Author's Note: I was a little late on updating this chapter, but it's uploaded nevertheless. Enjoy!
There I was, standing face to face with four other xenos, each growling and oozing aggression. I could've dove head in and tried fighting all of them. However, I have the capability of logic and I was able to analyze the circumstance and the disadvantage I was in. I decided to go with plan B: run.
I sprinted off in the opposite direction, and the rest of the xenos followed after. The four-legged xenos were faster and they were slowly closing the gap between us. Knowing it was inevitable that they were going to catch up, I made a sharp left and began climbing up one of the buildings on the street. As I climbed up, I looked down to see where the other xenos were. To my dismay, they also began scaling the wall. Damn! I was hoping they couldn't.
I quickly reached the roof and proceeded to the middle. I bent down in a fighting stance, ready for a brawl with all four of them. I was indeed fearful, as the odds were not in my favor. It was four to one, give me a break! The first xeno popped his head over the ledge. Without hesitation, I stabbed the xeno through the head, causing him to let go of the wall and plummet six stories down to the ground. A deafening splat could be heard from where I was, but I put all my focus on the next xeno.
Soon after, another one popped over, but it was smarter. It jumped into the air as to avoid the range of my tail. It pounced at me, reading to strike me with its claws. Oh no you don't! I swiftly moved to the right, narrowly avoiding his sharp claws, grabbed his arm as he was flying buy. The xeno squealed in surprise as I suspended him from the ground. With a burst of energy, I flung the xenomorph back towards the edge of the building and sent him plunging down the side.
The last two popped up from the ledge at the same time. This was going to be slightly harder to deal with. I tackled the right one to the ground, pinning its arms and legs. However, his tail was moving wildly and grazed my injured rib cage.
Grrrahhh! Damn it! I shouted to myself. But before I could do anything, the other xeno jumped onto my back and began clawing at my head. The two xeno's strength combined surpassed my own, and I was disabled and left pinned to the ground as the two xenos each held down my arm and my legs.
Get off me! Why are you doing this?! I shouted at them, Of course, they didn't understand me. Either that or they just don't want to answer back. As I saw one of the xenos approach my carapace and was ready to shoot out his inner jaw, I closed my eyes and waited for the immense pain that would ultimately lead to my death.
Bang! Bang!
Two earsplitting sounds blasted through the silence of the night. I felt the two xenos collapse on top of me and remained motionless, their blood spraying all over me in the process. What just happened? I was glad to find myself still alive. I pushed the two xenomorph corpses aside to find a human standing in front of me, with some sort of hand held weapon(a rifle). This human wasn't any normal human. It was a male human, or a man as you call them. He looked old and frail. He wore glasses, had white hair, and I couldn't help but notice his left hand was trembling uncontrollably, either from fear or that it was a health condition. He was probably a resident of the building I was on top of.
I saw what that rifle had done to those two xenomorphs, so I froze in place, afraid that this man was ready to do the same to me. Yet, he just kept pointing the weapon without actually pulling the trigger. After a few seconds of awkward staring passed, he let down his weapon.
"Are you all right, sunny boy?" the old man asked. I wasn't sure how to respond to the man. He couldn't understand me anyways, so what's the point. I got up from the ground and stood up to face him. The old lad wasn't tall at all, at most around five feet. I expected the man to be afraid of me, yet, I was getting such a nonchalant reaction from him.
"Are you alright? I heard two wild animals were attacking you, so I tried to help you out. My bullets didn't hit you, did they?" asked the man with a worried tone in his voice. Upon closer examination, I noticed the old man's eyes. They were cloudy and felt different from the other humans I've seen. The human standing before me had no vision. He was blind.
The man began making a clicking sound with his mouth. Echo location? "I know you're there. Don't be embarrassed. I can see you are injured. Come inside and let me help you recover." The man walked over to me, slowly as he moved one leg at a time. I was thankful, this man did just save my life. It was clear he was not hostile at all.
The old man was now standing just a foot away from me. I flinched as he reached out and touched my exoskeleton. "Oh! What is this? Are you wearing some sort of protective gear?" This man thought I was a human?! What should I do? I didn't know how to react. I accidentally let out a low growl, and the man jumped back surprised. "Huh, what was that? Did you make that noise?"
I suddenly felt the ground spin under me. I lost too much blood and I was feeling very fatigued. I was out cold before I even felt my body impact the ground.
Hello, my name is Felix Anderson. I'm just an old lad who retired at the age of seventy in Concord, California. I was a war veteran who fought in the Vietnam War. Boy were those the days of excitement. I severed ties from the military after the Cold War died out and took a boring old job as a salesman for a printer company. Now, I'm an old fart who's 82 years old, living in a little apartment all alone by himself. Most of the people I knew around my age had passed on already. It's a shame life can be so unpredictable.
Oh, and about my disability. That happened when I was serving in the military. Enemy soldiers had threw a flash bomb and I was in the prime vicinity of the blast. My eyes took the full on impact and they were damaged beyond repair. That was when I was in my twenties. I've gotten very used to living life without seeing anything. I learned echo location extremely well, so I can now tell the general shape of my surroundings and can tell if someone is near me.
It was a cold day of September in California I was awaken by he sound of growling and struggling from the roof. I lived on the highest floor of the apartment building, so I was the first to presond to the sound. It was quite early in the morning, around 4:30 am. To be safe, I grabbed my handy dandy rifle and headed up the fire escape and to the roof.
I saw, or at least heard, two vicious animals clawing at another creature under them. What were wild animals doing on top of my building? I clicked my teeth together and listened to the vibration of the sounds. I couldn't see clearly, but it was definitely two quadruped animals attacking some sort of bipedal animal. A person! I could only assume that the two animals were dogs or wolves. I had to save him quick. I pointed my gun and fired two shots, each at the two animals on top, making sure to miss the person trapped underneath.
The sound of struggling has seized as I heard the two dogs(?) collapse onto the ground and stayed motionless. Looks like I still got my skills from the days during the war. The person on the ground got up on his feet, but something felt amiss.
"Are you alright?" I asked. You know, the common stuff you say to someone you try saving. I walked up to him and tried to feel for any wounds he made have suffered when I heard a beastial growl come from the person's(?) mouth. I was quite surprised and jumped back. Was he even a human? His skin felt very hard, maybe weird clothing, but it felt lifelike, like touching the scales of a reptile. I tried talking to him or it again, but I heard it collapse onto the ground. Oh no, I hope I didn't accidentally shoot him just then….
Upon closer examination, this thing wasn't human at all. It had a long banana shape head and protrusion coming out of his back. The "dogs" I thought were attacking it had a similar body, except they had less human-like characteristics.
I remembered the news from the night before. Some sort of creature had been found near this area, and some are claiming it to be an alien, but somehow managed to escape during transportation. Could this be that creature? I was tempted to dial the police, but I didn't trust them. What would the cops do if they find this guy, they would surely lock him up and do all sorts of inhumane experiments on this poor creature.
I guess my sympathy for the creature beat out my logical thinking. I began to drag him across the roof. He was definitely injured and I had medical supplies in my apartment. It was a hassle trying to carry him down the fire escape, but trust me, I may be an old man but I have a lot of muscle from the days I served in the military. I constantly had to carry things that were larger than my body weight.
After what seemed like eternity, I finally got him into apartment. Little did I know that I had left a trail of scorched marks from my path from the roof to my apartment door. I dragged the creature into my foyer, and his body barely managed to fit through the door.
I grabbed my medical supplies and bent down to examine his rib cage wound. Oddly, this creatue had a very similar anatomy to that of a human. I put on my gloves and began using gauze to stop the bleeding. I began to smell something burning, and then I heard my glove sizzling.
"What the hell?!" I yelled out as I flicked off my glove and tossed them into the corner. This creature's blood was…..high corrosive! I hadn't noticed the whole time. I needed to find a way to stop the bleeding, but his blood was destroying the gauze. I got another idea. I went to grab a role of titanium fortified strip. It was large and pliable, and I wrapped it around the xenomorphs wounds. As expected, the strip stayed in place and was able to stop the bleeding. I took a little chemistry in high school and learned that titanium was a metal that was acid resistant.
I repeated the procedure for his head. After I finished bandaging the creature up, I let him rest on the floor as I went and opened up the shades in the room. The time was 5:30 am. I began to see the sun rising over the mountains.
How long was I out? I really have to stop passing out. I began to rub my head, but I noticed some material had been wrapped around where my wound was. Huh? I looked at the other wound on my rib cage. The same material was wrapping that area as well. What happened?
I scanned my surroundings and noticed I wasn't on the roof anymore. I was inside the building, and there was so much light in the room coming from an open window. The light source was from the sun, this planet's sun.
"I see you're awake." said a voice. Startled by the voice, I jumped back and got into a fighting stance. "Whoa whoa, wait! I'm not here to hurt you. I was the one who treated your wounds there." he said.
I relaxed a little as I remembered this man, the one who shot those other xenos and saved me. He was sitting in front of me on a couch. "I know this may be a stupid question, but can you speak?" he asked.
I remained silent.
"Can you understand me? Cause if not, I would be a senile old man talking to himself the whole time." he said.
I can understand you, but I just don't know how to communicate with you. I said to him.
"Oh, so you can speak." said the blind man.
What?!
"What?"
You can understand me?
"Um, yeah. You're speaking English, right?" he said. I couldn't believe what was happening. Are there humans that can detect xenomorph telepathy?
Author's Note: So, how is this old man able to understand Hunter? Is this Felix really a kind person who would randomly help out a menacing alien, or does he have some sort of secret motive? As always, please leave a comment about how you think the story is so far. Lots of thanks to the people who are reading and actively giving me feedback in each chapter. I very much appreciate it and I hope you keep up the responses.