"Uhhhhh," a groan of pain parted from her lips. Rae's eyelids fluttered, letting small flashes of tinted light help her come to. When her eyes fully opened however, she quickly became aware of what previously took place. She gasped and abruptly sat up, side-swiping the snow with her movement. Immediately, her eyes sought out details.
Snowboard attached to feet: check.
Helmet, goggles, mask: check.
Still surrounded by trees covered in a mild layer of snow: check.
But before she could relax however, one key detail was still out of place.
There were no trails.
No matter what direction she looked, there was no sign of them. She couldn't even hear the ski lift or the sound of skiers noisily passing by. When she looked at the snow behind her, she expected to see deep indentations from her snowboard, but there was nothing.
Something was very wrong.
Before she got ahead of herself and started panicking, she quickly shed her gloves, leaned forward and undid her bindings to release her feet from the board. Once free, she got up and turned to try and spot anything familiar. She knew for a fact that both Damon and her hadn't traveled that far away from the main slope, but her eyes were telling something completely different.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she was standing on very flat ground, something that was practically impossible to ride on. There was no way a snowboard could catch any downward movement here.
That meant she wasn't on the mountain anymore. But how could that be? She went unconscious, she knew that. So, the only reasonable explanation was that she was taken.
She stiffened, now seeing them. Large footprints leading to her position confirmed her worst fears. Her heart pounded in suspense. Her kidnapper could still be here.
"Okay," she breathed, "now is a good time to panic."
As if on cue, eerie clicking trickled behind her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand erect.
Rae spun around. She couldn't see an obvious figure, so she focused harder, forcing her eyes to scan and identify an anomaly. She caught a shimmer up in one of the trees. Bingo. Was it the government? Were they onto her again? Did they come to finish her off? Wanting to just get it over with, she braced herself, "Who are you?!" She clenched her teeth in anticipation.
Nothing.
"How much are they paying you to do this?" Her voice shook with more emotion than she wished to reveal. She didn't want them knowing she was scared, that would make her look like an easy target.
When there was no response she scowled beneath the mask, "I can see you so stop playing! If you're here to take me in or kill me, you should have done that while I was unconscious!"
Gold eyes flashed at her like a beacon.
Rae's breath caught and she stumbled back, almost tripping on her board. "What the—!"
The hazy figure jumped down from a branch that was about ten feet up, loudly landing in a crouch. As it rose to its full height, Rae came to realize just how enormous it really was. In fact, it seemed far too big to be human.
She hated being right.
In a wave, the figure's cloak deactivated, revealing a dark green reptilian monster with long black dreadlocks, clad in dark metallic armor and a uniquely shaped mask.
Rae's eyes widened in fear. The thing had to have been over six feet tall, no, definitely seven! "W-what are you?" she stuttered, feeling very small and vulnerable.
It lowered its head, tucking its chin in threateningly. "Deattthhh," it hissed.
Rae's skin crawled at the sound of its gravelly voice. It was so alien. Her hands curled into fists. Resisting the temptation to cower and taking a deep breath, she stood her ground, "I guess it's my lucky day then."
Her eyes roamed over its form. The word, indestructible, came to mind. Clearly a physical brawl was not an option, she would have to adapt and outsmart it somehow if she wanted to make it out alive.
The beast started circling her.
If it was trying to intimidate, it was working. Rae's heart was pounding against her rib cage, as if it was going to jump out like a jack-in-the-box. She feared it could hear since her pulse was like thunder to her own ears.
But currently her biggest worry was time.
Attempting to shake off fear, she put on a strong voice, "You're just like all the others that come after me. You'll end up like them too, never to be heard from again." Not exactly the truth, but it didn't know that.
She heard a responding growl that chilled her to the bone.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she continued to buy some more time as she made calculations in her head. She allowed a nervous smile, "You wouldn't mind giving me a head start, would you?"
Obviously done conversing, he charged, moving like a freight-train.
She barely had time to blink, only barely rolling out of the way in time. "Take that as a, no?" She spun around, planting her feet firmly in a crouch. When he came at her again, she was ready.
As he approached, she ran and dipped low as she slid between its large legs. Once clear, she scrambled to her feet.
Rae almost laughed in triumph as she darted away, running as fast as her stupid snow pants and boots would allow. She hoped that the lizard man was slow due to its size, but its crunching footsteps were far too close to assure her of that.
Zigzagging now, Rae prayed she'd outrun it, but instantly she felt a large hand pluck her off the ground! As she thrashed in its hold, the sound of ripping fabric could be heard. From this point further everything was one big blur.
At some point she was hurled into the air, then brought crashing back down onto the snowy ground, knocking the wind out of her. She felt like a bug on a windshield. Pain radiated somewhere from her back. But before she could get back up, it's scaly hand was around her neck, cutting off her air supply as it lifted her into the air again.
Instinctively her hands came up to claw at the monster's thick wrist, but he had her in a vice grip. Her lungs burned and her mind was screaming: Breathe!
She started seeing dark spots in her vision and this sent her into hysteria. She kicked and thrashed, but it was useless. In a frantic frenzy, she tightened her hand into a fist and punched him hard in the face, denting its mask.
This only angered it, as she could feel it adjust its hold and squeeze impossibly tighter!
Rae gagged and reached out further. Falling to her last resort, she felt along its massive shoulder, hoping to find anything to use against it. Suddenly, her fingers made contact with something metallic and warm. A weapon maybe? At this point it didn't matter if it was a battery charger, all she knew was that it was emitting foreign energy. She grit her teeth as her hand drew in the object's power, the warmth of it traveled up her forearm.
Before it could figure out what she was doing, she forcefully shoved her hand against its armor-plated chest and released the pent-up energy she collected. The large blast knocked them both back and forced the monster to release her.
Upon landing, Rae clawed fiercely at the fabric around her face as she coughed and wheezed to replenish her lungs. It hurt to breathe! She went to get up, barely registering movement before a giant fist struck her in the face.
She collided with the harsh ground once more. Warm liquid dripped down her lip. The son-of-a-gun broke her nose and based on the throbbing coming from her face, he broke her jaw as well.
A hand grabbed her by the hood this time and swung her in the air like nothing more than a rag doll.
She tumbled into a snowbank. The unforgiving and frozen snow harshly bit at her skin. Seeing her blood stain the white powder made her hot with rage. Her boiling anger filled her senses as she scrambled to her feet. From where she stood a deep ravine was about thirty yards away. Rae didn't even stop to think. She went for it.
The monster wasn't far behind.
Ignoring his terrorizing presence, Rae focused on the muscles in her legs, contracting with every step she made. She thought about the intake of oxygen entering her lungs, and the warm puffs of white air escaping her mouth as she exhaled. She felt her arms pump in time with her legs. Her eyes dilated as they narrowed in on the target. If she didn't do this perfectly, this would mean her end.
Failure wasn't an option.
Everything felt like slow motion as Rae reached the edge of the chasm, but decisions like these were still fast paced. She bent low, firmly planting her feet beneath her as her brain fired off its remaining orders.
Drop.
Brace.
Grab.
Sweep.
By fooling the creature into thinking she was going to jump, Rae managed to best him by skidding to a stop and dropping down. With the monster too close behind, it wouldn't have time to stop the collision and that's what she was counting on. By getting down she already had it off balance, and this gave her the chance to complete a sweeping hip throw, grabbing a hold of its arm and throwing it over her.
Her plan wasn't fabricated perfectly, however.
There was one minor hole in it.
The weight of the giant violently knocked her forward, so although she managed to succeed in completing her hip throw, she too tipped over the edge. Had it not been for her fast reflexes, her fate would have been like his.
Rae's arm shot back and clawed at the edge of the ravine, stopping her descent with a painful jolt. That's when she heard the loud thud from below. The monster had hit the jagged bottom. Following its impact, was a shrieking roar that reverberated out of the ravine.
She was breathing heavily as she hung there by one arm, briefly staring downward before reaching up with the other hand.
After stabilizing her grip, with one good yell she managed to pull herself up and crawl away from the cliff.
Panting, Rae shakily stood and forced herself to peer over the forty-foot drop once more. From the looks of it, there wasn't a lot of snow down there to soften the fall.
Another pained roar sounded.
She winced. It sounded like a dying animal in severe pain. Relatively warm liquid dripped from her nostrils. Using the side of her hand, she swiped her nose, smearing the blood. Surprisingly, Rae had completely forgotten about her injuries. They were numb from adrenaline and an achy feeling began settling in, which assured her of her body's vigorous healing process. In another day or so this will have all been just a bad dream.
At least that's what she told herself.
Echoing snarls pulled Rae back to her current situation. She was quite surprised the monster didn't die falling from such an extensive height. As yet another hurt noise reached her ears, Rae's anger quickly reversed into guilt. Again, her compassion bugged her conscience.
She couldn't just leave it.
Hesitating in an awkward stance, Rae inhaled forcefully. Why could she not walk away? "Because you're not them," she whispered out loud to herself.
Nodding in unspoken agreement with her conscience, she began to climb down the rock wall. As much as it deserved to suffer a painful death, it was only right that she relieved it of its suffering.
Luckily, she was able to find good hand holds as she descended lower. Once reaching the bottom, she carefully approached the large, wounded figure. He was no longer roaring but whining. It reminded her of a dog begging for scraps from its master and that made what she was going to do so much harder.
It's mask, she noticed, was knocked off and lying to the side, giving her a good look at its face. Her first reaction was one of surprise!
He was certainly not the prettiest thing she'd ever seen, especially with those four crab-like appendages twitching around his mouth, but she couldn't deny that he was unique. Actually, it sort of fit his fierce look.
Using the time to study him, Rae's eyes scanned for injuries, and she instantly saw a thick wooden stick going all the way through his right thigh and another going through his left shoulder. Not to make his condition any better, but in her opinion, they weren't even sticks, more like small branches. And oozing from the gruesome wounds was a neon green substance she assumed to be his blood. The only other obvious injury she could see was his right arm that looked completely disfigured. She grimaced.
When his eyes snapped to attention, they immediately landed on her, and a rough baritone growl was all he could do to defend himself.
Unaffected by his warning, Rae slowly closed the gap between them and without breaking eye contact, she slowly unsheathed a large knife that was holstered to his hip, she marveled at how beautiful his amber eyes were. They conveyed a mixture of emotions. She could read his pain, his anger, his determination.
All of a sudden, a crushing force slammed into her gut, violently knocking her back against the jagged rock wall.
The recurrence of pain is what sent her over the edge. She screamed in outrage and charged at him, delivering a solid body slam that made him bellow in agony as more blood spewed out of his wounds.
When she fiercely lifted the knife to plunge it into his heart, she quickly came to reality. She felt like concrete, stuck in frozen animation. For some stupid reason, no matter how upset she got and no matter how many times people tried to kill her, whenever she was brought to this moment, she could never bring herself to do it.
To take a life.
This moment was no different. It was as if something was physically holding her arm in place. Her forearm visibly shook in anger.
She watched his expressive eyes move from her face to her hand holding the weapon, before closing again. His body went limp under her, but she knew he wasn't dead. Was he accepting this?
Rae's grip tightened around the leather handle, willing herself to finish the job. But she couldn't.
Those eyes.
The pained sounds he made as she hurt him.
It all brought voices back from her past.
Monster! She flinched hearing it again.
Only God had the right to make and take life. What she was about to do was wrong and she knew it. Still breathing heavily from her fit of anger, she growled in frustration and flung the knife to the side.
The sound of it clinking against the rock wall captured the beast's attention once more. When he spotted the knife on the ground and not in her hand he growled and directed a glare at her.
Did he want her to kill him?
Rae didn't know she was crying until she felt tears drip down her cheeks stopping inside the rim of her scuffed goggles. "I'm… I'm sorry I…" she barely shook her head, feeling every bit of guilt, "I can't…."
One of his mandibles twitched, his eyes narrowing dangerously right before he roared.
Rae fell backwards and quickly placed her hands over both sides of her helmet, applying more pressure to her ears in a failed attempt to block out the frightening sound.
The power of the roar was surreal! It felt like her eardrums would explode if she endured it any longer! It made her cold and jittery, like her body was reacting instinctively to the predatory sound.
When the deafening noise finally came to an end, it was replaced with small consecutive buzzing sounds, like something you'd hear from an alarm clock or at the end of a timer.
Timer. Still quite dazed, Rae rolled over in search of the origin of the strange sound. She traced it to his wrist gauntlet and right away detected the alien countdown.
Her reflexes reacted before her mind registered: Bomb.
Rae pounced to cover the weapon with her hand and without further ado commenced her ability to absorb its power.
It was a harder task than she thought. The bomb was chalk filled with energy, too much to handle for someone her size. The intake of such raw power was becoming agonizingly painful, like a scorching flame moving through every fiber in her arm. Rae willed herself to intake more of it faster. "Come on!" she screamed, feeling the muscles in her shoulder, back, and arm harden from the immense pain.
As the bomb neared its final stages, she yelled through clenched teeth, finally withdrawing the last bit of juice. But even then, her suffering didn't subside.
She cried out when the burning torment weakened her hold on it, which sent the blazing inferno from her arm to the center of her hand. "NOOO!" she tried reeling it back in, but it was too late. Feeling her grasp slip, she quickly aimed her hand away from them, before letting go.
There was an intense flash of white light, then an ear shattering bang, before a dust cloud engulfed them, then everything went quiet except for the distant ringing in her ears.
Author's Note:
Okay. How was that? I'm being completely serious. Also, pretty much doubled the size of previous chapters, so your welcome lol.
Next couple chapters are going to be slow to update as class is picking up, but who knows, maybe your reviews will speed the process up. Just sayin' ;)