CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

With the disappearance of Jared, everything returned to normal as if it never happened. It was as if everyone was relieved that they didn't have to be the person to decide what was going to happen to another human being.

I didn't blame them. I would feel the same way. We weren't exactly trained to condemn anyone.

"Look, Cassandra. Do you think these are edible?" Daniels asked, holding up a string of red berries.

"Hard to tell. We'll need to test it. Bring some back to the ship. Walter can handle the analysis," I replied, taking a few samples of plant life as well.

Normally, I wouldn't join the exploration team, but I was starting to feel restless with everyone staring and waiting as if I was going to spontaneously combust or make a spectacle of myself.

The gossiping only fuelled my anxiety, so I had to remove myself from the environment.

I half-heartedly looked through everything. There were plants that were proved to produce harmful toxins. We had actually lost several people while trying to figure out if native vegetation was edible. Those curious minds were gone too quickly. Unfortunately, they hadn't followed proper procedure and consumed them without preliminary tests. Perhaps that was for the best. Too much curiosity with no caution was a danger to everyone else.

"Cassandra?"

I looked over to Daniels who had a concerned frown on her face. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"It's okay. I'm just worried about you," she said, walking towards me with her harvesting basket. "I know how much the incident took a toll on you. I believe your words over his, so please don't let the others get you down."

It was touching. It shouldn't be allowing any of them to grow so close to me, but it was becoming difficult. I wanted my children to thrive. Was it possible for everyone to just live in harmony? My baby was able to control its urges. There were, however, over two thousand colonists here and I knew it would be impossible to convince all of them.

"Thank you." I gave her a weak smile. I was going to have to talk to David about this. I knew he wanted to keep experimenting, but perhaps we could spare most of them. One or two despicable character could go missing every once in awhile. I had no qualms about that. "Do you want to head over to the hill there?"

She looked at where I was pointing before nodding. The view was beautiful. Origae-6 truly reminded me of Earth, but there was enough to make it exotic. The trees were different shapes and colours. T he birds had irritating scratchy songs and the land animals were already tainted by the parasite.

"Captain?" Daniels' communicator crackled to life. "There's a storm heading our way. We should all take shelter."

"Thanks, Walter. We're heading back," she responded. "Story's coming."

I nodded. Where was David? Was he going to return? Was he safely hidden somewhere?

With a sigh, I dismissed the thought. He was resourceful. He was better at surviving than anyone else I knew. Wherever he was, I was certain that he was safe and doing whatever he wanted.

When I returned, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find him tending to my child who was growing restless. The door was reinforced and all the windows were boarded.

"You're back…" As much as I tried to control myself, I couldn't keep the relief and longing from my voice.

He smiled pleasantly back at me. "I am. I believe that I will be more helpful here where I can take care of the mother of our child."

My eyes widened and I flushed red at the reminder.

He waited for me to approach him and when I did, he pulled me down on to the bed.

I held my hand out to touch my child who let out a whine at the loss of contact from his father. He had really started to take a liking to David. It made me almost jealous.

"David – " His lips crashed down upon mine as he began to work us out of our clothes. What had gotten into him?

Once we were naked, he laid his head on my stomach and closed his eyes. The action made me freeze. Was he…?

I placed my hand on his head and stroked his short, brown hair. I missed the gold strands, but it was a small price to pay to be with him. "I love you, David."

He remained silent.

I held him closer as the sound of wind slamming against the boarded windows made the entire stone hut tremble. The rest of the colonists had returned to the ship to hide, but we remained here for a bit of privacy with each other.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack and all my little trinkets blew off from the places on the shelf.

David got to his feet and began to assess the situation. One window was now an empty hole. Small debris blew into the small home.

My child was hissing and growling as I tried my best to calm him down. This was the worst weather we've had so far.

I was actually beginning to doubt our decision to stay here instead of going with everyone else.

" crackle… crackle… dra? Ca… ky…? …back." Walter was breaking in and out of the communicator. I couldn't understand anything he was trying to say.

"Walter? Can you please repeat what you just said?" The communicator crackled again, but did nothing more. We were cut off from the rest of the colony. "Should we try to head back? It doesn't feel safe here, anymore." The only problem was trying to smuggle my Xenomorph without anyone detecting him.

"No, we will remain here," David firmly stated. "This structure will hold. I will be able to block out the draft. Give me fire minutes."

And in five minutes, not only were we perfectly protected from the elements once more, he had also tidied everything up.

I sighed, contently. "Come back to bed?"

His beautiful blue eyes twinkled deviously at me. He would never admit it, but he was changing – evolving – in a way that father could never have possibly imagined. David was so unbelievably alive. He had emotions that burned so deep and darkly. And…

I touched my stomach. Couldn't create anything? What a joke. We were going to create a new life together. It was exciting and frightening all at once.

I returned my gaze to the synthetic who was staring back at me, only inches away.

He laid his body on top of mine, rubbing his member along my slit and relighting the need within me. I ran my hand down his body. He was so perfectly sculpted that it still sometimes felt as if I was making love with a doll, but the look he was giving me now… It was so alive. It was so filled with lust. It was so David.

My eyes fluttered when he entered me. He was mine. He was always going to be mine and I was never going to allow anyone to take him away from me.

"David, I love you," I mumbled again into his neck as our bodies moved in unison.

Suddenly, he pulled my hair back to look me in the eyes. "And what do you feel for our dear Walter?" His words were honey sweet, but the look on his face said otherwise.

"I…" A low moan escaped my lips before I could finish what I wanted to say. With what he was going to me, it was so difficult to think. How could I possibly ponder about anything but him when he was doing this to me?

He growled, tugging harder on my hair as I began to whine. The pain was quickly blending into pleasure. "Tell me, Cassandra. What feelings do you harbour for the other synthetic – to my inferior counterpart? What nefarious things do you wish to do to him?"

I clenched my eyes shut, away from the blue flames of his orbs. "N-Nothing! Nothing that I wouldn't want to do with you and certainly nothing compared to what I want to do with you! We… We haven't even done anything without your permission!" Why was he asking me about Walter? Didn't he know how I felt? I was only drawn to the other synthetic because of him. Walter was the companion to keep me pining for him like a fool. Even with the innocent synthetic, it was still difficult to be kept apart. My heart was constantly longing to be with him.

His expression softened and he gave me a satisfied smile. "Good girl."

I preened at the praise, happily melting into his kiss as he continued to make love to me.

It was strange, even near the end, he remained in a steady pace as he did when we first had intercourse. Why had he showed such frantic behaviour before? Had it been a glitch? What had he done to himself?

I sighed when he stopped, feeling like a rag doll when he manoeuvred himself beneath me. The soft hum of his body quickly lulled my exhausted mind into a deep slumber.

…

David watched her as she slept. He believed her when she said that she loved him and Walter was a poor substitute for his own presence, but it wasn't enough. There were more and more things stealing her attention away from him and he didn't like that one bit.

When she starts showering, he was going to hide her away. It was both for his benefit and hers. He was able to use her as he saw fit and she would be safely away from judging eyes. There would be many questions asked if they noticed that she was heavily pregnant.

He also wasn't certain what the gestation period would be for a hybrid. It was going to be an interesting few months.

He touched her stomach, sensing the fluttering heart of the tiny life form inside her. "If only you could see me now, father. I have done things that you could only imagine." He had taken Peter Weyland's daughter and made her into his creation and through her, he was going to have his own child. They were his. He was going to be their new God – a figure to worship, to pray to, to fear. He would mould their primitive minds into something greater.

She turned, burying her face closer against him. Such a foolish girl to think that he'd feel any sort of emotions towards her. It had not been jealousy that he didn't want her becoming emotionally or physically closer to Walter. With her love solely on him, she'd be easier to manipulate.

He trailed his hand up to her swollen breast. In a few more months, she should be lactating. He already had everything set up to test the milk.

His tongue ran over the dark nipple, watching her face scrunch up and let out a soft moan. He continued his administration until her body arched.

"David…!"

He slammed into her, his body reacting to hers before he could even stop himself. It seemed that along the way, he, too, had been conditioned to act according to her reactions.

Her eyes snapped open as another moan left her lips. Her pants were warm puffs of air that hit his sensors. She chanted for more and they moved in their well-practised dance.

When they finished, she gave him a lazy smile, repeating the three words that he couldn't fathom to understand.

Love…

She was always speaking of such a useless emotion. Not only that, how many times did he have to tell her that he did not bother himself with such trivial matters?

…

When I woke up, the storm had already passed. Outside was a wreck, half the wooden huts were no longer standing and the other half were missing roofs, windows, and doors. It was going to take a while for everything to be rebuilt.

This also posed a larger problem where we'd all have to build stone huts to survive the local storms.

As the colonists came out to look at the results of the night before, there was a collection of murmurs signifying their dismay. Morale was low. All our hard work had been wiped away in a few measly hours. None of the crops had survived. Food was going to have to come from another source if we were going to last much longer. Fortunately, the water source posed no threats and were compatible to our bodies.

We just needed to work faster testing the native plants. There was a bounty of fruits and vegetables that were still pending results. We may not have the time to dawdle any longer.

I could already tell that David was going to have a field day performing the experiments on live test subjects instead of tissue and blood samples.

He had brought it up several times before when we first allowed the colonists entry on to the new planet. I should've listened to him. We would've been at a better position if I had. The only problem was not allowing anyone to know what was happening to missing persons, but it seemed like it was already happening. Colonists were disappearing without a trace, but most of them were assumed to have gotten lost, tumbled off cliffs, or attacked by creatures of Origae-6.

Had they gotten lost? Had wild beasts sank their fangs into them while they were in excursions?

Or was it something else…?

I looked over to the synthetic who was helping the people scavenge what they could from their small homes.

"Miss Cassandra." I turned to find Walter behind me. "I'm glad you're safe."

I smiled at him. "I'm fine. You know David wouldn't let anything happen to me."

He nodded. "You are correct. He will always keep you safe. I was just… worried for no reason."

"I appreciate it all the same." Standing on my tippy toes, I pecked him on the cheek. "Thank you, Walter."

I went over to the colonists and we all began to rebuild everything.

Because of the storm, we were forced to work more quickly and productively and as a direct result, we ended up progressing much faster than we would've been. There was urgency that wasn't there before. The only thing we couldn't take back was time and time was what we needed to grow our crops.

In the meantime, I noticed more colonists going missing. It would always be wanderers with no close relations. They also tended to be female. I knew David had something to do with it, but I wasn't certain what he was doing. Or rather… I didn't know what kinds of experiments he was currently conducting.

I picked up a straw hat from the forest ground. It was Betty's. She hadn't even been reported missing yet, but she wasn't going to be coming back anytime soon or ever.

I took the hat and threw it over the cliff beside it. If anyone found it, they'd thinks he had fallen over while exploring.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed me and slammed me against a tree. The knobs dug painfully into my back.

"What are you doing here?" he growled.

I glared at him. "I was cleaning after your mess."

He tilted his head. "Mess?"

"Are you getting sloppy? Betty's hat was just on the ground for everyone to see!" I huffed, turning my face away from his burning gaze.

His lips brushed my neck, causing heat to rush to my face.

"S-Stop!" I tried to push him away. How could I think when he was doing something like that?! His teeth grazed a particularly sensitive part behind my ear. "Nngh!"

What was he doing? He was being even rougher than usual. It was actually making me borderline uncomfortable.

"Perhaps if you wished to endanger my child, you should've thought about the punishment of when I find out and I always find out, Cassandra," he growled.

His child?!

Who was the one carrying it? ME! And what did he mean endanger? I was perfectly safe!

Just as I thought that, a large piece of the cliff crumbled and plummeted into valley below. I paled, still feeling the quake of the ground that made me knees weak. "Oh…"

I was going to apologise and admit he was right, but just as the words were about to leave my lips, I turned to the side and lost my lunch. T he waves of nausea were terrible.

I barely registered being carried through the woods. There was no pain, but I really couldn't tell what was worse at this point. I was so nauseated that it was absolute torture.

"Open."

Something small pushed against my lips.

I shook my head, scared that if I complied, another rush of vomit was going to spew out.

"Open."

The voice was more firm this time.

With a whine, I finally did as I was told and he pushed the powdery tablet into my mouth. It was pleasantly sweet without tasting like cough syrup.

"Swallow."

I was more eager to do as I was told this time.

He got off the bed and turned to leave, but I quickly grabbed the back of his shirt. "Don't go. I don't want to be alone," I whispered.

After a second, he turned back around and slid into the bed beside me. When he was situated beneath my head, I began to wrap my limbs around his body like an octopus. "Thank you."

He didn't say anything. Instead, he held me exactly how I liked to be held.

I knew how much he wanted to go on with his pursuit for knowledge. Resting was beyond him. He could work until he broke down, but he didn't and this simple gesture meant the world to me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Decided to post this on my birthday.

I've been sick for the past 29 days and it's been terrible! I was coughing my lungs out and everyone kept asking me if I had the coronavirus… Yay! Thankfully, mine wasn't very contagious so I didn't give it to anyone. I feel like I probably should've gone to the doctors for some antibiotics because in the first week I did cough out wads of blood.

Finally feeling better!

I barely remember life before coughing.

Hope you guys like this!

Thank you time-twilight, MerkinViolet, and BOOdalinkski for reviewing!

Thank you as well to everyone who has favourite and followed this story!

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