.x.
We remained where we were for quite some time as the predators seemed in no particular hurry to resume traveling. Celtic stripped the grid alien's carcass of numerous bones and teeth and adorned himself with them much like Scar had done. After marking his mask with another acid tipped finger, he donned it again, shielding his face. I had made a pointed effort not to stare at his features, though I really wanted to. It must be a shortcoming of humanity, to be so blatantly fascinated by something that should be repulsive. I didn't see it as such. Strange, yes, but true—who was to say what the hunters thought when they looked upon a human face?
Finished with his trophy collecting, Celtic growled something to Scar, who had taken to studying—again—his own prizes. Scar removed the medical kit from his back and tossed it to his companion, who set about creating more of the blue gel using a small metal bowl, flame and another ingredient I couldn't see. Knowing that this medical procedure was going to be as unpleasant as his last, I got quietly to my feet and skirted around him as to not draw attention to myself. I moved into the corridor Scar and I had entered from and sat down against the wall, not wanting to be anywhere near Celtic as he underwent the healing torture once again. As I'd expected, the moment the blue gel touched his flesh he let out a thundering bellow that shook the very stone I sat on. I had a small amount of sympathy, recalling the way I'd felt when Scar had given me the same treatment, but with said sympathy also came a rush of vindictive satisfaction.
He had tried to strangle me, after all.
Once Celtic had finished treating his own wounds and had returned the medical kit to Scar, he stood and took from where it was slung across his back his own spear. I wondered why he hadn't used it in the battle with the alien. As it extended with a flick of his clawed thumb, I realized that it was different in appearance to Scar's. Scar had reattached his prizes to his belt, and as the two predators spoke to each other I rose to my feet but chose to remain out of their way. Celtic turned without sparing me a glance to leave through a passage opposite the one I stood in. Scar beckoned me to follow along. I was following several paces behind him when he turned suddenly and gestured with one finger upwards, trilling lowly.
I didn't comprehend at first until he gestured to me, then himself, and pointed up again. I nodded my hesitant understanding, feeling trepidation and nervous hope bubbling up within me. He was telling me that we were headed for the exit, for the way out of this hell. I had a funny feeling that the predators had known all along where to find the exit but hadn't wanted to leave until they'd made their kills. Of course, this was pure speculation on my behalf. Either way, I was eager to take my leave, and so when Scar began to run to catch up with Celtic, I followed quickly after him.
.x.
We moved fast from that point onwards, Celtic in the lead, Scar and I running after him. My earlier suspicions proved to be correct—as we navigated through the temple's inner maze we would halt from time to time, one of the hunters examining something on their arm devices before heading off again. Even when the temple shifted around us we were able to find a new room, corridor or doorway with uncanny ease. I tried as best I could to keep pace with the two predators but it was difficult, especially when one of their strides was equal to two of my own. As I fell farther and farther behind them both I contemplated calling out, asking for a cease to our march, but I clenched my teeth and pushed myself on. Weakness was something I couldn't afford to show.
I'd just rounded a corner and would have run directly into Scar had he not caught me by the arm to swing me to a stumbling halt. Celtic was several feet ahead, crouched over something on the ground, and as I hunched over in an attempt to catch my breath Scar went to join him. They conversed with each other in their strange tongue before Celtic stood with something in his hand and brought it closer to his face to examine. I squinted in the dim light, trying to see what it was.
It was a length of heavy, barbed chain.
It made no sense to me whatsoever, but it seemed as though it was of the utmost importance, because the two hunters began to behave in a very tense manner. Scar's cannon, lying inactive against his back, suddenly moved over his shoulder into a firing position and he withdrew his spear as well. Celtic, already carrying his own polearm, withdrew from his side his shuriken and extended the blades. Growing increasingly edgy as I watched them, I switched the shotgun's safety off and lifted it to my shoulder. Scar, moving to the front of our little group, signaled to Celtic silently with one fist. The bigger predator dropped the chain, and together they began to move down the hall again. They weren't running this time—they were moving with a stealthy purpose, stalking, and as I trailed after them I did my best to maintain the silence.
We left the corridor, cautiously entering a huge, open roofed area. Directly opposite the entrance we'd come from rose a massive staircase, adorned on either side by massive statues of both predators and their prey. I couldn't keep the smile from my face or suppress the sudden, near-overwhelming feeling of joy because I knew where we were now. We were standing in the entrance hall of the temple, and once we climbed those stairs, once we were through the passage beyond, we would be free finally of this place. Scar and Celtic were still behaving as though they expected an attack any minute, and I throttled my exuberance in order to match their wariness. With agonizing slowness we crept to the stairs and then up them. The hunters could clear three steps at a time with their strides. I was forced to quickly climb in order to keep up. All the while there was an aura of nervous expectancy hovering between us, for we were all of us waiting, waiting and dreading for something to appear.
We made it to the entrance of the temple and nothing did.
By the time we'd reached the bottom of the massive staircase that led into the temple, I was ready to burst into tears of abject relief. I could see from where I stood the enormous tunnel that led from the surface to this cavern. So close, so close to release, to freedom—
An abrupt beeping noise tore me out of my ill-timed reverie. We stood at the base of the temple. I had unconsciously taken steps towards the ice tunneI, driven by my desperate desire to leave. I turned to see Scar inputting a code into his arm device. He looked at me, gestured to the computer with a fist, and then slowly spread his fingers open. He repeated the actions three more times before I understood and nodded—it was a bomb, and he was going to use it to seal this place shut, hopefully forever. I wasn't about to protest, although I was rather concerned how we were going to make it out of here before the detonation. My concerns were amplified when Scar wrenched the now wildly blinking bomb from his arm, whirled around, and hurled it to land at the top of the stairs. He spun back about, gave a distinctly urgent roar, and began to run. As I whirled to follow suit Celtic, snarling, brushed roughly past me, knocking me to my knees. Swearing, I shot to my feet to pelt after them both.
Reaching the ice shaft, I saw that my hopes hadn't all been in vain. The sled that had been used to transport our equipment down here was still intact. As I slowed to a halt Scar pointed at it. I nodded and kneeled to look at the control panel on the side of the sled. Weyland had ensured that each and every member of our party knew the code for the emergency release, and so I reached out to punch it in but reared back suddenly. There was something clear, thick, and sticky coating the panel. My eyes moved up the length of the tunnel, where I could make out a distinctive scoring carved deep into the ice that looked for all the world like claw marks.
In the split second it took me to put two and two together, all hell broke loose.
The sound of Scar's cannon firing jerked me up and around, shotgun coming almost instinctively to my shoulder. An alien to the left of me exploded in so much gore from the shot, but it wasn't our problem anymore. Celtic was locked in ferocious grapple with another alien, its spindly limbs wrapped themselves around his own. It was a struggle of of brute strength. Scar had been caught unawares by another and it clung to his back. I saw traces of his neon blood under the armor that covered his shoulder. Had it impaled him? I didn't know, but I had to do something. He'd dropped his spear in an attempt to wrench the alien off of him. His cannon couldn't fire in such close combat. I had no idea if my shotgun would do any damage but I couldn't stand there and do nothing. I aimed and fired all in one breath. Caustic blood erupted from the alien's forefront limb and it reared back. Scar took the opportunity to stand and hurl the alien from him and as it hit the ground some several feet away his laser sights centered in on it. A heartbeat later its head was blown to pieces by the cannon.
Celtic had overcome his adversary, shoving the blades of his shuriken deep into the its skull. He was disentangling himself from the corpse as I rushed to the sled, placing my shotgun on it and trying with shaking hands to input the codes. I wondered absently how the fuck we were all going to fit on the skid. When the control panel beeped its acceptance at me and the whole thing began to move, I got my answer. Scar leapt aboard and with one arm around my waist hauled me bodily with him. Celtic hit it full length a moment later. As we steadily began to pick up speed I twisted around so that I could grip the iron bar at the top for security instead of clutching Scar's thick arm. I could only reach with one arm, however, as my other was trapped beneath his solid bulk. He had a one handed grasp too, because his other hand was holding onto me.
The speed with which we began to ascend was incredible. The air rushing past us made my eyes water. My hand began to slip on the iron bar and I couldn't move to re-establish my grip. Would Scar be able to hold me, I wondered frantically, when my fingers let go? I didn't have to worry about it for long, for suddenly we were free of the tunnel and airborne. I saw the ground rising up before me and had only a moment to think this will hurt! before we struck snow—
The sled shuddered to one side. I was thrown from it violently and hurled into the air. Impact with the ground stole my breath and jarred my body so that I cried out, tumbling over and over until coming up against something hard. For a moment I could only lay there, face down and buried in achingly cold snow, willing my body to remember how to breathe. I rolled over tentatively; crying out again as something in my side vehemently protested the movement—cracked ribs? Torn muscles? Something much worse? Struggling to a sitting position, I immediately noticed how terribly quiet it was. The only sound I could hear was my own harsh breathing. A quick look around revealed that I was at the bottom of a hill, having rolled down it and coming to a stop against the frosted-encrusted wall of a building. I could see nothing of Scar, or Celtic, or the sled.
I'd just climbed unsteadily to my feet when the world around me trembled and dropped me back down to my knees. I tried and failed to maintain upright against the violent upheaval of the ground; I knew that the bomb so far below had detonated. The earth shuddered in its wake. Would the ground I lay on crater, I wondered in sudden terror, and would I plummet back down to that hellish abyss?
Moments later, the earthquake abating, I managed to slowly and painfully get back to my feet. It seemed the explosion had been far enough down as to not wreak havoc on the surface, or perhaps it hadn't been as large an explosion as I'd anticipated. Either way, I was still alive, and that was all that mattered.
I leaned back against the building, struggling against the new pain in my side to breathe, and found my eyes wandering the expanse of the night sky above me, glittering with stars. I was still alive. It was an outcome I'd been certain I'd never see. I had survived.
A sober thought abruptly intruded—what about the predators? What would they do now that we were free? Even though they'd let me accompany them and had aided my escape, they'd also murdered most of my expedition group before my very eyes. My breath created clouds of steam in the chill air, another grim reminder that my trials were not yet over. I'd been exposed to the cold for all of five minutes, and I could already feel the warning tingle of encroaching numbness in my extremities. There was only one way to end this, I decided resolutely, before pushing myself away from the building and beginning the long trudge back up the hill.
It was a painful affair, and I had to stop often because of the pain in my side. When finally I'd topped the incline, I was breathing heavily. Immediately I spotted the sled. It lay on its side in a pile of snow that had drifted against another building. The shotgun lay not far off, its dark shape easy to see against the white. I picked it up. I looked it over quickly. It still seemed to be useable. I shouldered it before scouting the area for tracks or familiar bodies when a sound erupted, shattering the stillness.
Scar's cannon.
No, no, no, no, NO! I began to half-run, half-hobble towards the sound. There was no possible way that those aliens survived, no way they made it up here. But then I remembered the claw marks I'd seen in the ice tunnel and the mucous that had covered the control panel of the sled, and a very ominous, very heavy sensation settled in my gut. I rounded a small shack with a lopsided sign proclaiming "Liquor" and found myself abruptly face to face with a nightmare.
It was an alien but unlike any of the others I'd seen. It was huge, at least twenty feet in height, unique in form. Its head was markedly different from that of the others, with a horned crest along the top. It walked upright on two legs but had many other smaller limbs. Its tail was whipping back and forth, slender and dark and at least as long as the creature was tall. Attached to the creature's crest, whipping back and forth with every movement, was a length of thick barbed chain.
Scar and Celtic were flanking the creature, one on either side. As I watched Scar's cannon fired twice in quick succession, blasting holes in its flank. Celtic was simultaneously attacking with his shuriken in a flurry of swift throws. The alien screamed, a horrendous grating sound, and its blood spattered and stained the pristine snow beneath it. Too quickly to follow it lashed out with its tail. The blow caught Scar mid-torso and launched him into the air. Celtic, anticipating a similar attack, dodged to the side, but the alien twisted around and smashed him with one of its arms. Celtic too was thrown aside, landing beyond my line of vision. The alien threw back its head and screamed its fury.
I don't remember making a noise but I must have, because the creature's head abruptly swiveled in my direction. It hissed and I knew with certain terror that it was going to come for me, because I had the misfortune of being the last one standing.
.x.