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He looked back to ask Laura if she had heard it too, but she had stiffed abruptly,
her eyes widening to midnight pools in the dim orange light.
What? What is it? Vince restrained the urge to take her by the shoulders,
reminding himself that they were now back to square one touch-wise.
Oh, Vince .... the emotions. The pain ... the fear.... She shook her head, almost
unable to go on. I can feel them so clearly, even from here.
Pain? Fear? Vince felt his hands clench into fists. Only one thought circled his
brain. Kyra .... Laura, are they human? Human emotions?
Mutely, she nodded.
It was all Vince needed. Looking to make sure the way was still clear, he rushed
forward into the darkness, looking for his sister. His frustration was almost
unendurable when the only thing that met his eyes was more blank, bumpy walls.
Pressing his ear frantically to the cool surface, he thought he could hear the sound
more clearly. A sound like wailing or crying that tore at his heart. Was Kyra in
there, behind the gray/green wall being tortured or hurt somehow? If a single one
of those butterfly-looking bastards has hurt her....
Laura came up beside him, looking as though she wanted to lay a hand on his
shoulder or back to comfort him and not quite daring. Vince could see by the tight,
drawn look on her face that the emotions must be very 'loud' here. He nodded at
the wall he'd been listening to and she nodded, no words needed between them.
Leaning forward, she began to stroke the wall.
As the vertical slit widened, Vince tried to ready himself for what they might see.
His mind kept trying to show him pictures of Kyra hurt or in terrible pain but he
pushed them back as well as he could.
Oh! Laura's exclamation was low and awed. The slit was still only half wide
enough but Vince couldn't wait any longer. Ducking around her arm, he stuck his
head into the opening, his sister's name trembling on his lips.
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Vince, no! She's not.... Laura's warning faded into insignificance at the sight that
greeted his eyes. The room she had opened a door into was an immense space,
larger, he estimated, than several football fields put together. Strange, fungus-like
plants grew over the lumpy floor, thick, fleshy stems that ended in flower-like
protrusions.
The flowers had petals that were a foot thick in places and they glowed in
strangely liquid, unearthly colors that hurt his eyes to stare at too long. It reminded
him of some of the parties he'd been too as a kid, where the host had replaced all
the regular glow-bulbs with black light bulbs.
Vince, please, we need to get out of here.... Laura was beside him now but
Vince couldn't tear his eyes away. The liquid, pulsating colors swam before his
eyes , which he raised to the high, vaulted ceiling. There, he saw what appeared to
be the source of the strange light.
Clinging to the roof of the huge chamber, so high that it would have been lost to
view if it hadn't made its own light was the biggest Lepid Vince had ever seen.
God! Thing's gotta be seventy feet long! The monstrous wings extended, a
shimmering black cloth across the cavernous ceiling, speckled with the tiny,
glimmering specks that had to be fairy dust.
But it wasn't the wings that drew and held his eyes-- it was the creature's swollen,
pulsating belly. Even high above them as it was, he could see the vastness of it. If
the creature was seventy feet long, at least sixty of those feet were the bloated
abdomen attached to the insectile head and thorax, curled in on itself as though in
some sort of sleep.
Vince realized that this was the source of the strange, liquid light that flowed over
the entire room. The distended belly glowed a deep and brilliant blue, shedding it's
radiance over the immense room, bathing everything in its shimmering glow. And
inside that radiance, inside the softly glowing belly, Vince could see what looked
like millions of small, dark shapes roiling in a slow-motion boil, turning over
lazily inside their protective shelter. Eggs! he realized in a moment of utter clarity.
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My God--it's full of eggs! Leading away from the narrowed end of the bulging
sack were thick runnels, visible as faint black ridges in the fabric of the ceiling.
Some kind of a transport system? He shook his head.
Vince, we have to go! It wasn't Laura's low, worried hiss that got his attention
and forced him to tear his eyes away from the strangely lurid sight--it was the fact
that he could not only hear the worry in her voice, but feel it as well. For the first
time, Vince became aware that the air of this huge chamber was filled with the
golden dust that frosted the huge black wings like glittering stars. It dusted the
petals of the gigantic fleshy flowers and hung in the air as well, suspended like the
odor of fresh, bloody meat that pervaded the room And he, like a fool, had been
breathing it in for a good two or three minutes, while he stared at the bloated
Lepid hanging from the ceiling.
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