Unlike most self-inserts, this one won't have tons of advantages. Also, there will be romance but it's slow build. This mostly focuses on how canon changes when it comes to the first movie, Pitch Black. I'm using the events of the movies, as well as some of the background from the books. But, I will disregard some things, like the video game (that I haven't played), and other such things I haven't watched.
Usual disclaimer applies. I own nothing but what diverges from the movies and books. Those changes come out of my own brain. I am not paid or anything.
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I know the place is different. I can see the ground is grey, with little holes on it, not completely even. Metallic. That's why it's grey.
There are no walls, just tall, large plastic cases on each side. It's some sort of long corridor, and… there is a bit of light, but not enough to see where I am. I think I'm inside a giant metal container (or a room? A room with no windows that seems to be made out of metal?).
I can hear alarms blaring. Loudly. And… there are people, in the plastic cases.
A man is struggling awake. I can't see much, but I think he may be in pain. I go near the plastic box he is in, and try to find a way to open the box. There is a red handle. I pull it.
The door of the man's box opens violently, and he falls out, nearly squashing me.
Just as that happens, erm… particles? Yeah, particles, or bullets, or stones moving at high speeds. Well, anyway, particles go through the plastic case that I had liberated the man from. The particles fly past me and imbed themselves in some of the cases on the other side of the room.
"Oh mon dieu..." I say, frightened.
A woman comes out of another of the plastic cases. It seems to have opened on its own. She doesn't look like she knows what's happening.
The man I helped escape from his case is standing up. I can see that he has greyish hair, and the hairline is receding. He has a white moustache that reminds me of my granddad. He seems to be somewhere in his late forties, or early fifties.
He appears quite perturbed, looking around himself. He doesn't know what's happening either, from what I can see.
He says something, but I don't understand. It's in English.
"We shouldn't be awake," he repeats.
I can't speak English.
The man talks with the woman who came out, but, still, I don't quite get what is happening. He tries to speak to me, but I just look at him blankly. After a few seconds, he realizes I am of no help, and he leaves.
The alarms in this place are hurting my head.
This whole thing reminds me of something about the Nazis, in the second world war. They would round up the Jews and put them in a room supposed to be a large shower-room, but it would turn out that it's a place designed to kill all the Jews by gassing them to death with a toxic gas, while the Nazis are chilling just outside.
This place reminds me of that. There are plastic cases containing one person each, and small bullets have gone through quite a few cases already, killing the ones inside each of them.
Are there people outside, shooting?
I follow the old man and the woman into some large room, a control centre of sorts.
The woman grabs some suits, gives one to the old man I helped, and puts one on herself, on top of what she is already wearing.
Just as they do so, another man comes in the room to join us. He seems to be dressed like the two others, the two I am with, and I think they… work, in this strange place. They are dressed like they could be colleagues.
So now, without counting myself, there are two men, and a woman.
The man I helped looks like he's the boss of the two others, and seems very worried. He's sitting at some sort of… uh… he's sitting on a chair, with a panel in front of him, and dozens of little buttons and glowy things and screens showing incomprehensible stuff in the panel.
It's like the pilot of an airplane. In that place where he flies the plane. The cock-pit, maybe? Argh, I don't know the name of every different part of a plane! Basically, this reminds me of the room the pilot of a plane would be in, filled with tons of buttons and things that only he knows how to use.
"Owens," the old man orders. "Open the side-gates, and slow us down!"
And I still can't understand anything. Does anyone speak French in this strange place?
Suddenly, the old man I saved pushes something, a button maybe (I don't quite know what it is, but it's shaped like a button) and it opens a gigantic window in front of us.
I realize then, the magnitude of what has happened to me. I haven't simply awoken in a strange place filled with plastic boxes. I've awoken far from home, from my country.
How do I know that?
Because, well, it might seem a bit surprising, but right in front of me…
I can see a planet. Uhm… Very big. And it seems we're falling down towards it. And… unlike Earth, it doesn't appear to have any blue anywhere. Er… No water. Only land. No ocean.
Yeah. Other planet. Is the shock getting to you too?
One of the two men, not the one I helped, but the other, the younger one who joined us a bit later. That one.
Well, he pushes me out of the room, back towards where there the other plastic cases are, where I woke up.
"It's not safe here," he says.
I just stare blankly, physically conveying 'What?'
Meanwhile, the woman and the old man I helped are sitting down, panicking, trying to do something.
I've realized now that something is wrong. We're probably crashing down on this planet I just glimpsed.
I think this is like in one of those clichés, where a character wakes up in an unfamiliar environment, often a whole other world. Ever seen a movie with something like that happening?
I don't recognize any of this, but… I do believe we're supposed to survive past this crash, if this is indeed like in one of those movies. After all, if not for something interesting to happen, I really wouldn't know why some sort of person or higher being decided to drop me here, in a place that reminds me of the movie Titatic, but a futuristic version, instead of the old cruise boat. Here, the boat would be replaced by… a spaceship? Yes, a spaceship. That's what I'm on.
No. I should be saying 'that's what I'm in'.
…
…
Grrrr… this is making my head turn. Which is it? On? In?
Whatever.
Anway, I'm left where I woke up, with plastic cases on each side, and some of them have holes in them, with the person inside, dead. I do not like the fact that I am forced to stay here, because that means that if any of the little strange bullets that cut through the cabin, uh, come again to drill holes in everything, I might die. After all, I am in the line of fire.
I'm walking along the different parts of the room, and I see that the gigantic room I'm in isn't the only room. There's a door, easy enough to open, that I can get past, and on the other side, is a room identical to the one I came from, with just as many plastic cases.
It is difficult to walk, because I think the… spaceship? Yeah, I think the spaceship I'm in is at a sick angle or something? Because I really can't walk properly, and I'm constantly stumbling as everything moves. It must be the ship that is shifting.
And no, I am not drunk and incapable of walking. I do not drink alcohol, so I know it is the truth when I blame this spaceship on my inability to walk straight.
I can't hear much except for the alarms. I try to block my ears, but it doesn't work much. I can see several more plastic cases now, and one looks different from the others.
It has a man in it, and he seems to be restrained in some way, his arms tied up. With… some kind of, uh, a metal bit wedged in his mouth. And… because of it, I can see his teeth. He has a perpetual grimace, because of the bit.
Ew, he looks scary.
There is something written on the plastic of his case…
Sigh.
Why do I even call these things 'cases'? I should be truthful about what I think.
So, truthfully, to me they look more like transparent coffins. And… well, anyway.
On the plastic, or the glass, or whatever the coffin (box?) is made out of, there's something written:
LOCK-OUT PROTOCOL IN EFFECT. ABSOLUTELY NO EARLY RELEASE.
I realize the language it's in is English, but unfortunately, like I mentionned a great many times already, I cannot speak English.
I've lived all my life in France, and can only speak French and a bit of Italian. I have learnt some German, and English at school, but frankly, I was never the best student of my class, and because of that, I cannot understand what is written on the plastic coffin.
If this is what I think it is, I've probably been dropped in some world, like you see in movies, where the character will have to help people, or help with a rebellion, or some similar thing. That's what always happens.
Telling myself that the events happening to me are similar to the plot of a movie helps me keep the panic at bay.
Ideally, I'd run around shrieking, begging for my mum. But I'm surrounded by unknown people, most of them asleep in glass (plexiglass?) coffins, and I can't help but feel that if I were to break down sobbing, they'd wake up.
The idea of crying in front of unknown people is so embarrassing that it forces me to calm down in order to avoid that fate. That is the great anti-stress, calming technique I use to control my breathing. I think 'you do not want people to see you scared', and that motivates me enough to calm myself down.
This man, prisoner really, that is in front of me, is probably… I dunno, a slave? Yeah.
In stories like this there are often slaves or oppressed people that are at the bottom of the food chain, and considering the size of his muscles, he's probably a slave that does a lot of manual work, and he has to be tied up when he isn't working, so he doesn't attack anyone.
I imagine a mean 'master' ordering him around, threatening to do something terrible to his family if he doesn't obey, and having him tied up whenever he's sleeping or taking a break.
Poor guy.
Of course, I am entirely unaware of the fact that there is a very good reason why he is tied up.
I can see that some people are awake, in their plastic coffins. Some of them manage to come out. I don't know if there's… maybe a button, or a latch inside that allows them to come out without outside help. But, yeah. There's some Asian-looking guy that comes out. Japanese, maybe? Another guy who's blonde comes out too, and goes up to stare at the coffin with the imprisoned slave in it.
Some guy with black skin, dressed a bit like one of those arab people, seems to be waking up too, but hasn't escaped his coffin yet.
Suddenly, the whole places trembles, and I fall down on my butt. I can see that the Japanese guy is holding on to one of the plastic cases. It's an empty one, so it's either his own, or Blondie's.
Strangely, said blonde guy has a weapon in hand a gun. Why does he have a weapon? I would be scared, if it wasn't for the fact that he doesn't appear menacing, but worried.
He's staring pretty intently at the tied-up guy. Either he's the slave's owner, or there is a lot of homoerotic tension going on here.
... I'm hoping it's the former.
The room changes, shifting, as if the ship is rotating and finally, I can walk on the floor correctly. The floor is perpendicular to the force of gravity, like it should be. It's at a correct angle, allowing me to stand up without falling. It is no longer at the sick angle it was before.
I'm happy, and I can feel that we're slowing down, moving less, which means that someone has finally managed to control the descent of the ship.
What I don't know, of course, is that right now we are landing, perfectly safely, because the captain (that I saved) has more talent than a certain Carolyn Fry.
I feel very happy, of course, but I still don't know where I am, what's happening, and why I saw us heading for an ocean-less planet, instead of seeing my country, or even my home-planet!
I am not aware of what has changed, of the fact that we are about fifty people instead of ten, like in the Pitch Black movie.
I do not know that unlike in the movie, we haven't crashed, and haven't lost all those forty lives.
So… a lot of people to keep alive on a planet filled with flesh-eating predators. Hm. Quite the challenge.
Anyway, this is how my story starts.
I could give you lots of additional information, but let us face it: most of it I only learnt or realized later, when I was able to speak more English and interact with people, ask questions.
Right now, I'm simply confused, somewhere I shouldn't be, and… well, frankly, I miss my bed.
I'm supposed to be waking up right now, and getting ready to go to school.
Instead, I appear to be… hehe, in what seems to be a spaceship, of all things. Like some sort of movie. I'm waiting for somebody to come up and tell me:
"Hey, girl, you've been chosen for this quest, or whatever, to save these people from this tyrannical Emperor/President/Dictator."
Because… isn't that how it always happens in the movies?
Except, I never thought I would have to be able to speak English to understand what's happening.
Why English? Damn it, at least if it had been German, I might had understood a bit more! I have such bad grades when it comes to English! I really hope someone speaks French on this ship.