Page 1 of Fathom

ONE

LEIJA

The floor between my goo-covered hands was filthy, a fact that in itself was strange, because why were my hands touching it?

So gross.

When I cleaned the floor of my atelier, I used one of those mops with disposable pads so I could be as far away from the filth as possible. I knew I should use a proper mop instead for the sake of the environment, but the disposable pads were better at picking up loose pins. The fact was undeniable that I was touching a filthy floor that looked like concrete that belonged in a generationally owned mechanic's garage, with dirt that had never been swept away, soaking up what could have been oil stains except they were a strange rusty brown color.

Also, I was throwing up.

That inconvenient fact, another tidbit of information to add to the list of things I wouldn't do and didn't make sense, caught up with me as my body heaved again, and goo came streamingout of my mouth, splattering onto that already filthy floor. It wasn't vomit. I didn’t know what else to call it; it was too clear, too viscous for that, another detail that didn't make any sense in the arrangement of tidbits that made up who I was and where I should be in the world. Vomiting goo on a filthy mechanic's floor didn't line up at all. I didn't even own a car. Also, shouldn’t vomit contain chunks of my last meal?

Plus, vomit shouldn’t be coming out of my lungs as well.

My lungs clenched, and I coughed again, hacking up another gob. I shivered, my body trembling like I was sick.

There was a strange growling sound behind me, like a dog trying to talk instead of bark, but speaking in gibberish instead of words I could understand.

I took a deep inhale, sucking in foul-smelling air, the stench of raw meat on the edge of going bad.

I coughed again, then pushed up to my knees.

A gob of goo slid down my bare chest, down the bare skin of my belly. The fact that I wasn't wearing any clothing didn't make it onto the list of things wrong with the situation. I preferred to sleep naked, and if this was a dream, then that was fine. Nudity in a dream couldn't hurt me. At least I hadn't imagined wearing something boring.

Goo slid down my forehead over my eyes, the cold sensation of it a sensory anchor that pushed aside my thoughts of this being a dream. It felt real. It smelled real. I closed my eyes before the goo slid into them. I didn’t want to touch my face with hands that had just been touching that filthy floor, but I didn’t have any other choice. I wiped the goo away, trying to remember how I’d gotten here.

I’d been locking the door to the shop and then…

and then…

I got enough goo off my face to open my eyes andlook towards the noise behind me. There was a giant chamber standing upright behind me, big enough for me to lie inside without touching any of the edges, with a glass door that was swung wide open. The goo covering me was dripping over the bottom edge.

Standing next to the pod, a few feet away from me, were several… hyenas?

No, not hyenas... monsters. They looked like yeti minions of some eldritch monster risen from the depths.

That or they were aliens.

The extra set of arms was more of an alien thing.

My brain twisted, trying to make sense of the deeply unfamiliar sight of the fur-covered aliens. They walked on two legs, draped in stitched, layered cloth, their fur dappled and coarse, eyes doubled and blinking with four on each bare-skinned face. Each eye was sheathed in translucent lids that shimmered as they snapped open and shut. Their voices rasped through the air, all guttural barks and clipped syllables that grated against my ears.

I spat another mouthful of goo on the cold floor and pushed myself upright, limbs trembling under me. The room tilted slightly as I steadied myself. Disorientation, that was what I was experiencing. I took a few slow steps back, creating more distance between us, my bare feet slipping in the goo.

They didn't even glance my way. All their focus remained on the pod, fingers brushing reverently over its slick surface as if it were something sacred.

I looked around the room.

There was a door on the wall closest to me, with a small, oddly shaped doggie door on the bottom that looked better sized for a rat than a dog or a cat. On the far side of the room was a huge door that could fit an elephant or an oddly shaped vehiclethat was taller than it was wide. The room itself had the pod dripping goo, chains and hooks, and wooden boxes stacked up like the person whose job it was to put them there had never played Tetris in their life.

That bothered me more than the sensation of cold goo dripping down off of me, more than the four-armed, four-eyed alien hyenas.

My storage shelves in my workshop were immaculate, with the fabrics organized by color and type, labels on each shelf, because even though I knew where and what everything was, when I eventually was able to run my own store and hire my own employee, she wouldn't have to ask where to put things.

Yet this was not the little shop of my dreams or my beautifully tidy atelier I hoped would take me there.

I stood in a cluttered warehouse, surrounded by strange boxes, hanging hooks, and the sound of aliens barking at each other. The air was thick with rust and oil, but beneath that, a rank stench clawed its way into my clearing nose. I turned slowly, scanning the dim, flickering space until I found it... the source of the rot. There were two dead… somethings… hanging from hooks on the far side of the room. One hung behind the first, half-hidden, but the one in front was around my size and covered in a light dusting of fur. It had two spiraling horns protruding from its head and was wearing the tattered remains of a dress, the fabric hanging in the stagnant air like wet silk. It was missing a leg.