Bodies. Emaciated flesh connected to tubes and machines.
Not a dream. Not a hallucination. Real.
Jinx couldn't draw air, lighting up more bio-warnings on her mask's HUD. Horror paralysed her more completely than the andropod's venom. Medical equipment filled the cargo bay the exskel had carried her into: a circle of beds, monitors, and tech—human designed. Not alien.
Half the beds were occupied. Pale, wasted flesh.
Just like in her dreams.
She'd seen this.
Or something like it. Five bodies lay in the beds, not the four that had crawled out of her warped subconscious. And this space... It was round like the ship housing it. The bulkheads behind the medical tech were silver and smooth, not the rough, dark surface from her nightmares.
From the Bullhead.
The realisation hit like a gut punch. Had she stumbled onto a room like this on the barge? Was that why she'd started dreaming about—?
A downward sensation. Then pressure against her back.
Panic streaked through her as the andropod laid her out on one of the empty beds. Medical equipment crowded her. Wires and sensors. Tubes ready to be inserted, to keep her alive—trapped—for God knew how long.
Her father's lax face filled her mind, merged with the nightmare around her.
A screaming silver mask jolted reality back into focus.
The andropod angled its head, assessing her, its skull reflecting the med screens around it—their data. Slow heart rates and respiration. Brain waves locked in the rhythm of unconsciousness.
Jinx's pulse boomed. Her breath huffed out—too shallow, too fast.
A graceful slide of mechanical tech.
The andropod pulled off her battle suit's mask and cowl, exposing her head. She willed her legs to move—kick out, drive the exskel back—but her body wouldn't respond.
The alien unsnapped the neck closure of her battle suit. Then it raised one set of metal fingers.
A needle-like device slid out from the underside of its wrist.
Jinx swore savagely—silently, unable to form words. She struggled to move, but as the thin, metal spike closed in, she couldn't even cringe away. God. What was she about to be dose with? Sedatives? Something more hardcore?
Mech fingers gripped her head, bracing it.
Panic choked her. What were the psycho insects going to do to her? What the fuck did they want?
A faint prick against her neck.
She screamed bloody murder—a shriek in her head, nothing more than a puff of air on her lips. Her nightmare. This was her nightmare. Darkness, a sense of suffocation—
A scream of rage and pain.
Medical alarms. Rapid beeping across the room.
A flash of lightning—violent heat.
A deafening blast.
Reality ripped from her grasp.
She plunged into madness. Into a seething storm of white fire, darkness, and pain.