Recap: "Thanks Jack." she murmured, while immediately wrapping an arm around the boy's shoulders for better support.
Imam came in at last, and Paris and Johns at once grabbed several boxes and whatnot and stacked them in front of the entrance.
Hope POV
I looked around and noticed that Riddick was already gone. My gaze fell on Blade and Peter who were looking down a dark hallway with a frown.
I stood up and walked over to them. "Blade, Peter, where's Riddick?" I asked softly with a frown. Blade glanced at me for a moment before looking back at the hallway. "Gone. He went to check out the area." he grunted which made me feel concerned.
I heard the creatures wailing somewhere deeper in the room and then realized something. 'Hassan!' I thought and glanced around, but he was nowhere to be found. "Oh no," I murmured.
I thought back to the movie and knew that with my bad leg, it would be unwise to go after them. The wounds would probably attract the bioraptors to me instead.
'It's too late now. I can't help him anymore. Poor boy. So young to die.' I thought sadly to myself. 'Yet another life I couldn't save. Great.' I thought bitterly and mentally cursed my wounds once again.
Then a thought came to me 'Maybe I can't help Hassan anymore but maybe I can save Riddick some pain.' I thought to myself and nodded. Yeah, that's what I would do.
"Riddick?" called Owens suddenly while he looked around with the torch in his hand. "Don't. Stop. Burning." came the tense reply, making me frown.
"Here, take this." said Owens to Johns "Here, take that," retorted Johns while he traded his flashlight with Owens' torch.
Turning around, he immediately turned to the wall on his right and started burning a hole.
I felt the tension in the atmosphere grow and wrung my hands. I longed so badly to save Hassan. I hated this feeling of helplessness and hoped that when the wounds were healed completely as they were stitching together, I never had to feel so helpless again.
All of a sudden Blade turned around and stalked over to Johns. "Gimme the torch," he ordered making the merc blink and look up at him in confusion before he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "What for?" he asked suspiciously. Blade frowned deeper. "So that I can burn, merc. What else?" he asked, annoyed. Johns glared at him which Blade returned with vigor.
"Hassan. Where is Hassan?" asked Imam suddenly, which caught Johns' attention for a split second.
It was all Blade needed.
He ripped the torch out of the merc's hand and then crouched down next to him and started burning. Doing this clearly quicker than Johns, which he noticed.
Glaring at him with slight jealousy, he was pulled out of his thoughts when Imam suddenly grabbed him by the arms. "Has anyone seen Hassan?" he asked desperately.
In that moment, I could see the movie scene playing out in front of my eyes. Hassan's fear making him bolt right into the arms of death. Riddick turning to face one of the monsters.
I was brought out of my thoughts when high-pitched screeches filled the air.
The sounds caught not only my attention, but that of the others also.
Blade was just finished with the hole when the screeches started. He stood up and roughly pushed the torch into Johns' hands.
He walked over to where he previously stood and scanned the dark hallway.
I limped over to him, step in front of him, and whispered, "Riddick." Blade and Peter glanced at me. What I had failed to notice was that Aurora, my own sister, had made it look like I lost the triplets. Three boys, one Blade's, one Riddick's, one Peter's.
I narrowed my eyes and watched the hallway for any signs of Riddick.
Suddenly I saw him coming around the corner. "Riddick get down!" I cried just as the others pointed their lights at him.
Riddick threw himself to the ground at my cry just when the light was shone his way.
I stood too close when he did this and jumped back quickly out of reflex.
I bumped into Blade at the same time as I put pressure on my bad leg. The pain in my leg made me stumble for the umpteenth time, but an arm wrapped itself around my waist to steady her in time.
Glancing behind me, I saw that it was Blade who held me. However, I had no time to react as the first creature was about to fly off upwards to avoid the light.
Blade moved quickly. He roughly pulled me beside him and grabbed his sword with his other hand at the same time.
The bioraptor had no chance to react as Blade swung his sword and cut the creature's chest making a lot of blood and a bit of flesh splash over me and Blade.
It wailed in pain and fell to the ground writhing in pain.
Its blood had splashed all over my clothes and splattered only a little bit on Blade's clothes.
I was about to say something when Blade twisted his sword so that the blade pointed downwards and stabbed it straight through the bioraptor's head.
I felt a shiver go down my spine as I looked down at the creature. They had come down here to kill us. To wipe us out like the vermin we were to them. But we weren't going to just lay down and accept that fate. We were going to fight until our last breath.
Johns took this moment to appear on Blade's right, aimed his gun and started shooting at the second bioraptor. It flew upwards to avoid the light and Johns followed its arc and shot at it until he was out of bullets. I watched in awe as Blade pulled his sword out of the bioraptor and it fell to the ground, its tail flailing for a moment before it fell limp and died.
Meanwhile, I saw Riddick calmly stand up and glance over at me. I had forgotten he was here, too. I realized he was still looking at me, so I met his gaze and gave him a small nod. I could tell he was assessing my situation and it made me feel a bit uneasy but also comforted. His unwavering gaze made me feel safe and secure.
Finally, I looked down at my clothes, which were splattered with blue blood. It was a reminder of how dangerous our mission was. It didn't smell very fresh either, but at least we were still alive. I took a deep breath and willed my courage to stay firm. We were still in this fight, and we weren't going to stop until we defeated these things.
I was still trying to process what had just happened when the others started to slowly walk up and aim their flashlights at the ceiling as the bioraptors had disappeared. Suddenly, without warning, the creature fell down from above with a loud thud, right in front of Blade and me.
Everyone screamed in surprise and shock, almost causing me to burst into tears in fear. But I held in my emotions and caught a glimpse of Riddick out of the corner of my eye. He had rolled his shoulders and glanced down at the creature dispassionately, not appearing to be as drawn in shock as the rest of us.
My gaze had landed on the dead body of the bioraptor when it fell, covered in blood, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of sorrow for its demise. I wondered if another creature had attacked it or if it had been done with a weapon. The thought made me shudder.
Blade had his arm dropped and stood next to me, a silent presence of security and support. I looked up to him, trying to read any potential danger he was sensing in the area since I was too still shaken to detect anything. I didn't know if the creatures were the only ones or if there were more.
My pulse quickened as I watched the bioraptor lifelessly lying on the ground. The flashes of light from our flashlights stirred the hope in me that this was the answer we had been searching for.
Owens was the first to speak. "Are they alive?" he asked softly, peeking from behind Blade.
Everyone drew closer to the body and began to scan the area for more of them. Johns took the chance to reload his gun. As we slowly moved the lights across their body, I noticed that the skin seemed to sizzle from the light.
"It's like the light is scalding it." Paris said, holding onto Owens tightly and not daring to step any closer.
"It hurts them. Light actually hurts them." Owens said and a spark of hope flashed in his eyes.
Unable to contain my curiosity, I stepped forwards and reached out to touch the bioraptor. "Hope!" hissed Owens suddenly making me flinch in surprise at the sudden noise. Everyone else warned me to stop but I ignored them and kept going. My hand reached out slowly and to my shock the bioraptor twitched. Everybody gasped in surprise.
Imam stepped forward and aimed his light at the figure. He called out in Arabic but got no response. I opened my mouth to say something but before I could, Johns simply said, "We'll burn a candle for him later. Come on, let's get out of here." I wanted to do something to help but I knew that we had to leave.
Jack and I followed the others with a feeling of dread. I glanced behind me at the figure and couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt for leaving him there alone in the darkness. I looked at Jack and saw the same uncertainty mirrored on his face. Together we hurried to catch up with the others, with a single mission: get out of there alive.
Aurora POV
I walked over to Hope and sat beside her, bumping her shoulder with enthusiasm and causing a few others to look our way. Being around these guys put me on edge, but Hope was so calm like always. She smiled at me gratefully "Thanks Aur, you are my pillar of strength." She whispered before going back to ignoring everyone around us. I closed my eyes and focused on the buzzing of the light above us. The words started flowing and soon I was telling Hope a story about a brave warrior that was fighting a group of dragons to prove his worth to the kingdom. Her breathing soon became out of pace with mine, so I knew she had fallen asleep, but I kept going until eventually, I too drifted off.
I was suddenly awoken by a loud noise coming from the other room. I opened my eyes to find Riddick, Blade, Peter and Johns placing stuff in front of the hole. The room was illuminated by the torch that Owens had laid down in the middle of the room on a box. I looked over to my side to find my 18-year-old pregnant sister Hope (though only Hope and I know that she is pregnant with triplets, one Blade's, one Riddick's, one Peter's) dozing off beside me.
12-year-old Jackie was snuggled close to her. She glanced my way and sniffed, "You smell awful," she commented with a grin. Hope scrunched her face but didn't say anything in response.
Owens was giving instructions about what to do next, but I tuned him out and focused on my sister instead. Hope looked so tired and uncomfortable. After a few minutes of just watching, I got up and got her a bottle of water from the supplies that had been placed by the entrance. She thanked me with a small smile before taking a sip and closing her eyes.
Aurora watched Hope handing out the bottles to Owens and couldn't help but smile. She had to admit, Hope had known what she was doing.
Aurora remembered when she had seen Hope carrying the bag with the bottles. She had wanted to tell Hope to throw them away, but she hadn't. It seemed like Hope had known that they'd be useful.
Aurora sat in her seat, pulling her bag onto her lap. She rummaged through it, eyeing the prepackaged food and the two bottles of alcohol. She sighed; she was wishing she had thought to put some water in the bottles when she had the chance.
Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by Paris' voice. "Spirits." he said, fanning himself. "Anything over 45 percent burns rather well." he remarked. "I have here two and a half bottles, but I'm not sure if they're over 45 or not." Hope said, pulling them out of her bag.
Paris' face lit up. "Yes, they should do. I thought you had thrown them away?" he commented, making Hope smile.
"Nah, thought they might've come in handy later on. Seems I was right." she said with a smirk before offering the bottles to Owens.
Aurora couldn't help but be in awe of Hope. She had known what she was doing all along. Aurora just wished she had been as foresightful.
Owens put the bottles down in the middle of the group. "How many bottles do you got? These two included," he asked Paris.
"I don't know, maybe ten or eleven," he told her with a frown, thinking back to the bottles in his sarcophagus.
Owens nodded and he turned his gaze to Johns. "Okay, Johns, you got some flares?" he asked him to which he nodded. "So, maybe we've got enough light." he finished with a thought.
Johns glared up at him. "Enough for what?" he demanded annoyed.
"We stick to the plan. We take the eight cells back to the skiffs and we're off this planet." he told him.
Paris stood up. "Look. I hate to ruin such a beautiful theory with an ugly fact…but that Sandcat's solar." he remarked, while he walked over to Fry and sat down next to her. "It won't run at night." finished Paris
"So, we carry the cells. We drag them, whatever it takes," he told everyone with a determined look, glancing from face to face.
I nodded in agreement, knowing that at least some of them would make it.
Jackie wrapped her arms around her knees. "You mean tonight? With all those things still out there?" she asked, terrified and started shaking at the mere thought of going out there.
Hope and I frowned and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, making the kid look up at us. "It's going to be okay. We'll make it." we told her with a smile. She then looked up at Owens. "I agree with Owens. We can make it as long as we have light with us." she told everyone while looking around.
"That's enough out of you. Why should we leave? I mean, how long can this last? A few hours? A day tops?" asked Johns while standing up.
Imam looked down at the beads in his hands. "I have the impression from the model that the two planets were moving as one… and that there would be a lasting darkness." he said grimly.
Johns made a sound. "These suns gotta come up sometime. And if these creatures are phobic to light, we just sit tight and we let the sun come up." said Johns calmly in a drawl.
Owens stared at him. "I'm sure somebody else said that…. Locked up in that Coring Room."
"We need to think about everyone now, especially the kid. How scared is this boy gonna be out there in the dark?" he asked while motioning to Jackie.
Hope gave him a foul glare. "Don't use him like that!" she spat out at the same time as Owens, and I did.
We two women and Owens blinked and looked at each other for a second before turning our gaze back to Johns.
"As what?" he demanded while glaring from Owens to Hope to me.
"As a smokescreen. You deal with your own fear." I said with narrowed eyes.
"Why don't you shut your mouth for two seconds and let me come up with a plan that doesn't involve mass suicide." snapped the merc, annoyed.
"How much do you weigh Johns?" asked Hope suddenly, which made him turn his glare to her. "What the hell has this got to do with anything?" he asked, his annoyance growing with the second.
Hope stood up and glared down at him. "How. Much. Johns?" she demanded.
Johns glared back at her. "About 79 kilos to be exact. Now why do you wanna know?" he asked and she sent him a cold smile.
"Because you are 79 kilos of gutless meat that hides behind little children and that's why you probably can't come up with a plan." she told him.
She knew that Owens would've probably said the same thing and altered the words a bit more to her own creation. Otherwise, Owens might have suspected something if she had said the exact same words as him.
Johns' face grew red, and he stood up, ready to walk over to her and teach her a lesson.
"Is that right?!" he demanded while pulling out his gun. Riddick, Peter, and Blade all reacted at the same time. Riddick stood in front of him which made Johns turn his gun to Riddick and held it under his chin. "Where're you goin?" he demanded to know.
He felt a breath on his neck and glanced to the side and saw Blade grinning darkly at him with his long incisors showing. "And you?" he demanded before he turned his gaze back to Riddick when the second convict pulled his goggles up. He ignored the pain of the cutting torch and flashlights and instead smiled calmly at him. Johns glared back at him before he felt a tapping near his crotch.
"This solves nothing." said Imam with a frown but the four ignored him.
Hope maliciously smiled when she heard the tapping and snickered when she saw Riddick's shiv near Johns' groin.
Johns swallowed thickly and nodded. "Okay. Okay." he muttered softly while he pulled his gun away and sat back down again. Riddick put his shiv away again and stepped back along with Blade, and Peter, all of who went back to their respective places.
Hope smiled and also sat back down. Fry in the meantime went over to Jack and started to speak softly to him with comforting words. Luna took this moment to speak.
"What Owens said is a good idea. We all know that we can't stay here. There is only one way and that's out there." Hope pointed to the darkness. She saw that she had everyone's attention now.
"And are you sure you or Owens can get us there? Even in the dark?" Imam asked with some doubt. Luna shook her head.
"We can't," she told him softly before she looked over at Riddick, Peter, and Blade. "But they can." she finished which made everyone look at her as if she was insane. Including the three convicts.
Owens stood up. "She's right. They can both see at night, or at least Riddick can. We can let them guide us back to the skiffs." he suggested.
Everyone turned their gazes to Riddick, Peter, and Blade. Johns and Paris looked extremely skeptical of this, but everyone knew they had not much choice.
Riddick frowned and he lowered his goggles.
Hope's gaze then fell on the crates beside him. "Also, I was thinking that maybe we could see if there are some clothes in these boxes and drench some of them in alcohol. We could also look for other useful stuff. Who knows, we might even find some lights," she piped up and motioned to the boxes behind her. "Anyway, we could then light them on fire and drag them behind us to give us more light." She finished her idea and Imam smiled at her, clearly liking the idea.
"I think it is an excellent idea." he told her.
"Yeah, it'll give us more space and will keep those things further away." agreed Owens before she turned to the nearest crate.
"Alright then, let's all start looking for clothes or anything else useful in these crates." suggested Hope in a commanding tone and stood up. She turned to the box she had been sitting on and started pulling it open. The others all did the same and looked through the boxes.
Hope found some male clothes and quickly pulled them out of the crate. Looking down in the box, she saw something that made her smile. "Water!" she whispered happily and quickly took the bottle and placed it in her bag. She knew it was wrong to keep this hidden from the others, but she was not about to walk around covered in blue blood.
She found some perfume and other junk and shoved that all around to see if there was something else useful there. Finding nothing else she pulled her head out of the crate again.
She looked up in front of her and saw two crates stacked on one another with a third one standing to the left of it.
Knowing she could not climb to the stacked ones, she turned to the box on the side. Again, she had some trouble cracking it open but managed to do so. This box had some bags with clothes in them. After a bit of touching and turning, she found the front and opened it.
Men's clothes. A soft groan left her but she shifted through it anyway.
She found a few long-sleeved shirts but promptly ignored them. She didn't want to wear anything warm. Although it was dark outside, the temperature hadn't lowered yet. Instead, she grabbed a handful of shirts and pulled them out of the crate.
Hope looked in the bag again and found a pair of shoes. A sweaty smell came from them that made her grimace. "Ew, smelly shoes." she murmured and scrunched her nose at the stench. She quickly closed the bag again and turned to the other one.
Opening it, she saw something white lying on top of the other clothes. Her curiosity peeked; she picked it up. Her eye twitched when she noticed that it was underwear. "Grandma underwear. Double ew!" she said and quickly threw it out of the crate on the small stack of clothes next to her. Shifting further through it, she found nothing else of use and quickly threw the rest of the clothes on the stack.
Sitting back up, she sighed and glanced to the side. Only one more box before there were no more left to look through. She hopped towards it and opened it. Her face lit up when her eyes caught instantly sight of women clothes. She shifted through them and found a pair of leather pants in dark red and a dark-blue, sleeveless shirt. A smile crept on her face and she quickly pulled the clothes out and put them aside while putting the rest of the clothes on the stack next to her.