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Kululu wasn't there. Neither was anyone else. An empty, silent room filled to the brim with ab-so-lutely nothing. And how nice that was.

There was nothing and no one and no pain or sorrow. It was dimly lit and the sound of Kululu's breathing was softly absorbed by the library's walls. Kululu was dead. He was sure of it.

Except he was hot.

A little flare of concern. It looked like a match being struck. The room was not so empty anymore.

How could he be hot if he was dead?

At that thought, the match set his body on fire, dissolving his skin and burning through his head. There was so much pain that Kululu didn't think it was even possible that he was still in his body.

He was in hell. He was paying for everything he'd ever done. It was the only possible explanation for the agony in his body and mind. Hellfire tore across the valley of his existence and charred the sticky town. Kululu tried to say something, any kind of repentance to bring him respite, but all he could manage was a gasping scream.

Kululu opened his eyes. He was not in hell. Not literally, anyway.

He couldn't see his surroundings very well. The Rurlough had taken his glasses. Still, he could gather that he was still exactly where he'd been when he had passed out: in a type of holding cell deep underground. Just as Kululu had noticed before he'd come fully awake again, it was very hot and very humid. The clothes that remained on his body stuck to him in the dank environment.

His heart was beating loudly in his ears; with every beat, agony pulsed in his head. For a few minutes, he sat quietly and tried to calm himself down.

Once he had slowed his heart rate a little and taken several deep breaths, Kululu tried to flex his fingers. He found that he was unable to.

Panic returned. What had been cut or possibly even removed when the Rurlough were messing around in his head that had caused him to lose control of his muscles?! Kululu pulled at his restraints and looked up at his hands, little though he could see. He saw that he, in fact, was moving his fingers. However, he could not feel it because he'd lost feeling in his hands, probably from the prolonged elevation of his arms. Indeed, Kululu found that, not only his fingers, but also both of his arms had gone completely numb.

"Ughh…," he groaned. The vibrations from his complaint sent shooting pains up through his head.

By the combined forces of his legs and his shaking arms, he pulled himself into a straighter sitting position.

Now what?

Kululu didn't get a chance to answer that question. The cell door opened and he started and looked around. A Rurlough entered the room.

"What did you do to me…?" Kululu asked. He was surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

Without answering his question, the Rurlough undid his shackles. Kululu gratefully folded his arms down and tried to rub feeling back into his limbs.

The Rurlough knelt beside him and Kululu uneasily leaned away from it. It took ahold of his upper arm.

"Whoa, no, no, no, not this again! Don't-!" The Rurlough stuck the needle of a syringe into Kululu's arm and pushed down on the plunger.

Something cold painfully shot through Kululu's arm.

"What was that?!"

The Rurlough grabbed a fistful of Kululu's hair and roughly pulled him to his feet. This caused a horrifying flare of pain in his head and Kululu involuntarily cried out.

"Fuck you-"

Next thing Kululu knew, he was being rudely dragged by his hair out of the room. He protested and sputtered questions all the way, but he received no response.

The Rurlough led him to a room not far from his cell. It pushed him towards a chair and said, "Sit."

"No," Kululu replied. "Not until you tell me what's going on." The pain in his head made him feel dizzy.

The Rurlough shoved him into the chair. Kululu popped back up at once. He was once again pushed down. He stood up again, and received a very hard slap in the face and a third push down into the chair.

"Tell me what you're doing."

Another Rurlough entered the room and advanced on him with some instrument in its hand. It was glowing bright orange and was unlike any technology Kululu had ever seen before. Under normal circumstances Kululu would have been keen on getting a closer look at it, but right now he didn't want anything to do with it. He sprang up again from the chair and backed up a few paces. "Please…," was all he could manage for the terror and agony freezing his mind.

Another slap. A staggering punch to the gut. Kululu doubled up in pain and the Rurlough used the opportunity to pick him up and set him in the chair and hold him there.

Kululu fought against them, ignoring the suffering that plagued his entire being.

A voice suddenly screamed in Kululu's head, startling him: "SIT STILL!"

For a moment, Kululu stopped struggling, more out of surprise than anything else. The Rurlough's normally soft and tired-sounding tones were decidedly terrifying if raised to a shout.

"I'll sit still if you tell me what you're fucking doing to me!" Kululu replied, hoping his terror didn't show in his voice.

"WE WILL SLAUGHTER EVERYONE YOU LOVE!"

Thoughts of Giroro and the others flashed across Kululu's mind and he immediately froze. It was an empty threat, Kululu was sure, but it scared him into submission nonetheless.

"Just… tell me what you're doing. No matter what it is, I won't resist anymore," Kululu said quietly. He hesitated, then added in an even quieter voice, "Don't hurt them."

For a long time, the Rurlough merely stared at him. Then it spoke.

"Our species is dying. We are tired. The radiation-"

"Your sun exploded," Kululu said, remembering from records he had read before.

"Yes. The sun we depended on exploded and now we are poisoned. We cannot sexually reproduce anymore. We must clone ourselves."

"So where do I come in…?"

"You are a genius. You are healthy. We will make a stronger being using your brain cells and save our race from extinction." It moved its hand toward Kululu and hovered the strange tool near his head for a moment before letting its arm drop at its side. "We will take your intelligence and steal your memories. Then we will kill you. Then we will continue conquering weak and pathetic planets."

Kululu's mouth felt dry. "That's… a good plan."

"Shut your mouth."

He did.

"We are too exhausted from dealing with your insolence to perform the surgery now." The Rurlough pulled Kululu up by his arm and led him away. It secured him in his cell and added, "If you resist us further we will cut off Corporal Giroro's head and make you drink his blood."

Kululu did not resist again.