We would be meeting up every other day from the morning and into the evening. I'd since gotten acquainted with my new friends aboard the ship, but one day they had us go swimming, and it would be an opportunity missed just because of it.
"Nathan, did you put on what I gave you?" Machiavelli asked me through the door.
"I did, and I can't feel my legs. What's this supposed to do anyhow?" I asked him.
"Well, once you have a feeling there, tell me," he told me.
"that doesn't answer my question," I replied.
That sounded weird, but I knew what he was talking about. He had me put on an odd wrap shaped like a fishtail over my legs. When I did, I at first felt a lot of pain in my legs then no feeling at all, but now the feeling was coming back to me, and my legs felt a lot different.
"Ok, now I can feel whatever happened to my legs," I told him. He then came in and had me remove the wrap, and that's when I realized that the cover changed my legs into a scaled dolphin-like tail.
"Perfect, wait till they see you are swimming in this," he told me.
"I can only imagine, I just hope you can reverse this after the fact," I replied.
"I can, just not now, at least," he replied.
He picked me up and walked his way to where the rest of the group, but as he did, I saw my family in the distance. I would have run off to them if it wasn't for the fact I had that fishtail. Once we got there, most of them were a bit confused, but Daniel looked as if he was about to laugh.
"Nathan, what did he do to you?" He asked me.
"The same thing that happened to you and a few others," I replied.
"Well, this shouldn't be an inconvenience in the water; it might help when we get in," he replied.
"Here put these on," Machiavelli told me as he applied two patches to me and Daniel's face. I would have said something, but my ability to speak was suddenly hindered by sharp pains and a slight inability to breathe. "Nathan, you might want to stay under the water for a while," he said to me as he pushed me into the water.
Once in the water, the patches fell off and floated to the top, and I could breathe again. I felt my face, and I realized I had gills on my face. Then Daniel fell in to, and the same thing was on him. I tried to speak, but the sound wouldn't travel at all. That's when we saw the others jump in, some of which were scaled and had a similar fishtail as I did.
after a few minutes of swimming, I decided to try to surface only to realize that I wasn't receiving oxygen through the air too quickly. "Nathan, it might be up to 2 hours until you can breathe out of water properly," he told me. I dived back under and played with the others in the water. It was probably one of the best feelings for me as I loved to swim.
After 45 minutes, I started to get tired, so I laid down in the sand under the water near the shore. "Nathan, can you breathe out of the water yet?" Someone asked me. I stuck my head out of the water, and this time I could breathe.
"Maybe now I can enjoy myself in the sand," I replied.
"Yeah, let me get you under the sand," she replied. She pulled me out of the water and laid me in the dry sand. Then she packed the sand over me up to my neck tightly.
"This feels good. I'm starting to warm up from the heat being trapped, too," I told her.
"I knew you'd be alright," she told me. She then called some of her friends in the water, and they started to carve and build with the sand around me.
"Nathan's pretty timid from the looks of it. He adapted almost too quickly," someone told Machiavelli.
"Well, despite sometimes bugging me about his family, he's pretty content with this—such a nice boy with big potential. I want to get him into the holographic games. I bet if my son were here, he'd love him like a brother," he replied.
"Well, the Hive Queen does have a lead on where he is," I told him.
"I already know, and it's hard to believe he's still alive," he replied.
Suddenly I started to feel off. My main focus was being shifted from finding my family to enjoying the moment. "It's finally kicking in, don't fight it, Nathan, you'll only do more harm than good," he told me.
"That feeling, it's as if a weight is being taken off my brain," I said before going into a trance.
"Yes, just enjoy the moment," he replied.
After that, I was just focusing on what was in front of me, and right now, it was the warm sun on my scales, the sand around me, and the water that I was breathing in for a while. After it got dark, he got me out from under the sand near our camp. "So, what are we doing for the night?" I asked him.
"Well, let me get your legs back, and you'll be able to get some rest. Once that pill kicked in it must have made you tired" he replied,
"And what about the gills?" I asked him.
"I'll handle those too," he replied.
He put my tail in another wrap that gave my legs back and patches to my face to remove the gills. "Oh, and look who's here, your dragon mother," Machiavelli told me.
"Oh yeah, I'm getting tired girl, let me sleep in there ok?" I asked her. She then licked me and stuck me under her tongue. "This does feel nice on the scales, she was right," I said before falling asleep.
"you're enjoying this, aren't you. Well, there will be many more like it, all you have to do is put the past behind you and look to the future," something said to me.
"Put the past behind me, I could... I could do that," I replied.
"Yes, just enjoy the moment, get your mind off of things for a while," it replied.
After that, I had focused entirely on enjoying what was in front of me, the campout. Not once had the thought of my original family crossed my mind. For another two days, I was playing and hiking on the alien planet, a planet with a lot of lakes.
"Hey, Machiavelli, why is one of the neighboring groups covered in plants?" I asked him.
"Probably a mutualistic plant of some kind. The thing it attaches to allow it to spread its pollen farther, and then the host gets some food from the plant," He replied.
We trekked a bit further before going a bit into a cave. "Machiavelli, you sure this is safe? There's not anything dangerous in here, right?" I asked him.
"No, I..." He stopped there as a thick web latched onto me and pulled me in deeper. "Nathan!" I heard him shout.
"Ok, that's one big spider," I said as the spider hung me in its web near its egg. "Now I have a feeling I'm newborn food," I said, but the spider seemed to be timider than I expected. Instead, it tried to ease my fears as if it had better intentions for me. Suddenly it bit into my arm and injected venom that put me in a heavy trance.
"Comfort my young when they hatch. Let them practice spinning their webs on you," I heard something say to me. It then cut me loose, but instead of me running, I kept near the egg waiting for it to hatch.
"It's in safe hands," I sluggishly said.
I stayed near the egg for what seemed like hours until I felt it move. "Come on out her child," I said. It then came out and drew me in close.
"I'm back, eat up you 2," the mother spider said to me. It then dropped some food for us, an unusual animal. I dug in rather quickly, but the spiders didn't eat as much.
After that, I laid down and let the spider practice spinning its web on me, and by that, I mean it was wrapping me in it. "I guess I'll take a quick nap," I said before the spider wrapped my jaw shut.
"Don't suffocate him," the mother spider told the young one.
I ended up asleep for almost the rest of the day only to wake up at about nightfall tightly wrapped in webbing completely. I began to squirm as I was no longer in any trance, but after that, I felt a hairy leg touch my side, and I soon stopped squirming. "Nathan!" I heard Machiavelli shout. The spider bit me again, and then I felt like I was being carried by one of them.
"Stay quiet," I heard the younger spider say to me.
"There they are," I heard one of them say.
I was quickly unraveled and then told to protect them, but while rushing towards them, I heard Machiavelli say: "Dante quick tranq him," and then a dart hit my leg, causing me to fall. "hold him," he said to them. I tried to fight back only to tire and then pass out quickly.
"Nathan, you awake," I heard Machiavelli say. I slowly open my eyes to find myself covered in Infested again.
"What happened, how long was I out? I asked him.
"About a week," he replied.
"Well, I feel like I have a migraine right now, and something's coming back to me," I replied. Then images of my family and where they are on the ship appeared in my mind. "So that's where my family is. You must miss me so," I said.
"Oh boy, back to the old Nathan, I guess," he told everyone else in the room.
We chuckled for a little bit about it as I said: "Maybe after my headache is gone, we can see if they have holographic trouble in terrorist town," I told him.
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