0512 Hours, February 14, 2630 (Military Calendar) /
Unknown coordinates, unknown Zerg base.
As Lee woke up, he felt his head feel as swollen as a scared puffer-fish.
"Ugh…my head! Anyone have any aspirin?" groaned Lee.
"No, but I wished I had some. Hey, my name is Tiffany "Rocky" Brett. I was taken here from New Jersey, a helluva long way from here. They took my copilot a couple of hours ago, but I'm not sure where. You hungry?" greeted a dirty female, who was covered in half healed scars. He nodded yes, and crawled over. She handed him a piece of dry, stale bread, but he took it anyway. There was no such thing as actual, fresh-baked bread anymore.
"Thanks," muttered Lee, as he took a bite of the bread, "but I'm more afraid of what they're going to do with us. One alien…" He paused as he gulped down his bread, "…told me that I was suited for 'testing', whatever that meant."
"I was afraid of that. I remember a couple of days before you came, that there was a marine who was shaking and muttering something about some virus that they inject you with. The guards heard him, came in here, and pulled him out. The guards seemed human, as they had everything a Terran had, armor, visors, and guns, but they seemed to have spines and things sticking out of them. The marine screamed as he was dragged, but suddenly, he was silenced…. One of us risked a look, but the membrane squeezed shut before we could take a look." An eerie quiet came after that, with the only sounds being the labored breathing of the human captives, and the steady drip, drip sound of phlegm dripping off of the membrane-bound cell. For no reason, supposedly out of anger, he ripped out his combat knife, and stabbed the vines holding his legs. It snapped apart, and he felt it slither off.
"Whoa! Where'd you get that knife? The aliens, the Zerg, stripped us all of our weapons!" whispered Tiffany.
"I guess they missed me!" he replied, scathingly. With that, he crawled to the wall, and sliced through the walls. As the flesh tore apart, it rapidly shrunk and revealed an opening large enough for them all to escape. He stood up, and cut the vines holding the each prisoner. With that, he ran out, and quickly ran behind some crates.
"What are we going to do now?" whispered a marine, panting slightly.
"Now…we RUN! Quickly, run as fast as you can to that room. I'm fairly certain we can get weapons and escape from there!" instructed Lee. They tore from their hiding place, and sprinted the distance to the door. As they rounded the threshold, they saw this Terran standing there, in all of its gory splendor. It hissed, and tried to punch them, but Lee jumped and ripped off the visor. Underneath, he saw a twisted face, with red eyes, staring out at them. Without stopping, he stabbed at its head, and rode its body as it fell to the floor with a thunk. He ran in, and saw that an assortment of weapons lay before them, some human, and some he couldn't identify, as well as what seemed as lab equipment. He grabbed a shotgun and some ammo before motioning for the prisoners to follow with their weapons out. Suddenly, he and the rest of his group heard the unearthly cry of the Zerg, and also heard explosions and shouts of men.
"Come on, this way! We're almost at the exit!" The burst out of the room, and shot at anything that moved, when suddenly, they stopped. They could see rows and rows of glass pods that shimmered as it they were in stasis. They shuffled along, when Tiffany suddenly cried out, making everyone jump. "Ashley, Ashley Frint! It's you, isn't it?" She ran to her, only to be stopped by Lee's watchful arms.
"What…what are you doing? It's Ashley, my copilot! She can help fly us out of here! Why did you stop me, wh-…" began Tiffany.
"Tiffany, look at her eyes," commented Lee, his voice shaking, "Look in her eyes, and tell me what you see…" When Tiffany couldn't answer, he said, "It is the empty eyes of death. You know what these are? They are 'Cryogenic Freezing Units', just a fancy term for an ice-cold coffin. That's what they are, coffins. All of these souls died at the hands of the Zerg…they have suffered, and they have lost the will to live. Leave them…leave them at peace…Let us go…" Quietly, they all left her, and followed Lee toward the exit. Tiffany was left there, staring at Ashley's face. She lifted her hand, and put her hand on the pod, and whispered slowly with tearful eyes, "I'll never forget you…Ashley…" And slowly, she shuffled out of the room, and vanished into the darkness.
Behind her, the room returned to the quiet state it was left in. Suddenly, Ashley blinked. She let out a slow hiss, and punched the glass pod. Her arm broke through, and soon the rest of her body followed. Her eyes now gained an unearthly, star-like pupil, with orange rims. She sniffed deeply, nose held high, and let out a long, unearthly cry like a banshee, and ran along the same path Lee's group had walked…all the while growing new protrusions along her spine on the back, which looked like the beginnings of spine-like wings.