Chapter 3: Unchained
The hallways outside of her cell were narrow and low for a creature of her size, which hampered her progress, but determination drove her on. She only had two goals in mind now. First was to find the creature or person that had ripped her beautiful Tyler away from her, and second was to make his sacrifice and gift count. She was going to be free.
As she moved through the seemingly never-ending corridors, the irritating sounds of alarms and klaxons echoed all around her, dulling her senses. As she shook her head to clear it, she began to wonder where all the humans had gone, but before she had time to ponder this, the sound of rapidly approaching feet snapped her back to her senses. There was nowhere for her to hide, so she would have to face whatever it was head-on. So, turning her large body, she took up a battle stance, with her tail primed over her shoulder, ready to strike. Around the corner, to her left, a small group of humans dressed all in white coats appeared, but they were so distracted with what was behind them, that not a single one of them realised what they were running towards.
"Come on, Malcom! Fucking run, they're going to catch up!" the male at the front of the group shouted, seemingly to a male behind the small group that seemed to be lagging.
"I-can't-run-anymore" the male called Malcom said with a heavy pant. There were three females and four males in the group, and as they got closer, she recognised the minds as she probed them and a smile crossed her large face. These humans were part of the group that had run all those vile tests on her. Now, while inflicting pain on others for no reason was not in her nature, the pain and humiliation she had endured at their hands could not be forgiven. They wouldn't have to worry about whatever they were running from much longer. Soon, they were going to have to worry about her.
She let out a huge ear splitting screech of rage which caused the running group of humans to screech to such a sudden stop that they piled over one another into a massive pile, "Holy fucking shit! The one of the fucking queens is loose!" the male who had been leading the group yelled as he tried to climb to his feet, she instantly recognised his mind, he was the human Alpha. He was the one that had been present at every single pain and humiliation that she had suffered at their hands, on top of that, he was most definitely in the group that had enjoyed seeing her pain. Now she was going to enjoy seeing his, before he could get up she charged forwards down the corridor, having to resort to bounding on all fours to gain enough speed to reach them before they could make their escape. "Fucking R…" he started to say before she stabbed straight through his abdomen with her long tail and lifted him into the air, she brought him round so that he was face to face with her.
"For what you have done to me you deserve to die a slow agonising death human, but you should be thankful that I am not that vindictive." She said using telepathy, his eyes went wide as fear flooded his mind, she knew that he could not understand her up until now, there had only been one who could, but before he had time to even attempt to beg for his life she opened her mandibles and shot her inner jaws forwards with such force that they pierced his head and fired straight out the other side.
The other humans instantly began to full on panic and began to run back the way they came, but it appeared that whatever had been chasing them had caught up as they ran smack straight into another group of humans running the other way. But these ones only looked like humans in appearance, instantly she saw that these were the same creatures that her Tyler had become after his death.
The creatures did not even hesitate in pouncing on the white coated humans, tearing into them with their teeth. She saw them biting arms, legs, throats or whatever they could grab hold of, in the first two seconds all but one of the white coated humans had been bitten and were rapidly being torn to pieces by the crazed animal humans. Now there was only one left who remained unbitten, it was a young black skinned female, suddenly in a flash of remembrance she realised that she knew this human, hers was one of the minds that had felt sympathy and sorrow for her and her situation, she was one of the different.
As quick as a flash, she stepped forward and grabbed the fear frozen human female and lifted her off her feet, the human female screamed, "Please don't kill me!" She begged, looking at her face as she turned her to face her, rather than waste time trying to communicate with the human she simply threw her over her shoulder and dropped to her four limbs quickly. Which in such a narrow space is quite a feat when you're 10ft tall, then as the crazed animal-like humans all turned towards her as one and began to give chase she sprinted down the corridor at top speed away from them.
The human female on her shoulder shrieked at the top of her lungs the entire way down the corridor, it was so loud it was beginning to give her a headache. For some reason the human just couldn't seem to grasp that she was trying to save her and didn't mean her any harm, her constant shrieking was drawing more of the crazed animal-like humans to them like a magnet. Just when she had been wondering where all the humans had gone, it now seemed like every turn she tried to take was full of them, and not the normal ones.
Rounding a sharp left turn she was grateful to finally find a route through this maze that wasn't full of either shredded bodies or animal-humans, but her joy was short lived as she ran smack into a dead end. As she turned around to go back she heard the noise of swiftly approaching running feet, she quickly removed the shrieking human from her shoulder and placed her down on her feet in front of her before moving to put herself between their oncoming attackers and female. Finally, as she took up a battle stance the human female finally seemed to stop screaming, glancing back she could see the human looking at her with a puzzled expression, maybe the female was finally beginning to understand that she meant her no harm. So she decided to try something that had always made Tyler happy, she smiled at her.
Suddenly, without a word, the human threw herself at a large silver door to her left and began frantically jabbing at small silver object on the wall while chanting "Come on! Come on!" Over and over again, her eyes never left the queen, then the large metal door made a ping noise but didn't move an inch.
"Dammit!" the human female yelled pounding her fist on the door, the image of her pounding the door with her hand gave the queen an idea. She remembered something from walking in Tyler's memories, he used to love watching these old things humans call movies especially the ones involving humans that dressed up in metal armour and carried these big metal pieces they called shields. She quickly moved in front of the door and slammed her large tail into it with some serious force, to her delight she was able to pierce right through it and with some strength was able to tear it from its frame.
It wasn't a moment too soon, because the first of the crazed humans rounded the corner and headed right for them, the female human looked past the queen and her new door shield then at the running humans and screamed once more. Turning quickly the queen brought her door shield up in front of her and prepared to meet the charging animal-humans head on. Then the human female had an even better idea, behind the door she'd torn free was some sort of vertical shaft with a metal rope running down it, the female human jumped into the shaft and began to try and climb the rope away from their attackers. The queen gave herself a mental slap for having not thought of this first, but she'd been so caught up in the memory/fantasy that she'd had many times of Tyler bursting into her cell dressed in metal ready to carry her out of there like one of the princesses in his favourite movies that it had not even occurred to her to climb.
In a flash she spun on the spot and sent the door shield that was currently still impaled on her tail spinning down the corridor like a propeller blade, she threw it with such force that it acted like one too. It sliced the first three ranks of charging animal-humans in half before coming to a stop embedded in the wall of the bend. Using the precious seconds that this bought her, the queen squeezed herself into the narrow shaft and rapidly began to climb, unlike the human female just ahead of her, she didn't need to use the metal rope as she was able to just jam her claws into the surfaces of the walls.
She instantly reached the climbing human who tried to kick out at her, she still didn't seem to grasp that she didn't want to hurt her, but as it was, the kick more tickled than hurt. In fact it hurt her feelings more, but rather than take it personally she decided to be the better lifeform here and quickly flipped the desperate human off the rope.
Before the human female had a chance to fall, she plucked her out of the air and put her on her back again, but this time directly on her back rather than over her shoulder. The young female had no choice but to hang onto her dorsal spines as the queen rapidly climbed the shaft, at least she didn't scream all the way up.
Below them, she heard the crazed screams of the animal-humans that had entered the shaft in an attempt to get them, but in their crazed state they seemed to have no memory of how to climb, because every single one of them fell screaming into the dark void of the shaft below them. The first few made a metallic and meaty sounding crash as they hit something metal further down the shaft, the ones after that sounded slightly muffled as they hit their fellows instead. The young human on her back looked down the shaft and then at the side of her head, "P-P-P-Please don't drop me." She stammered softly and the queen felt the female tighten her grip on her dorsal spines, she was just glad that she finally seemed to have grasped that she didn't mean her any harm and only wanted to help.
As she reached the top of the shaft, she found another of those metal doors blocking their path, so jamming her hands against the walls, she was able to swing her legs into a position where she was able to kick against the door. To her amazement, the door flew out of its frame and outwards away from her with only the first kick. This human technology was weaker than she had expected it to be, it was certainly weaker than the stuff they had used in her cage. Immediately, as the door flew outwards, she heard screaming again, but this time it wasn't coming from her companion. Her heart sunk as this meant that the animal-humans had made it up here ahead of them. Slowly and cautiously, she emerged from the shaft and into the corridor that it led into. Once clear, she removed the young human female from her back and placed her down in front of her, but surprisingly she didn't flee the second her feet touched the ground. Instead, she stood close to her, looking around them. Then, she looked up into her face. "I don't know why you did it, but thank you for getting me out of there" she said, still sounding nervous.
"You're welcome" the queen said, but to her human ears it would have sounded more like a hiss. The human female visibly flinched at this, but at least she didn't run or start screaming again. Suddenly, a very familiar sound but a very welcome one, or at least to her ears anyway, permeated the air. A loud screech, which was swiftly followed by a roar, echoed through the corridor that they were in. Immediately, the queen's head snapped in the direction it had come from. "Sister!" the queen said aloud. Immediately, she charged off down the corridor, swiftly followed by the human female.
This floor looked very different to the one that she had lived on, whereas the corridors down there had all been a dull dark grey colour, up here they were all vibrant colours, from whites to blues and reds, they also passed by lots of rooms that were walled off with panes of glass that allowed the occupant to see out and see who was outside, the rooms appeared to contain individual work stations for humans to work from, though right now not a single human occupied any of these work spaces.
Pretty soon, the corridor opened into a large lobby. It was huge and white, made entirely out of what appeared to be white marble. There were lots of the little work stations dotted about and lots of potted plants, though why anyone would want to keep a plant in a pot was beyond the queen. She also noticed that there were lots of glass screens depicting happy humans holding a variety of objects. She didn't know what they were, but for some reason she found herself that if they made these humans in the pictures so happy, then they'd probably make her happy too and she wondered how she could obtain these items. As she scanned over the room, it was then that she noticed the source of the angry screech that she'd heard earlier. Stood on the other side of the room, towering over a small crowd of huddled humans, was one of her sisters, and by her body language she could tell that she was royally angry. She had a sneaking suspicion that she should proceed with caution, so quickly she motioned that her human companion should stay here, out of sight for a moment while she handled the introductions. Well she seemed to get the stay here part anyway and she quickly hid behind one of the work stations.
"Sister!" she called before heading in the other queen's direction. The other queen turned towards the sound, and she regarded her approaching sister with curiosity. Suddenly, the approaching queen stopped as she saw what her sister was holding. "Sister, what are you going to do with that human?" she asked slowly. The other queen looked down at the terrified human in her hands and then she looked back at her sister.
"I'm going to feed on it, why?" she asked. The approaching queen snarled loudly and angrily.
"But it's a hatchling, why would you do such a thing?!" she roared. The other queen looked down at the small human female in her hands before again looking at her sister with visible confusion at her sister's anger.
"So? It's one of their hatchlings, not one of ours" she said,
"SO!? Fucking so!? It's a hatchling!" the queen roared at the top of her lungs. Her sister again looked confused at her sister's anger.
"Why do you care what I do with one of their young!? It's not as if it's important. They locked us up and tortured us, dear sister. They've killed hundreds if not thousands of our hatchlings even before many had the chance to be born. I watched them wipe out my entire hive with my own eyes with their fire weapons, I had to watch as my eggs were burned to ash right before my very eyes, I can still hear their screams for mercy in my mind, but you wouldn't know that would you? As you were born here, just another of their vile experiments on our kind. Their kind deserve to pay for what they've done, they deserve to watch as their hatchlings burn, but since I can't produce fire like they can I can still make them watch as I eat it right in front of them." she snarled looking at her shocked sister before looking back at the terrified human child in her hands.
"You do realise that it's one of their kind that you owe your freedom to, right? He got himself killed trying to rescue us from this place. They are not all the same sister, we can't hold every one of them responsible for the vile evil crimes of but a few!" she roared. Her sister snorted.
"I doubt you'd feel the same if it was your hive that was burned to ash before your very eyes" she said. Then, she slowly opened her outer mouth as she lined up the human child's head with her inner jaws, but, before she could take a bite, she was hit from behind with immense strength, sending her flying and making her drop the hatchling.
She couldn't believe that one of her kind would sink so low as to harm a hatchling, but with utter horror she watched as her sister levelled the child's head with her jaws ready to take a bite and she knew that she had to act, so without giving her a warning she charged her full force and used her large head as battering ram, she slammed right into her sister's back sending her flying across the room, she slammed face first into one of the marble pillars demolishing it in a cloud of dust, fortunately she dropped the hatchling before he little impromptu flying lesson, now she placed herself between her angry sister and the humans as she emerged from the rubble, "You would dare side with the filthy humans over one of your own!? I fucking knew it, filthy hybrid! You are not one of us and you never will be!" her sister roared,
"I am as much xeno as you are! But, if my one of my 'kind' would stoop so low as to deliberately kill a hatchling out of something as petty as vengeance, then maybe I'm better off with the humans!" she spat in return. Her sister roared and charged, but before she could complete her charge, a door on the fore side of the room burst open and a large group of heavily armed humans entered the room. Both queens stopped and looked at them.
"The queens are loose! Terminate them!" one of the armoured humans shouted, while the others took up firing positions. Suddenly, it was like the air was filled with angry stinging insects. She felt the first few hit along her right side. None of them made it through her thick hide, but they stung like hell. She knew that it was pointless trying to explain to the humans that she was on their side, so she turned and headed for the large glass panels that made up the outer wall of the large lobby and charged them at full tilt. Her sister apparently had other ideas as she charged straight into the armoured humans, screeching as she went. The unarmed humans that had been huddled in the group that her sister had been planning on killing had now been joined by the human she had brought with her, and she'd had the same idea as her, so, as she smashed through the glass and burst out into a world of sunlight, they followed her out to safety from her sisters rage.
The outside was as beautiful as she'd seen in Tyler's mind. The sunlight was blinding temporarily, and she had to shield her eyes from the brightness as she stood, staring in awe at the beauty all around her. The group of humans charged past her, and headed towards the large gates at the end of the courtyard they'd emerged into. Before she joined them, the young woman she had saved shouted a final thank you to her before she headed off with her own kind. The queen felt happy that her actions had managed to not only save a beautiful life, but to create some form of understanding between their species, but as it turned out, she didn't have time to contemplate what this meant as there was a tremendous roar of a blast behind them, and as she turned to look she saw a whole crowd of what appeared to be the animal-humans charging out of a door and immediately attacking everything they saw, including her sister. In the confusion, she saw one of them manage to grab hold of her sister's leg before taking a massive bite out of it. She found herself amazed that the humans teeth had managed to penetrate her hide when their projectiles could not. Her sister roared in pain and went to tear the human's head off, but before she could, his entire head dissolved from contact with her blood. Then she finally seemed to decide that freedom was more important to her than killing all the armoured humans and she charged out through another panel of glass into the same courtyard as her. She looked at her sister as she charged towards the wall separating the compound from whatever lay beyond, and scaled it effortlessly, but before she disappeared she had time to throw one last insult her way. "May all your hatchlings be still born, dear sister" she said, before disappearing over the wall. The queen snarled at her sister's vileness. She was pissed that she had to share a species with someone like that, but then the charging armoured humans decided that, since they'd lost their original target that she'd do as a replacement, and she was forced to follow her sister over the wall as human projectiles stung her all over her body.
The human hive beyond the wall was absolutely massive, and so beautiful. It was so full of vibrant life of every imaginable sort that she found herself stopping from time to time as she made her way to freedom just to admire it. She had been doing her best to stay out of sight of the many humans on the streets and roads below her as she made her way along roof tops and from tower to tower. She also had to admire the human architecture in that they could create such amazing, sturdy homes for themselves to live in. They had everything from huge spiralling towers that housed thousands of individuals, to little cosy dwellings that house only a single family unit. It was one of these dwellings that her Tyler had lived in with his mate and his hatchling. The thought of his hatchling growing up without her father there to raise her made her sad beyond words. She was tempted to try and find Tyler's mate and to try and explain what had happened to her beloved, but she decided against it, as it would probably also involve having to reveal her own feelings towards him, and she really didn't think that having to deal with jealousy was going to help with the healing process of losing her loved one.
From high on her perch on one of the towers, she opened her mind and allowed it to touch those of the millions below her. All the thoughts and feelings that drifted up to her filled her with such joy and happiness that, for a moment, she was able to forget that she was obviously being hunted by the humans. Now she knew that this was only the ones that had held her and her sisters, and they were such a small group when compared to this absolutely beautiful spectacle, but she still decided that, as much as it pained her, the best course of action was probably to get as far away from the humans as she could. Maybe one day she would be able to return to this beautiful place, and to be able to walk among and interact with its inhabitants without fear, and this thought filled her with hope. Tyler had taught her that not all humans were bad, and that they could be so much more than her sister had thought. She hoped a day would come when they could know a peace and understanding between their two kinds, but that day was not today.
Fortunately, surrounding the human mega hive on all sides were thick and wild jungles, so with the speed and grace that only one of her kind would ever know, she made her way across the hive as fast as she could before disappearing into the lush deep green of the jungle. She just hoped that Tyler's last gift had paid off for her other sisters as well, and that they had made it out.
It took her a little time to find a place that she deemed would be safe from the human hunters, but would also allow her to keep tabs on the human mega hive. For some reason she felt a really strong connection with that place. Maybe because she was born there or maybe it was because Tyler had given her a connection with humans that she didn't want to disregard, but with a bit of searching, she found a place that served her needs. It was a cliff that stood nearly as high as some of the human made towers. It had a waterfall so big that it was ringed with clouds, as some of the water evaporated before it was able to hit the ground. About halfway up was the entrance to a cave network, and she decided that this would be a perfect place to set up her own hive, so she started the slow process of transforming this place into her new home. It would take her a week or two to accomplish this, and she decided that once she had done this and she had a place to call her own, she would then begin the search for her other sisters.
As it turned out, fate had other ideas. From her high perch above the mega hive, she could see things seemed to be going very wrong down there. Every day there seemed to be more and more columns of smoke rising from various points of the sprawling landscape, and noises of weapons, fire, and explosions drifted up to her on the breeze. Try as she might to ignore it, her curiosity stung her harder and harder each and every day that past. Eventually, she decided to go and investigate what was happening to the humans, so with curiosity guiding her, she left her new hive and set off for the human hive.
What she found filled her with a terror the likes of which she had never imagined possible. She had decided to approach at night to help conceal her presence from the humans, but the closer she got, it disturbed her just how quiet it was here. She couldn't hear or feel just about anyone, and what she could feel was nothing but sheer terror or mind crippling pain and anguish. What had happened here? Where were all the beautiful humans that she had felt when she had left? Silently, she made her way onto the roof of what looked like a storage for those weird moving machines that the humans seemed to buzz around their hive in. On the breeze, she could hear various noises, but most of them either seemed to be screams of fear or pain intermixed with crazed roars. She decided she need to investigate further and she moved deeper into the hive.
It disturbed her that she hadn't seen a single human since she'd entered this place, and there was something unsettling in the air. It was the over powering smell of death. It seemed to be everywhere and on every surface, like the whole once beautiful place was now tainted with it. Suddenly, a noise below her drew her attention, and she leaned over the side of the roof she was on to investigate. Through the lights that lit the main channel of this part of the hive, she saw a small running figure. It appeared to be being chased by a huge crowd of humans. It didn't take her long to realise that these were the animal-human she had seen in that place that Tyler had rescued her from, and the second realisation hit her like the punching machine, the running figure was a hatchling!
Without a second thought, the queen dove over the side of the building she was atop of and slammed hard into the ground below her, cracking the material with the force. "This way child, hurry!" she yelled, but the hatchling, rather than turning to run towards her did the exact opposite, turning away from her and running down yet another channel, "No, not that way!" the queen yelled, as she saw the hatchling run into a channel that would lead it straight into the path of yet another group of animal-humans. She suddenly knew that she was going to have to intercede directly here, and straight away, she set off at a blistering pace in pursuit of the hatchling.