G/T YouTubers (One Shots and More)

Tiny Footsteps (Mark, Mat and Jack, Nate) (Part 2)

This draft has been sitting in the corner collecting dust for over a year now, so enjoy I guess? I'll witch-hunt myself for more dusty drafts to share/polish up in the meantime lol.

"Lay low?" Jack was stuck frozen in place until Nate had trudged far enough ahead for him to remember to keep going. "Laying low is what gets us killed!" He exclaimed, "We belong way up in branches, in the sky, not down here! The ground is the worst place for us to be, with all of the rotting predators and icky sharp-teethed—" The red suddenly flashed back off, and the metallic world around them finally settled with a bright silvery light.

"Finally," Nate sighed, "That must mean they stopped detecting us. We need to be careful though. We don't know how dangerous these creatures are."

"Or what they eat," Jack muttered, but he was so glad just to be able to remove his hands from his ears and hear again.

"They could be green-eaters like us," Nate pointed out, "I didn't get a good look at them, they had those black bubbles around their heads."

"I didn't either," Jack confessed, resigning to a sigh as they kept walking. For such a large pod, the craftsmanship felt rather lacking. It was blank and empty with such huge walls and even longer walkways, but at least they had enough space to walk around in.

"... How many of those animals do you think there are?" Jack suddenly realized.

"Probaby more." Nate was also eyeballing the high-overhead ceiling. "This is inefficient space usage if not."

"Maybe they're just less advanced."

"I hope so. Because if they're smart enough to build all of this, then they might be able to set traps or hunt us down." A shiver down Jack's spine somehow made him feel colder than the heat-sucking floor beneath his feet.

"We should hide," he finally agreed in a small voice. But as Nate turned his head to respond, overhead suddenly came an echoed squeak before a low-pitched noise rumbled out in booming notes. Jack yelped and covered his ears once more, but Nate despite his tattered condition was able to just scrunch up his face and keep going, though the pain in his countenance was undeniable.

"I think they use pieces of the wall to close up their walk-throughs. That one looks a tail open up ahead— let's take a look."

It was quite a trek before they finally made it into what looked like a vacant nest. The room held no light, and was cold and lonely enough that Nate urged Jack into the seemingly safe area after him.

When they heard footsteps from those massive two-legged creatures drawing near again, however, they had to make it a team effort to push the wall piece— door— closed until it clicked shut. Then their only hope was to wait in silence against the nearby wall; Jack was deathly still with baited breath, visions of monstrous teeth and reaching out claws dancing within his imaginative mind. He remained pressed against the corner two walls made, beside what Nate had called the joints of the door, and not even is tailtip twitched like it often did, tucked around his legs. What would the creatures do to them if they were found? Hunt them down? Tear them apart, one limb at a time, crunching down with vicious teeth like the ground predators back at home would gladly do?

Jack felt like he could finally breathe only when the rushing footfall faded in the distance. His chest ached with relief to give a sigh at last, and his shoulders slumped as he turned to Nate. His heart rate momentarily spiked back up, however, to not see his comrade at his side; but once he saw the currenter further inside the gargantuan room, he sighed yet again as his eyes rolled toward the heavens.

"Nate!" He hissed. The currenter gave him a glance, but instead gestured for him to follow.

"Take a look at this." Jack gave the huge door one last look, and then tentatively followed after Nate as lightly as his spry feet could across the cold wood floor. "There," Nate pointed at a white rectangle. It was mounted low on the vast wall, yet larger than both of the extraterrestrials put together, and full of symmetrical holes within two neat circular outlines. "They use energy in their nests too."

"Oh!" Jack perked back up. "Do ye think you could harness it to get the pod working again?"

"Maybe." Nate's countenance scrunched up uncertainly. "It needs more than a new current though. We lost some of the parts when we crash-landed, remember?" Jack groaned at the floor and put his hand over half of his face.

"Feels like we're never getting off this stupid planet." Nate gave him a bemused look.

"It's a pod, not a planet. It can't be that big."

"How can ye be sure?" Jack spread his arms out to gesture at the still-huge room that towered around them. "This nest alone must be the size of a whole colony! You saw how big it was on the outside!"

"Planets don't float in space like this," Nate insisted. "They follow paths, not go hurtling like loose leaves in the wind. Let's just- agh!" As soon as the currenter had turned to try and take another step, his hurt leg had buckled under his weight. Jack reacted just fast enough to catch his comrade, and he strained to ease Nate down into a sit, hunching down beside him.

"Look, whatever this place is, whatever those creatures are, we need to get yer leg and tail healed up. We're walking fodder if we stay on the ground with yer leg like that, and we need to get back to the pod so you can repair it and get energy running through it again. Or something else that can hold energy from that wall. Then we can get out of this rotting place, make it home, and alert the Central Nest."

"You scouts, always on flight mode," Nate mumbled, eyes closed and brow creased with beads of sweat forming over his pale countenance. Jack gave a weak grin.

"Hey, that just means I'm good at my job, right?" He sighed as he leaned back in his current crouch, quietly adding, "Hopefully..."

"Well, we're not dead yet," Nate grunted, "So we'll see—" Jack's head suddenly perked back up, swiveling back toward the closed door. Was that—? No, that wasn't in his mind this time.

There were footsteps approaching, headed straight for the very nest they were currently hiding in.