POV — Lira / Sector 12 / Level 1
The eighteen creatures came in two groups.
The first from the front — six of them. The second from above.
Lira looked toward the ceiling.
Twelve smaller creatures were descending the vertical walls of the corridor, their limbs ending in suction cups that adhered to the black fortress material with a wet sound.
They were thin, elongated, their bodies the length of a human arm but without clearly differentiated parts — no head separate from the torso, no limbs other than the four they used to adhere. At the end where the head should be was a circular opening surrounded by small, inward-curving teeth.
'Parasites.'
'Designed to latch on and perforate.'
The six in front were different.
Bipedal, roughly five-foot-eleven, their bodies covered in short, dense dark gray fur.
Long arms that reached the ground when they walked upright, ending in hands with three fingers each — two opposable and one central, all with hardened flat nails.
