Author's Notes: Hello again. Well, here goes the next round. I hope I kept a few of you around since the first chapter. And if you are with me now, much love and appreciation!
Again, I do not own the AVP universe, or a Predator, to my utter sorrow. This is purely from my own warped mind and will not earn any money from it. I do own my characters though. That's at least comforting.
I opened my eyes and again I felt that utter, complete, and insanely annoying void in my memory as if my mind fed on the pleasure the aggravation caused me. But as frustrating as it was to have no ability to recall how I had managed to go from being a naked, spear-wielding, would-be pregnant lady killer in the woods to sitting in a corner of an uncomfortably sterile room with a window view of what...my God...looked like space...I was still alive.
I looked around the spacious room and saw, by all appearances, what looked to be a bed. If a bed could be that big. It was also covered in what I assumed were animal pelts. Lots of them. Brown and white and black. And suddenly, staring at them with a blank mind, I was aware again of how cold I was. Still was. And how I wished to curl up in those curious furs if I wasn't so afraid they might somehow come alive and finish the job the creature in the woods, or whatever creature was behind my being in the woods, had obviously failed.
And damn was I hungry. I couldn't remember anything from before waking up on the ground in the woods, so I couldn't possibly remember what I had last eaten. By the growls emanating from the depths of my stomach I imagined it hadn't been as recent as I would have liked.
Just as I was beginning to work up the courage to investigate my current space, a series of beeps erupted throughout the room. A deep hissing of an opening, mechanical door. Then a massive form. And I was undone. Literally.
Swiftly the tall, masculine creature at the door started making its way toward me. I might have clung desperately to the hope this was just an abnormally large man in polished, gunmetal gray armor had it not been the claws on its hands. Or maybe I could have reasoned he was a man because the skin that was visible on his forearms and a small section of his abdomen was tan...But that was just me being hopeful again. He wasn't tan, because he wasn't a he at all. A "he" in the literal human sense of the word. Because covering that tan skin was patterned, red marks like tiger stripes. And logically, humans didn't look like that. But he had to be male. A supersized humanoid that had come straight off the screen of a horror flick.
And before my mind had finished swirling in a cacophony of objectivity, I realized this thing was standing right in front of me. He practically drowned me in his shadow. Hell, he did drown me in his shadow. Even sitting on the floor he towered over me and I think the back of my head hit the wall as I looked up at him. And I think I held it together pretty good, all things considered. Until that massive hand of his reached out toward me.
I literally lost control of my body in that moment. Shrieks just vomited right out of my mouth and I slid down the wall, my legs bent behind me, flattening myself as much as humanly possible against the ground to get away from his hand. All while flailing my arms at him as if my puny arms stood a chance against his hand which was the size of my face.
But whatever verbal obscenities spewed out of my mouth (I imagined it was a litany of every cuss word known to man) had given him pause. Bent forward and hand poised above me, he just simply observed me. At least I thought he was observing me. I couldn't tell what he was doing behind that mask of his.
He straightened up and stepped back before unhooking a set of tubes connected to his mask and peeled it off. My mouth flew open and the gasp I thought would follow was literally was caught in my throat.
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
If I hadn't thought I was about to be eaten I would have promptly fainted. Tusks and mandibles were clicking together furiously, but the more my horror grew, the more angry this thing seemed to get. His dark gray eyes were set against a pale, golden backdrop and his skin, that tan with stripes of red, appeared bumpy and smooth at the same time. And then came a strange, low rumbling from deep within his chest. And I just couldn't take another second of it. I clawed my way off the floor and bolted before the thing knew what had happened. Hell, I barely knew what was happening. I just knew what wasn't going to happen.
I jumped onto the bed and then right off, moving with so much momentum I couldn't stop myself from colliding against the window and just put my hands out to brace for the impact. I turned and he was on the opposite side of the bed, his mandibles flared, his chest heaving with that horrible, threatening rumbling again. One hand placed on the bed he hurdled across it, his legs never hitting the layer of furs beneath him. I promptly took off to my left and scrambled to find a way out. And then I saw it. The only possible way to put a wall between me and this massive thing playing a twisted game of catch-me-if-you-can.
As if catapulting myself across a deep abyss my feet left the ground and I hurled myself across the threshold of the door and slammed the door shut behind me. I was pretty sure I had just shut it in his face because he let out a roar so powerful the door actually trembled. I flew across the room, nearly falling into a recessed hole in the floor, before sitting down and planting my back against the wall. His fists pounded against the door a few times before it became silent again. Eerily silent. I clasped my arms around my knees and buried my face in my lap.
Maybe killing that pregnant woman wouldn't have been so bad after all.
After a long while of absolutely nothing, I lifted my head when I heard a knock at the door. Clearly the thing that had chased me around the room wouldn't knock. I was so busy waiting for something to happen next I forgot to breathe...again. I let out a deep exhale and lowered my legs. A knock again and then a voice. Could this thing actually talk?
"If you would please unlock the door and come out I would be more than happy to explain everything."
A man's voice. Gentle. Friendly.
This was a trap. As soon as I opened the door that thing would swipe his big, clawed hand at my face and take half of my cheek with it.
"Who are you?" I shook my head. No. No. "What am I doing here? Where the hell am I?"
"Please," the soft voice pressed. But no danger lurked in his voice. "Open the door. I can come in if you are not ready to come out."
"No!" I snapped. "No way in hell!"
"I have been brought here to be your translator. I mean you no harm. Please unlock the door."
I was losing my mind. Or maybe someone had taken this prank a little too far. If I had had anything to eat or drink I am sure it would have been collecting in a pool beneath me.
"No! I am not opening this door! And you can tell that thing he's not coming in here! He's not!"
Brief silence. Shit. Was he translating?
"I cannot say that."
"Say what?" Oh. My proclamation that the monster waiting for me on the other side of the door was not coming in. "Tell him. Tell him! He is not coming in here!"
More silence. I looked around to see if there was any way of escaping this room. No window. No other door. Not even a vent. I was completely trapped in a room with a big hole in the floor.
Maybe that's where he drains the blood.
No. No more thoughts like that.
Then something crashed against the door. Whatever it was actually dented the door.
"Hey! What the hell is that?!"
"It is your master," the voice replied. Before I could move to speak in protest - thoroughly displeased that he was calling this thing my master, he spoke again. "He has accepted your challenge."
"What challenge? Wait! What?" I jumped to my feet. Why the hell were there no vents?!
"You insisted that I tell him he would not be able to enter."
"I didn't say that!" I could have ripped my hair out. Able? That thing was more than just able. "I wanted you to tell him that he wasn't coming in! That I wasn't going to open the door and let him - "
"You said he is not coming in. Which means you think he is not able. He accepts your challenge because he thinks he is able."
Good God, what had I done?
More pounding against the door, more dents, before the disappointingly weak slab of metal flew open and that thing came lunging towards me. I shrank against the wall and slid down, clapping my hand over my mouth and turned my head, hoping if I closed my eyes and didn't make a peep, maybe he would just...disappear. Like a bad dream.
Nope. Big, strong hands clamped down on my arms and ripped me onto my feet. I wanted to just get back to my corner of the main room and do this all over again. How could I tell him that I would promise not to curl into a fetal position and scream bloody murder again? Where was that awful translator when I actually needed him? Or would he screw up my words again and set another challenge in motion.
He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. Damn his armor was hard. He strode out of the room like a total champ and over toward the bed. Through the curtain of my hair I saw the translator. It had to be him. He looked human which matched his equally human voice.
He hurled me down onto the bed and I crawled back on the bed as if I was trying to escape a swell of lava. Good. There was some distance between us as we had a hard look at each other. Maybe it was the sound of my own beating heart that drowned out everything else, but then I heard a soft clinking and my eyes lowered. He was holding chains. Chains!
His arm shot out and he grabbed my ankle before yanking me toward him. He slapped a cuff on the ankle firmly caught in his grip and before he moved for the other I was already blocking his hand and squirming away from him. Letting out another furious snarl he yanked the chain connected to the cuff already on my ankle and I was back at the foot of the bed. I clawed at his hand as he wrapped his slender digits around my ankle, but it was too late.
What the hell was I thinking? I had probably just pissed him off even more. First my clawing at the air, then running across his bed, bolting for the small room with the gigantic vat, and now this. And "my" translator hadn't uttered a single word in my defense.