I momentarily seek shelter amongst the plants, distasteful as their company is, and stalk the side of the large, black, rectangular pathway, surveying the "fingers" and their luminescent glow. The flesh knobs are so unappealing (why is there keratin on the flesh knob? Who designed this?) but I suppose when one has a corporeal form, one needs a way in which to pick things up and produce tactile sensation. It appears that some of the colors are more vibrant than others, and though these eyes are not suited to making calculations, I can at least deduce that there is a deliberate gradiation occurring here. One of the fingers, the shortest, is glowing with a dark brown light. I follow the road in one direction as the light gets more violent, which allows me to focus on my mission and ignore the plethora of civilians and disturbing edifices surrounding me. I come to a brick structure, one of what appears to be hundreds of such structures in the area (like cysts on the face of the land). I put a hand out and learn that amongst this species many talents, incorporeality does not appear to be one of them.

Is this an exoskeleton? Are there multiple sentient species here, including large, dormant ones such as these? It does appear to be faintly humming, which gives it some approximation of life, but the material is... this species can't even tell what chemical compounds objects are made of. Unbelievable. No wonder they haven't pruned all of these plants. It probably hasn't dawned on them yet that they're marinating in a poison bath.

I approach a large, translucent pane, and put my fingers against this, looking through. Something is inside, and it looks up at me and its face twists. My heartbeat picks up as I swing away from the pane and the wooden plank at the center of the object opens.

The 'something' stands in the doorway. Incredibly enough, it has the countenance of an alien. It occurs to me that everyone here is an alien, that I, in fact, am an alien in my own body and on this world, whatever way you put it, but the little bit of instinct this species gives me tells me that the way it fixes me is utterly wrong. I am stricken by the most incredible kind of fear.

I hold out my shortest, clearly delinquent flesh knob in its direction. Sure enough, it's still glowing, and from the intense concentration the being is giving it, I believe it can also see the light emanating off it. "Salutations," I begin, tactfully, shocked that I can even manage to speak. Noise? Out of my air pipe? I guess so. "Can you give me your species name, please?"

"I need to go take my meds." It slams the wooden plank in my face. I almost get my flesh knobs lodged in there, but it appears I've already lost my first subject. The... house, it's called a house (I have no idea where this knowledge is coming from but I am incredibly smug that I have figured it out) lays dormant before me. I stand, unsure of what strange cultural phenomenon I have stumbled upon.

The wooden plank swings open again. I manage to step out of the way, body jolting back almost out of raw instinct, and look up at the denizen of this planet, who remains silently in the framed center, leering at me.

"You're still here," it sighs.

"I can't really leave until I--" I begin, then quickly press the finger against the closest part of the being lacking an exoskeleton.

"What was that supposed to do?" it asks, unimpressed.

"I... don't know," I admit. "And you're..."

"Caroline. Human, allegedly." It looks up.

"Are you from around here?" I ask. What is 'here', on an alien planet? I've accidentally asked the most useless, vague question I could possibly manage.
"Born at a hospital two blocks from my house," it mutters, and I stare back at the human like this was a useful answer full of information I understand. It follows, knocking on the frame of the plank, "House. Who are you?"

I open my mouth, then close it again. Humans are supposed to have identifiers, including several numbers, a few arbitrary criteria, and a random jumble of letters that people refer to you by, but as I am not human, I have none of these. In an incredibly slick save, I counter, "Who are you?"

Its mouth twitches. "You're a piece of work."

"What? Work? I assure you I'm not manufactured, if that's-"

It squints. "Idiom."

I think I know that word. "I'm not stupid, just new around here."

"Where are you from, Mars?"

"Surprisingly local, but no. I believe you'd call it the 'Andromeda' Galaxy." I say, then bring my right hand to my face. "I know that. I know that! Yes!"

"Congratulations. Not only are you crazy, you've now informed the whole neighborhood and you're probably going to get the cops called on you." It takes the tubes which the 'fingers' are attached to and crosses them over the middle of its body. Judging from the composition of the gesture, it is protecting its body from attack.

I look at my other flesh nodes. Sure enough, I now have four glowing knobs to deal with as opposed to five. Guess I'm leaving, then. "I have no idea what a 'cop' is, but thank you. I will see you shortly."

"If anyone gets too close, just start running. You have long legs. You should be fine." It holds up one appendage and inclines it to both sides a few times. I am unsure if this is a hostile gesture.

"Thanks," I say, and exit out the front. From there, I begin walking the streets again, certain beyond a doubt that this was some sort of test and that, without intentionally doing a thing, I have failed it irrevocably. I smack myself in the face hard, which feels awful, and then wonderful. When I look up, I see other 'humans' watching me. I have no idea what this means or if I should be concerned, but I begin walking faster nonetheless. Holding my fingers up provides me with a decent gauge of where I am relative to my targets (well, that makes it sound like a hit job... am I trying to kill them?), and the two fingers furthest to the... this body can't even gauge polar directions. How am I supposed to know where I'm going if I can't sense the poles on this planet?

Who did this to me?

I resist the urge to smack myself again, which I guarantee is warranted, and keep walking. I have no idea how long this goes on for, seeing as I am not familiar with Universal Standard Time in regards to the rotation of this planet, and the sun seems to rise and set exceptionally fast here. It rises all the way to the apex of the sky and begins descending again, leaving me with two slightly more glow-y fingers, and I find that there are less 'houses' and more trees. Even these disappear, leaving me with vast expanses of short plants, cut close to the earth. Past these are huge, curved metal structures, which I skillfully maneuver around.

I look at my fingers again, unsure if my faulty light receptors have lead me astray. Two of them are glowing brighter than ever, and looking up from them, I see two humans. They're walking side by side, so close to each other that if I hadn't already met a human, I would assume that they were one creature, joined by a long flesh stalk. One of them looks up, jerking its head to the side, and I stare at it.

"Greetings." I lift the hand.

"How did you get in here?" it asks, accusatorily.

"I... walked?" I say, looking down towards the ground. Yes. I believe that is the correct terminology.

It draws out some sort of odd black box. If this isn't a hostile gesture, nothing is, so I run up and hit them both. Sure enough, the fingers cease glowing, and the one with the box screams. Does it cause pain? I don't know.

I think I'm walking in the other direction now.

Quickly.

I exhale violently, my respiration growing more strained, until I'm back through the fields and into the trees. I know they're not sentient, but I am almost sure they're mocking me with their rustling sway. I look back to my fingers for guidance, then stare upwards. The sky overhead is blue where it's not marred by all of these infernal trees. I detach myself from one, realizing, regretfully, that I do not know any human profanity, and keep walking back in the other direction, slowly. The sun is descending at an unprecedented rate. Something fills the body besides air intake as I realize that I would very much like not to have to navigate by dark, and I realize this is another... emotion. Unfortunate.

Chemical responses to external stimuli that affect mental processing are the worst idea ever to proliferate in a population and I can't understand why any species would evolutionarily select for it. I end up putting my arms around myself, like the first human did, and my breath shudders harder in my throat with the weight of a bad, half-formed idea in it.

The road back is long. I hold out my fingers, letting them guide me, and find that I am being lead back a different way from how I came. Go ahead. I have nowhere to be. I follow the only guiding light I have into even more violently warped metal structures, more akin to the boxy 'houses', but these extend far up into the sky. The appendages I am currently traversing on prickle with pain from exertion. Humans surround me on all sides, along with large, vocal metal frames (some kind of vehicular travel... vehicles) that seem to careen around the buildings at frightening velocity.

One of them screeches towards me and said appendages give out. I fall back onto hard ground, my body prickling with pain, and I find my breath has quickened again. I clutch my chest, eyes flicking around for escape, and look straight up into the face of another being, whose breath is so close that I can feel each exhale. A curtain of dark hair looms over me, reaching down a long, thin rod to which fingers are attached. I definitely know what that is. A lot of species back where I came from had hair. That's a clue. Andromeda galaxy. Hair involved. Did I have any?

"Are you lost?" asks the hair curtain. Its fingers grab mine and lift me upwards. I sense the glow on one of mine subside. Was I supposed to do that? It doesn't realize that it's interfered with my plans. "You know, I think I might have seen you around here somewhere."

I fall back again, clasping a large metal box. "That's not possible. I'm new here."
It tilts its head slightly, large eyes still probing my being. "Oh, well, I'm Bella."

"You're a Bella? I could have sworn you kind of looked like a human."

"Well, not 'a' Bella, but I wouldn't say entirely human either," it says, closing one eye and spreading open two flesh folds to reveal white... teeth. When I do not respond to this gesture, save for with shock, it says, "Didn't land, huh? Um, sorry... I should really... go."

It gets onto a narrow, wheeled vehicle, far more slender than the other grotesque metal shells that almost ended my disappointing existence. I raise my hand, making, almost by instinct, the same inclining gesture that the previous human, Caroline, made to me. I am immediately bowled over again, this time not by a metal frame but another human running in the opposite direction.

Outrageous static screeches into being in my mind as we collide. The last finger ceases glowing, leaving me in literal and metaphorical darkness. The city is illuminated by some truly rudimentary electrical devices, which currently frame the human who hit me. It dawns on me that I have potentially just made two mistakes, potentially dangerous ones which might endanger my mission, whatever that is, and however I'm supposed to work it out. The human that hit me mutters something and continues walking past me.

Light glistens in my head. Intricate tapestries of information spread out for me, flashing with patterns I can hardly understand, no doubt things I would have made easy work of in my prior form. I almost drop to the ground, to the sidewalk, and suddenly the whole world comes into focus. I can name half the buildings, their purposes, and I walk past the cars-- cars!-- on the designated sidewalk.

I raise a hand to the Lace, hoping it might now cede to me, but it does no such thing. If anything, its grip is tighter now, more vigorous, and it comes now with more constricting knowledge. I can see the hazy road of the trial ahead, leading me back out of the busiest part of the city, to where the trees bristle at my return. I find myself back in the park where I started, curled up not amongst the trees but instead in an elaborate, pointless

"What do I do now?" I ask.

The night does not answer. The stars are small from here as from anywhere in space, but from this ground their lights are startlingly empty.

I begin probing the information banks I have been recently given, trying to formulate a plan. It is going to be a long night.