"How long is this thing?"

  The Captain asks desperately.

  He has been watching Rayne in silence in the past 10 or so minutes as she kept her arms inside the oozing exposed flesh of the worm. Her face is slightly lit by the bright flashlight reflecting from the flesh.

  "The calculations were wrong. It is way longer than a kilometer."

  The Captain looks around, outside the flashlight's limited reach his eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. The curved shadows must be the enormous corpus of the worm dissolving into blackness. The reddish night sky casts shadows on the angular curvatures of the snow-covered mountain. He is certain the motionless waves are the half-buried body of the worm. It has not moved in the past 10 minutes, or at least he hopes.

  "How far did you say your device can scan inside the flesh for...whatever it is you're looking for?"

  "I'm looking for the central nervous system. Around 12 meters."

  The woman sounds calm, the desperate look on her face has now vanished; she looks determined. The Captain can see small drops of blood on her face. He sighs in discomfort and scans their surroundings, adjusting his eyes again to the darkness. As far as he knows, the worm can be kilometers long; "this will take forever." He looks back at the eyes of the white-haired woman. This is the first time he can see their color. He only paid attention to them once in the monitor hall; they seemed to reflect the monitors. Now, under the indirect light of her flashlight, he can see that they are... grey?

  The woman looks calm and focused. She has not said a word for the past hour or so. He has been removing the rocky scales of the worm for her, 20 or so meters apart, exposing the flesh. It would slowly start oozing red blood, and the woman would push both her arms into its flesh, holding a triangular device in her right hand. Each time, the worm would immediately jitter, shaking the ground under their feet, and go back to laying motionless once she stopped pushing, halfway to her shoulders.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The Captain's mind is calm as he keeps re-analyzing the situation; his gut feeling has never let him down, and right now, it is mildly in panic, meaning they are in mortal danger but there is a plan. The mission is simple: keep scanning for the central nervous system, which seems to be the only vulnerable part of the monster. And find it before the damn thing wakes up. And this weird triangular device inside the woman's fist, is some measuring device. He is certain she was carrying it in the pouch fitted to the curvature of her lower back when they were riding the worm on that near-death roller coaster. "What else is she hiding in the pouch?"

  Wooooosh

  She pulls her arms out. The worm jitters, the snow under their feet shakes. Blood dripping from her arms, she walks and scans the worm, "This one" she points to a giant scale.

  The Captain removes his knife from one of his holsters, pushes it under the scale, uses it as a lever and lifts it. The worm's exposed flesh bleeds. Rayne pushes her arms deep into the flesh as the snow under their feet shakes for a few second. "This is going to take forever."

  "Listen, about the Harley Quinn incidence..."

  Rayne's eyes fix on the Captain's mouth as if she dreads the next word. The Captain swallows and continues "... I am sorry."

  The muscles around Rayne's mouth loosen up slowly, she sounds unsure as she asks "The Harley Quinn incident?" and looks directly at the Captain's eyes.

  The Captain opens his mouth but stops, the hair on the back of his neck is rising. Something is happening in the darkness behind him.

  His heart sinks.

  He turns and scans the giant curvatures on the mountain behind them; it is too dark to see. He reaches for a pouch on his belt and removes his brass lighter. Click! The purple flame lights up parts of the mountain in front of him. The giant creature seems to be motionless. He sharpens his ears. A beat?

  A heartbeat?

  They both sharpen their ears. The Captain is not sure if he is mistaking his own heartbeat. Suddenly, a cry, a faint, weak cry.

  Yes, something, is crying faintly.

  "We must be close" Rayne violently removes her arms.