Somehow, the children didn’t find Milu repulsive. Which sort of made sense -- they were used to seeing all manner of terrifying creatures in this world. Plus, they were easily bribed. Munching on cookies, they ran about wearing colorful blankets -- though probably Milu had meant them to be something else. Nothing she made was for their small size.

Recalling the golden blob I’d noticed on the map while inside the Cube, I realized it must have been Milu. I wasn’t entirely sure why my map had marked her as noteworthy, but I liked to think it was because Granny Milu had a heart of gold.

I wiped sweat off my brow. For a change, without an eyeball jutting out of my forehead, it felt nice to keep my helmet off while in public. For most of the day, the villagers and I combed through the rubble looking for survivors. We found some, but also a few who didn’t make it. I didn’t see the old man again, nor the guy with the cauldron. The cat managed to survive, but probably not without paying out a few lives in the process. I also retrieved my mace from the rubble.

In the evening Amelia planned for a pyre to be built, and the dead sent up to the Great Mother. Standing next to me by what remained of the chapel, she looked exhausted from the day’s work and all the healing.

“It’s .. gone. It’s all gone,” Amelia lamented. “What was it? I have never seen anything like it. Where’d it come from, and why did it attack us?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but that’s where it came from,” I gestured to the monolithic structure dominating the horizon. “We’ll be alright though, it’s dead now, and I’ll build more proper housing in the Nexus for everyone.”

Amelia nodded. “Thank the Mother for that.”

“Only problem is … I’m out of gold and can’t build anything just yet. At least for now we have the barracks with a 240 person capacity. We also have the planting beds, the lake for fish, and the forest nearby. It would be rough for a time, but I know we’ll make it. On the plus side, with the village destroyed, we won’t have to worry about another Dark Night if we stay in the Nexus.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Amelia chuckled. “Dar was right.”

“Hmm? About what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

With the sun setting, I returned to the Nexus, and later I planned to visit Ivy, as I had promised. I left the portal open to Milu’s lab so she could come and go. I did wall it up a bit so that the children wouldn’t wander in. Who knows what bad things could happen to them in the Cube. Milu said her lab was like a fortress, and no bugs had managed to get inside.

Bob dropped off the contents of the Void Pocket at the barracks where I’d be staying, and I hid it all in a chest. After Milu and Bob left, Gregor appeared by the barracks latrine to pay me a visit. Something was different about him—he looked less sickly than usual, almost healthy.

“How’s your new-” I started to say.

“Are you going to allow that thing, t-that .. floating blob to visit here, at the Nexus?” Gregor said, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice.

“I hope you’re not referring to Milu, because she saved us. Without her, we wouldn’t have been able to defeat that evil creature.”

“I don’t care. I don’t trust that .. monster,” Gregor said with a scathing tone. “You … you don’t know what I saw.”

“What?”

“I-I cannot say- ...they were unspeakable things,” he said with terror in his voice.

And then he vanished, leaving me puzzled, and somewhat alarmed. What did he know? What did he see?

***

Milu hummed along to a new, happier tune. It’s been ages since she felt the way she did now. There was a community now, and she was a part of it. The smaller of the humans were the most interesting to her, and she had even brought one back to her lab.

Though, it had taken a troublesome minute to find the right sedative before the child’s screaming and thrashing had finally ended, but now he laid peacefully on the table with bright lights illuminating his bare back.

Milu entered the necessary commands and in response the surgical instruments whirled about, moved in close to the boy’s body. With a final order, the delicate instrument went to work. It cut him open from the back of his neck all the way down to his tailbone.