The Strange Girl I Picked Up
“To the great victory of the Federation!”
The screen erupted in fireworks once more. On the display, the fleet marched through a distant star cluster while officers in ornate uniforms snapped perfect, rigid salutes. The commemorative speech was as grandiose as ever a simple swap of vocabulary, but the same hollow content: Sacrifice. Honor. Victory. Laughable.
People lived for the facade. They ignored the underside. The Federation did. The corporations did. They were willfully, blissfully blind.
I lived on that underside.
My job now? I’m a human scavenger haunting the battlefields. People call us Corps Cleaners. Maggots stripping dog tags from dead heroes and prying usable parts from scorched ship wreckage. The title isn't wrong. But even as they point fingers, no one is fool enough to pretend this war is a holy crusade. It’s just bean-counter math for corporations and bureaucrats.
Broadcasts claim "minimal casualties." I see the real numbers out my viewport. Numbers don't have a scent, but the reality does: leaking hydraulics, scorched protein, and the heavy reek of people jammed into cold crevices.
“...Shut up already.”
I killed the screen, silencing the drivel. Beyond the cockpit glass, a graveyard of wreckage blotted out the stars. Shredded fighters spun lazily, scattering crystallized particles of frozen blood. Federation hulls—the pride of the fleet—gaped open like silver wounds, drifting alongside expressionless corpses. All "minimal damage," of course.
And atop it all loomed a mountain range of darkness: Xenoform corpses, the things civilians call monsters. Their layered exoskeletons were torn wide, exposing innards frozen in neat, terrifying rows. They were silent, lightless bulks that dominated the vacuum by presence alone. They were humanity's terror—and my lifeline.
I gripped the stick, overriding the autopilot. The old ship's AI couldn't navigate this mess anyway, and it was far too slow. Speed mattered. In this business, you beat the rush or you starve. Federation salvage fleets and patrols would sniff out my vector soon. If I got caught, they wouldn't ask questions; they'd just send bullets.
The Night Raven's engines hummed with a low, vibrating growl. The cockpit leather had cracked ages ago, and the nav screen required a physical smack to wake up. I’d painted the hull matte black to melt into the starlight and debris shadows. If anyone asked about the name, I'd crack the same joke:
“I drift through death fields—Raven fits, right?”
The truth? It’s just easier to hide in the dark.
Then—[Beep–]. The scanner pinged.
It wasn't a standard distress call from the floating dead.
“Where the hell...?”
Coordinates streamed from the planet's surface. X-41 Planet—the Federation's big "recaptured" boast. The Xenoform war had left it a toxic wasteland of radiation and poison. The database verdict was a single, final line: Access prohibited.
Yet, a signal was pulsing from the crust.
I zoomed in, and my eyes widened. It wasn't a Federation military cipher. It was corporate code—a rough, jittery pattern, unlike the military's crisp encryption. Corporations in the heart of the frontline? Even after the planet had been bombed to slag, an emergency beacon was still blinking.
The surface scan magnified: “...A research facility?”
Frontline labs like this only served two purposes: developing anti-xenoform superweapons or slicing alien flesh for illegal experiments. Either way, it was a jackpot. One data core would buy me months of meals. A whole rig? I wouldn’t have to work for half a year. If I got really lucky, there might even be a bounty—legal looting at its finest.
“Alright. Time for a real score.”
I locked the coordinates and dropped the approach angle. Corpses orbited the planet like guard rails; I slipped the ship through the gaps. X-41's lonely gleam swelled in the glass. Sulfur-yellow toxic clouds shrouded half the globe, the convection currents twisting like a beast with physical form.
I set the ship down near the signal and double-checked the contamination shielding. I ran my fingers over the patches on my cheap hazmat suit, muttering a quick prayer. “Don't leak today. Please.”
The jolt of landing rocked the cabin. Sand grated against the hull, and static discharge crackled low against the metal. I checked my breather valve and popped the hatch.
“Ugh... the stench.”
The gas mask blocked the toxins, but not the smell. Corroding metal. Vaporized organics. An acrid haze. I could feel the electric tang of radiation on my tongue.
Through a red sandstorm, where needle-sharp grains stabbed at my suit before flaking off, I saw it. The lab sat squatted in the heart of a massive crater. Its outer walls were half-shredded, the roof canted at a broken angle. Yet, lights flickered within. A survivor's beacon—or bait.
I checked my auto-rifle mag and moved forward. Guns weren't much use against live Xenoforms, but having one in my grip calmed the nerves.
One step inside, and I recoiled on instinct.
These weren't just ruins. This lab was alive.
The walls and ceiling weren't cold metal—they were covered in red, tendon-like tissue. Veins pulsed under thin membranes, carrying a rushing, unknown fluid. Whether it was Xeno blood or something worse, it throbbed with a rhythmic beat.
Half-eaten ceiling lights glowed with a diffuse light through layers of translucent flesh. The floor was slick; mucus sucked at my boots with a wet, sickening schlurp. My ears began to ring, a sensation like fingers pressing against my eardrums. The pressure was building.
Pfft—I shook it off, chuckling at the Federation's bullshit. “'Recapture complete,' huh?”
'Threats 99% eliminated.' Apparently, that last 1% was writhing right under my feet.
Corpses were everywhere. Shredded researchers in hazmat gear. A soldier with a face half-melted into his visor. A small Xenoform, its crude legs jammed into a wall, mummified by the dry heat.
I tripped and looked down. A severed wrist lay there, an ID tag dangling loose and clinking against the floor.
I kicked it idly. Battlefield tags sold well, but the churn was endless; no one cared about the names anymore. I reached for it, then stopped.
“...”
I once saw a woman rifling through soldier corpses, her eyes dry as dust. It was a common sight. A sister, probably.
“At least the tags...” she had said, her face blank. “I need something to mourn properly.”
After that, I stopped taking tags for a while. I bought her water instead. It cost me credits, but it was the first breath I’d taken in years that didn't make me choke.
I pushed deeper into the hall. The air grew hot, and humidity began to seep into my suit. My balance wobbled. A low thrum from the walls drummed against my ribs. Was it my pulse? Or the building's? Sometimes they synced, and my brain would momentarily go white.
I gritted my teeth and hurried.
At the end of the hall, a plaque read: Central Lab.
In the center of the room was a shattered, cylindrical reinforced-glass tank. Shards were everywhere, the edges crusted white with dried culture fluid. In the middle of the ruin sat a huddled shape.
I thought it was a corpse at first. It wasn't.
Long black hair, slender limbs. A tattered dress.
“A kid?”
'Shit.'
The sound of my voice triggered her—she launched herself at me.
Time seemed to slow. In the crawl of the moment, I observed her calmly. Paper-pale skin. Cracked, agape lips. No obvious signs of infection.
I switched my rifle to non-lethal and fired. ZZZT. The kid slumped instantly.
I released the time-dilation. Her shoulders rose—barely. She was breathing.
I kept my rifle up and crept closer, my own breathing roaring inside my helmet. She looked serene amidst the horror. How was she alive in this hell?
My instinct screamed at me to kill her. Survival meant shunning anomalies. My finger tightened on the trigger—then I heard it.
“...Hungry.”
That fragile, tiny plea stopped me cold.
I'd always lived among the discarded. I never could grasp the big concepts—Power, Love, Honor. What made people discard others? Why would they throw away their only life for a flag?
I had approached the world to understand, only to learn the truth: those things didn't exist.
After that, I just picked up the trash people left behind and jammed it back into the world. I survived that way.
'And now...'
Why couldn't I leave this kid? Was it that useless pity again?
No—think different. A kid who survived a frontline lab. The mental math began to spin. A VIP’s daughter? A high-value experiment? A reward was guaranteed.
I slung my rifle and scooped her up gently. She was feather-light. Her body heat was faint, like a dying candle in a drafty room.
On the way back to the Night Raven, I glanced behind me constantly. There was no pursuit, but I couldn't shake the nagging chill—the feeling of eyes watching us, breathing on the back of my neck.
The suit-stink clung to my lungs. Once the hatch sealed, I hurled my helmet aside. It clanged and rolled across the deck. I laid the kid on my only cot, smoothed a blanket over her, and grabbed a nutrient pack from the stores. It was tasteless survival slop—the bare minimum for a functioning body.
I chugged one myself. I’d lived on these packs for years; my gut felt like an eternal void. This stuff sustains life, but it doesn't help you live it.
I pried the kid's lips open and dripped the liquid in. Her throat bobbed faintly.
Then—long lashes quivered. Her eyes cracked open. Slow. So slow.
Red irises. A faded, washed-out crimson, like old signal lights. They were empty voids—deep and hollow.
The words stuck in my throat, but I forced them out. “Hey, you with it?”
No reply. Just that blank, haunting stare.
She was a weird kid. No expression. Like human skin stretched over... No, that was a dark thought for a child. I coughed awkwardly to break the silence.
“Whatever. Survive first.”
I tried to hand her the pack, then stopped. Her arms were skeletal. There was no motion, no will behind them.
I uncapped it for her. “Watch. Like this. Ahh—”
I opened my mouth wide; the kid mimicked me. Slow. Blank.
Then—CRRRACK.
Her mouth remained unchanged. But from her clavicle down to her solar plexus—a neat, vertical seam split wide. It was silent and terrifyingly smooth.
Her upper torso gaped open, revealing a black abyss of a maw. A damp, cold gust whooshed from the depths of her chest.
That empty belly... it was breathing for her.
My breath seized. I was speechless. The pack slipped from my hand and splatted stickily on the deck, the fluid soaking into my fingers.
The thing—no, the kid—tilted her head at the spilled pack. Her red eyes tracked it slowly. She had no face in her chest, just a primal hunger glinting from the dark.
Chill sweat beaded down my spine. My knees buckled; I stumbled back and crashed against the bulkhead.
The thrum of the engine was suddenly deafening.
“Fuck...”
The girl I picked up today was definitely something strange.