Recap: "Thanks Jack." she murmured, while immediately wrapping an arm around the boy's shoulders for better support.
Imam came in at last, and Paris and Johns at once grabbed several boxes and whatnot and stacked them in front of the entrance.
Luna looked around and noticed that Riddick was already gone. Her gaze fell on Blade who was looking down a dark hallway with a frown.
She stood up and walked over to him. "Blade, where's Riddick?" she asked softly with a frown. Blade glanced at her for a moment before looking back at the hallway. "Gone. He went to check out the area," he grunted which made her feel concerned.
She heard the creatures wailing somewhere deeper in the room and then realized something. 'Hassan!' she thought and glanced around, but he was nowhere to be found. "Oh no," she murmured.
She thought back to the movie and knew that with her bad leg, it would be unwise to go after them. The wounds would probably attract the bioraptors to her instead.
'It's too late now. I can't help him anymore. Poor boy. So young to die.' she thought sadly to herself. 'Yet another life I couldn't save. Great,' she thought bitterly and mentally cursed her wounds once again.
Then a thought came to her. 'Maybe I can't help Hassan anymore but maybe I can save Riddick some pain.' she thought to herself and nodded. Yeah, that's what she would do.
"Riddick?" called Fry suddenly while she looked around with the torch in her hand. "Don't. Stop. Burning." came the tense reply, making Luna frown.
"Here, take this." said Fry to Johns "Here, take that," retorted Johns while he traded his flashlight with her torch.
Turning around, he immediately turned to the wall on his right and started burning a hole.
Luna felt the tension in the atmosphere grow and wrung her hands. She longed so badly to save Hassan. She hated this feeling of helplessness and hoped that when the wounds were healed, she never had to feel so helpless again.
All of a sudden turned Blade around and stalked over to Johns. "Gimme the torch," he ordered making the merc blink and look up at him in confusion before he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "What for?" he asked suspiciously. Blade frowned deeper. "So that I can burn, fucker. What else?" he asked, annoyed. Johns glared at him which Blade returned with vigor.
"Hassan. Where is Hassan?" asked Imam all of a sudden, which caught Johns' attention for a split second.
It was all Blade needed.
He ripped the torch out of the merc's hand and then crouched down next to him and started burning. Doing this clearly quicker than Johns, which he noticed.
Glaring at him with slight jealousy, he was pulled out of his thoughts when Imam suddenly grabbed him by the arms. "Has anyone seen Hassan?" he asked desperately.
In that moment, Luna could see the movie scene playing out in front of her eyes. Hassan's fear making him bolt right into the arms of death. Riddick turning to face one of the monsters.
She was brought out of her thoughts when high-pitched screeches filled the air.
The sounds caught not only her attention, but that of the others also.
Blade was just finished with the hole when the screeches started. He stood up and roughly pushed the torch into Johns' hands.
He walked over to where he previously stood and scanned the dark hallway.
Luna limped over to him and stepped just a step in front of him.
"Riddick," she whispered worriedly, earning a quick questioning glance from Blade.
She narrowed her eyes and watched the hallway for any signs of Riddick.
Suddenly she saw him coming around the corner. "Riddick get down!" she cried just as the others pointed their lights at him.
Riddick threw himself to the ground at the girl's cry just when the light was shone his way.
Luna stood too close when he did this and jumped back quickly out of reflex.
She bumped into Blade at the same time as she put pressure on her bad leg. The pain in her leg made her stumble for the umpteenth time, but an arm wrapped itself around her waist to steady her in time. Glancing behind her, she saw that it was him who held her. However she had no time to react as the first creature was about to fly off upwards to avoid the light.
Blade moved quickly. He roughly pulled Luna beside him and grabbed his sword with his other hand at the same time.
The bioraptor had no chance to react as Blade swung his sword and cut the creature's chest making a lot of blood and a bit of flesh splash over Luna and Blade.
It wailed in pain and fell to the ground writhing in pain.
Its blood had splashed all over Luna's clothes and splattered only a little bit on Blade's clothes.
She was about to say something when Blade twisted his sword so that the blade pointed downwards and stabbed it straight through the bioraptor's head.
Its tail flailed for a moment before it fell limp on the ground and the creature died.
Johns took this moment to appear on Blade's right, aimed his gun and started shooting at the second bioraptor.
It flew upwards to avoid the light and Johns followed its arc and shot at it until he was out of bullets.
Meanwhile Riddick calmly stood up and glanced over at Luna, while Blade pulled his sword out of the bioraptor.
She didn't notice his gaze for she was too busy looking down at her body with a grimace. Her clothes were splattered with blue blood and it didn't really smell fresh.
The others took this moment and slowly walked up to them all, aiming their flashlights up at the ceiling where the bioraptor had disappeared.
All of a sudden the creature fell down and landed right in front of Blade and Luna. Which scared the crap out of almost everyone, making everyone scream in surprise.
Riddick rolled his shoulders and glanced down at the thing, clearly not as frightened as the others. Luna's gaze had landed on the dead body of the bioraptor when it fell. Her attention completely drawn away from the blood on her clothes. Blade dropped his arm and stood tensely next to her, not sure if there were more nearby.
Everyone slowly drew closer to the body. "Are they alive?" asked Fry softly while peeking from behind Blade at the thing. As everyone pointed their flashlights slowly at the creatures, Johns took the moment to scan the area for more bioraptors and at the same time reloaded his gun.
Luna watched the body in awe. 'Seeing it on television and seeing it in real life is a whole different matter.' she thought and watched as the skin started sizzling.
"It's like the light is scalding it." commented Paris softly while holding tightly onto Fry, not daring to step any closer.
"It hurts them. Light actually hurts them." said Fry, her eyes gaining a spark of hope in them.
Unable to contain her curiosity, Luna carefully stepped forwards and reached out to touch it. "Luna!" hissed Fry suddenly making her flinch in surprise at the sudden noise. "What are you doing?" came the soft-spoken question of Jack worriedly. She ignored both of them and reached out to touch the bodies. She opened her mouth to say something when the creature twitched making everyone gasp and flinch in surprise.
A bioraptor squealed nearby and Imam aimed his light at where the sound came from. He called out in Arabic but got no response. "We'll burn a candle for him later. Come on, let's get out of here." ordered Johns while he turned around and walked back to where the hole was.
Everyone else followed except for Luna and Jack. Luna leaned on Jack and turned to Imam. "I'm sorry, Imam." she said softly. The man gave her a sad smile. "Thank you, child." he replied and turned around and left to follow the others.
Jack and Luna quickly followed, not wanting to be left there.
In the other room it was Riddick, Blade and Johns who placed stuff in front of the hole this time.
Fry laid the torch down in the middle of the room on a box.
Luna picked a spot and sat by Jack on a box, resting her legs for the moment as the others did the same. Jack sniffed a few times and looked her way with a face. "You smell awful," he commented while shifting a bit further away from her. Luna gave him a small glare. "I know, no need to point out the obvious." she said with an annoyed pout.
She tuned out Fry's talking. The blood was starting to make her clothes stick to her, which made her wish desperately for a bath or a shower. Anything with water was fine.
It was then she remembered the bag she had with her and pulled it on her lap.
Se opened it and rummaged through it. Some prepackaged food, three bottles of alcohol. Well, two actually. One was already half empty. She shifted the bottles around but found nothing else. "Should've put water in the bottles when I had the chance." she grumbled to herself when her attention was brought back to the others.
"Spirits," said Paris while fanning himself "Anything over 45 percent burns rather well." he told them. Luna held up her bag. "I have here two and a half bottles but I'm not sure if they're over 45 or not." she told them and pulled two bottles out. Paris' face lit up. "Yes, they should do. They are both over 45. I thought you had thrown them away?" commented Paris making her smile.
"Nah, thought they might've come in handy later on. Seems I was right." she told him with a smirk before holding them out to Fry. "Here," she murmured and Fry took them gratefully "Thanks," murmured the pilot.
Fry put the bottles down in the middle of the group. "How many bottles do you got? These two included," she asked Paris.
"I don't know, maybe ten or eleven," he told her with a frown, thinking back to the bottles in his sarcophagus. Fry nodded and she turned her gaze to Johns. "Okay, Johns, you got some flares?" she asked him to which he nodded. "So, maybe we've got enough light." she finished with a thought.
Johns glared up at her. "Enough for fucking what?" he demanded annoyed.
"We stick to the plan. We take the four cells back to the skiff and we're off this rock." she told him.
Paris stood up. "Look. I hate to ruin such a beautiful theory with an ugly fact…but that Sandcat's solar." he remarked, while he walked over to Fry and sat down next to her. "It won't run at night." finished Paris
"So, we carry the cells. We drag them, whatever it takes," she told everyone with a determined look, glancing from face to face.
Luna nodded in agreement, knowing that at least some of them would make it.
Jack wrapped his arms around his knees. "You mean tonight? With all those things still out there?" he asked, terrified and started shaking at the mere thought of going out there.
Luna frowned and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, making the kid look up at her. "It's going to be okay. We'll make it." she told him with a smile. She then looked up at Fry. "I agree with Fry. We can make it as long as we have light with us." she told everyone while looking around.
"That's enough out of you. Why should we leave? I mean, how long can this last? A few hours? A day tops?" asked Johns while standing up.
Imam looked down at the beads in his hands. "I have the impression from the model that the two planets were moving as one… and that there would be a lasting darkness." he said grimly.
Johns made a sound. "These suns gotta come up sometime. And if these creatures are phobic to light, we just sit tight and we let the sun come up." said Johns calmly in a drawl.
Fry stared at him. "I'm sure somebody else said that…. Locked up in that Coring Room."
"We need to think about everyone now, especially the kid. How scared is this boy gonna be out there in the dark?" he asked while motioning to Jack.
Luna gave him a foul glare. "Don't use him like that!" she spat out at the same time as Fry.
The two women blinked and looked at each other for a second before turning their gaze back to Johns.
"As what?" he demanded while glaring from Fry to Luna.
"As a smokescreen. You deal with your own fear." said Fry with narrowed eyes.
"Why don't you shut your fucking mouth for two seconds and let me come up with a plan that doesn't involve mass suicide." snapped the merc, annoyed.
"How much do you weigh Johns?" asked Luna suddenly which made him turn his glare to her. "What the hell has this got to do with anything?" he asked, his annoyance growing with the second.
Luna stood up and glared down at him. "How. Much. Johns?" she demanded. Johns glared back at her. "About 79 kilos to be exact. Now why do you wanna know?" he asked and she send him a cold smile.
"Because you are 79 kilos of gutless meat that hides behind little children and that's why you probably can't come up with a plan." she told him. She knew that Fry would've probably said the same thing and altered the words a bit more to her own creation. Otherwise Fry might suspect something if she had said the exact same words as her.
Johns' face grew red and he stood up, ready to walk over to her and teach her a lesson.
"Is that fucking right?!" he demanded while pulling out his gun. Riddick and Blade both reacted at the same time. Riddick stood in front of him which made Johns turn his gun to Riddick and held it under his chin. "Where're you goin?" he demanded to know.
He felt a breath on his neck and glanced to the side and saw Blade grinning darkly at him with his long incisors showing. "And you?" he demanded before he turned his gaze back to Riddick when the second convict pulled his goggles up. He ignored the pain of the cutting torch and flashlights and instead smiled calmly at him. Johns glared back at him before he felt a tapping near his crotch.
"This solves nothing." said Imam with a frown but the four ignored him.
Luna smiled when she heard the tapping and snickered when she saw Riddick's shiv near Johns' groin.
Johns swallowed thickly and nodded. "Okay. Okay." he muttered softly while he pulled his gun away and sat back down again. Riddick put his shiv away again and stepped back along with Blade, both went back to their respective places.
Luna smiled and also sat back down. Fry in the meantime went over to Jack and started to speak softly to him with comforting words. Luna took this moment to speak.
"What Fry said is a good idea. We all know that we can't stay here. There is only one way and that's out there." Luna pointed to the darkness. She saw that she had everyone attention now.
"And are you sure you or Fry can get us there? Even in the dark?" Imam asked with some doubt. Luna shook her head.
"We can't," she told him softly before she looked over at Riddick and Blade. "But they can." she finished which made everyone look at her as if she was insane. Including the two convicts.
Fry stood up. "She's right. They can both see at night, or at least Riddick can. We can let them guide us back to the skiff." she suggested.
Everyone turned their gazes to Riddick and Blade. Johns and Paris looked extremely skeptical of this but everyone knew they had not much choice.
Riddick frowned and he lowered his goggles.
Luna's gaze then fell on the crates beside him. "Also, I was thinking that maybe we could see if there are some clothes in these boxes and drench some of them in alcohol. We could also look for other useful stuff. Who knows, we might even find some lights," she piped up and motioned to the boxes behind her. "Anyway, we could then lit them on fire and drag them behind us to give us more light," she finished her idea and Imam smiled at her, clearly liking the idea.
"I think it is an excellent idea." he told her.
"Yeah, it'll give us more space and will keep those things further away." agreed Fry before she turned to the nearest crate.
"Alright then, let's all start looking for clothes or anything else useful in these crates." suggested Luna in a commanding tone and stood up. She turned to the box she had been sitting on and started pulling it open. The others all did the same and looked through the boxes.
Luna found some male clothes and quickly pulled them out of the crate. Looking down in the box, she saw something that made her smile. "Water!" she whispered happily and quickly took the bottle and placed it in her bag. She knew it was wrong to keep this hidden from the others, but she was not about to walk around covered in blue blood.
She found some perfume and other junk and shoved that all around to see if there was something else useful there. Finding nothing else she pulled her head out of the crate again.
She looked up in front of her and saw two crates stacked on one another with a third one standing to the left of it.
Knowing she could not climb to the stacked ones, she turned to the box on the side. Again she had some trouble cracking it open but managed to do so. This box had some bags with clothes in them. After a bit of touching and turning, she found the front and opened it.
Men's clothes. A soft groan left her but she shifted through it anyway.
She found a few long-sleeved shirts but promptly ignored them. She didn't want to wear anything warm. Although it was dark outside, the temperature hadn't lowered yet. Instead, she grabbed a handful of shirts and pulled them out of the crate.
Luna looked in the bag again and found a pair of shoes. A sweaty smell came from them that made her grimace. "Ew, smelly shoes." she murmured and scrunched her nose at the stench. She quickly closed the bag again and turned to the other one.
Opening it, she saw something white laying on top of the other clothes. Her curiosity peeked, she picked it up. Her eye twitched when she noticed that it was underwear. "Grandma underwear. Double ew!" she said and quickly threw it out of the crate on the small stack of clothes next to her. Shifting further through it, she found nothing else of use and quickly threw the rest of the clothes on the stack.
Sitting back up, she sighed and glanced to the side. Only one more box before there were no more left to look through. She hopped towards it and opened it. Her face lit up when her eyes caught instantly sight of women clothes. She shifted through them and found a long skirt in dark purple and a light-blue, sleeveless shirt. A smile crept on her face and she quickly pulled the clothes out and put them aside while putting the rest of the clothes on the stack next to her.