Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity. I did not create Slam, merely this interpretation of it. I did not have any hand in the creation of Pitch Black. I did however create Spook, and the othercharacters not seen in Pitch Black.
This definitely went against Riddick's admonishment of "be careful" as she left, of that she was certain. Nowhere in any definition of "be careful" could Spook find a clause supporting a side trip to find the source of a woman's screams. She pondered as she carefully slunk down through the dark. She was venturing into the unknown, into a horrible situation, off the path Riddick knew her to be on.
And no part of her could say with any conviction that she even wanted to find out what was happening to a woman to make her scream in a place like Slam. But still she found herself creeping down the hallway in the directions the screams had come from.
She had woken up, curled against Riddick's side like usual. He had been absorbed in sharpening his shiv. Amazing, that. Somehow she'd managed to sleep through the sound of metal on stone. For a while, she lay watching him, his calm, even movements as he dragged the blade over the chunk of what was either stone or cement held in his hand. But that sound eventually grew to be too harsh on her ears, and she wriggled off the bed around his huge roadblock of a body. She stretched experimentally, then bent to give her hardened cellmate a quick, tentative hug before turning to leave.
"Where you off to, Spook?" His voice caught her, pinning her in the doorway. It was a cold growl, tinged with a slight hint of curiosity. The husky tones twisted around her, wrapping like silken rope, holding her there against the wall. Her shoulder rested against the cement, her hand spread on the smooth surface. Glancing back, the embers of his silver eyes caught her, pinning her like a mouse before a snake. He stared at her, through her. He just watched her. There was no malice in the liquid eyes, no anger. They simply stared.
"I need to stretch my legs, Riddick. I've been cooped up in here since the Shine. Was going to go to the mess, walk a little." Her own eyes glowed, staring back into his from her tilted face, her brows shadowing the glinting silver. He just met her gaze, eyes cold, face inscrutable. She began to worry her lip between her teeth. "You going to come with? Keep an eye on me?" He stood, moved to pin her against the door frame, leaning in towards her. His hand seized her chin, lifting her face to his. It always made her a little scared, those deft movements, faster than any man his size, even in peak fitness, should be able to make. And the closeness. He never stopped any further than almost touching when he made those moves.
His hand was almost soft on her chin. He looked into her eyes, silver into silver. His thumb almost moved; she could feel the muscles twitch before he spoke. His jaw flexed, the moment of tension when his teeth closed tighter before the words.
"No. Got a rumor to look in to. You're going to be careful, Spook. Go to the mess. Come back." The bottomless eyes glinted in the dark. He was studying her face for a moment, the pools of liquid silver pausing on her eyes, her mouth, her throat. He took a step back from her. "Be. Careful." His hand left her face.
She nodded once, shining a furtive smile at him, shrugging herself away from the wall. With another shaky smile, the darkness of the hallways swallowed her.
It seemed somehow less terrifying now. She still slunk along the corridors, jumping at the smallest sound, but she no longer had to fear unseen death at every turn. Now she could see, and the faces watching from within doorless cells were visible. It was shocking how gaunt they looked when illuminated by the flickering tones of Shined eyes. A few of them had the glowing eyes of the Shine, but most simply looked scared as she moved past, watching her, listening as her steps faintly padded on the cold cement that carpeted the bowls of Hell.
The catcalls were strangely absent today. The cells that normally birthed the lewd commentary at her passing seemed abandoned, empty. The passage she walked smelled musty, stale, like no one had stirred there in a goodly time. There was dust. She smelled blood, dried, old. There must have been a bad fight. It would account for the abandonment of the route. No one wanted to be where Death had tread, lest those silent footsteps follow on their heels.
Her feet nearly hovered over the chill floor, the bare pads of them slapping silently as she inched down the hall. Too much time being afraid, being blind in the belly of the beast. Even now, her shined eyes gleaming, while she could plainly see the emptiness, her body stilled, even her breath slowing, near silent, her ears stretched to their fullest, yearning for the smallest sound that would send the rabbit back to her lair, to hide between the paws of the tiger.
But no sound touched her. A stain tinted the ground, from one wall nearly to the other; its dried edges still seemed to reach. Her feet danced along the edge of it, its smell accosting her nose. She stopped on the far side. A few days, she figured. About the time that she read again, perhaps one of the days that the errand boy fetched food.
She moved on.
A split in the trail, and Spook stared. The hallways were so different... She closed her eyes. Sniffed the air. A start in one direction, then a pause. From behind her came the faint sound of feet, moving away from her. The pale scent of food. Her teeth flashed in a swift smile. Her feet found a sure path down the hall, and she was sniffing like a dog. Her tongue darted to moisten her lips as she moved, ever following the hint of food.
True to memory, the light poured into the hallway. She cringed away from it for a moment, shielding her eyes. Squinting, she crept inside the packed room. The bowls, scrubbed nearly completely clean, were stacked near the door. Her pale hand carefully hefted one, feeling the solid, cold steel in her grasp. Quicksilver eyes, slitted against the light that seared into every corner of the room, scanned the Mess, hitting face after face. The guards near the gruel weren't men she recognized.
She slunk forward, shoulders rounded, eyes cast down, wary.
A few people, guards and inmates alike, glanced her way. Some, mostly inmates, murmured the name of her protector as they recoiled from her small frame; she could read his name plainly on their lips as if they had whispered it in her ear. The guards mostly watched her with the caution one gave a dangerous beast, eyeing the metal circling her throat with a guarded gaze, but they didn't offer any threatening motions when they allowed her to collect her allotment of coarse porridge.
Slipping into a corner, back to the walls, she wolfed down the food, licking at a few points in the bowl as she finished. Cagey, she skulked to the pile of dirty bowls to drop hers, then back towards the doorway. A few women seemed about to move towards her, but they stopped after a single step, their eyes falling as she looked towards them with half lidded silver eyes.
A feeling of discontent nagged at the back of her mind as she wound her way carefully through the tangle of corridors and passages in the dark. The darkness closed in around her, magnified a thousand fold by her rising nerves, flooded with her apprehension.
And then it came.
It was so sudden.
Echoing through the darkness, the scream seemed easily ten times as loud as it must have been. It ricocheted off the walls, spinning out of control around her, through her. It was a scream of terror, ripped from the throat of a woman.
Every muscle froze, listening to the sudden silence that stormed in the screams wake. She felt a tremor threaten in her thigh as she strained to listen in the dark, ears prying for any sound other than her heartbeat. The stillness loomed with uncanny menace, near deafness in the trail of the shattering shriek.
And then it sounded again, the clarion ringing out in shrill clear tones.
Without thinking, she spun to the sound, her bare feet striking the cement in quick strides, one hand resting on the wall, the other carefully pulling the blade from her thigh.
Definitely not being careful.
Definitely against her better judgment.
Ahead she could hear a whimpering. Low. Scared. Feminine.
She heard the low breathing of a man. Odd tone, hoarse. Either sick or breathing through a shattered nose.
She glanced around. The glow of the man was visible around the corner ahead.
Silence. Spook focused on silence.
She felt that cold stability start in her belly, spreading throughout her body. Her grip on the shiv shifted.
He had no idea she was there until the shiv tore through his throat, the hot ichor splashing in beaded droplets onto the woman.
Spooks eyes watched the body crumple, soundless, clutching briefly at his throat as the deep crimson spread over the floor, licking at her toes. Her head tilted, staring at the play of the shimmering over the oozing gore. The crimson scent filled the small room, the tang of copper striking deep in the back of the throat.
A flash of motion from the woman.
A swift strike, a lashed boot, carefully aimed.
Pain, blossoming darkness.
Riddick's going to kill me.