"Time to wake up."
Tyra's voice broke through Nova's dream, her eyes snapped open and her hand whipped to her empty holster, shoulders tense. Her muscles tensed in readiness. Shadows moved on the ladder, a figure climbing down with a tray of what looked like food.
Nova's stomach rumbled. How long had it been since she ate?
The new guard stopped at Nova's cell first. He slid a smaller tray under the bars and then moved on. A sword swung at his waist, moving in time with the black ponytail draped down his back. He shoved food at each of the Hunters before stopping in front of the stranger's cell, there he pushed the tray in and spoke.
The ragged prisoner replied and shoved the tray back.
The guard yelled and kicked the ground, sending a spray of dirt over the prisoner and the tray of food. He stomped away and climbed the ladder, slamming the trapdoor closed behind him.
The prisoner shuffled back out of the light and away from his food, resuming his glassy-eyed vigil.
"What the hell is this?" said Aart.
Nova pulled her tray closer; it was made of thick grass woven together to create a kind of checker board. A pile of white chunks that almost looked like meat quivered as she moved the tray, wobbling like jelly.
Green stalks created balls of slime like a heap of seaweed beside the white chunks. Altogether the food took up less room than one of her fists.
"We're supposed to eat this?" said Gus. "We'll probably die from poisoning."
Orion shrugged. "I've eaten worse."
Tanguin's face looked green in the dim light. "You first then. I'm sure you've all eaten all sorts of things in the field. Not me, give me a nice bowl of purple and that's quite enough for me, thank you very much."
"Alright, I'll try it. If I die, make sure you take care of my ship."
Orion dangled a quivering white chunk over his mouth and let it drop, snapping his teeth shut around it and chewing. His face screwed up as soon as the food hit his tongue and he spat it out with a splutter so that it landed on the dirt a few feet away. He kept spitting small drops of saliva and wiped his tongue on his sleeve.
"That. Was. Disgusting!"
Nova poked a cube with her finger and it wobbled. "What did it taste like?"
"Like a rotten corpse!" Orion yelled.
Nova's eyes flickered to the guard. He'd flinched when Orion spat out his food, it was barely a movement at all but compared to his absolute stillness of before, it was something.
"Do you feel sick?" Tanguin asked.
"Yes. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat again. That thing's going to be stuck to my tongue forever."
"You know what I mean," said Tanguin. "Do you think it was poisoned?"
Orion ran his hand over his tongue. "I don't feel faint or anything. I didn't eat much of it though."
"We don't know how much longer we're going to be stuck here," Nova said. "I think we might have to get used to it."
"Easy for you to say, you haven't tried it yet," said Orion.
Nova shrugged. "Here goes."
She grabbed a sticky chunk of white flesh between her fingers and lifted it towards her mouth. A deep breath brought the scent of raw fish and rotting meat rolled together and bile rose in her throat. She swallowed the bile and opened her mouth, dropping the chunk onto her tongue. As soon as it landed she clamped both hands over her mouth and pinned her lips together.
Orion was right. It tasted like rotting fish and the flavour leaked into every corner of Nova's mouth. The squidgy chunk burst over her tongue in a wave of cold juices before she could swallow. It slid down her throat like a cold, wet, sponge.
The taste clung to her tongue and gums, refusing to be washed away, and bringing new waves of bile up Nova's throat. She swallowed three more times before she trusted herself to open her mouth. "That was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten."
"I can't wait to try it," said Aart.
Nova swallowed again, trying to keep her face expressionless. "I'm not dead."
"No, but after eating that thing I bet you wish you were," said Orion.
"We can do this," said Nova. "Trust me, if this food doesn't give us the urge to get out of here then I don't know what will."
One by one they each ate a piece of the white meat with varying degrees of success. Aart's face turned pale and, like Nova, he had to clamp his hands over his mouth. Gus's mouth twisted but he swallowed without gagging while Tyra stared at her piece for a full minute before throwing it into her mouth and pinning her eyes closed.
"You're up, Tanguin," Orion said.
Tanguin's face paled in the dim light and a sheen of sweat shone on her forehead. Her cybernetic eye swivelled around the prison. "I don't think that's a good idea."
Nova shuffled closer to Tanguin's cell. "You can do it. We all need to keep our strength up."
Tanguin glanced back at Nova and her mouth twisted in a grim parody of a smile. "I feel sick just looking at it."
Tyra grimaced. "Unfortunately it tastes worse than it looks. But if I had to eat it, you do too."
Tanguin took a deep breath and snatched a piece from her plate, hurling it into her mouth with one fluid motion. Her eyes bulged as it landed on her tongue and her face twisted. She leapt to her feet and lunged for the waste bucket, landing beside it just as vomit surged out of her mouth. It splattered against the bottom of the bucket and some dribbled down the sides.
Tanguin pulled the bucket closer, stomach heaving.
Orion shook his head. "Damn."
Tyra's eyes traced over the coloured mess. "Lovely."
Tanguin hung her head, sweat dripping down her face.
Nova kept her gaze on Tanguin but out of the corner of her eye she noticed the guard twitch, turning slightly towards Tanguin and frowning. Nova tried to gauge what it meant. Was it because he was waiting for them all to die from some kind of poison? That didn't feel right. The way his mouth twisted, it was almost like he was embarrassed. She frowned; there was no reason for him to be embarrassed about Tanguin throwing up. It didn't make any sense.
She shook her head and filed it away to consider later. "Alright, Tanguin?"
Tanguin nodded, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.
"That could have gone better," Orion said.
"Maybe the second one isn't so bad?" Aart said, placing another chunk in his mouth.
He ate two more before his face turned green and he had to sit quietly in the corner of his cell, lips pinned together. Nova managed two pieces and even that was two pieces too many.
"The green ones taste better," Gus said.
Nova pulled a stringy piece of green vegetable from her plate. It dangled in the air before her, glistening. She shut her eyes and closed her mouth over it, letting it cling to her tongue like a green worm. It tasted like nothing, as if she'd been given a green piece of thickened air. Stringy fibres clung to the roof of her mouth but no matter how much she chewed they wouldn't break, staying in a thick tangle against the roof of her mouth. After what felt like hours she gave up and spat the stringy ball back to her tray. It had lost all colour and clumped together like the tentacles of a jellyfish.
She grimaced. "I wouldn't call that better, so much as less bad."
They each tried the green strands, spitting out the fibres.
Orion grimaced. "That was an educational experience."
"Don't even mention it," Tanguin said, face still beaded with sweat.
"He mustn't like it either," Aart said, nodding to their fellow prisoner.
"He still hasn't moved," Gus said. "It creeps me out. No one can sit in one place for this long; what if he has to piss?"
"Speaking of," said Orion.
He got to his feet and sidled to his bucket, facing away from the rest of the prisoners. The quick zip of his fly coming down filled the prison, followed by the steady rhythm of liquid hitting the bottom of the bucket.
"This is closer than I ever wanted to get with you," said Tyra.
"I guess we'll be seeing a lot more of each other," said Orion with a grin, sitting back down. "Shame they don't have any sinks though."
Nova shook her head. Orion always seemed to be able to keep a happy face no matter what was going on around him, but he was right about the sinks; her hands already felt covered in filth, and they reeked of the sticky, white meat.
She pushed the tray away from her towards the bars and settled with wiping her hands on her trousers.
"I'll take the next watch," she said.
The others grunted and settled against the walls of their cells, lost in thought.