Dark Blood

Chapter 14

In the dark underbelly of the hive, where no light shone and the silence hung like a damp blanket, a small shadow shifted and groaned. After a good long tumble with her Xenomorph companion, Kara had hit the ground hard and blacked out. She opened her eyes groggily and groaned again, forgetting where she was and initially thinking she was in her room under her blankets.

Damn, that was a fucked up dream, she thought. In an attempt to roll over, the weight she thought was her cool sheets pressed heavily against her and felt disgustingly damp and slimy against her skin.

The past few hours came rushing back to her and she started to panic. Using her shoulder, she pushed the thing off of her with a grunt. It thumped down beside her and, carefully, she reached out to feel what it was. Feeling the familiar lumps, bumps, and ribbed tubing of the tunnel walls under her fingertips, Kara allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Just some debris. Not an alien.

Fuck! Where is it?!

Her eyes darted around frantically, trying to see something, anything, in the pitch. She considered crawling back under the slab of wall for the sake of a hiding place, but hesitated. If the thing was still alive, it would have heard her and attacked by now. Still, not taking any chances, she slowly slid on her belly back to the wall chunk. She reached over it, hooked her fingers around the edge, and gently flipped it back on top of her. Kara curled herself into a ball, hiding as much of herself as she could and peering out of a little sliver, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

During this time, Kara did a mental assessment of her current state. Even though she was taking slow, shallow breaths, her back and lungs ached. She assumed that the wind had been knocked out of her when she fell. Besides the slime, her left temple felt sticky and there was a dull throbbing. She pressed her fingers there and brought them to her face. Being unable to see and having her sinuses clogged by the smell of slime, she quickly licked her fingers. They had a definitive taste of iron. Other than a few bumps and bruises, and having stiff limbs from lying unconscious under the debris, Kara determined that she was in damn good shape.

After a few minutes, her eyes had gotten used to the darkness and she was able to faintly make out her surroundings. She crawled back out from underneath the debris and got a better look. She was in a small circular room that was big enough for her to stand, and thankfully, she was the only occupant. There were two tunnels; one leading up to her right and one leading down on her left. She looked up and saw the gaping hole that was her point of entry.

No way I'm going that way, she turned to her right. And no way am I going up. I don't want to meet the swarm again. Stephens said that the Queen was in the lowest level of the facility.

She looked to her left and gave the tunnel an affirmative nod. That's where he's going, so that's where I'm headed.

Before she started off on her own little adventure, Kara made sure to grab her pistol, which wasn't hard to find since it has landed at the mouth of the tunnel. The tunnel was small, just big enough for her to comfortably crawl through on all fours. As she moved through it, her head rubbed against the ceiling.

My hair must be a fucking mess. The thought nearly made her laugh. What a time to be worried about your hair, Kara.

Her trek was slow, as she tried to keep her ears perked and her noise to a minimum, and it was at a consistent downward slope. The place seemed to be bigger than Stephens had anticipated, because Kara felt like she had past at least a floor and a half before she came across her long-lost companion.

The sight of the Xeno nearly gave her a heart attack and she almost shot it, but seeing as it was sprawled out in the tunnel unmoving, Kara predicted that it had succumbed to its wounds. She poked its tail with her gun, and when it didn't move, she picked it up with two fingers. The once deadly blade hung limp, cold, and lifeless. She dropped the tail with a soft plop and crawled around it, making sure to not touch the body. She saw that its arms were stretched out in front of it, as if it had made one more effort to reach its destination before it died.