The Station, Part 67

As my eyes adjust to the light that surrounds me, the effect is that of an ambient darkening. Details of what surrounds me fades into this self-induced twilight state. I an now peer up into the hole above me little effort. And what a clear day it appears to be. My keen eyes do not spy what would be considered a sky. From my vantage point I see no clouds and hints movement above. I do see however, more of these amorphous protrusions climbing up what must be the largest dark wall that I have yet to be in the Whale. I cannot tell you just how insignificant I feel right now. A murmuring sound is suddenly all around me. Now it is a desperate bleating! It’s the sleeping insect-beasts. They’re waking up! I should leave now. But no! I just stepped out the beam and saw that they’re all moving around now. My exit is blocked with their rapidly crowding bodies. I step back into the beam, hoping that its light will disguise my presence. But what woke them? Why they face the exit. Move of them crawl past me. They are clumsy, barely able to control their atrophied limbs. What should I do? I can’t possibly remain here without detection for long. And what then? To where will I retreat? But to what little relief it gives, my theory about the light was apparently correct. So far all the inhabitants have either not detected or simply ignore me. For them it is my hope that I am not here at all. I can only stand here, frozen in fear, and wait for whatever comes next. All the beasts now face the way I came in like a crowd waiting for something to arrive. There is no escape for me.

And then I see it before I hear. Something vast and impossibly fast. There are legion in number. In the time it takes me to blink, the opening to the chamber above my head is darkened several times over by the passing of bodies that are far too fast for me to properly see. The noise of a hurricane above easily drowns out the bleats of the newly arrived things above. Through breaks in the swarm I see more of them alighting upon the chambers above and disappearing into the entrances. And now it dawn of me—the beasts that wait anxiously at the entrances are but infants. And the parents have come home. My legs are weak. I can’t help the shuddering I make even in the heat of this place. It’s no better than a tomb.

The crowd seems to swell as something pushes through it, covered by the excruciating cries of the young. As they slowly slip off the form, the body that is revealed stops me cold. The adult creature is simultaneously magnificent and terrifying. Where it young are horrible enough, this specimen is truly a predator among predators. It must be over ten meters in length, winged and possesses a sleek body of well-defined musculature.. The fully-developed limbs show me just how powerful these young ones will one day become. My eyes go from their powerful bodies to their faces. I am horrified, and yet I cannot look away. They have large, bulbous eyes that reflect the light of the beam, giving them pupils that really aren’t there. Just black soulless wells like that of sharks. I could confirm this if it were not for my partial blindness from within the light beam. I do not really care; I am apparently still invisible to them.