He followed his memories and traversed the tubes based on what he could recall from the previous times he was here. The small lamp’s light reflected off the slimy surfaces of the tubes and illuminated the deep darkness in front of him.
At this point, he was past his fears and was overwhelmed with the desire to finally meet it. Whatever it was that called him to this place, the moment was drawing ever closer, in which he would finally put the puzzle in its place and lay his eyes on the creature.
Its form always escaped him, and its voice eluded him, driving him mad with curiosity. Whenever he tried to put together what he saw in his dreams, the image in his mind was always incomplete. A being trapped in a bubble, shining with warm yellow light.

"I’m here ... I’m finally here," he consoled it, even though there was no voice crying like usual, and no melody to follow.

But that didn’t stop him. He avoided the dangerous tubes and kept to the ones leading right to it. The place was a maze and structured like veins or roots, branching into smaller and tighter spaces. Some of them lead nowhere, like an appendix while others led out into places full of nightmarish creatures.

After a time unknown, he saw the yellow light in the distance.

"I’m here! I’m coming!" he shouted and ran as fast as the slippery, ribbed tube would allow.

He fell and broke his lamp, but it didn’t matter as all the light he needed was in front of him. He would have it soon.

Upon entering the organic chamber, he confirmed what he saw many times in his dreams; a bubble made of transparent skin with tubes coming into it from above. Inside of it was a murky liquid and a humanoid body shining in the warmest yellow imaginable.

He couldn’t take his gaze off it and gently reached out with his hand. He took off his glove and touched the bubble.

"So ... warm," he whispered.

Caressing it softly for the longest time, he finally spoke.

"Let me in ... Let me inside," he asked with a smile.

The bubble opened and the liquid splashed out aggressively, getting his clothes completely wet. The liquid was slimy and sticky, refusing to get off or break into parts. He had to let go of the notion he would manage to take it off him and instead embraced the disgusting feeling.
After he successfully removed the liquid from his eyes, unable to bare the delay any longer, he now looked at the being revealed in front of him.

Expecting something akin to his dreams, what he saw was absolutely different.

* * *

Annabella searched and searched for hours or maybe even days, but couldn’t find even a trace of the doctor or the archaeologist. Unable to find her way back to the structure she left the professor in, she would sometimes crouch and cry until her tears would dry.
Eventually, she found her way back to the mountain and climbed it, all the while pressing the cane close to her chest. The pressure of solitude in this place weigh heavily upon her and she would even talk to herself to ease it a bit.
Just in front of the temple-like entrance to the cave, she saw two men lying on the ground.

"Leah? Pickman?" she ran to their side and knelt next to them.

"Oh no ... " she put her hands over her mouth and diverted her eyes once she’s seen enough.

Both of them were unmoving and their eyes looked like they were poked out, with bloody tears leaving a trail down their cheeks.

"I ... I can help them!" she stood up, having thought of how the previous wounds were healed by the strange food from the vessel, Annabella figured she could bring some to them and try if it worked.

But just as she stood up, a giant creature in the shape of a floating brain appeared above her. It looked like a small body grew out of it, with no legs but ending in a sculpture-like point.
Its arms were like those of a praying mantis and its shin was almost white.

"Ah ... AAAAAH!" she screamed and ran toward the cave.

Strangely enough, the creature remained floating above them, poking each body one time with a motion so fast that Annabella didn’t even see it. All she saw were the after-effects and the two bodies moving and bleeding a little, followed by a recognizable sound akin to a sharp object penetrating a body.

She gasped and her breathing quickened as she tried to reach the entrance. Her legs wouldn’t take it faster as fear was paralyzing her whole body. The only saving grace was that the creature didn’t seem to move.

"I ... I made it!" she exclaimed as she entered the cave which the creature couldn’t possibly enter, but then she felt a sharp pain through her back and she fell onto the ground.

Slowly, she crawled further inside, moving away from the creature that floated in front of the entrance. She was just out of reach enough for the stab not to be too deep and reach her heart.
Still, the pain was immense and she knew she had to bare it all the way to the vessel.

After a longest time, she managed to get back by throwing herself into the opened hatch. She inserted the cane into its place and the vessel came back to life. Just in time, Annabella got to one of the cabins and sucked furiously on the tube protruding from the wall.
She then fell onto the bed and remained still.

* * *

She woke up, not having even the slightest idea of how much time has passed. First looking out the only window, she tried to see outside, but the half-submerged vessel was inside a cave and not much could be seen through its yellow glass. Annabella checked the instruments to try and verify how much fuel or power was left but there were no indicators pointing to that kind of information. An optimistic view was that the beings that made it managed to make it power itself indefinitely, but she couldn’t bet everything on such an idea, but leaving on her own and leaving without Smythe was also not an option. She waited and waited, for what could easily be days.

Not having the courage to leave the vessel, nor the resolution to leave without the professor, she remained inside, feeding off the tube and sleeping when she could.
She would walk up and down the vessel’s few cabins, exploring every nook and cranny in hope of finding some kind of a miraculous solution, but the cold facts hit her every time, there was nothing she could do. She was powerless.

Finally, after what could be months. She came to the dashboard and said.

"Take me home."

* * *

He opened his yellow eyes.
To his surprise, he saw nothing but a murky watery substance around him. He panicked, trying to breathe, and penetrated the thin membrane with his fingers. The liquid around him poured out of the bubble and his feet landed on the slippery uneven surface. He realized he was naked even before managing to wipe the ooze out of his eyes.
Getting out of the bubble, he saw a body on the floor and stepped over it, looking around.

After noticing a few disproportionately large eggs, he grabbed the membrane and using it as a bag, filled it with the eggs. He put it onto his back and carried them through the tubes.

 He ran through the city ...

 ... onto the mountain and into the cave.

There was no vessel waiting for him.

As he was approaching the small lake, he heard the sound of rocks breaking behind him. A man, much taller than him stood up and opened his green eyes.
At this moment, the yellow-eyed man was shaken by unparallel fear.

He lowered the eggs slowly and stepped away from them. The green-eyed man didn’t react. His expression didn’t change and he remained where he stood, while his eyes stared right in front of him.

Once fear subsided, the yellow-eyed man ran away from the eggs and jumped into the lake. He dove and started swimming away into the dark depths. He swam deeper and deeper until the water sucked him into a vortex.
Everything was spinning and moving at incredible speeds. The current flung his body around and within a moment, he had no idea where he was. Holding his breath for as long as he could, he tried to find the surface, and strangely enough, he got carried to where the water ended.
Protruding his head out, he tried to take the long-awaited breath, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t inhale as if there was nothing there. Neither air nor water.

In the short moment, he got to be outside of the water, all he happened to see were countless stars and the water spiraling toward a blue planet. Before he knew it, he got sucked back in and pulled into the watery darkness.

The image of the moon on the surface of the ocean was disrupted by his emerging.
He looked up and saw a huge water spiral leading upwards to an enormous green planet, covering the whole sky. Soon, after blinking just a few times, he could see it no more and what remained was only an image of the stars and the moon.