Dash stared wide-eyed at the claw. He shifted between its razor sharp ends and wide middle paw, stopping at the odd transition from hand to arm. Without realizing he was doing it, his fingers clenched and released.

“Can it hear us?” Dash asked, breaking the silent moment.

The claw twitched, and Dash felt the hum shift lower for a brief second, and then came back to its original pitch. Standing in front of the creature it was impossible to tell if it even knew it was making the sound. Was it coming through its vocal chords, or was it a sound it sent out into the universe?

Dash further wondered if it was a sound meant to lure them in, or if it was meant to be a warning to stay away? It itched at his thoughts, and he wished he had been louder back on the ship. He was pulled out of his thoughts by a whimper floating into his ears. It was too short for him to tell who it had come from.

“Bria…” He hesitated, watching the claw, “Can it hear us?”

“I,” Her voice started and then stopped.

“Bria!” Talyn scolded, “We are clueless without you. Get it together.”

Dash was glad that Talyn at least had found her voice. He needed to snap them both out of it.

“Anchors. You said it would be held by an anchor,” He pushed the words out of his throat.

“Anchor. Metal,” Bria stuttered.

He knew she was in there. She knew everything, she had pulled them here to this planet no one else would touch.

“Metal strong to this thing here. Why does it sleep?” He asked.

“It’s so deep,” Bria whispered and took half a step backward, “It’s so cold with so little oxygen. That’s why they are kept here. We can’t explain it but they thrive on the oxygen like the humans do.”

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Dash smiled, lifting his vision up from the claw and chain at last. He shined his light on Bria.

“Can it hear us?” He asked again.

Bria blinked at the sudden light in her face and forced herself to look up at Dash. She grimaced and turned back toward the chain before speaking. “Yes. No. It’s complicated…Fuzzy. He can hear our words, our thoughts, our emotions. They say he can hear our very heartbeat. But…”

“But what?” Talyn asked, moving her light over to Bria as well.

“He’s asleep. He has to be asleep or this planet would know- we would all know,” Bria finished.

“We should go,” Dash said firmly.

He moved his light back to the chain just in time to watch Talyn take a step forward, and then one more. The panic set in before his mind could catch up to what was going on. His breathing quickened, fogging up the bottom half of his helmet, and both of his fists clenched closed.

“We. Should. Go!” Dash exclaimed, hoping Talyn would turn around.

Instead, she took another step forward, her back sinking into the darkness. Her light lit the way she went, but his own didn’t reach her position any longer. His chest hurt from his heart pounding against the surrounding organs.

“Talyn!” Dash yelled and immediately took a step back. He hadn’t intended to be loud- even if the creature shouldn’t be able to hear them in any traditional sense.

His light swung back toward the chain, and he could hear another breathing rhythm alongside his own. He wondered if Bria was losing herself again, panicking with him. It wouldn’t help, but he couldn’t spare the energy for her at the moment. His thoughts raced and he watched as the claw didn’t twitch, but shifted its entire weight to the opposite side of its chain.

Dash’s vision swam and his felt like it was full of helium as the hum sped up, and then slowed back down. The hum sputtered and changed into an entirely different sound before returning to the sound it had been before. The words to describe how it felt were beyond him, The hum was the air in the water and the fluid in his brain. He needed to get them back to the ship, they were not safe inside the cave.

Nothing was safe in front of this *thing.*

“Why are we here, Bria?” He asked when he caught his breath again.

“They don’t know. They don’t believe. They don’t…” she said in a low mumble.

He turned her words out as she began to ramble. He supposed it didn’t really matter. They all avoided Earth, but no one really thought about what The Old Ones were, or if they really existed. Dash had never given a single thought to how the humans coped before that day.

The same as he had, now that he was faced with the reality of the world.