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The Lost

By Xerox2

Spring tore through the forest like a blazing inferno. Snowbanks erupted into roiling clouds of steam. Plants pushed through the ground, wriggling under foot like a sea of snakes. When the fog cleared, the team was gone, each member alone in an alien world.

"Commander Torres here. Expedition 67, report! I repeat, report status!"

"This is Liu. Where is everyone?"

"Hernandez here. Luca? Luca, where'd you go?"

"We are all fucked." That was Suraev.

Torres was alone. This was bad. The rushing torrent of seasonal change had slowed to a steady trickle, but the forest was transformed. Gone were the endless barren trees and undisturbed sheets of snow. Now, only a moment later, a cool sprinkle of rain was falling through humid, lichen-scented air, pattering on a bed of fresh green sprouts and lush moss-covered rocks.

"We're not fucked," he said, trying to fill his voice with confidence. "We still have comms."

Suraev scoffed. "So did the other twelve expeditions that were in the Shard when it passed into spring. It did not help them."

"Looks like we're lucky number thirteen," came Liu's tinny voice.

"We were so close to the gate, dammit! I don't wanna die!" Screamed Hernandez. "I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die--"

"Enough." Torres spoke firmly. "We're not going to die."

"Seventy-two people." Saurav stated. "Seventy-two people saw the Shard's spring, and not one of them was ever heard from again."

Torres shut his eyes tight as his team shouted hysterically into his ear. He wished desperately that he wasn't the one in charge -- that it wasn't his job to keep his composure and find a solution to this impossible situation. Finally, he interrupted them. "We will be seen again. That is my promise to all of you. We won't just disappear."

There was a moment of silence on the comm. Liu was the first to respond. "Okay. What's the plan?"

"The plan?" Beads of sweat formed on the commander's forehead. It wasn't just the stress; he was burning up. Waves of prickly heat spread across his skin as his pores quickly opened up and started pumping sweat. He stripped off his heavy winter jacket, now useless, and threw it on the ground.

"The plan." He repeated. "Let's start by describing what we see. What's the terrain like? Anything dangerous? Any Landmarks? I myself seem to be on some kinda deer trail running through a thicket. Can't see much from here. How about you, Hernandez? How's your leg?"

"Leg's still busted, but there's nothing dangerous here, Commander. It's very calm. I'm sitting on a little rock in a clearing. The sun's shining down on me. It's warm. Reminds me of a spot I used to go as a kid."

"Just hang tight. We aren't leaving you behind."

Suraev scoffed.

Torres ignored him and continued. "What about you Liu?"

"No immediate danger," she responded. "I'm at the base of a gigantic tree, far larger than any of the other trees. It's enormous! I've never seen anything like it before."

Torres stared down at his jacket as she spoke. It was already half-covered in little clouds of white fungus. The colonies spread across the surface like embers eating away at a dry piece of paper. His jacket was just fuel.

"This tree. Can you climb it?"

"There are lots of low, sturdy-looking branches. Should be no problem."

"Good. Get to it. Maybe you can get the lay of the land."

"Will do. I'll provide updates."

"Be careful," he said, scratching his arms. The prickly heat had only gotten worse since he shed his outer layer. "Suraev?"

Nothing.

"Suraev, where are you?"

"In hell, I should think."

"Very funny. What's your status?"

"My status? I am on a lifeboat, adrift in the middle of the ocean. Nothing but calm blue water as far as the eye can see. We are hungry. We are thirsty. No one is looking for us. But that is not even the worst thing. No, the worst thing is the man who is responsible for our ship sinking. He is here too. He is running around barking orders, pretending that each of us is not silently wondering if we would rather die of dehydration or swim as deep as we can go and take a lungful of water."

"That's enough out of you." Torres growled. "Luca? Has anyone heard from Luca?"

"Luca did not make it to the lifeboat." Suraev said, coldly. "Or perhaps he did, but chose his lungful of water quicker than the rest of us."

"I said that's enough! Cut it out this instant or I'll--"

"Or you will do what, oh fearless leader? Reprimand me? Court martial me? Strike me? I would be happy to take the blow, if you can find me." Suraev laughed. "Face the facts: you are a terrible leader. You never should have gotten a command."

Torres swatted a mosquito the size of a tarantula. He knew it was a bad idea to engage with Suraev, but that last comment had hit a nerve.

"I got perfect scores on the aptitude tests, set records in physical training, aced the academic exams--"

"Yes, you were an excellent candidate on paper, but you have always lacked that indefinable quality of a good leader. That uniform never fit you quite right, did it? You do not belong in command."

'Do not belong' were the exact words Torres dreaded. Privately, deep down, he was a misfit. All his life he had searched for a place, a job, or a relationship where he belonged. He had invested countless hours of extra work into his career, hoping that an officer's rank would give him that peace of mind. Now he had to prove, not just to his unit, but also to himself, that role suited him.

"I'm about to lead us out of here. Then you'll see just how well my uniform fits. Now who's with me?"

Suraev laughed again. "I think I will sit out and enjoy listening as you fail."

The distant screech of some alien creature echoed through the branches high above him.

Here in the Shard, it made sense to feel out of place. It was like being in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean or in a rocket ship in space. No human was meant to be here. No human was supposed to see what he was seeing. The thought of it made his hair stand on end.

The sensation was wrong. He was no stranger to goosebumps, but he'd never felt anything like this. He rolled up his sleeve to investigate and froze at the sight of his naked arm. It wasn't the fact that his hairs were standing on end that struck him. It was how many hairs were standing on end. His entire forearm was coated in a dusting of straight, dark hairs. Even as he stared, new ones poked through his skin, growing like plants in a time-lapse video. A little needle of pain accompanied each freshly sprouted hair, and similar pricks were echoing in waves across his entire body.

He was growing fur.

"No witty retort, Commander?"

Torres was terrified. He knew his frantic breathing was loud enough for the com to pick up, but he didn't care. He felt violated, utterly powerless. Not only had he lost control of his team and the mission, now his own body was betraying him. He flexed his fingers and watched the tendons on the back of his hand shift under the skin. Skin that was rapidly being covered by fur.

"I haven't lost hope yet, Commander." It was Hernandez. "I'm with you."

"Me too," agreed Liu.

The thought of his team snapped him out of his trance. They needed him, now more than ever. He rolled down his sleeves and tried to ignore the prickly heat that came with his new fur. He couldn't tell them about it. He had to maintain composure, be a source of strength. He had to act.

"We can get out of here, but we're running out of time." Torres declared, trying to sound confident. He pulled out his compass. It seemed to be working. "I'm heading southwest. The gate was only five clicks away before spring hit. With any luck, I'll run into it."

"You two better hurry," Hernandez responded. "My pants are turning brown."

"Why am I not surprised?" Suraev muttered.

"Shut up, asshole. That's not what I meant."

"What exactly did you mean?"

"I mean the fabric of my pants is undergoing some sort of chemical change. They're changing color, wrinkling up, getting stiffer. Maybe there's some corrosive gas in the atmosphere? Oh God this can't be good for my lungs!"

Torres looked down at his own pants, but they were the same standard issue fatigues as ever.

"Just hang in there and let me know if you status changes. We're on our way."

He moved quickly, checking his compass regularly as he pushed through the lush undergrowth which, only minutes ago, had been nothing more than barren twigs buried under immeasurable tons of snow. Terrified as he was, it was impossible not to notice the incredible beauty of the Shard. Massive branches formed an ornate cathedral ceiling high above, and any shaft of light that made it through caught millions of motes of dust and pollen as they drifted through the air. Even down below, in the deep dark water and caves that the sun couldn't reach, bioluminescent plants and creatures made their own dazzling display.

A few minutes later, Liu's voice came over the comm.

"I've got an update."

"Give me some good news," he said, hopping over a small creek.

"I must be fifteen meters up now. Still a ways to the canopy. Going is easy but. . . I am experiencing a strange phenomenon."

"Details?"

"It's my hands. I thought they were cramping from the strain of gripping the branches, but that's not it. They're changing."

He stopped. Not her too.

"Changing how?"

"I mean changing! My skin's all dark and leathery all the way up past my wrists. My fingers and palms have these thick calluses, and that's not all. The shape is different too. They're longer, more slender. And my nails. . . I'm watching claws grow underneath them, pushing them away. I can see it happening!"

"Shit." Torres muttered. His own bristly fur was creeping past his wrists. What could he say? What would he want to hear?

"What should I do, Commander? I've never seen anything like this before." Her voice was quivering.

"Listen. I can only imagine how terrifying this is for you, Liu, but you have to keep going. We need you to get above the trees. Once you're up there, we can use our flare guns and compasses to find each other. But in order to do that, you have to keep climbing."

"Ten-four, Commander. I'll try. Have you found anything noteworthy?"

"Too many things," he grumbled as some creature that looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a bat buzzed past his head. "A million things for your colleagues back home to invent new names for, but nothing that's going to get us out of here yet."

His feet ached as he trudged through the sprouts and the mud. They'd marched 60 kilometers this week, and only now did they start to hurt. He adjusted his stance, stepping only on the balls of his feet. That helped relieve the pressure.

"Hernandez. You still with us?"

"Yeah. I'm here." Hernandez said after a pause. "Sorry. I dozed off a bit."

"Dozed off? At a time like this?"

Suraev chimed in. "I always wondered what your dead weight did when we were not carrying it around."

"What's your status?"

"I'm. . Oh Dios mío. . ." Hernandez's breathing roared through the radio.

"What's happening?"

"My leg! It's my leg!"

"The busted one? Is it your injury? What's happening?"

"I --- This can't be real. My foot is. . . rooted to the ground! Some branch sprouted and pushed right through my boot, and now I can't move it! I didn't even notice. Gah! I can't rip it off. It's the injured one, and it's too sensitive."

"Get rid of it! Use your knife!" Torres shouted. The fur all over his body was standing up. It rubbed uncomfortably underneath his clothes.

Hernandez gasped then yelped with pain.

"What was that? Hernandez?"

"It hurts like a bitch! I tried to saw it off, but it feels like I'm cutting off my own toes."

"How's it holding on to you?"

"Checking now." Hernandez's breath was quickening as he worked. "My pants have gotten so stiff I can't move them to see what's going on. They're stuck to my legs like--"

"Like what?"

"Like bark." Hernandez said, mostly to himself. "I don't think the roots aren't holding onto me. I think they are me."

Torres could hear his heart beating in his ears. "Repeat that."

"My boots, my pants, the texture is like bark, and the roots are bare and delicate. When I touch them I can feel it. Distant, but I feel it."

"Just stay put, Hernandez. I'm coming for you."

"'Stay put?' Is that some kind of joke? Oh God it's spreading. . ."

Torres cursed under his breath. At least now they knew why no one ever made it back from spring. He wished it was flesh-eating monsters or impossible terrain or something they could mount a conventional defense against, not this inevitable, frustrating thievery of their humanity. Now each and every second that they spent searching for the exit brought then further from their old lives and made it more and more likely that they'd be seen as nothing more than deformed freaks or scientific curiosities when they returned. Still, he had to try.

He had been hiking for a while now. The gate would be close. Perhaps just on the other side of this river. It was raging, white water rapids as far as he could see, and it was blocking the way southwest. It was too wide to jump, and the water was deep enough to sweep him away if he tried to wade across.

"You can not still expect these poor fools to believe you have a plan, Torres." Suraev spat.

Thankfully, a fallen tree had formed a natural bridge not far away. He climbed up onto it and started slowly inching his way over the roaring water. His muddy boots slipped on the damp wood as he went.

"I have known for a while that you are useless. It is not news to me. The moment you had us build a splint for Hernandez instead of digging him a grave. That was when I knew."

"I wasn't going to leave him behind. I'm still not." Torres said, holding his arms wide for balance.

"You could have! You could have, and you should have. We all knew we were running out of time. If we had left him behind and traveled at full speed, we would be back at our homes right now."

"We had to make--" Torres's foot shifted in his boot, and he slipped, lost his balance, and fell down toward the water, only barely managing to catch himself by wrapping his arms around the fallen tree. His foot plunged into the water below, only for a moment, but long enough for the current to pull his poorly-fitting boot downstream.

"Face it. You got us all killed trying to save a man who will soon be nothing more than a useless tree."

Liu cut in. "So what, Suraev? Even if we did make a mistake, what good does it do us to dwell on it? Why berate the Commander for it?"

Torres pulled himself up and sat on the log. He looked down at his bootless foot and immediately noticed just how much it had changed. It was longer, narrower, and when he pulled his soaked sock off, he saw that his toes were gone. In their place was a small, split hoof. He worked the muscles that used to wiggle his toes, and watched the dainty hoof flex in response.

"Why do you defend him, Liu?" Suraev sneered. "Wait, do not answer. I think I understand. This is why you joined an expedition in the first place. You are seeing and experiencing things no other scientist has. You are imagining winning the Nobel Prize, getting the respect and honor that you deserve. I bet that even now, as you are climbing to your only hope of salvation, you are collecting hundreds of samples and weighing yourself down."

Liu responded after a pause. "You have a way of reading people, I'll give you that, but I'm not having any trouble getting up this tree. My new claws are sharp. They have a better grip than my climbing spikes, and I've got them on my feet too. I don't even need to use the branches anymore. You hear that, Commander? I'm almost there."

He had a deer's hoof at the end of his leg. Make that legs. He knew his other foot, the one still crammed into a boot, was just as inhuman. All his training told him that losing a boot was a disaster, but what was the point of wearing boots that made him trip? Hesitantly, he used the tip of his hoof to push his other boot off. There was a sense of loss as he watched the river carry it away.

"That's great, Liu," He said, standing up slowly, balancing on unfamiliar feet. "I think I'm almost at the gate."

His first few steps with his new feet were wobbly and uncertain, but he quickly got the hang of it. The hard tips of his hooves were like climbing shoes. They dug into the soft wood of the log and helped him balance. Soon he made it across and felt the cool mud of the riverbank squishing around his hooves.

"I did it for the money," Hernandez said, quietly.

"What?"

"You were talking about why you volunteered to go on an expedition. I came because I needed the money. I wanted to make a home for my family, but that's not happening now. At least they'll get some money from my life insurance."

"Don't talk like that," Torres snorted as he waded through another patch of man-sized ferns. "We're all going to get out of here, yourself included."

"No, I'm not going anywhere, Commander. It's up to my waist now. Below that I've got no muscles left to move. The roots, my roots, I can feel them working their way deeper and deeper into the soil. They'll feel a rock and snake around it, branch out, cement their grip. You'd need a backhoe to dig me up."

He stopped. "Come on. The Hernandez I know doesn't give up that easily. We're smart. We'll find a way."

"Not this time. Suraev was right: none of you would be stuck out here if it weren't for me. I don't want to keep you any longer. Maybe you and Liu, if it's just the two of you, maybe you two will make it to the gate before it's too late."

Torres felt panic rising in his chest. If he lost Hernandez, that would be proof of his failure. "I didn't drag you all this way just to give up on you now!" "Stop this immediately!"

"You're stubborn, Commander," Hernandez chuckled. "You'd keep arguing with me until my lungs turned to wood, but I think I know how to put an end to this. I'm tossing my flare gun."

"Don't!"

"There. It's done. It's far out of my reach, and there's no way to find me. Not a bad throw to go out on, if I say so myself." Hernandez breathed a long sigh into the comm. "I'm tired of fighting. I want to rest. You two make it out of here. Tell my wife I love her."

Liu spoke up. "I will, Hernandez. I'll make sure everyone knows about your sacrifice."

"Thanks, Liu. You always were dependable. Tell the other expeditions to keep an eye out for a tree with smooth bark near a boulder. Maybe they'll see my name carved into the trunk."

"I will."

"It's a good place to end up. Nice and warm, plenty of sun. Nice and warm. . .Plenty of sun. . ."

Torres didn't say anything. Frustration and self-pity were threatening to overtake him. In the end, he chose to believe Hernandez had made the right decision. Even if it was just him and Liu that made it out, it would an accomplishment. He resumed his trek through the ten foot ferns, now using his hooves to gingerly navigate the complexities of the forest floor instead of trampling over it as he had with his boots. Before long, he emerged into a clearing, but what he saw there made his blood run cold.

It was the same deer-trail clearing he had started in, complete with a jacket-shaped patch of fungus on the ground.

That's impossible, he told himself. He had been heading southwest the entire time. He hadn't strayed an inch. He pulled out his compass to make sure, but it no longer had a needle. Instead, a thin, black millipede was trapped under the glass, marching the circumference of the dial. He stared as the white markings on the face flecked away and rolled around inside the device like grains of sand.

This was wrong. He had to get out of here. Torres tossed the useless compass to the ground, turned around, and went back the way he came. The shifting roots under the earth had already wiped away his hoofprints, and as he exited the thicket, he once again found himself in a place he didn't recognize. Gone was the raging river and the fallen tree. Now there was a rocky cliff towering over him with a roaring waterfall that cast rainbows into the air.

His mind raced in circles, desperately searching for a plan of action or some logic to the situation. He was completely overwhelmed.

"Almost to the top, commander. Have you found the exit?"

"No!" He shouted. "It's impossible to find a place in this season, dammit!"

Stupid! He felt stupid for thinking he could find his way back to the gate so easily. Frustrated, he turned to a nearby tree with white papery bark and knocked his head against its trunk. He felt stupid for doing that.

"Don't you give up on me. Not now."

Torres pressed his head against the tree. He had given up. He was nothing but an insect, and spring was a bored child who had plucked him out from under his rock and started playing with him, placing hand over hand so that no matter how far he ran, he could never escape. It didn't matter what Liu saw from the top of the tree. If they couldn't navigate the forest, there was no way to act on the information she gathered. She deserved to know.

"Listen, Liu. I've got some bad news about this season. . ."

"What is it, Commander?"

Torres took a deep breath, chose his words carefully, and stepped away from the tree. Or at least he tried to step away. His head was stuck to the trunk like he had pressed it into a patch of superglue sap. He tugged again and again, but it was no use. His skull was fixed in place.

"I'm stuck! I'm stuck to a fucking tree!"

"Oh no, like Hernandez?"

His frustration with the Shard turned to anger and defiance. He refused to go out like this. No tree was going to merge with him, eat him, or whatever the hell was going on. He placed both of his hands and one of his hooves against the trunk, took a deep breath, and pushed with all of his might. His head shifted, then pulled away with the strangest sensation. Even though his forehead was no longer touching the tree, he still felt connected to it, and he had to take a couple steps back before he fully broke free. His head wobbled a bit as his neck tried to compensate for a new, unfamiliar weight.

"Got it! I'm free."

Tentatively, he reached his trembling hands up and tried to make sense of the altered balance of his head. They brushed up against two long protrusions near the top of his forehead. He gripped one, tugged, and was rewarded with a jolt of pain that subsided into a throbbing headache. He had antlers.

He dashed over to the base of the waterfall, searching for a pool that was calm enough to see his reflection in. When he finally found one, he saw a pair of full-sized antlers growing from his head. But they weren't normal antlers. The texture was wrong. Instead of being smooth and bony, they were covered in the same papery bark of the tree. Their shape resembled small branches more than antlers, and they swayed and bent similarly when he turned his head from side to side. When he looked closer, he even noticed a few green buds sprouting across their surface.

The antlers weren't the only unfamiliar thing about his reflection. He hardly recognized the creature staring back at him as himself. He couldn't tell if it was just the fur, which now covered most of his face, or if his features themselves were starting to change. Were his eyes bigger? His nose wider?

"I made it! I'm above the canopy." Liu's voice startled him. He turned away from his strange reflection and stood up.

"Liu, I meant to tell you. This season, it's --"

"It's chaos." Liu whispered. "It's miles and miles of shifting, glittering chaos. The moment I take my eyes off of a landmark, it's gone. I can't make heads or tails of it. It's like I'm looking down at the forest through a kaleidoscope."

Torres sighed. "Yeah. It's impossible. I walked a straight line and ended up back where I started. I can't even backtrack without getting lost."

"So that's it. We're done for."

"I think so."

For a moment, everything was silent, Then Liu spoke again.

"It's beautiful, you know. Horrible, but beautiful."

Torres could feel the cold mist from the waterfall through his antlers, especially on the delicate buds. He laughed.

"If I'm being honest, Liu, the charm of this place has just about worn off for me."

Liu sighed. "Can I let you in on a little secret, commander?" There was venom in her voice. "I always wanted to see spring in the Shard. I fantasized about it day and night, imagining what sorts of fantastic terrors it might hold. Do you understand what I'm saying? It was my forbidden fruit, deadly but irresistible."

"You're kidding."

"Not at all. That's why, when Hernandez broke his leg and you decided that we wouldn't leave him behind, I supported your decision. Not because I thought it was wise or because I cared about the man, but because, secretly, I wanted to get caught in spring."

"Liu, you should have told--"

"You should have known! That's your job! The commander makes the difficult decisions. The commander puts the safety of the group before the needs of one member. You did neither. Now the world will be deprived of all the incredible discoveries we've made. Think of the loss to science and medicine, all because you tried to play hero instead of being the voice of reason. Suraev was right. You don't belong in command."

"I don't belong in command. . ." he repeated. Hearing Liu say those words didn't hurt as much as he'd expected. "Maybe you're right."

He sighed and sat on a boulder near the water but felt a jolt of pain from his backside. He jumped up, reached a hand behind him, and found a small tail growing from the base of his spine.

Liu scoffed. "Now Hernandez is a tree. Lucca is long gone, and who knows what sort of strange creature he's turned into. That's another thing I'm pissed about, by the way. You were so quiet while we dutifully reported about our changing bodies in full, graphic detail. You never even mentioned that you've been experiencing the same."

Torres flicked his tail against his fingers. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't act stupid with me! You must have known we would figure it out. Didn't you notice your voice changing? Getting higher?"

Torres hadn't noticed his voice getting higher, but he hadn't been paying attention. As he tried to remember the sound of his own voice, he shifted his stance, and his pants slipped off his hips. He caught them and pulled them back up, wondering how they had gotten so loose. He checked his belt, but it was on the same notch as always. He was shrinking.

"That's Commander's Privilege!" He squealed, then cringed. Now that he was listening for it, It was obvious how high-pitched his voice had gotten, "I get to decide what information I want to disclose."

"Shame on you. It would have been nice to have some company as I was turning into a monster. I've felt so helpless and alone."

"Is it that bad?"

"I'm far along, Torres. No one would even recognize me anymore. I've got a big tail, long again as the rest of my body. My arms and legs are shorter, more muscular. They were built for holding onto the tree. I'm just as big as I used to be, but none of my clothes fit right anymore, and they pull my feathers. That's right, feathers. Wide ones, long ones, little downy fluffy ones. And they're red, my favorite color. Lucky me. I think if someone saw me, they might describe me as a cross between a bird and a squirrel. You hear that? I'm a new species! A scientific wonder! Hah. What a fucking joke."

"I'm sorry, Liu."

"So are you going to tell me what undiscovered beast you're turning into? I showed you mine."

Torres sat quietly and stared down at his shortening fingers and loose clothing, filled with a sense of shame.

"No. I can't. . ."

"Of course. You really are a shithead, Torres, hiding behind Commander's Privilege. The mission is over, dead, and you still won't talk."

"You don't understand."

"You don't think I understand? I know it's embarrassing. I know it's dehumanizing and degrading. Oh, I understand, Torres. I understand that you're not just a terrible commander; you're a coward. I'm getting off the comm."

"So what if I am?" Torres squealed. "Maybe I am a coward and a terrible leader. Fine. I'll admit it. Now that this team is falling apart, now that I'm no longer in command. . . It doesn't feel like a failure. It feels like freedom. It feels like retirement."

He sat waiting for Liu's response, but the only thing he heard was the waterfall and the chirping of alien birds on the cliffs high above him.

"Liu?"

Nothing. She really was gone. He sighed and sat on the rock near the water, adjusting his posture so his tail wasn't underneath him. The only thing left to do was wait until he was fully changed.

"You should have told her what you look like, Commander." It was Suraev.

The voice startled him. "Suraev? I thought you were long gone."

"No. Unfortunately for you, it is quite the opposite." His voice was lower like a gravelly growl.

Torres stared down at his hands and watched as they slowly but steadily became less and less human.

"Unfortunately for me? I hate to break it to you, Suraev, but I don't care anymore. At this point, your insults will just be another drop in the bucket."

"I am not going to insult you anymore, Commander. I want to make peace. Hearing Liu turn against you -- it was difficult. I do not want to be mean at the end like she was."

"I think it's a bit too late for that now."

"I understand why she said what she said. That was how I felt when I first realized what had happened to us. I just wanted to blame everything. I blamed you for leading us here. I blamed myself for signing up to go on an expedition. Most of all, I blamed the Shard itself. I blamed this place for being so alien, for tearing us away from our families and loved ones, for being impossible to navigate."

Torres laughed. "Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Fuck the Shard, and fuck spring especially."

"No. This season is not as bad as it seems. It cares about us. On Earth, we are irrelevant. Earth does not care if you drown in the ocean, or starve to death in the desert, or live on the top floor of a skyscraper. This place, this season, is different. The Shard knows we do not belong here, and it is doing something about it. It is incorporating us into its grand design."

"Don't pretend this place has a soul, Suraev. It doesn't care about us."

"Perhaps, but even if we are nothing more than raw material, you must admit its means of metabolizing us is fascinating. On Earth our bodies would have been broken down to their trace elements, spread apart, and passed through the food chain. A few nitrates from Hernandez's corpse might found their way into a tree, for example. But here, we are not being killed and broken down; we are being repurposed while still alive. The shard is abstract. It is direct."

"Some places won't kill you or 'repurpose' you. Like home."

Suraev scoffed. "Home? Please. You are still trying to keep up appearances, even now that everyone is gone. You do not want to go home. You are like me, Torres. We do not have wives to go home to. We do not have friends or pets or children waiting for us. That is why people like us go on the expeditions: We have nothing to lose."

Torres sat and stared at the waterfall. He tried to think of a single thing he would miss about his life on Earth, but he couldn't come up with anything.

"You really are good at reading people, Suraev." He ran his fingers through the fur on his stomach as he waited for a response. "Suraev?"

There was silence on the comm.

"Anybody?"

Nothing.

Torres removed his earpiece and placed it on the rock next to him. Now he was alone. The sky was getting dark, but that didn't quite the animals of the Shard. Innumerable voices of unnamed creatures echoed through the trees. It was a cacophony of chirping, buzzing, howling, huffing, and screeching.

He felt small, and not just because his shirt was hanging off of his shoulders and his pant legs reached past his hooves. He was like a child here. Everything surrounding him was completely alien, and his own body was growing more unfamiliar by the minute. Where would he sleep? What could he eat? More importantly, what would try to eat him? He shivered as he pictured all sorts of horrible monsters hunting him down, chasing him, pouncing on him.

Snap!

It was the sharp sound of a twig breaking underfoot a few feet behind him. His tail reflexively shot up out of his pants and stood erect. He spun around half expecting to see a ferocious beast lunging at his throat, but the undergrowth was dense; there was nothing to see. He held his breath. For a moment, everything was silent. The leaves shifted. He jumped up and backed away, terrified. Something big, at least as big as he was, was approaching.

Torres froze. His mind was screaming at him to run, but some new instinct was overpowering that impulse. He would be safe as long as he stood perfectly still.

Finally, the leaves parted and the creature emerged, but wasn't a monster. It was alien but at the same time familiar. It resembled a small deer but with elongated neck and legs, and its entire body was covered in short grey fur. Its antlers were much smaller than his own, but otherwise they were just the same. Some of the buds on her antlers had bloomed into little white flowers. Her antlers. Was it a she? That seems right, but he couldn't put his finger on why.

They stared into each others eyes. So this was what he was turning into. The thought that he would soon be impossible to distinguish from this animal was unsettling, but at the same time the certainty of it was strangely relieving. She cautiously took a step toward him. He slowly reached out his hand to touch her, but she turned and bounded back into the thicket.

"Wait!" he yelped as he dashed after her. She could show him how to live as the creature he was becoming, and besides that, she was the only thing he had found that seemed remotely friendly.

Branches swished and stung him as desperately tried to keep up. His legs were changing, pants getting looser with each frantic step. They slipped over his hips, caught on his knee, and tripped him. He kicked and flailed wildly on the ground, trying to free himself from the useless human clothing as the sounds of her movement grew distant. It took him only a second to remove the clothes, but it felt like an hour. As soon as he was free, he scrambled to his feet and kept chasing her.

The crunching, splashing, snapping sounds of her footfalls bounced between the trees. It should have been impossible to figure out what direction they were coming from, but his ears strained, stretched, and swiveled around to zero in on them.

They scrambled up a steep hill. Torres used his hands to keep himself from slipping. His new hooves gripped the rocks far better than his human fingers would have. He craned his neck up and caught a glimpse of her between the trees. Each time he glanced up, the motion felt more natural. His neck was shifting, lengthening, and adapting to a four-legged stance.

She finally stopped as they emerged into an open space. Torres gasped. The center of the clearing was dominated by a large irregular shape, a gash in space-time that opened into a sea of television static.

It was the gate!

All he had to do was walk through it and he would be back on Earth. He would be the first person to return from spring. He stood up and tried to take a step but fell down onto all fours again. The deer he had been chasing was standing between him and the gate. She neither ran nor moved to stop him as he approached the cackling rift. He was so close he could smell the ozone.

He paused as he neared the opening. It would be impossible to live a normal life on the other side of the gate. He looked down at his forehooves, now fully formed. He would be a freak, even more of an outcast than before. He turned to the female deer. She watched him intently. He looked back at the whirling void.

It scared him. She did not.

He took a step toward her, close enough to hear her breath. She stepped toward him, slowly leaned in, and touched the tip of her nose to his own, now very similar looking nose.

He wished he could have told the world about spring -- what had happened, what he had seen -- but, as the gate disappeared into the woods behind them, that flicker of regret faded away.

Expedition 71 crunched through the waist-high ocean of dead leaves. Moving together, the six of them made a deafening roar.

"Look there!" one of them whispered urgently. Everyone stopped and turned to see what she was pointing at. They were difficult to spot at first, but a pair of small deer-like animals were watching them from a nearby ridge.

"Looks like a male and a female," the commander said, staring through his binoculars. "It's a new species! What should we call it?"