Yora, Roisin and Lancieta were in the communications room, the first two sitting at a coffee table while Lancieta was pacing. Yora was tinkering with a translator upgrade and Roisin had collected a stack of books in the room over the past few months. Lancieta sat down and looked at the other two in contemplative silence for a moment.
"He's been gone for at least a month. I hope he hasn't gotten himself hurt... or stuck. He still tries to act like he has opposable thumbs."
Roisin answered without looking up from her book. "He'll be fine Lancieta. What we need to be worrying about is finalizing our contact protocol since more and more Humans are waking up."
"We still haven't done that in 3 and a half Earth years?" Lancieta asked, more rhetorically than actually wanting an answer.
"Well, you and Jinrai have come up with a few plans but you've never said you were ok with them one way or the other Captain." Yora said looking up from his project for the first time in hours. Lancieta was trying to rationalize her predilection for not finalizing a protocol.
"It's not going to be as easy to explain what happened to other humans as it was to Panzer, especially if they lost their memories as Panzer has... I wonder if he's remembered anything else."
"Captain, to be fair, he did almost attack us and then he tried to starve himself to death."
"Exactly, not everyone is going to be as easy to deal with."
"I don't follow ma'am." Yora put down his tools. He was having trouble wrapping his head around what she meant. Lancieta responded immediately as if she'd practiced the answer to that specific question.
"What if they try to form a militia against us? What if they don't want our help? Worst case scenario: they set up posts around the sections and wait us out. Slowly killing us off as we try to scrounge materials. We can't live in these Sections forever no matter how many miles long they are. Our power sources are running out and they're falling apart."
"Ah... I hadn't thought of that." Yora conceded reluctantly while knowing that Lancieta was still worried about making concrete decisions that affected others.
"That's why you're a junior engineer and I'm Captain, Yora."
"Clearly..."
At that moment an emergency communication came through and a frantic Layrok "The assassin" as Vould would refer to her, appeared on the main screen.
"Captain, transmission from intelligence officer Layrok."Lancieta nodded to Rould and gave him a wink. He nodded his head and disappeared from the screen as Layrok appeared. She was frantic.
"Captain! Ma'am! Someone's awake and they've been outside for an hour! We don't know what to do! The twins are freaking out and..."
Kor and Jora were standing behind Layrok, glaring at her for over-reacting.
"We're not freaking out!"
"Yeah! She is! We just asked her why not talk to the Kangaroo?"
"Why not! I told them why not captain! Kangaroos, as Roisin told me, have the ability to kick with immense force! What if the human gets angry with us like you said Panzer did! The human could destroy one of our bodies! We don't have the facilities to repair our bodies properly! We've run through most, if not all, the spare parts we could find just trying to recover from the crash landing! I don't know how to communicate properly with other lifeforms! Why do you think I maintained the intelligence archive! I'm a great fighter, sure, but that's useless when trying to communicate to someone that the reason why their entire world changed is because your ship was sabotaged by some asshole war monger!"
"Switch to the outside camera Rould. I wish to communicate with the human outside Section 10. Twins, go outside."
"You're already communicating with them captain."
"Thank you Rould. Hello, I trust you heard what my intelligence officer said in her fright?"
"What? You broadcasted that! Rould! How could you! Now they know my weakness!"
"Quiet Layrok!" Lancieta reprimanded.
The Kangaroo nodded cautiously as the twins appeared on-screen outside Section 10.
"The two coming out to greet you, their names are Kor and Jora. If you allow them, they will give you a translator. It will pick up your brain waves and with a little effort you'll be able to audibly speak." She paused for a moment before continuing. "As you've probably noticed while standing outside Section 10, along with what you heard from Layrok, we crashed on your planet and you've been pulled into a war you had no connection to. If you'll allow them, Kor, Jora, and Layrok will provide you with anything you need and an explanation for how our current situation came to be."
The Kangaroo recoiled from the advancing Androids for a moment with a look of uncertainty in their eyes. The twins stopped walking and the air became tense for what felt like too long. The Kangaroo relaxed their stance and motioned to the twins, allowing them to affix the translator. After setting up and explaining the basics of the translator the Kangaroo nodded his head and addressed the blurry hologram of Lancieta standing in front of Section 10 and the others on the screen.
"My name is Mosi, I accept your aid. I am also glad I can at least think in my native tongue. It makes things easier, my English is not good."
Captain Steegle relaxed her pose and put a hand over her heart in greeting, the twins did the same and Layrok did so as well... while standing in the threshold of her hangar.
"The remnants of my crew and I have pledged to aid you and any others who wake up from their feral minds. We have spent the last three years in preparation for the day you all finally awoke. You have my deepest condolences. If you'll excuse me I must get back to work here on the American Continent."
The Kangaroo nodded his head and Lancieta bowed one more time before the screen went black.
"T.V.R. I want you to tell the others about Layrok and the twins."
"Very well Captain. I think you should know that over the last week Jinrai, and Praiyem have made contact with at least 20 humans."
"20! Why didn't one of you tell me sooner?!"
"My apologies Captain. However, you seemed preoccupied with the well-being of Panzer. We have been relaying information between the two of them. If you'd like to speak with them about the encounters now I..."
"Yes bring them up. Thank you, you three, for helping them."
"Of course Captain."
Vould appeared on screen giving Lancieta the side-eye.
"Whatever, it was all the other two. I've been helping you with calculations and scans this entire time. Not like you noticed."
"I noticed Vould and I appreciate it."
"Yeah whatever, don't patronize me, please."
Lancieta glared playfully at Vould as Jinrai appeared on screen.
"Oh, hello granny! To what do I owe the pleasure of a hail from my Captain?"
"Where's Praiyem?"
"She's out on another venture with some of the humans that have awoken there in Section 5, known to the Humans as Guangzhou China. There have been more occurrences of Humans waking up, on schedule, as we predicted. Praiyem and I have been taking the more difficult scenarios head-on while you dealt with... well, with your guilt."
"What do you mean my guilt?" Jinrai's directness made her uneasy, he was the only person who could disarm her with a few words or a look.
"You still hold yourself responsible for what happened to our crew and the Humans. That, coupled with how you've become attached to the human Panzer, Praiyem and I saw it best to take some of the load off of your shoulders."
"Jinrai I... You're the master engineer. You shouldn't be taking that role."
Jinrai offered a slight smile in return as if he were talking to a grand child.
"Lancieta you forget that after this mission I was primed for becoming foreign minister and head of my own department for welcoming new planets to the Inter-Galactic Community. You could say that I got my promotion earlier than anticipated."
Lancieta was uneasy from the truth, which Jinrai was known to speak so effortlessly.
"I'm not caught up in my guilt."
"Here you are; the oldest Android, the first Android, yet you still act like the youngest of species. Dare I say, you even have a soul."
Lancieta was speechless at the notion. Jinrai's bluntness hit like a ten tonne truck. She did feel guilty but she didn't want the others to coddle her because of it. It was her oversight that caused an advanced warship to crash into a developing world. It was the payload she was put in charge of that destroyed this world and its people. Intended deaths in war were different. She was prepared to end the lives of those who stood in her way on the battle field, but more than 5 billion lives were snuffed out on Earth and they had nothing to do with the conflict.
Lancieta's vision blurred and images of the destruction she wrought on Earth flashed through her mind. In the beginning she forced herself to bury as many bodies as she could. Sometimes there wasn't much to bury besides mounds of meat and bone. All of a sudden her stomach was pushing her food back up and she rushed to the nearest bathroom in which she exhumed her previous meal. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions.
"I don't deserve happiness. I have the weight of 7 billion lives to bare."
After a few minutes of fighting back tears she went to the sink and washed her face. Lancieta turned around and noticed the body length personal reflector; basically a space mirror. She looked into it, glaring into her own eyes. Searching for whatever it was Panzer said he saw.
"Murderer's like me don't have souls... I'm no better than an AUTOMATON!"
She punched the personal reflector and cratered the wall. Shards of glass collected on the floor in front of her and sparks shot out from the freshly severed connections.
"Is everything... alright Captain?"
"I'm fine Tould. The reflector was malfunctioning."
"Would you like me to send you a list of replacement parts that are safe to recover from the lower levels?"
"No I... actually, I'd love a drive right now, yes. Send me a list of the relevant parts from the nearby Section 3 wreckage."
"Right away Captain. I'll upload them to the Tezzy."
Lancieta walked briskly to the medical bay. She pulled the shards of glass from her hand, applied healing promoter, wrapped it up and immediately walked down to the garage. Rould was watching Lancieta like a child would their angry parent, unsure of why the anger was happening and wondering if it was their fault. When Lancieta raced out of the garage he created a hologram of his head in the comms room and found that Jinrai had left the channel open.
"Master Engineer Jinrai, I find it necessary to inform you that the Captain has left to gather some materials from the wreckage of Section 3."
"Hmm... I thought she had been away too long. Thoughts are like butterflies in strong wind. If you want to catch them, you have to let the wind die down."
"Yes sir." Rould wasn't sure of what exactly Jinrai meant but he was told the man was deep.
"No one has really had to order you or your brothers to do anything for a while have they Rould?"
"Thinking back, I'd say we've made quite a few suggestions and performed our own actions quite regularly, yes."
"When we establish contact with Andromeda I'm going to recommend that the three of you be given bodies."
Tould and Vould appeared next to Rould, as if they were eavesdropping in a nearby doorway.
"You're gonna what?"
"You don't really mean that do you?!"
"I don't think I've ever felt this feeling before..."
Jinrai Chuckled at their reactions.
"Yep, definitely going to recommend you three for the test."
*****
Lancieta had driven for a few hours and finally arrived at a piece of Section 3. It was in Arizona and when she passed the tell-tale sign "Pre cott Nat n l rest" she turned off the road for the rest of the ride, barely noticing the sun was fairly low in the sky. It would be well into night-time/early-morning before she got back to Section 6. Protocol dictated that anyone caught outside after nightfall seek shelter. It seemed that, as Yora found out about those in the ocean, there were equally dangerous new creatures on land as well and many of them were nocturnal. The weapons Jinrai was working on with the others were not finished yet and Lancieta preemptively refused to carry one. After about one more hour she pulled up to the sideways airlock door of Section 3 and threw the Tezzy into park.
"Guess I'm sleeping here tonight."
She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder and climbed up to the airlock door. Bracing her feet on one end she wedged her fingers into the gap. She hadn't opted for a body as strong as Jinrai or Hinrey's but she was definitely capable of prying this open. She strained against the barely rusted door and it groaned in reply. She took a breath and wrenched at the doors with all the strength she could muster and the doors separated. The doors suddenly gave way and she fell down the 7 feet she had climbed. She laid there for a few seconds, looking at the canyon behind her, catching her breath as the echo of the rusty doors dissipated. She sat up and took stock of the items in her bag, making sure nothing fell out and climbed back up to the door.
After sitting on the door jamb for longer than she'd care to admit she pulled a fairy out of her bag and activated it. It emitted a soft glow and flew to the other end of the corridor.
"Small life forms detected. Threat level: non-existent."
Lancieta grabbed the door above her and tugged at it trying to pull it closed to prevent anything from climbing in. After a few more seconds of tugging at it, the door slid relatively shut and nothing but a thin shaft of light from outside and the fairy, were her light sources. She dropped down from the doors and tapped at a console to her left. She knew it didn't work but trying wouldn't hurt anyone. She turned around and looked down the dimly lit hallway that was cut diagonally by the shaft of light.
This piece of Section 3 wasn't that large when compared to the rest of the ship, it was about as large as an apartment building. Lancieta wasn't sure which part of Section 3 it was though. The fairy turned the corner with Lancieta and increased its brightness as the room they entered was rather large. Lancieta thought she saw something scurry into a hole in the wall.
"Examine." She said while pointing to the hole and the fairy did as much.
"Area clear." Was all it said as it rose to the center of the highest point in the room. It's soft light bathing every millimetre but she didn't really pay attention. She opened up her bag and pulled out a sleeping bar. It measured no bigger than 5" by 2" by a quarter but when it was opened, a very thick and soft 7 foot sleeping bag unfurled. She liked the extra space for her feet. Towards the bottom and top of the sleeping bag was one half of the bar it had been folded away into. In the morning all Lancieta would have to do was press one of them and the bed would fold back up tightly. She crawled into the bag and shut down the fairy, hoping she wouldn't have nightmares tonight.
*****
There was a woman knelt down in front of a carriage. She was humming a song while fixing her child's blankets. People started walking passed the two of them, slowly at first. They pick up speed, moving faster and faster until they were running full tilt passed the mother and her child; falling over each other as they did so. Voices from the past are softly heard as the mother continues to hum.
"Since you are demanding to go, I want you to succeed."
"Yes father."
"You were my first artificial intelligence. You are the reason I was given immortal status. I need you to succeed, do you understand?"
The mother caresses her child's face while making a silly face, to her baby's delight.
"Yes father, I understand. I've carried out many successful missions in the past I know what's at stake here."
"You know you don't have to go. You could stay, become a teacher, or an explorer! You've devoted enough time to the military. Come with me on my vacation, let Praiyem lead the mission."
Section 3 explodes overhead, drowning out the voices of the screaming people but curiously, not the mother's humming. She seemed oblivious to the chaos around her.
"Lancieta. My prime creation, are you sure you want to head this mission?"
"It would make me proud father. This may finally be the blow we need to deal to the Halgred in order to bring this war to an end."
The mother lifts her child out of the carriage and hugs it only as a mother could, a soft, gentle smile appearing on her face. The screams quickly crescendo to deafening levels as a large chunk of Section 3 lands on them, crushing the mother and child beneath it.
"NO!"
Lancieta wakes up screaming the word, her body drenched in sweat, her pulse and breathing, erratic. Her eyes darting around the room as she tries to remember where she is.
"Fairy! I...illu... illuminate!"
She stutters out the command and the fairy rises from next to her and lights up the entire room. She hadn't paid much attention to it before but now she noticed she was sleeping in the garbage wing of Section 3.
At that moment, movement caught her attention. She saw 3 pairs of eyes looking at her with fright and sympathy behind them.
"I... I'm sorry. It was just a nightmare... Are you... a... awake?"
The creatures crawl out of the hole and sit curiously in the room staring at Lancieta's strange metallic arms. One walks forward and paws at Lancieta's cheek. She hadn't noticed it but tears were streaming down her face.
"So you're human then?"
Only two of the creatures nod, the brave one sitting down directly in front of Lancieta with a look of concern in its eyes.
"I'm sorry. This... this is all my fault."
For probably the first time since she landed Lancieta finally let everything go. She cried and sobbed, falling over into a fetal position, crying until she fell back to sleep. The creatures gathering around her to provide as much comfort as they could. They didn't know who this strange looking woman was but she was clearly in pain. Even if she were the reason for their current state, the remorse that was rolling off of her was too much for anyone with a heart to ignore.
Eight hours later when she woke up two of the creatures were gone. The one who pawed at her cheek was sitting up next to her keeping guard as she slept. Lancieta blinked and did her morning system checks before sitting up. After three minutes of checks she sat up, this alerted the creature. It made a barking-like sound, licked her face and disappeared through the hole the other two probably used to leave earlier. Even with the sun out it was still dark in the room.
"Fairy, illuminate."
The little orb sprang to life and rose back to the center of what was effectively the ceiling and floated silently. Lancieta rubbed the dried tears and sleep from her eyes and ate some rations. If anyone would've walked in on her they'd say she looked like a giant child. Her legs were straight out in front of her and she was wiggling her feet back and forth inside the sleeping bag as she ate.
The sounds of morning were starting to creep into the ruins of Section 3 and Lancieta knew she had to leave sooner or later. She begrudgingly pulled herself out of the sleeping bag and clicked the little button by her pillow. A grid appeared around the bag before it folded itself up tightly and folded into its unassuming bar.
She walked over to the hole she saw the creature exit through. She called the fairy down to her and had it explore the tight space. After standing in darkness for five minutes the fairy returned stating no exit was available. She set the fairy to follow and she made her way out, having some trouble with the doors again. After tumbling out she decided to leave the darned things open. She collected the fairy and jumped into the Tezzy. She sat there for a moment listening and watching life happen around her. The planet had finally woken up and things were continuing to happen despite her negligence. She started the motor and started to drive back to Section 6 and almost immediately crushed the break peddle.
"Reflector..."
She turned off the car and climbed back into the ruins of Section 3, looking for replacement parts. After about 3 hours she emerged victorious and started to make her way back to Section 6, again.
*****
When she pulled up to her garage she saw Yora talking with some humans accompanied by a holographic rendering of Tould. She quickly pulled Tezzy into the garage and brought the reflector pieces to the bathroom. Vould kept pestering her the entire time, asking how she broke a reflector but she ignored him for the most part. When she got it working she decided to talk to Roisin about the creatures she saw in the Section 3 ruins.
Lancieta didn't have the imaging implants that Yora did, seeing as she was a Captain and not an engineer it wasn't much of a surprise. Seeing as such, she had trouble explaining the creatures to Roisin. Lancieta cast as big a net as possible while researching Earth and human life, so she wasn't all too clear on every species of animal.
"Roisin. I need your help."
"At your service captain."
"I need you to find me these animals I'm about to describe ok?"
"Yes Captain."
"The front half of one was some kind of bird and the back looked like a lion, or some other big cat. The second had a fox head, its back looked like that of a wolf, its front legs looked like the legs of the first creature and it also had small wings. The last one also had the head of a bird but it had the legs and body of a bull and it also had large wings."
Roisin looked at her Captain as though she had lost her mind.
"Captain did you hit your head while you were out?"
"What? Yes, no... I fell a few times but I wasn't damaged. I saw these creatures, Roisin!"
"Ok, ok. I'll look through the books and see if the humans had names for them. But if anything they're just creations of the virus, albeit horribly designed, they don't sound like anything Yora came into contact with."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well you say they have wings, but bulls are too heavy to fly, that fox headed thing is just a clump of different dogs with bird parts. Also, that bird-lion? It sounds horribly unbalanced."
"They were moving just fine when I met them."
"Were they humans? This might help with my lexicon on how the virus changed them."
"Well only two of them nodded yes when I asked if they were. So either the third was a feral or a transmuted animal."
"Hmm... ferals have usually been violent up to this point."
"Maybe it accepted one of the other humans as its leader."
"You mean Alpha?" Roisin said without looking away from her terminal.
"Yeah."
Roisin finished entering search parameters before turning back to Lancieta.
"Ok Captain, you know what? I'll have Rould help me with building models and we'll show them to you. It might be faster than just looking through the cryptozoology files."
"Thank you Roisin."
"Um, Captain?"
"Yeah?"
"You um... well, yesterday you left Jinrai on the comm when you left."
"Shit! Thank you for reminding me Roisin."
Lancieta left Roisin's quarters and made her way to the communications room.
"Please excuse my interruption Captain Lancieta Steegle."
"You're helping Roisin with those models Rould?"
"Currently Captain, however, a large human group has just arrived at our doorstep, so-to-speak. I believe Yora will have some trouble if left on his own. My brother was called to Section 8 in Antarctica again and had to leave Yora."
Lancieta sighed as she stopped walking towards the communications room.
"How many humans are here?"
"Current count puts humans out front at 23, Captain Steegle. That is not including the 7 Yora was speaking with when you arrived."
"Let Tould and Yora know I'm coming out with more translators."
"As you wish Captain."
Lancieta made her way to the makeshift Engineering wing and grabbed 40 translator sets. These were much different from the one Panzer was wearing. The clip now had a comb like set of teeth to be more comfortable when clipped onto fur. The collar now had an auto-adjusting feature to make putting them on less of an awkward experience. Yora and Jinrai had used up a lot of resources making these but no one really saw it as a waste; except for Bob. Bob thought the humans should just get used to being animals and that they should instead be working on ways to leave the planet.
"Hello. I'm sure you all have an infinite amount of questions for my crew and I. My name is Lancieta Steegle, we are Androids from the Andromeda Galaxy. Before I get into how all of this came to be, you each have a choice of accepting a translator, as I see the seven over there have. A few months ago, with the help of my son..."
Lancieta paused as the word left her mouth, Yora had a look of surprise on his face. Lancieta saw no going back and continued.
"... my two engineers, Jinrai and Yora designed these to help you communicate. If you would like one please come forward."
Most of the group walked forward in staggered clumps. Only a few staying where they were, understandably unsure of the situation. A rather small giraffe was the first to receive a translator. The others listened as Yora explained how to use them. When he got too technical a growl was heard from the group, to which Yora apologized. The Giraffe approached Lancieta, the voice she chose was authoritative and deep.
"My name is Mei-lin. What did you mean when you said 'your son'? You seemed to have surprised yourself when you said the word."
"Right... I'd like to wait for everyone to get their translators before I explain it. Not everyone here knows English... which I will also explain."
After a few more minutes everyone had a translator affixed and Lancieta answered Mei-lin's question.
"Some of your people have amnesia. When I said my son I was referring to another Human I met. He was one of the first to "wake up" as he put it. He used the term to refer to that point when you stopped thinking with urges and started rationalizing your actions and thoughts. Needless to say, this whole thing is a traumatic experience. At the beginning, when we first met I offered to be his caretaker until his memory came back... he never objected to the notion." Lancieta said, blushing slightly. "Since then I've thought of him as my son."
As Lancieta spoke she tried to hide her uneasiness. Some of the humans nodded their heads, others just looked at one another. Then a slightly hairy alligator waddled up to Lancieta.
"There is too little snow here. I remember snow before this, I know I'm Ukranian. Where are we?"
Some of the others agreed with the notion of confusion and waited with curious eyes for the no doubt long-winded answer.
*****
Someone rushed forward at Lancieta. Before anyone could act, the feathered Wolf had his teeth around her throat.
"This is all your fault?! I SHOULD KILL YOU RIGHT NOW! My family is more than likely dead!"
The crowd was silent. Waiting to hear if the Android had a response.
"If you kill me you'll be doing me a favour. Panzer... he wanted to as well. Then he tried to starve himself to death right over there, where the forest starts..."
The silence turned uneasy for what felt like an eternity before Lancieta continued.
"Five billion, one hundred and thirty seven million, six hundred and fifty two thousand, seven hundred and seventy one. That's how many souls follow me around every day, cursing my existence - making me wish I was never created."
A Silverback Gorilla with dark green highlights in its fur ran towards the feathered Wolf, lifted him off of Lancieta and tossed him to the side.
"She seems to hate herself already. If you really hate her, let her live with the guilt in her eyes. We may look like animals but we're still human."
The Gorilla glared at them all, looking for anyone who wanted to dispute the issue but anyone who was feeling any ill will at that moment stowed it. The Gorilla was right, there was no reason for them to act lesser than they were. Holding a public execution wasn't anyway to prove to themselves that they were more than they looked.
Confusion is difficult to work with, as such the congregation spoke amongst themselves for what must've been hours, a time during which Yora went back into the ship. Lancieta was as mountain standing against a tsunami. She stood in the same spot the entire time. As the Gorilla pointed out, you could see remorse behind her near stoic expression.
Over the course of the impromptu meeting the Giraffe poked her head around and spoke with each amorphous group that organically reformed during the conversation. Grunts and grumbles were heard as points were made and conclusions replaced. At one point an owl waddled over to Lancieta.
"Do Androids get tired?"
"Yes. Our bodies are as alive as yours are, though there are differences as you can see." She pinched her left arm which seemed to be made from metal yet acted as skin.
"You should go rest and eat. We'll be here for what seems like a long time."
"Thank you but I'll stay here as long as I need to hear your verdict. I am, after all, an intermediary between our people now."
The owl cocked her head to the side as something dawned on her. The Android said "...between our people..." The Android's friends would surely come for them at one point or another. The Owl hopped back into one of the groups that had reformed, with this new thought, a few of them went silent at it's mention but an argument seemed to break out in the group between the feathered Wolf and an Alligator.
"We should join them in the war! Whomever it is they're fighting obviously meant to wipe us all out with this virus!"
"Yeah sure, as if our planet hasn't had enough wars!"
"Like it or not reptile we have been dragged into it!"
"Oh yeah sure, the old 'We have no choice.' line. I'll bet you're American!"
"You presumptuous pair of boots, I'll tear your throat out!"
Before the threat could be realized, the Gorilla along with a horse-proportioned Rhinoceros stepped in. The Rhino seemingly disappeared from view and created a pocket of air pressure that forced the two apart. The Gorilla spoke up as everyone tried to figure out what just happened.
"Stop fighting amongst yourselves! Look around you! There are no such things as countries anymore! If we didn't have these translators we wouldn't know what each other was saying even if we could talk! France, China, America, Russia, Thailand, Australia! Hell I think I heard someone say they were from Greenland before they were changed! We're all stuck on those remnants of the old world but look where we were headed before all of this! War, uprisings!"
"And who the hell are you to be lecturing us!?"
"I DON'T REMEMBER!"
The congregation went silent. The dust finally settled and everyone was able to see the Gorilla clearly; he was tearing. The muscular Rhino patted the Gorilla's arm as best as she could with her horn as she spoke.
"It seems you've had a lot of time to think about all of this. When did you wake up?"
"I don't know... it must be 4 or 5 months by now? It seemed like I was the only one here for a while. But then I started seeing us. Lying on the ground, bodies rearranging... it was a nightmare."
"Wait, you saw how we changed?" A voice from the crowd asked. The gorilla nodded before continuing.
"For the most part. Most people I came across were almost done. But some... some people looked like they got halfway and stopped."
"I call them Ferals. There're two classifications but the name fits well. It seems not all of them are violent but enough of them are to warrant staying away for now."
The voice wasn't familiar to anyone. They all turned to the source and saw; a white Siberian Tiger with colourful stripes and a scar on its side, a Komodo Dragon and a grey Panther with red tinged fur on its back. Lancieta ran towards the trio and when she reached the Panther she dropped to her knees and hugged him.
"Hi, mom."