I don't remember falling asleep, but that's nothing new. What was new in this case was a blob of pale blue light, like a fainter version of an LED, suspended in the air not three feet in front of me. It clashed horribly with the dim orange light filtering in through the "ceiling." But between the two, I could see everything, including the raised red and purple line spanning the length of my sternum. Well, that explained the pain. Still didn't explain what the hell it was there for.

I didn't panic upon seeing the origin of last night's (day's? week's?) agony. It was a comfort to know that I hadn't imagined or hallucinated it. It was not a comfort to see just how small the culprit was or how there was only an uncomfortable twinge when I sat up and prodded it a bit. Maybe I really had been out for a week.

I brushed the thought away, suddenly itching for action. I needed to gather my bearings. Put my throttled brain to use for once during this ordeal.

I wasn't dead, so I could rule out the notion that I was something for my savior/captor/alien beastie to quickly dispose of. Couldn't rule out the possibility that I was being saved for later, though.

I wasn't tied down or in chains or anything, but I was presumably trapped in a metal container; therefore, I couldn't rule out the possibility of being held prisoner, for whatever reason. Maybe this was punishment for my work in the lab and I was to become the newest specimen. I tried to picture my sliced body mounted on glass slides, but I couldn't fathom a microscope slide that large, or a species large enough to view me as an insect. I suspected my brain wasn't trying hard enough.

I hadn't hallucinated the softness I'd lain on, so I concluded that my level of comfort was of some concern to this thing. Or maybe not, considering just how boiling hot the room was. Miraculously (ha), I didn't need to relieve myself in any way—the sweat must have squeezed everything out of me. I wasn't particularly hungry or thirsty, though a slight tingling sensation of numbness in my abdomen suggested that these feelings were being repressed by some kind of sedative. Maybe a side effect of whatever was used to knock me out for my chest implant/removal.

I couldn't handle all the speculation. I needed to get up, move, find some way out. The absence of my visitor from last night suggested the presence of an exit. Finding it would be a quest in and of itself, so I wasn't too attached to the idea of snooping around the rest of this metal contraption.

Ignoring the twinge in my chest, I hoisted my dewy body to its feet and instantly regretted it as my stomach and brainstem decided to kick my ass in a whirlwind of nausea. In the new light, I could definitely see the black dots swarming my peripherals as I collapsed onto my hands and knees, thankfully onto the softness rather than the harsh metal floor. I gasped and choked, chest heaving. My arms quaked under my weight. I glared at them with a panted, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I could bench almost twice my weight on a good day; granted, this sure as hell wasn't even an okay day, but really? What the hell had that…thing done to me that had turned my body into a quivering mass of pudding? Why couldn't I think straight? Where were my clothes? Where was my phone? That fucker was expensive! Why was it so damn hot and why was I here and how long had I been here and had I only imagined Jim's half-frozen corpse dangling from that bare maple like a Hannibal Lecter holiday ornament?

Breathing slowly through my mouth, I waited for the nausea to pass before attempting to rise again. It didn't pass. My eyes throbbed, my skin leaked putrid sweat, my unruly hair caked my forehead and neck, my stomach lurched, pain bloomed deep in my chest, and I finally said fuck it and curled into a ball on the softness that was already damp with my sweat. I was too tired and pained to cry or keen.

"What's going on?" I called into the blue-and-orange gloom. My voice was thick and hoarse and clearing my throat did nothing to help. "Am I dying? Just say something…" I'm giving up on you, my stupid, idiotic, defective brain finished cheerily. I didn't even like that song.

My heart throbbed so fast in my ears that it was a wonder I heard the response: "H'ko. Not die. Heal."

"Heal from what?" I managed after a bracing breath. His voice was too close for my liking.

I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't receive one. There was a series of clicks and what sounded like a very large, very masculine cricket chirping. The noise came closer, and for the first time I heard footsteps. I closed my eyes. I wasn't ready to see what was attached to that massive, alien hand.

I opened my eyes. Who the hell was I kidding?

The quality of the light was still crap, but it was enough for me to make out the silhouette of the behemoth before me. His outline suggested a height that didn't seem possible for a biped—not where I was from, at least. His head missed the ceiling by a foot, at best. Definitely over nine feet and too bulky with muscle to fit pop culture's idea of The Grays. His height-to-width ratio made him appear slender, just not willowy or dainty enough to hail from Dark Skies or something. Beyond the basic outline, I couldn't decipher much, even when he crouched down to my level and extended a hand. Everything stayed dark, and I had to wonder if that could possibly be done on purpose.

The hand splayed above my arms, which had been crossed over my chest more in a futile effort to protect my wound rather than my modesty. "Must breathe," he said, slowly, like uttering two syllables was akin to calculating the winning move in a game of chess. The added warmth of his leathery hand made my already queasy stomach churn.

"Um, yeah…don't you?" I ventured.

He huffed and jerked his head rapidly. Some tendril-like appendages slithered and made erratic clacking noises. I was stupidly proud of myself for not jumping. "Sei-i. Breathe also." The hand pressed harder, right between my clavicles. "Ooman cannot. Not here. Fixed."

Without thinking, I uncrossed my arms and placed my own comparatively dwarflike hand on his and pressed. I tried to tell myself I was just touching Al, my science building's alligator tenant. Except Al never tried to speak and subsequently butcher my language. "Ooman means human, correct?"

The head bobbed. "Sei-i."

"Does…that mean yes?"

"Sei-i." He rumbled loudly, lowly in his throat. Clearing it…? "Yes," he hissed with great effort.

Okay, I was on the right track. "Humans can't breathe here."

"Sei-i."

"But you…" My eyes narrowed and I licked my salty lips. Weirdness. Weirdness everywhere. "You fixed that. You did something to help me breathe."

He nodded again and responded with that pleasant rolling noise, like an idling tractor or a purring lion. The knots in my stomach gradually loosened, though my heartbeat never slowed. "Sei-i," he replied on a whoosh of breath that I understood to mean relief. "They fixed."

They? What they? How many was they? Who were they? Same species? My species? Was this the government's new scare tactic for forcing students to make loan payments? Alien torture? As if interest rates weren't bad enough…

I nodded, brow still furrowed and now thinking that I might actually be of some importance here. "I…understand. Thank you."

I removed my hand from his and the purr idled to a brief series of clicks. The ghost of his texture remained on my palm and made my fingers restless, but the hand on my chest felt almost reassuring now. If he—they—wanted me breathing and had performed some sort of surgery on me to make it possible, I could assume that he was in no hurry to kill me.

The hand slowly lifted and rose level to my vision. "No hurt. Still."

I swallowed and nodded, uncertain. I probably wasn't important enough to avoid a maiming.

He shifted from his crouch to sit on his knees, which still kept him well over my height, as he carefully placed his hand on the left side of my head. My skull was like a softball in his grip, though there was no discernible menace in his movements. He guided my head and body to rest on my right side, my back and left side exposed to him, and I couldn't keep my heart rate even. Why didn't he want me to look at him? What was he doing? Did something else need to be fixed? Would I survive fixing? I was naked and uninformed and terrified about everything that this might mean.

"Still, ooman."

I exhaled shakily. "Trying, dude."

A single claw dragged my damp mop of hair off my neck. The brief grazing against my skin sent a bolt of terror down my spine. I gritted my teeth. I was exposed. Vulnerable. Breakable. I could have fought. Should have. But I didn't.

"Will hurt," he promised through that rolling purr, though he'd just sworn it wouldn't. I didn't expect whatever he would do to not hurt, so this wasn't a great shock.

Prongs. Three separate pinpoints of sharpness below and behind my left ear, just centimeters from my thundering jugular. They sank in, deep, deep, deep into the dermis, anchoring past the hypodermis as a searing pain and the disturbingly sumptuous odor of charred meat told me I'd been shanked and subsequently cauterized.

I tried to stay still. I really fucking tried, but the human body isn't meant to be placid and submit to that sort of pain. I bucked and tried to roll away, shrieking some form of a curse, but that fucking thing's arm reached out and hauled me close, my back flush against the pebbled skin of his thighs. "Still!" he hissed, and a mass of something weird and rubbery—those tendrils—draped around my face as my arms and legs kicked out. My fist shot out and collided with something metal that wasn't the floor, and a new kind of pain jolted up my arm and rattled my spine. I growled and groaned and continued to thrash, but I made no noticeable progress. I slumped.

My chest heaved and my face contorted with pain. Pain everywhere. Throbbing, senseless, ceaseless pain that started everywhere and ended nowhere, like the prongs had hacked into my nervous system and forced my body into a haywire state. My heart pounded at every point in my body like crappy techno bass, as if each cell had a new, raucous organelle that played a never ending loop of Skrillex beats. I breathed heavily, coughed when I could, and sweated quite possibly the only remaining liquids in my system.

The burning below my ear had quickly faded to a dull, pulsing ache. At this point it was the least painful region of my body.

I was such an ass. But like hell was I going to apologize.

"What," I croaked, "the fuck…was that?"

He had the nerve to cuff me upside the head—lightly, of course, almost to the point of being insulting, like after all that I couldn't take a genuine smack. "Told you to be still. Told you it would hurt. Said you'd understood." He chuffed, and that rattling sound that accompanied his head movements told me he was shaking his head. "Humans."

"Hurt? Try 'searing fucking agony' next time and maybe I'll brace accordingly!"

"Not that bad," he huffed. "And will not be a next time. It is working. Yes?"

"How the hell should I know? I didn't make the damn thi—"

Wait.

Oh.

Yes, hello, Cheyanne here: biology major, chemistry minor, currently preparing for grad school as a genetics major, and future cancer-slayer. Can't tell when an alien translating device is working. Maybe if it had been as obvious as the Babel fish I'd have caught on.

Shamed, I hung my head. "Um, yeah. It's working." I buried my face in a free hand. The body behind me shifted and he began awkwardly patting my head in what I suppose was meant to be a soothing gesture. Didn't work, but it's the thought that counted, right? Unless it was just meant to be condescending…

"Understandable. Very stressful for a human. But must be done. Will be allowed to adjust now."

I removed my hand from massaging my eyes. "Adjust? What am I adjusting to? I mean," I shook my head—well obviously the air quality, for one—"why is it necessary? What am I even doing here?"

There was a great rumbling at my back, and it wasn't altogether friendly. The rumble didn't translate, so it must just be a general sound of frustration or something. The translating device at my neck prickled and sent a zing down my spine, momentarily stalling my thought process. "You were quiet earlier. Much preferred. Will answer soon. For now, trust. Yes?" He ended with an interesting little trill. Kinda cute. Like an animated lizard sidekick or something.

Good fucking god, brain…

"I wouldn't be nearly this obnoxious if I was just given a bit more information," I cajoled. "Anything. A name. A species. A purpose. Literally anything would be great right now."

The head-clattering noise sounded again, accompanied by a strangled sort of growl. I was actually stepping on this guy's nerves. I'd rarely managed that in my day-to-day settings, Langston aside. This was almost an accomplishment.

Yes, bravo for asserting yourself at the worst possible moment in your pathetic life. I'll get you a cookie.

"In order," my living lean-to chirred, obviously aggravated, "B'gonj-di. Yautja. Witness. Sufficient?"

I blinked, uncomprehending. Bagonge-crickety chirrup-Dee? Ee-ow-atya? I thought I'd had troubles with my Indian professors' names…this was an entirely different stage of mispronunciation. "Uh…provided I don't ever have to pronounce the first two, yep, that'll work." I blinked again and jerked away from his patting. "Wait, witness? Did that translate right? What did I witness? What do aliens—I mean, sorry, no offense or anything—need with a human witness? How did you even—"?

Aggravated rumbling churned behind me. I really wish I knew how he was doing that, but any number of physiological nightmares could fill that massive silhouette, and I didn't want to press my luck any further. Resigned, I sputtered and shut up.

"Will. Answer. Eventually. Not now." A heavy hand came down on my head to…what, establish authority? Over someone who was curled up, naked, in the fetal position and continuously sweating and quivering with pain at odd intervals? I wasn't in any position to revolt.

Chirring, he rose to his feet with a great displacement of air and nothing more. Something that big shouldn't be that silent. "Adjust now."

"I still don't know what you mean by that," I huffed. "But if you really need me to 'adjust,' can I do it after a shower?"

Hey all! Hope this is to your liking! I know this is pretty slow-going (I mean, jeez, it took me four chapters to tell you this chick's name…), but it's all necessary, trust me. And if you caught my The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, I love you even more than I did 15 seconds ago. Anyway, thanks for reading, and feel free to tell me where I should fix some schtuff. *^.^*

Ah, and I should probably mention that I still don't own Predators. Or THGTTG. Bummer.