"Blubie… did you just talk!?"

I'm more than a little incredulous about the prospect of a talking arachnid. They don't even have lungs, at least not ones that expand or contract or otherwise make any noise. Mr. Bubbles hisses by rubbing her pedipalps together, not by expelling air.

And yet.

"Klukie," the creature deliberately parrots. "Chid. Hyoo. Tus. Kalk."

Slowly, carefully. As if… memorizing. Lacking lips, the mispronunciations are unavoidable. If anything, the degree of accuracy shown is absurd.

I'm not always the fastest girl on the uptake. I'm well aware that situational awareness is not exactly on my list of specialties. I can, and have, bumbled my way headfirst into problems that are very obvious in retrospect.

But this? I know where this is going. This is no longer a scientific discovery. This is a science fiction discovery.

…Well, okay, it is actually a scientific discovery. The essence of science is, after all, observation. If observations are contradicting established views of the universe, well, it’s time to clench your anus and expect to either blow everyone's minds or find out that someone just fucked up the experiment somewhere dumb. But either way, you are wrong, not the universe. So while there's nothing strictly unscientific about discovering a completely new phylum, it's unlikely enough to render competing explanations—like aliens or genetic experiments or what have you—not really that silly in comparison.

Of course, I'll need to do a much more thorough examination of Blubie to determine if they really are unlike any other known species. For all I know, this vocal stuff is just some weird muscular adaptation to book lungs. Yet just in case, before I do any of that, I'm going to figure out how smart this thing is, and I'm going to be very, very nice while I do so. Maybe it's just parroting, but… well, I'm not going to be the idiot scientist that abuses some hyper-intelligent alien and starts an interplanetary war. What would even be the point of reading fiction if I can't learn that much?

I reach down into Blubie's terrarium, offering my arm. Blubie obligingly climbs onto me. Heading over to my counter, I set the creature down, pull out a pan and hotplate, spray some oil on, and carefully observe Blubie watch the process. And it is watching, I notice, always turning to face me without being aggressive, as if it's genuinely interested in what I'm doing rather than just keeping an eye on a potential threat. I drop some dead crickets I recently caught into the pan, fry them just enough to kill any potential parasites, and then set them down on the counter.

I pick up a fork, skewer one, and eat it. …Crickets are really good for you, don't judge. Then, I quite deliberately set the fork down by Blubie along with the other cricket I fried.

Blubie stares at me for a bit. Then, it extends the front legs it had been curling up under its shell the whole time, grabs the fork with hidden finger-like structures, and stabs the cricket. Awkwardly, wielding a utensil almost as long as it is, Blubie eats the meal.

Then it puts the fork down, and stares back up at me.

"…You sure aren’t any kind of Earth bug, are you?" I ask.

"Heeeerrrrrthhhhh."

"Yeah," I say, pulling out my phone and bringing up a picture of the planet from orbit. I show it. "Earth."

Blubie taps at the phone. The surface-capacitive screen doesn't register its chitinous touch, but I set the phone down and poke at whatever the little thing pokes, allowing it to explore at its leisure. It is very clearly intelligent. At least as intelligent as an ape, and if I were a betting girl I'd bet on full sapience. There’s no way this thing is natural, and if humanity has been sitting on the genetic engineering tech to make something like this I’ll eat a bottle of shaving cream.

I am in the same room as an alien.

I can not fuck this up.

…

Consciousness shocks me back to the present. My body is cold on my right side. I must be on the ground. No, wait, I'm sleeping with my left side to the ground, not my right. Or... no, am I sleeping on my back? My back feels really funny.

I open both of my eyes, and then also four more eyes. One of my bodies freezes in confusion while another leaps backwards in terror, knocking my head on the cave wall and waking up Mr. Mooshi in the process, who proceeds to stand up and jostle my third body into adrenaline mode as I nearly fall clean off the giant Mt. Moosh. What the fuck is going on!? So many things are happening at once! Who is this other girl that was sleeping next to me, and why does she look like—

Me. Right. There's three of me now. EP, EE, and ETB each stand up to get a good stretch, shaking off as much panic as I can. I pick myself up (literally), and head to the mouth of the cave where I can get tinkerbell-me some sunlight. Now that I'm all dry, it's time to start practicing flight while EP checks the traps for breakfast.

As tempted as I am to just leap off a high place, spread my wings, and gleefully soar into the sky, I suspect I might accidentally do all that without the soar part and with more of a sore part. Gravity is… you know, dangerous?

So, I'll practice from the ground. Up, up, and away! I attempt a standing jump, which actually launches me crazy high! Then I start beating my wings, and immediately smack myself flat on my back as the thrust launches me parallel to the ground. Thankfully the tall grass— well, tall compared to this me, anyway— catches my fall and things don't hurt too bad. It doesn’t hurt at all, actually, which is lucky. It's a good thing I didn't make that leap! I'm glad I can maintain realistic expectations of how badly I will inevitably screw up.

Yup, believe it or not, flying is really hard!

Maybe I can start with some gliding. Enlisting the help of my own taller self, I lie flat on my own palm, stomach-down, and beat my wings to get a feel for stuff. Then, after mentally preparing for the inevitable consequences, I grab my tiny torso like a paper airplane and flick!

For a few brief moments, I am elated as the air flows by and the ground rushes past, but less than a second later the ground starts rushing towards me and it's all I can do to twist around and land on my butt instead of my face.

This is going to take a while.

In the meantime, I finish checking all of my traps. Unfortunately, none of them seem to have captured a wayward critter. Though while I get up from checking the last one, out of the corner of one eye I spot a sudden small movement from the ground.

It's a triloweasel! It quickly ducks back into the hole it had dug in my clearing. I rush over to check on it, but it's already long gone, only a small tunnel remaining where it used to be. Huh, I wonder what it was doing above ground. Based on its biology, I assumed they'd be exclusively subterranean. That's also the second one I've seen around my cave in as many days. Well, that one was good eats, so I should probably keep an eye out for them.

I cover my pit traps back up. They didn't work this time, but they might work eventually. In the meantime, what should I do about food? A girl cannot live on trees alone! Or rather, even if I can, I really don't want to. Although, it would be a lot safer to stick around and stick to sticks. This clearing is a really good spot. Should I stay or should I go?

...Wait. Something about that question seems off. Oh, right! I can do both now.

I can do both! I can do multiple things at once! Like, I know that, obviously. I’ve been doing it, mostly without even thinking. But now I am thinking about it and it’s just… it’s wild. It feels so natural. I can let myself do things now! My mind churns like crazy and I’m still not really focused on anything, but also I am because each body has a brain and each brain can think and execute tasks and I’m just… ahh! I don’t know if this is going to be the best possible thing for my focus issues or the worst possible way to exacerbate it and I’m afraid to find out.

Let's just save that terror for later, though, shall we? I have a busy schedule that I just made up and wouldn't you know it, there isn't any room to pencil in dreading over my mental problems today. Doing my best to fool myself that it's that easy, I make my choice and divvy up my party. I have Evelyn Experimental mount Mr. Mooshi and direct the both of them towards the river while Evelyn Prime and Evelyn Tinkerbell stay at base to practice flying. Even if that part of me isn't fully grown, I'm interested to see how EE does in the water, and since I am also running out of water I make sure EE brings the Mooshi-shell bowl. Walking around as EE is super weird, what with the webbed feet and the kind of gross, slimy skin that hadn’t grown into chitin yet. The weirdest part of all is having tentacles, though. Honestly, I keep forgetting about the dang things and surprising myself with them more than anything! What did I think I was going to do with tentacles!? At least EE's superior perception makes that facet of myself the ideal choice for avoiding acid sloths and other undesirables.

I head out, spending the next hour or so practicing flight with the home team as the away team plods along at Mr. Mooshi's personal pace. My EE body is still smaller than EP, but now that I think about it, I suppose once I eat enough food that version of me will probably be too big to ride on Mr. Mooshi's back. This is an unforgivable design flaw.

I make sure to steer my friend far, far away from any acid sloths I see, snatching and munching on any bugs or cool plants I spot along the way. I eat nothing interesting, unfortunately, but as we travel along I suddenly start hearing a rustling noise coming from the south, one that quickly swaps into a cracking, smacking sort of sound as if something is breaking apart a great many branches. It's far enough away that I can't see anything moving through the dense forest, and I can't tell if it's getting closer or further away.

Shit. Do I give into curiosity, or caution? Well, curiosity or terror, really. Part of me is panicking like crazy, but the other two parts of me are still having fun practicing flight so it feels sort of… distant. It's a very strange experience, as it's not like either emotion is lesser, I'm just fully capable of experiencing both simultaneously. I can just do some of the thinking with brains that aren’t currently terrified. I suppose that's why I find myself creeping closer, despite one of my hearts nearly beating out of my chest. It's dangerous, but I've ultimately concluded it won't stop being dangerous just because I avoid this opportunity to figure out what it is.

I’m also dimly aware I seem to be noticeably more courageous during any matters regarding potential food, but let’s squash that line of thought for now.

Soon, the noise intensifies, punctuated by disturbing, high-pitched whines from some kind of animal. I collect myself a long and sturdy stick, just in case, before pushing any further through the trees. Eventually, as I know I'm getting close, I peek through some brush and spot a large animal, flailing on the ground and bleeding from dozens of long, shallow cuts. The creature is bipedal, with thick, powerful legs that end in nasty-looking claws. It has no head, its body simply hosting an enormous mouth, lined with gnashing teeth and large enough to swallow me whole. The creature's four arms are simple and brutal-looking limbs that end in long, spear-like barbs hooked for sticking in prey. They frame the massive mouth in an X pattern, no doubt designed for stabbing into meals and shoving them down the creature's gullet.

I feel like I am staring at a dinosaur, a tiny and pathetic human utterly helpless against the massive, muscular beast before me. And yet, that horrifying mouth is currently not doing anything other than squealing like a frightened pig as the wounded creature thrashes and spasms on the ground. Each time it shakes, the trees around it shake too. The branches litter the area, and sometimes, during particularly violent throes, more snap off... though I see nothing connecting them to the creature. But there must be something. This massive dinosaur is clearly stuck in a trap.

Up until now, this planet has been mostly peaceful and calm. I mean, there was that time I nearly died, and also that other time I nearly died, but other than that it really hasn't been super dangerous. I haven't been attacked by space bears rushing into my cave when I sleep or anything like that, I just accidentally stumble into dangerous territory. I was sort of hoping that there weren’t going to be big scary land predators.

There are very clearly big scary land predators here. I have, up until now, apparently just been lucky. Well… it’s probably not all luck, considering that people run around forests back home all the time and rarely even see a bear or mountain lion, let alone get attacked by one. There's just a lot more forest than there is hungry bear. Yet here I am now, witnessing a horrifying struggle between some massive predator I've never seen before and some sort of force I can't see at all. One wrong move here could spell swift and painful death.

...Hmm.

Imma throw a rock at it.

It… it'll be a good idea, I promise. Hiding away from the clearing the monster lies in, I locate a decently-sized stone and give it a hurl. It flies true, but seems to smack into something invisible along its path, causing a tree to shake and the rock to spin a bit off course. It still smacks into the unfortunate, captive monster, which grunts in pain and begins to struggle with new vim. As it does so, the cuts around its body seem to gouge deeper, and milky blood starts to coat a small thread.

This trapped creature is large and intimidating, a head or two taller than my EP body and is certainly much larger than EE is right now. It looks strong enough to stomp a hole in my chest if it wants to, and it's certainly angry enough to try. Yet looking at it before me, slowly bleeding to death, my terror wars against an intense desire to eat it.

I don't want to fight. Yet at the same time I can't bring myself to leave. It's right there. So vulnerable, so delectable. I want it. My knuckles pale as I clutch my stick with fervent pressure.

I continue to wait, observing the situation as the creature thrashes harder and bleeds more. It reveals more and more threads as it does so, threads so thin not even my superhuman perception can see them from this distance until they become slick with blood. These threads seem to be anchored between the many trees around the area, converging at a point below the trapped creature. I suspect the threads were slack up until the monster walked over them, at which point they tightened into a deadly trap.

Threads this thin and this strong would be as powerful a cutting tool as a sword, yet the trapped monster's hide is still taking only surface damage. I am clearly out of my league.

I stay anyway. It continues to thrash, and I continue to wait. It's a struggle of endurance. The monster is too tangled to escape as is, but it's successfully snapping branches. Either it will eventually free itself enough to escape, or it will die of exhaustion, thirst, hunger, or if it's too reckless, blood loss.

Snap. More branches fall. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Bonk!

I faceplant yet again. My ETB body is getting better at flying, bit by bit, but I'm staying about the same skill level with landing. It's okay, though: I'm so incredibly light that hitting the ground doesn't really seem to hurt very much.

I pick myself up again, both personally and literally with the assistance of my larger body so I can do more "air tunnel practice." Which if you want to be really technical means I run in a circle with EP and flap my wings with ETB while making airplane noises. Which… make me more aerodynamic. Yes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see another triloweasel pop out of the ground. It wiggles its tendrils at me, then zoops back underneath. Huh. I wonder what the little guy is up to.

A long way away, I continue to watch the enraged predator struggle in the trap. I'm content to wait... but the more I think about it, the more I realize it's probably safe to shorten the amount of time I'll need to wait, as long as I'm careful. With some more skilled rock tosses (I played softball one time), I do my best to piss the creature off a little and get it to struggle harder. It starts cutting itself deeper and deeper, but more and more of the branches start to break as well. It's hard to count how many of them are even on the ground now.

I toss another rock and it nails the monster right in the tooth. It roars with furious anger, and with a particularly hard spasm snaps off at least ten branches at once, freeing one of its legs! I step back, breath caught in my throat as I fear I may have just royally fucked up, but for all its increased fury a single leg doesn't seem to be enough to free it. At least for now.

It's probably not a good idea to devote too much of my mental attention to the triloweasels back at the cave. I am more than a little distracted and more than a lot stressed watching a giant grabby murder mouth with T-rex legs try to escape its bindings. Besides, they're just cute little bug weasels. Honestly, I hope a bunch of them start hanging around so I can catch some! Maybe for dinner, maybe for a pet. Who knows? I don't want to hurt them or anything, animal cruelty is super bad, but sometimes a girl has to eat.

Although… now that I think about it, my current plan with the scary monster is basically to torture it in hopes that it will kill itself as a result. As sound of a plan as that might be, it's also kind of a pretty fucked up one, isn't it? Why am I doing this? I continue running around in a circle making funny noises as I think about my motivations here. It's a powerful monster that I can maybe catch for dinner, and that will make me stronger. That's a good reason, but holy shit it's also a suffering animal. Why did I forget that? Am I really that ravenous? Do I—

As my thoughts stray, the ground under my foot suddenly isn't where I expect it to be. EP's leg lands in a small hole, but the body keeps going. With a sickening crack, pain explodes through my ankle. I fall flat on my face and drop myself, flinging ETB a good distance away.

On one hand, the screaming pain in my body indicates that I have just broken my ankle. On the other hand, at least I landed pretty well this time.

My tiny body looks backwards at my larger self, which is swearing and screaming bloody murder. The pain is horrendous, yet only present in a fraction of what I am. Even as I sob and desperately try to extract my shattered leg from the hole it fell in, the totality of my mind analyzes the situation with a misty calm.

This isn't one of my pit traps. Those are all on the edge of the clearing where I have, in a display of uncharacteristic intelligence, decided to not run anywhere near. It also isn’t either of the holes I recently saw a triloweasel pop out of, although based on the width and sudden nature of this hole, I can only imagine that it's triloweasel-dug regardless. Perhaps most damningly, I know for certain that I was looking where I was running, and there was no hole when I stepped there. None that I could see, anyway.

Did… did the weasels set up a pit trap for me?

Yet I don't have time to focus entirely on this pain! There's still a giant monster right in front of me, thrashing and struggling as it slowly but surely frees itself. Its free foot catches on threads and kicks, ripping out branch after branch. It's bleeding harder, but I think it's winning against whatever holds it down now, and when it escapes it will no doubt be rather pissed at me. Do I run? Or do I try to end it before it can free itself?

I raise my stick, snapping off the tip to try and make it as sharp as possible. I need some food so I can help my body heal its ankle, after all. I move hesitantly forward to stab the giant monster as I crawl hesitantly forward to extract myself from this hole.

Something sharp clamps down on my leg, and I feel it burn like acid.