In the room, there were shelves and racks towering above me and bloated with god knows what ancient tech. The room had more hexagons than I had ever seen in my life put together. You could honestly get lost in the sterile light of the room if they had anything other than rows, and even then, the miniature warehouse was large enough to walk down an aisle for minutes on end and not put a dent in the distance of an aisle.

I was following Lilly’s advice and scanning the aisle for something that I couldn’t miss.

There was a lot I could miss in this damn place, way too much. If I could somehow wrap the room up and carry it off like I wanted to, I could probably hoard the wealth of a planet, maybe more than a planet, depending on how I sold them. But, unfortunately for me, I couldn’t. Woe was me, just a simple millionaire.

“Is that it?”

“No.”

I wondered what it was, she had brought me here for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to walk but to gorge myself on weapons.

There had been a lot of weapons and some stuff that wasn’t weapons, but no armour, funny enough. I guess they didn’t have a need for it. That or they didn’t develop any here, and somewhere out there, there was some vault with a similar room and tones of armour.

I imagined someone finding their way down here looking for treasure and stumbling into the room only to find a bunch of armour. Just chest plates, as far as the eye could see, piled up like gold coins in a dragon's horde.

Honestly, that would make me depressed, though I suppose if someone was like, the opposite of me, they might like that. It took all sorts, even if those sorts were dumb. I was team gun, and while I could get along with team sword, we were united by our distrust of team armour.

Only a freak with no skill, or great cowardice obsessed over armour, that or someone who knew you would stab them, and most folks wouldn’t stab someone for no good reason.

My mind conjured a bunch of reasons why someone might want to wear armour, and for about thirty seconds, I began to think my way through my thoughts.

I denied all of my reasons, stubbornly upholding my dislike of wearing armour.

I got bored and was about to ask if we were there yet, when Lilly spoke up, “There, the box there. I expected them to be out. Apologies for misinforming you.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing you came with me to pick them up eh?” I told her.

“Where would you be without me,” she said, her voice just as much tired of childish belligerence as it was annoyed at my joke.

I walked up, tiptoeing for the last few feet in anticipation before I picked up the box and crouched down with it.

It had two little metal latches on the opposite side of the hinges and resembled a briefcase.

It had writing on it and an insignia with text. It was one of the only items that didn’t have an eye-searing colour, so I had no idea what that entailed. Maybe it wasn’t a consumer product, some of the guns had marks like that, so I could only guess at what the hell was in here.

I opened it up and took it in.

I examined the small objects, confused, and tried to figure out what they were. It took me a few moments of piecing together before my eyes widened in shock at what I was looking at.

“Lilly, are you proposing to me? Because if so, the answer is yes.”

“No, I’m not, though I’m proud that you like it that much.”

“Like it? Like it! I love it! If you had an ass, I would kiss it.”

“I do believe that could be considered sexual harassment, maybe I should contact HR.” she huffed jokingly.

I smirked, “Oh no, HR, my only weakness, whatever can I do for forgiveness?”

Her reply caught me off guard, “If you don’t want me to, you will put these gifts to good use. After all, if we want me to blow my load, sucking me off just won’t cut it.”

I caught the joke almost immediately and started smiling, then chuckling.

I closed the case, snapping the locks before getting up.

“I have just the place to blow your load,” I laughed, “Come on.”

I started running, the shoes bouncing me as I ran pushed me forward faster than I could run as I zipped down the sterile row of the warehouse.

“Didn’t I just tell you? We’re not there yet, I demand satisfaction from my partner.”

“I’m incredibly satisfied.”

“Oh shush, you know what I meant!”

***

I waited, peeking around the corner of the doorway into the sterile hallway right at the colorful spot.

The Dog, if I could even call it that, was there, lying on its side, its belly round and protruding from some kind of horrific pregnancy.

Just looking at it made me shudder.

Its head was toward me, but its eyes, if they were eyes, were closed. It was sleeping, snoring in its hideously wrong child-like voice.

Its industrial shredder of a mouth was closed, thank god, so at least I didn’t need to see it gaping like the demon from another dimension it was.

It was a bit away from me, so I leaned back in and whispered, “Do you think you can make my shoes really quiet? I’m not asking for perfect, but like, soften my steps a little?” I whispered.

“Sure can,” she whispered back.

“Aren’t you in my head, you don’t need to whisper,” I told her.

“Well… yeh, but I wanted to.” She told me.

That put a smirk on my face, she was a dork, too. I could get used to talking with her, which I guess I would.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I gave a little spring and found my shoes sucked up a lot of impact, “That will do nicely,” I told her.

I turned the corner and pulled one of the orbs out of my pocket.

The case had eight of them, each the same crystalline material, oxidizing into an orange to blue like my sword did, like a heat-treated metal that was heated unevenly. They were grooved in the expected hexagon pattern and oblong, more of an egg shape than a perfect circle, and big enough around that my hand couldn’t close all the way when I held one.

Holding one of Lilly’s ‘balls’ in one hand, I snuck out of the room, inching closer to the beast. I felt like tip-toeing, but that just made me feel like an idiot.

Ten feet out, and everything was fine, the dog thing hadn’t noticed, everything was fine.

Fifteen feet out and the same, my shoes didn’t squeak, nor did my footfalls make noise.

I took one more step and stopped cold as the hand-paw thing twitched. I stopped breathing, my eyes widened, and I looked the thing over, it’s mouth opened, and I almost shit myself in fear, but then it started to snore, and I released my breath, quiet beyond my hearing, and took another step, rotating to plant my foot and chuck the orb.

My shoe squeaked a little when I slid the edge of my shoe across the smooth floor.

It opened its eyes, and a few things happened all at once.

I, not expecting the squeak, panicked and raised the orb, which slipped out of my hand as I panicked, released it, and it started to fall, while the dog spotted me and, in a way that was too liquid, moved. It swivelled onto it’s back, while its topmost legs moved around until they were flat on the other side, its pregnant belly in the air while whatever its bones were let out popping noises that were audible nearly thirty feet away like someone cracking their knuckles but a few thousand times.

Still panicking, my arm that held a gun flopped out and into the path the orb fell, and it connected, getting knocked up while I cursed myself and my hand, and my free hand reached out to grab it.

The dog, uncaring of my panic and refusing to stop moving while I took my turn, flexed each of its finger-like toes before they swivelled, each moving around independently of one another until they were pad down, the fingers flexed, and it lifted, first by only an inch, but further as it simply pulled its legs together until it stood its full height and it flex to start running at me.

I grabbed the orb, and with no time to ponder, I estimated the distance and tossed it as far as I could. It arced through the air about twenty feet, and I turned and ran like I was on fire. It plinked into the ground and rolled audibly as the noise of it came closer.

It let out a shrill cry, the voice of an angry child, a little girl screaming, fueled with all the breath in her inhuman lungs, undistorted by the buzzsaw of teeth and the maw of a dog, registered to me as a thing of audible hate and blind furry.

I turned to look over my left shoulder as I ran the fifteen and a bit feet back and saw the dog sprinting full tilt towards me.

It closed five feet a second, but lucky me, I gained a foot on it with my springy shoes.

“Blow it! Blow it!” I shouted, the sound muffled with the sound of its screech.

“I will!-” She shouted unnecessarily.

I got to the doorframe as the hound got just above the explosive, and it let out a Plinking noise like thin steel.

The dog looked down at the grenade and hopped a foot back as I all but hurled myself through the doorway as it chuffed.

The explosion didn’t come. Nothing happened while I clamped my hands over my ears, and my gun dropped to the ground.

I took my hands off my ears and started getting ready to fight for my life or close the door, or both at the same time.

“Lilly, it didn’t go-”

The explosion went off.

It was a feeling more than it was noise, the blast reached me too fast to hear it properly.

Shooting a gun was loud, some people insisted on wearing ear protection to stop themselves from hurting their ears, and the explosion was enough to move a gun a little.

A grenade, or at least a fragmentation grenade, did its damage by sending a whole load of little metal bits, sharp from tearing away from each other, hurtling around. A manual I had read suggested staying at least a hundred feet away from a grenade exploding and that fragments could travel significantly further.

It was a force of nature, confined in the hallways, split two ways I got to experience only a portion of half of it going off, most travelling through the hallway and a bit going through the door.

It made me go deaf, a little ringing noise picking up but only lasting a second got replaced with Lilly saying something as I experienced the shockwave, knocking me over and rolling me away from the doorway.

I opened my eyes, shut on reflex, and blinked.

I heard Lilly talking to me, “Get up, you need to confirm the kill.”

I blinked dumbly but rolled over on my side, which I was already on, so I just kind of rolled again and slapped my hand down before hoisting myself onto all fours and then got up.

I noticed my hands had blood on them as I spoke, or I thought I spoke, but I couldn’t hear myself speaking.

“Your eardrums are ruptured, you can’t hear. I’ll work on fixing you up, but it will take a bit. Remember to grab your gun, it’s on the ground to your left.”

I blinked, confused, but turned left and saw a wall.

“That’s right, the other direction was left.”

I turned left, and then left again and spotted the gun… and the door, and the doorway, two of them were on the ground, by my head was starting to work again, and I started moving to the door, and then stopped and picked the gun first instead.

I got to my gun and grabbed it, pulling it up, and it jerked in my hand as I accidentally fired it but quickly got it under control with my other arm as it smacked into it, wheeling around and almost out of my grip.

I held it, focusing on it for a moment and had to remember what I was looking at as I blanked for a moment, but I quickly figured it out and started back towards the door with a reminder from Lilly.

I got to the door and then stepped outside, and turned to look both ways like I was about to cross a sidewalk on the street… or was that crossing a street on the sidewalk… Either way, I noticed devastation in one direction and devastation in another, but only one had meat in that direction, so I moved that way.

It was still moving.

It’s through pulsed, rhythmically, like it was gagging, or maybe crying, or screaming, I didn’t know.

I was about ten feet from it when its neck rotated to look at me, its neck bent at an awful angle, its jaws flexing full of teeth, its tongue extending out and flopping, revealing a sharp spike with a tube poking out of a horizontal slit in the tip, slowly inching out, until it stopped and the tongue started to snake out, and out and I just kind of watched in horrified fascination at the blue blood and gore.

It was glowing, but in the same way I saw the glow in my eyes through a wall. I just saw it and felt it was a colour, so it was a colour, even though to my eyes it was not colour, it was something that made me think of watches like the blood was the colour of a stopwatch ticking. A bizarre sensation to my senses, under normal circumstances, turned into a bizarre, macabre show as the tongue inched up to three feet.

I took my eyes off the things blood and insides that spilled out of it and looked at the eyes.

It looked like it was still trying to kill me, its eyes were smart for me not to see the hatred.

I levelled my gun at its head and fired, then fired again after racking the pump and blew a chuck of its head off, revealing broken bones, and then fired again, and a third time until I saw broken meat, and it stopped moving.

Or its head did anyway, its body started to fall apart the moment I did, it pulled in half as if the meat just caught up to it, bending in half, bones tearing through flesh, and then the crevice expanded until more insides spilled outside.

I got to see a bit, with its body pointed towards me as its back, or more accurately, its belly opened up, and a hunk of meat and ooze and black gunk sloped out.

I kind of shuffled over, not really thinking about it and stared down at the shape that had come out of the belly.

It was a fully grown humanoid man, stark naked, with tubes pushing into its body at the belly. They were fused. Poking out of the disfigured man were protrusions, like the tubes full of black fluid that pumped from an organ straight through a tube, a seam of open flesh near his junk and most notably, a maw poking out of his mouth.

I stared at him, confused, before noticing a tattoo, and then following it, I looked at his face and noticed his mouth moving, and his eyes pointed to me, blinking.

If I was in my right state of mind, I would probably have freaked out, but I was too busy at looking at his mouth as I noticed a pattern.

He was trying to gasp out, “Kill me,” but couldn’t, or maybe he was, and I just didn’t hear it.

I nodded my head blankly and put a blast through his head at point-blank range.

Taking it in, I was simply in awe of the thing, and in more than one way.

I looked at the black blob pumping the now dead body, and it slowed, but I couldn't help but be taken by the organ and the glow that came from inside.

On instinct, I reached down and pressed my hand into the black ooze and then through a gash. And I felt fluid and meat, and sticky, and a tiny hard bit which I grabbed and pulled out.

The glow followed it, and I pulled my hand out, coated in black with a tiny stone that was not there but was. I blinked at it.

It looked tasty, and not listening to Lilly say, “Don’t eat that,” I ate it, black goo and all.