Lumi and Alba followed the strange woman out of the hall and then she stopped, swung around, and with a wide smile she apologised, “Ah, I’m so sorry!”

“Well, you should be,” Alba said with annoyance. “You nearly killed us!”

“Ah, not about that. I forgot to introduce myself!”

Lumi and Alba’s faces contorted with rage, but as though she didn’t notice, the woman smiled wider.

“I’m Freya Lloyd, but I don’t care much for last names or honorifics, so you can just call me Freya.”

Alba’s adrenaline was reaching its end, but they had arrived at an infirmary. Freya pushed Alba in and said, “I’ll come back for you later.”

Lumi and Alba had one last moment of eye contact before the doors slammed between the two. Lumi turned to Freya who was humming about and rubbing her ring.

Lumi asked, “Where are we?”

Freya didn’t answer that question, but instead she turned and asked, “Can I give you a piercing?”

Lumi stated bluntly, “You’re weird.”

Freya laughed but she bent down and asked again, “Can I?”

Lumi said, “Sure.”

Freya’s smile dropped and she stood up straight and continued walking forward without a word.

“She is really weird,” Lumi thought.

Lumi asked, “Where are we going?”

“To see your friends.”

Freya didn’t sound nearly as happy as she did prior and something lit up in Lumi’s brain.

“Is it no good when they give consent? The people that you ask to give piercings?”

Freya didn’t answer and Lumi looked at the gun in Freya’s hand. If she hadn’t taken it from her, she would have shot her dead already and tried to find her friends herself. Then they could get out of there and she could continue building that gun she was working on. Suddenly something caught Lumi’s eye and she stopped walking and stared into the window. Freya noticed Lumi was no longer following her and walked back. She saw a shine so strong glimmering in Lumi’s intense gaze and she could almost feel the buzz of her excitement.

“Ah, that’s our weapons facility. Are you interested?”

Lumi spun around with a gigantic smile and yelled, “Yes!”

“Well, I don’t think you’re allowed to enter, but I can see what I can do…”

Freya couldn’t even finish her sentence before Lumi had already pushed past a person who had unlocked the door and sprinted into the room. Lumi gathered around the group of people pondering over a new gun design and it took them a good moment before they realised Lumi was standing right next to them.

“Uh.”

Lumi said with much enthusiasm, “Why did you guys stop? Keep on going!”

The scientists turned to Freya who was looking in through the window and Freya nodded her head. The scientists hesitantly continued what they were doing and Freya couldn’t help but sigh.

“So much for loyalty. She would stop at anything if that meant she could create better weapons.”

Freya crossed her arms and continued down the hallway.

She thought, “All of the Spider’s have a skewed sense of loyalty that needs to be corrected and controlled. Alba seems to be only loyal because of friendship, which means he won’t trust us unless his friends do. Lumi only cares about weaponry. Andri doesn’t seem to be loyal to anyone besides himself, and Eryi is only loyal to Andri. What the hell was the commander-in-chief thinking?”

Eryi sprung awake and immediately looked around for Andri, but he was sitting in a vast space of nothing. He felt ahead of him and his fingers grazed over something sharp. He picked it up carefully and found out it was a knife. Slowly he stood up, but the difference in lighting did not change. He couldn’t even see his own hands. Slowly he stepped forward, again and again with his arms out, but they wouldn’t touch anything. He hastened his pace and then his fingers landed on something hard and cold. It was a wall. He followed the wall, afraid that if he were to let go he would lose it forever. His shoes splashed into something and he stopped in his tracks. Something was dripping into the puddle before him and something splattered on his arm. Eryi backed up swiftly but he ran into something. It felt like a person. Terrified, Eryi asked with a shake in his voice, “Hello?”

The person behind him didn’t answer and Eryi took his chance and let go of the wall. He sped to the middle of the room, but it was there that he ran into something again. He hesitantly reached out with his shaking hand and felt the person in front of them. It was then that he realised it really was a person, but there was something off about them. Their skin was unnaturally cold. Something grabbed his hand and then his back, trapping him in a strange embrace. Eryi tried to push himself away, but the person before him was far too powerful. Then something grazed across his lips, tickling him and sending shivers down his spine. Then, the person bit down on his bottom lip, sending blood trickling down his chin. Eryi managed to win his arm free and he stabbed forward with much force, squishing into the gut of the person in front of him. The person squealed loudly, unlike a human at all, but rather like a dog. Eryi heard the person stumbling back, and instead of running away, Eryi stalked after them slowly. He listened for the direction of their whimpers, and then he took his chance. He stabbed forward again, but he didn’t hit anything at all. He could have sworn it was right in front of him, so where did it go? Something grabbed his stomach and lifted him above the ground. They bit down on the back of his neck and a swarm of pain washed through Eryi. He reached for his neck and felt the face of the person who had bit them. It was as though they were stuck there like a bone.

Andri’s voice echoed through Eryi’s brain, “Get your hands off your neck!”

Eryi swiftly dropped his hands with much confusion and it felt as though his neck was on fire. Eryi felt weak, and he couldn’t tell anymore if his eyes were open or not.

“I’m disappointed in you.”

Eryi shot his hand up, stabbing the person in the side of the face. They dropped him to the ground and with much haste Eryi pulled the knife out of the person’s cheek and straddled their chest. He stabbed over and over into their brain and then the lights shone on like a beam and Eryi couldn’t see for a good while.