Chapter 7: First Contact

Spines hammered into Nathan's bag as he pushed forwards, easily closing the distance in a few powerful strides. Sensing himself close he threw the bag forwards, the next wave of spines puncturing straight through the bag, but thankfully due to it colliding with the hands of the attacker the spines flew harmlessly into the air, a trail of sugar rich liquid flowing behind them.

The attacker angrily threw the bag aside, its head facing away from Nathan as he struck out at them.

Nathan's fist was about to be intercepted by one of the hostile's tendrils but before they could, Nathan's own tendrils dashed out and engaged them. The two sets of blackish tendrils coiled and tangled around each other as they attempted to stab, cut and crush each other with viscous speed and precision.

Due to this, and the hostile looking away from Nathan, Nathan's fist struck home. There was a resounding thump and crunch, followed by a slight sensation of pain in Nathan's fist which he ignored with the power of adrenaline.

The attacker buckled and staggered, the blow clearly distracting the tendrils as well, resulting in one of Nathan's tendrils managing to score a viscous swipe into one, shortly followed by tearing the thing clean off with savagery.

The attacker screamed in pain, and attempted to back off, unfortunately Nathan still had one of their tendrils entangled with his own and with his instincts screaming to kill Nathan reached out with both his hands and his free tendril to grasp at the attacker.

Nathan's tendril embedded itself into the hostile's shoulder blade, on the side missing a tendril, meanwhile Nathan's hands grasped at the similar vest garment to his own the attacker was wearing.

Grabbing firmly to the material Nathan wrenched the victim to the floor with an angered growl, climbing atop of them and raining fist after fist down on them.

Nathan didn't know how long the fight lasted, or how long he stayed atop what he now saw as a woman. He had completely beaten her face into a bloody mess, his tendrils making quick work of her remaining tendril, before then rending viscously at her arms when they meekly attempted to claw at him.

She had managed to land a few spines into his flank while he hounded at her, but in Nathan's bloodlust he hadn't noticed. As the adrenaline, or what he assumed was adrenaline given his clearly now alien biology, drained from his system he looked down at his work and almost threw up.

Even though she had attacked him, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt for what he did, especially when he realized he had little to no control of what he did beyond the first punch after the charge.

Blood covered his hands, face and clothing and it quickly began to pool below the girl from her ruined arms and face.

Getting to his feet, shaking, Nathan's mind focused on something to distract it. Noticing the ruined and leaking bag, Nathan strode off to collect another from the same place he had got the first, his eagerness and shock causing him to miss the fact his tendrils where embedded into the girl's chest and reluctant to leave. He did however notice as he walked, that the spines had been spat out of his flanks, and that both his flesh and the clothing knitted itself together with the same cloud of inky, liquid-like gas of black.

Nathan didn't waste anytime heading back to the bridge, his tendrils supplying him with both a vague sense of direction and occasionally literally pointing in the direction of the bridge.

On the way back, his tendrils once again gave off the unnerving shuddering sensation before seemingly searching in one direction then the next.

Stopping his sprint briefly, he began to search too eventually his eyes laid on a small group of individuals cowering behind a parked car. Though they were way at the end of the street, Nathan could make out the details of one of their face's peering fearfully through the window of the car they were behind.

It looked distinctly tired, and had a bushy beard that was packed tightly into what looked to be a hazmat suit. As he focused on this man, his tendrils snapped sharply in the direction, once again taking on their 'Attack' form and formation by coiling up either side of Nathan's head.

This was quite the fearful sight for the hazardous area response team especially given that unbeknownst to Nathan, he had developed quite the inhuman face ridge that completely covered his eyes and extended a few inches above his head in a semi-circular shape.

The ridge terminated just beside his nose, and bore an intricate fractal pattern that gave of a slight pulse of pink akin to the interior of the Hive.

The now Terrified HART team, staggered back and fled, causing Nathan's body to tense in an effort to pounce and pursue its prey, an impulse that Nathan had to apply a concerning amount of will to prevent.

Shaking his head, and feeling his tendrils relax, albeit begrudgingly, Nathan continued his run homeward.

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"Holy shit, Is it chasing us?" Alan said between desperate gasps of breath as he sprinted with his colleagues.

David ignored the young man's question, and focused on trying to contact the camp they had established on the edge of what was now being called the 'QZ3' or Quarantine Zone 3.

Unfortunately, they were too deep in the Miasma to get a stable enough connection for voice communications something that was expected. Consequently, he had to key his message into a specially designed comms box, he flipped it to active causing it to broadcast a repeating burst of Morse code to be picked up by base camp.

"Shit David, we should extract, its too dangerous... I mean you saw that thing right? did you see how fast it was moving?" Lucy said as the group slowed to catch their breath, noticing the 'thing' they had encountered was not pursuing them.

David replaced the comms box on his belt, and with as much authority he could muster, and confidence he did not feel he said, "Negative, if anything that encounter has proven to me that we need to get those samples more than ever. We need to find a solution on how to deal with this and quickly, before we are over-run with those things."

"Things? Plural... you mean we KNEW they existed and there is more than one of them!?" Alan said a distinct tone of distress, and panic tinting his words.

"Yes, though we haven't had many here in 3. Most reports happened across the pond in QZ1. All you should know is that these creatures are dangerous, and should be avoided." David replied, causing a snort of amusement to come from Alan, and a sarcastic "No shit sherlock." from Lucy.

"We're just science boffs, and medical professionals, why the fuck are we here and not some kind of crack military team? with big fucking guns to deal with those... things?!" David added,

"Simple, the military is struggling with keeping order in the country and running emergency supplies. Besides, as David said we haven't had any reports of these things in QZ3 right?" Lucy said, deciding being distressed wouldn't help the situation any.

"All right, we should be good to proceed, I've mapped another route to take us to another sample site that should be away from the direction that thing was headed. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get out so lets hustle people." David interjected into the conversation, that was now spiraling into a debate on whether the military was overstretched, and whether or whether not getting more international military support was a good idea or not. Especially given England was the only nation with a QZ within its capital.

Unfortunately, though the group would avoid the creature they had encountered earlier, they would end up running into another one that was far... far meaner. One that was recently very, very wounded and was in need of a hearty meal or three.

Fortunately for the injured creature, its prey was practically lighting a beacon reading 'Come eat me' that would pulse and regular intervals, making it trivial to stalk, and then strike.