One thing is for sure though, they seem to hate the thing as much as we do.

It is drying out even as I stare at it, shriveling under the morning sun like a raisin.

Mina is awake now, her eyes barely open and I notice the alien with the charcoal eyes watching her.

He’d approached her earlier with those spikes of his rising and his fangs bared.

I’m sure he and Fer’ro had been talking about her.

Maybe they know what’s inside her.

Maybe they were going to hurt her.

I’m not sure, but the dark-eyed one had stopped when Fer’ro spoke to him and I’m getting the sense Fer’ro has some sort of rank over the others.

I watch them now, trying to figure out where me and the rest of humanity stand, when Mina leans against me.

She is so weak, she cannot rise.

She needs to eat if she has any chance of surviving this for much longer.

We all need to eat.

I look toward the lake and wonder if there are any fish in it.

Maybe, if I could catch some…

But the aliens around us still have the hairs at the back of my neck standing on end.

They don’t scare me as much as before. They seem intelligent and it doesn’t appear that they mean us any harm.

I am still hesitant to trust them though.

They are not from this world after all and I still don’t know why they are here or what they want from us.

None other except Lava Eyes, Fer’ro, has spoken to us and my gaze searches the shore for him. I catch him as he rises from the water and his eyes find me immediately.

It is somewhat disturbing, the way his gaze seeks me out and I find myself glancing away quickly.

He doesn’t stare at Mina and Sam like that, and I wonder why.

When I look up again, he’s setting down a piece of shiny metal into a pile, his gaze still on me.

They seem to be dismantling the machine piece by piece and it hits me that…their ship, the black bird, is nowhere to be seen.

I wonder if it sank during the attack too.

I stare back at him as he rises and, either I’m getting used to the stares or I’m getting used to the fact that he and the others have mostly left us alone.

Apart from that strange circle they’d formed around us while we slept, they haven’t come close again.

They watch us though.

Always watching and I know there isn’t a chance of us escaping without being noticed and caught immediately.

I’m still looking at Fer’ro when he takes a step toward us.

My heart skips a beat and I hold my breath.

Is he going to speak to me again?

I have a lot of questions I want to ask.

But as he nears, my stomach takes that moment to growl and he pauses suddenly, his ears twitching underneath his suit.

“We’d be getting that nasty food sac around now, wouldn’t we?” Sam whispers.

She was right. As much as I don’t want to think about the time we spent in that machine, now would be when we’d be eating. The orb…no, the thing controlling the orb fed us on rotation. Once every day and at the same hour.

My stomach growls again and I press my palm against it.

I will have to try and find us food.

It’s clear these aliens aren’t going to let us go, not that we could get far anyway, in our condition.

That means there isn’t much of a chance to forage—not that this is the ideal location for foraging either.

I know nothing about living in the wild.

Sam moves toward us and presses the back of her hand against Mina’s forehead.

She takes her temperature like this at different intervals, making sure it’s stable and hasn’t risen.

While she is taking care of Mina, that means I need to find us food.

I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it.

I have my broken wrist curled toward my body and every fiber within me aches.

I’ll have to hunt one-handed and limping.

There’s a click close by and I realize it’s the burgundy-eyed alien. I didn’t notice his approach and that makes me stiffen a little.

They’re big, huge, but move so fluidly and silently.

A few more sharp clicks come from his mouth and several of his kind look our way.

Fer’ro steps toward us.

I don’t know where he gets it from, but something appears in his hand.

A pouch.

He stretches it toward me, his gaze studying my face as if he’s watching for my reaction—no, as if he’s afraid I will scream and run if he comes closer.

Watching me, he moves closer and his suit retracts.

Sam gasps.

It’s the first time she’s seeing one of them without the dark suit covering the entirety of their body.

He doesn’t take his eyes off me but his gaze is earnest, if I could call it that.

Clicking at me, he stops mid-click then speaks so I can understand.

“Sustenance,” he says.

My gaze falls back to the pouch in his hand.

The pouch wriggles and my stomach immediately turns.

Pulling it back toward himself, he raises the pouch toward his mouth and nips the side with his sharp teeth.

Whatever is inside begins wriggling even more.

I watch him as his mouth opens and, for the first time, I see his tongue.

I don’t know whether it is me that gasps or Sam.

“Fuck…me…” Sam mutters.

Indeed.

Fer’ro’s tongue sweeps across his lips before he dips it into the pouch.

It is so long and thick, I can only stare at it with wide eyes.

I’m transfixed as his tongue retreats from the pouch’s entrance with long strings of dark spaghetti in its grasp.

For the tip of it has curled around them, holding them as he pulls them into his mouth.

“Did you just see that?” Sam grips my shoulder, her eyes also wide. “Tell me that’s not his tongue.”

I gulp as I stare. I don’t fucking know what the hell that thing was but it has got to be his tongue.

What else?

Fer’ro closes his mouth, his gaze on me as he chews.

There. Are. Popping. Sounds.

Like something fluid-filled being crushed by those sharp teeth of his.

Spaghetti doesn’t pop and as he chews, a dark line of fluid appears just at the edge of his lips.

Stomach acid comes up into my throat and I force it back down.

Once more, he stretches the pouch toward me again.

“Looks like spaghetti,” Sam whispers.

She obviously hadn’t seen the pouch wriggle.

“That,” my stomach lurches again, “that isn’t spaghetti.”

As if to prove that it’s edible, Burgundy-Eyes makes a click and reaches for the pouch. He dips a sharp claw inside and takes out the black “spaghetti.”

It wriggles between his fingers and I definitely puke into my mouth as he throws his head back and drops the thing in his mouth.

“Oh…God,” Sam groans. “That’s disgusting.”

Both aliens’ ears twitch at her words and I stiffen, bracing myself if they retaliate at her offensive words.

But all Fer’ro and Burgundy Eyes do is glance at each other, their ears twitching as they look at the pouch.

He gestures to me again but I swallow hard, pulling on the little bravery that I have left, and I shake my head.

“We can’t eat that,” I say.

Well…we technically could but no matter how hungry, I don’t think I can eat alien worms.

Fer’ro looks at the pouch.

“I can find us food if you allow me to.”

My suggestion makes the large alien stiffen. I can almost see his muscles harden in his shoulders.

He knows it’s a test.

Are we prisoners here? Or are we free to go?

“I won’t run again.” I do not know why I say that. Desperation maybe.

I couldn’t run even if I wanted to. I’m too weak and the bruises I’ve suffered are very much still there.

Fer’ro studies me for a moment. “Where will you hunt?”

Hunt?

Surely, I don’t look like I’m any good at doing such a thing. Do I?

But maybe this is the first time they’re encountering our kind. Maybe we’re just as strange to them as they are to us.