Clear fluid.
"Huh," she muttered, her brow furrowing.
Something slithered in the ground at her feet. Ellie froze, watching the sand mound over a very small creature that poked its head out of the sand.
It looked sort of like a mouse. They'd had a mouse problem in Tau for years. More years than she'd been alive. But she remembered the tiny, little creatures with whiskers just like this one. The mice in Tau had been soft, though, covered in a velvety fur that she had enjoyed petting very much until someone caught her and killed the little creature. This one had no fur.
Leathery and smooth, it darted out of the sand and attacked the plant.
She shrieked and stumbled away from both the plant and the mouse. It was only the size of her middle finger, but the mouse... thing attacked with such violence it was startling. Not a single drop of liquid was wasted once the creature got to it, though. She watched it drink every drop that it could, clawed hands violently tearing at the plant that seemed to be healing itself even as the mouse drank.
It continued sucking down the liquid until it was so fat that she thought it might have to roll back underneath the sands. How strange. Its belly bulged with...
"Water," she whispered.
Water was so rare in this desert that just the scent of it summoned creatures. Ones like the mouse, who were probably genetically capable of smelling it.
But if the scientists were creating humans that were spliced with animal DNA, then surely... surely they had started on other creatures first? Was this mouse proof of that?
Maybe this new version of their world was filled with creatures they wouldn't ever understand. Maybe everything here wasn't what they knew at all.
As she watched the mouse drunkenly cross the sand, a thought occurred that she should grab it. Bring it back to the others in the domes. Maybe they would know what to do with it and be able to test to see if there was anything interesting about it. Like genes that shouldn’t be there.
Perhaps it was just a mouse, and there was nothing strange about it at all. But the more she looked at it, the stranger the creature seemed to be. This wasn't an ordinary mouse, and proof of that might be helpful.
Then reality reminded her that she was being foolish. Of course she couldn't bring it back. The domes were underwater, and she had no idea how far away they were. This mouse wouldn't survive the trip, even if she had some kind of oxygen cage to bring it in.
She crouched down, watching it burrow into the sand and said, "I wish I had proof you aren't what you are supposed to be."
Her words were too loud. The discovery of something new had made her forget that she was supposed to be wary of her surroundings. At the sound of her voice, a low growl movedthrough the canyon on the breeze. She might not have heard it at all if it wasn't so silent where she was.
Her blood went cold. Ellie slowly lifted her head to see the creature that had frozen in the mouth of the canyon. It looked almost like a dog. She'd seen pictures of them in Tau and knew they stood on four legs, had a tail, and a canine looking muzzle for a face. Some of that was accurate with this creature.
But it had six legs. With hands instead of paws.
The beast lifted its head, sniffing the air with eyes that almost appeared sightless. Or burned out of its skull. It also had no fur, although she could definitely see there were some scales on its body.
Then it curled its lip, revealing rows upon rows of teeth.
"Oh, fuck."
She turned and bolted back the way she had come. Perhaps not the smartest move. She had read once that dogs loved to chase things, not that she ever had an opportunity to meet one.
A howl erupted into the air, and she moved her body even faster. There was so much space here. She had never been able to run as freely as she could right now. Running inside the cities was on a small track with a ceiling very close to her head. There wasn't the endless, vast nature that there was here.
It felt as if she was moving in slow motion. The sand grabbed at her feet, slowing her down and tripping her as she made it to the sun mosaic on the ground. How had she gotten this far from the cave?
Hot breath touched her legs as she scrambled to her feet, and she heard the sound of its jaws clamping shut where her leg had just been.
Ellie ducked into the brambles, not caring that they tore at her bare skin. All she knew was that the scent of her blood made the animal even more enraged. Its snarls rang in her ears as she tore herself free and ran down the stairs.
She almost tripped. Almost killed herself falling down the long stairs that would lead down to the sea. She kept her hands on the walls, trying to take the stairs as quickly as she could without breaking her neck.
"Come on," she said as she bounded down them two at a time. "You're fine. You're fine."
But she wasn't. The beast behind her had freed itself from the brambles, and she could hear it rushing after her.
Finally, she broke free into the cavern with the sea. She ran straight for the stairs toward the water. Who cared if she couldn't swim? She'd rather die drowning than in the jaws of some animal that would take its sweet time eating her.
