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I jolted upright as I heard a loud, terrified screaming. I quickly got out of my tent and frantically looked around to see the others doing the same, except for Dexter, who was holding one of the waddling fish in his hands.

"This stupid thing-"

The fish suddenly cocked it's head at him and mimicked his words exactly, "This stupid thing- This stupid thing!" It freaked us all out and he flung the fish at the ground in terror.

"Ee-ea, yeeg yeeg yeeg, mwoawsh. Mwoawsh! MWOAWSH!!" The fish was waddling around, and kept looking at him, waiting for him to mimic it.

"Mwoawsh?"

"Meeglip ux-ux ux-ux-ux-ux!" The fish waddled off about as fast as it possibly could. I realized what time it must've been, and how low the sun was. About eight in the morning.

"That stupid thing waddled into my tent and started speaking... It freak me out, so I shoved it away, and it switched into scream mode!"

"It was speaking?" Of course, Abigail's the one to question this.

"Yes. Very distinctly, and in english. It was just random words thrown together in no sensible way, but it was terrifying. It practically decided that it's favorite word was 'vodka', and started saying it over and over and over."

"Vodka."

"Yes. Those things are so strange and annoying! I... I just wanna punch the damn things!"

"Oh, please," Again, argumentative Nemo. "You don't wanna punch it... You wanna kill and fry it into some nice tasty sea food!"

"That, is true! We're having waddle fish for dinner, tonight!"

"Are we just officially naming them waddle fish?" [Veronica]

"Yes. And they're going to taste delicious."

"Well, you can figure out how to cook them, and I'll be figuring out what's in that tunnel. I'm not gonna be wasting my time." [Me]

"I'll go with you. I'd like to get away from these stupid fish." [Tristen]

"Okay, come on. Let's go."

"Without breakfast?" [Veronica]

"I'm not really hungry, especially after seeing a talking fish that breathes air." I spun around on my heel, and me and Tristen trapsed off into the metal forest.

After wandering for about half an hour, we finally found the metal pipe, and ventured into it. The walls were slimy and wet from the water dripping off of them, and the concrete chamber at the end seemed out of place. The room was completely empty save for the small tubes gushing and sputtering water out of their apertures and the pipe with it's ladder leading straight down.

We climbed down the ladder, pointing our flashlights downward. After about ten minutes of slowly climbing fifty feet down, we came upon a large room radiating light. The ceiling itself had gems placed in the pattern of stars, and the supports racing through out the structure added to the element of finesc. The entire ceiling represented the night sky, and the walls were all painted with designs for abstract machines, but titled with colors, not letters or even numbers. Some of the machines looked simple and imaginative, while others looked menacing and convoluted to say the least.

The floor had a strange pattern in it as well, with circles, lines, and mathematical anomalies in the pattern. The entire thing was inlaid about an inch into the floor, and had water raised to the edge. The water was glowing a brilliant sky blue, but the coloration pulsed in a wavelike pattern. The water itself stood still, renderred completely immobile by the stillness of the room and the air.

We followed the pulsing glow back to find it's source, and found ourselves walking back and forth in circles and across the lines. We realized what the pattern was. It wasn't a symbol, or for art, but for science. The pattern took the waves and locked them in an infinity loop, circling back around, through, and over each other so that they never broke. It had no origin.

"I can't believe this place..." [Me]

"Science is going hay wire. Nothing makes sense!" [Tristen]

"Well, we need to find out what's here. But what could make the water do this?"

"Plankton?"

"No... This is too predictable... Is it... Could it be electricity?"

"Electricity doesn't make water glow, and it isn't that-"

"But what if it's got chemicals in the water? What if..."

"What if it's got a new metal?"

"A new metal?"

"Yes! Electricity can't possibly lock itself in an infinite loop like this, but what if there was a metal that had one hundred percent electric conductivity?"

"That sounds impossible."

"So do all theories at first."

"True. It just... It just seems so... So strange..."

"Yeah. Let's go tell the others."

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

We spent a good half hour going back to the camp to find them all standing around a bowl of water.

"Hey, Tristen. You're good with electricity, could we get an explanation about this?" Nemo waved a magnet over the bowl of water and it pulsed a bright blue glow, radiating light and heat.

"So it is electricity..." [Tristen]

"Actually, at the bottom of the pipe is a massive room with something similar. It has a kind of pattern in the floor that traps waves in an endless cycle. There's an electric current flowing through it, so... yeah." [Me]

"Could you show me? I'd really like to see that." We lead everyone back down the pipe, this time cutting across the forest which dropped the time to about four or five minutes, then showed the others the room.

"This is amazing..." [Nemo]

"Ab, is this plankton?" [Dexter]

"No, Plankton don't react with magnets, nor do they move in such wave like patterns."

"No, it's a metal, but not like any we've ever seen. It's dissolved in the water, so it's effects are dulled, but I think if we could distill it, we might be able to play with it a bit..." [Veronica]

"What are we gonna call-" [Me]

"Theorium." [Tristen]

"Uhh... Any particular reason?" [Nemo]

"Yes. I... When I was a kid I believed there could be a metal that might generate energy, and referred to it as Theorium, because it's just a theory. There's no way something like that could be real, and yet... We may have found something just as imaginative."

"A child. Who understands advanced science like electro magnetism?" [Veronica]

"My fathers were both chemists and electritions."

"I didn't know you had two fathers. That... That kind of explains why you're gay, though." [Veronica]

"Well, my mother was killed in a car accident when I was little, and my father was illegally married to a man before I was four. I just kinda grew up with it and... I don't know. Nature versus nurture, I guess."

"Huh. Well, that sucks." [Veronica]

"Why?"

"I thought you were rather attractive."

"Are you kidding me?!" [Nemo]

"He didn't kill a woman."

"It was self defense!"

"Sure it was...."

"She gave me this!" He lifted up the corner of his shirt, revealing a massive gash through his side. The fur hadn't grown back very well, and the skin was scarred and bruised, even after five years of healing. "She sliced right through my kidney and my appendix!"

"I don't need your sob story-"

"I passed out from blood loss before the cops even finished calling an ambulence! I woke up in the hospital half a week later without two organs and dangerously doped up on pain killers!"

"It was kinda sad." [Tristen]

"I remember one time you thought you could only breath water, and the hospital had to keep water from you for an hour and a half." [Me]

"Shut up..." Nemo stormed off down the room and vanished into some passage on the side. We just left him alone while he pouted until an hour and a half later he came running into the camp screaming for dear life. He vanished into his tent and started crying audibly. We all crept over and gave him questioning looks. When he saw us, he started rambling on about something that wasn't Anthran, and was apparently incredibly massive.

"Nemo, calm down. What did you see?" [Tristen]

"I... I saw a demon. It has no eyes, and it's face was a massive, blank disk that flashed colors and it made no sound, not even when it moved on it's six massive legs, or when it's cold scaly body lands hard on yours. It just crushes you, trying to kill you. But it didn't! It tried moving back and forth over me, but I scrambled out from under it and bolted back here. We're leaving this island."

"Moving back and forth over you?" [Veronica]

"You know, this could be him coming out about something." [Dexter]

Tristen laid his hand on Nemo's, "Don't worry, none of us judge you."

"I'm not a faggot, you incompetent fool!" Nemo slapped Tristen so hard, that Tristen actually laid back and started rubbing it, moaning and groaning in pain.

"That thing is going to kill us!" [Nemo]

"I'm sure there's a logical explanation as to what's going on." [Me]

"Maybe it's the Theorium?" [Veronica]

"I doubt that. This isn't normal madness, he's actually seen something." [Abigail]

"Maybe we should leave." [Tristen]

"No! We came here to find out what's here, and we're going to. Now who here wants to find out what in god's name he's talking about?" There was a short pause, then Tristen got up and stood next to me. Veronica came over next, and the others just starred at us.

"You're insane. You can't kill it." [Nemo]

"I don't intend to. I intend to figure out what it is." I turned around and headed for the chamber. It was the only starting place we had.