Fate's Irony
***Disclaimer: All known characters from the movie aren't mine, nor am I am making any money off them. Please don't sue. ***
Prologue
Running through the mud towards the skiff, holding my liquor bottle of glowing larva, I could barely make out the moving forms of Jack and Imam ahead of me. I thanked whoever was listening that I had made it through this nightmare. I had redeemed my earlier actions and could now live with my relieved conscience. 'That was for you Owens, that was for you'.
Just as my legs started cramping from the pain of running so far, we entered the small pool of light generated by the skiff. I ushered Jack and Imam up the ramp and into relative safety. I was just about to board myself when I realized that Riddick was not behind me. Looking out into the oppressive darkness that pressed upon the small puddle of light, I stood and wondered if he was dead.
Just as I was debating whether or not to leave without him, a tortured scream cut the air sending shivers skittering down my spine. My feet were in motion before my brain could gainsay them; I raced into the night ignoring Imam's pleas to get on board. I was not going to leave the one man who had helped us through this ordeal to die on this god-forsaken, death trap of a planet. With only my glowing liquor bottle for protection, I ran in between the buildings, and the twenty-two year old pieces of debris desperately calling Riddick's name.
"Riddick? RIDDICK! Where the hell are you?" I shuddered as my brain finally began to realize the extent of my body's betrayal. Disregarding my better instincts, I had once again willingly placed myself in danger, a danger the odds were I wouldn't survive. A sudden commotion less than five feet away startled me causing my already tattered nerves to fray just a little bit more. Whirling, I bathed the area in question in a soft blue glow.
"Riddick!" I croaked relief making my voice horse, and my knees jellify.
Looking over his slumped form, I could see a gaping wound in his leg, and several lacerations along his torso. "Here hold onto me," I said positioning my arms under his to help lever him to his feet.
"Come on, get up!" I yelled when he kept sliding out of my grasp in the slippery mud.
Get up Riddick" I screamed again, frustration and fear stealing what little strength I had from my limbs, making me breathless with fatigue. He was bleeding heavily and the hell spawn were sure to notice him and want him for an entrée. In utter desperation of getting us both back to the skiff in one piece, I said the first thing that I thought would get him mad enough to get moving.
"I said I would die for them, Riddick, not you, so lets go." Just as the words cleared my lips, he found his balance and stood precariously leaning heavily on my shoulder. Suddenly we were jolted as a pair of razor sharp claws grabbed my waist from behind. Time slowed to a near stop as I got my last look at Riddick. I memorized each of his features wanting to tell him a million things in the span of a single second. He returned my stare apology, horror and defeat carving new lines onto his already rugged face.
I dredged up an ironic smile while inwardly cursing the same powers that I had thanked so profusely earlier. As time resumed its normal passing I was jerked back and lifted into the air. I faintly heard the words "Not for me" reverberating in the silence, but was too scared to give it much thought. The fire in my sides expanded exponentially until it infected my whole body, and I almost blacked out from it and my fear of dying this way before I remembered the penlight tucked into my inner vest pocket. Using the last of my strength I retrieved it and shined its light directly into what I hoped was the creature's eyes.
With a screech of pain that caused my ears to bleed, I was unceremoniously dropped. I fell with the rain for an infinity before crashing through the ceiling of one of the settlement buildings. After a surreal moment where I couldn't catch my breath or feel my body, everything came rushing back into focus, and the wave of pain that resulted, arched my back and flooded my senses. I could no longer tell which parts of me were injured and which were ok. I couldn't move. Then came the blessed darkness.
Without her support, Riddick fell back to his knees before catching himself on his hands. Looking up at the dark sky that had swallowed Carolyn and her captor, he screamed his torment. "Not for me. Not For Me!" Slowly, half crawling, half stumbling, through the downpour Riddick made his way back towards the skiff knowing that he was the last living pilot on the planet and that he owed it to Carolyn to do his best to get Imam and Jack to safety.
The creatures knew where he was by the tantalizing scent of his dripping blood, and were circling him like vultures do prey. They were waiting. Waiting for him to drop the liquor bottle; waiting for him to give up, and concede defeat.
They could wait till Hell froze over.
Carolyn had made the ultimate sacrifice and he was determined to make the most of the chance she died giving him. When he neared the bright glow of the skiff's headlights, the creatures following him gave outraged screeches and went into a frenzy trying to get to him without burning themselves on the dimming glow of the bottled larvae. Just as his strength gave out, the small clearing lit up as the rest of the skiff's emergency lights came on. Jack's terrified voice came to him from a distance.
"Get up Riddick, get up" her youthful voice was overlaid by Carolyn's deeper tones as she insisted that Imam and Jack couldn't leave the planet without him. They needed him to save them, and he needed to save himself.
Finding a small store of pure determination Riddick stumbled onto the ship and fastened himself into the pilot's chair. He closed the ramp, and fired up all the engines. After a moment's consideration though, a helpless desire to pay back just a little of the anguish they had caused Carolyn overwhelmed him. He powered down the skiff and turned off all the lights both inside and surrounding the ship.
"Riddick? What the hell are you doing?" Came Jack's tremulous voice.
Ignoring her for the moment he waited until he heard the telltale clicks of big feet passing over the metal of the hull. When the face of one of their would-be-executioners appeared in the window teeth bared, Riddick grinned mischievously and replied, "We can't leave...not without saying goodnight." Powering up, he blasted off, roasting all the creatures that were by the skiff hoping to get a midnight snack.
Strapping herself into the co-pilot's chair, Jack looked over to study Riddick's profile. Her small voice filled the cabin when she quietly asked, " What are we going to do now?"
"Now? Well right now we are going to stick out our thumbs and hope we get picked up. These skiffs were not made for extended, deep space journeys. Then we'll see." He said trying to concentrate on working the controls as his vision blurred and blood dripped down his leg to puddle in his boot and on the floor beside him.
"There'll be lots of questions whoever we run into, could even be a merc ship. What do we tell them about you," she asked pensively.
After a strained moment, Riddick turned to her and said definitively, "Just tell them Riddick's dead. He died somewhere on that planet."
Imam's soulful chanting filled the ensuing silence, lulling Jack. The lights were dimmed in deference to Riddick's sensitivity to light, and the chair she was sitting in was the kind that was old and broken in so that it snuggled to curve of a body. She was so relieved after her ordeal that the adrenaline high that had kept her going dissipated, and for the first time in days she was utterly exhausted. She started to doze off and so was totally unnerved when Riddick suddenly grabbed her hand and placed it on the comm. controls. She was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when he slumped over in his chair.
Imam's chanting cut off abruptly as we both rushed over to see what was going on. We were lowering Riddick to the floor so that he could lay prone when we noticed the blood oozing down his leg and spreading thinly beneath him.
"Crap! I wonder how long he has been bleeding like that. Imam, do you think he's going to be ok?" I asked biting my lower lip anxiously?
"We need to get him some medical attention as soon as we can. He's lost a lot of blood, and who knows what kind of toxins those creatures had in their claws. I will pray for his well being," He said sitting himself on the floor his head bowing in concentration.
Just as I was about to ask what I could do to help, a steady beeping filled the ship. At first I thought it was a proximity alert and we were all gonna crash into some huge meteor and die; wouldn't it be ironic that we survived hell only to die by accident not even an hour later? Then reality set in and I realized it was our communication system. Someone was hailing us. Running to the controls, I realized I really didn't know a whole lot about what I was doing. Actually I didn't know anything at all.
"This is captain Robert Starsmore of the merchant vessel "Lady Luck". Identify yourself," demanded a fractured staticy male voice over the internal speakers. Looking at the mass of dials and switches on the panel before me, I pressed the button that Riddick had placed my hand on earlier.
Muttering a small prayer of "god I hope this is transmitting," I began to relay our information to the other ship. "My name is Audrey Kowalski and we have an injured man on our ship that needs immediate medical attention. Please, help us" I begged already on the verge of tears.
"Audrey, this is the Captain speaking. We have a doctor shuttling over. Until she gets there I want you to talk to me ok?"
"O.k.," I said my voice still quavering slightly from shock, exhaustion, and my fear of being left here, alone with Imam, to watch Riddick die.
"Audrey, I want you to tell me where you just came from, and a brief description of what happened while you were there." His calm baritone helped sooth my frayed nerves. He didn't sound like the type of person who would leave a child or an injured man to die, alone in space. Now I just had to figure out what the heck I was going to tell them about us, cuz I sure as hell couldn't tell him the truth. Making a quick decision that I hoped was the right one, I looked at Imam, who was watching me from where he was on the floor with Riddick, and began to weave my tale.
"Well, captain, me, my parents, and my uncle were traveling to the moons of Diaga in the Tangier System by way of the Hunter Gratzner. After being hit by a meteor shower, the ship crash-landed on some planet that we had thought was deserted. It wasn't." Those two, small words encapsulated the terror, the sorrow, the anger at being reduced to a single night's meal. "We just didn't know that the creatures that lived there only came out to play in the dark. Only three of us managed to escape. Everyone else is dead." I said choking on the last word, and thinking of Carolyn as tears ran down quietly my face. "My father piloted us off the planet, but he was injured by the creatures just before we left, and now no-one-else-knows-how-to-pilot-the-skiff-and-I-don't-want-to-die-and-I-don't-want-my-dad-or-uncle-to-die-either" I ended on a sob, a note of hysteria creeping in to my voice.
" Audrey, listen to me. No one is going to die. Hold on a moment while I sort this whole thing out." A momentary silence filled the ship as both Imam and I waited for the captain to come back online.
Suddenly the sound of shifting mechanisms filled our ears. Something was outside the ship. Thinking that somehow those creatures had followed us into space, I ran to Riddick and grabbed the shiv that he had tucked into the waistband of his pants. Slowly rising, I ignored Imam's pleas to put down the shiv, made my way to the back ramp and waited. I wasn't going out without a fight.
I could hear the comm. system spitting static in the background, but had no time to think about it since the loading ramp was beginning to lower. Raising the shiv, I balanced on the balls of my feet, like I saw Riddick do, and waited tense as a coiled snake.
Before the door fully opened, I lunged forward stabbing the shadows that lurked at the peripherals of my vision. I could feel my blade sinking in before a startled oath, and a grunt of pain skittered across the edges of my consciousness. But by that time I was too lost in a world of guilt and fear. All I could see were the creatures in front of me taunting me, telling me it was my fault that everyone had died, since it was me they had wanted, me who had been bleeding.
I continued stabbing and struggling with all my might, wondering why I wasn't dead yet. I could hear Imam screaming, and an unknown voice saying "hold her down," and "get that damned blade away from her," but it was all just meaningless noise to my exhausted mind. Somehow, though, I found myself on the floor, on my back, and knew that this would be my end.
I turned my face away, my eyes already closed to spare myself that last gruesome detail. At least Imam and Riddick would live to see sunlight. I felt a prick in my neck and was surprised since I thought it would hurt a whole lot more. Then without my consent, my body went limp and I knew my time had finally come. I was dead or dying. It really didn't matter anymore since it would all be over soon. I had always wanted to do something worthwhile with my life before I died. Oh well. My last thoughts fluttered away carelessly as the darkness creeped up to envelope me.
***Disclaimer: All known characters from the movie aren't mine, nor am I am making any money off them. Please don't sue. ***
Prologue
Running through the mud towards the skiff, holding my liquor bottle of glowing larva, I could barely make out the moving forms of Jack and Imam ahead of me. I thanked whoever was listening that I had made it through this nightmare. I had redeemed my earlier actions and could now live with my relieved conscience. 'That was for you Owens, that was for you'.
Just as my legs started cramping from the pain of running so far, we entered the small pool of light generated by the skiff. I ushered Jack and Imam up the ramp and into relative safety. I was just about to board myself when I realized that Riddick was not behind me. Looking out into the oppressive darkness that pressed upon the small puddle of light, I stood and wondered if he was dead.
Just as I was debating whether or not to leave without him, a tortured scream cut the air sending shivers skittering down my spine. My feet were in motion before my brain could gainsay them; I raced into the night ignoring Imam's pleas to get on board. I was not going to leave the one man who had helped us through this ordeal to die on this god-forsaken, death trap of a planet. With only my glowing liquor bottle for protection, I ran in between the buildings, and the twenty-two year old pieces of debris desperately calling Riddick's name.
"Riddick? RIDDICK! Where the hell are you?" I shuddered as my brain finally began to realize the extent of my body's betrayal. Disregarding my better instincts, I had once again willingly placed myself in danger, a danger the odds were I wouldn't survive. A sudden commotion less than five feet away startled me causing my already tattered nerves to fray just a little bit more. Whirling, I bathed the area in question in a soft blue glow.
"Riddick!" I croaked relief making my voice horse, and my knees jellify.
Looking over his slumped form, I could see a gaping wound in his leg, and several lacerations along his torso. "Here hold onto me," I said positioning my arms under his to help lever him to his feet.
"Come on, get up!" I yelled when he kept sliding out of my grasp in the slippery mud.
Get up Riddick" I screamed again, frustration and fear stealing what little strength I had from my limbs, making me breathless with fatigue. He was bleeding heavily and the hell spawn were sure to notice him and want him for an entrée. In utter desperation of getting us both back to the skiff in one piece, I said the first thing that I thought would get him mad enough to get moving.
"I said I would die for them, Riddick, not you, so lets go." Just as the words cleared my lips, he found his balance and stood precariously leaning heavily on my shoulder. Suddenly we were jolted as a pair of razor sharp claws grabbed my waist from behind. Time slowed to a near stop as I got my last look at Riddick. I memorized each of his features wanting to tell him a million things in the span of a single second. He returned my stare apology, horror and defeat carving new lines onto his already rugged face.
I dredged up an ironic smile while inwardly cursing the same powers that I had thanked so profusely earlier. As time resumed its normal passing I was jerked back and lifted into the air. I faintly heard the words "Not for me" reverberating in the silence, but was too scared to give it much thought. The fire in my sides expanded exponentially until it infected my whole body, and I almost blacked out from it and my fear of dying this way before I remembered the penlight tucked into my inner vest pocket. Using the last of my strength I retrieved it and shined its light directly into what I hoped was the creature's eyes.
With a screech of pain that caused my ears to bleed, I was unceremoniously dropped. I fell with the rain for an infinity before crashing through the ceiling of one of the settlement buildings. After a surreal moment where I couldn't catch my breath or feel my body, everything came rushing back into focus, and the wave of pain that resulted, arched my back and flooded my senses. I could no longer tell which parts of me were injured and which were ok. I couldn't move. Then came the blessed darkness.
Without her support, Riddick fell back to his knees before catching himself on his hands. Looking up at the dark sky that had swallowed Carolyn and her captor, he screamed his torment. "Not for me. Not For Me!" Slowly, half crawling, half stumbling, through the downpour Riddick made his way back towards the skiff knowing that he was the last living pilot on the planet and that he owed it to Carolyn to do his best to get Imam and Jack to safety.
The creatures knew where he was by the tantalizing scent of his dripping blood, and were circling him like vultures do prey. They were waiting. Waiting for him to drop the liquor bottle; waiting for him to give up, and concede defeat.
They could wait till Hell froze over.
Carolyn had made the ultimate sacrifice and he was determined to make the most of the chance she died giving him. When he neared the bright glow of the skiff's headlights, the creatures following him gave outraged screeches and went into a frenzy trying to get to him without burning themselves on the dimming glow of the bottled larvae. Just as his strength gave out, the small clearing lit up as the rest of the skiff's emergency lights came on. Jack's terrified voice came to him from a distance.
"Get up Riddick, get up" her youthful voice was overlaid by Carolyn's deeper tones as she insisted that Imam and Jack couldn't leave the planet without him. They needed him to save them, and he needed to save himself.
Finding a small store of pure determination Riddick stumbled onto the ship and fastened himself into the pilot's chair. He closed the ramp, and fired up all the engines. After a moment's consideration though, a helpless desire to pay back just a little of the anguish they had caused Carolyn overwhelmed him. He powered down the skiff and turned off all the lights both inside and surrounding the ship.
"Riddick? What the hell are you doing?" Came Jack's tremulous voice.
Ignoring her for the moment he waited until he heard the telltale clicks of big feet passing over the metal of the hull. When the face of one of their would-be-executioners appeared in the window teeth bared, Riddick grinned mischievously and replied, "We can't leave...not without saying goodnight." Powering up, he blasted off, roasting all the creatures that were by the skiff hoping to get a midnight snack.
Strapping herself into the co-pilot's chair, Jack looked over to study Riddick's profile. Her small voice filled the cabin when she quietly asked, " What are we going to do now?"
"Now? Well right now we are going to stick out our thumbs and hope we get picked up. These skiffs were not made for extended, deep space journeys. Then we'll see." He said trying to concentrate on working the controls as his vision blurred and blood dripped down his leg to puddle in his boot and on the floor beside him.
"There'll be lots of questions whoever we run into, could even be a merc ship. What do we tell them about you," she asked pensively.
After a strained moment, Riddick turned to her and said definitively, "Just tell them Riddick's dead. He died somewhere on that planet."
Imam's soulful chanting filled the ensuing silence, lulling Jack. The lights were dimmed in deference to Riddick's sensitivity to light, and the chair she was sitting in was the kind that was old and broken in so that it snuggled to curve of a body. She was so relieved after her ordeal that the adrenaline high that had kept her going dissipated, and for the first time in days she was utterly exhausted. She started to doze off and so was totally unnerved when Riddick suddenly grabbed her hand and placed it on the comm. controls. She was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when he slumped over in his chair.
Imam's chanting cut off abruptly as we both rushed over to see what was going on. We were lowering Riddick to the floor so that he could lay prone when we noticed the blood oozing down his leg and spreading thinly beneath him.
"Crap! I wonder how long he has been bleeding like that. Imam, do you think he's going to be ok?" I asked biting my lower lip anxiously?
"We need to get him some medical attention as soon as we can. He's lost a lot of blood, and who knows what kind of toxins those creatures had in their claws. I will pray for his well being," He said sitting himself on the floor his head bowing in concentration.
Just as I was about to ask what I could do to help, a steady beeping filled the ship. At first I thought it was a proximity alert and we were all gonna crash into some huge meteor and die; wouldn't it be ironic that we survived hell only to die by accident not even an hour later? Then reality set in and I realized it was our communication system. Someone was hailing us. Running to the controls, I realized I really didn't know a whole lot about what I was doing. Actually I didn't know anything at all.
"This is captain Robert Starsmore of the merchant vessel "Lady Luck". Identify yourself," demanded a fractured staticy male voice over the internal speakers. Looking at the mass of dials and switches on the panel before me, I pressed the button that Riddick had placed my hand on earlier.
Muttering a small prayer of "god I hope this is transmitting," I began to relay our information to the other ship. "My name is Audrey Kowalski and we have an injured man on our ship that needs immediate medical attention. Please, help us" I begged already on the verge of tears.
"Audrey, this is the Captain speaking. We have a doctor shuttling over. Until she gets there I want you to talk to me ok?"
"O.k.," I said my voice still quavering slightly from shock, exhaustion, and my fear of being left here, alone with Imam, to watch Riddick die.
"Audrey, I want you to tell me where you just came from, and a brief description of what happened while you were there." His calm baritone helped sooth my frayed nerves. He didn't sound like the type of person who would leave a child or an injured man to die, alone in space. Now I just had to figure out what the heck I was going to tell them about us, cuz I sure as hell couldn't tell him the truth. Making a quick decision that I hoped was the right one, I looked at Imam, who was watching me from where he was on the floor with Riddick, and began to weave my tale.
"Well, captain, me, my parents, and my uncle were traveling to the moons of Diaga in the Tangier System by way of the Hunter Gratzner. After being hit by a meteor shower, the ship crash-landed on some planet that we had thought was deserted. It wasn't." Those two, small words encapsulated the terror, the sorrow, the anger at being reduced to a single night's meal. "We just didn't know that the creatures that lived there only came out to play in the dark. Only three of us managed to escape. Everyone else is dead." I said choking on the last word, and thinking of Carolyn as tears ran down quietly my face. "My father piloted us off the planet, but he was injured by the creatures just before we left, and now no-one-else-knows-how-to-pilot-the-skiff-and-I-don't-want-to-die-and-I-don't-want-my-dad-or-uncle-to-die-either" I ended on a sob, a note of hysteria creeping in to my voice.
" Audrey, listen to me. No one is going to die. Hold on a moment while I sort this whole thing out." A momentary silence filled the ship as both Imam and I waited for the captain to come back online.
Suddenly the sound of shifting mechanisms filled our ears. Something was outside the ship. Thinking that somehow those creatures had followed us into space, I ran to Riddick and grabbed the shiv that he had tucked into the waistband of his pants. Slowly rising, I ignored Imam's pleas to put down the shiv, made my way to the back ramp and waited. I wasn't going out without a fight.
I could hear the comm. system spitting static in the background, but had no time to think about it since the loading ramp was beginning to lower. Raising the shiv, I balanced on the balls of my feet, like I saw Riddick do, and waited tense as a coiled snake.
Before the door fully opened, I lunged forward stabbing the shadows that lurked at the peripherals of my vision. I could feel my blade sinking in before a startled oath, and a grunt of pain skittered across the edges of my consciousness. But by that time I was too lost in a world of guilt and fear. All I could see were the creatures in front of me taunting me, telling me it was my fault that everyone had died, since it was me they had wanted, me who had been bleeding.
I continued stabbing and struggling with all my might, wondering why I wasn't dead yet. I could hear Imam screaming, and an unknown voice saying "hold her down," and "get that damned blade away from her," but it was all just meaningless noise to my exhausted mind. Somehow, though, I found myself on the floor, on my back, and knew that this would be my end.
I turned my face away, my eyes already closed to spare myself that last gruesome detail. At least Imam and Riddick would live to see sunlight. I felt a prick in my neck and was surprised since I thought it would hurt a whole lot more. Then without my consent, my body went limp and I knew my time had finally come. I was dead or dying. It really didn't matter anymore since it would all be over soon. I had always wanted to do something worthwhile with my life before I died. Oh well. My last thoughts fluttered away carelessly as the darkness creeped up to envelope me.
