Through the gap, he watched as other shelled things made their way closer to the monstrous figure. He watched as the figure stepped on the shelled thing, killing it, then killed another with the weapon—a blade on a pole.

It wasn’t that the figures were large, he realized, but that he was small. They were covered in protection like he was, but it was made to fit their form, covering every part of them while moving easily. His protection limited him as much as it walled off the outside world. This was their world.

Small meant vulnerable. Vulnerable meant that it was best to stay quiet. Quiet while they killed. Quiet when they struck him with the blade, not to kill, but to move.

The dead life and plants were put separate from the living, and the living was steadily killed or taken away. He’d been taken from the dangerous writhing jungle to a dead one, of shells and smooth, cold scale.

The dead weren’t to be left alone. Off to the side, a great light burned and consumed, fed regularly with plant life, and it reduced the dead to odors and tastes that made him salivate, before reducing them to char that made his face wrinkle.

He waited, watched, and listened to them communicate in grunting and sibilant sounds. When the great light illuminated the transparent coverings in front of their heads, he could see their faces, see how those sounds were huffed out and mashed into shapes with lips like his own mangled lips, with teeth that were intact, and with tongues like the one that he used to suckle.

Survive, the imperative demanded.

He played dead, limiting himself to suckling for moisture and then chewing when he felt like he could move his jaw enough. He watched, saw the pattern, and when he judged he’d waited as long as he could before that blade found its way under him and turned him into a blackness that made others drool, when he judged the way was clear, he pried himself free and crawled his way into the darkness, where plants pressed in on him from every direction.

⊙

“You don’t remember anything before your trigger?” Rain asked. The guy was trying to look disarming, but there was scratch that traced the line of his eye socket and turned his lower eyelid black, just swollen enough to make the eye squint in a suspicious way.

Define ‘trigger’.

The rest of the group was paying attention to him now. Eyes trying to get past the shell he’d erected around himself, see parts of him he wasn’t comfortable revealing. He trusted Ashley’s cold, uninterested look more than he trusted Kenzie’s small smile and wide eyes. He was glad for the eyepatch he wore, because it meant he didn’t see Kenzie staring and studying him.