Chapter 1: Prison
Disclaimer: I do not own Alien/Predator series or any characters and may not follow all customs and cultures found in Alien/Predator movies.
The white walls that make up the place hurt Maria's eyes no matter where or what she was doing. The only solace she had was the bar window that looks out into the beautiful sky that she has come to admire. But on this day, it was dark and cloudy with the rain pounding on the facility that she was held in. She sits on her chair that is separated from the other prisoners that are allowed to roam the open compound that it allows, rubbing her thin wrists that itch from the white, medical garb that they threw on her when she first arrived. She didn't like it. It was disgusting and she would love nothing more than to rip it apart with her own bare hands and show them that it's just fucking trash. But then she would be left with no clothes on and the embarrassment from it prevented her from doing so.
The moaning noises from behind take her attention away from the window, looking back at an elderly man in the same garb that was walking as if he was in another dimension . . . or drunk. His eyes were unfocused as he kept walking around like a zombie while Maria just watched in her chair. He started to mumble out some things but then turned his attention to her. For once, his eyes found something to focus on but Maria didn't like it. The man stumbles towards her as Maria scoots her chair closer to the window. But it didn't stop the elderly man as he started speaking out more nonsense.
"Young lady . . . what has done . . . you to . . . get here?"
She could barely make any sense from his words. What has she done? Why does he want to know? Maria moved back, even more, dragging the chair until it hits the wall. The old man comes closer . . . and closer . . . until he reaches out for her, grabbing part of her garb by the sleeve as he pulls her closer to his face.
"You know . . ."
His eyes widened a bit before he starts to cackle. It starts off slow until it gets louder and more annoying to Maria. Eventually, she watches him turn from a zombie-like state to a psychopath tantrum.
"You are . . . with aliens! Hahaha! You . . . from . . . outer space. The crazy . . . lunatic . . . son of a . . . bitch! Hahaha!"
When he said those words, Maria's anger got the best of her as it grew inside like wildfire. She couldn't hold it in anymore. She maneuvers her hands to twist around his arms, placing her hands on his chest and using all her might to push him away from her. The force she exerts on him causes the old man to hit the nearby wall. He screams like a little girl but Maria wasn't done with him yet. She had nothing to vent her anger on except for him who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pushing her body with the little energy she had, she stomps over to the old man who had fallen down to the ground and picks him up by the neck of his garb. Once he was on his unstable feet, she pulls back her fist and slams it hard on his face, breaking teeth as she watches him spit them out. He drops to the floor, spitting out blood as well but she wasn't done with him yet. She pulls him back up as she studies his bloody face, screaming with all her might.
"Shut the fuck up!"
Again, Maria drives her fist into his face again. And then does it a third time . . . and then another . . . and another. When she sees his face all bloodied up, she throws him down on the ground and proceeds to kick him in the stomach repeatedly, hearing him moan and cry out in pain. Despite his pleas, Maria keeps on going with her assault on him, driven by anger that was growing out of control.
Ever since she came to this horrid place, many of the others in this facility called her crazy, believing that she was somehow abducted by aliens and that they had turned her mind against the human race to destroy them. From day one, Maria had been isolated as an outcast, mocked by others but it wasn't what made her angry. It's the feeling that they are indirectly attacking all those she had come to love. To watch as they do as they please, hurting all her friends and loved ones that have sacrificed themselves for her. It drove her close to insanity in some cases.
She keeps pounding hard on the elderly man multiple times, even as she saw bruises starting to form on his face and hands from trying to block her attacks. But just as she was about to finish with him, shouts and screams echoed through the halls, alerting Maria that the guards were coming. But her mind kept her from running off as she knows it was useless. There was nowhere to go out of this prison.
And like a swarm of bees, several guards grabbed her arms and shoulders, pulling her off of the defenseless man on the ground. Maria tries to fight them off, swinging her fist in every direction as to get a hit on one of them. However, one of the guards grabs her wrists, pulls them behind her back and places handcuffs on her, restraining her even more. Adrenaline keeps pumping through her as she screams and spits at them, resorting to biting one of the guards when his hand got too close to her. He yelps in pain and in retaliation, one guard takes out his stick and whacks her hard in the stomach.
This sends a jolt of pain everywhere and she doubles over on her knees. Her body threatening to vomit every little thing she had in her stomach, even if it contained almost no food. She gasped for breath as the guards surrounded her to make sure she didn't try anything. After some time, she heard heavy footsteps that sounded like combat boots and Maria knew who was coming. She lifts her head up just enough to see a male soldier pushing through the circle of guards until he stops just in front of her. She glares at the man as he smirks down on her like he had won, crossing his hands in the process.
"This again? Haven't you had enough?"
Maria keeps her focus on him as she begins to growl like a wild animal.
"Sergeant Wilson . . ."
He smiles evilly at her and bends down to get a closer look at her. She tries to move away but her strength was diminishing at every second so all she could do as watch as his eyes studied her.
"You know you can stop this. All you gotta do is talk and that's all. How important is your alien lover anyway that would make you turn on your own kind?"
She didn't like how he talked about Za'taan that way. She couldn't move through to punch him but she had one last trick up her sleeve. She gathers up all the saliva in her mouth and when she had enough, moves her head back to get leverage and then spits right into his face. She flinches back, standing back on his feet as he wipes the spit off of him as she screams.
"Fuck you!"
As soon as he cleans himself up with the aid of the kleenex from one of the guards, he glares down at him for a bit before composing himself back to what he looked like before. He sighs as he glanced down on Maria.
"Alright. You asked for it."
He turns to one of the guards on his side and nods his head to him while giving him orders.
"Take her to the isolation cell. Makes sure she's really comfortable. She'll be in there for a while."
And with that, one the guards come up to her, grabbing one of her restrained arms as she is pulled up on her feet. However, Maria struggles out of his grip, falling back down on her knees as the other guards go for her as well. Maria put up a huge fight as she kicked and bite several guards before she feels a sharp point of a syringe go into the side of her neck. She tries to tear it off but the drugs that they put in her were taking immediate effect on her. Her vision becomes blurred and she could barely keep conscious. She tries again to shake off the guards but her body refuses to respond.
After only a few minutes, she slumps in their arms as the last thing she sees before going unconscious was Sergeant Wilson, chuckling with a gleam in his eye.
In the darkness, Maria couldn't help but look back on how she ended up here in the first place, wondering if this was her fate, to begin with.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[3 years ago]
Maria feels herself drift back and forth between consciousness and the abyss that threatens to swallow her up. Her head sways as she begins to regain her senses from her long sleep. When she gets a hold on herself, she slowly opens her eyes to a dark room that is only lit by a small window high up on the wall and far beyond her reach. She kept blinking her eyes slowly to get them working again and sure enough, her vision clears just enough to see the dark details of the walls. Scratches covered every part of it and she wonders if it was used for something more sinister.
"So you're finally awake."
The unknown voice jolts her body a little to start functioning more as she faces forward to see a figure of a man dressed in some fancy suit sitting across from her with a table between them. However, the shadow covered his face so she couldn't see who it was that was talking. It only then did she see another man standing behind him with a black mask covering his face as well. But it was obvious to Maria that it was a soldier since he had armor all over his chest along with holding a large rifle in his hands. She turns away and tries to move but it's when she notices her hands and legs were bound to the chair she was sitting on. She looks back at the unknown figure who leans over on his elbows with his fingers folded on each other.
"Nice for you to come around. You're Maria, correct?"
Her eyes widened a bit but she was still groggy to feel the full shock that she was experiencing. She takes a deep breath and swallows before speaking.
"How . . . do you know . . . my name?"
Her voice was still trying to work but it was enough to get her point across. The unknown figure leans back on his chair and looks over to the soldier who comes right next to him, placing a thick bunch of papers that was big as her arm. The figure flips it open and shuffles through it while talking.
"We've looked through your files a little bit and it's quite interesting. You are the daughter of Diego and Sophia Perez who resided in Spain. Supposively engaged to Juan Sanchez who owns businesses in the wine industry. You were to be married a few weeks ago but suddenly disappeared without a trace."
He stops flipping through the papers and looks up at Maria. She glares at the man, feeling that he is nothing but trouble so her body stiffens when she could see his head turn to her.
"But that's not what really happened."
Maria watches as the man flips the bundle close and pushes it to the side of the table. Once he did that, the man leans forward like before, crossing his fingers on each other while some kept tapping on one another, like he was thinking during their conversation.
"Official reports state that you were kidnapped and killed by terrorists but that's only the cover-up. We know that something more 'foreign' was involved. Can you explain this to us?"
Silence echoes in the small, dark room between Maria and the unknown figure in front of her. She glances at the soldiers, noticing how he began to grip his rifle a little more as if he was waiting for something. Maria looks back at the unknown man and faces him head on, leaning a little as much as her bonds would allow.
"I don't know anything."
The unknown man taps his fingers a little more, clearly a sign of frustration to Maria but she stays put with her words. The man stops his tapping and leans a little closer to her.
"Don't try to lie. We've seen the bodies littered everywhere where we found you. Those black creatures you saw . . . you know what they are."
He pauses for a moment as Maria thinks of who this man was. He was no stranger to the kainde amedha and she can tell that he wasn't fazed by the discovery of those things. Whoever this man was, he knows as much as she does. Or maybe even more . . .
She clears her throat again, feeling a scratchy sensation at the back of it but she continues on.
"Sounds like you know what they already are so why bother telling you?"
The man starts to grunt a little and Maria knows he's getting impatient but surprised a little when he keeps his cool a little more, tapping his annoying fingers once more.
"True but they are not the only things that were out there. We found traces of humanoid aliens that were hunting them a little while ago and then disappeared. These beings . . . we know them as Predators."
She tenses a little bit when the man mentions the Yautja brothers she had met. This man was talking about them and Maria didn't know why this man was interested in them. She decides not to say anything about them but realizes that she may have already done as she sees the man react to her body language and begins to chuckle.
"So you do know them. I mean . . . they not only allowed you to live but also accepted you as one of them. The mark on your cheek proves that."
When he mentions that moment when Za'taan marked her with his clan's symbol, Maria tenses once more. Her anger begins to boil her blood, making her bounds tighten harder on her wrists and ankles. The man chuckles again and straightens himself up in his chair, coughing to clear his throat up.
"But you have gone past that as well. We've checked your body and found some fluid that belongs to one of them. I can assume that you fucked with one. Didn't you?"
That did it for Maria. This man was talking about her and Za'taan's relationship like it was a marvel to him. She hated that he spoke about him and that it was something private between them. She starts to thrash in her seat, making her chair rock back and forth to the point that it was going to topple over with her. The man signals the soldier to keep Maria in her place. The soldier roughly grabs her shoulders and pins her hard on the chair, keeping her steady as she screams at the man.
"Fuck you!"
She thrashes once more and before she could react, the soldier swings his hand across her face, slapping it hard enough that her neck pops a little from the fast motion. Maria takes a break for a moment, trying to adjust to the searing pain on her cheek until she looks back at the unknown figure before her.
"Feisty aren't you? Don't worry, Maria. We promise to let you go free . . . if you tell us the location of the Predators that you were with. All you gotta do is tell us and this will be over."
The man leans on the table again, putting his palms flat on it while tapping his fingers again. Maria swears that she was going insane just from hearing his fingers tap like that. If she had it her way, she would have ripped them off from the beginning of her talk with him. Still, she couldn't do anything with being bound in a chair along with a soldier keeping her still. She closes her eyes a minute and lets herself remember the times with Za'taan, I'stih, and Ya'stu. She misses them so much but it gives her the necessary fuel to keep her strong during this difficult time. She could easily break down without their help and she is resolved to stay that way . . . no matter what.
She opens her eyes once more and leans a little to the unknown figure, glaring with all the hatred in her before hissing her words to him.
"I won't tell you shit. You can do whatever you want with me. But no matter what . . . all you're getting from me is nothing, you motherfucker!"
Maria screams the last of her words at him, causing the man to slam his fist on the table as he stood up from his seat. He takes a moment of silence as he takes deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. She watches as his body relaxes and then moves from his seat, walking around the table until he reaches to her side. The shadow still keeps his face hidden but then he leans down and the light shine on him, revealing his face to Maria for the first time.
Maria could see that he was somewhere in his mid-fifties since she saw his hair had some strands of grey in it. His pale, green eyes looked deep into her brown ones while he smirked at her, making chills go down Maria's spine. He moves away from her until he speaks out.
"On, you will tell us about them sooner or later. We have lots of time to spare."
He turns to the soldier holding Maria and nods. Maria was quickly unbound from the chair but still restrained by the bounds on her. The soldier pulls her up on her feet as the man comes face to face with her. She growls deep in her throat as the man leans into her face once more.
"I hope you enjoy your stay in the asylum. Maybe it will teach you a valuable lesson in complying with those that can easily take your life away. Enjoy."
He waves his hand to the soldier, giving him the signal to pull Maria backward as she hears a door opening behind. She screams at the man once more, using all of her might to curse at him.
"You fucking asshole! Who are you!?"
The man puts his hand up to stop the soldier from taking her out of the room. The man puts his hands behind his back and takes a few steps forward before stopping just a few feet in front of her. He takes a small, deep breath before he lets her know.
"Just be glad that I spared your life. If it was up to my men, you would already be dead before you set foot in our facility."
Then, the door behind me opens and I could just turn my head around to see another soldier coming into the small room. The man looks behind me and smiles, nodding to the soldier that just came in.
"Take her to Sergeant Wilson. I'm sure that he will take great care in our new 'patient' that will be coming in. That is all."
With that, the soldier that held Maria dragged her from the table and into the arms of the other soldier. Maria struggled with all her might, trying to at least break free from their hold but with her body still feeling the effects of the drug, the soldiers easily restrained her as she is pulled out of the office. She screams at the man one last time.
"Let me go!"
But her cries fall on deaf ears as she felt a whack to the back of her head, causing her to fall into the dark abyss one more time.
. . . . . . . . .
[Present]
Maria's eyes shoot right open, seeing that same room that she was all too familiar now. The room was basically a cold, metal prison with one small window to provide air and light but the only thing it does is make the room colder and the moon was the only source of light that the window provided. She gets up quickly from her hard bed that had a pillow as her only comfort. The room was a lot smaller than the others she has been, although she can't quite remember. All of her routines became so blurred together after three years in the facility, she can barely count the days that she has been in isolation. The cuffs on her were gone but the sting was still on her ankles and wrists that they left behind.
She rubs her head a little until she blinked a couple of times to get her eyesight back. However, the grogginess from the drug's effects was a pain in the neck to Maria despite having been drugged one too many times with it. It still made her headaches worse but she had to be glad that the effects were as prolonged as the first time.
When she finally has enough strength to move, Maria sits up on the bed, crossing her legs together while looking down at her fingers. They were covered in scratches and thin as bones like the rest of her body. She refused to eat from them and it got to the point that they force-fed in order to keep her alive. Eventually, she stopped fighting like that, believing that she needs to keep some of her strength in case she has a chance of escape. But after three years, she was starting to give up hope.
The only thing that keeps her going is the memories of her friends and loved ones. Maria worries for Ana as she hasn't seen her since they were captured. In some part of her mind, she hopes that Ana made it out by some miracle but another part told her otherwise.
After that, she remembers I'stih and Ya'stu in their final moments, hoping for her to live her life to the fullest. The day when I'stih sacrificed himself to allow them to escape while Ya'stu did the same for his brother, wanting Maria to be happy. She smiles, believing that they are watching her from the stars, making sure she was alright.
And then, she remembers Za'taan . . .
Oh . . . those precious times with him. She still remembers his fresh scent of cinnamon that was all over his body . . . the softness of his skin on hers . . . his tongue battling with hers and . . . the brightness of his red eyes that shined every time they look at her. She closes her eyes and relives the nights they had spent together.
Maria lays back down on her side, wrapping her own arms around herself. She can feel the darkness coming back to take her but her mind begins to wonder about Za'taan and how he was doing.
Was he alright? Was he looking for her after all this time? Did he miss her? Will they ever find each other again?
That caused another headache to come on and Maria moves her arms to claw at the scalp, gripping it so tightly that she could feel her nails digging into it. She tries her best to keep strong, holding on her faith in Za'taan that they will find each other again. All she has to do it keep on going and endure.
With that, Maria curls into a fetal position, feeling the coldness creeping in from the small window on the wall as she drifts off into a dream with Za'taan wrapped around her, whispering that he will find her . . . no matter what.
Hello everyone! :D
And early April Fool's! I know it was probably cruel of me but I forgot that was April Fool's Day so I decided to keep you guys waiting for the wrong date. But of course, I have to admit that I couldn't wait anymore either so here is the first chapter of Endurance. I'm still posting the other first chapters for Metamorphosis and Nexus as promised so don't worry. I'm not that cruel . . . ;)
So Maria is captured and trapped by the very people who found her on that day. But what plans do they have in store for her? Why are they so interested in the Yautja and what is their goal?
Find out when Chapter 2 comes along! :)
P.S. I will be posting every other week for both Metamorphosis and Endurance each Friday night unless notified (first week: Metamorphosis; Next week: Endurance and etc.) Postings for Nexus will vary depending on the progress of Metamorphosis but will let all of you know when.
Enjoy!
