A week had passed and Tutor, having extra time on her hands between shifts at the hospital, was currently inspecting the crates of stored Skii aboard their personal spaceship. Kevin still had enough time to recover and to decide how he wanted to approach having hitchhikers in his care. In fact, he still had just under five years left to decide.

Plenty of time.

If it wasn't for Nurse's insistence that his mind had been fine the last time that she had sensed him, in that brief moment before he had been cut off from them all, Tutor might have been more worried than she presently was.

As it stood, she was worried, quite a bit actually, but she had chosen to devote her time to maintaining all of Kevin's assets while Meditati looked into ways of freeing their human, her best friend.

George... George was busy building something. Tutor had seen him flickering in and out of VR constantly ever since his workload had been reduced nearly to zero at the hospital on earth.

Tutor didn't know what he was doing but she was sure that it had everything to do with something to help Kevin.

"I hope we can all get back together again soon. AI aren't supposed to feel these dark emotions and the worry is beginning to cause some of us to reach for options that we might not normally consider if Kevin was here to guide us." Tutor whispered to herself softly as she checked the first crate that was labeled to contain the living Skii. There were many others that simply contained foodstuffs and various technology that belonged to the Skii.

Tutor was physically checking the seals and status of each crate solely because of a lesson that she had learned recently as a nurse on earth. Reality was chaotic and reliably imperfect and self-destructive.

Things lacked the order that she was so used to accepting as fact in VR. She was here to make sure that the Skii were all still alive and had not suffered any ill-treatment while existing as cargo.

Skii's were an oddity though. Of all of the more odd alien races, they could take on a state that more resembled death while they hibernated, even more so than bears and frogs on earth.

"It is almost as though their minds and spirits leave their bodies." Tutor mumbled as she read through the extensive logs of the first container.

"Could Skii knowledge be used to help Kevin? Something to do with how they wake up and resume animation?" Tutor mused as she inspected the outside of the next container for any leaks or damage.

"If there is even a chance... then it would be best to divert their course at least to the outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Maybe they can devise a way to get past the invisible shell that surrounds him." She said as she worked through the rest of the containers before marking off one more duty as complete inside her mind. She diverted the ship's course and set a reminder for herself to return when it got close.

"Would you lend me a clone of yourself Meditati when I am about to wake a crate up?" She asked the air as she looked one final time over the small ship's cargo hold.

"Yes. Good idea by the way. Let us hope it bears fruit. I have depleted my first run of tests that I had thought might break through the invisible shell surrounding Kevin. Whatever is surrounding his drone body seems to be alive, as it pulses at steady intervals, vibrating the cr around it." Meditati answered as she sent over the latest batch of data that she had compiled about Kevin's predicament.

Kevin's drone body was currently resting inside his fake body laying on the hospital bed back on earth. The size of the drone was pretty small, about the size of a hummingbird egg, and was encased in an invisible shell that seemed impenetrable, even against the cutting ability of powerful gold and obsidian cr.

"I am considering sending scientific trade envoys to the most advanced alien races to learn if they have any artifact or research that might shed light on what we are dealing with," Meditati said while Tutor looked over the data. It seemed that Meditati had been very busy.

"Which races are you going to approach?"

"All of them."

Tutor whistled as she considered what Meditati was considering doing. Space was vast beyond reason and it was only due to ever reaching ancient species like the LOW that there was even the possibility of trade between distant galaxies. Even the maps of the LOW, considerable as they were, were small in comparison to the infinite nature of the cosmos.

More and more races of aliens had been and were still being discovered with the help of the Tela's coveted propulsion technology. Anyone who wanted to use their services had to pay through the nose for the honor.

It was a multi-year endeavor that she was planning on seeing through. Tutor wasn't sure how long Kevin could last inside his prison before his sanity started to suffer. Invicta was doing her best to keep Kevin entertained but none of them knew if he could even hear or see them.

"Is George off working on one of your ideas?" Tutor asked.

"Yes. I asked him to work on building a base in Nurse's dimension. He is in charge of harvesting and researching new materials in hopes that one will be strong enough to cut through the shell around Kevin."

They were reaching far into the unknown in hopes of finding a solution. Tutor could only hope that nothing in the dark of the unknown reached out to bite them back for their trespasses.

"Ok, do what you must. I will get back to my duties." Tutor said.

Next, she needed to go spend hours coaching and playing with Sublimis.

She was fond of the Leva hatchling and was invested in her development.

Tutor abolished her present body before forming a new one at her next destination.

"There is just so much to do and see every day." She said as she looked around the vast den that she had built for Sublimis the last time she had been here.

It was all very different than how she left it.

"It... looks like she's been practicing at molding her environment while I was away. I didn't know that she could do that," Tutor commented as she spun in place, just catching the tip of a tail being pulled from sight behind a tower in the distance.

Instead of a huge maze that Tutor had designed using hoops, bridges, and tubes, there now was a very basic mockup of buildings, storefronts, and of all things, frozen aliens in the middle of their daily lives.

From what Tutor could tell, Ess, or Sublimis, had decided that she wanted her den to look like the inside of the Yelvos trading station.

The detail was good, for someone who was relying strictly on memory and the number of tall buildings, signs, and bridge walkways made it a perfect place to play hide and seek.

Or to go on a rampage while hunting Queiie. The hatchling seemed to have it out for the space crabs and displayed more aggression than was common whenever George would let some go during feeding time.

"I think Kevin's charge holds a grudge against her food." Tutor remarked as she brought up a hud displaying the hatchling's current physical scan.

Sublimis's size had shot up considerably after she had gained a reliable source of food. She was currently pushing beyond earth's largest mammal's size, the blue whale, and was just as long if not slightly longer due to her tail continually growing.

Had Tutor been mortal, or not totally in love with the Leva, she might have felt terror shoot through her digital heart as she spied the semi-truck-sized head slowly rounding the side of a building in front of her.

"Wow, you are so lovely!" Tutor exclaimed aloud as she rushed toward the huge wyrm.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

A shiver seemed to run down the length of Sublimis's filled-out body as she heard Tutor's complement before she too came rushing towards the smaller woman.

---

It was nighttime and I finally had a little bit of peace and quiet to myself. I had no way of letting Invicta know that I wasn't able to see any of the episodes of "America's Funniest Home Videos" that she had been playing all day for me until George had stepped in and asked her for help with something.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciated her drive to try to entertain me and to keep my spirits up, it was just sad that I couldn't see any of the reasons why the audience laughed so much. Bob Saget was classic and funny; it just wasn't the same being without sight.

At least the videos also seemed to cheer Invicta up as well.

"She seems to be losing her cheer the longer that I am cut off from her though." I thought to myself as I listened to the world around me.

The hospital was pretty quiet at this time of night.

I had tried everything that I could think of to escape my prison and to be able to reconnect with my friends and swarm. I could almost feel the limbs of the drone body that I was living inside.

Almost.

For some reason that I couldn't see, all the senses that my skin and six limbs would have given me seemed to constantly be sucked away from my body.

Maybe that was why I couldn't see. For all I knew, whatever had hit me, and was currently covering my small body, seemed to absorb any sensation that my eyes and skin would have sent to my brain.

It was almost as though I was stuck forever looking at the Void.

The reason why I could still hear and feel movement was simple: the drone's hearing organ was inside its head and protected from the stuff that was covering me.

"So, is this it?" I asked myself as I tuned out the constant sound of the machines in my room. I had long since gone through the gamut of being annoyed and frustrated at having to constantly hear their beeping and pulsing. I had learned to accept them, as much as I hated them, and to focus on hearing any new interesting sound.

It didn't look like tonight would bring relief to my boredom though. Tutor was off shift and wasn't scheduled to come in to "clean" my body for another nine and a half hours.

Yes, this drone mind could keep time better than a Rolex. It remembered everything and was capable of noticing patterns where my normal human brain would have found surprise and novelty. This turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing since the hospital was run like a well-oiled machine ever since Dr. George and Nurse Tutor began running things.

Sure, random things happened but they tended to be just outside of the range of my hearing for me to understand and enjoy what was happening.

"So... this is it?" I asked myself again, simply running out of ideas or things to do inside my head to stay busy. I knew that things had gotten bad when I had started to resort to playing with Legos inside my mind.

The drone's perfect memory was a lifesaver in some regards, but it constantly brought me back to the reality that I was trapped.

"I guess... I could just sleep." I thought to myself as a feeling of defeat washed through my mind. I hadn't needed sleep for so long and even slightly feared it due to how it had a tendency of throwing my world into disarray.

The feeling of defeat stemmed from the knowledge that if I chose to sleep, it would be like I had given up fighting and looking for a way out.

That if I slept... I might choose to never wake up after a while.

To just give up.

"It won't come to that Kevin; your friends will find a way to get you out of this. You just have to hold on!" I coached myself as I watched the second hand slowly tick inside the drone's mind.

I made it an hour before I mentally sighed.

The hospital was so quiet.

So very boring.

"Just think of it as though you are skipping ahead to freedom," I told myself before setting a mental alarm for the drone to wake me up before Tutor's shift was to start.

With that thought I let my mind fade into sleep.

---

The last seven who yet remained, after countless eons, sensed Kevin as his human mind began to dream. Tickling the barrier again between the boundary of sleep and ancient pathways used by their creators. Soon they felt his mind as it began exploring the invisible paths between the cosmos and two dimensions.

These seven were what was left of many such diversely modified creatures who were long since charged with the task of constantly moving, constantly providing what was needed to feed the creatures inside the Void, making them freeze in a state of feasting.

The last of over a hundred such creations.

Of these seven, one was the Hive Mother. Buried inside her massive analytical mind was a small golf ball-sized clear orb that constantly fed the distant Void beasts experiences and stimulation.

Each of the strange seven was implanted with a similar orb and each served the same purpose.

To keep the Void distracted from their constant hunger and devouring nature.

"The anomaly has returned."

"Indeed, it travels the pathways of our creators again."

"It stole from my hive and has taken some of my spread as its own. I seek its absorption to gain its memories and to take back what it stole." Said the Hive Mother.

"Incorrect. It obtained dominance and control of your swarm through luck and willpower. Absorption denied."

"Agreed, absorption denied." Stated the other five various voices.

"Will we let it exist? I sense that it is afflicted by the Void."

"The barrier has grown weaker without maintenance. We are too few."

"The Void has escaped?"

"Yes. No. Unknown."

"Bring it so that we may understand it."

"Hooking its mind and bending pathways towards our shared dream. It will arrive soon."

---

I dreamed, but it was the strangest start to a dream.

I was suddenly back on my bike, riding through the park with the wind gently rushing past me. The birds were chirping up in the trees and the tires of my bike were softly humming against the asphalt.

Everything seemed so real, as though I had just woken up to the moment before this all began.

I could feel my feet touching the pedals and how the sun would warm my neck as the strands of light reached through the branches above.

It felt like I was home again.

Then I noticed a woman in a blue dress off in the distance along the path ahead. She was standing still, looking at the bridge that I was going to cross.

The front tire of my bike snapped a twig and drew her attention, causing her to turn to look at me.

"Xa?" I shouted out in delight as I thought that I recognized her.

But no, it wasn't Xa. It wasn't even Tela or human.

It was the creature that had rushed me inside the Void.

Her head was a thin shell, revealing a rippling unfathomable mass of darkness that squirmed like maggots while floating in the center. In the middle of the writhing ball of darkness there shone a piercing white light that gave off the impression of an eye.

A soul-sucking, ever absorbing ruthless eye.

Time warped and shifted when my sight met that light and it seemed as though it was running through my memories of getting caught up as a guest of the Tela.

It was trying to relive my memories.

I watched as I rode my bike over the bridge and fell towards Hxerdinand.

I watched as I met Tutor and experienced my mental breakdown that led to her summoning help from the Tela network.

For some reason the emotional duress caused the replay to slow down, way down.

It was almost as if the intense nature of the moment was fascinating for the eye.

Food for it.

This was the way that things went as I was forced to watch and relive my early memories.

The Void eye would slow down moments of great joy and fear, licking its chops at the intensity of the memories, before glossing over times when I was calm and at ease. It didn't seem to care about wonders and amazing things in general, just the highest and lowest of emotions.

Everything was the same until I encountered the swarm queen who was intent on infecting me with her spread.

The fright that I experienced, falling backward off my bike while watching the massive spider creature devour the queen caused everything to slow down as the Void eye fed off of my fear.

The sky behind the giant spider-like creature looked as if it was torn and beyond the tear was a black expanse of hungering darkness. Chunks of the blue sky were breaking off and falling upwards, to get sucked up and destroyed in the darkness.

I knew that darkness now. I knew what it was and where it was.

Everything rippled in my vision when I gazed at the Void.

It was like I was getting feedback as the being who was controlling my dream found itself observing its own nature through my memory.

Stalemate.

Something roughly grabbed at me, my very being, and dragged me away from that moment. It felt like I was torn backward through myself, leaving a shell to continue to stare at the expanse of Void existing behind the frozen chomping form of the spider.

Letting that which was devouring me admire itself as long as it wanted.

"I have it. Continue to suppress the Void that is infecting it while we commune." A voice spoke inside my head.

"It will be so, please hurry though, I will be vulnerable while my attention is away," Came another voice before I found myself pulled somewhere else.

---

"I am back Kevin! Sorry that I had to leave you for a while. George needed some attentive firepower to help clear out a no-go zone around the base that he is making. You should have seen me! It was crazy! Pew pew pew!!!" Invicta cheerily said, unaware and unable to know that I was unable to hear her at this time while I was away.

She was presently pretending to be the wires hooked up to my head connected to the various machines around my bed.

"You need to get better soon so that you can introduce me to your family. Well, first you would need to fix their hearts, and then you could introduce me. They all really miss you and are going through a hard time." She said softly as a regular nurse peeked in the room for a moment.

The TV attached high up on the wall flickered a little bit before soft voices of "America's funniest home videos" could be heard as the screen came to life.

"That TV is acting up again." The nurse muttered before heading off to look for a remote to change the channel.

"She keeps trying to change it to the Golden Girl's TV show. Sorry, Kevin but you have enough girls in your life already. If you want more, then you are just going to have to get better first and take me on at least a thousand dates." Invicta said before she secretly flew off to distract the Nurse with other tasks that suddenly needed attention more than Kevin's TV.