Authorized Personnel Identified. Engaging Restricted Transmission Playback:

"You failed. Everything that happens from now on is your fault."

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Being poisoned sucks.

Couver thought that he'd experienced the worst when he had been on board a rubber boat going way over the speed limit and bending over the side to vomit every few minutes but he had been wrong. Now, he regretted not having relished his five senses more when they had been functioning properly. Instead he had taken seeing one multiple-eyed creature as opposed to multiple standing in front of him for granted. What a time to be alive.

"He's awake," the bigger one whispered, casting a nervous look at its significantly smaller counterpart. Squinting slightly, Couver tried to understand if it was one smaller creature that he was looking at or three that looked identical. "What do we do with him?"

Surrounded by a layer of heavy fog and with tears rolling down his stinging eyes, Couver could just barely make out the mumbling silhouettes standing a few meters away. As his surroundings started to get more into focus and his diplopia slowly disappeared, he turned his head around to get a better idea of where he was. Once he stopped squinting, it took him a moment to get adjusted to the murky green light coming from somewhere outside. His body was propped up against the far edge of a wooden boat. He faced a set of stone stairs that rose out from the water where he was and led up to the platform where the two creatures were conversing in what sounded like grumbling and gurgles. On each side of the platform were another set of stairs that ended in multiple archways leading into dark corridors. The building could very well have been a museum, seeing as the stone was intricately carved but instead, it lay abandoned, in ruins and covered in vines that stretched over the structure like spiderwebs.

All around him, thick drops of a water-like substance kept falling through the ginormous hole on one side of the coved ceiling and into the lake below. The lake in which he was, laying dehydrated and dizzy and with no idea of how he'd gotten there.

At that thought, he frowned. The voice that had felt as if it had come directly from the inside of his ear had said that Couver had failed. Failed to do what? He knew that the poison must be messing with his memory so he closed his eyes and tried to recall as much as he could.

His name was Couver Watt
He was 20 years old
He worked for CSE
He came from Earth
He was currently not on Earth
He had been sent to retrieve a ...?
He had been on an airship
He had been poisoned
He had been sitting on a boat, rocking back and forth inside of a desolate building, for who knew how long
He was starving

With great effort, he hauled his body up to a sitting position and tried to crawl in order to get to the other side of the rocky boat. His head throbbed and the air was so dense it felt as if it was clogging his airway more instead of reducing the increasing feeling of suffocation. With a slight pat, he felt the familiar shape of his gun at his right pocket and breathed out in relief. Just as he'd managed to step off the boat and get soaked up to his hip he saw the two creatures sliding over to him, their tentacles leaving a slimy trail behind them.

"Uh, hello," Couver said, hoping that it came across less awkwardly than it felt. The smaller of the two sized him up for a second before growling out a reply.

"Who are you?"

"Couver," Couver replied while trying to wedge his way through the thick algae. "Couver Watt."

"Couver what?" The larger one asked, looking slightly puzzled.

"Couver Watt. W A T T," he said, feeling slightly annoyed. This interaction reminded him oddly of his days back in middle school and he would've hoped to escape those once he was no longer in, well, middle school.

Having now reached the stairs, he desperately tried to keep going but every single muscle in his body ached. Moving even an inch more felt like trying to walk through a wall of rubber. He had forgotten what pain felt like.

"Why are you here?" The smaller one pressed on, glaring at him with its one big, orange eye.

"I am looking for something," he confessed, secretly hoping that the strange creatures in front of him may have some kind of answer.

"Could it be this?" The smaller one said, dangling a device from one of its tentacles. There was a faint static sound coming from its speaker and the screen kept blinking uncontrollably before it went dark. As confused as ever, he stared at his reflection on the screen. His usually manageable red hair was bushy and sprawling all over the place. The few freckles that were on the bridge of his nose were now impossible to see under the thin layer of sweat mixed with dirt that coated his features. Quite frankly, he had seen better days.

He limped closer, stretching out his trembling arm to try and snatch his device but the creature was too quick and Couver's will-power had abandoned him hours ago. A sudden gust of wind gave him some relief from the humidity and he dropped down to his knees in defeat. Unwillingly, he glanced up at the two creatures, not knowing which eye to look into.

"What do you want from me?" He heard himself ask. It wasn't a demand, more like genuine wonder.

That's when he heard it, another voice calling his name. Only this time it came from the device that was just out of his reach instead of the inside of his ear. Even with the poison still fresh in his bloodstream, Couver managed to make out one word; Run.