CHAPTER 1: DARK WORLD

December 26 th , 2093. Unknown moon designated as LV-223.

Elizabeth Shaw watched as the sun set behind the gigantic mountain that dominated the valley. Soon, the entire volcanic plain would be in darkness and she would not want to be out there in the open.

Although the fragments of the USCSS Prometheus had already stopped falling to the ground, she did not know what other dangers the sinister moon held. Like the gigantic tentacled creature she had released moments before in a desperate attempt to finish off the last engineer.

She didn't know if the creature had been victorious, or vice versa. Whatever the outcome was, the next target for the surviving monster would be her. Her only hope now lay in her hands. David's severed head grinned at her as she shoved him into the canvas bag.

-"Do you mind?" She asked, ready to zip the bag.

-"Don't worry, Dr. Shaw," David responded stoically in his broken, metallic voice.

She zipped the bag and slung it on her shoulder. Then, she dragged the android's inert body to the edge of the ship, ten meters above the moon's surface, tied it up with a rope and lowered it.

Once on the ground, the woman descended. The effort put a lot of stress on her belly, and a staple popped out from her recent 'c-section'. She grunted in pain. "Rrr... U… Kay, Dr. Shaw?" David's voice asked from inside the bag.

-"I'm fine," she said, gritting her teeth.

-"The stress in your voice indicates otherwise Dr. Shaw," David continued, "I'm sorry I can't be of great help in my current..."

-"I'm fine," she repeated, cutting him off. The truth was that the android had the necessary medical knowledge, but she would have to repair it first. Shaw had very good reasons for not doing it.

Two days ago, under Peter Weyland's orders, David had deliberately exposed her colleague and partner Charlie Holloway to an unknown pathogen found in one of the five pyramids scattered throughout the valley. Charlie had in turn unintentionally infected Elizabeth with the same substance before dying horribly. Shaw had removed the resultant creature in time from her body by performing an emergency c-section and locked it in the ship's med-pod.

Hours later, a humanoid from the species she dubbed Engineers had been woken up by David. The hostile individual had killed Peter Weyland and his remaining crew except for her. The engineer had then activated his ship and headed for Earth with the intention of erasing all life from existence. It was Shaw who definitively ended the threat... or so he hoped.

Shaw didn't trust David, but she needed him to get out of that grim place.

The only way out available were those u-shaped ships stored in underground hangars, like the one the crew of the Prometheus brought down by ramming it at the cost of the ship and their lives.

David assured her he knew how to operate those juggernauts, and for that she only needed to repair the android and let him man the controls. But there was no way she would do it, not after what he had done.

The daylight gave way to gloom, and the only source of illumination was the charred fragments of the Prometheus scattered around the place. Shaw spotted an orange flash between large pieces of twisted metal. It was one of four all-terrain vehicles used by the expedition. The four-track vehicle was turned on its side. Shaw put David down and approached the vehicle.

Using a nearby metal pipe and a rock, she managed to put the strangely light ATV back on its wheels. Odd , she thought, recognizing the vehicle serial number. It was the same she had driven two days ago when a silica storm almost killed her.

The vehicle had been swept away by the storm, and miraculously survived the falling debris from the ship. Shaw pressed the power button: it still worked. That was the good thing about vehicles made for colonization, they were built to last.

She barely got David's body into the small cargo space at the rear of the vehicle and climbed into the driver's seat.

-"Warning, oxygen levels at 40%," the suit's computerized voice warned her.

-"Dr. Shaw..." David spoke into the duffel bag.

-"It doesn't matter," she interrupted, pulling her head out of the bag, "as soon as we're inside the pyramid I'll have spare oxygen."

She drove to the next of the five, odd looking pyramids scattered across the valley in a straight line.

The interior was dark and quiet as a tomb, Shaw had managed to introduce the ATV through the partially buried entrance. She parked the vehicle there and dragged David's body inside the tunnels. For what she could figure, this temple was identical to the first one, a honeycomb of tunnels and circular rooms.

Once she reached the room filled with oxygen, Shaw set up camp, accommodating David's body besides an intermittent water stream. She put the duffel bag in the ground and pulled out David's head, setting it next to the flare gun. Elizabeth took off her helmet and took a deep breath before depositing it on the stone floor.

-"Dr. Shaw?" David spoke.

Elizabeth didn't respond, just covered her face with her hands and cried. She cried not only for the recent events, but everything and everyone she had lost in life: her mother, her father, Charlie, her faith… She sighed deeply once more and gazed into David's blue eyes.

-"Are you sure you can take me to their homeworld, David?" She asked.

-"By extrapolating what I saw on the other ship and studying their naviga-" David responded.

-"Save the details," Shaw cut him off, "just say yes or no."

-"Yes," he said, "but I don't think that in my actual state-" He paused again, choosing his words carefully. "May I ask what you hope to achieve by going there?"

Shaw frowned. "They made us, then they tried to kill us. They changed their minds, and I deserve to know why."

-"The answer is irrelevant." David responded, "Does it matter why they changed their mind?"

-"Yes," Shaw responded, "Yes it does."

-"Dr. Holloway… Charlie and I discussed the same question." The mention of Charlie caught Shaw's attention. David continued, looking up, as if remembering, "I told him, how disappointing it would be if the answer was: We did it because we could."

-"Yes, I guess so," Shaw pondered for a moment and then added, "But why destroy us? What did we do to deserve it?" Shaw squeezed the crucifix tight.

-"You humans keep thinking in absolutes," David said, looking at the little wooden icon in Shaw's hands, "Good and bad, crime and punishment."

Shaw frowned, trying to understand what the android was trying to explain.

-"In my personal experience," he paused for the image to form in Shaw's mind, "for every David 8 series android online, there has to be hundreds of outdated series decommissioned and destroyed out there. Would those who benefit from the finished work say that Mr. Weyland was evil for dismantling those first generation androids?"

-"We are talking about living human beings!" Shaw bursted, "not some machines!"

-"The human body is a machine that winds up its own springs. Julien Offray de la Mettrie." David quoted stoically. "Dr. Shaw, it is a chauvinistic point of view to measure a species by human standards." Shaw wiped the tears from his eyes, David continued, "Those 'engineers' may be very human-like, even on a genetic level, but their ethical standards aren't."

Elizabeth did not reply, the android was right. Her faith had prompted her to think that an all-loving creator would care for her creation, but it had been nothing more than naivety. It was more than obvious, it had always been: "And he created man in his image and likeness..." If that was true, then she shouldn't be surprised that 'engineers' were so xenophobic.

-"You should rest, Dr. Shaw." David advised her.

Shaw drank from the water bottle, ate an energy ration and leaned against a rectangular stone slab, covering her suit with a mylar blanket. Soon, she was peacefully sleeping.

- o -

A few rays of sunlight filtered through the opening in the temple's roof, touching Shaw's face. She slowly opened her eyes to find David staring at her. She was shocked by the fact that the android was staring at her all night.

-"How long did I sleep?" Shaw questioned.

-"Seven hours, twenty-two minutes, forty seconds."

-"Let's go," she said, getting up and putting her helmet back on. She took David's head and started to put it back in the bag, "Where?"

-"If the configuration is the same, the hangar should be at the end of the south corridor." David replied, but lacking limbs, he used his eyes to point to a passageway, "over there."

Shaw slung the bag over her shoulder and walked a few steps before stopping, leaning over her belly and groaning. "Ouch,"

-"Is something wrong Dr. Shaw?"

-"It's nothing, I'm fine." she replied.

-"Maybe you should get back to the lifeboat and gather some medical equipment to treat that." David sounded really concerned.

No way, She thought, remembering what was there and wondering if they were still alive. "I'm okay," she repeated.

-"Even if there's no infection," the android insisted, "you will need nourishment. We don't know how long the journey will take." David turned his eyes to Shaw's belly. "The escape pod contains medical supplies, tools, and… food."

Shaw stopped, pondering her options. Fuck , The android was right.

-"Oh right," She agreed, then added sarcastically, "you wait here." She slung the shotgun she had picked up back on the downed juggernaut on her shoulder. It had belonged to Jackson, she had found it next to his body.

Elizabeth walked out to the ATV and drove back to the place where the lifeboat had crash-landed. The hatch was still half open, and an eerie red light bathed the pod's interior. She checked the shotgun's ammo. Good , 6 rounds remained in the weapon's chamber.

Shaw had no idea what had happened to the last engineer or the monster she had released, but she really hoped both of them had killed each other. She pressed a button and the hatch closed.

"Re-pressurization in progress." The pod's computer's metallic voice crackled through the speakers.

Shaw walked carefully, trying not to make noise. When she reached the first intersection, she scanned the corners, shotgun first. An explosion echoed to her right, sending a shower of sparks, causing Shaw to point there, gasping.

-"Oh god," she relaxed.

-"Re-pressurization complete," the computer reported. The blinking amber light was replaced by the usual white one.

She moved toward the medical area and then she found him. The alien was there, laying on the ground on his back, apparently dead. Beside the pale giant, a creature like a monstrous jellyfish with pale leathery skin was sprawled on the floor, dead. The monster's skin was swelling, as if it was dissolving. Odd , she thought, but didn't give it more importance.

Carefully, Shaw kicked one of the tentacles without getting any reaction. Sure enough, it was dead, but just as a precaution, she dodged it when stepping inside the med-lab. The Pauling 720i med-pod was ruined, the creature had torn off the plastic lids when it escaped from it and had trashed the lab, looking for a way out.

Plastic boxes and glass vials were scattered all around the floor. Elizabeth searched inside the modular cabinets: energy bars, water purification tablets, a filtration unit and inside a red box, a flare gun with four shells.

-"Dr. Shaw…" David called on the radio.

-"Still here, David," Shaw responded. She clipped the short gun to her suit's utility belt.

Elizabeth checked the room again in case she missed something. Next, she checked Vickers' room. The white vinyl room and the huge screen that showed Earth landscapes was destroyed by the impact. In one of the cabinets she found crew files: Fifield's resume, Ford's reference letter, Captain Janek's service history, a copy of her sketchbook and... she gasped, a photo of her and Holloway, taken in Chiquihuite cave, Mexico, just before the expedition to the Isle of Skye.

-"Oh, Charlie…" she mourned, the memory stung her heart. She took his diary and the photo, putting it on the canvas bag.

A ripping sound like a combination between cloth shear and spilled liquid caught her attention. It came from the entrance to the medical laboratory. Shaw went on alert, holding the shotgun close, very slowly, she peered through the door and was horrified by what she saw.

The 'engineer' was convulsing, his thorax was lifting off the ground and the giant's mouth gave a silent groan with each spasm. Suddenly, something sharp and pointed poked out of the humanoid's chest, squirting blue blood to the ground. Shaw restrained a scream, instinctively bringing her hand to her mouth over the helmet.

The sharp point slid down, slicing through the engineer's chest like a knife. The humanoid's thorax was left exposed, split open.

A dark, amniotic bag slid to the side from the inside, hitting the floor with a wet sound. Something got rid of its fleshy cocoon, stretching. It rolled on the floor, between guts and blood.

A slightly humanoid creature roughly the same size as a large dog stretched out its four limbs, each of them ending in sharp claws. It had a long, eel-like head with a pointed end. No eyes were visible. Two long spikes protruded from its back. The monster rose to its feet and screeched that turned into a guttural growl as its upper jaw disengaged and it shot forward.

Shaw watched in terror, cold sweat running down her body. She realized if she hadn't performed a c-section on herself earlier, she would have suffered the same fate as the engineer. The monster clicked and looked around, investigating the place. Despite having no eyes, she could swear that the creature managed to perceive its surroundings perfectly.

Will this nightmare ever end? she wondered. She crawled back very slowly, careful not to make a noise. Behind her was a closet, she could hide there. The monster walked towards the main hatch.

Shaw collided with the wall, and reaching out, fumbled for the button that opened the closet.

The creature bequeathed to the main access. Shaw cursed, the creature was just as trapped as she was. She searched for the button without looking, fearing any moment the monster would notice her. Finally, she found the round shape and pressed it. The door opened with a hissing sound, and in the next room, the beast immediately turned around and walked towards the source.

Oh god! Shaw gasped, crawling inside the storage place and desperately pushed the close button, oh no! The door slid shut just in time before the charging creature slammed against the stainless steel. It trashed, trying to pry it open but the hatch was firmly sealed.

The thing emitted a guttural growl and then a series of clicks as it examined the door. The monster slid a long, bony hand over the wall, directly over the control panel of the door. Through the window, Shaw watched as black veins pulsed within the creature's semi-translucent skull. She readied the shotgun, not knowing if she could kill it before it tore her apart.

The door opened as the humanoid nightmare pressed the button. Shaw fired point blank at it. The force of the shot sent the creature backwards, sliding three feet across the ground. It screeched and kicked until it was on his feet and prepared to attack again. Shaw fired a second round.

The bulbous head exploded like a melon, spewing chunks of white flesh and a putrid greenish liquid that hissed on contact with metal. A few drops sprayed Shaw's suit, forming pinhead-sized holes. Fortunately, the sealing foam in the suit prevented decompression. Elizabeth coughed from the acrid smoke that formed inside her suit from the acid.

-"R… U… okay, Dr. Shaw?" David called on the radio. "Wha'... ing on?"

-"Coff... everything... coff... ey David!" Shaw replied,coughing. "Everything... coff coff ... okay." She repeated, looking at the monster sprawled on the pod's gray floor.

The sooner she leaves that terrible place, the better.

She packed up some things and stepped outside. The grayish sky was clear, but Shaw knew another one of the terrible silica storms could strike at any moment. She mounted the ATV and headed back to the temple.

- o -

A/N: Welcome back readers. The chapter's name, Dark World is a song from the Alien vs Predator movie soundtrack. Chapter 2 coming soon.
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