I watched in horror as my mother began to convulse and cry out. I held down her arms as her arms swung around. The shuttle was soaring through space and I felt as if I would fall as the blast from the bomb detonating from the Nostromo. I heard a hiss as Jonesy ran back to the sleeping chambers.

"Please... kill... me..." I let out a sob.

I looked back down at Mom and I watched, helplessly, as something began to protrude from the middle of her chest. Blood spurted everywhere, and the warm, sticky, substance covered my neck and face and I screamed out, loud and proud. The thing, the disgusting parasite that killed my mother came out of her chest and growled at me. It was an ugly, ugly thing.

I didn't even take a moment to grieve for my mother before I began to act. I couldn't let this beast kill me, I couldn't. I kept my eyes locked on it as I moved back slightly, reaching for the assault rifle Mom had stowed under the stationary bunkers. The small alien was making it's way towards me slowly, it's eyes tracked on it's prey. I reached behind me and my fingers brushed against the strap of the gun and I heard the parasite hiss loudly. It began to come faster, it was about a foot away from my shin when I stretched back and grabbed the gun, pulling it around just as the alien scampered forward and I felt it's teeth clench down on my upper thigh.

I screamed.

That was always where the nightmares ended. They would swap between the horror filled dreams to sweeter, slower ones from my life on Earth.

I settled into his deep embrace. Jason played with my hair and I smiled peacefully into his chest.

"Hey babe?" His deep tenor voice reached me in places I had been cold for so long. Places that had been empty since my father had left my mother. I made a noncommittal noise from the back of my throat and snuggled deeper into his chest. This would be the last time I could see him before I set off from Earth for my first mission. It both excited and scared me. "I'm really going to miss you while you're gone Mandy. Did your Mom tell you how long you'll be gone?"

I hated these talks. I hated knowing that I would be leaving him, not just from a city away, but another planet, and I didn't know what he would do while I was gone. Sure, I trusted Jason, but I'd be gone for a really long time. And that scared me. More than going into cryostasis or staying on a ship for 2 years.

"We've already talked about this Jay. You know how long I'll be gone. 2 years." Sadness tinted my voice.

"It's gonna be a hell of a long 2 years."

I nodded and we fell silent again. I felt him shifting beneath me and a hard edge poked against my back. I frowned slightly, not knowing what it was. Jason's hands were at my shoulders and they moved me gently to the side and I laid down on the grass. Jason stood up and I looked at him, his golden hair shining in the sunset. I sat up, a question hanging on my lips, when I watched as he knelt down onto one knee.

I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to cry.

"Will you, Amanda Ripley, marry-"

My amazing paradise with my fiancé was interrupted by a loud beeping noise and a female voice talking into my ear. I tried to open my eyes, I really did, but they seemed to be glued shut. They were turning red, it made me think that someone was shining a light in my eyes, telling me to open them, but I couldn't. It seemed as if I couldn't just because it had been too long. But it should have only been about 10 months, 10 months from our dock on LV-426 to Earth.

Thinking about LV-426 made my heart hurt. It made me think of my mother, of how her chest burst open-

A sudden pain in my chest made my eyes fly open, and before I could take in my new surroundings with renewed vision, tears burned at the corners of them. I refused to cry, so I focused as much of my vision as I could at a blank spot on the white wall. It was all so white, so business like, so clean.

"Miss. Miss. I need you to calm down and look at me." A soft voice brought me back to reality and I looked at the beautiful woman in front of me. She was a pretty African American with kind eyes and crinkles at the corners of her mouth, indicating she smiled a lot.

I liked her already.

I swallowed hard and was about to ask her where I was when a bout of nausea swept through me. I gagged and the nurse, Mary, grabbed the wastebasket and got it into my lap with barely enough time for me to make it in. I kept heaving until there was nothing there. I fell back against the pillows and took a deep breath.

I heard the sound of a door sliding open and I looked over in time to see a man, older than me by about 5 years, with dark brown hair and a smarmy face walk in. He looked concerned, but I had spent enough time with Ash, an artificial person, from my last mission, to know when a person was faking.

So what if Ash was a robot who went psycho and tried to kill me and my mother? I still knew how to see through a man's bullshit.

"Hello Ms. Ripley. My name is Carter Burke and I'm here to-"

"Where am I Burke? None of this looks familiar."

Burke chuckled and I felt my disgust grow. "I wouldn't expect that it would. This facility was built in (I forgot the time period in which this was set...) 2344 and-"

I interrupted him again with the raising of my hand. "How the hell could this be made in 2344? It's 2322!"

Burke seemed shocked at my outburst. "Wait, has no one explained this to you yet?"

"Explained what to me?"

Burke rubbed a hand over his face and grimaced slightly.

"Miss Ripley... it's 2377 right now."

I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped.

"Amanda... you've been in stasis for over 50 years."

And that's when all hell broke loose.