Page 48 of Ruby
Humans never managed to break me so maybe an alien will.
A harsh laugh suddenly escapes my throat. “I may be bluffing but you are too. Threats are all you are capable of.”
“Do not make this a challenge. You will lose.”
“I have nothing else to lose,” I throw back.
My life, my fame, my money, Szhe’ka, all of that is nothing but a dream of a life I used to have. None of that is helping me here. The only thing I can hold on to is dying in a strange forest with no one to help. With nothing else to hold on to, the Bitch rises up stronger than ever. Her anger. Her guilt. Her pain and… her revenge.
The cleaner sense of rage I felt when I saw Szhe’ka’s wings tries to rise, but I’m too terrified to let go of the Bitch.
“Shall I teach you, human, how to properly spread your legs?”
The glint in his eyes tells me he is definitely going to do it. I’m going to feel pain beyond compare and begin a life that was previously unimaginable for me. But I’m going to fight the whole way.
“Bring it on,” I respond, baring my teeth at him.
He’s quick to pin me down, his other hand pushing the gun to my neck. His body weight is enough to hold me down, but I know he can’t kill me so I scream. I scream curses at him in his language, in English and Russian, ignoring the fact that I might draw in a predator. His face is my proof that he doesn’t care about it either as he moves to show me his sexual organs.
Time seems to slow down when we both hear a separate gurgling sound coming from the west. It takes time for my brain to translate that sound as another alien calling his name. I hearmore of them approach and the fucker that has me pinned to the ground abruptly stops.
He unpins me, holds on to my hair and drags me with him to meet the other aliens.
They begin to speak to each other, and I tune them out, looking around. I’m surrounded by seven aliens, some of them in what looks like ship-side gear, and others in odd fatigues. All with weapons and strange cages. They must be the hunters Szhe’ka spoke of.
They drag me along until we get to a haphazard pile of gear. Bags are pressed up against trees, and littered among them are folded up cages.
The cages are empty so I’m probably the first they’ve caught. The fact that they’re looking for others lets me know that there are definitely others hiding here. Szhe’ka and I were just unfortunate enough to get caught.
“Where is the bird?” one of them asks, getting my attention.
“Dead,” the one that caught me gurgles back. “I killed him.”
My heart jumps to my throat as the group lets out a honking sound that I suddenly realize is laughter.
Is Szhe’ka truly dead? Did he watch me try to save him despite knowing this just to mock me? Is my despair that enjoyable?
Despite the deep frustrations in my heart, I cannot speak of my pain. With one hunter, I can curse at him. Being surroundedby several, all with their own motivations, is inviting a painful death. One of the hunters hands some kind of shackle to the one holding on to me and he places it around my neck, finally letting go of my hair. It clicks on and I feel my body go rigid at the added layer of stark reality.
I’m so fucked.
We begin the long walk back to the camp of the hunters, following a straight path that seems to have been carved out by them. We reach the camp by early evening and to my complete horror, there’s even more of them.
There’s a wide patch of forest in a sort of circle with a large ship with extensive craters and scratch marks on it, most likely the one I had been held prisoner in earlier, at the center of it. Seems like their technology does fail after all. There were smaller, circular clusters of tent-like structures dotted here and there in the clearing. Three large hunters wait by the ship as if guarding it but I make out more movement in its dark recesses.
Escape now would be difficult, even for a rescue party. There’s no chance I can find something poisonous enough to feed them during mealtime. They’re not human so I don’t know what would work on them. When they get that ship working and we leave here, my chance to leave will disappear. Maybe my will to live will too, if I’m lucky.
One of them is larger than the rest, and is moving erratically. It’s making an odd, burbling chitter, which turns to a sickening squeal when it sees me.
It surges forward, ignoring the hissing and yells of the others as it moves forward with surprising speed. Clawed hands reach out to hold it back and it lets out a scream that makes my heart skip a beat.
Then it opens its mouth wide, and a long jet of liquid sprays at me, catching my side before I can dodge, the chain attached to my collar making me clumsy.
Then I’m screaming too, the liquid burning where it contacts my skin. It’s a small age as I scream and writhe on the ground until the burning stops and I come to my senses enough to hear them arguing.
“...she is already been exposed anyway. We should just have our fun and then bury the body.”
I know they are talking about me, but all I can do is lay on the ground panting.
