Chapter Text
The ground had broken below him, that's all Alph had time to realize before falling. Now he lay, staring up at what bit of sky he could see through the hole above him. Alph had been scouting out the new area they discovered whilst Brittany and Charlie were collecting easy to see nearby fruits.
Alph groaned before sitting up. Even though his suit protected him from any severe damage from the fall, he still was relatively sore. The initial thud had left him winded too. He glanced around, doing his best to catch his breath.
Everything was incredibly dark, a few glowing mushrooms were around but there were barely any.
Alph took a few shaky steps, trying his best to be quiet. Who knows whats in here. His suit did give off a faint light due to some custom upgrades he made for himself, but it didn't do as much as he would've hoped.
As he walked the dirt walls around him had slowly become more spaced out, and eventually stopped altogether into a large open space. It felt like eyes were staring at him from somewhere in the dark. He didn't like this, not one bit.
He looked to his right but couldn't make anything out, then to his left. Inedible remains of some fruit were there. Alph did take notice of what looked to be a spot that lead outside not to far away. It was almost like an entrance of a den for some sort of animal.
Alph started carefully walking towards it, glancing around. As he was looking again to the right he noticed a few cut up corpses of what he guessed were bulborbs. He felt sick at the sight, what in the world did tha-
SQUELCH
Alph froze, he walked straight into something. His eyes slowly drifted up to stare at an odd creature. From what he could see it appeared to be made of some kind of liquid.
Alph immediately scrambled backwards, falling over in the process. All his instincts were urging him to run, bolt to the exit but his body wasn't responding. He was too nervous to move which left him and the creature simply staring at each other for a moment in complete silence.
The silence only being broken by a deep, echoy, noise the creature let out that almost sounded like...laughter? Was it laughing at him?
Alph's eyes widened as he watched the creature slowly morph into the form of, from what he could tell from the ears, a hocotatian. The noise shifting a bit, becoming far clearer that it was most definitely laughing. He watched at it held out a hand out to him as it was trying to suppress any more giggles.
He stared at its hand, then back at it, before he cautiously took its hand and stood up.
"...thanks?" Alph managed to say, sheepishly smiling. It nodded in response before leading Alph to the exit he had been heading to. He could see its current form a better now in the light; cream coloured spacesuit with blue accents, small tuft of blonde hair on its head, light skinned, and ears definitely that of a Hocotatians now that he could see clearer. It let go of Alphs hand, glancing around.
"My names, uh, Alph." Alph said, it nodded again.
"...Louie." it responded, before it spotted the Drake and pointed at it. "Your ship is there." It said bluntly, then went back into the cave.
Alph quietly looked back into the cave, he could feel its- Louie's gaze on him. He then turned to look at the direction of the Drake, and began his walk back to it.