The memory served me well. I realized the cephaloped had not simply evaporated into the cold, dank cave air—it had expertly camouflaged itself.

Sitting up slowly, I scanned my surroundings once more. The stream wove its way through and around three-to-five-foot-high stalagmites, a cluster of which was covered in moss.

Hmm. My shy cephaloped guardian did have hair to disguise …

Removing an engorged leech from my left ankle, I tossed the grotesque segmented worm at the rock cluster—which miraculously bloomed into a head and tentacles, one of which caught the dark projectile.

“Bravo, Oscar.”

The spooked cephaloped scurried back another five feet, but remained visible.

I held up my hands, hoping to disarm its fear … no pun intended.

After several minutes, the giant terrestrial squid moved closer.

Removing another leech, I reached out passively with it.

The cephaloped hesitated. After a moment it extended one of its muscular tentacles an impressive twelve feet and accepted my offering, releasing the leech back into the stream.

Encouraged, we repeated this exercise until I stood naked before it, leech-free.

Holding out my right arm, I pointed to the bruised-yellow traces of suction marks, then at the being’s closest tentacle. I nodded slowly.

The ceph nodded back. We were communicating … Now what?

Weak from hunger, I motioned to my mouth.

Somehow the intelligent creature seemed to understand. It looked around, only there appeared to be nothing edible in the cave. It’s debating whether to bring the food to me or bring me to the food.

Rendering its decision, the cephaloped moved to the nearest cave wall. Stretching a tentacle above its head in one fluid motion, it scaled the rock face like a spider, using its sucker pads to grip the surface. Reaching up to the ceiling, it suspended itself effortlessly from two stalactites using two of its legs which, anatomically speaking, were now functioning as arms.

For a long moment its simply hung there, watching me with those telescopic yellow eyes—then, with the grace of a gibbon, the ceph reached two of its remaining six tentacles to the ceiling behind it, gripping two more stalactites while simultaneously releasing the first, moving away from me like a trapeze artist swinging from one acrobat partner to the next, its eyes shifting as its body seemed to turn itself inside out with each revolution.

Its haunting yellow gaze left me only after it disappeared into the darkness.

I was alone.

Should I follow it, stay put, or explore the rest of my imaginary surroundings?

Deciding on the latter, I climbed onto the rocky shoreline and headed downstream in the opposite direction of my rescuer. I was naked, both physically and metaphorically speaking—a twenty-first-century Homo sapiens deposited into the primordial future, lacking weapons and access to my own biological crutch of intelligence. And perhaps that was intentional—my mind sending me a message in my cryogenic dream: There will be no cheating in this Great Die-Off, Eisenbraun …