Xander felt as if he had stepped into a horrendous abstract painting.

There was a sudden whiplash from transitioning between familiar grounds to entering a scene from a sci-fi flick. Xander looked around a warehouse that had been turned into a mishmash of organic alien goop and the previously grey storage area with a numb expression.

What areas he and others with flashlights uncovered cast a massive sense of revulsion along with the accompanying putrid stench.

The metal shelves soared high a few meters, but almost three-quarters of them had a fleshy membrane similar to the acolytes and voidlings crawling up its height.

Closer to the bottom, the purple goop was more rigid and porous. While high up on the shelves were a lot thinner and newer.

It writhed and Xander could almost notice how it was slowly but surely going up higher the shelving units.

The rest of the humans gaped at the sight. Though they immediately closed their mouths upon tasting the pungent metallic taste in the air.

“What the hell happened here?” Xander heard someone speak through choked breaths and coughs, “what is this stuff?”

Everyone was too distressed to answer. They felt as if they had entered a place not meant for humans. The warehouse had become alive similar to that of a jungle. But it also seemed incomplete—young.

After a minute of nothing but the ground beneath them—squirming as if worms were crawling under a thin layer—one by one, the search party began investigating. Isaac motioned for everyone’s attention.

“Let’s do a preliminary search, before heading deeper. This is hostile territory under our feet, so be careful. Look for any signs of our missing brothers and sisters. Alright?”

Everyone affirmed verbally or through gestures.

People then went off in different directions upon his plan, splitting off into their respective teams. They were still incredibly wary with darting eyes. The slightest movement within deep shadows set off alarms in the humans’ minds.

Xander gritted his teeth as he shined his flashlight on metal shelving covered in purple muck.

Ben and Anna had walked up beside him and the trio hung close to each other.

Their muscles were tense as they passed cardboard boxes once filled with canned goods. Now, like everything else on the shelves, were burst open as the organic fleshy substance invaded its confines.

Anna cautiously peered into one box before slowly backing off with a grimace.

“It's like the metal cans were dissolved, is this how this stuff is staying alive?”

Xander looked over a crate filled with cleaning supplies with furrowed brows, “it’s taking anything it could get, apparently. I don’t know anything that would want bleach and detergent in its system.”

“So far, it seems empty, though I have a feeling we aren’t alone here,” Ben chimed in as he shined his flashlight at the top portion of the shelves.

“No wonder that Senior Acolyte and its lackeys wanted to protect this place so badly,” Xander groaned before checking the time on his ONIM—a side feature he recently discovered, “it’s been five minutes, let’s head back.”

Anna and Ben nodded, more than willing to get back to the larger group.

However, they were stopped when they heard a scream and gunfire in the distance.

“Shit! Let’s go!” Xander shouted as he and his two companions bolted back toward the warehouse entrance.

As they rounded the corner, they saw the flashlights and familiar faces of the other teams. Xander looked around and saw one of Isaac’s friends waving his arms.

“Over here!”

Xander, as well as everyone else who had heard the man, began following him at a brisk pace. Soon a wave of a dozen Tier Is were running down an aisle of tall shelves.

While they ran, the sound of gunfire still echoed loudly. And soon, they saw the muzzle flashes casting bright light upon the dark.

“There!”

Xander, Anna, and Ben ran to the front of the rushing crowd with their weapons raised. Few shields survived the boss encounter with the Senior Acolyte, so the glows of Lustrous Steel weapons were the most eye-catching sources of light.

As they turned a final corner, Xander instantly dodged to the side as the corpse of a voidling was flung in his direction.

“The hell?”

Looking toward the source, Xander was momentarily surprised before he lowered his battle hammer—the rest of the search party arrived shortly after with Isaac in the lead.

“Guess we’re a bit late.”

Between the tall shelves covered in alien flesh, Walter and his remaining companion were standing amongst several tiny voidling corpses.

The large man turned toward them with a clenched jaw as he extracted a sword from one of the alien’s corpses.

“No shit, you’re late,” Walter grumbled before sighing heavily, “it wasn’t that bad anyway. These things are smaller than the usual damned things.”

Xander knelt to inspect one of the bodies and confirmed that they seemed at most half the size of the voidlings they fought before.

Why? Was the only thing he could ask in his head.

The young man continued to prod the small corpse with his hammer when he saw Isaac and Walter walking toward each other. The bespectacled looked at Xander and gestured for him to join in the conversation.

“What is it?”

“I found something strange,” the low voice of Walter spoke toward Isaac, “not sure what it is, but it’s probably why we got attacked.”

Isaac nodded along with a curious expression, “where did you find it?”

“Just over there. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Xander whistled toward the rest and motioned for them to follow.

A few steps closer to what was the center of the warehouse, Xander saw what Walter had found.

Everyone gawked at their surroundings. The alien muck reached much higher and even began dissolving the metal shelving, causing them to be much lower to the ground and bent. Xander briefly thought about how it looked like organic ant hills overtaking the area.

“The scenery is much worse, but that’s not what I was looking at, “Walter then proceeded to step forward and pointed his blade to a particular spot, “look.”

Xander and a few others looked toward what the man was pointing and saw strange anomalies. The objects were a collection of large mounds that looked like massive pustules about the size of a large dog. It had a sickening yellowish color and seemed to pulse ever so slightly.

“Oh God, what the hell are those things.” Xander heard someone to his side.

“No clue, what do you think, Isaac?” Walter spoke

The bespectacled security guard rubbed his chin before shrugging, “other than it looks like whatever we’re standing on has a skin condition? No idea.”

The man turned to look at everyone with an impassive expression, “Volunteers?”

Everyone stayed silent upon Isaac’s request. No one truly wanted to come close to the mounds. Xander was similarly distrustful of the disgusting thing and even Anna was unusually patient this time.

Isaac sighed, knowing full well no one would be crazy enough to poke at the pus-like sacks.

Xander was about to suggest throwing something at it before he heard an annoyed grumble coming from Walter.

“I’ll do it damn it. You bunch of sissies.”

The man slowly walked up to it with his sword raised. He stepped cautiously as his eyes began scanning his surroundings.

Isaac motioned for everyone to be on guard. Xander, Anna, and Ben placed their backs against each other as they readied their weapons for an ambush.

Eventually, Walter crossed the short distance and eyed the revolting mound before him.

Xander could barely hear several curse words from the man.

Everyone tensed their muscles when Walter extended his blade and used it to make a vertical cut on the mound. A disgusting liquid seeped out, causing Walter to gag and cover his mouth. With watery eyes, he braved forward and continued to use his sword to cut it open.

When the contents came spilling out, the usually stoic if irritable man shouted in shock before stumbling back.

“Fuck me!”

Isaac, Xander, and others immediately went forward to look at what Walter had revealed. They had to cover their noses from the horrible stench upon coming closer, and Xander even had to close his second skin over his nostrils just to protect himself from the stink.

“Urgh! What is the Lord’s name!”

“Oh, to hell with this, I’m not coming anywhere closer than this.”

As a few stepped back, the rest finally stood before the open mound before instantly recoiling in horror.

Xander froze as his mind tried to process what he was seeing.

“It’s…”

“A person…”

Xander felt his breakfast coming up and immediately covered his mouth. Others weren’t as lucky and soon the contents of their stomachs hit the alien ground.

An emaciated body covered in a disgusting yellow viscous substance—far from the comforting and warm amber liquid from Harby—sprawled across a puddle flowing out the opening Walter had made.

Xander steeled himself as he forced a foot forward. He cringed inwardly as he stepped on the pus-like puddle. When he was close enough, he looked closer at the corpse. The body that had belonged to a man looked partially melted. His clothes were long gone and his cheeks were hollow. Xander noticed a trace of steam rising from the body and a faint sizzling sound.

“It’s like… he was being digested.”

That realization and the closer examination of the corpse’s horrible condition finally broke the camel’s back, and Xander stepped away before vomiting.

Everyone else was similarly distressed and revolted, but soon they got their bearings.

Others had approached similar mounds beside the one Walter had opened. They covered their mouths and noses with a cloth before opening the mounds up and releasing the contents.

The smell had gotten worse with every open sack while an aura of death had simultaneously accompanied the disgusting air.

“Oh, God…”

“They’re all filled with people. Fuck...”

Xander and Isaac looked over the accumulating bodies and looked at each corpse’s face. After a brief moment, they shook their heads.

“I don’t recognize anyone from Team E and F,” Xander spoke solemnly.

“Neither do I,” Isaac sighed heavily, “though I’m unsure where they’d be.”

Walter had stepped up beside them. Xander looked at him and was surprised to see the man’s face filled with silent anguish.

Isaac noticed it before placing his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Walter?”

“Burn it,” Xander and Isaac widened their eyes as Walter took a deep breath.

After exhaling, the man’s mouth transformed into a deep scowl, Walter looked back at Xander and Isaac with a furious gaze, “we have to burn this place down to the fucking ground.”

“We still need to find out what happened to Nathan and Kathy,” Isaac reminded.

Walter sent a glare toward the man. Upon seeing Isaac’s stern gaze, Walter grumbled and nodded weakly.

“They’re dead, no doubt about it,” Walter waved his hand in dismissal before letting out a heavy sigh, “They better have been shot or cut dead. No one deserves… this.”

Xander and Isaac slowly nodded before Walter pointed toward one of the bodies, “I know this one and those over there.”

Xander raised an eyebrow at his statement, “you mean they’re…”

“My friend from the first extermination attempt, some of Nathan’s police guys too,” Walter growled in his throat, “now they’re being used a grub for these alien fucks!”

Walter shouted out as he kicked an empty mound and proceeded to stomp on the ground. Once he let out all his emotions, he walked away drained.

“Let’s get this over with, I’ll check over there,” Walter and his last buddy moved before the former stopped and made a final remark, “we’re burning this place after. No arguments.”

Isaac and Xander nodded. At this point, they had realized this place was some sort of birthing facility. The tinier than usual voidlings and the need for nutrients all pointed toward something of the like. All that was left was finding the eggs, which they were not looking forward to.

They spoke briefly to each other about where their teams will be before departing.

“Good luck, Isaac.”

“You too, Xand.”

Xander proceeded to walk toward Anna and Ben, who had wisely stayed away from the stench and the digested bodies. Upon seeing his approach, Anna walked toward him with a concerned expression.

“What is it? Are they?” She slowly began while eyeing the bodies on the ground.

“They’re not the ones we’re looking for,” Xander sighed, “though a few of them were the fallen from the previous attempt to take this place. Walter…

“Is not in a good mood.”

Anna and Ben nodded in understanding.

“So what’re we doing now?” Ben asked.

“We’ll continue the search. Each team is splitting off to get this done faster. Afterward, we’ll help Walter and torch this place down,” Xander replied.

Anna grunted in approval, “finally, a sensible idea. This place shouldn’t exist a second more.”

“I agree, though I’ll miss the place, it’s been dead the moment the cultists took it,” Ben sighed dejectedly.

“Not to mention, this is probably a spawning area for voidlings,” Xander groaned.

Eventually, everyone split into their respective teams and searched for missing teams, alive or otherwise.

Xander, Anna, and Ben went through an aisle of tall shelves with their flashlights shining every which way—high on alert for an ambush as they held their weapons high.

“I hate this place,” Anna spoke what Xander was thinking at the moment.

Everything about this experience felt gross, from the fleshy ground he was standing on, the disgusting sound it makes every time he steps on it, the grim aura, and the nauseating stench, he was ready to take the hottest bath of his life.

“Just don’t think about so much, Ann.”

Anna grumbled, but that was as much as Xander could say.

After a few minutes of cautious walking and scanning their environment, Xander, Anna, and Ben finally spotted the similar shine and silhouette of the mounds they found earlier.

The three moved carefully toward it with Xander in the front. As he stood before it, Anna and Ben watching his back, he used the bladed portion on the pommel of his battle hammer to cut the mound before him.

And there’s the smell. Fuck me.

Even with his Second Skin blocking his nostrils, he could almost imagine the stench permeating from the opening.

After a sufficient cut was made, the contents came spilling out and a familiar uniformed body thudded against Xander’s shoe.

“Ah, hell!”

“Xand?”

Anna and Ben turned around and saw the corpse that came out of the mound and instantly frowned.

Xander sighed heavily. He knew he would find the bodies of the rear teams, but he’d hoped we were on the ground, not it in.

“We found Nathan.”

Xander proceeded to cut open three other mounds. Two of which were men from Kathy’s team while the other was another officer.

Compared to the bodies they found previously. At first glance, Nathan and the corpses before them only had minor burns on their skin as the pus-like liquid had just begun the digestion process. Their clothes even looked somewhat fine.

But as Xander knelt and turned Nathan’s body over to check his condition, he was shocked to see his back looked a lot more damaged.

“What the hell?” Xander asked in confusion. The affected area looked as if it had melted apart at a much faster rate.

Anna stepped beside Xander and peered closer with furrowed brows, “maybe it’s just part of the digestion?”

“Can’t be,” Xander slowly spoke as he went over to the other bodies, “look, different parts seemed to be affected. This one almost has her entire right arm melted, while this one’s left is just gone.”

The trio was confused at the corpse’s horrendous wounds before stepping away.

“We have no idea what this means, and to be honest I’m already sick of this place,” Xander mumbled before turning toward his companions, “we still have some others to look for, let’s hurry up.”

The trio continued forward, but the conditions of Nathan and the bodies they found made them increasingly tense.

Something happened to them, it’s like they were caught in an explosion. Is it some new monster?

Unable to quell his thoughts, Xander put all his effort into finding the rest of the rear assault team.

The three Tier Is eventually came up toward the right side of the warehouse and spotted something different. Xander scowled as he looked at what could only be one thing.

“Eggs.”

Anna and Ben stepped beside him with similar expressions.

“They’re empty, at least,” Anna spoke with narrowed eyes, “at least, I think they’re empty.”

About twice the size of a bowling bowl, the muted purple eggs sat bunched up together. Each one had a chitinous shell and was firmly held to the ground by tendrils of purple flesh. Xander pondered if that was how nutrients were funneled into the eggs before dismissing the thought.

“I wish we had a flamethrower about now,” Anna grumbled.

“Agreed.”

Thankfully, the two dozen eggs were all seemingly empty. Each one had sizeable holes where voidlings must have exited from. Xander picked up a shard from an egg before tossing it with a sneer.

“It hasn’t been more than two days, and look how fast these things can spawn.”

Ben knelt and attempted to wrench one of the eggs from the ground only to end up smashing it, “We’d probably be overrun in a week if these things were left to their devices.”

Xander and Anna grimaced at the thought.

“Guess this is on the agenda, among a million other things,” Xander mumbled.

Before he could think on the matter any further, the three Conscripts were jolted in alarm upon hearing the skittering of a voidling.

The three looked toward the source and saw a minute little thing crawl out of a muck-covered crate. In its mouth was a crumpled empty can of cat food.

Anna scowled at the creature before leaning toward Xander, “you know how some animals are cuter when they’re smaller, even if they look ugly as adults?”

“Yeah?”

“I think we can count voidlings as an exception,” Anna spoke contemptuously as she raised her slugger.

Before she could fire, Xander raised his hammer before her, “save the bullet, I’ll take care of it.”

Anna raised her eyebrow, but as she looked at Xander, she realized the young man was being entirely rational. She lowered her weapon before smirking toward Xander, “Alright fine, just be careful it doesn’t bite you in the leg or something.”

“Haha. Very funny, Ann,” Xander rolled his eyes as he stepped forward confidently.

Upon coming closer toward the voidling, Xander looked at the diminutive creature as it in turn looked at the human approaching it. It was way smaller than any voidling he had seen. At the same time, it moved much slower, even with its small size, it crawled on its short blade-like legs like a drunk spider.

Xander was soon a meter away from it before he felt a growing sense of unease.

He stopped taking another step forward as he tried to piece together why he was feeling this way. He began to scan his surroundings, but when he found nothing he returned to the tiny voidling in front of him.

It was then he realized what felt wrong.

It was not afraid of him at all, even as its many eyes peered up at him.

Alarm bells rang inside his mind, as different images came up that correlated with why he was getting anxious. Unconsciously, Xander stepped back with his hammer raised.

Behind him, Xander heard Anna call his name in confusion. But before he could give a response, the voidling before him stepped toward him and began convulsing. The tiny creature’s shell soon began expanding rapidly, and Xander could only turn away as it exploded violently in a spray of flesh-eating acid.

“ARGHHH!” Xander screamed in anguish as a greenish and viscous fluid splattered his left side. The young man fell to the ground in agony as he clutched his face.

“Xand!”

The horrified shouts of Anna and Ben reached Xander’s ear as they rushed forward. They clutched his pain-wracked body and flipped him, allowing gravity to drip the acid from his skin.

Xander had never felt such agony in his life. His mind briefly described the sensation as a hundred red-hot pliers twisting his flesh.

Eventually, all sound began to fade and Xander slowly began to lose vision in his left eye.

Flashes of memories flittered before him, and Xander, in a split second, felt truly terrified.

He briefly felt a familiar rush of heat flowing through his veins as Ben injected him with his last stim. And soon, the pain began to subside and Xander fell unconscious.