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From a fucking alien voice in my head.
     
    ***

Chapter Three
     
     
    I burst into our holding cell, a sanitary white tile room with a four-inch thick glass partition running down the middle. On my side there was a table and chairs. On the other side there was nothing but white tile, white walls and a Hell-Spider. They didn't even give him a leafy branch and a rock to make him feel at home.
    The Hell-Spider was sitting in that same damned yoga pose he had been in the cafeteria, calmly looking at the horizon like he was meditating. He didn't even twitch when I burst into the room and started pounding on the glass.
    "HEY! YOU! Talk to me again!"
    The spider turned his head to look at me, but nothing more.
    "Hey! Talk to me like you did before!"
    The spider appeared to be watching a mote of dust drift slowly to the floor in front of him.
    "I know you can talk! And I need information!"
    I slammed both fists against the glass, making it shudder, but he still barely reacted. There wasn't time- the squad was suiting up right now- I had to know! I started pacing the room.
    "Look," I said, "My squad is going to patrol the same mountain you just came from. Patrol- do you understand? Walking around in pointless circles, with guns?"
    I tried to pantomime the words, but the spider still looked at me like a goddamn mute sheep.
    "And I need information! How many of you guys are out there and how to avoid them. I don't want to kill them, see I want to miss them- do you understand?" I made my two hands miss each other in front of me, but the spider just cocked his head at me. No voice.
    I approached the glass again. "And they're going to do stuff to you here. Bad stuff. I can tell you, so you can prepare. So you can be ready, but I need information from you!"
    He was watching that dust mote float to the floor again. I wished I could slap him.
    "Fine! I don't care! Let's take all day to do this!" I jumped up on the table on my side, then sat cross-legged like he was. I touched my middle fingers to my thumbs as I saw Ohhhhmmega Squad do every morning and exhaled deeply. "I can wait you out," I said. "I've got ALL day."
    I inhaled slowly, then exhaled again. Then again. "Yep. All day. Got nothing else to do."
    I let another few breaths pass, trying to appear calm. No response. I closed my eyes, took one last deep breath before I was going to-
    "It. Is. YOU again!" The shock of hearing that gravelly voice right between my ears almost knocked me from the table. I broke the yoga pose and slammed my fist on the table.
    "Of course it's me! What- why didn't you say anything before?"
    The spider tilted his head. "Your thoughts were muddy. Unclear. Many words, no message."
    "I was babbling."
    "Yes."
    I rubbed my hand over my face. "How is this possible? Are all Hell-Spiders psychic?"
    "Of course."
    "Then why did you not talk to us before?"
    I didn't know how the spider did it, sitting, with a hard shell for a coat, but I swear to god he shrugged. "Unknown animals show up, want the same hunting grounds my clan owns. We have seen this before. We do not talk to our competitors." He focused his four eyes on me. "Or to our prey."
    "Fine, but how did you learn English? By watching Sesame Street while your parents were away at work?"
    "I think in my pictures, send them to you. Your brain translates into pictures you know. And in reverse."
    "So I can even think of things you've never seen and you'll understand? Like if I said... 'Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue', you'd picture..."
    The spider tilted his head for a second. "Recorded images of your females in heat, used to start your mating rituals?"
    I chuckled. "Okay, not a perfect translation. Look, I know we're supposed to be enemies but I need information. They're sending us back to a mountain." I closed my eyes and pictured it in my head. "This mountain."
    "The Night Hunting Grounds. Yes, I know it well."
    "They're forcing us to go there, to try and kill as many of you as we can- but I'm not going to do