The Fallen

Chapter One: Rage

It was the beast, calling for revenge, craving blood. Riddick felt the heat flood through his veins, set his muscles on fire, clear his mind. Clarity that came with the beast's total awakening brightened his vision, sharpened his focus. It roared in his ears.

Suddenly, everything was bright. The lights were on low, but color came through the shine, and he could see the blood on Imam's robes and trickling down his face, into his eyes, and from the split in his lip. The beast thundered and raged.

Pent up for the four month trip across galaxies to be at this point, at this moment, to find this man that had torn everything apart.

It wouldn't be enough just to kill him, Riddick knew this, even as he held his blade to the other man's throat. It wouldn't be enough for the man to see death and know it held him in the moment before he would be drawn in, pulled to the depths, left with the eternity of a room that could never be escaped. An eternity that couldn't be counted in hours, or days, or years, but in millenniums.

"No escape," Riddick growled, feeling the beast take control of his mind and his body. For the first time in many years, Riddick didn't fight the animal for control. He didn't block it from the one place in his mind that he kept for himself. He didn't keep it from the halls of his mind that were full of painful memories and violent triggers long pulled.

He'd kept it away from those places in his head for so long, keeping it quiet so it wouldn't wake and take out its hate on those around him. He needed to be able to come back from the violence and the heat that burned his blood, causing it to boil and scorch the inside of his veins.

The beast growled sometimes, allowed to roam on a leash when Riddick did his "business" of killer for hire. When assigned some scum-of-the-universe dirt bag that didn't just need killing, but begged for it with their actions. Some of them had been so inhuman in their deeds that it had often made Riddick feel he could become physically sick just thinking about it.

Now this. Torment raged, and the beast was beyond containment. There had only been one person in the universe that could calm it and make it purr. Riddick hadn't had the strength to bar it himself, but she could. Their years together had proven to him again and again that there was hope for a future.

Ten years of joy and sorrow, love and grief, all thrown away like so much trash because of this man that Riddick held by the throat.

"I am going to thoroughly enjoy this," Riddick growled between clenched teeth. The beast was in control, but for the first time, it was giving him permission to be an observer. He didn't feel the blankness that usually accompanied a loss of his control. The clarity that came with his necessity to kill didn't fade as the beast strained forward. Instead, Riddick felt it intensify to a point where he felt almost too real.

In a move too fast for any human eye to see, Riddick hit a nerve at the base of the man's neck with a quick knuckle strike and the man went limp against the wall. Riddick stepped back from him and let him fall to the hard floor with a thud.

"Imam," Riddick whispered, taking control of his voice back from the beast. "Imam, please, look at me, Holy Man."

Imam raised his eyes to Riddick's. The whites were red with hemorrhaged veins, a stark contrast to the black-brown of his pupils. His face was streaked with blood and his nose was severely broken. Blood soaked through his brown and cream robes, mostly around the tears caused by the merc's blade.

"Riddick," Imam whispered. "I do not understand. What is going on?"

Riddick moved swiftly to the holy man's side and cut his bindings. Imam immediately fell forward and Riddick caught him gently, the beast stepping back to allow Riddick to care for the man that even the beast respected.

"I'll tell you later, but right now you've got to get to a hospital. Do you understand me?"

Imam nodded and Riddick helped him to his feet carefully, leading him to the door. Riddick took Imam to the apartment next door and pounded on the door. It opened, revealing an older woman. Her face was questioning but turned to fright as she saw Imam's bloodied and battered appearance.

"Call for help," Riddick said. "Please. He's badly hurt."

The woman stared for another long moment then rushed back into her apartment. Riddick pulled Imam inside after the woman and into the living room. He threw a folded up blanket on the couch to protect it from blood and then carefully laid Imam on it. "Help's comin', Holy Man," Riddick said quietly. He could hear the woman calling for help on the phone.

"The ambulance is on the way," the woman said as she came back into the room.

Riddick looked at her. "Thanks," he said then turned back to Imam. "I'll be back, Imam," he told his friend. "Then we'll talk."

"Wait! Where are you going?" the woman called as he headed for the door.

"I have some things to take care of. I have to go." The beast was screaming for release again and Riddick knew he had to get away before it was too late.

He fled the tiny apartment and stepped back into Imam's. The merc was beginning to stir now and when he awoke Riddick was hunched over him, elbows rested on his knees, a long, curved blade in his right hand. His face was cold as ice and completely devoid of emotion. The silver sheen of his eyes glittered like diamonds.

"I'm going to start with your balls," Riddick stated calmly. Then he knocked the man out and pulled him out of the apartment. He was going to start with the man's balls, but he wasn't going to do it there.