The only way to proceed through the rest of the building was down the crumbling, damaged hallway. Here and there were clawmarks, or places where the scaffolding had seemingly melted from intense heat.

Whatever had occurred here had most certainly been swift and violent.

The previously-loud forest had gone utterly silent.

And the pilots were about to learn why.

There was a strange sound, something like a heavy and wet object being dragged along a rough surface. A slimy, slopping sound from behind them.

A long arm reached from the foliage. It was pitch black, and on close examination one would be able to discern that its entire surface was writhing. It was covered, or perhaps entirely composed, of thousands upon thousands of black, sluglike creatures, and it twisted in a fashion impossible for something supported by bone as it placed one human-like hand upon the ground.

The thing that lurched from the forest was supported by at least five more of these limbs. Whatever was beneath the writhing, sluglike creatures was impossible to see, if there was even anything within the mass in the first place. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them.

The only thing that broke up this undulating 'skin' was a pair of bright, circular red eyes, which rolled about slightly before fixing squarely on both pilots.

Each of this limbs retracted into its body, its mass writhing and growing for a moment as the black slugs squirmed over it. Then they exploded back outwards, at least a dozen tentacles composed of the squirming creatures surging down the hall towards the pilots.

[@ERode][@JDubs]