Chapter 2: The Nightmare Continues

Jake was dreaming a really strange and very scary dream. In it, he had been taken by the hunter-types to the hive. He'd been restrained, yet this time, him and Newt were across the room.

Jake looked around, and this time could see the queen lay a red-colored egg right next to him. He knew what this was. It was a Queen egg, meant to make a face-hugger carrying a queen seed in it.

He saw down the hall to the elevator, and could see the rescue party come. This time however, the elevator was very far off. He heard a hiss. Turning his head towards the sound, he saw a red face-hugger emerge from the egg and start crawling towards him.

He heard a familiar voice. In it, he saw Roxane, in her guardian angel outfit, repeating the word "Soon." He saw Ripley and the team make it to the chamber, yet they focused on rescuing only Newt. In fact, they left him there, like they forgot.

He screamed as the face-hugger drew closer, moving with a purpose. It came, closer, closer, closer, until it got within distance to jump onto his face. He heard Roxane say "soon, but not now" a change in her talk as the face-hugger attached itself…

Jake screamed as he woke up. Looking around, he saw everyone take a seat around him. It seemed like they were all worried.

"Must have been one hell of a nightmare kid." Hudson said, breaking the silence. "You were thrashing like a fish out of water, and screaming like a banshee."

Jake looked around. He was very unsure of where he was.

He saw the yellow tiles and remembered. "Where's Marcus?" he asked.

"You mean Clemens?" Ripley asked.

"Yeah, what happened to him. I want to know where I am." Jake answered.

"Clemens is out having breakfast." Ripley answered. "As for where you are, you're on Fiorana 361, also called Fury. It's a prison world. There will be a ship here to pick us up in three days."

"Well apparently, we had been ejected out of the Sulaco from some kind of emergency, and it seems that there were some face-huggers aboard the ship." Bishop went on to explain.

Jake was worried. He'd had a very bad feeling about what was going on. He thought that he was free, that he would have nothing to worry about, and that he could get on with the rest of his life with the help of his new family. He was wrong though.

Newt walked up to him and wrapped him in a big hug. She said "You're the best brother ever. I hope you don't have anymore nightmares like that."

Jake smiled. It seemed like no matter what, Newt would always make him happy again.

"And you're the best little sister a guy could ask for. I love you sis."

Jake answered. He was happy to have a family that cared about him, yet he wasn't quite ready to start calling Ripley 'mom' like Newt did. He may not have ever had a mother in his life, yet he was almost a grown man, and at this point, he was unsure about it.

Ripley looked at Jake "I hope you feel okay about the nightmares, I mean, the stuff that seems to make them the worst is that they have your worst fears with the things play out." Ripley consoled.

Jake however wasn't okay with the nightmare he'd had. Had Ripley ever had a face-hugger crawl to her while the people she counted on left her for dead, and a figure that you've counted on be telling you the worst possible stuff.

"Well" He whispered to Ripley "I personally don't feel okay with them. And I'd prefer to talk with you about them alone, preferably where we won't be made fun of or scare young children."

"Okay, I understand." She replied. " I personally had nightmares for weeks after my first encounter. I didn't want to talk about them at all."

Then Clemens came back, with breakfast for everyone. "I decided to get you all something from the cafeteria. I thought it would be best if you all stayed away from the prisoners." He handed everyone trays of what appeared to be yellow goop.

Everyone looked at their food for a moment, wondering what it was. It was Newt who voiced the collective opinion first; "What is this stuff? It looks gross."

Clemens laughed "It was supposed to be eggs, at least it's what the prisoners are told. However, the food processors aren't what they used to be, and when you press in for it to produce eggs, this stuff comes out. However, it tastes just like eggs, minus the texture." He explained.

Hicks started to shovel it in as soon as Clemens started to speak. Soon, Hudson and Vasquez followed suit. Jake and Newt looked at Ripley, who tried it and said "Tastes just like eggs. It really does."

At this point, Jake realized he was hungry, and started to eat it anyways. After Newt saw that even he was eating it, she started to eat it, though she grimaced after swallowing.

Clemens wasn't lying when he said it tasted like eggs without their familiar texture; yet the texture it had instead was not a pleasant one.

It felt like eating slime, and stuck together no matter how hard you tried to break it down in your mouth. It also made a squishing sound when you chewed. The texture it had would have made a regular person, used to decent food on a regular basis spit it out.

However, these were not those type of people. The three marines were used to poor-quality food in the form of rations. Jake and Newt both got used to eating whatever food was found that didn't go bad. Ripley however was sort of used to that, yet it seemed that she just wanted to eat.

Jake felt that he didn't want to go through a similar ordeal. He remembered having a week's worth of ration bars in his jacket.

His jacket. He started looking all over for the jacket, which was nowhere to be found.

He remembered he put it in a gear-pod, which was with his cryo-tube. He turned to Clemens and asked "Where are our stasis pods?"

Clemens stood there for a second, and then answered "We have them in the other room to the infirmary. Yours had a thing attached that held some stuff."

"I know" Jake replied "I want to have my stuff that was in it."

"I'd happily give it to you if we could get it open. The thumb-switch won't open to any of us." Clemens explained.

"Just let me at it. It only opens to the owner." Jake answered.

"Go right ahead." Clemens permissed, opening the other room's door.

Jake went right ahead in locating his tube, and found the gear-pod. Applying his thumb to the switch, it made a ding and opened up.

In it, was his jacket and Katana, which lay on top. "So good to be back" Jake said to himself as he put on the jacket and attached the Katana to the inside.

Walking back to the infirmary's main room, he took out his journal and started to update it.

Just as Clemens started to walk away, Vasquez spoke up. "This place wouldn't happen to have a gym or workout area would it?"

Clemens turned around and answered "It does, yet the prisoners often use it for most of the day. I recommend that you all don't intermingle with the prisoners here." He paused "I will let you work out as much as you want during the times where they don't have access to it. I'll take you to it when that happens today."

Clemens then walked out of the infirmary. Jake hadn't thought about that. According to what Hicks said next, he hadn't either.

"Vasquez, that's a great idea." He then turned to where he was facing Hudson and Vasquez at the same time. "Marines, this is just another day we wait. I am going to have all of us work out in the gym so that we don't go soft. This is just another day in the corp. So when Clemens comes to show us where it is, I want both of you to go with him. That is all"

Jake was impressed. He then wondered if the place had any rope and a board of some sort. He'd thought about practicing with the Katana, try to stay sharp with it.

Jake had been thinking for a good while before Ripley interrupted him, startling him at the same time "You okay Jake, you've been staring into space for a good five minutes."

Jake looked around. He always managed to lose track of time whenever he thought to himself.

"Jake" Newt asked "Can I play games on your cellular?"

Jake realized what she wanted to do, and started to fish through his jacket. After a good three minutes of looking through all of the pockets, he found it, and handed it to Newt.

He didn't mind if Newt played games on it. He had his music player. Taking it out of his jacket, and slipping the collapsible headphones over his head, he turned on the music.

Slowly, yet surely, he got lost in the rock 'n roll and slipped away. A good three hours passed, and he was for a moment in Musical Nirvana before someone went to the Infirmary with news.

It was Clemens. "I have some very unfortunate news. It appears that someone has died." He announced.

"What happened?" Jake said, slipping off the headphones while the music was playing.

"Somebody died" Clemens reiterated. "It was very unusual too. In fact, strange things have started to happen that usually wouldn't. I'm starting to think that it's nothing. But if Dillon links two and two with his spiritual mentality, and if the prisoners believe him, You'll be considered a bad luck charm."

Jake wasn't scared, and frankly the marines weren't either. However Ripley asked "Was it an accident or did he get killed?"

"It was an accident, yet a very unusual one at that." Clemens answered.

"Can we go see what happened?" Ripley asked. Jake agreed. They should see what happened. He didn't like the idea of possibly being a bad-luck-charm.

"Yeah, because if it is what we think it is, then things are gonna be bad." Jake added.

Clemens paused for a minute, thinking and expressing the mood of his thoughts before he answered "Go ahead, nothing's stopping you."

Hicks agreed to join the three of them, and gave an order to Hudson and Vasquez to keep an eye on Newt.

The four of them left, on their way to find out if their hunch was right.