The day after waking up, May was released. She felt fine and all of her motor functions were normal. Add to that the fact that the FBI did not want anyone to know about May's...oddities, and the doctors were forced to let May go free.

May had been unconscious for eight days, and ended was glad that her classes had ended before she was admitted to the hospital. Her parents would only be able to stay one more day because of Clark's job. They had booked a flight as soon as they got news of the incident, and Clark only had nine vacation days to use. He had told them about the situation, but his employers, being government contractors, had a very strict way of doing things. Go to work when you are told, and do the work of one person in four hours with a team of three over an eight hour shift.

May wanted to return home with her parents, but the doctors and "Matt" wanted her to stay. The doctors were not sure if it was safe for May to travel by plane, and "Matt" wanted to be able to keep close contact with May.


Because classes were over for the semester, May could not stay at her dorm room for much longer. All of the students who were not taking Summer classes had been forced moved out while May was in the hospital, but May was given one extra week to recuperate.

April had left a get well letter before she left, and May wished that she had had a chance to say goodbye.

On her first night back at her dorm, May could not sleep. She noticed a presence on the fringe of her consciousness. It was very subtle, and at first May ignored it, pushing it away. However, it gradually began to feel more urgent. After curiosity, and a desire to sleep, got the best of her, May focused on the presence that had been hanging in the back of her mind. She could feel the panic coming from the presence, and she reached out towards it. The panic abated and a memory flashed before her.

She saw the field that she had been in when she went unconscious, but now, it was swarming with people. There were many military men standing guard, and people scurrying around in white lab coats. The people in lab coats were taking samples and running tests. May could feel the Hatchery's fear through the memory. However, the fear did not come from the people around the Hatchery; it came from the absence of a purpose. In this fearful state, the Hatchery had decided that it should secure itself from any possible intruders, and preserve its energy by minimizing Larvae production.

The Hatchery communicated all of this in an instant, and May could feel that the Hatchery was seeking a purpose from her. It was in desperate need of order.

Once May realized that she had just seen a memory of the Hatchery, she tried to communicate with it, but found that it had no conscious thoughts other than a desire to obey. She decided to try to find out what the Hatchery was seeing at this moment, and the Hatchery was all too happy to oblige.

What she saw was almost identical to what she had seen in the memory, but now, the field was lit by many generator powered lights. That was not the only change, for around the Hatchery were several men burning the ground. At first, May could not make sense of it, but she then realized that the men were burning the Creep being produced by the Hatchery.

There was something else that May noticed that was new; she could feel the few Larvae that the Hatchery had so dutifully protected. The Larvae were inside of the Hatchery; within an area which May could also see. Inside of the Hatchery was a large circular room about twenty yards across with five hallways pointing directly away from the center.

These hallways led to the exterior, and were protected by "doors" that were currently closed to prevent the people outside from getting to the defenseless Larvae that aimlessly crawled along the floor of the main room. Along the walls and floor of the Hatchery were glowing bio-luminescent dots about the size of tennis balls. These glowing dots lit the inside enough to see quite well.

May remembered the dream she had before she woke up in the hospital and instinctively focused on one of the Larva, pushing the idea of a Drone onto it. The Larva turned into an egg immediately. May then left the mind of her Hatchery, but did not push its existence out of her mind as she had before. Now, she kept it close enough to know what was happening around the large creature at all times, something that comforted the Hatchery immensely.

None of the people outside of the Hatchery had tried to force their way inside, but it was likely only a matter of time before they did. When May sorted through the Hatchery's memories, she found that the "doors" had been open when the Hatchery was born, and there were at least half a dozen people who saw inside before the "doors" closed.

The next day, "Matt" came by to visit at precisely 10:00 A.M. He asked questions and claimed to be able to answer any questions May had, but most of the questions that she asked were answered in the same way: "classified."

He would not tell her who all knew about her wings, but when asked about the Hatchery, he told May that it was being studied, a fact that she had found out on her own, and that it could not be moved. She asked if she would be allowed to see the Hatchery, but "Matt" said that the Hatchery could be dangerous. None of the scientists had a clue as to what the Hatchery was for or what it could do, and the few that were allowed to visit the creature were extremely knowledgeable.

Eventually, "Matt" explained that it would be his job to check in on her every week, and he claimed that this would continue indefinitely. After they were done with all of the official business, "Matt" stuck around and the two talked until he had to leave at 12:00.

May spent the rest of the day with her books, and watched over her Hatchery as the day went on. While she was reading, the Drone hatched. She found that she could enter its mind as easily as she could enter the Hatchery's, but, to her dismay, she found the Drone's mind to be even more submissive than that of the Hatchery. She told the Drone to walk around, stop, and jump, but the third was physically impossible for it. It was a strange situation, for the amount of shame the Drone felt when it failed to jump made May feel bad for telling it to do so.

For the rest of the day, May was left alone with her books. She had a hard time paying attention, however, due to the words that "Matt" had said the day before: "Both of our lives probably just got turned on their heads." May fell into a restless sleep that night as she feared the uncertainty of her future and that of her Hatchery.


Again, May was in a field of endless grass. Again, she saw a creature. A Drone.

When May spotted the Drone, it began walking away from her.

May followed the Drone, and when it stopped it curled up as much as possible, and a film covered the entirety of the Drone. The Drone began to morph within the film as the film grew thicker and became filled with a puss-like liquid. Although it looked like no time passed at all, May could tell that nearly a day gone by as the bulbous, film covered creature finished growing. When it was done growing, the new bio-structure broke free of the film causing a large ammount of the puss-like liquid to be sprayed over a large area.

Immediately after the creature broke from its film, May knew what it was. An Extractor. Unlike her previous dreams, the dream did not end with the creation of this new bio-structure.

A Drone came from behind May and walked through an opening in the Extractor's side. Moments later, the Drone exited the Extractor while holding something wrapped in a green membrane. May watched the Drone take the green sac and turn towards May. The Drone walked past May, and as it did, May turned around to find that a Hatchery had appeared behind her. The Drone walked up to the Hatchery and placed the green sac into a small recess in the Hatchery's side.

After May watched the Drone make several more trips back and forth to the Extractor, a second Drone came out of one of the entrances to the Hatchery. This Drone, unlike the first, did not go to the Extractor. Instead, it walked a short distance away and began morphing just like the Drone that created the Extractor had. This new bio-structure took over twice as long to complete as the Extractor had, but like the Extractor, when the creature finished growing, it broke from its film and sprayed a puss-like substance everywhere. May could tell that this bio-structure served a very different purpose than the Extractor, and she knew what it was called: a Spawning Pool. When the Spawning Pool was complete, May eagerly waited to see what it would do, but to her disappointment, May awoke.


The following week after moving into an apartment provided courtesy of the government, May told "Matt" about her ability to psychically communicate with the Hatchery, but she did not mention her control over it or her ability to see what it saw. She simply told him that the Hatchery wanted permission to build two new bio-structures, and that it would need to build them on the Creep that was being contained. "Matt" said that he would discuss it with his superiors, and that he would let her know what they said.

The next day, May received a call from "Matt." Apparently, Uncle Sam wanted to know about these new bio-structures almost as much as May did. Whoever "Matt" reported to gave the Hatchery, and in effect May, permission to build an Extractor and a Spawning Pool.

May was to build one structure first, and after it was complete, she was to build the other. This would give the scientists some time to study the first while giving the second some time to grow.


It looks like I will be able to get one more chapter out before Monday. I've got my fingers crossed!