I came to weakly to the sensation of boots thudding against the ground, voices around me murmuring dully. Human voices. What had... Oh no.

I stirred weakly and realized with a touch of shock that I felt only my true body move, not my suit. I couldn't see. I was blind and in a dead suit. I cursed, flailing my... many limbs? I didn't remember having so many limbs when I entered this suit.

I slammed again and again against the inside and, with horror, realized that my casing had cracked. The fluid inside which sustained me was gone. I could feel fresh air brush against my thin, permeable skin. It crinkled and burned at the sensation.

I felt the small vibrations beneath me begin once more, and I trembled in relief. The hooks were doing their job. Nothing else worked, but the redundant systems to ensure transference were still operating. I wriggled and felt a sharp pain as the various wires and integrated systems to control the suit slid free from my flesh, snagging at the rapidly spreading patches of dry skin and mucus.

There was a flurry of voices, and something banged into the ground outside.

BOOM!

I cringed hard as the upper half of my suit was blown away, fetid air reeking of cordite washing over me. I pressed myself down as far as I could by the hooks without getting grabbed by them myself.

I felt movement, as the human body I was attached to was grabbed at and turned. I had seconds.

I pulled against my harness, reaching my limbs towards the bottom of the suit, towards the opening. I rejoiced as I felt warm, slick, earthly blood. I grasped at the edges and pulled myself downward.

The suit was meant to eject us and assist in the delivery, but I had no such luxury. I weakly tugged and pulled. I could feel more vibrations, this time directly against the suit, grinding, slicing. They were cutting away the legs. "How?" I wondered to myself. "They don't have anything that could... The flesh. They are cutting away at his flesh."

They were going to catch me outside of the suit, blades in hand. My death would not be swift. In the rare instances which they were capable of doing so, the humans delighted in getting their hands on our small, vulnerable forms. They would dash me against the ground, kick my limp body between them in a sick recreation of what I understood was some kind of children's game, and then finally, pierce my body and leave me to dry in the sun.

The bleeding, ragged flesh was slippery, and I couldn't grab hold. How did my brethren do this? I didn't understand! I felt the second leg get pulled away, and began to tilt. I fought gravity and threw every ounce of effort my minuscule form had in it toward the opening. With one final, desperate, reaching grab, I felt my limb wrap around something knobby and hard. Yes!

I yanked myself forward just as I heard the third leg cut away, corkscrewing and shoving myself into the gaping wound my suit had burrowed into the human's innards.

I felt instant relief as my dry skin was supplemented by human blood, invigorated as the oxygen and nutrients washed across me, penetrating deep inside my own organs.

It was warm. Unbelievably, euphorically warm. The body rocked and swelled with each breath; I could feel great gushes of air moving through the lungs, the heart trembling and frantically thumping just above me, and the gurgle of the intestines in front of me. I was safe, I was free. Now, all I had to do was wait.

There was a tug, and gravity shifted again. I reached out and braced myself against the human's spine, wrapping my arms around it tightly so I wouldn't fall out.

A horrifying thought struck me. What if they burned the body? What if they suspected me here, deep within the soon-to-be corpse of their comrade?

There was a dragging, and suddenly, the angle of the body I was in changed. It was propped up. I was left dangling somewhat precariously, ever closer to sliding back out of the hole and into the withering heat of the real world. I clung tighter to the spine, and slowly inched myself upward. I didn't know what to do. If I didn't move, I would lose strength and fall towards the opening, and be revealed. If I moved too much, they would notice. Feel me. It didn't matter which happened, the result would be the same. Those terrible, angry hands would reach in and crush the life from me.

"I can save your friend," I pleaded with them silently. "We can save all of you, why do you resist us so? Do you not understand our glorious purpose?"

There was a soft thumping above me, and a whispering. The lungs shuddered, and then fell still. The heart too, slowly, weakly, came to a stop.

No no no no no no no.

This host could not die! I will be an outcast, a failure! My brethren will sniff me out and and and and... I could not think about it. I would rather die at the hands of the humans.

I dug several of my neural links into the spine, searching for a connection to the human brain. I concentrated, hard, searching for any kind of spark.

The position of the body I was in changed once again. It was laid down. I felt several more small vibrations. Footsteps. Trailing away. Several large booms reverberated through the chest cavity. Gunshots. But they, too, were getting further and further each time they sounded.

Where was it? This human could not be dead; I had witnessed its power and resolve! It would not die here! "Where are you?"

And then... There! There it was. A single speck, a mere mote of consciousness, hanging in the dark, aching with sadness and regret and pain. I reached out to it, and it reacted slightly, reaching back towards me - desperate to not be alone in the end. "Who are you," it asked. "Have you come to make it stop?"

"I'm..." I hesitated. "I am a friend." I clung to it. Shielding it, drawing it into myself. A flood of memories entered me. "I have you," I whispered to it. "You shall endure and we will be magnificent together. Just hold on."

"Okay. My friends... Are my friends safe?"

A glimmer of an emotion I had never experienced surfaced deep within me. Was it indecision? It felt like indecision but more... Wrenching. Like I was doing something wrong. It had fought so valiantly, only to be defeated in the end. And worse, I was giving it false hope. Lying to it as it died, for my own selfish means...

"Yes. I believe they are." It sighed in relief, some of the sadness and pain slipping away. I wrapped it deeper in my embrace, willing it to survive.

Thump.

The heart beat once and then fell still. Several long seconds passed.

Thump.

Yes, yes!

Thump.

"Glorious," I whispered to the human once more. "Magnificent." It hummed slightly in response.

Thump...

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.