Disclaimer: I don't own the Alien franchise.

Author's note: This is just a short one shot fic I wrote a while ago when I was bored.

--------------------------------

"Hello, Isaac," Doctor Faust greeted as I entered his office. The psychiatrist's office was brown. Seriously, he had the wooden wall painted a dark brown; the coach was brown, brown desk, brown bookcase. The only thing that wasn't brown was the grey carpet.

"Hello, Doctor," I replied. He led the way over to the coach. I followed in what was the normal routine we had. I glanced out the window to avoid having to look at the monotonously colored room.

"So how are you feeling?" Doctor Faust asked after I was lying on the rather comfortable coach.

"Fine," I replied. I hesitated for a moment. "Is it true that you think I'm better? Can I finally get out of here?"

He frowned and I wondered if I had said too much. I had been here ever since I had gotten back from what was left of the DS-08 colony. I couldn't believe how long I had been here. Still, my memory of my last year in the colony was as fresh as ever.

I had been there for quite a while. We had moved from DR-01. DR-01 had been a nice place, I guess. It was covered in cities and resembled Earth, or so I had been told.

DS-08 wasn't so easy to colonize. We had to use atmosphere processors, but by the time my family arrived, the air and temperature outside were already very similar to DR-01. Though the air was kind of thin, sort of like being on a tall mountain.

--------------------------------------

I was walking down a hall, dribbling my basketball against the floor. I would occasionally rebound it off a wall. I was down in the storage area, so there was no one there for my playing to disturb.

There weren't many kids here and certainly not enough to form a basketball team even if they were all interested in the sport. So, I was bored and wandering by myself.

I paused as a storage worker stumbled out of a door ahead of me. He was clutching at his chest and groaning in pain. I wondered for a moment if he was having a heart attack, but he looked too young to be having a heart attack. I mean, I thought only older people had that problem, but I'm an ignorant teen, what do I know?

The storage worker's chest seemed to bulge out and I screamed. I hate to admit it, I mean I always thought of myself as being very brave. It's amazing how little you understand yourself. The worker looked up at my scream and tried to say something, but it was lost in an explosion of gore as his chest exploded outward. I screamed again, even louder then the first time.

The worker slumped to the floor as a pale snake-like creature pulled itself out of his chest. The creature completely lacked eyes and it had two small undeveloped limbs, followed by a long boney tail. The creature turned its eyeless gaze on me and screeched, before taking off in the opposite direction. I had no idea how it managed to move so fast with only that tiny pair of arms.

I didn't stay there. I turned and ran away, but at least I kept myself from further screaming, though I was crying my eyes out. Not the proudest moment of my life. I ran back to the room my parents and I shared.

Both of them were very disturbed by how… emotional I was. It took them a while to calm me down enough before I could explain what I had seen. Talking about it was almost as bad as reliving the experience, but I managed to at least tell them where to look.

I stayed in my room with my mom trying to comfort me, while my dad went and got some other adults to go with him and check out the situation.

It's probably nothing, I tried to reassure myself. It's so small, it's not like it could really hurt anyone.

Yet the image of the storage worker's chest exploding kept replaying in my mind.

I curled up on my bed and tried to fall asleep.

--------------------------------------

Several weeks went by. The adults found nothing, besides the storage worker's body and a piece of shed skin.

Then they found another body. A curfew was now placed into effect and guards were placed around the complex. That didn't stop more people from disappearing entirely.

I kept strictly to the curfew, though I complained about it like all of the other kids of course. In spite of all my fear, I couldn't resist telling them about how I had come across the storage worker. I was enjoying the attention a little bit, was that so bad?

----------------------------------------

I awoke to a loud bang. I glanced around, as I heard several more bangs, which my still half-asleep mind identified as gunfire. A loud screeched followed the sound of gunfire. The screech woke my mind up completely, but I could not identify the sound right away.

Then I recognized it as the same sound the pale snake-like creature had made, but it sounded more… mature, I guessed?

I jumped out of bed and threw the door to my room open. I gasped as I saw the large black creature. Its massive head was the first thing to catch my attention. It was elongated back and covered by several ridges. Two tubes protruded from its back, followed by a long stinger tipped tail. It had a pair of arms and legs, both of which were skinny. The creature's whole body was boney, almost skeletal looking. The only part of it that wasn't black was its silver teeth.

I stepped back into my room and quickly closed the door. The creature hadn't seen me. It had been distracted. I heard a loud scream and I realized who it had been distracted with. The screaming suddenly stopped and I heard a body slump to the floor.

Gasping so loudly I was sure the creature would hear, I turned and my eye caught sight of the grate that led into the ventilation system.

I hastily threw my shoes on and kicked the grate in. It made a loud metallic crash, one that I was sure the creature, the alien I realized, would hear. I wasted no time in crawling into the ventilation shaft, I heard the door to my room get ripped off its hinges behind me, but I was already safely into the vent and out of sight.

Crawling through the vent, I tried to be as quiet as possible. I doubted that I would have been heard over the sound of the gunfire and screeching though. I found my way to a maintenance hatch and from there into a large room. I was relieved to see the heavy duty door that blocked the room's entrance.

I stopped and listened for a moment, surprised to hear silence. There was no more gunfire, or screeching. I stood there for a long time, hoping to hear a gunshot, or some other sound of human activity.

Instead I only heard several screams as one by one the human survivors were found.

Backing up against the wall across from the door, I covered my ears, unwilling to listen to anymore. My eyes focused on the door, waiting for one of the black creatures to open it and come to get me.

I sat like that for a long time. I most have fallen asleep, because my next memory was of waking up.

My stomach growled, but I was unwilling to leave the room. Finally, the ache in my stomach became so bad I couldn't sit there anymore.

Pushing myself up, I walked over to the door and pushed it open. I really wished that I had thought to lock it last night.

I expected to see bodies lying out in the hall, but as I walked toward the cafeteria, the only signs of a battle that I found were bullet holes and pieces of the floor and wall that appeared to have been eaten away.

The lack of bodies felt eerie and I found myself almost wishing to come across one.

I reached the cafeteria without incident. I went into the back and grabbed several bags of food that I wouldn't need to heat up and headed back to the room with the heavy steel door.

Tearing into the bag of potato chips, I started sobbing as I remembered the screams I had heard the night before just outside of my room and I realized that both of my parents were probably gone.

I slowly pieced together why I hadn't seen any bodies. The aliens were apparently born from humans, so that first creature I had seen apparently had a way to reproduce and make more of them.

The thought of one of those things bursting out of my chest disturbed me greatly of course. I swore to myself that I would do whatever it took to keep that from happening.

I climbed back into the ventilation system, determined to try and memorize the paths of the vents and hopefully find my room. I wanted to get something to wear other then my pajamas and sneakers.

My flight from my room the previous night had been rather rushed so I couldn't recall the path I had taken. I headed in what I thought to be the right direction.

After several minutes of crawling around, I sighed. I couldn't even remember the way back to my safe room. I should have laid down a trail of potato chips. No, that would have been a waste of food.

I crawled around thoroughly lost for how long I didn't know. Finally I found my way back to the safe room and climbed back into it. I was hungry again so I opened another bag of junk food.

-----------------------------------

I lost track of how long I had been by myself. I had managed to memorize much of the ventilation system's paths. I now knew it as well as the small hairless rat-like creatures did.

My supply of food was dwindling, so I was forced to stay in the cafeteria and cook something for myself. I hated doing that. As much as I was getting sick of the chips and stuff, I hated being out of the safe room or the vents more.

I rarely saw any of the aliens, but that did nothing to reassure me. I was sure they were still nearby.

The steak I had chosen to eat this time around seemed to be cooking extra slowly. I paced the room, glancing around.

When the steak was finally ready I dumped it out of the pan and unto a plate. I hurriedly bit into the piece of meat. I had stopped bothering with silverware. It only slowed me down. I finished the steak and licked my fingers clean, no point in letting anything go to waste.

I looked up and felt my heart skip a beat. One of the aliens was perched on the counter top only a few feet away from me and staring right at me. I was surprised that I didn't scream in fear, instead I just sat there and stared at the black beast.

The alien followed me as I took several slow steps away from it. I realized that it was playing with me.

I turned and ran from the room; my recently filled stomach protested the action. I heard the alien screech and give chase. I managed to make it out into the hall and grabbed the bag that I had always carried with me. I pulled the rope off the bag's opening and tossed it behind.

The bag's contents clattered to the floor and the alien screeched in surprise as its legs slipped out from under it. I didn't stop to admire my handiwork, but I did smile widely. And to think I had always thought marbles were useless…

I turned a corner and dropped onto my stomach crawling into the open vent there. I headed toward the safe room, glancing back to make sure that I wasn't being followed.

Relief washed over my as I reached the room. I dropped to the floor and glanced around. Satisfied that the room was secure I walked over to the corner and sat down. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against my hands. My heart was still hammering from the excitement.

A clattering noise attracted my attention and I looked up to find a marble roll to a stop a few feet in front of me. I stared stupidly at the orb for a few seconds and then I looked up.

The alien was sitting at the opening of the vent I had just come through. I jumped to my feet and glanced at the door. No good, the alien would take me down long before I reached the door.

I glanced back at the alien. It was still sitting at the vent's opening. I found myself admiring the creature. I had never really stopped and examined one this closely before. The way it moved was amazing, like a cat. A thin scar ran across the top of its elongated head. It was superior to every movie monster I had ever seen.

Shaking myself, I wondered if all this isolation was taking its toll on my sanity.

The alien jumped down and examined me. She didn't appear as impressed with me as I was with her. The thought came so naturally, but I had no idea how I knew the alien was a "her."

She didn't make a move to attack, so I sat back down. It wasn't like I'd be able to escape now anyway. "So what do you think of the colony? I hope we didn't leave it in too much of a mess before you took over."

The alien hissed in amusement and then sat down as well. I blinked, surprised at how well she had mirrored my own sitting position. I frowned and then continued to speak, even though I was sure the alien couldn't understand me. Still it was nice to have something to talk to at least.

Call me crazy, or whatever, but what I was doing wasn't much more crazy then people who talk to their pets. Keep that in mind next time you ask your Doberman how his day was.

I finally finished speaking. It felt strangely good to have talked about everything I had been through since the aliens had taken over. I glanced over at the alien to see an expression that I guessed was amusement on her face.

The alien stood up and turned to leave.

"Wait!" The alien turned around and I nervously tugged on my fingers. "Do you have to leave so soon?"

The expression of amusement returned and the alien plodded back over. I stepped back as she got close enough that she could've decapitated me with her tail. She frowned and I got the impression that she was asking me whether I wanted her to stay or not.

"Yes, I do," I nodded.

The alien purred and walked the rest of the way over, lying down, resting her head in my lap like some sort of nightmarish dog. I petted her long head, listening to the purring intensify as I traced my fingers across the ridges.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, feeling strangely safe.

---------------------------------------

I yawned and opened my eyes. I glanced around looking for the alien. Not finding her I guessed that everything must have been a dream. I frowned; my pants were covered in slime. So it hadn't been a dream.

Standing up, I walked over to the pile I kept my clothes in and pulled out a fresh (Fresh being a relative term here.) pair of pants and underwear. I slipped out of my damp clothes and pulled on the new ones.

I jumped as I heard an amused purr behind me. I spun to find the alien sticking her head out of the ventilation shaft. I attempted to ignore the peeping alien.

A thud sounded behind me and I reconsidered the wisdom of ignoring the alien. I turned around and she held something out to me. I studied the object, realizing it was one of the hairless rodents that plagued the colony. The creature appeared quite dead though if the lack of its head was any indication.

"Um, thanks," I reached out and took the dead rodent.

The alien swept her tail in a gesturing motion, indicating the door. I walked over to it and unlocked it, stepping out into the hall, after making sure it was unoccupied. I stepped out and headed for the kitchen. I really hoped the rodent tasted better then it looked as I didn't want to upset the alien by not eating it.

I turned the stove on and dug out a pan. I set it on the burner and then threw the rodent on. I frowned intensely as the smell of the cooking meat reached my nose. I glanced over at the alien and attempted to smile.

But she must have noticed my reluctance because she bent down and a second set of jaws shot out of her mouth and snared the half-cooked rodent. She swallowed it in one bite.

I gulped, realizing that tongue was probably just as effective a weapon as her tail. As she turned and left the room, I reconsidered trusting her and wondered if there was another room I could move my hiding place to.

The thought made me feel empty. After having been alone for so long, it seemed like I would welcome any form of company.

I turned and dug through the fridge, looking for something that hadn't spoiled yet.

-------------------------------------

"Where are we going?" I asked as the alien led me through the colony.

Of course, her only answer was a quiet growl. She led me through the halls and outside. I immediately felt the air thin as I stepped outside. I wondered if the atmosphere processors were still functioning.

I followed her through the hangers and then outside of the colony grounds altogether. I stumbled over the rocky ground, as she leapt nimbly over the rocks, leading me down a hill.

I was gasping for breath by the time we reached the bottom of the hill. The alien waited for me impatiently.

Finally catching my breath, I turned and followed her. She stopped outside the mouth of a cave and nodded her head towards it. I turned and stared into the darkness, unable to make anything out.

She nudged me in the small of my back and I stumbled forward. I walked into the cave, as she stepped around me and led the way.

I glanced at the walls as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I could make out something covering the walls. It was black, the same jet black as the aliens and it even looked similar to them. I felt the material, finding it to be warm to the touch.

As we continued into the hive, it got warmer and even the air I was breathing started getting thicker, until it was just like being in the colony.

I yelped as an alien emerged from around the corner ahead. I jumped behind the female alien and watched as the other alien passed without as much as a glance at me.

The alien was watching me with that amused expression of hers. I managed to force my face to be blank and straightened up, in an attempt to recover some dignity. She purred and continued forward.

I tried not to show it, but I was terrified of being there. As we continued we passed by more and more aliens as well as several large green eggs which I was afraid to go near.

She stopped and sighed. She turned and headed back toward the surface. I followed eagerly.

I was relieved when we got back to the safe room. It was getting late so I walked over to the corner where I had set up a sleeping bag.

It occurred to me that now that the aliens weren't a threat to me I could move back into my room and sleep in my own bed. I quickly abandoned the idea. It felt safer in here and my room would no doubt trigger memories of what had happened to my parents.

The alien sensed my distress and curled up against me. I rolled over to face her and ran my fingers over the ridges on her head. I closed my eyes as she wrapped her tail around me.

-----------------------------------

I awoke to the sound of gunfire. I glanced around rapidly, finding no trace of the alien except for the puddle of drool that she had made during the night. I paused and listened, realizing that screeches were intermixed with the gunfire.

Not knowing what to do, I just sat there and listened to the sound of fighting. I covered my ears trying to block out the screeches of pain, imagining that anyone of them could be my alien.

Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I jumped to my feet and pushed the door to my room open. The hall was empty. I ran towards the sounds of gunfire. I had no idea what I was planning to do.

I stopped as an alien burst from the ventilation duct above me. I sighed in relief as I recognized the scar across her head.

"Get away from him, you bastard!"

We both glanced up at the voice's owner. A group of three colonial marines were standing there. All three of them opened fire. I gasped as I spun to face the alien. The bullets tore through her, releasing splashes of yellowish blood which immediately began eating through the floor. The alien dropped to the floor a moment later, screeching in pain.

"No!" I screamed, rushing over and throwing my arms around her. It was a miracle that I didn't end up covered in acid, but my arms, particularly my hands were badly burned. I didn't care. I was way past caring.

"Kid, get away from that thing!"

I felt a strong pair of arms clamped down on my shoulders and pull me away. I struggled against the grip and I guess I shook some of the acid on me off onto him, because he screamed. A small fleck also hit my cheek and began eating into it.

The alien swung its tail forward and stabbed it into the marine's leg. He cried out in pain and let go of me, before dropping to the floor. The man's head fell right in front of the alien's mouth. She opened it and launched her tongue into the marine's brain.

The two remaining marines opened fire again and the alien released one final roar, before she stopped moving.

I screamed in anguish once more and then everything went black.

-------------------------------------

I stared at my hands. The surgeons had done a very good job reconstructing them. I clenched and unclenched my fingers, and then I traced the scars that still remained from the acid.

"Isaac?"

I glanced up at Doctor Faust. "Sorry, I was lost in thought."

"That's all right," the psychiatrist smiled. "As I was saying, I think we can release you quite soon.

"Really?" I asked excitedly.

"Yes," he nodded and smiled. "Your final hearing is scheduled for next week."

I smiled widely. "Thank you! Thank you!"

"Just out of curiosity, what do you plan to do when you've left?"

"I'm going to join the marines. Hopefully, the same unit that rescued me."

Surprise registered on his face. "Really? Why?"

"I just feel like I need to pay them back for all that they've done for me…"