So here's part 8. Sorry for the delay in updating but things have been kind of hectic this month. Our dryer exploded quite literally in my landlord's face and then half our county burned less than a week later. So I've been a little stressed, and then on top of it all I started school again Wedesnday so I'll be bogged down for a while with work and homework, but I do plan to get this story finished.

And if you're wondering what the babies look like, I modeled them after the neomorph concept art that Colin Shulver did for Alien: Covenant. You can find pictures of it at the avp fandom wiki page. I'd link it but FF doesn't like links.

Kira fades in and out for a while. She vaguely recognizes something moving her, the skin of her legs sticking together as she's carried closer to her eggs. She still has the eighth in her arms, cradling it protectively. She registers their warmth, a solid mass against her back, hissing in her ear. She remembers pain, weakness. Her head heavy, eyes not staying open as she fades in and out.

She's sure she's dying. That has to be it. She had lost too much blood and now she was dying. The eggs had caused her to hemorrhage, and she was bleeding out on the floor of her barn. She waits for the bright light, the pearly gates, or even the lake of fire considering the past couple months, but none of that comes. She's stuck in an inky darkness, her body slowly knitting itself back together again without her knowledge.

It's light outside when Kira wakes.

She can see the light of the sun in the space near the window where the black substance hadn't covered it completely. She feels exhausted, her body aching. She's sticky, covered in something. Something in her arms is moving, shifting around. There's something pressed against her back, solid and tough. She tries to move, her skin pulling as she attempts to stretch her legs. Something hisses in her ear, a clawed hand pressing against the floor in front of her. Things slowly begin to come back to her. She'd given birth to the eggs, and she had been sure she was dying. But here she was, however long after, alive and breathing.

Something nudges against the side of her head, making her groan at the movement. She slowly moves her upper body, her limbs unsticking from her torso. She's still naked, but her skin is covered in some sort of almost resin-like substance. It wasn't all that different from what was covering the inside of the barn. The eighth egg was still in her arms, still smaller than the others. Something inside of it was moving though, she could feel it bumping against the sides.

Kira slowly presses her body up and into a sitting position. The other seven eggs are arranged close to her, moving slightly as well as her babies move around inside. She watches as one of them cracks, lines spidering through the thick outer shell. She sits up on her knees, watching the shell crack and move, something pushing at it from the inside. Her alien leans over her, watching his spawn work its way out of its egg.

It finally makes its way out with a cry, shrill and high. Kira looks at the creature, something inside her stirring as she looks at it. It's small, no longer than her forearm. It's pale, almost white. Its head is oblong like its father, but shorter, ending at a sharp point instead of the rounded curve. It stares up at her with big black eyes, its face almost human like. Its mouth opens wider than any human jaw could, revealing sharp, razor-like teeth. It has a small nose in between its wide eyes and mouth, its body built more like its father's, lean and delicate looking but with a hard exoskeleton. A tail whips behind it, smooth unlike its father's.

Kira reaches out a hand, a five-fingered clawed hand reaching out towards her. The other eggs are cracking, the feeling swelling in Kira's chest as she touches her baby's hand with a finger.

This was her child.

These were her children.

Her babies.

She watches with her alien as the others claw their way out of their eggs, looking very similar to their oldest sibling, near replicas. The feeling inside Kira builds as she looks at each one, touching each one of them. They're sticky from the inside of their eggs, but their skin is strangely smooth, almost like human skin.

The eighth egg is the last to crack, her last child struggling to fight its way out. She reaches forward to help it, but a clawed hand wraps around her arm, yanking it back. She's held against her alien's chest, forced to watch her child struggle to leave its egg. She feels her heart clench in her chest, wanting desperately to help it, but she can't.

Finally, it makes its way through, this one smaller than the others, its limbs slightly too long compared to its body, not quite as evenly proportioned as its siblings. The runt of the litter. But despite this, she loves it. It lets out a weak cry, trying to get its legs under it properly. Her alien's head brushes her shoulder as he watches, still holding her back.

Eventually her smallest baby gets its feet under it, unsteady slightly, but standing. Kira's alien releases her, crawling over to their babies. They let out high-pitched cries, reaching towards his face as he leans down towards them. Kira watches, emotions bubbling in her chest as she watches her babies and their father. Her alien hisses at them quietly, their hands touching his face, tails whipping back and forth as they get acquainted with him.

After a few moments they all turn to look at her, Kira's eyes going wide as they all rush at her, clambering over each other to get into her lap. She's helpless as the eight tiny bodies climb onto her, gripping at her skin with clawed fingers. She quickly numbs herself to the pain, nothing more than insect bites as she holds her babies in her arms. She doesn't care that she's still naked and covered in dried fluids and sticky resin. These were her babies. Her children.

Nothing was going to stop her from holding them.

Kira sits in the bottom of the shower, letting hot water run over her. She's tired, her body still aching from forcing out eight large eggs. She can't fathom how she'd managed to not only carry eight eggs seemingly to term and birth them when humans weren't supposed to be able to do that. The amount of blood she had lost had to be more than a human could withstand, but yet, here she was, scrubbing said blood from her thighs.

When she had pictured becoming a mother before this wasn't what she had pictured. Birthing alien-spawn in her barn and then feeding them ground beef within hours of their hatching wasn't exactly what she had been prepared for. But she can't bring herself to complain. She can't bring herself to find it strange. Those were her alien-spawn. They carried some of her DNA, since they weren't exact replicas of their father. Somehow they had developed partly from her and partly from him to become what they hatched as.

It didn't matter to her what they were, though. She loved them. She would do anything for them. Anything.

There's a sharp pain in her head before she gets the feeling of being hungry. No, it's not her that's hungry, she realizes. It's her babies.

She climbs out of the shower, wrapping herself in a robe. She tries not to stare too long in the mirror. She's pale and there are bags under her eyes. She looks like she's been through hell. Like she'd been deathly ill. It's good. She can use that to firm up her story.

She makes her way down to the kitchen, her own stomach growling. She looks through the fridge, the milk and raw meat she had subsisted on for a month suddenly unappetizing. She'd have to do some shopping, it appeared.

After foraging through the stacks of meat, she finds some bread, deciding on some toast. Just as she's pulling out the jelly there's a knock on her door. She looks down, realizing she's still in her robe, but she can't bring herself to care. The feeling in her mind is still thrumming, crying out for food. She pushes it aside as she goes to the door, seeing two familiar agents standing on her doorstep.

"Ms. Matthews." One of them says. She can't for the life of her bring up their names in her memory.

"Are you alright? You look..." The other doesn't finish his sentence, his unspoken words implying enough.

"I've been sick." Kira says, wrapping her arms around herself.

"I'm sorry to hear that." The first agent says. "We hate to bother you, but we just wanted to check on you and see if anything had happened since we last spoke."

Kira tilts her head. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know, anything strange? Unexplainable?"

Kira shakes her head. "No, not that I can think of."

"Your neighbors called to report some strange sounds that were coming from this property a few days ago. The local police sent an officer to investigate, but he never returned. His car is parked half a mile down the road. He knocked, but there was no answer."

She nods. "I was probably asleep. I've been taking some heavy duty medicines. Knocks me out real good."

The second agent nods, and she can tell he doesn't quite believe her. "Right. Well, we have a warrant to search the house, if you don't mind."

Kira shrugs, taking a step back, letting them in. "Please, go right ahead."

Kira stands in the living room while the agents look through her house. All the while the cries of hunger are getting more and more insistent, making her wince slightly. She wants to help them, but she doesn't know how. But then it hits her.

"The house is empty." The first agent says, coming back to the living room.

The second agent is standing by the back door, looking out at the yard. "The barn looks different."

Kira steps into the dining room. "Yes, I was doing some renovations before I got sick. You're more than welcome to go have a look if you want."

Like she said. She would do anything.