Chapter 20

Ryker

All at once, everyone turned and looked down at the outspoken woman who was supposedly passed out. After a few moments had passed, we saw her ever so carefully crack open one eye lid. When she found our collective gaze on her, she quickly closed it and continued to feign unconsciousness. With a thunderous voice I had not heard before, Ruby shouted, “I know you are awake! You have 20 seconds to find your way to the top of this tank, or you will be struck down!”

Suddenly, the woman’s eyes shot open, and she scampered to her feet, pushing herself as fast as possible up the steps until she was standing over the handle, doubled over with her hands on her knees. Without warning, Ruby snapped her fingers, and the material of the woman's uniform opened and engulfed both of her arms, effectively binding them to her torso. Simultaneously, her feet were bound in the same way Jeremiah's were minutes earlier. Then the handle was activated, and the woman was being lowered.

The screaming started immediately, and the louder she shrieked, the faster Ruby forced the woman down into the fluid until she was completely submerged. The sound of her screaming lasted roughly two breaths longer, then her lungs were completely full of the liquid, and she was no longer able to create sound, to everyone's relief.

The Vren must have done their thing because the woman appeared to have lost all her fight and simply stared blankly ahead until a moment later one of the Vren was wiggling through her lips and into her mouth. Without thinking, she bit down and chewed.

Apparently, she regained her senses at this point, and mid-swallow, she started to gag then successfully threw up the contents of her stomach along with the deceased Vren.

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We all gaped at the scene, and before anyone could say a single word, the arms that earlier fished Jeremiah out reached down and gripped the troublemaker on both sides of her head, tearing it from her shoulders and then dropping it to settle by the bound woman's feet.

Our shocked state was redoubled when we saw the corpse begin to sizzle and pop before being dissolved into seemingly nothing. All traces of her were gone. Ruby gave the tank a contemptuous sniff before saying, “What a bothersome human… She found a match way faster than Jeremiah but screwed it up in the last second. She had a very high chance at success from that point forward, but I guess it was for the best. Now she is nutrients for the Vren and power for the nanobots. NEXT!”

Ruby grabbed the shy man with the potbelly by his arm and pulled him towards the tank. Up and in he went without a peep. He simply shook and had an uncomfortable look for the duration of the process but remained silent. When he was settled in the tank and had gone through the pseudo-drowning portion of the process, he entered the trance-like state, and we waited. A minute passed in relative silence when we saw one of the Vren make its move. A suitable match, I thought! It made its approach, and the portly man reached forward with his head and ate the creature without any hesitation and nearly didn’t stop to chew. I felt such relief knowing he had found a match that I nearly missed the subtle changes that Jeremiah also went through.

The man must have been experiencing the same discomfort as Jeremiah had but wasn't as tough because his face was in a painful rictus, and if he could have made a noise in the fluid, I’m sure he would have been screaming at the top of his lungs. His skin color made the same transition from pale to beet red, but it didn’t stop. The man began to thrash harder and harder, and the color of his skin wasn't the only red we saw. The man was bleeding out of every pore, and the tank was colored red in seconds. His skin started to bulge then in an instant he violently blew apart. He looked as though he was being pulled in every direction while someone filled him with air until he popped. The tank was completely covered in his remains, and no less than two of our number threw up everything they had left and then some.

Just as before, the corpse was absorbed into the liquid without any trace of the man that seconds before I felt such triumph for. While I was still trying to deal with my feelings of loss towards the man and woman, those feelings were replaced abruptly by dread when I saw Amy soundlessly walk up the stairs towards the top of the tank.