[So, should I know?]

[Yes! It’s a BioEnhancement!]

The realization shot my eyebrows towards the sky while the little box in my hand became heavier.

[Let’s just keep it to ourselves for now,] I said and squeezed the box between my arm and side to make it less visible. It was an unconscious move. The moment I realized it was something valuable I wanted to hide it and protect it.

The big room was disturbingly clean and white. In its emptiness, my steps echoed as I moved forward. I walked up to the entrance that lead to a similarly empty and white hallway. Someone was supposed to come to handle my situation but when?

Standing around doing nothing in an awkward situation was hard on my nerves. The idea of taking a peek inside the box grew more attractive with every passing second. Before I could take action, my ears picked up a strange noise coming from the hallway.

It sounded like a bored secretary tapping her nails against a table. Or that was what I thought until the ‘thing’ turned into the hallway from the side and almost made me have a heart attack.

The ‘thing’ that crawled around the corner was hanging from the ceiling by a swarm of legs. Its long body was covered in bright blue fur and at its front two egg-sized, pitch black eyes were staring at me while the white walls reflected back in them. The nightmare stopped for a second, and we stared at each other in silence. Several pairs of vastly longer legs twitched out from under its front part as it slightly lowered its head from the ceiling.

[Aium. Turn around and run,] Genna brought me back to my senses with an unusual tone.

She didn’t need to tell me twice. I nearly pissed myself already. I turned around and ran back to the gate that I came through. As I ran, I could hear the skittering noise from behind me restart with an even faster rhythm. I whimpered under my helmet as I ran for my life. I crashed into the side pillar of the gate and started slapping its metal plate in a frenzy.

“Open! Open! Open! OPEN!” I muttered desperately.

[Calm down! She’s not going to hurt you!] Genna's sudden change of mind confused me. She just told me to run! Did she really try to play a trick on me with a monster breathing down my neck?

I already had a hard time moving around my stiff fingers, but the sudden lack of noise made the situation all the scarier. Despite my heart beating like a jackhammer I tried straining my ears to pick any noise from behind. There was none.

The thought of looking back was denied immediately. I had no chance against something like that. There was no point in me turning around to watch it nibble away at my still living body.

“Mister… Are you okay?” a sweet, female voice asked from behind.

That didn’t sound like a monster made out of nightmares. Did someone pull a prank on me with some holoillusion thingy? It had to be a prank! I slowly turned around, still stiff from the fear and stared at myself being reflected in two huge eyes. The freaking monster’s front half was hanging from the ceiling to be at head level with me, and the countless various sized legs were looking like the maw of an old god.

“WAAAAAAH!” I screamed as I jumped back against the wall behind the gate and slumped down to the ground.

[Seriously Aium! Calm down! She won’t hurt you!]

“Woah! What’s the matter? Seriously now!” came the sweet voice again from the monster as it skittered closer to me on the ceiling and reached out towards me with a pointy leg that separated into three smaller legs… or fingers.

I would love to say that I bravely stood up to the monster but in reality, I screamed like a little girl.

[STOP IT! I’m telling you she won’t hurt you! She most likely came to brief you!]

As I screamed again, the thing on the ceiling backed away and huffed, “Hey! You better not be doing a prank on me! I’m not that scary!”

The moment she finished talking a thin blue film crossed over her eyes twice like an eyelid.

I stopped screaming and backing into the wall after taking a few deep breaths. I managed to lower my panic level, but I was still staring with wary eyes at the monster with the girly voice.

“I… I-I-”

“What’s that?! I can’t hear your mumbling,” she said in an irritated tone while several rows of her feet twitched in disorder.

“The hell you are not scary! I nearly pissed myself, and I’m still not sure you won’t rip off my head!“

The thing had leaned back its head and gasped, “The audacity! I would not do such a thing! You better apologize!”

[What’s going on?] I whimpered to Genna.

[She’s not dangerous. You don’t have to be afraid of her. Take a deep breath and calm down a little.]

[But you told me to run!] I argued.

[Yes, because you ordered me to.]

[Are you crazy?!]

[I don’t think I am. You gave me an absolute order to tell you that when I saw a Severin. I just followed it. I tried to calm you afterward, but you weren’t listening to me.]

[Oh dear god...] I said as I started panicking again in light of the newfound information.

[I’ve told you back then and I’m telling you now again… They won’t hurt you. They won’t put things in you. They are very nice and cheerful people, and I’d like to ask you to not be rude to them.]

Our inner conversation was interrupted by two loud knocks on the ceiling by a disturbingly long leg that bent at five or six points.

“Ehm… I’m waiting.”

“I’m sorry?” I said while fidgeting a little on the floor. “I’ve never seen anyone like you before, and I got… it was an intense experience,” I continued while I slid on my ass a little further from her and stood up.

“Really now?” she asked. “I’ll accept your apology and take the rest as a compliment. Making someone's heart race at first sight, what else could I dream of,” she giggled followed by a synchronous wave-like movement with her myriad of legs.

What now? When did I compliment her?

“Now then! You should be a polite human and introduce yourself.”

After a couple of seconds of hesitation, I gave in, “I’m Rabunde. Nice to meet you I guess?”

“Ra-bunde,” she rolled the name around. “I like it,” she added. “Mr. Rabunde! You have the pleasure of meeting me! The name’s S͠͏̬͔̗̮̺̞́͟a͓͎̜͇͉̲͇͟͜l̸̛̪̜̫̝͇̻͟e̜̦̜̟̼͢n̕҉̧̗̖̣͎̞͘͝K̷̦͍͔̤̙̼͢͜à̧̛͈̫͚̗̮͔͘͠r̡̛̛̬̫̜͈̦̲̦͘͡r̶̡̤͚̭͇̥͎ but you can just call me SalenKarr.”

She grandly introduced herself. The first name she told me was just a bunch of disturbing noises that made me slightly dizzy but when she said the other name her voice reached a new level of squeaky and all of her legs went wide like she performed something applaudable.

I had the urge to clap a few times, but I decided against it since she might take it as an offense. She was dead still in her spread out legs position for a few moments. Perhaps she was waiting for some kind of reaction, but since I didn’t give any, she finally retracted her legs quietly and blinked at me two times again.

“So, you really never saw one of my kind before?”

“Yes, you are the very first.”

“You must have been living under a rock until now then. As you can see, our beautiful form is easy to remember when most of the other sentient races look so similarly boring,” she commented while one of her legs did a strange motion towards me.

“Unforgettable… yes...” I commented slightly cynical, but I had to admit that her bright blue fur looked incredible if you could forget about the scary eyes, the huge size and the infinite legs.

Interestingly I couldn’t find a mouth or anything else on her head other than those huge eyes. Still, with her size and length, I could easily imagine her swallowing an adult in one gulp.

My questionable comment still caused her legs to dance around a little.

“Anyway. Let’s handle our business first, and then we can chat later,” she chirped.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Welcome on the Pure Hail. First of all, I’d like to apologize for Captain Hanal’s behavior. As much as you’d expect a Resonar to be level-headed, they can really squeeze out some mean behavior from their two emotions. He’s in a pretty bad mood because we didn’t get any offers for our way back. It is though to get orders in the delivery business, and we already had a deal for the next stop, but couldn’t pick up anything here, except you. So we are making a loss on this flight.”

“How long until we depart?”

“We already did. We are waiting in line for the travel gate.”

“I didn’t even notice,” I muttered to myself. “And how long until we reach our destination?”

“If nothing comes up we’ll reach it in 26 hours.”

It was an absolutely abnormal situation to be in. I was having a mundane conversation with a creature from a B rated horror movie with the voice of a little girl.

“The ship’s layout is pretty self-explanatory. It would be nice if you don’t wander around unnecessarily. Interface with the ship or loudly call out my name if you have any questions and I’ll hurry over to you. The one place you can visit freely is the canteen. Questions?”

“None at the moment.” I shook my head.

“Then I’ll show you to your room. After you!” she chortled while pointing with one of her longer legs towards the hallway.

I didn’t like this setup one bit. I wanted to keep at least 20 meters between us while keeping an eye on her but now she wanted me to walk on the front.

“I’ll just follow you. You are the one familiar with the layout after all.”

“No, no! You are the guest. After you, I insist!”

UGH! I didn’t feel like starting an argument with her, so I went forward. I took a few glances back, but she kept a fair amount of distance behind me and one time she even waved at me with a leg. Or she just motioned to me to keep going. I really couldn’t tell.

As we left the warehouse and I entered the hallway, I heard an entirely different noise from her normal tapping sounds from the ceiling. I could only compare it to the sped up sound of a rapidly going steam train. I snapped my head back and tumbled forward right away in a mix of fear and surprise. The furry centipede girl was centimeters away from me.

“What are you doing?!” I asked loudly.

“Nothing,“ she answered in a casual tone but all of her legs folded in under her.

“You were making strange noises, and you were way too close to me!” I accused her.

“No I wasn't,” she flat out denied.

There was no way I would play this game. I stood to the side with a frown and said, “You go in the front! No arguing about it.”

Her legs twitched around in chaos while she stared at me for a few moments. “Fine,” she huffed finally and passed by.

She turned her front part backward while she kept walking and glanced at me several times but said nothing further. We turned left at the end of the corridor, and she lead me to a door. She reached out with one leg, and the door slid to the side revealing a simple room with a small bed, a table with a chair and a tiny bathroom. The furniture looked like twisted white roots that were growing out of the ground.

“Here we are. Like the Captain said it’s the bare minimum, so I hope you aren’t sour about it.”

“It’s fine, really. It will be more than enough for such a short trip.”

As I glanced at the small bed in the room, I realized how long and crazy the last 24 hours had been and how tired I was. I wanted nothing more than few quiet hours and a pillow to lay my head on.

“Anything else I should know?” I asked.

“Nothing particular. Sadly, my duty calls for me so I can’t stay and chat but later on, I’ll definitely look for you.”

Please don’t.

“Then I’ll just head in. Thanks for the help,” I said, but as I was halfway through the door, she leaned so close to me that her fur nearly touched my nose. It was already enough for me to buckle over backward, but when she started doing the steam engine noises again, I couldn’t help myself and slammed my back into the doorframe by reflex in a failed attempt at escaping.

“WHAT THE F-”

“Sorry, sorry! It’s impolite, I know, I know, but you smell so… different. I know it’s rude… and unexpected to throw a question like this at people out of the blue but have you ever thought about being an incubator volunteer? It pays well!” she babbled.

“WHAT??? NO!!! I mean... I’m tired and… talk to you later,” I stuttered as I backed into the room and tried to feel out where the control panel of the room was. Thankfully the door closed up and freed me from the nightmare. I just hoped she wouldn’t come in uninvited while I slept.

[Oh mama… Did she just talk about what I think she talked about?] I asked Genna with a deep sigh. I was still keeping a wary eye on the door whether it would open up again or not.

[Apparently, yes. Which is surprising because they take this matter seriously and intimately. Would you like me to replay sounds of your screams? It might help you calm down.]

[Fuck off Genna! I was scared for my life. A giant furry centipede was rushing towards me out of nowhere. My reaction was justified,] I grumbled. [She won’t come in and do ‘stuff’, right?]

[I doubt it, but we can set the door to closed if that makes you happy. Not like she couldn’t overwrite it if she wanted to, but if it helps you sleep better...]

I moaned loudly as I pulled off my helmet and sat down on my temporary bed.

As I took another deep breath, the true realization of recent events slowly descended on me. In the spur of the moment I didn’t have the time to think about what was happening to me, but now that I sat down in peace for the first time the weight of my situation hit me all at once. Shady people were after me because of some stupid experiments. I stole a valuable ship to get away and sold it for a ton of money. I was on the run and leaving traces all over the place. Sooner or later they would find a lead to me and to top it all off Genna was having problems of her own too.

I buried my head in my hands. I had too much on my plate. This was too much for me. I didn’t want all of this… I didn’t want to deal with any of this!

Why did this happen? I was doing so well. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? The fuckers barely knew anything about me, yet they were going to knock me out without giving me any chances. And I could do nothing but keep my head low and run. I was so tired of just going with the flow of fate trying to grasp onto anything to barely slow my descent. My best effort was barely worth anything.Is it too much to ask for to have a little peace and happiness in my life? If others can have it why am I denied all the time?!

As I was struggling against my tears of frustration, I slowly drifted off to sleep.