Laser pistol already in hand you strap on your phonetic translator before you even step out of the craft. If these giants are plotting to eat you, you damn well want to be able to understand what they're saying. 'If for no other reason than to at least know what spices they're going to cook me in,' you think jokingly trying to be light hearted about your predicament. It backfires leaving you thinking only about the prospect of being trapped in a pot of water slowly rising to a boil... or maybe they don't even cook us, maybe...' You shake your head ridding your mind of the thought and decide the only way to conquer your fear is to face it.
Popping the cockpit, you say goodbye to the computer, "wait here, bitch."
"...Yes Michael," responds the grounded flight computer confusedly. You laugh at her prison of logic as your boot goes down into something soft. 'One small step for man... one giant... mealworm!?' The huge invertebrate rises from its foul feeding pit, circular jaws opening to show a spiraling set of hooked teeth. Big and quick as one of the constrictor snakes of your home world, it lunges at you with fangs sure to transmit the most grueling of infections. It goes for your arm and you pull it back fast enough to save your hand from the bite but not the laser pistol in it. The weapon snaps in the worms weird mouth before you can squeeze off a shot and it gorges down the pieces instantly. Around you other similar monsters are rearing out of the muck, not all of them worms. You see chittering legs and probing antennae as well. The nightmarish swarm sends you running screaming for your life. Your boot crushes the writhing coils of a number of the worms which snap vengefully at you as you bolt for the light. You hit it and just keep on running, driven now not by reason but some animal fear welling from deep within your brain. Had you been cognizent, your scientifically trained cerebrum might have posited that the experience, combined with your knowledge of the giant's eating habits, awakened in you a genetic memory from when humans had yet to evolve up out of the food-chain. As it was all you could do was scream.
You keep running until your lungs are burning and then run some more finally falling flat when you trip over a crack, one of many, in the asphalt. You lay there recovering from your ordeal with short erratic breaths until you hear a familiar sound above you, familiar but infinitely louder. Your breath stops dead in your throat -- its the sobbing. Slowly, careful not to disturb so much as a pebble around you, you turn your head up.
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