an area with rapidly blinking lights, he started doing something. Likely magic to make the words better.


    ¡°Unidentified ship, this is¡­¡­.ity off¡­¡­¡­.. Respond ¡­¡­¡­.ance or be t¡­¡­¡­as a¡­... I repeat¡­.¡±


    ¡®Hmm, more words but still basically useless.¡¯


    ¡°Translation isn¡¯t working. Please repeat in a different language.¡±


    Moose rumbled into the air near the area he was in. She didn¡¯t understand anything he said outside of ¡®Please¡¯, but he was clearly doing something.


    ¡°Unidentif¡­¡­¡­.., transmit¡­¡­¡­¡­ived but ¡­¡­..lligible. Please re¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­..nized g¡­¡­¡­.mat.¡±


    ¡®Guess the magic isn¡¯t working right.¡¯


    Moose did some more things, then motioned to her. She padded over and gave him a quizzical look.


    ¡°Kitty. Speak. Other words.¡±


    He motioned to the air afterwards.


    ¡®Other words? Like with the creature?¡¯


    ¡°Speak, what words? Not using good.¡±


    ¡°Unidentified ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­. received. What¡¯s n¡­¡­¡­..d? Plea¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.red communication format.¡±


    As Moose worked the crackles lessened a lot. The words came in but she still had no idea what they meant.


    ¡°I think they want us to pick a better radio channel.¡±


    Both she and Moose looked at the creature as it spoke.


    ¡®Did the creature know what the words were supposed to be? Why is she smart now?¡¯


    Rather than try and figure that out, she simply picked up the creature. She was a little heavier than she looked, but it wasn¡¯t much to place her in the raised sitting area near Moose. Waving her hand she passed the command on.


    ¡°Know, then you speak.¡±


    Looking at Moose she nodded.


    There that problem was solved.

 Ch 30 - *

    She hated her post.


    Her superiors might have called the station a construction outpost, but she didn''t see it that way. All she saw was an old, broken-down piece of junk. Ready to crumble into the orbit of the world it circled above, not that the planetoid deserved that title either. Always more problems than it was worth.


    She didn''t mind the slow days at the helm. Didn''t mind it when nothing happened for weeks on end. She didn''t even mind the accommodations or poor food selection. In fact, the lack of paperwork and the lack of excitement was a good thing in her mind. Nobody wanted an exciting day on a military ship.


    No, what she hated the most was that Command insisted that she keep appearances up. That morale was important. She could certainly see the use when fighting pirates. But those were few and far between. The things she had to deal with most on a daily basis were unruly transport captains. But even while they always insisted on being difficult, they were still law abiding citizens.


    They never needed more than a stern warning.


    ¡®I hope something breaks up this dull shift. I think I drifted off there.¡¯


    Despite her better sense, she sometimes gave in and wished for something to brighten her day. A little something that didn¡¯t need more paperwork but broke up the tedium.


    What she didn''t want was a massive ship bristling with weapons to drop out of the void.


    ¡°Commander. No identification markings and no hails.¡±


    Maybe she wasn''t the only one looking for a little excitement. Her crew hardly needed to be told what to do. Already working on all of the things that she would have needed to tell them.


    ¡°Hail them on all frequencies and open the channel.


    ¡°Yes, ma''am. Contact when ready.¡±


    ¡°Unidentified ship. This is Security Officer Krikra. Respond with clearance or be targeted as a hostile.


    ¡°Navigation. Bring us around, weapons officers bring the weapons online."


    ¡°Receiving a signal, ma''am.¡±


    She listened to static come through the radio. The static was broken only by rumbling. Clearly a language, but one she didn''t recognize. It certainly wasn''t one of the recognized galactic common languages. And it definitely wasn''t something designated for ship communications.


    ¡°Unidentified ship, transmission received but unintelligible. Please respond with a galactic recognized communication format.¡±


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    ¡°Ma¡¯am, we''re having trouble keeping an open channel.¡±


    This was quite the strange encounter. She didn''t really know how to proceed. None of the manuals ever really trained for something like this. Large ships with weapons usually attacked. She wasn''t used to them trying to talk but not being able to. She couldn''t exactly be aggressive if they weren''t.


    ¡°Do we have any more information or identification on the ship?"


    ¡°No ma¡¯am, we are trying to request ship logs now.¡±


    ¡°Ma''am, incoming communication.¡±


    ¡°Spe¡­¡­..t words? No¡­¡­¡­..good.¡±


    ¡°Can we clean that up?¡±


    ¡°We''re trying ma¡¯am, but it''s not going well.¡±


    Now what was she supposed to do. It was clear something was wrong with the other ship. It was also clear that they weren¡¯t being aggressive. Yet. But there was nothing she could do while they were having trouble communicating.


    ¡°Are we still transmitting?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am. You have control.¡±


    ¡°Unidentified Ship, transmission received. What¡¯s no good? Please switch to a galactic recognized communication format.¡±


    She had never needed to stress that before. Even the pirates were considerate enough to use standard communication formats. Was this an uncontacted species? If this was a first contact scenario, she was far outside her depths.


    ¡°I want anyone not doing something important to prepare for possible first contact or lost ship protocols.


    ¡°Communications, do your best to clear that signal. You have full resources.¡±


    Several ¡®Yes ma¡¯ams¡¯ proceeded a flurry of activity. She wanted nothing more than to go back and chastise her earlier self for wanting ¡®excitement¡¯. Or maybe chastise the universe for way overestimating what excitement was supposed to be.


    ¡°Line connected ma¡¯am. Communications should be cleared!¡±


    Before she could take a breath to do anything the line crackled to life.


    ¡°Umm, hello?¡±


    ¡°Unidentified ship. This is Security Officer Krikra. Identify yourself and send communication protocols.¡±


    At least the use of galactic trade mostly ruled out a first contact scenario. It was a language used by pretty much all spacers, something simple that most lifeforms could use and was easily translated for those that couldn¡¯t. The unprofessionalism was something else entirely.


    Some more rumbling came across the line.


    ¡°Uh, I don¡¯t know how to say that word. What are protocols and how do I send them?¡±


    That¡­.. wasn¡¯t good.


    The girl on the other side of the radio didn¡¯t sound that old either.


    ¡°Young lady, please find someone who knows what they are doing and have them come talk to us alright?¡±


    She waited, listening to the static.


    ¡°I um, I don¡¯t think I can do that.¡±


    That really wasn¡¯t good.


    ¡°Young lady, are you alone on the bridge right now?¡±


    She might be able to handle unruly transport officers, but she was woefully unequipped to coach a girl through ship communications when it sounded like she shouldn¡¯t even be on the bridge to begin with.


    ¡°No.¡±


    Oh, good. That scared her for a moment.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone else can talk to you though.¡±


    She felt her organs drop out through her legs.


    ¡°Get me a status on those weapons.¡±


    She now had an unconfirmed girl in charge of something that looked like it could be a ship-of-the-line. If she was the only one capable of moving on that ship it would be a disaster. Especially if they needed to get close.


    ¡°Weapons are powered ma¡¯am, but they seem to be in standby.¡±


    A disaster then. This was not excitement, this was torture.


    ¡®I am never wishing again.¡¯


    ¡°Young lady, have you ever seen them bring the ship into dock? Or have any experience on the bridge?¡±


    ¡°Um, No?¡±


    There it was.


    Her last hope shot down.

 Ch 31 - *

    ¡°Communications, give her a step-by-step way to send over the ship logs. We need more information.¡±


    ¡°On it, ma¡¯am.¡±


    She was somewhat surprised she wasn¡¯t more panicked. Maybe it was because she really couldn¡¯t internalize how out of her depth she was, but she had expected to be a gibbering mess on the floor by now.


    Or maybe that was the command training kicking in for once.


    ¡°Navigation, I want you to route all jumps well away from that area. I don¡¯t want anything remotely close to that ship until we can get it powered down.¡±


    Maybe, just maybe, they could get through this without mass casualties. The ship was far enough out from the station that it wasn¡¯t a threat to regular traffic and it was big enough they didn¡¯t need to worry about miners or haulers from the various belts running near it. The larger the ship the farther they tended to stay away from possible collision fields.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, initial logs are transmitting. We should know something in a moment.¡±


    Initial logs? She had never heard that term used, it had always just been ¡®logs¡¯.


    ¡°Explain, what are initial logs?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Ma¡¯am. They are normally just called logs and are all that are requested in normal circumstances. For something like this, we will probably need extended or full logs, which should have the full ship history. Normally too much to bother with, takes a lot of time.¡±


    Ah, that explains why she had never heard of them. Time was resources and no one wanted to wait around for a data transfer just so they could unload their cargo. The stations administrators could handle paperwork like that while the ships were exchanging cargo and supplies. The only thing she cared about was not letting the station get attacked. A quick credentials check was more than enough for that.


    In most cases at least.


    ¡°I don¡¯t much care for their history Communications, I just want those weapons powered down. Get only what you need for that and let the data-junkies handle the rest.¡±


    ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.


    ¡°Transmitted logs indicate that the ship is a deep space explorer. Human make. The name didn¡¯t make it, it was jumbled. The transmission wasn¡¯t fully stable.¡±


    That explained the size and weapons. The only ones foolish enough to personally venture into deep space for years on end were humans. Everyone else just used probes and jump gates. They were very inefficient, but much much safer. Even most pirates avoided going beyond the edge systems. For the most part, deep space explorers were considered suicide ships, as they didn¡¯t make it back more often than not. The humans always insisted that the big weapons increased the odds.


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    They also insisted a fraction of a percent was an increase, so she didn¡¯t believe a word of it.


    She had a perfect example right in front of her as well.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care one bit about a name, deep space vessels are a nightmare regardless of what they are called. Find out what happened and get me an operations manual for that ship. We need to make it safe.¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am. The logs are indicating a quarantine was called on the ship!¡±


    She was in a nightmare, she had to be. Not only did she have to deal with a deep space vessel, she had to deal with the maniacs that flew it. And now she was being told they had found something that had forced those maniacs to call a quarantine?! They tossed themselves into deep space, what could possibly be bad enough to call something like a quarantine!


    ¡®No calm down. There are obviously people alive over there, they are talking to us. It might be nothing. Some big discovery they are bringing back but are being cautious. Nothing to worry about, just get them the fuel and supplies in a disposable jumper and send them on their way.¡¯


    ¡°Communications, make sure their intent. We can get them whatever they need if they have the credits, but they aren¡¯t getting any closer with that quarantine up.¡±


    ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡±


    Alright, this probably wasn¡¯t as bad as she thought. Of course the human ship had weapons on standby, that was just humans. Of course the ship was nearly half the size of the station, it was a deep space vessel. The quarantine was a bit strange, but again, deep space vessel. Strange was standard for them. The lack of communications was probably just¡­.. just¡­


    She started to feel the tension rise again. She couldn¡¯t come up with a good reason for that.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, I think you should handle this. I am not sure I am qualified.¡±


    Oh, there it was. What was the human saying, the other shoe?


    ¡°What do you mean your not qualified!? Patch it through.


    ¡°Unidentified ship, please state your intentions and the reason for quarantine.¡±


    She waited, the tension in her legs rising as the static crackled back to life.


    ¡°Um, I don¡¯t know anything about a quarantine. Uh, intentions? Um, food maybe?¡±


    Food maybe? What kind of intentions were ¡®food maybe¡¯. Not to mention glossing over a quarantine. Whole planets got shut down for a quarantine. It¡¯s not something to just ¡®not know¡¯!


    ¡°Uh, Ma¡¯am? I have been going though some of the logs. It seems like the quarantine was contained by the automated system and a distress signal was turned off. They might not be original owners.¡±


    Oh good. Someone crazier than humans had claimed salvage on a quarantined deep space vessel.


    She didn¡¯t think that level of insane existed. She might get a scientific achievement for this.


    ¡°Am I right in assuming the quarantine is contained then?¡±


    ¡°Sort of ma¡¯am. Not so much contained as ¡®purged with extreme measures¡¯. But it has been dealt with.¡±


    That sounded ominous.


    ¡°Is there any more detail?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am. The logs we can read are mostly thorough. Suffice to say they did pretty much everything short of irradiating the entire ship. I am actually curious how anything is supposed to survive something like this.¡±


    The implication being that they didn¡¯t. Hence the distress call.


    ¡°Protocol still says we need to personally inspect and certify the ship is clean before it can interact with any galactic citizen. We can¡¯t just take the word of an automated system. Unfortunately, that means getting close. Do we still have nothing we can do about those weapons?¡±


    ¡°No, ma¡¯am. No change there.¡±


    She sighed.


    ¡°Unidentified ship. Your logs indicate a quarantine. Your ship needs to be inspected before any further interaction. Please power down your weaponry so we can approach or indicate your preferred jump window.¡±


    She could always hope they just left, right?


    ¡°Um, I don¡¯t know what you need to inspect, since it¡¯s all metal. The water, I guess? Um, I don¡¯t know anything about the weapons, can you show me how?¡±


    Why did she even get out of bed today?