The sight of it made Jackie think back. When children were allowed to think and talk about stupid things.

But Scarlett made a rant once. She swore up and down that she wasn’t afraid of spiders, so much that the movement of them unnerved her. And it unnerves everyone that sees it. She went on to say that “humans are totally adverse on an evolutionary level to how a spider walks, 100%”. Jackie just laughed, rolled her eyes, and of course the usual arguments about wanting to throw down sparked once more.

Jackie completely understood her former friend, as the Nulgarrt of the Davenpart Zoo crawled after them. To see a massive, prehistoric-like avian being able to hunch over like a wolf, with the movement and speeds of a spider, truly made this thing into an unknowable monster.

“If you give into the fear, then you’re fucked--!” A-J directed, as if she peered into Jackie’s mind. “You make them monsters, then you’re letting them be! They’re animals! We’re animals--!”

The Nulgarrt sat up, on the backs of their crab-like legs, letting their beck-wedged mouths grow twice the already large size. Howling in such an awful, electronic garbling.

Using their spindly wings acting as limbs, the Nulgarrt fluttered them to strike at Jackie again and again and again.

Jackie instantly fell onto the ground, splashing in the green-clear goop but uncaring, as she shuffled on her back hasted with siVis, just to escape each wing’s tip hit every second, driving them into the ground causing it to crack on impact.

As it adopted the previous stance, galloping yet skittering to achieve it, that Jackie realized that she fell right into it’s trap, and there was little time to think.

Using the slippery texture of the goop plus siVis enhanced reflective strength, she scooted on her back away from the maw of the Nulgarrt, as it dived down to get face to face with her, only seconds late to do it.

It didn’t linger on the moment, not unlike Jackie, and began to skitter towards River, who never panicked vocally—only the stiff motions and limited facial expression gave away the fact that she had little confidence in dealing with a stressful event like this.

So there was no blame, in fact was an understandable thing when her siVis call rang out and she briefly became steam—to through off the Nulgarrt, causing it to skid a bit, the head twitching to the left in right in quick succession despite how fucking heavy and huge it was.

It locked onto Tracy, this eyeless being turning and chasing her with fervor.

The girl was screaming, panting, panting during the parts where she stopped screaming. She tried to cast the ground up, to have something in between her and the creep, but she realized as quick as Jackie did, who was still just looking on.

Eyeless. Her ability is truly null and void here.

She easily crumpled into her fate. Beads of tears were filling in volume at the edge of her eyes, as she froze in the path of it.

Jackie couldn’t believe it, let it go. She was mere seconds away from outright dying. If she didn’t let her body react, or thought to do something else within that second, it would’ve been all over. Just like that.

INNATE DRIVE!

Fuck that.

With her blue fist balled up, and rushing to jump up from the ground, Jackie ran towards the beast with her arm at a 90-degree angle.

The beast only craned it’s head towards her as she charged.

The wedge stretched, and as it growled, Jackie saw the structure vibrate. The slits themselves were rattling, and as Jackie looked deep within them due to her sight, she saw flashes of light. Flickering deep within.

It wanted her close.

Jackie stumbled, trying to activate siVis to aid to stop her assault, but ended up tripping headfirst onto the dirt ground—causing her ability to go haywire, her arm impacting the soil, kicking up a dirt cloud as the fist created a small indent.

Jackie lifted her dirt-covered face, and with her only active arm, slammed it into the ground in a deep shame, “Damn it--!”

PERSPECTIVE FLIP!

Jackie jerked her head to the right, to see a mass of dirt form, causing the Nulgarrt to screech in panic, backing away somehow faster than it was already moving. It was only because she could naturally hear further now, that she was able to discern what A-J told the others.

“—Good, you lot stay behind this and let her set up some pod for us to hide in—I’ll go get--!”

She was cut off by a whirring, ear-splitting sound.

The Nulgarrt was eating the dirt wall that everyone was behind.

Jackie didn’t even see the thing lunge again, she just looked and saw it hunched over, violently shaking its head as the wedge in its mouth vibrated on some other frequency.

“It just keeps getting fucking worse--!” A-J had the time to yell out.

Jackie got up just in time to witness it all happen so fast. Yet so detailed.

Soon as the beck broke through, it didn’t stop.

It grinded against A-J’s face, despite her trying to push the others away and was ready to bolt along side them.

Pieces were grounded into sparks, instantly. Skin was flayed around the impact zone, flapping in the night air as the motion carried through.

A-J pulled something that Jackie never seen before, in regards to siVis. When she went limp, it was as if that she shut her body down personally, flopping to the ground as the entire being flickered with siVis use—the only sign the girls had that the woman was still alive after that.

The beast tried to go for the others, but forgot it was stuck within the wall by the shoulders—but it wasn’t long until it figured out how to escape. But it was enough for the others to bolt towards Jackie, facing the Nulgarrt.

“HOLY SHIT, HOLY FUCKING SHIT--!” Maddie screamed.

“I’m completely useless in this fight—” Aiko sounded lost. “—Nothing to take over, nothing to help—"

The guide suddenly sprung to life, slide across the ground and put herself behind the beast and the girls, wavering visibly. Back pointedly faced by the others.

What was supposed to be a stand, turned onto her nearly tumbling on her side, only standing still with a flash of siVis directed at the lower core.

From the back of her head, A-J’s head snapped upwards.

“THERE’SSS MORE--!” she screamed out.

They looked up into the skies above.

And three, circling Nulgarrt was what they saw.

“JUSST RUN, JUSST FUCKING RUN, RUN STRAIGHT FOR THE ROOM ON THE OTHER SIDE--!”

Jackie looked away, seeing an erupted, dirt hill that doubled as a room.

“C’MON GIRLS--!” Jackie screamed.

They bolted, hearing the garbling from behind them.

Then they heard the searing, grating sound of them diving in, eating the ground around them.

The dust cloud covered them on all sides, blinding them.

SLIPSTREAM

The steam intertwined with the dust, causing it to part in places and unironically due to the girls being used to River’s smoke, they can arguably see better.

The Nulgarrt screeched in confusion, as it was constant and cutting off at points. They raced across the cloud of miasma.

PERSPECTIVE FLIP!

Once they got out, the wall of the building fling out, like an exaggerated door. Revealing a bit, that it was a storage room of some kind.

Without warning, A-J zipped past them, now in front of their pack. But it wasn’t just passing them by, as if she popped in front of them from nothing.

Her ability, Jackie nodded to herself and realized.

A-J was the first, then Jackie, then Tracy, Aiko, River and Maddie dead last. The wall promptly was slammed shut.

Panting, defeated and afraid, the girls fell onto the floor.

Before they could’ve talked about the trauma they went through, Tracy made a bloodcurdling scream that wasn’t out of place in a horror. Usually, her screams and shouts were gibberish, over the top to take in. But this was truly as if she stumbled upon a dead body, left to rot.

And knowing their luck, Jackie was convinced, deep down, that they were going to be alone, given what she saw.

A-J’s left side of the face was completely bore through. It was a cavity of the human face, layers exposed but no bone or muscle—just the shape of the vibrations that ate away at her face. The only solace was that her eyeball and the side of her jaw were still intact.

“Oh my god…” Aiko sounded so distant, shaking her head. “I’m… So sorry that we were…”

A finger was raised.

Without warning, A-J’s body flashed multiple times. Details of her pieces, the connections, the build.

She grunted, various pieces glowed and dragged across her body, making her skin pulse, and directed everything into the cavity.

The girls gawked, mouth agape. No idea what was happening.

Twitching, writhing, shaking—with every abnormal jerk, her face was being restored.

After uncomfortable 4 minutes, A-J slumped in her seat, panting and sweating.

“…HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT--?!” Aiko screamed. “CAN WE DO THAT--?!”

“Do… Not… Do this…” A-J tried to voice, as if she lacked the energy to do it. “Please…”

“Why not…?” Jackie asked in amazement. “It’s no different from any siVis thing…”

A-J shook her head.

“It’s not… It’s not healing. It isn’t. It’s thinning yourself… I was… Building up cells and shit, was saving it… And I’m still fucked up…”

“I…” Jackie swallowed her argument. “That’s fair.”

"Fine, we won't have cool awesome face healing powers!" Aiko pouted.

"Kobayashi-maru at her finest," Maddie kept wiping at her forehead, the sweating still oncoming. "Completely... Missed everything that woman's said."

"We witnessed nightmare fuel at it's finest and yet, yeah, let's add that to the other dehumanizing thing to our wheelhouse that we'll somehow mangle it..." River was away, crossing her arms. Clearly guilty still.

"It is," A-J looked up at River, somehow more exhausted. "The moment you shrug and go, 'yeah, i'll burn through a million of cells to fix something that would ruin an entire person's life--why am i so sad over that, the hell's wrong with you--'?"

There was something about her eyes. There were no visible bags, but... Once you look into them. There was weight to them.

A-J just felt up her face, sighing. “We got our asses handed to us…”

"Pretty much..." Maddie replied.

"That was so much worse than air-eater worms in the sky!" Tracy shouted, clutching at her head. "Those things eat everything! How can we compete with that?! Survive it?!"

Jackie just shook her head, sighing herself.

“And there’s a flock of them… Meaning they’ve made their ecosystem. This is their land now. And we’re the prey…”