Dakota wasn’t sure if the hologram message was part of the test, or if it were real. She knew the building was owned by the Facilitators because of the cameras and the way she was drugged and left inside that locked room with her birthdate as the key. But none of the blue suited men marched the halls, nor were their bodies leaking blood anywhere.

Someone or something had clearly killed the beast. Nearly vomiting again, she took another look at it, trying to determine the weapon that had mutilated it. These were the very monsters, aliens really, that had somehow deciphered the human communications to find Earth. Intelligent beings like these were very hard to kill and had driven all the human scientists exploring this planet underground.

The wound was large, abdominal, and the edges that weren’t covered in goo were jagged. Had it eaten a bomb? Moving to where she could see inside the cavity, she noted that the walls were smooth. Not like a bomb, like it had a parasite, or given BIRTH!