Chapter 2: Saved
It was warm, his leg hurt like hell, and it felt like he had just drunk an Olympic swimming pool with an aftertaste to match. A struggled breath through his nose reported the slight tinge of smoke barely peeking through the assault on his olfactory that landed somewhere between wet dog after weeks of not being washed and a hospital mortuary. The scent punched him hard enough to evoke his lungs rejection of the foul intrusion via rolling onto his side and a hacking cough boarding on retching, the action causing him to evacuate his stomach in the process as he threw up the remains of liquid otherwise settled inside of him. The chlorine taste was slightly overridden by the stomach acid on his tongue.
The next delightful sensation was the splitting headache that came from drowning in what felt like a sewage treatment facility and getting smashed in the face by a chair in a particularly aggressive rejection to prom. Swiftly reminding him that wasn’t the end of the suffering he had experienced today was the violent protests of his ankle, offended that he would dare apply weight in his struggle to evacuate the vile compounds occupying his digestive system. The join creaked and screamed as he urged further, encouraging him to abandon the pursuit.
The pain subsided slightly as he returned to lying flat, reduced to little more than what he had imagined a freshly broken bone would feel like. Finally, the weakest protests to his escapades came from his hands. A blurry-eyed inspection and limp lift of the arms revealing that both were sporting full palm length strips of mildly glowing yellowish bandages. With the strength leaving his body with the main complaint being taken care of, he drifted off to sleep. Blearily noticing an outline of a large blue creature some small distance away. Were it not for the sheer exhaustion sapping his consciousness he might have panicked. For now, his body surrendered to sleep.
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The smell of ash and burning wood detailed the warm air. Soft crackles of a softly maintained fire stirred Joseph awake slightly, a fact that he was not happy about. A soft grunt of protest escaped him as he forcibly closed his eyes further. He made a silent promise to find out who decided to spread that Christmas burning log to other sapiens, because he was going to kick his ass. Or at least yell at him. Maybe send him some Zakel excrement in the mail if the rumours of those websites are to be believed.
A huff preceded a deep inhale which hinted at a story of someone drinking at a pool, overdoing it, then passing out in their own vomit. Based on the proximity of the smell, that was probably him. He might have hated swimming but swim up bars were a gift from whatever god you worshipped. Warm water, great drinks, and mostly naked occupants of whatever gets you going. Toss in a floating chair and a mini drink umbrella and you got yourself a relaxing evening. Or morning. No judgment.
Stirring slightly, he resigned himself to having to get out of bed before grabbing a breakfast of a caffeine shake, some pain killers, and a protein bar. Not a breakfast of champions but he liked to start his morning by actually waking up after an hour of being a zombie then straight into an hour or two of trying to kick Matt’s ass. Usually that’s followed by trying out random daily specials featuring select staple dishes of various species, assuming the meal of the day wouldn’t kill him upon attempt. After that he could try out one of the new gambling arcades that get rotated out weekly or maybe check to see if any tours are available. The exhibits on deck change out every so often based on where they’ve docked but he hasn’t been down since they left port a week or so ago. Failing that he could hit the pool again. Based on how he felt it seems like that went somewhat well.
For a brief moment it felt like something was terribly wrong with his internal To-do list. The schedule he just listed out missed the items engraved into the back of his mind. Something important.
Struggling with trying to parse what items were missing he started remembering yesterday's previous events. Wake up. Caffeine. Actually wake up. Chat it up with that bird chick at the gym. Get rebuffed. Work out mild frustrations on the Matt AI in boxing. Fail. Lunch. Check out the planet they announced as a surprise observation spot. Toss translator into a trash bin while planning on picking up a more recent version later.
Then what.
Stinging pain in his ankle rushes him awake fully as he shifts in his bed. No, wait. Not his bed. What happened? Flashing lights of every color like an awful rave party. A backing track of a mix between a klaxon and the old time THX intro with double the acceptable volume. His door crashing shut with the intensity of an angry spouse slamming a car door after a heated argument. His room falling in the most aggressive attempt at simulating an elevator as if it had been described to it using over enthusiastic pantomime. Explosions.
Right. His room turned out to be a shitty escape pod and got launched right before another ship shot out of warp and plowed into it going who knows how fast. He crash-landed. He fell off a cliff. He drowned! He... He...
His stomach growled in the deepest and possibly angriest manner possible. He was hungry. A soft thump somewhere near his feet finally got him to open his eyes. The smallest sound of a familiar chew toy squeaking drawn out over two full seconds in protest broke the recollection of the previous day. He took stock of his surroundings, starting with the rough reddish-gray rock of the roof above him. It looked exactly as iron rich stone should look, accented by the bright morning light filtering in through somewhere down from his feet. A lazy attempt at hoisting himself into a sitting position caused his hands to quietly sound off in pain. He managed himself up, squinting to allow his vision to adjust and inspected them.
Looks like that glowing weed was medicinal in a way he wasn’t thinking of. A slight lift of the fashioned plant bandage revealed matching full width cuts across both hands. He wasn’t sure how many medical properties his yellow attempt at foraging had, but based on the wounds they obscured, they stopped the bleeding and the healing was much further along than it otherwise would be. ‘Healroot’ would be a better term for it apparently. As sad as it is to give up the ‘Glow Weed’ moniker, it’s better for his own mental categorization to keep things to the point. However, it is nice to have a medical item available that wouldn’t kill him. Or at least shouldn’t kill him, if he’s lucky.
Raising his gaze, his pupils no longer rebelling once their attempt at blinding him failed, he observed his surroundings more. Besides the rust-coloured stone being a bit odd, he was definitely in a fairly shallow cave. A small fire rested a few feet to his left parallel to his feet, burning lightly in a small flame as it either burned off the rest of its fuel or was carefully managed to stay just above a level that would require re-ignition. His right foot was missing the splint he had fashioned previously. Must have gotten tossed off during his chaotic high dive. He never wanted to take on a competitive athletic event but the fact he survived might mean he has potential. That, or he used up every ounce of luck that he had been given for his entire life. In which case maybe it would have been better the rocks here act like rocks.
A slow blue movement entered his periphery, drawing his attention from his current mix of cursing geological structures and musing a career as a dare devil. Looks like his luck pile he had carefully stored through failed romance and shitty working conditions has run dry. If he had eaten any food in the past five days, he might have instantly shit himself. Not for lack of trying
In front of him was an eight-foot, dull royal blue, Praying Mantis. Blind panic set in as he backed to the innermost wall of the shelter as fast as his hands could scoot him. Besides looking like a dog dragging its ass on the carpet in reverse, it also had the side effect of him bashing his head into what was very much rock and not that squishy abomination that had almost killed him. His weak shout of pain prompted a fresh round of barking coughs, dislodging whatever was left of his earlier failed swimming.
The mantis paused and stepped back slightly. The distance and lack of instant death gave Joseph a chance to study it between his exacerbated throbs of headache. Brought to him courtesy of dehydration, hunger, drowning, a fresh impact, and a distinct lack of caffeine.
The frankly massive insect differed from the smaller Terran example in a few areas. Mostly being that it had six legs evenly distributed instead of four, and its... Arms? Terminated in two-foot-long blades, matching the length of its second and first segments. It still sported the three joint arrangements but balanced less for bringing food to its mouth and more for powerful swings. Its compound eyes blended in with the rest of the muted colour tone, only being differentiated by the soft shadows cast from them. The mandible sported an extra set of manipulators, possibly to facilitate more complex function than simply eating whatever was brought to them. It was a little more segmented the mantis he knew of as well, striking a balance between a spider and centaur. Seems like this was to handle the much wider base and allow more complex flexibility than a more traditional setup would allow. The carapace was broken into even stripes that was replaced by snakeskin-like scales, leading to an almost zebra like assortment of textures that glinted in the sunlight behind it.
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Joseph suddenly wished he had actually attended his school's biology lectures on insects because it was suddenly very useful information, if he hadn’t been trying to figure out a way to hack his grades to an acceptable level via bribing the computer science club, he might have gone more often. The Mantis slowly recovered from the vocal assault he had fired off once his lungs had decided it was finished holding water rent-free and begun to slowly approach him. It was a near silent approach, even when its legs contacted the stone floor, its footsteps were only reported by a soft clicking reminiscent of old keyboards before holo gained popularity.
The bladed ‘hand’ analogue remained at rest, neither raised forward nor compacted back. Opting instead for a relaxed gentle swaying as it moved. He had no idea if this was a placating gesture or a terrifying equivalent of a loaded crossbow being aimed at his head. Not having context for the hunting rituals of likely carnivorous insects twice his size he settled for the most appropriate course of action. Given the lack of matter available to actually shit himself, he compromised on doing it internally instead.
When the Mantis reached about half way into the cave and Joseph reached maximum mental pants capacity, it did something he was not expecting. It carefully and slowly sat down. More accurately to say, it lowered itself to the ground, resting its base section on the stone floor while tucking its legs beneath it. Some time passed before DEFCON 1 was released from his head. Once the imminent doom he had been expecting still hadn’t arrived, the stress slowly lifted from his body. The instant it deemed required, his stomach decided to go for a new decibel record and growled as hard as it possibly could.
Accompanying it was some pretty severe hunger pain, but that was mixed in with all the other pain that settled on him at once. He lifted his hands to find he had forcibly ripped off the herb bandages and, in the process, re-opened the wounds. A trail of splattered blood marked his scramble the fifteen feet or so it took him to do an ineffective battering ram impression and the appendages in question now had a fairly steady flow of blood accenting their creases.
Movement from the Mantis caused him to flinch until a familiar glow was extracted from its mouth using the two blades. It shifted into a low crawl and gently approached him with the moistened strips held forward.
Completely out of pants or anything to fill them with, he watched dazed as the Mantis softly spread the damp herbal strips over his hands before patting it flat with the side of its blade and trimming the excess with the edge. Having a proper full look at them, it seemed like the side facing them when folded was entirely bladed, whereas only the first six inches or so was on the back before widening to a fairly robust, mostly squared off shape. They had a gentle curve to match the shape of the forearm section that they rested against when compacted and, although he wasn’t in a hurry to find out, looked terrifyingly sharp. Vague memories of his flailing in the water popped into his head as he recognized the feel of a chip missing from the insect's right blade.
Joseph raised his eyes to look fully at the creature. “You... you saved me...”.
The words dropped out of his mouth as he stared, slack jawed at the continuation of his luck and possible confirmation that at least one of the many deities he had propositioned had taken him up on any number of his promises. He just hoped that the ones about abstaining from mortal pleasures wasn't one of them. The one about ‘dominating the world in their name’ he was all for being forgotten though. Too much effort.
The Mantis just lazily turned away slightly, extending its arms to fiddle or interact with something blocked from his view. A soft squeak sounded as the Mantis pressed it between its blades, holding it towards him. The object being presented was a familiar gray stone formation. "Wh... A rock? Why are you giving me a ro-” his stomach, annoyed that no one has offered it an award for its previous attempt at being the loudest stomach to ever exist, redoubled its efforts.
The Mantis held the rock out slightly more in response. He sheepishly accepted the stone, as squishy as it was, and inspected it. It looked like any rock he’s ever seen, save for some charring on it. Based on the residual warmth on it, he suspected it was held over the fire for a while to heat it up but it has since cooled a fair bit. The surface texture was hard and rough as a random rock might be. The only notable thing about it was that it was about the size of a kid's football and, once a somewhat mild pressure was put on it, it squished.
“I’m not sure why I have a warm rock.” he stated flatly, mostly confused while considering the implications of the gift. It was soft enough to be a makeshift pillow, though only for spinal support rather than pleasant to rest on. It seemed to hold heat pretty well, so maybe a sort of warm pack for when temperature drops. He looked up from the rock to see the Mantis start eating it, holding it between the flats of its blades near the tip. If it wasn’t for the lack of any crunching sounds, He might have started the search for a new pair of mental pants.
His gaze returned to the now re-categorized item. Tentatively, he picked out a section that would fit in his mouth and softly bit into it. At first it felt exactly like what a rock would feel like if you had just taken a few to many synth hits and decided to change the topography one bite at a time. It had no initial flavor unlike he was expecting and a slight moisture could be seen out of the corner of his eye on the surface as if it was recently washed and the water had not evaporated yet. Luckily, it seemed to have been washed off in some fresher water than what he had ejected from himself as it lacked the accompanying flavor.
Deciding that it would be better to have at least tried to eat something and die of starvation rather than try to live off of the newly minted Healroot, he applied more pressure to his teeth. Expecting a blinding pain and suddenly unnatural increased movement range for his jaw, he was instead surprised to feel the... flesh? Of the food give way under his bite, filling his mouth with a taste somewhere between cooked beef and apple pie.
Unexpected? Sure. Off putting? Surprisingly, no. It reminded him of holiday supper a few years ago. He found himself having a much easier time only tackling the outermost flesh from one side, swiftly working his way through more and more of it. It seemed just as stone coloured inside as it did outside, however it lacked the rough texture of rock in favour of a middle ground between a melon and a well marinated fake-steak. Although it was fairly juicy during chewing it barely dribbled outside of the exposed innards, making it a mostly clean experience. It was definitive upgrade from his previously favoured cardboard alternative.
Joseph was ripped out of his reminiscing and culinary observations by a sudden absence of his new favourite food item. He looked up from his juice coated fingers, possibly hoping the Mantis had prepared more than one each. To his and his stomach’s delight, a fresh rock... fruit? Vegetable? Third option? Was taken from the side of the fire. He took a brief moment to note that the wood had barely burned down at all while maintaining the flame. Looks like the wacky waving Joseph flailing rubber tree wood made great firewood, good to know. Returning to the prospect of a second helping, he was instead greeted by a much smaller creature eating the rock food.
His brain stalled by the unexpected third addition to the shelter, two thoughts jostled to be the one voiced in that moment. The concern for the sudden lack of rock food had to take a back seat. Struggling to voice a coherent line of thought beyond pure curiosity, he felt it only prudent to toss out the only completed question he could muster through his surprise.
“So, you’re a mom, huh?”