Alien: Post-Apocalypse

Chapter 1: Scorched Earth

In retrospect, it was entirely inevitable. In fact, the only remarkable thing about it was that it hadn't happened sooner. Humanity detonated its first nuclear weapon 259 years ago, and in doing so it became Earth's first and only native species that wielded the capacity to literally destroy the planet. That day, on July 16th 1945, at the Trinity testing site in New Mexico, Humanity sealed its own home world's fate. 258 Years later, the Alliance of American Empires and the United Eurasian Nations began the war that would trigger it all. The first 6 months of the war were indescribably bloody, but paled in comparison to what came after. The AAE, realizing that it was losing the war slowly but surely, was the first to resort to its nuclear arsenal. However, the obvious predicted outcome became reality, as the UEN retaliated in kind just before it was obliterated under nuclear fire. The results were a global holocaust of about 85% of the Earth's population, and the end of the war with no victor. Earth's global environment was ruined beyond repair; much of its surface covered in the flash-melted glass and lethal radiation one would expect from a global thermonuclear war. However, Earth's story is far from over. A couple years after the great war and in spite of most of the planet being dry desert and extremely close to utterly uninhabitable, life clung on.

…

Night had finally fallen once more over the desert of what the humans once called north-western New Mexico. Verexa slowly brought her sleek black form out of the alcove in the towering rock formation, which had been her nest for a few months now. Climbing the small ledges with ease, she soon reached the top of the rocky spire, taking a seat and wrapping her long segmented tail several times around her clawed feet. Before her laid a vast and seemingly empty expanse of flat desert with a group of large plateaus in the distance. The landscape was pitch black, save for the dim light from the stars and half-moon in the clear sky above. However, her array of trans-visual senses allowed her to see it just as easily as if it had been broad daylight as she silently scanned the area.

There! Far off in the distance, the orange, flickering light of a small fire shone clearly at the mouth of a canyon between two plateaus leading into the massive desert plain. With that, she immediately took off, darting down the vertical side of the spire.

After a few minutes of hard sprinting, she neared the source of the fire. Redirecting toward the plateau to her right, she scaled the cliff a couple hundred meters from the fire, and then crawled along the side of the plateau back toward her original destination. She was soon directly above the fire. She looked down and found a small camp site with three humans huddled around the fire as well as three four legged creatures, which appeared to be the humans' mounts and pack carriers and did not seem dangerous. The humans were much too busy eating and quietly talking amongst themselves to notice impending doom in the form of an alien creature three meters from head to tail tip and literally armed to the teeth, who waited patiently above their heads. Verexa had all the time in the world but only one life to lose. She was an apex predator by design, but knew not to risk injury over what should be an easy kill. So, she waited ever so patiently for the humans to finish their meals and drift to sleep.

Slowly and silently, Verexa crept down the cliff face. When she was only about five meters above the camp, she leaped down directly on top of one of the humans, crushing his skull beneath her foot as she gracefully landed with hardly a sound. Startled, the four legged creatures whined loudly, waking the remaining two humans who quickly got to their feet on the opposite side of the fire from Verexa. With calm focus, she grabbed the corpse beneath her and hurled it directly at the human to her left with enough force to knock him back several meters where he landed with a thud. The human to her right was distracted by this, but looked back just in time to see Verexa tackle him to the ground. He fell flat on his back with his arms pinned beneath the dark monster atop of him. She brought her tail directly over her head and drove its razor sharp tip straight through the human's forehead as he screamed. By now, the last human had gotten back onto his feet, brandished a long knife, and began to charge toward her. Verexa met the human's desperate charge and deftly caught his hand in one of her own as he thrust the knife toward her. Using her free hand, she grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pulled him backward against her chest. She then used her far superior strength to force his knife hand up toward his rib cage. The human screamed out in agony as his own knife pierced between his ribs all the way to the hilt. Hissing with satisfaction, Verexa slowly twisted her hand, and by extension the knife, until the human stopped screaming. She then released the corpse and let it fall limp to the ground. She tilted her elongated head back and let out a blood curdling screech into the night.

Nearby, the four legged creatures whined and struggled to escape, but to no avail, as they were tightly tethered to metal stakes driven into the ground. Verexa quickly dispatched them by running her bladed tail across their throats, and once they were all dead, she crouched over one of the creatures and began to satiate her hunger. She was soon full on enough meat to stave her hunger off for at least another dozen day and night cycles. Her thirst, however, was another story. After a quick search, she let out a contented hiss upon finding a large container of water in the side pack on one of the creatures. With a sharp talon at the end of one of her fingers, she punctured the container at what appeared to be the top. She tilted her head back and turned the container upside down above her open mouth. She drank as much as she could, careful to spill as little as possible, and then let out a satisfied hiss after turning the container right side up again and setting it on the ground.

She looked around at the vast, empty landscape once more and enjoyed the cold silence aside from the quiet popping of the dying fire. Sitting down next to it, she began to let her mind wonder. Memories of the times before the great war that destroyed her hive and Mother were quick to come up. She enjoyed the calm memories of her days in the small hive in the caves she once called home with the other xenomorphs she called family. The memory of the bond she had with Mother brought her great joy until she also remember the excruciating feeling of that bond being destroyed along with her home and family beneath a nuclear mushroom cloud. It had only been by chance that Mother had tasked her with scouting the human activity at their base a few kilometers away from the hive, and it was only by chance that the warhead destined for that base was off course by a few kilometers... directly toward the hive. Verexa shook her head as she remembered watching from a distance as her home was destroyed and feeling the telepathic link with her family ripped from her very mind. She had mindlessly run north for days without heed of what saw her until she collapsed from exhaustion and began the process of mentally recovering from such mental shock. It was still painful to think about, so she forced herself to focus on the here and now.

She rose to her feet and contemplated what to do next. There was still plenty of water left in the container, and there was no telling how long it would be before Verexa found more, so she decided it would be best to take it with her. She also decided that it was time for her to move on to find a new place to rest and hunt, and she chose west for her direction of travel. She traveled for several hours as fast as she could despite being restricted to her legs only, as she carried the water container in her arms.

Soon, the sun started to rise at her back, but she didn't stop since she appeared to be all alone as she traversed through dry hills covered in dead shrubs. Then, she felt a presence nearby, but couldn't figure out exactly in which direction or how close. It felt familiar but certainly unrecognized. She slowed her pace and then came to a halt between two large rocks, setting the water container down silently. She could feel that whatever it was that was nearby, was now very close. Sensing movement just on the opposite sides of one of the rocks, Verexa crouched and prepared to lunge at the other being. Her huntress instincts told her that it was now a kill or be killed situation, and she was nothing if not a survivor.

Author's Note: This is my first Alien/AVP fanfic, and comments, reviews, and constructive criticism are all highly welcomed and encouraged. Trolling and flaming are not so encouraged, but if that's what you feel inclined to comment with, go ahead. Also, I'm not sure if anyone noticed but there were some places I typed "Vexera" instead of "Verexa" (that's what I get for changing the character's name half way through the chapter), but those are all fixed now, and the character's name is officially Verexa. Again, please comment with anything, especially criticism and suggestions/ideas, and thank you very much for reading!

I do not own anything in this story except the plot and characters.