(WARNING, ATMOSPHERE IS UNFIT FOR CURRENT FORM.)
(INITIATING EVOLUTION TO PREVENT DEATH.)
Olivia gasped as she found herself suddenly able to breath again. It had only been a few minutes, but she could feel her lungs burning and her eyes watering. The stench of the air around her made her wonder what could live down here.
"We need to get out of here, now!" whispered Granny, grabbing her hand and yanking her to her feet.
"Why?" she asked, stumbling after her as they darted out of the dim light, and into the deep dark.
"See the graffiti on the walls?" asked Granny, pausing at the corner of what looked like the remains of a doorway, and glanced all around them.
As her eyes adjusted to the near complete dark, she was just able to make out the faded markings on the wall.
"That marks this area as a hunting ground for my mother's people."
"But I thought you wanted to find your mom?" asked Olivia confused, as she moved to follow Granny through the shadows. They were moving along the broken remains of a concrete pathway. Pipes and wires dangled from the ceiling, and ran along the ground, causing even more confusion to their footing.
"I do, but this is not the area we want to be found in. No one wants to get between a Gooblen and her food."
"What could possibly be down here, to eat?"
Granny turned to look at her, then shook her head. "You obviously don't remember. Gooblens can eat anything. The more deadly and dangerous, the more delicious they are."
"How is that even possible?" asked Olivia, frustrated. She knew it might be a challenge finding these people, but she never imagined it would be like this.
"I don't know, how do you change your genetic structure to look and do what you do?" asked Granny, sarcastically.
Olivia was quiet. She had started to notice odd things about their surroundings. It almost looked like there were bite marks everywhere. She had originally thought the cracks and missing chunks were from the age of the infrastructure, but as she looked at it again, she could suddenly see where there were millions of little bites taken out of everything. If there were ever an earthquake on this world, the entire underground would collapse.
Swallowing in sudden fear, she glanced up, imagining the weight of everything above her, crashing down. She wasn't sure she could survive that.
They passed through an area, where someone had used an old tin sign to prop up debris that was trying to fall down through the ceiling, where too many bites had been taken from a particular support pillar. It looked like someone had come back later, and shoved mud into the bite marks.
"What's that?" she asked, not really wanting to think about what she thought it was.
"Come on, we're almost out of this area, and then we can try and make contact. I just hope we haven't been spotted yet."
"Spotted?" came a high-pitched voice, as a small green Gooblen stepped out from behind a pile of rubble. Her eyes were shining in anticipation as she eyed the two of them, and Olivia had a feeling rocks and metal weren't the only things they ate down here.
The Gooblens nose quivered, as she sniffed at them, and she smiled, stepping closer. Her dark black hair had streaks of green running through it, as it flapped against her back. She had it in multiple braids, as if to keep it out of her face.
"You are too young to be out on your own! Did you sneak away from your watcher?" asked Granny, with an authority to her voice that Olivia remembered her taking with Kit.
The Gooblen girl stiffened, and frowned in annoyance.
"I'm telling on you!" she growled before slipping away.
Granny didn't hesitate to turn and run herself. Olivia was right behind her. She had known there was a chance the Gooblens might be a little wild, but she hadn't considered them being cannibals. She wasn't even sure that changing into crystal plates would save her from them.
They twisted and dodged through the underground maze at a breakneck pace. There were several times that Olivia thought she heard someone chasing them, but she didn't slow down to find out.
Granny didn't stop until they came to a large room that had pipes open all along the walls, with a ceiling reaching sixty feet or more into the air. Every pipe had some amount of water or sludge draining out of it, into a massive hole in the ground, twenty feet below them.
Olivia paused only long enough to watch Granny start climbing up the pipes with the least amount of flow, until she reached a second landing near the ceiling. When Olivia pulled herself to the landing, she turned to see dozens of Gooblen faces peering up at them from down below. A few had even ventured up the wall after them, but had stopped before they climbed higher than the opening to the lower landing.
"I seek Old Mother!" cried Granny down to them, as the nanobots flowed away from her face.
Chittering broke out among them, as they realized she was a Gooblen, too.
An older male Gooblen, covered in scars and raised tribal markings, stepped forward. "I take you to Old Motha, for a price," he said with an impish grin.
"Name your price, or I'll kill you!" she sneered at him.
His look changed to a thoughtful one, then nodded. "A chunk of meat, the size of her arm," he said, pointing to Olivia.
Knowing what was coming, Olivia snarled at him, but held her arm out. Granny didn't hesitate to chop it off at the shoulder, catching it before it could fall, then tossed it at him. Clutching at her stump, she bit her lips, as her healing kicked in, and it stopped spouting blood. Black dots swam in her eyes and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. The pain had been so quick she could almost ignore it, but the knowledge of what had just happened clawed at her.
"I hate you," she managed to growl, as Granny ignored her, watching the male grab the arm out of the air and take a bite out of it.
The chittering from the crowd grew louder, as he nodded, and waved at them to follow him. Like a swarm, the other Gooblens disappeared down the tunnel, the way they had come.
"It will regrow if you evolve," said Granny softly, reaching for the first pipe to climb down.
"Doesn't change the way I feel," said Olivia, as she evolved into the same form she was in, only with an arm. She knew that if Granny had refused, or hesitated, they would have swarmed up at them, and eaten them both. The killing intent was still thick in the room.
As she climbed down carefully, after Granny, she could see the faint glisten of sweat on Granny's head. Granny had actually been sweating in pure terror. It was a good thing she hadn't refused to give up her arm. She just hoped they didn't demand it again, when they saw it had regrown. She wasn't sure she had it in her to do that again.