Snippet #1908687

A still figure lay amidst the wreckage, completely immobile. Signs of life were not impossible to detect, however. Though the shifting patterns upon the surface of his skin had turned cloudy and nearly colorless with the decrease in his mental function, they still moved, flickering about with the haziness of shadows over water. Nearby, the ship’s engine was sparking, and a few bolts of electricity lanced as if by their own volition towards the humanoid creature, striking the liquidlike tendrils upon his head.

Fading with absorption, the electricity disappeared entirely. A few short moments elapsed, and then a pair of curiously-red eyes snapped open sharply. At once alert and aware, Jharitkvinforetur-Al flexed his hands, retracting the silvery claws that had escaped their confinement when the adrenaline had flooded his unwitting physiology upon his discovery of their impending collision.

Wordlessly, he stood, scanning the area for other living beings. Several minds were present but not active, most likely unconscious. A few were exhibiting more neural activity, and though he did not attempt to read the thoughts, he was able to pinpoint their location- not too far from his own.

This was immediately put from his mind, however, by the presence of another, insistently pinging about inside his head. Someone was at least partially telepathically-able, though the message as he received it was not in the sensical form of words, but merely a garble of distress and the occasional pain-sensation. It was making him distinctly uncomfortable, and for this reason among the obvious others he chose to deal with it first.

Picking his way carefully over the wreckage (he was, for the most part, uninjured, but taking chances was not an inclination of his species), he was outpaced in time by a quadrupedal creature that he did not recall seeing on the ship. His hue took on a slightly-perturbed yellow, and he ascertained that it was traveling in the same direction as he. Upon arrival at its presumed destination, the creature issued a bark, apparently peering down at something in the wreckage.

Unusually enough, the non-speaking creature was exhibiting a mental signature more commonly characteristic of humanoids, which was to say that Al was quite certain it could think in complex forms. Whether it was native to the unknown location the ship had crashed at or not was something he couldn’t determine, but at any rate it did not appear to be hostile. If you would excuse me, he requested of it, I think I’ll need to be moving some of these objects. For the distress signal was clearly issuing from here, and so it made the most sense to clear away anything that might be causing the problem.

An alabaster hand, twisted in a way that most limbs should not be, poked out from beneath a steel beam, which with some effort Al would be able to move. This may hurt, he informed whatever lay under the debris, but I can assure you of its necessity. With that (and perhaps a good deal less sympathy than he should have had, not that he knew any different), he carefully hefted the beam off and away from the small appendage. This slow-but-steady process preoccupied him for a few minutes, but eventually the wreckage in the immediate area was cleared away.

Are you able to move? he inquired. The girl- an Estray, if he was not mistaken- was small enough that carrying her would not be out of the question for someone of his size and stature, but it would of course be better news if she was able to do so under her own power.

Inhaling deeply, Al at last took in his surroundings with more than a simple passive observation. The dirt beneath his feet was black and grainy, broken up only by the occasional boulder dotting the horizon. The terrain indeed seemed to resemble that of their destination’s more desert-like regions, save that the coloration was off considerably.

What bothered him, though, was that in all his years and over all his studies, he had never once heard of anything quite like it.