#humans are space horrors

[i-mean-technically]

Humans are Space Horrors Pt 1/???

Let's be honest guys, humans are weird even to each other. Our planet is a Death World, add in Unicron and that takes on a whole new meaning.

Our stomachs can break down almost anything, we can recover from literally anything if given enough time, we see a dangerous predator and shout "KITTY".

We see something tall we climb it.

We see something and ask all the questions about.

We turn things into something it was never designed for.

We went to the goddamn Moon with a computer that had the processing power of a lesser calculator nowadays.

Humans are inventive, ingenuitive, curious, insatiable.

And honestly I feel like that would terrify Cybertronians.

In the best and worst ways possible.

Let's use Ratchet as in example.

He'd see us as small, delicate, dumb (affectionate) little things that need tending. And he's not wrong, to a point. But we've been doing this a long time by out standards.

We know what we're doing. (Kinda)

Humans can easily make drops of 10 ft or more. We regularly dive off of boards from higher into 30ft of water. We allow half tamed predators into our homes.

Humans be wild man.

#transformers #maccadam #transformers prime #tfp #my writing #humans are space orcs #humans are space horrors #part 1 #hash part 1 #gonna make this a series #plz feel free to ask me about this shit #i promise to be normal

[nopennyallthoughts]

One thing that I am 100% convinced would send an alien into cardiac arrest is sweating.

It sounds stupid but think about it: apart from horses, humans are the only species on earth that can sweat so it's not a far stretch to believe it would be incredibly rare in extraterrestrials as well.

Just imagine, one day the AC in the main engine room is broken and everyone starts panting like crazy because of the heat, but the human? Just keeps working like usual? It's not like they aren't affected by the heat at all, but they aren't breathing quite as hard as the rest and everyone thinks ahh yes, humans must have extreme durability to heat coming from that death planet. And then. The human starts melting?!?? And suddenly everyone is panicking because their human is leaking all sorts of important nutrients, metals and water out of every pore - are they dying? Surely this cannot be normal!

And the human has to explain that, no they are perfectly healthy and yes it is actually just the human body's way of cooling itself down and no they don't think it's "the coolest thing ever!!", wait till it starts to smell!

#humans are eldritch horrors #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humans are space australians

[colorfuldreamjester]

so, i've fallen down the "humans are weird" rabbit hole, and i couldn't help but notice most of it is about how humans are just really durable, adorable, friendly, how we'd pack bond with anything, about how we have such a hive-mind and empathy and determination to survive when things get rough, how we could survive things most other aliens would die from, how we could eat stuff that would poison other aliens, how we inject ink into our skin and pierce it with pieces of metal and drink toxic substances for the sake of entertainment..

it's always human defences and endurance

but i never see people talking about human **aggression**

like, imagine a spaceship happens to have several humans on it even if most residents are alien species, and two of the humans get in a fight.

and i'm not just talking physical, i'm sayin' all kinds of fights.

imagine if two humans got in a serious screaming match and genuinely hurt a few of the alien species sensitive to loud sounds as they watch, flabbergasted at how the two are literally yelling in each-other's faces without breaking a sweat or getting tired from it, while one of the sound-sensitive aliens literally passed out because it was SO loud

or imagine them simply being in shock after interacting with humans for a long time and having this image in their head of humans being so friendly and able to get along with anything and anyone, including stabby, or any predatory, aggressive species we just so happen to find cute. that image getting completely shattered seeing two of the humans they're friends with showing clear anger and aggression in a display they could only describe as "terrifying" in the most visceral sense of the word

or two humans getting in an actual physical fight, and here's where the *several* humans on ship part comes into play,

so the two are duking it out in a violent display of pure hatred while other humans, amused and thoroughly entertained by the violence that would already have put any of the less durable aliens out of commission gather around the fighting pair and start ominously chanting "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT"

prior, the aliens hadn't dared intervene or get any closer because either way they recognized it as a danger

meanwhile some humans JOIN IN for absolutely no reason and it becomes a full on riot

and the aliens just stare like ?????

confused at why they'd find it so endearing, at why they'd literally join for no reason at all, horrified by even just a punch to the gut because to some of the more vulnerable aliens that's their equivalent of literally getting an organ ripped out of them and somehow STILL fighting and then ripping out an organ out of the opponent themselves

and most of all, if humans are capable of befriending aggressive, large predatory beings and getting along with practically everything,

what from the fresh pits of hell triggered two *humans* to fight *each other* of all creatures?

(that is, assuming aliens don't have much knowledge of our history, wars, politics, etc of course.)

#humans #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are strange #humans are weird #humans are space badgers #humans are eldritch horrors

[beechaotic]

Imagine humans are the only ones with dark humor.

Like, aliens just DONT joke about that shit. And humans just pull up like,, “I’m bouta hit the south tower mfers!”

And then they make a dark joke about Holocaust, and aliens are just HORRIFIED. Just imagine that. It would be funny.

#humans are weird #humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #why are we like this #humans are space capybaras #humans are space australians #humans are eldritch horrors

[watch-that-old-fire]

The human body is a strange thing when it’s sick most of it solutions are basically just you playing a high stakes game of chicken with death. Like a fever you are cooking the sickness in hopes that it cooks and dies faster than your brain does.

#humans are eldritch horrors #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs

[crow-with-a-pencil]

Hi @naffeclipse I'm very normal about your fic. Have some frantic midnight sketches as extra kudos along with some tag rambling :)

#my ârt #crush depth #crush depth spoilers #fnaf #tw blood #tw drowning #idk how many others apply #anyways this is midnight crow coming out of the shadow realm to scream at you #first of all a cs ramble is on the way I'm still recovering from that fic too #im biting you naff im biting you so dang hard #I don't even know much about iron lung besides watching a play through but damn do you make me want to know more #just. where do I even start. the atmosphere is established so well and even though there was such a small space to work with I FELT it #I felt the claustrophobia I felt the walls and the console and the single dim lightbulb as my only solace in this death trap #the THOUGHTS #poor yn had so much time to just get lost in their head and spiral pretty much constantly #the dread. the constant overhanging dread of knowing there's a 99% chance they're not getting out of there alive and at this point #they just want to accept it and let it end bc there's hardly anything to go back to if they live #naff. look at me. reading some parts made my chest actually tighten with dread. it was so well done. #this poor human just buried in existential horror and just wanting it to end in a slightly less painful way #and the unknowable beings trapped outside who absolutely REFUSE to let that happen #god those eldritch fish were trying their hardest but just couldn't get in #yn was trapped inside while they were trapped outside and I just #I am EXPLODING the more I think about it #thinking about when they thought they were drowning and tried to breathe again #wanting to die but still having that instinct to survive #asking to be ripped apart but still cherishing their last breath of air #I'm shaking you I'm shaking you I'm dying on the floor #ough. #I'll never mentally recover from this and I want you to know I genuinely get inspired by your writing #this has been midnight crow ramblings. I just hit the tag limit. have a lovely night.

[asquared-ohgodnotthehorrors]

The thing that bothers me about Humans are space orcs posts is that they’re always referred to as “Human [blank]”. Either that shouldn’t exist, should exist for one species, each species should have their own unique honorific (like one calls all species by their species name then their name, another calls them “comrade,” another says their phylum, etc), or they should all be calling each other [species] [name]

Like the exchange “thank you Human Ben” “you’re welcome Xenomorph Phylax” should be commonplace.

All I want is internal consistency dawg.

#humans are space orcs #the horrors

[whereserpentswalk]

There are things that live in hyperspace. They're hard to find, because that realm is dark and starless, so most consider them nothing more then cryptid stories, but they're real. They don't just float either, there's entire ships out there, and space stations, mabye even planets.

They say whatever lives there is a dark mirror of what lives out here. In the part of space that has a civilization that upgrades their body with technology, hyperspace is filled with biomechanical horrors that assimilate technology and flesh alike. The areas of space inhabited by a race of psychics has a hivemind in hyperspace endlessly assimilating new beings into itself. In the part of space that has a race of honorable warriors, hyperspace has a race of brutal killers who lust for blood. And in the part of space that has wise ancient beings, hyperspace has eldrich horrors the likes of which no world has ever seen.

Nobody has seen what the dark mirror of humanity is. But we know the the areas around earth has the most hyperspace disappearances, and the most legends about horrors taking people in the night. Perhaps such a species is where ancient legends of faeries or ufos come from. The thing that mirrors the race that adapts, the race that spreads, the race that conquers.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #writing #my writing #my worldbuilding #spaceship #space exploration #scifi #sci fi #sci fi horror #scifi horror #space horror #horror #cosmic horror #eldrich horror #eldritch #eldrich #science fantasy #science fiction #original fiction #flash fiction #short story #short fiction #faeries #fae #cyborgs #humans are space orcs #hyperspace #ftl

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Designed for Fear

Alien: This is a horror game for humans?

Alien 2: That is what the description said.

Alien: Alright, let’s see what those flesh apes are afraid of.

Alien: Computer, activate program “Deloris Manor”.

Computer: Command understood; simulation beginning.

*3D projections forms around the alien users much like a Holo deck from Star Trek.*e

*Both alien friends now find themselves transported to a dark hallway filled with fog stretching off into the horizon*

Alien: A run down building with fog? How quaint. *Chuckle*

Alien 2: *Tries to wave away fog but it just spills back in; so eventually gives up.*

Alien: So all we need to do is escape the house and we-

*silence*

Alien: And we what?

*More silence*

Alien: *Turns around* And we wha-

*Sees alien 2 looking down the hallway*

Alien: What are you looking at?

Alien 2: *Points down hallway* Something ran across the hall and went into one of the rooms.

Alien: What was it?

Alien 2: No idea.

Alien: *Walks over to door Alien 2 pointed to.* Let’s see then. *Reaches for doorknob*

Alien 2: Are you mad?

Alien: *Laughs* It’s just a game; how bad could it be?

*Opens door and sees a brick wall behind the door.*

Alien: *Turns to alien 2* You sure it was this door? *Taps wall to confirm it is solid.*

Alien 2: I swear it ran through that door.

Alien: *Looks at brick wall again and closes door*

*Shadowy figure appears behind door in hallway as it closes*

*Both aliens jump back in surprise*

*Shadowy figure looks at both of them, but says nothing*

Alien 2: Why isn’t it moving?

Alien: *Regaining composure* Maybe it’s broken.

*Alien moves to touch figure when it turns to look directly at him*

Shadowy Figure: I’m looking forward to using your flesh as a skin suit.

Alien 2: *Backs away* What the frak?!

Alien: *Nervous laughter* Relax, it’s just a line.

Shadowy Figure: Keep telling yourself that Mil’rog.

*Aliens look at figure in silence and now both back away*

Alien 2: How did it know your name?

Shadowy Figure: I know yours as well Jendu.

Alien: How does it know yours?

Shadowy Figure: *laughs in several voices at once* The moment you plugged me in I learned so much about you.

Alien: *Calms down a degree* It’s an AI program. *Laughs nervously at Alien 2*

Shadowy Figure: No…..I am so much more.

Shadowy Figure: *Snaps fingers*

*Another door opposite Alien flings itself open and a dozen deformed arms extend out and grab hold of Alien*

*Alien begins struggling to get free as the arms begin pulling them back into the room.*

*Last thing Alien 2 sees of their friend is their desperate look of fear at them before the door slams shut behind them.*

Shadowy Figure: *Turns to Alien 2 and whispers* Run.

#humans are insane #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01 #horror

[inbabylontheywept]

"I think we underestimated the human population by eight or nine orders of magnitude."

The war room was reeling. The human population had been estimated in the mere hundred billion range. They should barely have had enough of an economy to field two light cruisers, least of all the goddamn armada that was ravaging the inner worlds. After the alpha strike, the human flotilla should’ve been completely crippled. Instead the number of ships they were fielding kept growing.

Tan-Hauser was the first target struck by a human attack, and they reported seventeen craft before they lost comms. Attican was hit just three days after that, but their reports already showed numbers above ninety. Any doubts that the fleet was growing were eliminated when Outpost Batan reported 1,217 FTL pings two days before the loss of Kira.

The number reported was so big it was written off as a sensor malfunction. Twenty-five billion souls lost, all because nobody in the war room could face reality.

They were going to face it now. The Kirarian in front of them was the primary sensor engineer for the Batan outpost, a specialist with more expertise in analyzing space lanes than warships. He’d been up for at least the last two days, poring over the sensor data, and only now was ready to begin to share his findings.

From the pain in his multifaceted eyes, it was clear he was still reeling from the loss of his homeworld.

Seeing that he had the room’s attention, he began to speak. The translation units each member of the war council had implanted experienced a moment of lag as they struggled to convert the almost musical tonal humming of the Kirarian tongue to more common galactic speech.

"The simplest data that can be analyzed from an FTL ping is the distance that the ship traveled before dropping to sublight. The contracted space in front of the craft traps small particles, even light itself for a short period, compressing its wavelength and then releasing it when the field disengages."

The war room nodded along. The explanation was mildly technical, but anyone that had traveled on an FTL shuttle before knew the hazards of exiting FTL directly in front of your home destination. Blasting your home station with a wave of alpha, beta, and ultraviolet rays was hardly a warm welcome.

The engineer continued.

“The… issue with this is that we’re used to the majority of the ping being in the UV spectrum. We aren’t entirely sure what the spectrum of the signals we got from the ships were because Batan station can only detect up into the low gamma range, but that’s still what the majority of the human’s FTL pings were detected in. That’s at least ten billion times the frequency that we’re used to. Since the frequency of the burst can be roughly modeled by multiplying the mean radiation per unit distance by the length of the path, that implies one of two things: That the human ships are either traveling through areas with ten billion times the standard background flux, or that they are traveling extragalactic distances.”

The engineer paused for a few seconds at that statement. The pain of loss still shone in his gemstone eyes, but something more immediate was beginning to take center stage: Fear.

“Because the craft is essentially throwing… well, normally it would be the next three or four days worth of cosmic background radiation at you. In our case it’s more like several decades. But because it’s just giving you an advance on your normal cosmic background radiation, you can track the void in the next several days' worth of background noise to determine the ship's approach vector. The 1,217 crafts that arrived weren’t coming from the same spot. There were actually hundreds of converging vectors, but more importantly…”

He trailed off, a small 3D model of the local space appearing in the center of the holo table. A spiked ball of vectors protruded from the galactic disk, each piercing cleanly through his former homeworld.

His voice cracked a little, the hum turning into a hiss. The translator tech paused a moment too, struggling to convey the subtle emotional cues into the message.

“They’re all coming off the galactic disk. That doesn’t just mean that we’re surrounded, that doesn’t just mean that we’re outnumbered… It means that each attack that we’ve seen up to this point is from an entirely separate group. What we’ve been mistaking for fleets, I believe, are simply the beginning trickles of their exploratory forces. Each of the sites that they’ve targeted hasn’t been of significant strategic importance; they’ve just been sites with unusually strong output signals. I think they’re just using our transmission stations as makeshift beacons for their FTL jumps." He took a deep breath to steady himself before providing his final thought. "I think we underestimated the size of the human population by eight or nine orders of magnitude.”

There was a heavy silence in the war room as that last sentence was processed. The engineer was already out the door before he heard the panic begin to set in.

Part of him felt a little guilty. It would’ve probably been kinder for them to go out not knowing what was about to hit them. Still, it wasn’t often you could force people with this much power to realize that they’d just lost everything.

There was a bitter satisfaction in that.

#hfy #humanity fuck yeah #humans are space orcs #science fiction #we are the swarm #scifi #writing #writblr #we are the cosmic horror #The goal was to imply that we have colonized hundreds of other galaxies

[i-mean-technically]

After the dark energon debacle ratchet decides to study what exactly are things that can kill humans, so as to make sure that doesn't happen. He discovers the answer is pretty much everything, including the very oxygen we need to breathe and stuff. I envision quite the rant!

jkasdklas oh man Ratchet doing actual indepth research on the human body would cause him to start openly day drinking ok.

not just bc of how we discovered some of this shit we know, but also the fact that our bodies are a hot heaping mess of fucked up evolution and adaptations.

our anxiety was meant for when life was lived super fast and we had to always be on the look out for A Hungry Animal. some of us have a different sleep rhythm that means we don't sleep when we're supposed to at night bc their ancestors were the Night Watch.

everything can kill us and most of us still actively partake in the thing that is harming us.

lactose intolerant people me still eat ice cream. caffeine. peanuts.

some people do extreme sports where if one things goes wrong your dead.

other people SWIM WITH DEADLY SEA CREATURES. FOR FUN.

there's organs inside us that can actively harm us, we can lose up to like, 60% of our liver and it will grow back.

Ratchet studies what can kill us, which is practically everything on the planet, and has to be held back from actively wrapping the kids in bubble wrap and keeping them in a nice padded pen so he can keep an eye on them.

then he learns the things that humans can survive and he wants to cry.

these tiny, frail, brightly lived creatures can take so much in their lives, and come out the other side damaged and lost, but alive.

we have one of the best self repair systems on the planet for healing injuries (when it works properly).

so yeah. Ratchet freaks out when he learns the full scope of just how dangerous our lives are on the daily.

but then he's in awe of what we do in spite of that.

#transformers prime #tfp #tfp ratchet #ratchet #humans are space orcs #humans are awesome #humans are space horrors #hash #maccadam

[carionto]

There's something in-between

Humanity will never reveal how they "vanished" from the galaxy. We could, the knowledge is still there, the people who rebuilt the satellites are still around. But we won't.

The first time, a millennia ago, when we "slipped" between the existing dimensions, was the first time it had happened beyond a lab setting, and only a small number knew exactly what was going to happen. Everyone was too surprised when the Earth was engulfed by the light, it fading away, then the Sun, Moon, and stars being gone, to notice anything in the split second we were in-between before being fully between dimensions.

The second time, everyone knew what was about to happen. We were all mentally prepared to finally return to a world where there was something, anything, beyond the sky. What we were not ready for was that sixth sense of ours kicking into overdrive during that split second transition. Everyone had a different account of what it was they felt that was staring at them, but every single person said the same thing - something was looking at them - personally - with a vicious hunger and an infinite abyss of rage and madness behind it.

All of Humanity wanted to be awake for the return. So, all of Humanity became terrified of... it. We finally had a singular unifier, something to bring all nations, peoples, and cultures together - fear.

Maybe whatever it is only exists in-between and can't hurt us. Maybe the first time we all slipped between was like a beacon for it and if we slip again it will get closer, maybe even slip back with us. Perhaps we accidentally created it.

One thing we know - we don't want to ever experience it again. We can't and won't let anyone know of it. By force if we have to.

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #space horror #story

[ojerasgigantes]

Favourite horror tropes 3/? - The meaning of existence

#2001 a space odyssey #2001 aso #soma game #soma #annihilation #alex garland #jeff vandermeer #no longer human #osamu dazai #horror #horror films #films #horror tropes #spooktober #mine #personal #existential horror #existential dread

[plaidpyjamas]

What do you guys think aliens would think of humans/terrans/dearhworlders/whatever you wanna call us - who not only like horror, but feel soothed by it.

People who fall asleep to livestreams of scary stories because it relaxes them

#humans are eldritch horrors #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #i ask this because it's 2am and I'm laying in my bed all cozy to a creepypasta livestream #and i guess it just hit me how odd that could seem to.....anyone lmao

[beechaotic]

Imagine human’s variety of fiction is weird amongst the galaxy. Like, just the wide range of fiction genres is weird. Every other species has like, one genre that they write (probably historical fiction) and that’s it. Other genres are unheard of. But then humans come in with their seven hundred different genres and sub genres and the galaxy is just baffled.

#humans are weird #humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are eldritch horrors #humans are space capybaras

[marlynnofmany]

We’re All Weird Here

“Bones are body horror,” the tentacle alien told me. “Not that I would volunteer such information, mind you, but you did ask.”

“I did,” I agreed, lifting another crate. “That’s really funny, honestly. What about them is disturbing?”

Mur twisted his blue-black tentacles in a way that looked anxious. “Just the idea of something rigid, inside your flesh,” he said with a wiggly shudder. “No matter how you move, it won’t move with you. Like your own body is fighting back.” He wrapped his tentacles around a crate. “I’ve had nightmares about stiffness like that.”

“Wow,” I said as I set my crate on top of the others. “I’m sorry to hear that? All I can tell you is that bones aren’t an enemy to us; they’re something dependable and strong that hold us up and make everything possible.”

Mur shoved his crate into place. “I suppose you’d need a positive relationship with your own disturbing parts,” he said with a twitch of his hind tentacles that was probably the equivalent of shaking his head. Since a Strongarm’s pointy squid-head was the majority of their body, they didn’t seem to go in for human-style nods.

“Well sure, same as you,” I said, checking the hovercart for more crates. “You know most humans find tentacles creepy, right?”

“I have heard,” he said with a smug little smile.

No nods, but yes smiles. With a mouth in the right place, even. I was privately glad that he had a mouth on the front of his head, instead of hidden among his tentacles like an Earth cephalopod. I was debating whether to tell him that when a crewmate of an entirely different body type walked in on clicking feet.

I pointed at him. “What about exoskeletons?” I asked Mur.

Zhee stopped beside the cart. “What about exoskeletons?” he demanded. He struck a pose out of an intergalactic fashion show, letting the ship’s lights play on his vivid purple carapace while he snapped his pincher arms. “Are you squishies jealous?”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Mur told him before turning to me. “Exoskeletons are different from bones. They’re like an exo-suit: a protective case for the natural softness.”

Zhee held the pose. “A glorious one.”

“Yes, Zhee. You’re very pretty.” Mur sounded more than a little patronizing, but Zhee didn’t seem to mind.

“That is the proper amount of respect,” the bug alien said. He relaxed to grasp the cart handles with his pinchers, and towed it out of the room. “I will return with more freeze-dried foodstuffs. Make sure you tie those crates down.”

“Yeah, we’ve got it,” Mur told him. “Make sure you get the right ones; two of the three shipments look similar.”

“This is obvious to one with such excellent color vision as myself.”

Mur made the little popping noises that pass for laughter, and turned toward the adjustable netting. He threw one end to me.

We spent the next few minutes fastening things down to industry standards, which still seemed a little excessive. I’d never seen the ship’s antigravity fail yet, but I supposed meteor impacts were possible. Some of those buggers were much faster than I’d ever expected before I got into space.

“We’re going to need a replacement for this one,” Mur said, fingering a hole in one net. (Does it count as “fingering” if he used a tentacle-tip? “Tentacling” just doesn’t sound right.) He set it aside near the door.

“Do we have enough for now?” I asked.

“Yeah, probably,” he said. “We just can’t forget on the next restocking trip. Hey Paint!” he called after someone who’d just passed the doorway.

“Paint,” she said, replying with her own name where I would have said “Yes?” or “What?” Her full name was Painted Sunset, but since that sounded way too much like the captain’s name, Piercing Sunlight, she just stuck to Paint. She poked her snout of mottled orange scales around the doorframe, all polite curiosity.

“Can you put another net on the shopping list?” Mur asked.

“Big or small?”

“Big please.”

“Got it. One question for you.”

“What’s that?” Mur asked.

Paint spun to stick her tail out into the doorway. She had something taped to it — a stapler? Whatever it was, it clacked like a tiny crocodile when she moved. “Have you seen any tasty fish around here?” she said in a growly voice. “Rawr!”

With a long-suffering sigh, Mur told her, “No, but there are probably some in the kitchen.”

“Thanks!” Paint spun again and stuck her head out. “Was it scary? I think it needs eyes to be really scary.”

Mur sighed.

“That was good!” I said. “Eyes would be better. Hey, do you have access to googly eyes out here? The little sticky ones?”

“No, what are those?” Paint asked, walking into the room. “They sound fun.”

“They are!” I told her. “I used to like putting two on my hand and making a little face, like this.” I demonstrated, wrapping a forefinger around my thumb and moving both together like a talking mouth. “‘Hello! I don’t have teef.’”

Paint thought this was the best thing ever, and despite Mur’s eye-rolling maturity, he couldn’t take his eyes off the display.

“That is unsettlingly convincing,” he admitted. “Even without eyes. If I saw that sneak around a corner and start talking to me, I’d believe we had a stowaway of a species I’d never seen before.” He pointed three tentacles at my face. “Do NOT do that as a prank, or I’ll throw your shoes out the airlock. I know you treasure those.”

“It’s not that I treasure them,” I said. “The floor is just cold without them, and I could step on something sharp.”

“Yeah, so? That’s life,” the squidlike alien said. “You don’t see me wearing an exo-suit about the ship just because the floor is cold.”

“Hey, do that hand thing one more time,” Paint said. “I think I’ve almost got it.” Her scaly orange fingers were too short to manage the same effect, but she was trying.

“More crates,” announced Zhee from the hallway. “Make some emptiness.”

The three of us moved aside for him to direct the hovercart into place. Paint gushed about the hand thing.

“It looks so convincing! I can’t do it right. Show him!”

I did, feeling a bit silly in front of his unblinking, massive eyes. His antennae held still, making his expression hard to read. “‘Hello,’” I said. “‘I’m a mouth.’”

“That’s not a mouth,” he declared.

Before I could say yeah, that’s the point, he stepped back from the cart. With a flourish, he tucked his head low against his shoulders and bent his pincher arms into a terrifying facsimile of a gaping jaw, lined with teeth.

Paint squeaked. Mur slapped a tentacle against the floor.

“Wow,” I said. “Yeah, googly eyes have nothing on that.”

Mur pointed at him. “I see you also have a potential prank that you should not pull.”

At the same time, Paint exclaimed, “You have to show Sunlight!”

Mur gave her a look. “Do not terrify the captain.”

“No no, she’ll love it.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s busy.”

Paint rubbed her chin as Zhee resumed a normal posture. “It wouldn’t take long, but yeah, she’s busy. Dinnertime? Oh, and you have to show off your thing too!” she said, pointing at me.

Mur started to naysay, but I said, “Oh, like a talent show?”

“I have all of the talent,” Zhee announced.

Paint was delighted. Mur waved his tentacles about and went back to work, while Zhee launched into a story of the time he scared off a predator with the “false jaws” trick.

“Come on, let’s tell everybody else about the talent show!” Paint said. “This’ll be great!” She waved for Zhee to follow her, and he went, still talking.

Mur grumbled. “Dinner is going to be interesting. I hope it doesn’t put anyone off their food.”

“I’ll try not to do anything bone-related,” I said.

“I appreciate the restraint.”

After a moment of handling crates, I asked, “Did you know our blood is made inside our bones?”

“Oh, that is so much worse! I may just get sick ahead of time.”

~~~

More fun and games with backstory for the book. Not as much action this time, but some very important conversation.

#humans are weird #humans are space orcs #my writing #the Token Human #haso #hfy #eiad #aliens #bones #body horror #or at least the discussion of #everything is creepy if you think about it long enough