Disclaimer: I am not Neill Blomkamp or Terri Tatchell. We all have dreams, though.

The State of Things

The Prawn was gangly and seemingly weak, but his energy betrayed him. He crawled quickly and determined but with a clumsy agility that left him cut deeply on the angular hip by the rusted metal of the torn fencing. He exploded back into District 10, running with an uncontrolled speed toward the nearest burrow of tents. His body moved lightly and awkwardly along, as though he were unaware of its limits -like a child only recently learned to walk, with wobbly knees.

He surveyed the surrounding camp quickly before ducking into a familiar tent. He heaved with relief, letting his body sink to the grimy floor. He was unseen by the whole of his burrow. He thanked their audibly violent preoccupations. Their hollering and ruckus was deafening at all times of day and night, but it let Wikus escape scrutiny. The rare, quiet Prawn was let alone. And he never spoke a word to anyone.

Another successful journey to the Johannesburg suburbs. He winced at the sting of his wounded hip. It could have been much worse, he reflected. It could have been something like the first journey he made, before he knew not to make the return trip from the city the same night he arrived. He remembered the burning African sun rising already, barely as he reached the city limits and started his trek across the open desert. He remembered the sinking feeling in his stomach as he lost the cover of night. And as he was forced off his track, by tens of kilometers to avoid the heavily armed patrols and how he became lost out there. He preferred that though, to capture. He knew MNU's absence of hesitation too well, how it served to kill any Prawn seen out of bounds without a second thought. Even the children, no older than little Oliver. He remembered supposing he might not make it back to District 10 after all. What a pitiful way to finally bow out, after everything he had been through. Then he remembered to forget, and he shut his mind to those thoughts and instead he exhaled and gave the closest thing to a smile as he could muster, after all- he planted the carefully crafted blossom on his former front porch, and he saw it disappear by next dusk. It really was a success.

Though sometimes it wasn't worth it to Wikus. Instead perhaps, he reasoned, he should lay low until Christopher fulfilled his promise, if he ever would. Instead of getting himself killed -or worse in the mean time. But he always came over to it. Just being near to where Tania walked and slept and went about her life gave him hope like no other. Though the overall lack of human contact sickened him, and maddened him. Watching the MNU inspectors and newly instated physicians(a ploy at appearing humane to the ever growing Alien Rights Organizations) was simply not enough. Especially because, to be frank (with himself) things were much worse now.

With no mothership hovering over the city to make its people feel secure in its unmoving, inactivity, lifelessness… Now that it was gone, only a paranoid, uncertain hastiness remained. And a nervous shame, Wikus suspected, hoped. As the people waited for a possible return, they did not hesitate at the chance to thin the Prawn numbers. Though nothing was ever spoke of. Patched up government reports and speculations examined the mothership departure. They called it a machine malfunction: the ship returning to its launch base by default. They even covered up the craft that Christopher and Oliver piloted back to the mothership, Wikus inferred from the old newspapers that wrapped his bartered goat's heads. He never saw a word of it.

But Wikus felt suddenly heavy and uneasy and his thoughts lost all coherence. His heavy body crashed fully onto the floor from where he sat, a quiet sound.

"Hello, hello, Mr John, open your eyes," a strange voice drilled into the Prawn's strained head as he regained his consciousness.

He struggled to open his yellow eyes. Everything was a blur of white.

"Ah, there you are," the voice was satisfied. Wikus's eyes focused and he took in his surroundings. He was laying on his back in a large white tent, much larger and neater and cleaner than any of the Prawn dwellings. And then he realized the Voice. A petite body in a matching white hazmat protective suit. It was frighteningly familiar and Wikus jumped from the table, backing himself into a corner. He shouted noises, incoherence. He tried to form words for the first time, only to be quieted again by his confusion. His body could not form the sounds or words that it once could. And though he could understand the Prawn language, no human was ever able to enunciate the dialect. He supposed he wasn't human anymore, but still he did not know how to begin. The puzzled Voice halted the guards, armed and slowly closing in on the unpredictable Prawn.

"Mr John... That is your name, isn't that correct?" the Voice was was straightfoward but open to a dialogue, something rare among a human addressing a Prawn. She picked up a nearby chart and read over it.

"You must be confused. You are in the MNU MH, Mr John..." she referred to the chart, "Mr John Matthews. The MNU Mobile Hospital."

His eyes glazed over and he fell to his knees, suddenly aware of his weakness. He often forgot that he was not recognizable anymore. He forgot about the stolen identification papers he took from a victim of some uknown circumstance before leaving District 9 with a new persona. He remained quiet on the ground. He labored to breath. The suited Voice approached him carefully to the discomfort of the guards. They shifted uneasily.

A gloved hand reached out slowly toward Wikus, with his head down and his eyes closed. But before it could rest on his shoulder, he lifted his head. She brought her hand back and away, and looked into his eyes. She flashed a small light and inspected his pupils.

"I am your physician now, Mr John. And you lost a lot of blood, man. You need to be more careful," she raised her eyebrows. He could barely make out her face at all, behind the clear plasteel of the face mask.

"You're lucky I have a little friend and he brought you to my attention. You could have died, Mr John." She took one last look at his foreign face and and its alien features before standing fully before his kneeling figure.

"You don't talk a lot, but that's alright. We were only waiting for you to wake up. You can go home and rest now. I don't want to see you here again."

He stood warily and walked toward the opening of the tent that she gestured to, never keeping his back to any of the physicians or guards for more than a second at a time. He emerged into the bright, hot sun and orientated himself. He was nearly two kilometers from his burrow. He sighed and took a deep breath. His body was fatigued. It would be a long walk home. But things could always be worse, he reminded himself again. But he was safe for now and out of trouble's way.

He never realized the tiny pitter patter of the concerned Prawnling from his burrow shadowing his footsteps. And he never realized how close he had come to human contact.

A/N: 'Plasteel' taken from KOTOR. Also, forgive the dialogue. I am totally unaware of the speaking habits of South African people. Lol. So I tried my best, don't judge it too harshly. Lastly, I may expand on this, depending on feedback, though it is stand alone. So pending status, possibly will turn out to be a One-Shot.