Once within the small farmhouse, Alex and Seff hear the sheepish bovins outside excitedly baah-ing in a deep tone. “They love the lightning from the storm, it helps them recharge.” Seff sips his tea slowly. The scent smells of floral and fruity notes with a hint of sweet spice.  

        Seff’s father comes into the room with the same tea and stares out the window. He sits down on one of the comfortable pillows and sips away. “Hmh…” He grunts. “So…” Alex perks his ears and stares at the large, feathered man awaiting further audio. “Where did you come from?” Alex looks down at the table, he too has a cup of tea nearest to him, staring into the mirrored image of his tearing and glitching left eye. Some of the blue liquid falls into the tea and swirls floating downward. This confuses Alex and he looks closer into the tea, staring at the bottom of the cup in awe. The blue liquid stays still and in shape as before, yet separates while in airy temperament. Seff’s father is already at a loss, wondering why he isn’t replying. He notices, again, the rip in his back, oozing blue blood. It seems to rip farther down his spine. There's some things he cannot see.

        Seff's father puts his tea down, slowly getting up as Seff watches Alex stare into the abyssal tea water. Quietly and carefully he looks into the rip and sees larger components... blue, glowing flesh surrounding it. Their spine shines... chorded perfectly. He’s astonished at how complex this 'human' is... He has never seen such an 'organism' in his fair time of living. “Where -did- you come from exactly…” He sees a broken part of metal that fell to the ground and retrieves it looking at the grooves and smooth outer layer. He ponders it, roaming back to his pillow, sitting in it again.

        Seff moves slightly closer to Alex, “So my father’s name, it’s Akhmin. I used to have a mother… but she passed. Her name was Rima." Alex listens to Seff's story in earnest, "She was very gentle... just like a bumbling Flitter… Roaming, retrieving pollin for her colony..." Seff looks down, his eyes deprived of glee. He smiles slightly. Alex starts to feel… bad. Their mouth starts to frown as well. He touches it as he does, confused at this feeling.

        Akhmin pockets the metalloid rock he received and stares back outside. The gusts are at their worst and the bovins are finally calm and asleep. Seff also stares at the storm. “So do you think there will be many quallix this day? It’s been fairly acidic…” Seff is pondering the success rate and amount of meat they can harvest by the end of the planet’s beginning month. Akhmin thinks for a moment, already complacent with the amount of food he’ll be able to harvest, wondering more about what they just happened upon… the 'organism' they just picked up, battered and broken... sentient...

        Akhmin put their elbow on the table to lean in, looking at Alex. "How is your tea?" Alex looks up, confused. Akhmin retreats their encroaching bubble and proceeds. "Let me tell you a story..." Alex's eyes light up a bit in interest. Seff sips their tea looking at them both. Akhmin puts their hand down on the table and starts their tale. "There were once ancient beings called Kymera. They were born without seeing their creator. About 300 years from the time of their evolutional growth, their civilization prospered. They had witnessed a large obelisk riddled with foliage from years past. It looked very alien and had an archaic but sleek design. Brass shelled walls layered with grey sheet metal. The lining had glass-like thin strips that had a dark green tint. They tried to get into it but failed many times. After 100 more years past, the sky lit up slightly as though a meteor befell upon the planet. A couple of hours later, steam crept from the obelisk's mouth, opening up as a tall, mechanical being walked out, their hands behind their back. Metal scarabs came out with it, lining its path. Taellis, they called it. The name means "Talons of Life". Their eyes shot the Kymera green glares. When they ate the culture's foods, their entire face would open like a maw. Their creations... were known as "Chiro".

         Green lightning strikes harshly within the sky as Akhmin ends his story at a cliffhanger. They hear the sound of a bird. A cawwing noise. Akhmin sips the last of his tea and goes out onto the front porch to find absolutely nothing in sight. The winds are picking up as a black-feathered bird made of bone caws in the acid rains beneath the roof. Akhmin stares up at it but only finds it flew just out of sight, into the night's embrace as a shadowy fog. He does, however, see a flash of green lightning as a figure stands steadily beyond the yard staring back at him Plain to see as the light from the storm flashes, but then dissipates into the darkness as it dims.

        Seff rushes out beside him as Alex follows. Alex can hear the cawwing even as the other two can no longer sense it. He doesn't just hear the bird, he hears everything. He hears the screaming of the owl from his dream as it rips through his mind, offending his nerves. Seff sees him gripping his head and tries to console him but nothing is working. Alex seems to have stopped in place, his eyes completely white. He has gone into a trance. He stands up, steadily walking away. His chest creates a humming noise only he can hear. Cyan light resonates within his ribs as something pulls him toward the storm, toward the nearest and tallest hill. The glowing blue node on his chest is noticed by both Seff and Akhmin and pulses as he wanders off. Seff tries to hold his arm but loses grip. Akhmin tried yelling to get his attention but then restrains him due to lack of success with vocalization. 

        Alex, able to push Akhmin away with the force of a bull, blindly walks into the acid rains. Akhmin, with his arms up, has nothing to say as he is handled like a piece of driftwood. He stares at Alex walking away as he slowly focuses in on his own hands. "What-- in... the...", Seff tries running after him, parts of his skin corroding from the rain. "Don't go into a torrential downpour, Seff!... you ought to know better... let him go." Akhmin scolds Seff as he watches Alex walk to his fate. "Seff..." Seff looks back at his father holding a metal shard. Akhmin proceeds, "Just... let him be..." He starts to walk in the cabin. Seff, unwilling to let go, sits as Alex is in the distance watching as the green tendrils strike the clouds in branches.  

        Alex is treading into the eye of the storm, the dark abyssal clouds with torrential downpour of acidic raindrops. Something within his body is creating this bright pulsar, a warm glow emitting from his core, as if luring him toward the sky. As he braces this danger, he’s completely and utterly focused. Lightning strikes fairly close to his position, yet nothing of his emotion comes to the surface other than some jerks of muscle. He stops abruptly, looming in one place. The pulsar is still at the same interval but is now making him look up at the sky slowly, as if he needs to directly go toward the stars. He cannot just fly or jump up there, however, so his body remains. His eyes glance at a cloud in front of him and so he begins staring directly at the lightning bolt about to pierce his forehead as time slows. He’s about to get blasted by tonnes of energy when suddenly, his body feels like it’s resisting impact and moving in limbo. A gravitational field is holding his body and pulling it toward a portal that opens up behind him, emitting from his back. It looks like a polygonal, four-sided star, ether emanating from its opening. It, too, was the same blue color as his emissions. Before he can look completely behind him he blinks away, disappearing from view as the lightning catches the ground, zapping a very small flower. 

        Alex starts seeing flashes of images from when he was walking toward the storm. With the feeling of a spark of electricity, he drifts away from its arcing grasp as if in two places at once. The feeling of nausea is almost absent but gives his mind vertigo as he blinks back into existence and drops to the floor inside the living room area of the house. He replaces where he sat before but flying acrossed the table, his back hitting the wall. His eyes become dim and tired. Faint voices clutter as static input in what seems to sound like Seff and Akhmin coming to his aid. His mind suddenly drifts off and falls into slumber once again

        One last dream occurs. One of absolute fear and madness. A dark orb glistening in a black void. It’s levitating in place right in front of Alex, stationed as if it were an egg. It boisters like a throbbing heart. Black tarry tentacles reach out from it, slowly moving toward Alex. Not being able to move, Alex is wrapped in them, dragged toward the orb without escape.