Chapter 3: Company

"Hive, what do you mean 'Others'?" Nathan's mind reeled, despite the very long conversation they had just had, it seems there was still much he hadn't managed to extract from the Hive's mind. This fact, especially concerned him given the sudden onset of fear the Hive just had, which implied it lacked any sort of ability to prioritise the information it gave him. "Hives, Masters. Not alone, compete."

"Compete? Over what?" Nathan replied, a part of him making up a god to pray to that by 'Compete' the hive simply meant in an Olympic style game of distinctly not death, however Nathan could already rule that idea out given the tone of the Hive.

"Food, Space, Power, Resources" The Hive replied, still in a dour tone. There was a distinct silence that hung in the air after the Hive spoke.

Nathan digesting the information, the Hive remaining concerned about the idea of its new, first, and only master leaving to a place potentially incredibly dangerous.

On top of all this, the Hive thought, the Master would have to bear the stress of the bridge by himself, while he explored which would limit how far and how long he could go for. Additionally to this, the longer he went for the weaker he would be and if he didn't manage to find sufficient nutrition to at least breakeven with the cost of opening and maintaining the bridge he would die.

As if all this wasn't enough, he would also have to remain vigilant of the bridge entrance for it would be open for any to enter and to potentially harm The Hive.

The Hive was processing all this, but it was far to young to properly format its thoughts in a way a Human mind could easily interpret it, thusly all of its thoughts were heard by Nathan as: "Exit: Bridge. Bridge tire Master. Bridge open, Scare Hive. Master tied to bridge."

Yet another series of questions and answers erupted between both Nathan and the Hive. Each time the Hive gaining a further insight into how to express itself in a way its Master could understand. Eventually, Nathan managed to get from the Hive that it was actually possible to 'Look before you leap' and with great difficulty, Nathan attempted to eek out the details of how to do this.

It was a painstakingly long process for both the Hive and Nathan. With one struggling to explain planar travel, a concept inanely simple to itself, to a being that has no frame of reference for such a concept and also doesn't even share a language with the one attempting to explain the subject.

Eventually, Nathan and the Hive think they managed to make some kind of head way. However, Nathan was not fully aware of what this would cost him.

Standing, as directed by the Hive, inside the dome structure Nathan reached out and placed his hands on the fleshy surface that extended out from the inside-front wall of the dome at around waist height.

The surface writhed underneath Nathan, and it took a few attempts to not pull his hands away -especially when the writhing turned into tendrils grabbing and moving Nathan's hands. When he did, finally, let the interface take a hold of his hands and place them in the right place everything happened at once.

Firstly Nathan felt a tingly-cold sensation run up either of his hands, then arms, then neck and finally stopping in his head. He blinked, startled for a second before noticing that on the transparent screen in front of him he saw an endless, roiling mass of infinite shades of black. Some shades he doubt he could never fully describe in words, impossible things that somehow were almost best described as a taste... or a touch.

Remembering the disjointed words of the Hive, Nathan fought back the sense of both wonder and existential dread that began to wash over him realizing that doing so was causing him to begin to spin wildly into the distance and away from 'Home' as it were.

Taking a steadying breath, Nathan looked around bring to mind everything he could on Earth, memories about every little detail his mind could muster just like he thought the Hive had told him.

When Nathan opened his eyes, and was no longer looking through the meta-dimensional panopticon that briefly allowed a non planar being to catch a small glimpse of the beyond in all its many dimensional non-Euclidian glory. He saw that firstly, the stalactite was now rapidly pulsing with fractal lines of vibrant pink bioluminescent light and below it, the dip was filled with the blackish liquid he had climbed out of earlier, only this time the surface was being stretched and pulled up towards the stalactite.

The second it touched the tip of the dangling pillar of flesh, bone and stone a flash of pink lanced down the black mass, like fractures in glass. The mass began to swirl and rotate until it eventually exploded out wards a lance of its material shooting out in a perfect eight pointed star both horizontally and vertically.

The lances seemed to perfectly fit inside the room, aside from the ones headed for the dome which upon impact caused the liquid to writhe around the surface of the dome, momentarily stopping anything from being seen through its transparent side. But after a second, and the briefest series of pink flickers a picture began to resolve.

It was static, but what Nathan saw caused his jaw to drop. For in the picture, he saw his home town London, in ruins.

Smoke billowed into the blackened sky, the image was taken from inside an alleyway looking onto the road.

The road was covered in debris, and wrecked cars. But what drew Nathan's attention the most, was the tiny little hand reaching out of an upturned car's window. Its little fist wrapped tight around the ear of a burnt up, torn and dust covered rabbit toy.

The hand was deathly pale, and despite not being able to see the kid it blatantly belonged to fully, the dried blood that stained the arm and the ground around it told the tale plainly enough.

"What, the fuck?" Nathan asked, as he backed away from the image, his hands instinctively grasping at the back of his head as his eyes bulged in a state of despair and incredulity at what he was seeing in front of him.