Location:

New Zexxis

Perspective:

Kevin Maude - Human, lead botanist / botanical geneticist / agricultural technician

Notes:

Prolonged (yet grouped) seclusion and lack of stimuli has led to cognitive issues with many of the survivors; symptoms include difficulty focusing on any distinct task or thoughts, aggression, depression and despair; this is overlaid with trauma suffered beforehand.

Everyone is showing signs of stress and depression. We've been stuck in this strange bio-luminescent coral...cavern, for lack of a better word for weeks.

At first, it was amazing and beautiful; now, it's just a colorful inverted fishbowl with one flooded tunnel leading in and out of it off to one side; I’m honestly not even sure which direction is which. My scientist side screams at me that such a perfectly shaped room, when compared to coral I've seen back on Zexxis Prime, probably isn't natural. Perhaps some kind of genetic technology is at work here, or maybe something like the triangular melons I’ve seen in shops, but, well, reversed. Considering the coral still seems to be alive, even though it's not fully submersed, I’m leaning more towards engineering. While some water does trickle down across sections of the coral (along with the humidity being oppressively high in here) likely helping to keeping it alive, the thought once more strikes me that it is it too perfect for what it is. Yet again, I also consider that it probably took quite a while to build. Or grow. Whatever. I’m still not sure what it would take to engineer something to grow into a specific shape without some kind of selective breeding, even with my background. At least the beach sand floor surface is dry now and more comfortable than stone or coral would be. I pinch the bridge of my nose for a moment. These repetitive thoughts about my environment are one of the few things keeping me from losing my mind, but I’m finding it harder and harder to find new avenues of thought and, quite frankly, I’m getting tired of talking to myself about the same crap over and over. Conversation with the others isn’t any better, and for the most part, has long since died out. Barely anyone talks to anyone else anymore.

My thoughts turn from science as one of the Cephalopods, or Cephs as I’ve taken to calling them, quietly rises from the flooded tunnel. It’s the one in the more advanced but still strange looking mobile goldfish bag, followed shortly by two more in the less advanced looking goldfish bags. I think of them as goldfish bags, because that’s mostly what they look like; the reality is they are clearly a kind of technological suit designed to carry the sea creatures across land. The more advanced one clearly has some kind of accessories on it, but I’ve never seen them do anything. Two of them undulate towards opposite sides of the coral room like some kind of odd cross between inchworm and snake. Their suit-bags carry (and when I say carry, I mean rest upon part of the undulating base of the suit) what amount to compartmentalized crates made from some kind of lightweight bone or hard cartilage; thinking back, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen two crates that looked the same. These crates are obviously not naturally occurring in this shape, but it's hard to tell if it's carved or not. If it is, whatever had it originally must have been quite large, just based on the size of the crates.

The second Ceph is probably the one that looks like it has a faint donut with rainbow sprinkles around one eye and the third is probably the one that keeps two of its shorter front tentacles curved up and out to the sides most of the time, like it's doing a curtsy or has a mustache; take your pick. I find it strange that squid aliens could have such striking individuality and yet look so much alike at the same time. I wonder if they think that about us in return? I also wonder, for the millionth time, if these three are all of them or if there are, actually, more of them out there somewhere.

Looking in the crate closest to me, being brought forward by the Ceph with three large dots in a triangular pattern on it's...forehead? Head? I'm not exactly sure what to call the part between the eyes that's slightly off center both vertically and horizontally, but the Ceph with three dots is carrying the usual. I feel like my mind is a bit rambly and distracted, and try to shake it off; I audibly sigh as I look around me, noticing a large number of glazed, blank stares in numerous directions as well as some watching the Cephs closely and with a small amount of fear showing.

We've been living off the same three types of fish and an assortment of not quite ready for harvest vegetables from the fields; most of the other random things they bring us are basically trash, with the occasional painful reminder of what happened before we were brought to the coral cave. The last Ceph meanders by, dropping off a presumably clean and more solid crate full of the strange water containing gels that seem to be able to survive passing through the flooded tunnel. It then picks up two older crates that used to hold the water gels, but now hold only, well, waste, before undulating back to the flooded tunnel. It's far from civilized, but at least it's not all over the floor. That reminds me that I still wonder how clean the water in the tunnel is, considering our waste goes through it several times per day.

I don't think anyone would argue that we owe our lives to the squid people, though. My attention returns to the Ceph nearest me. The way the bag-suits pick up and set down the crates seems exceedingly careful to me; the foot of the suit, for lack of a better word, moves seemingly randomly while pushing down into the sand and sort of digs underneath the crate in order to lift it. I notice that almost no sand falls out from under the crate after it’s lifted, almost like the underside was cleaned off as it was lifted. The Ceph with three dots takes a bit longer to set the crate down; the foot of the bag-suit pushes up a short raised hill of sand that further flattens out as the crate slides onto the top of it. When done, the edges of the crate have a nearly perfect amount of sand under them to support the crate. Sand is, after all, going to do whatever it wants, so the edges lining up near perfectly is probably just a happy coincidence.

I look around at the group again. No-one is quite sure if we are actually captives, but the Ceph don't seem to be bothered that we outnumber them almost thirty three to one. In fact, I'm not entirely sure they even have emotions, so far as I've been able to tell, anyway. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that one of the main reasons that nobody has attacked our hosts is that they almost look kind of cute with their huge eyes and beautiful patterning, aside from looking a lot like earth squid, and thus being somewhat familiar. Oh, and the fact that they don't seem to mind attending to our biological needs. Short term, we are, actually, better off where we are than when the dog people came out of nowhere and started slaughtering everyone. Long term, however, we will wind up just as dead due to malnutrition. Scurvy will probably take another month or so to start setting in, unless we can find a way to properly communicate with the Cephs; right now, however, I'm more worried about the psychological health of everyone and especially worried that a resort to violence will leave us all dead. Not that I can personally do anything about this; not my specialty and I wouldn’t even know where to start. I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment at my inability to change anything when my mind decides to wander again.

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So far, only one person has tried to leave via the tunnel, and that was over a week ago; they got as far as their ankle before the freezing water convinced them that no matter how short (or rather, long) the flooded tunnel was, they wouldn’t make it out alive. Suffice it to say, no-one knew exactly how much of the tunnel was flooded, and when we first came here, it took what felt like hours to hurriedly shuffle through it to get to this chamber. Not to mention, it was pitch black which forced people to hold on to the clothes and/or limbs of the people in front and behind them. Even then, there was no way of knowing if there were side passages, and if there were, which ones lead outside. I did assume we were underground, probably near the ocean, which would be obvious what with all the coral around, but even that wasn’t a guarantee either.

Speaking of mental health, Gary has started mumbling again; he's not been doing very well lately, and seems to grow even more agitated when the Ceph are around. His wife and child died in the first night of the raid while he was off fishing for the colony on a small locally crafted rowboat. It was interesting watching a boat be built by hand from local wood, and...Right, I feel like I’ve drifted off again. By the time he got to shore, it was already over; he probably blames himself, but the truth is there was nothing he could do. I know that much from what I saw with my own eyes. The thought makes me blanch, but just as the horrific memories start to come back, Gary starts screaming. Myself and everyone near me, some huddled together partially for warmth and some partially to be as far away from the Ceph as possible have turned to see what is going on. A few, not so far gone yet, briefly talk quietly to themselves about the unfolding incident. Anything new, in this place, is a bit of a mental blessing; something different to observe, interact with or talk about breathes some small amount of life back into at least a few people. The non food items the Ceph bring are largely useless for this though; mostly broken items that will never work again or won’t be useful down here in the first place. I watch as someone takes out a half woven wicker something or another; there’s not enough there to be use-

“I’M GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” Gary yelled, jumping to his feet.

He brandished what appeared to be a gardening trowel and started violently digging at the coral wall nearest to him. The Ceph with the donut around its eye managed to quickly snatch the trowel from him by pushing a tentacle through the goldfish bag-suit which was, apparently, stretchy enough to allow one of its tentacles to push through until it clung like a glove to the outside of the appendage. Gary, completely undeterred, ignored the loss of the tool and started clawing at the coral with his bare hands; needless to say, they shredded quickly before those around him could pull him off the wall and stop him from hurting himself further. Several turned away quickly from the grisly sight, while a couple others vomited upon the sand near them; several children started crying. The Ceph, however, were their usual blank selves. I consider approaching Gary for a moment, but we don't know each other that well and there's really nothing I can do. It's also fairly crowded, and I don't really want to step on anyone to get over there. Nothing to do, nothing can do, so nothing will do.

Looking at the surprising amount of blood and gristle on the coral wall, I was about to put my head in my hands at my own despair when I noticed that the Ceph with the more advanced goldfish bag went bone white for about a full second. I stood, and those around me look to me momentarily before looking back to Gary and the Ceph. The other Ceph, who I’m calling Donut, turns slightly towards the more advanced Ceph, Threedots, but otherwise doesn't appear to react in any other way. After a moment, Threedots appears to normalize, and Donut slightly shuffles back to get an eye on Gary and my gaze follows. Those near him and holding him have him somewhat calmed down, and are tearing bits of cloth to bandage his hands. He's sobbing; a fully exposed, ugly type of crying. I feel bad for the guy but as I briefly look around, I remember that pretty much everyone has been through a similar, if not the exact same hell he has; myself excluded. My gaze returns to the Cephs just as Donut turns back to Threedots, and naught but a second later, the squid alien flashes with color, and bright enough that most everyone is now looking at the Ceph. Not but a moment later, Threedots briefly shades a deep, beautiful sapphire blue. Donut, for the first time anyone has ever seen, seems to signal with a tentacle in a way that could only be interpreted as a gesture or some kind of physical communication. It's a small, quick motion, but a few people seem to have noticed and are sitting more upright at the change in behavior. I start to make my way towards the Ceph, but two children I don’t recognize beat me there. They stare for a moment at Donut, before the Ceph slowly returns the trowel to the young boy.

He takes it, looks at it briefly and then lets it drop to his side before replicating the gesture that Donut made to Threedots.

Donut instantly turns jet black with its tentacles frantically whipping around and lets a bit of ink loose in the suit. The suit seems to lose all coherent movement control and slowly sags before falling over away from the child; everyone is staring at the slightly darkened bag of water with the sound of muffled splashing coming from it. After a moment of surprise, I regain my senses and rush to the children and get between them and whatever is happening to the Ceph. I don’t think they are at risk, but if the Ceph can communicate using gestures, I need to make sure someone tries to resolve our lack of communication before it kills all of us. It takes a few seconds, but eventually Donut stops whipping around inside the suit; Threedots is bone white with thin black lines rippling across it, but doesn't move otherwise.

Everyone is perfectly still; all I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest for what seems like ages, before Threedots moves closer to Donut in a manner that seems to replicate my position with the children. Taking what I assume is a hint, I gently nudge the kids back several steps and Threedots colors and patterning seem to fade closer to what I can only assume is normal; not quite all the way there, but close enough that I know this was the right call.

Another few seconds pass and Threedots makes a different gesture with a tentacle. Apprehensively, I copy the movement and the Ceph immediately goes a deep sapphire blue again before turning towards Donut, whom is working to right itself. Donut, still a dark black with tentacles nervously twitching, slowly raises one and repeats the gesture, which I immediately repeat myself. Donuts black color fades somewhat, seemingly apprehensive over what I'm still not sure what, when I get an idea.

"Everyone…” I plead to the huddled groups behind me, only some of which are watching with interest.

“EVERYONE!” I bark. “Please, make this gesture with one of your hands where they can see it...Please!" I repeat the gesture, and a few of the others do the same.

Both Threedots and Donut both rapidly ripple sapphire blue and white but stop when the young girl next to the young boy (was she already there or did she approach unseen? I can’t seem to remember) takes the gardening trowel from him and steps forward, causing both of the Ceph to change back to normal coloring. The girl steps forward again and sets the trowel down in front of Donut before stepping back; the Ceph turns slightly toward Threedots before both of them turn a deep and solid sapphire blue.

They both stay blue as they repeat the second gesture at the same time, and many of us, myself included repeat the gesture back to them just as they turn and slowly undulate back toward the flooded passage, before finally disappearing from view.

My mind is cloudy from what is likely some combination of emotional exhaustion, depression and lack of sleep, so I’m having a hard time determining if this surreal experience even really happened, or if I dreamt it all up. Hopefully, I’ll know tomorrow.