The First Moment
Copyright© 2026 by TMax
Chapter 21: Food
Alice, Morgan, and I took the rear again, conscious that the green ooze might rush us at any moment.
“What are we going to eat?” Nate asked, too loudly.
“Nothing at the moment,” Sasha whispered.
“I’m getting hungry,” Shivam said, too loud. The pair just didn’t understand. Their voices echoed in the hallways. And worse, it made me hungry, and based on Morgan’s slight grunts, she felt the hunger pains as well. Alice just shook her head.
Those two made my estimation of the selection committee drop back to the same level as military intelligence: great in theory, horrible in practice.
We approached a four-way junction. The symbols on the wall had changed. The path to the left had three wavy lines, straight ahead had a simple circle, while the tunnel to our right had a star.
“I wouldn’t advise eating the Ooze. They’re toxic to all known species, unless you have an iron gut and you have figured out a way past the nano barrier,” the thing said as it appeared from the star gloom tunnel. It no longer scared me. In fact, I felt a small pang of kindred spirit towards it.
“You’re moving quiet now,” Morgan said as she turned to look at it.
“You figured out that we can hear,” I said to the thing, which still looked horrible, but not threatening in any way, more just alien. And gross.
“Yes, and you humans surprise me. I think we should collaborate on the council,” the thing said and disappeared in the gloom of the tunnel.
“Let’s follow it,” Morgan said and pulled Alice and me along. I agreed and didn’t resist, but Alice did. Morgan stood in the middle of the tunnel, her dark body mostly obscured by the dim light, while I held her hand, stretched between her and Alice. Alice’s white skin appeared to glow.
“We need to stick together,” Sasha said in a loud whisper, back in the middle of the four tunnels.
I didn’t have a great grip on Morgan’s sweaty hand, and she could easily have broken it, but instead she turned back to the group and said, “That thing can answer our questions, or at least knows way more than we do.” Alice held my hand like a vice grip.
Lanka glanced at Sasha and walked over to us as she said, “Shit for brains is not wrong. Sometimes she accidentally arrives at a good idea.”
Nate stood with his hands on his hips, while Shivam stared down the tunnel towards the Ooze. We hadn’t heard the slurp in a long time. Lanka held Morgan’s free hand, and Alice had moved beside us. Sasha stared down the tunnel with three lines.
Down the tunnel with the three lines, sounds of humans echoed. Coughs. Shouts. A scream.
I shuddered as I said, “We won’t be able to catch up with it anyway. We need to stay together.”
Sasha wanted to head in the direction of the other humans. Based on his bunched shoulders, the same posture as when the tattooed soldier came up to us. He recognized the shouts.
Lanka and Morgan stared down the tunnel towards the thing, while Nate and Shivam had joined Sasha. Alice squeezed my hand and pushed sand around with her left foot.
“That’s so stupid,” Morgan muttered and pushed me toward Sasha.
Lanka, just behind Morgan, said, “You’re stupid.”
Sasha led, with Alice beside him, Nate and Shivam next, and Morgan and Lanka on either side of me. The two kept a steady stream of insults flowing back and forth. Barely audible to anyone around us.