11
You decide to act like this is the most natural thing in the world, because it seems to be more productive than freaking the hell out. And what do you do in a natural situation when you see a corpse?
Well, assuming you don't need to call the cops...
And assuming that it's not human at all and some alien monstrosity from hell...
You don't have any sharp instruments on you to do the dissection, however, so you have to ask the girl to do it for you.
"Hey, uh, can you take a sample of that thing, while you're at it?"
The girl stares at you for a moment like you grew a new pair of creepy elongated arms, "What? Why? It's not edible, if you're thinking of..."
"No! That's... I wasn't thinking of eating it! I just want a sample, for uh, you know, science. See what they're made of." You hurriedly explain to the teen.
She still doesn't seem to be less creeped out, but she does cut a very small piece of the creature's skin for you. You almost ask her to get some of its flesh too when you look over at the corpse and see that its tissue seem to have the same consistency everywhere, with no signs of any bones. That, and you guess it'd be asking her a bit much to cut out more with what appears to be a sharpened piece of metal wrapped in cloth and duct tape.
You also attempt to pry out the goo on the floor, but it's stuck fast. Might as well be part of the floor. You don't want to think about how difficult it's gonna be to remove the bits and pieces on you. It was nowhere that hard a few minutes ago!
"So uh, why do you call them builders anyways? What do they build? And the beacons, too, why are they called that?" You ask the girl.
She sighs as she finishes cutting the last piece of clothing from the corpse. They seem to have some of the hardened shards on them, so you suppose you won't be completely empty-handed. "Wow, you're really curious, aren't you? You know what, I'll tell you when we're at the fortress."
"Fortress?"
"Yeah," she says, dropping the pile of bloodied clothing into a backpack you didn't see earlier. "You'll be safe-ish there. Assuming you keep quiet and don't get us killed on the way there."
She stops suddenly, and you could've sworn she sniffed the air like a bloodhound. "Aw, fuck. Run!"
She bolts off into a hallway.