Alien: Isolation

Chapter Eleven: Escape from San Christobal

It's gone to hell in here, was her first thought as she left Patient Zero's observation room, and Ripley couldn't help but get choked up a little as she heard the now familiar sound of screams and gunfire. Thankfully, these sounds, along with the creature's shrieking, were coming from the other direction, so she crouched down and tried to stay quiet as she made her way back toward where the trauma kit had fallen.

There were streaks and splatters of blood along the previously sterile-white walls, and there were bodies as well. A lot of them had been impaled and discarded, like both Axel and Kuhlman had been, but she also noticed that there were smaller blood trails that led up into the vents, as if the creature had been taking the ones that were only wounded instead of killed, back up there for some reason. Probably to use for food later, but this was a thought that she didn't like the idea of dwelling on, so she tried to force it from her mind.

As she reached the area where the trauma kit and maintenance jack had fallen, Ripley also noticed that there were small burn marks along the floor. Actually, it was more like tiny holes had been burned right through the floor, since she could see the lights from the next deck below coming through it, and around the hole was a strange greenish-yellow substance. At first this confused her, since it looked like someone had been walking around with an overfilled container of acid, but then she saw the bullet holes in the wall nearby… which had also been burned a little.

She probably shouldn't have wasted the time that it took to dwell on such a small thing, but Ripley couldn't help it as she put the trauma kit's strap over her shoulder and tucked the maintenance jack into the back of her belt. Burns like this meant that either someone on Sevastopol had invented some kind of acid-filled bullet, which was a pretty neat idea, or that the smaller burns on the wall were from the bullets passing through the creature… which was not a very neat idea. But it would explain how the acid was dripping on the floor.

"Acid for blood?" She whispered, looking at the hole again. "What the fuck is this thing?"

Another scream and some gunfire interrupted her thoughts, which was good because those lunatics were still distracting the creature, but now she had to move quickly since it was bound to run out of them soon. A plan was forming in her mind of how to sneak through, since the EXIT sign pointed right toward where the noise was coming from, but then she saw that one of the bodies had a revolver next to it. The cylinder was open, and there was also a small number of bullets scattered across the floor nearby, as if the owner had been attacked while reloading, so Ripley grabbed all of it up, before crawling underneath the nearest gurney.

Her hands were shaking as she fumbled to load all six into the cylinder, but soon her new weapon was loaded and closed, making her feel just a little bit safer. Of course, firearms didn't seem to be doing the others very much good, as another scream was quickly silenced, but Ripley tried not to think about that as she got out from under the gurney, and started back down the corridor. There were more bodies as she followed the signs toward the exit, and both screams and gunfire were getting louder, but she tried to keep her mind on nothing but escape… until she passed by an observation window.

There was a man inside the room, running toward the far end, with the creature following in through another door a couple seconds later. Ripley should have been escaping, but she couldn't help but watch as the man tried to shoulder his way through the locked door in front of him, while the creature slowly closed in. Its movements were so graceful for something that size, but its worst feature was its human-like teeth that gave it a constant sinister grin. There was no door on this side, and the glass was shatter-proof, meaning that she couldn't help, but then the man turned to face the creature.

His own pistol in hand, he screamed while firing wildly, making the creature twitch a little as some of its green acidic blood spilled onto the floor. Only one of the bullets actually hit the creature; the others hitting things around the room, and even making Ripley jump when one impacted the glass she was looking through, but the last bullet must've hit an exposed gas line or something, because suddenly the area he was standing in was engulfed by a stream of fire. The man screamed as he was quickly killed… but the creature screamed as well; jumping back from the flames, and falling over a desk, almost as if it were panicking until the fire on its body went out a couple seconds later.

It doesn't like fire? She wondered as the fire-suppression systems kicked in, filling the enclosed room with smoke. Finally, some good news, and Ripley was considering how to make some kind of flame-based weapon, even something as simple as a Molotov Cocktail, when all thoughts stopped as the creature appeared at the window. Coming through the smoke as if inside a nightmare, it towered over her for a moment, and then its tail shot forward. The spear-like appendage moved almost faster than she could see as it penetrated the glass, stopped mere inches from her chest when the tail's ridges couldn't pass through.

Letting out a surprised yelp as she jumped backwards, only to stumble into the opposite wall and fall on her rear, Ripley was so scared that she could move… until she realized that the creature wasn't moving either. It was trying to, and appeared to become frustrated when it couldn't remove its tail from the glass. Stuck? The creature was stuck? It screamed and shrieked as it tried and tried to dislodge its tail, and as fucked up as the situation was, Ripley couldn't help but let out a small, terrified laugh at what she was seeing.

This laugh stopped, however, when the creature looked down at her, as if it understood what her noise meant, and now it didn't look away as it moved its head up to the stuck tail, while slowly opening its mouth. The inner mouth thing that she had seen it use on Kuhlman suddenly shot out, striking the tail with enough force to complete sever it, and then the creature screamed while stumbling back a step, all the while green acid pouring out from the wound. However, the creature soon regained its composure, continuing to stare at Ripley as its wounded tail stopped moving, and it took her a second to realize that all of the acidic blood was now being sprayed on the shatter-proof glass.

"No." She barely whispered as the creature's grin seemed to widen. "No!"

Small cracks were starting to form in the glass as Ripley scrambled to her feet, and the creature shrieked when she began sprinting down the corridor with all of her strength. Aside from the creature's noises, the whole place had become silent, and her mind was just starting to realize that this was because everyone was dead, when she heard the sound of glass shattering behind her. The creature's next shriek, along with the sound of heavy footsteps following her, pushed Ripley to run even faster, and then she passed through a doorway into a huge reception area.

Not stopping to try and seal the door behind her, nor to take in any of the details of the room, she sprinted right past the reception desk, and came to a stop by slamming right into the door that would take her out of San Christobal. But it didn't open, and there was no red indicator light on this one, meaning that there was no power, meaning that she couldn't use the access tuner to get out. She was trapped, and now her knees were shaking again as Ripley turned around just in time to see the creature appear in the doorway.

It had stopped running, and just looked at her for a second before slowly moving into the room. There was nowhere that she could have ran to or hid, so her only option was to aim the revolver, and try to somehow do alone, what dozens of armed people before her could not. So she started shooting, a bang and flash of light being produced with each shot, but the creature barely twitched in reaction to each bullet striking it in the head and chest. Then her weapon went click, meaning that it was empty, so she tossed the revolver at its head, but missed, and the creature didn't seem to notice as it flew past its head and made a soft clang on the floor behind it.

Once again towering over her, Ripley was incapable of moving or thinking when the creature placed its large dark hands on her shoulders. However, she was dimly aware of feeling wetness running down her leg as she pissed herself when its face was moved closer to hers. The creature then started to open its mouth to kill her in the same way that it had killed Kuhlman, when suddenly there was a bright light. For an instant she thought that she had died and it was the light of Heaven, but then a second light appeared, and the creature was reacting as well.

Keeping its powerful grip on her shoulders as it looked around, Ripley realized that the light was coming from work lights that had been positioned all-round the room. Then she noticed that the inside of the circular reception desk was filled with over a dozen yellow barrels, each marked with the explosive warning placard, and now a high-pitched sound of growing intensity was filling the room.

"Oh, my God." Ripley said, realizing what was about to happen.

The creature shrieked as the explosives went off, filling the room with orange light, and making her ears ring as she was thrown backwards. She must've blacked out for a minute, since it felt like she had only blinked, when everything in the room was different. Her ears were still ringing, making it impossible to hear, but the whole room was on fire, and most importantly… the creature was gone. Unfortunately, the fire-suppression systems hadn't come on, and the smoke was making it hard to breathe, so she had to get out of there.

Getting to her feet turned out to be an impossible task, so she crawled, although this was also difficult due to the dizziness and confusion. The explosion seemed to have blown the nearest door off its hinges, so she crawled through into an area where there was no fire, and she kept crawling for who knows how long until suddenly her hands no longer touched the floor. The good news was that the ringing in her ears was starting to fade, but the bad news was that now she was tumbling down a long flight of stairs.

There was no way to stop herself in her current condition, so she crashed to the bottom a few seconds later, where she was content to stay, until she felt something grab onto her. Her panic was completely restored as visions of the creature flashed through her mind, and the surge of adrenaline actually helped her hearing and vision as she flailed against her attacker, but when they pulled her to her feet, she realized that it wasn't the creature… but people.

There were several of them around, all wearing uniforms, as well as what looked like police badges, but then she saw someone that made her feel happy for the first time in… since she got to Sevastopol. His image was blurry at first, but as the ringing stopped and her eyesight focused, she stopped fighting.

"Ripley?" Samuels asked, holding onto her. "Ripley, are you all right?"

"Samuels?" She asked before completely collapsing onto him.