“I think I should go,” Eva said, shuffling back to the curtain separating the room from the entryway. The music vase continued its enigmatic song.

“You must know that I see time. Time to me is like a rope.” Arius stared at Eva with her tiny slits. “A rope where the past unravels behind us. A rope where the future weaves together to form the present.”

“How does that make me a gift?” Eva stood in the entrance of the room, ready to run.

“You, like I, are a fiber of this rope.” Arius ate another egg. “This rope is made of fiber from me, from you, from everything. And you, human being, can affect the weave. I want to see what could be. To do that, I need you. You need me.”

“Can you tell me where the other humans are? Or when I’ll find them?” Eva stepped back into the room.

“Come closer and you will see.” Arius gestured with one of her runty arms. “I will see if you come closer.”

Cautiously Eva stepped through the trove of offerings into the dim sunlight. She felt sweat run down her neck under the scratchy blanket she was bundled in, but she didn’t loosen her grip on it.

“Closer still,” Arius said as she fluttered her fan. “Still closer.”

Eva studied her. The being had no legs to speak of, just plump useless tentacles that hung limp from under her rolls of fat.

She couldn’t catch me if I were to run, Eva thought.

Eva continued, step-by-step, until she was standing right in front of Arius. Her ivory skin had the texture of a mushroom, and Eva could see strange glyphs imprinted on each of her many arms. She could smell the fermented sweetness of the eggs on her breath.

As quick as lightning one of Arius’s many hands shot out, clutched Eva by the wrist, and held her fast.

CHAPTER 25: JUMP

Let me go! Eva shrieked. “Please, Arius, please!” The fat being closed her tiny slit eyes and chanted:

“The ancient hive returns again,

to claim a land no longer to claim.

A nymph, born of the earth, forged by machine,

will lead a way through hate, through fear, through war.

The heart will be thy ally, and the feast will come to an end.”

Eva stopped struggling, entranced by the intonation of Arius’s voice:

“From the west a mighty machine does run.

Stars will bring one dream, while another dream dies.

In the sands of time, the nymph will find the answer

to the question that has plagued thy very soul,

but the answer will not suffice—

and, put in motion, an equation begins,

a powerful equation with many, many answers.”

Eva’s eyes fluttered and her body went numb as Arius held her tightly and finished:

“You will be chased to the ends of the earth,

but the end will reveal all that you seek.