Chapter 4: Desperate situation.

Unable to move or speak, Crule was carried off by the insectoid. The swarm flew for what seem like an eternity. With his mobility and voice constricted, Crule could only panic in his mind. He wanted to cry but his body won’t listen to him. The toxin was just far too strong for him to resist.

After what seems like a few days, Crule got tired of panicking. He began pondering what his captors were. They have never seen anything like it. Several years on the Rig and working in the abyss and never once were such creatures mentioned. Just what are they and where did they come from?

The toxin seemed incredibly strong as several days later, the effects doesn’t seem to diminish at the slightest. Crule could still fall asleep even though his body was paralyzed. When he woke up, he saw a large structure. It was a large rock protrusion sticking out of the side of the abyss at an angle. It looked like a perfect cone. Looking around, he realize there were several of these cones dotting the walls. From a distance, these cones looked like the normal jagged-ness of the walls of the abyss but close up, each of the cone were the size of large buildings. Upright, each of them were dozens of floors tall and could house hundreds of people.

The insectoid brought his group inside of the cone and placed them in a room dimly light by some sort of green goo.

Looking around, Crule realized several of their group members were missing. He could only assume they were used as a snack by the insects on the way back.

A sudden feeling of despair washed over him when he heard a cracking sound. He still couldn’t move his body so he couldn’t see what it was, but the sound was very familiar. He heard it before when one of the riggers broke his leg in an accident. It was the sound of bone breaking. But since their voice was sealed, there was no scream.

A drop of the green goo dropped from the ceiling on to Crule’s shoulder. He realized he could suddenly move his arm again. Dragging himself around, he saw the source of the sound and vomited.

A large beige larva about the size of a horse was biting the head of a person. Crule couldn’t really recognize the person anymore since their head was almost completely eaten. Looking around, he realize the room only houses one larva. Knowing that he must escape, he dragged his paralyzed body with his only mobile arm to the green goo dripping down the wall opposite of the larva.

He stuck his hand in the green goo but quickly pulled it back. His hands were slightly red from being exposed to the goo. But since the goo was his only hope of survival, he stuck his hand back in and started to smear the goo all over himself. Being able to move again, he looked around for Ms. Burnst and Simon.

He spotted them near the larva. At least they were alive and in good shape. Realizing he didn’t have much time, he got on all fours and slowly crawled towards them after shoving some of the goo in his pockets.

As he approached them, the larva seemed to have finish eating his first prey was moved on to the second. Once again the sound of crunching and cracking could be heard. Crule quicken his pace and reached the two. He put his hands in his pocket and took out some goo and smeared it over them. Being able to move again, they realize it was not the time for touching reunion, they had to rescue everyone and get away.

Whilst avoid the detection of the larva, they only manage to rescue eight people out of the twelve that was brought there. Four of them were devoured by the larva. Sneaking outside the room they could finally talk but no one could say a thing. What happened to them was just too disturbing, too frightening, and too sad to talk about.

Simon took charge and tried to cheer up the group.

[Simon]: At least we are alive, we must survive as to not disgrace their death. We should try to find the others. Assuming they are in the same situation we were just in, they will need our help.

The rest of the group could only nod and follow along. It was a bit too traumatic for some of them and the only thing keeping them sane was a goal.

Quietly wandering the corridors, the group stumbled upon the insectoids a few times. Strangely, the insects ignore them completely. Simon thinks it may be due to the goo covering them, the insects were being registering them as one of their own.

Suddenly they heard a scream. It sounds like it came from a human so they quickly rushed to the room. Inside they found four people still paralyzed with a fifth already being eaten. It seems some of the goo dripped from the ceiling onto his throat allowing him to scream in pain and horror.

It soon ended as the larva took a large chunk out of his head. While it was preoccupied eating his current victim, Simon and the group went and rescued the other four. They were even more traumatized than Simon’s group. Originally there were twelve people in the group that was brought in but eight of them were slowly eaten one by one in front of the others. Unable to face with such trauma, the four survivors were all hollowed shells. No longer having any motivation to live, they were a burden to the group. Simon tried to cheer them up.

[Simon]: Look you guys, snap out of it. You’re alive. Accept it. Don’t be such a useless bastard and get yourself up. Live on for those who died.

The four still seemed to be in despair but at least they recovered a bit and could move.

______

Several hours later, the group couldn’t find any more rooms with survivors. Since they had to get out themselves, they chose to accept the rest have all been eaten or killed along the way. A dozen survivors from the original group of almost thirty. The situation seemed grim.

[Simon]: Our main goal now is to find the exit.

Simon said to the group to change their goal and to give them motivation.

[Burnst]: What were those things?

[Simon]: I’m not sure, but I heard long ago when pioneers first landed on this moon, it was filled with flowering herbs. They were extremely large hovering at over twelve feet tall. Scientists have found the herb to have restorative properties and could be used to rapidly regenerate lost blood. Thanks to this discovery, the need for blood transfusion decreased significantly. But these flowering herbs were deemed too important to leave on the moon. They were all harvested and brought back to Noxia to be farmed. What they didn’t realize was that an alien insectoid creature were using the flowers as a food source and were also helping pollenating them. The insects were deemed extinct a few years ago when the last wild one died. It seems what we are seeing now is an evolved species of the original insect species.

[Burnst]: So you’re saying in order to survive the depleting food resource, they have turned their attention to the second most abundant nutrition source on the moon, us the prisoners?

[Simon]: It seems that way. I’m not sure as to why we have not heard about these before. Perhaps they were in hibernation until our recent drilling operations awoken them. Either way, thanks to the goo, they seem to think we are one of them and won’t attack us immediately. We have to quickly find the exit out of this hive before the effects wear off. Since we are relatively safe for now, let’s split into groups of two and spread out to find the exit.

[Burnst]: Come on Crule, you’re with me.

Burnst beckon Crule to come over. She offer him a piggyback ride again. Remembering the comfortable feeling, Crule does not refuse.

[Simon]: Ok, let’s meet back up here in three hours and report our findings. Don’t try to leave by yourself, it’s far too dangerous for two people to make it out alive. If you find the exit, just come back here and wait till we regroup and exit together.

Knowing they probably have zero chance of survival out in the abyss without Simon, everyone else agreed and split up into their groups.

[Simon]: See you guys in three hours.

Everyone split up with hopes of finding the exit.