Sarah woke up slowly, her mind feeling as though it was filled with mud. Her head pulsed painfully, spikes of pain running through her brain every few seconds. She let out a pained whimper, instinctively rubbing at her temples as she pushed herself up.

"What the fuck happened..." She murmured to herself as she opened her eyes, wincing slightly at the bright lights surrounding her. Painfully slowly, she started to recall the previously transpired events.

It felt like an ice-cold bucket of water had just been dumped onto her. Her eyes shot wide open as she desperately looked around, only to find herself in a pure-white room with no doors or windows present.

She fought to suppress her rising panic, the feeling of being smothered to what she'd thought was her death still mighty fresh in her mind. "Am I dead?" She asked out loud, her fingers instinctively reaching down to her thighs, only to stop midway through as she suddenly felt the lack of tightness signifying the presence of her gun strap.

"No." A voice answered, seemingly from everywhere around her. Sarah flinched slightly at the reverberating tone but made no further moves as she swallowed down the lump in her throat.

"... I see. Where am I? How did you rescue me?" She asked, voice soft yet tinged with carefully placed gratefulness. In response, the walls themselves rippled as though they were made of water, and from them, a humanoid figure stepped out.

Sarah's words died in her throat as a terrible suspicion arose in her mind at the sight of this. The humanoid figure looked... terrifying. It was completely white, with no facial features and far too long limbs. It stared at her with a tilted head before abruptly shifting, the white stone-like skin of the creature crawling disturbingly as it rearranged itself.

What came out of the transformation was what Sarah was fairly certain was meant to be a copy of herself, and yet, it looked so... wrong. Sarah couldn't pinpoint what exactly made it so, only that it was, and it made her skin feel as though it had been covered by a swarm of angry ants.

"Do not fear." Her copy whispered with her own voice. "I do not wish h-harm upon you. Only... Peace. Yes. Peace." As she spoke, she started walking towards Sarah, who scrambled back, desperately throwing herself to her feet as she retreated.

The alien figure paused, staring at Sarah with empty eyes. She suppressed a tremble, forcing her breathing to slow down once more as she struggled to speak. "D-don't... Don't come any closer, monster!" She shouted with a bravado that she most certainly did not actually possess.

Her copy tilted her head slightly. "You are already... inside me. Distance does not... matter." She spoke slowly, and as if to demonstrate, Sarah heard a sound behind her. She whirled around, only to come face-to-face with yet another clone of herself stepping out from the wall.

Sarah grit her teeth, fear and panic churning inside her. "Why am I still alive, monster? Do you enjoy my fear?" She sneered even as she desperately prayed that, yes, it was enjoying her fear. It was far, far better to be a toy to a sadist than to be dead, in her opinion.

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"No. I do not wish... harm. I attack because... not yet. Need time. Evolution. Yes." Her copies spoke simultaneously, the emotionless tone of her own voice causing shivers to run down Sarah's back.

Sarah let out a breath, suppressing said shivers with the sheer force of her desperation. "Fine, then if you really do not want to hurt me, then let me go!" She shouted. A small part of her, the part that wanted to curl up into a ball and hide, whispered to her that angering the eldritch abomination in front of her was not a good survival plan, and Sarah desperately wanted to listen to it, but her emotions were making it difficult.

Thankfully, her emotionless copies merely shook their heads instead of choosing to simply kill her over any perceived insolence. "No, no. No. Cannot. I want... talk. Yes. Talk. Cannot warn... friends. Allies. More come fight, if I release you." They whispered instead, their almost ethereal voices drifting across the white room even as Sarah slowly maneuvered herself so she could keep both within her eyesight.

She desperately tried to not think about the implications that this whole conversation meant. Here was a Leviathan, a world-destroying threat that often meant the end of stellar empires, and it was... intelligent. Intelligent enough to talk, intelligent enough to think about consequences. And, perhaps, intelligent enough to interrogate her.

"I..." She tried to say, but no words came to her mouth. She opened and closed it a few times, desperately wracking her brain for a way to escape. She was a science officer, the stereotypical government paper-pusher. She barely had any military training, so it was no surprise when, despite her best efforts, nothing came up.

"Why must you... fight me so? I have not... hurt you." Her copies abruptly spoke, their emotionless tones failing to indicate whether the monster behind them was starting to get angry or not. Sarah waffled for a moment, unsure of how to even begin to respond to that.

"I... Well, how do I know you're not secretly implanting my brain with slugs to mind-control me?" She finally fired back, her anger flaring slightly, only to immediately regret it.

Surprisingly, the monster's answer wasn't to rip her to pieces. Instead, it... laughed.

"Haha. Haha." Her copies both deadpanned. "I... can scan your brain. Slugs... unnecessary. Inefficient. Amusing, however." They spoke, as if what they'd just said was perfectly normal.

"Scan... my brain?" Sarah whispered faintly, wrapping her arms around herself as if it would ward off whatever the abomination was doing.

"Yes... Non-intrusive. Needed information. Did not want to wait for... sedative, to run out." The abomination answered easily. Her two copies, who had remained perfectly still so far except for talking, abruptly moved, causing Sarah to jump slightly.

"I am... making you uncomfortable?" It asked in the same emotionless tone, and yet, Sarah felt as though it had become slightly more expressive than before, even though as far as she could tell, nothing had changed.

"N-... Y-yes? A... A little bit?" She almost lied, but after the earlier 'brain scan' comment, Sarah wasn't willing to risk it. She didn't know if it was lying or not, but considering this was an actual intelligent Leviathan, she was more or less willing to accept anything.

"Ah... That not good. Apologies. If want to talk... Call. If need something... ask. My name... Hannah." It said, her own voice sounding somewhat wistful now. Slowly, her two copies sank back into the wall, their features melting away as they did so in a thoroughly disturbing manner.

Sarah could only stare, her initial terror having slowly faded away as she remained unharmed. In the end, she could only let out a whispered "What the hell..." At this insane turn of events.