Chapter 3

It was the larva's hand.

Struggling, he hooked it around Carlos's ankle.

Even much later, Carlos could not understand why he had stopped and turned around at that moment that day, looking down to take another look at the young man.

"Ugh..."

He heard a cry that sounded like a sob.

The young man, bloodied and barely breathing, had not regained consciousness as Carlos had thought. His earlier movement could even be said to have been unconscious. Yet when Carlos looked down at him, a tear mixed with blood ran from his tightly shut eyes. It gave the young man an indescribably...

Pitiful look.

The antennae among Carlos's hair began to sway once more.

Author's note:

Meanwhile, Su Lin in his dream: Boo-hoo-hoo, Airena... I want to marry you...

Chapter 3

Su Lin had a dream.

At the very beginning, everything was wonderful. He dreamed that he boarded a spaceship bound for Cygnus, where he met Airena, a simple, delicate girl just as he had imagined. Then he married her... and the dream began to turn bizarre.

His abdomen began to ache and swell, finally rising into a great bulge. When he went to the hospital to find out what was happening, a doctor with a blurry face spoke to him in an utterly matter-of-fact tone.

"Congratulations, you're going to have children soon."

In the dream, Su Lin instinctively sensed that something was wrong, but dreams had rules of their own, and he had no way to resist. Then the nightmare slowly unfolded, and Su Lin dreamed of giving birth.

He laid many eggs.

The soft, milky-white, round objects cracked open before his eyes, transformed, and finally became one enormous, hideous, nauseating Zerg after another. The Zerg fluttered their wings, their compound eyes shimmering with colorful glints like pieces of mica. They turned to stare at Su Lin, and even though they made no sound, he could still clearly feel their desire and madness.

["Help me-help me!"]

He remembered screaming in the dream, instinctively reaching out to his wife, Airena. But she turned to him at that moment-her face, too, was blurry, like a melting candle-but her eyes were maddening compound eyes, just like those of the Zerg.

"Be good. The children need you."

Su Lin heard Airena's voice, soft, gentle, as though it were only natural.

At the same time, his "children," those strange creatures with peculiar patterns, pinned their toes to the floor with a rustle and swarmed rapidly toward him.

Su Lin jolted awake with a scream.

"Mm... cough, cough, cough..."

Then he choked on some sort of special mucus that enveloped him. Su Lin was still groggy, and his body was incredibly weak. The terrifying sensation of drowning sent him into a frantic struggle.

A few seconds later, a mechanical arm pulled him free from a soft, fleshy membrane sac.

Su Lin coughed several times before struggling to raise his head.

When he finally managed to lift his head and look around, trying to figure out what was going on, he almost thought he was still in that terrible dream.

He found himself in a white, spherical chamber. The light was bright, but to Su Lin it felt like some kind of cave buried deep underground. Countless egg-shaped, fleshy tumor-like spheres surrounded him. Almost all of them were sealed, and through their translucent membranes, he could faintly make out oddly shaped shadows inside.

In fact, there was a sphere behind Su Lin himself. The difference was that its surface had already split open.

Some wet mucus flowed out and was quickly absorbed by the loose, spongy tissue beneath the sphere's base. Naturally, it was not just the utterly unfamiliar surroundings that left Su Lin unable to move, but also the Zerg moving among the spheres.

They were all living Zerg.

Even the smallest of them looked to be two meters tall. Many had armor covered in mucus and scraps of flesh. Their four thick hind legs could easily dig into the floor, a trait that also allowed them to move with great speed across the ceiling and walls. Their upright upper bodies connected to their forelimbs, and even though those limbs were folded, Su Lin could still see clearly that their edges were almost as sharp as saw blades.

After so many years of school, it was not as though Su Lin had never seen Zerg before. The ones before him now looked much the same as those in his textbooks.

...But they were tens of thousands of times more terrifying than the ones in the textbooks.

Su Lin's back still burned with pain, and an indescribable ache pervaded the depths of his body, but the pain was not unpleasant. After all, being able to feel pain meant he was still alive.

Yet Su Lin had no time to feel glad about escaping death. Looking at the Zerg around him, he nearly fainted from fright again.

Before he could pass out, however, several smaller Zerg noticed him.

"Hiss-"

Several faint, piercing low cries sounded in the air.

His whole body stiff, Su Lin watched as the Zerg hauled him up and dragged him straight out of the spherical chamber.

Once outside, Su Lin's body began to tremble harder and harder.

Beyond the chamber was another enormous space, the size of a football field. The iron-gray metal gave it an oppressive air. Countless enormous Zerg soldiers were resting and recuperating there. Their movements were light, swift, and solemn. Though there were so many of them, they moved in silence, making only a rustling sound as their toes brushed against the metal.