Stuff with Zurry

Zurry found himself in a dark void. It felt familiar to him, and not in a good way. He tried to stand, as he was laying down, but he couldn’t move. He looked to see if anything was weighing him down. Didn’t seem like it. He tried scanning his surroundings, but for whatever reason his antennae weren’t picking up coherent signals, which was weird. He could understand getting no signals, which would mean he was alone; and he could usually tell if someone else was around. Even if they were a stranger to him and hadn’t picked up their signal before, he could still perceive them as a concrete entity. He couldn’t tell what the static that he was currently getting was supposed to be. He lay there quietly for a while, just trying to comprehend what was going on.

Something moved in his peripheral. He panicked a little. ‘There shouldn’t be anything around. I know it, I checked, my senses are never wrong!’ he told himself; he didn’t want to think of what could possibly be giving off that signal. It was his own spines moving on their own! All six of them slowly arched around him (which he thought almost made them seem like two big sets of claws about to grasp him) in what he would describe as a heart shape. Coincidently, all the tips pointed to where his heart would be if he had one. In the moment when they stayed still, he was reminded of Reaptile’s rib cage. Most of his… friends?... also had them, but Reaptile’s was the only one he could see. Though he didn’t seem to have this feature either, with him having an exoskeleton and all. Speaking of which, his spines plunged through it. He didn’t feel anything, but heard a crack.

Next thing he knew, he heard his own voice screaming. Then he opened his eyes, which he didn’t remember closing. He also didn’t remember sitting up, but that was the position he was in. His spines were retracted, actually it seemed like they hadn’t been out since- 

His train of thought was cut off by a whimper he was all too familiar with. He looked around the… he was in a bedroom. Shine and Shade’s room, which he had been staying in for the time being. A twitch of his antennae confirmed that both were still there.

“What is it?” Shine didn’t seem too concerned, but he put in the effort of rolling over to look over at him, at least. Zurry looked at Shade, who was backed into the far corner and looked like he was about to cry or something.

“... Just a bad dream.” He felt his chest as he said this, just to be certain. Everything seemed to be fine. It was only until now did he realize that he was specifically in his second form in the dream, despite only being in his first in reality. And he hadn’t even wondered about how he’d gotten to that place. The more he thought about it, the more he felt he should’ve noticed that he was in a dream. He was disgusted with himself for letting something so frivolous get the better of him. And he hated when others saw him as vulnerable.

Shine rolled back over, and Shade crawled back into his bed. Zurry decided that was all the sleep he was getting for the night and went out the door. Drane was up, too. ‘Interesting.’ thought Zurry. He had been wanting to spend more time observing the silent one with the parasite. Partly because he still hadn’t pinned down their personalities yet and wondered which he’d be interacting with. Since Drane was currently in his second form, Zurry switched to his when approaching him. Since Drane was sitting at a table, Zurry sat next to him. Drane looked kind of groggy.

“So, what are you up for?” Zurry attempted to open with a joke. He didn’t quite “get” humor, he wasn’t even sure if he physically could laugh, and Drane had what Zurry understood as a somewhat different sense of it compared to the others on the team. Or was it Roddy (the parasite)’s sense of humor? Maybe it was both. Maybe that’s why Drane lets that thing live inside him. Guess he’d find out. The joke was intended to resemble the phrase ‘So, what are you in for?’ and the humor would come from the fact that Drane had been incarcerated previously. Apparently those parasite beings are generally seen as a threat. The idea was that it was “funny because it’s true.” Zurry himself was also imprisoned for attempting a hostile takeover that didn’t pan out. Though, whether that made the joke more acceptable or not wasn’t really clear to him. Normally, he’d be too careful not to offend who he was talking to to say something like that, but as mentioned before, Drane was different in that aspect.

A few seconds passed before Drane responded. It was like he didn’t register what was said to him at first. He smiled and exhaled slightly harder than normal so as to be audible. Not quite a laugh, actually it almost seemed more like a cough, but the guy did seem a bit sleepy still, so perhaps it was a lack of energy as opposed to a lack of enjoyment. Beyond that, Drane was untalkative as per usual. A few more seconds made Zurry realize he should probably say something to avoid the awkward silence, as Drane was the most awkward and silent person he knew; and he thought of himself as unnaturally awkward and silent. 

“... Do you want to go on a mission or something? Since we’re both awake?”

Drane gave him a thumbs up, drank the rest of a glass of water that Zurry had failed to notice before and smacked himself in the face in an attempt to be less drowsy, the sudden noise of which made Zurry flinch ever so slightly, and started walking to the computer so they could sign out.

---

It was a fairly common and simple type of mission; fight off foes and recover resources, so the two had a lot of quiet time. They were walking down a long Rock-type tunnel. Zurry asked why Drane was awake so late. Drane seemed uncomfortable answering. Zurry knew Drane wasn’t actually a mute, and knew that Drane usually consulted Drake before speaking for whatever reason. Zurry didn’t really care what that was all about, though. “I’ve been having nightmares.” Zurry once again took it upon himself to break the silence. Drane seemed interested. Drane had been focusing more on the mission than on their conversation up until that point, which wasn’t uncommon whenever Zurry was part of a group. On three separate accounts he had been referred to as “creepy”, more if the phrase “creepy crawly” was included. This was probably partly why Drane seemed curious; what could the guy people are afraid of possibly be afraid of? Zurry talked about the dream he just had. Then the one where he was inside a dark place, and once he started to try to claw his way out, a crack opened up both on the “wall” and himself simultaneously (in what he then realized was the same place his spines tried to impale him in the previous dream), and he figured that in that dream, he was essentially an infinite matryoshka doll; it was kind of like when two mirrors are held up facing each other and they reflect like a tunnel for what seems to be forever. There was also one where his shell is cracked open (same place as the other dreams) and he just profusely bleeds this black ooze, much more than what should be able to physically fit in him, which then starts trying to form a silhouette and stand up.

Finally, Drane felt it was appropriate to admit he was also having nightmares, and that Roddy had gone back to sleep, so it was just him. “I keep getting the same one over and over. Everything’s brightly colored and shiny. There’s a purple fizzing ocean, but after looking around, it’s like there was a flood or something. Like, there’s buildings and stuff around and I think I’m on a roof or something. I see these shadows in the purple stuff, and so I jump in, and it's really thick and I feel like I can’t breathe, which is weird to me because I can normally breathe underwater. And so I grab on to one of the shadows and pull it to the surface and place it on where I started; and it’s Drake. So I figure they’re all in there, and I try to rescue everybody, but I always wake up before I get everyone. It’s just really stressful, and every time, I wonder if I’ll finally stop having it if I save everyone, but it just never happens. I don’t know what makes me wake up so fast. Maybe someone drowns. I don’t know.” Drane sighed, he seemed disappointed with himself.

“Have you ever asked for anyone to help in the dream?” Zurry asked. 

Drane shook his head, “They don’t move or talk or anything.” then stared blankly forward. The conversation ended there.

---

The next day, Flare was laying on a couch and looked through the mission records on a tablet. He did this every so often, partly for fun, partly to make sure no one was slacking off too much. This time, however, the opposite problem showed up. Roughly two thirds of the recent escapades had Zurry in the party. Flare was a bit alarmed by this. Most of the rest of the team went on only one or maybe two missions a day. They had practically doubled the size of the team not too long ago, too. “Ugh, this is just creepy. There’s something wrong with him…” Flare decided he was going to have a talk with Zurry. He never thought he’d scold someone for being too productive, but this was ridiculous. Speak of the devil, when he looked away from the tablet, he saw Zurry looming over him, just staring. Flare hoped Zurry either didn’t hear, didn’t care, or didn’t know whom he was talking about just then. Zurry now had a fourth time someone called him creepy.

“Yo,” Zurry tried to sound friendly despite his consistent lack of emotiveness. “Can I use that for a second?” He pointed at the tablet. Flare sprang up, holding the thing with both hands.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to discuss something with you.”

“Can it wait? The Council asked me to-” Flare froze in shock at the mention of the Council. Zurry made a mental reminder that this was yet another “unusual” thing having to do with himself. Zurry reached for the tablet, but Flare snapped out of it and yanked it away. Zurry instinctively extended his top two spines, his outstretched hand clenched into a fist, which he slowly unfurled and lowered when he realized what he was doing. Flare looked even more nervous than before. Terrified, almost. Zurry looked away for a moment and drummed his fingers on his leg, took a deep breath with his spines still out, then looked back and gestured toward the tablet with his other hand. “Look, this next mission is kind of important, not just to them, but to me, too.” 

Flare thought for a bit before handing Zurry the tablet. “You’ve been kind of overdoing it lately. This is your last one for a while, okay? I’m just worried about you.”

"Yeah?" Zurry used his spines as fingers when signing himself up. “Well, what else am I supposed to do?”

“Go hang out with your friends or something. Do something you like.”

“But I like doing missions. And sometimes I bring others. This one in particular is a bit too dangerous for most people, so I’m doing it alone. Actually, that’s part of why they asked me to do it.” He handed the tablet back to Flare.

“Zurry, as your leader; I order you to go have fun with new friends after you’re done with that.” Flare struck a dramatic pointing pose.

“... Okay.”