“Come out, My Lady!”

Bee held her breath as she heard their footsteps echoing through the nave. She pressed herself closer to the wall, hidden in a crease of the silicon flesh behind the Vat-Mother’s altar, trying to make herself as small as possible. She silently pleaded to her mother to stop them from finding her, even though she knew that made no sense.

It had been days since the Eidolon’s departure. Tempted by hunger, Bee had crept out of the temple in search of food. She had been careful, keeping to the dark, shrouding her features in a red cloth snatched from the Vat-Mother’s many offerings. Ironically, only when Bee returned to the temple did a small creature praying to the Vat-Mother see her. They ran away in a panic when she tried to say hello.

After that, things escalated. Drawn by the rumours of a thing with a face, more and more of the little monsters gathered outside the temple. They never dared to enter, though, and Bee, in turn, dared not step out to meet them. She was peering outside through one of the stained windows when the ones with the weapons arrived.

When they barged their way inside, Bee had already hidden. So now they paced around the shadowy hall, bickering, antennas waving as their sunken eyes struggled with the candlelight Bee had helped to maintain.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are...”

“‘Ware!” A dry voice said in protest. “She could be feral.”

“Now where is this lost little Goddess..?”

Unable to help but whimper, Bee pressed further back into the alcove. Inch by inch, she crept up higher into the nook she had found until her body was tucked between the cold stone slabs. Quiet footsteps betrayed someone’s approach.

Bee held her breath.

Mirror white eyes flashed into the opening. The twisted skull of one of the ragged freaks peered inside.

“There you are!”

His hand reached inside and took hold of Bee’s ankle. He pulled and pulled. Bee kicked and screamed, her single hand scratching at the stone for purchase. It was of no use.

“I have her!”

“Stop!” Bee begged. “Please!”

Her assailant dragged Bee’s legs out before taking a firm hold of her chest plate. Still kicking, in her panic Bee scratched at his eyes. So, with a grunt, he turned and hurled her down onto the hard floor, where she crashed into the stone, head cracking back against the ground with a hard smack.

The others rushed across the temple at the sound of the commotion. A tall bipedal freak dressed in ragged brown robes held out his hand to stay the others. He was not their leader, but they respected him enough to give him heed as he hefted a bone stave that clattered and scraped against the stone floor in his step.

Bee groaned, dizzy and winded, curling into a fetal position, as the bone monk put a hand against her capturer’s arm and ushered him back a step.

“I can’t believe it,” the bone monk said with a wheeze. “You’re real...”

His dark eyes looked over her beaten body. Then, with a firm motion, he took hold of that scarlet cloth Bee had garbed herself in and tore it off her. They all gasped when they saw Bee’s face and the skin between her plates.

Bee looked up at the monk through her concussion, and his dusty mask stared down at her in turn, transfixed.

“Please give it back...” Bee slurred, tongue lolling, confused by her spinning head. She reached out for the red cloth he had taken from her.

Then, with a sneer in his scratched eyes, her assailant brought his armoured boot down onto her face.