The forest was in its prime. It had rained for days; rejuvenating the lush green after a period of merciless heat. Lucious fruit hung from the branches, ripe and beaming with color. And yet the wildlife seemed to decline this offer of abundance and enjoyment.
Not a single bird dared sing its song, not a single critter fell prey to the temptation of jumping across the treetops. Not even the apex cats of this region seemed keen on capitalizing on this opportunity for an easy ambush.
Everything that drew breath seemed too scared to set paw outside their nests and dens, as if acutely aware that the next gulp of air they'd take could very well be their last.
Earie.
The silence was much louder than any orchestra of roars, chirps and howls could ever be.
Not a single sound left the lush greenery, save for a few, oh so very few, creaks of wood tired wood. On occasion, a branch would groan in protest as if under an immense amount of strain. Every once in a while the leaves on those branches shook as if the wind blew through them.
A rustle here, a small frog getting startled there as a heat sink brushes past.
And then; a long, low, deep breath, and an almost imperceptible trill.
Everything stilled, even more so than before. The birds huddled closer together in their homes, raccoons held on tighter to each other, and the big cats; the big, beautiful kings of the woods pressed themselves closer to the ground, their whiskers shaking in anticipation and their eyes wide with pupils thin as needles.
Something big, bad, and scary was prowling through the woods, and it wasn't a hungry grizzly.
And yet the humans that advanced through it seemed oh so ignorant to all the signs. Perhaps they had noticed after all, for their steps were calculated and careful. Nonetheless, they seemed not afraid; too arrogant to consider whatever silenced the wilderness to be a threat.
A quiet growl in the canopy sent the humans into motion. It was quick, almost like a well-rehearsed dance as they readied their weapons, forming a circle to protect each other's backs and scanning the surroundings through their visors.
"That's just a Cougar. No worries"
"Since when do Cougars arrive on spaceships?"
"The fuck am I here for?" yelled the young woman as she slammed her balled fists onto the table. The man in front of her tensed and leaned back into his chair.
The blonde pushed herself away from the table, pacing through the room as her eyes kept jumping between Commander Cliffton and the computer screen that showed live video footage of the lab.
Her eyes lingered on the creature held captive in that very lab; bound by more chains than she cared to count, roaring and lashing out at everyone who dared step close.
"This" she started, pointing at the screen in an accusatory manner "is beyond my capabilities. I'm an animal behavioral specialist, a zoologist! I work with anxious and PTSD-ridden service dogs and traumatized elephants!"
She took another look at the beast as if to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. "You need a whole-ass team of linguists and anthropologists for that!" she said, her voice loud and shaky. The prospect of an alien, and one this hostile, shook her to the very core. Never mind that the very existence of extra-terrestrial life was revealed to her a mere, measly ten minutes ago, it was now expected of her to make contact with it? Had the higher-ups lost their marbles?
Max had seen the creature for but a few seconds through the one-way mirror when she was brought into the lab, but even that was enough time for her to assess that her expertise would be of little use. The creature seemed humanoid and intelligent. It was also extremely obvious that it was not pleased with its predicament. And who would be? A bloody masochist, at best.
Even though she had been assured that it could not see or sense them through the glass, Max felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck when she noticed that it's gaze was following her as she moved through the room behind the one-way window. She could not help but make a mental note that it must have possessed some kind of heat-vision. That no one seemed to have picked up on that felt more ludicrous than the existence of an alien at that moment.
The Commander sighed at her outburst, reaching for the bridge of his nose to massage it in an attempt to self-soothe.
"It's been here for a couple of days now. It's neither communicating nor cooperating with us at all" he said and opened his mouth to continue his explanation before being interrupted by the woman in front of him: "Well, if I was tied up in a room like that I wouldn't want to talk either!"
The commander's hand went to his chin, rubbing his lower jaw and the stubble growing on it. His eyes were dark with exhaustion. It was abundantly clear that he was under a lot of stress.
"Max- Dr. Swan, listen" he started again after staring at the mostly censored files in front of him for a few seconds. "We don't even know if it talks at all. We have no idea about its biology, technology, or where that thing even hailed from. We have nothing. The Higher-Ups dumped it in our facility asking us to research it. We have nothing. No… no species categorization, no instructions from the government, no information as to how that thing even ended up on our planet… Heck we don't even know if this is the true first contact or if the big guys upstairs were aware of its existence before this incident!" His frustration with the situation showed clearly as he shoved the mostly blackened files off of his table and into the adjacent trash bin.
"It took us eight hours to restrain it. Eight godforsaken hours. Eleven of my best men and four researchers are in the med bay because of this thing" he continued, his gaze now wandering towards the screen as well "five more are currently getting cremated while the coroner is bullshitting their families as to the cause of death"
His face progressively filled with both fear and distaste as he recalled the incidents. "So far I have not been given clearance to look for civilian specialists. I can only involve staff that are already under NDAs. And unfortunately, there are precisely zero anthropologists I know of. I already sent for for every biologist I have access to, and contacted every superior involved, but no one has any idea how to deal with this. This… incident, is unprecedented, and quite frankly everyone is losing their shit right now. As it stands you are our best bet. At least until we are given the appropriate staff. Swan, I'm grasping at straws here. The closest thing to extra-terrestrial life our facility has dealt with was some dead bacteria in a Petri dish; something every grass-green microbiology graduate could take care of in an afternoon. And now we have this… creature"
The commander seemed to collect his thoughts as he watched said creature lash out in the lab.
"I know I'm asking a lot here, but we need to find out something about it, anything"
Max took a deep breath as she sat back down into the chair she jumped out of earlier.
"Okay," she sighed quietly "what do the files say? What can you give me to work with?"
Both cringed when they heard the distant sound of a roar, and watched as one of the chains tied around the creature snapped before all personnel in the lab jumped into overdrive in order to restrain it with a new one, and maybe a couple more for good measures.
"have you tried feeding them yet?" asked Max in an effort to alleviate the tension, yet her dry humor was misplaced as the commander gave her a strict look.
"This is a bunch of shit" cursed Max under her breath as she removed her clothes, getting ready for the decontamination process.
She had felt her heart drop down to her knees when she made her way towards the wing in which the creature was held. Medical staff had rushed past her carrying a shell-shocked man whose entire face was slashed wide open, one eye hanging out of its socket. To say she was mortified would have been an understatement. She would have rather turned on her heel, jumped into her car, and returned to her dingy apartment to get drunk enough to forget everything that happened that day.
And yet she didn't. Perhaps it was a sense of duty; old habits of obedience, that had been ingrained in her during her service, gnawing at her and making her unable to refuse her old comrade. Or perhaps stranger yet; morbid curiosity. She didn't know.
Either way, she found herself accepting her new assignment, yet annoyed at the lack of competence of her superiors.
The commander couldn't provide her with any useful information. Neither could the bureaucrat-wannabe-head-researcher. Aside from trivialities and promises of a briefing inside the lab by another biologist, he had exactly two other things on offer; Jack-, and -shit.
"Fucking first contact happening and no one knows what to do" she muttered, refusing to believe that the government was unprepared for meeting an alien. Shit, she was sure every hillbilly with a bunker had a profound plan of action as to what to do if an alien was to land in their cornfields.
"Please step into one of the designated cabins, Mrs. Swan" a voice echoed from the speaker above her, bringing her back to reality. She positioned herself as previously instructed inside one of the glass cabins. "You are going to be rinsed with warm water, sprayed with disinfectant and then you'll have to spend some time in a sterilizing mist. None of that is going to be pleasant" said the voice, and before Max was even able to collect herself and answer, she already felt bursts of water hitting her body from pretty much all angles. She jolted at the sudden impact, yelped when the cold disinfectant hit her skin next, and coughed when the cabin begun to fill with the mist.
She'd heard of those decontamination procedures before, they were a common occurrence for everyone working with precarious or sensitive biological matter; avoiding cross-contamination. No one was particularly interested in catching the intergalactic version of the bubonic plague or watching the Alien keel over from measles. But in this scenario, she couldn't help but feel like it served another purpose too; removing potentially aggravating scents and triggers from her person.
Only when the whole ordeal was done and over with was she allowed to proceed into the next room. She felt like a wet dog that got hosed down in a yard. To think that this was something she'd have to do every time she entered or left her new workspace filled her with discomfort.
Nonetheless, she had other things to worry about than such inconveniences.
The next room provided her with fresh clothes; a standard lab uniform that did not include any underwear, and forced her to go commando.
She sighed, joking in her mind that this might very well be the last straw before she hands in her withdrawal from this job. She slipped into the teal pants and shirt, quickly threw on the white coat, and reluctantly put on a pair of Crocs. "Surprised fashion police didn't raid this place yet" she mumbled in an attempt to ease her nerves; trying to pretend this was just another mundane assignment and not a colossal breakthrough.
A loud, bloodcurdling roar made her curl inward, pressing her arms closer to herself as the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand.
More growls followed alongside human voices barking orders at each other.
If not her sanity, she hoped that at least her humor would survive this assignment.
She took a deep breath before building up the courage to proceed into the actual lab. Usually, the animals she was dealing with had a fair amount of files about them that helped her create a plan of action and work out the best approach.
Aggressive German Shepherd with a startle reflex? Piece of cake. Overly attached Tiger that throws a hissy fit every time their favorite human dares as to so much as take a few steps away from them? She'd have bigger trouble picking out what to wear on a Friday night.
This? This time she had nothing, and she wasn't dealing with an animal either.
"Most likely a carnivore" she whispered as she gnawed on her lower lip. From what she was able to gather the creature was a mountain of muscle and possessed sharp claws and fangs which was unheard of in herbivores. Such aggression was also unwarranted in herbivorous animals (safe for hippos that is. Those murder vegans have an agenda).
"Alrighty Maxie, put on your big girl pants. You got this." she whispered, having decided to keep a low profile and avoid eye contact at all costs.