I avidly watched through Rain's eyes as we floated above the enemy encampment, their secrets revealed before us. The metal structure they were using seemed to be a sort of space shuttle, likely what they used to come down to Earth.
It was about 6 stories high, and as wide as a mansion, and for now seemed to have been repurposed as a base command, with a wide door open down, acting as a slope into the ship.
At this distance we could now see, that the colour was not blue alone. A flash of pinky-purple would rush down from the top of the ship towards the bottom before being pulled inside, towards the centre of the craft.
Stretching out from the ship's opening, tethers of dark green energy swirled and shifted, before attaching themselves to what really drew our attention. Aliens. But unlike the one we found in that emergency room, damn his soul, these ones had none of the likening of an intelligent being. Walking on all four of their three digit, clawed limbs, they appeared like a strange mix of a sickly lizard and a green rabid hound.
Spittle dripped from their snarling, teeth filled, maws, set into a long snout. They, like the other aliens, had a singular pupiless dark eye in their forehead. Their bodies were lithe, but power stretched through their limbs and backs, with shoulder blades visibly shifting under their skin.
It had those same knee joints that the armoured alien had, but the hardened skin wasn't on its upper limbs. Their tail swung out behind them, without the armour on the muscles evident underneath made us fear it could smash us into paste with a single hefty swing. The three packs of creatures stopped still in their tracks. Before turning their eyes towards the ship entrance.
Emerging from the space-craft was an alien like the dead one before. Cloud-shaped hooves, blue armour, and metal chip in its temple, though this one did not blink purple. Instead its eye, no longer a black void, was a miasma of purple and pink energy, dancing within its socket.
The alien walked towards one of the packs, and one of the hound-like aliens, the biggest of the group, trodded forward. The standing alien then spoke, its tones were strange and grating, a mixture of high pitched whines and clicks, with the occasional bit of what sounded like laughter.
It pulled out a device the size of a TV remote, but was pure white and bent in at a right angle before continuing on at one end. It clicked something and a blue hologram of a man shot out. It was Liam!
The alien smiled, showing a sickly grin of pointed teeth and put the hologram away. It outstretched its hand and opened its palm, revealing a glowing purple chip. The Alien then bent down towards the hound-alien and placed the chip near the creature temple, snapping it in place like a magnet.
It was horrific, that molding of flesh. The hound aliens bones and skin bubbled and morphed, it grew taller, but shorter. Its forelegs grew hardened skin and became arms, one of its claws bending inwards to form an opposable thumb. Its backlegs bubbled, turning from agile feet into steady hooves. Its face shortened and became circular, gaining the alien's few humanoid features. It had transformed from one alien form into another.
Its eyelid opened, the abyssal canvas of black was dyed, and I felt it in my soul as consciousness was born, the purple light bursting out of the eye in exaltation, a declaration of existence before settling down in its new home.
That one burst was enough. Feeling the consciousness be born resonate with our souls was not one way.
The alien's head snapped to our location watching in the sky and started to screech in their high pitched language. The alien next to it looked shocked, eyes wide open, before pulling out the hologram device again. A wave shot out of the thing and conversed around us, we were definitely spotted.
My vision shifted as Rain dived and turned back towards our hiding place, and I watch dout of the corner of my eye, as the new alien went back towards the ship, whilst the armoured one got on the back of another hound-alien and brought one of the packs charging in our direction.
In the blink of an eye, my eyes and soul returned to their home in my body. I didn't have enough time to reconcile with the feeling before I was already clambering past a heap of metal, and legging it through the fields of ruin.
Piercing through my ears the aliens whining howls like a pack of robotic wolves started to become closer and closer. I hoped navigating the scrap heaps would form a bigger hindrance to the group than me and Rain, but the wrecks weren't complex enough to make up the distance. They would close in eventually. We'd be caught.
At this realisation I turned my head up to where Rain was flying as hard as he could to tell him to take off without me and try to find some other survivors, when I spotted something.
Ringing in the celestial bodies the incomprehensible mess of power and meaning spoke to my soul. Cutting through, its meaning clear, my eyes rests upon a single guiding star.
A homely haven
Buried in ash but alive
Here you'll learn your mind
It spoke, revealing to me in the purest form of concept, where I needed to go. I followed the star, abruptly turning off to the left. I knew where we needed to go, I just hoped the lead was enough.
We ran, and flew, quick as we could, getting closer and closer, and we arrived. At what seemed to be just another heap of steel. Worry crept into my heart. Had the feeling lied to me, I was going crazy. I glanced behind, the ominous whine was getting louder and louder. I knew its crescendo would be my death.
Frantic I scurried around the heap, trying to find the rumoured safety shown to my soul. I'd almost given up and started running again, when I spotted it. A narrow gap in the steel beams, that seemed to have happened by chance, resulted in a small almost unmissable burrow that led deeper within the steel pile.
With barely a thought I dove through the hole, Rain following after, our hopes of living through another dark-less night lying in the burrow's hands.