Summary: Girl meets boy on planet. Boy turns out to be a sexy, but convicted murderer. Planet turns out to be hell with man-eating birds. And girl...well girl just wants to go home now. This trip turned out to be way above her paygrade. Riddick/Oc
Rated M for violence, gore, death, sexual content, and other safety reasons.
Disclaimer: I don't own, but if I did...well use your imagination.
Unbeta'd: all mistakes are my own and I will fix them when you or I catch them :)
Flight or Fight
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I read somewhere that cryo-sleep shuts down the brain. Slows the organs, the little synapse to almost a halt, numbs those little instincts that demand you to eat; to breathe. You weren't dead, but not truly alive either.
You didn't even dream in cryo-sleep. Just bleak frozen darkness that seems to last for all eternity.
The only difference from then and now was the experience. Having read it but never experienced it, my first reaction was: what interesting bullshit. Call me a skeptic or idiot or whatever, but now having read it, and experienced it (still experiencing), my new thought was: instinct.
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to hear
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to smell
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to taste
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to touch; whoever or whatever was producing that delicious scent. Of sweat, of dirt, of blood, of male; a smell that would usually send me away gagging. I may not have been born rich, but I defiantly wasn't born in the slums.
I enjoyed a certain amount of cleanliness.
but
I took a deep breath enjoying the way the scent burned and consumed the inside of my body. This scent was intoxicating.
Who was it?
There were only 40 or so people flying on this commercial space ship from what my hazy memory could serve. More than half were women and children, so that left about 15 males; give or take a two.
And that scent was undoubtedly male.
A small nervous tongue ran over my dry lips as I desperately began searching my memory for the faces of those sleeping around me. There were only 20 cryo-tubes in each car ,and I, being one of the last few people to purchase a ticket, was given room in the last car (next to the luggage may I add bitterly).
Less than half of those males entered this car.
So seven. Six other men and one mate.
Mate, I purred, what a funny little word.
Travelers, foreigners, aliens: all with the smells of sweat and male. But each time I took a breath, inhaling their scent into my body, it made the burning sensation stop; turn cold.
I didn't like it.
The ship shuddered around me, groaning and shaking like it was being forced under a great amount of pressure. A spike of apprehension shot down my spin, a feeling of wrongness unburied, but I chose to ignore it in favor of my search. Dark and hot and wild entered my lungs, once again filling my system. Found you, I called out in satisfaction. In the middle, far away from any doors or windows, surrounded by the smell of lies, deceit, malice, and...and violence. Then as I leaned in, my instinct urging me, shouting at me to take what is mine; the world around me shuddered and lurched.
There was a pinch on the side of my neck and a shot of adrenaline entered my system. My eyes flew open only to close them as red lights blinded me. What? What? my brain stuttered on like a switch. Hazy but acutely alert. Squinting my eyes open, so I barely could see under my lashes, I pressed my hands to the glass.
"Com -," I coughed violently; my throat felt like it had swollen thousands of cotton balls, "- ter? Computer?! What is...what is going on? Are we landing?" I had never ridden on a space ship before, not for the lack of want, but the lack of money. So I could not tell if all this turbulence (assuming it was turbulence) was because our landing or...something else, heaven forbid. There was another jump and my head hit the top of my cryo-tube.
I hissed in pain, "Damn it! Computer! Answer me! Are we landing?" My window to the outside shifted and instead I was shown pictures of my vitals: heartbeat, brainwave activity, etc.
Damn technology.
"Yes, well its good and all to know I am alive and well," I growled sarcastically not caring in the least I was being snippy with an inanimate object, "What I really want to know is where I am?"
There was a sudden sound of glass breaking and a searing pain on the side of my neck. I smothered a scream with one hand as the other shot to my neck. I stared in utter shock at the marble sized hole gapping from my heart on my vitalized body. I slowly removed my hand to see dark blood smearing my hand. I quickly covered it up again in the fear of bleeding to death and I stared outside my cage in horror. Through the broken spider webbed glass the word: restricted mocked me. The world around me shattered as it was riddled with holes from what I could only imagine was bullets.
Somebody was shooting at me.
I screamed and struggled against with what should of been my protection but was now instead my restraints. I scratched and clawed trying to get at what binding I could, before instinctively body slamming against the broken glass; like a trapped animal. Before I knew it, I was kissing the floor, and my legs tangled, angled off the ground. Still dazed and frightened, I twisted the right way up and grabbed onto my leg, trying to yank myself free.
I was trapped. I was going to die.
With that brief realization, I just screamed and pulled harder.
"Hold on, I've got you," came a voice from behind me. I startled in fright as hands materialized in my view grasping my ankles. In reaction I slapped them and backed myself as faraway as I could.
"Calm yourself, darlin'," replied a soothing drawl, "I'm just going to help you out alright?" I blinked rapidly, I raised my eyes slowly away from the hands hovering over my legs to the face they belonged too. It was man, an elderly man around maybe in his late 50s early 60s with peppered hair that was long and angled oddly around his face. Like it was cut with a sharp blade rather than scissors when it got too long for his liking. His eyes, though I could barely tell the color in the flashing red lights, looked dark blue border lining purple.
He looked like a man who had seen too many dark days.
"Alright, darlin', " he began slow and soft as if consoling a wounded animal, "I'm going to take your anklets off now, so I am going to have to touch you." The ship lurched again, levitating me off my ass for a moment before gravity kicked in again and slammed me back down hard. I yelp both in pain and fright from the experience and the older man's sly fingers. He had snuggly fitted one around my anklet while the other pinned my leg. There was a hiss and a growl from loose piping as the temperature in the room seemed to jump ten degrees hotter. The old man's attention shifted momentarily away from me to the barely lighted surroundings of the cargo; searching. I took that moment to grab a metal pipe that had fallen and aimed it threatening in the face of the man.
As he looked back, I glared at him at him warningly.
"It just the ship purging," he spoke clearly, eyes not wavering from my face, "They need to steady the ship out."
"Purging," I croaked out the word, the pipe shaking in my hand, "Why would they need to steady the ship?"
The old man's lips twitched into what could of been a smile.
"I know a nose dive when I feel one, darlin'," he replied humorously, "And I've been through to many to count."
Nose dive, my mind stuttered; the feeling of nausea hitting me, we're crash landing.
"I'm going to release you now," he began again, relaxing his hold on me, "If you will let me." I looked at him with a moments hesitation before nodding, lowering the pipe.
He nods and lets his hands rest over the anklet.
"There is a safety mechanism for the bindings, if by chance, there be a crash," the old man smirks as he pulls at the velcro, "They tighten around you to secure you in the cryo-tube for a better chance of survival. So when I hit this button -, " his fingers hovers over the final key to my freedom, "- all that pressure will be gone, and that blood will come back full force. Your muscles will tighten, and you will have one hell of a cramp." His lips twitch, "In both legs."
I groan and throw an arm over my face, "Just get it over with."
"I've got you darlin'," he informs gently and presses the release. Pins and needles jam themselves up and down my legs, muscles twist together to form what felt like the size of my fist. My eyes rolled and fluttered in pain.
"Shhhiiiiiit!"
I should of listened to my dad. Damn him.
After a few moments of cursing and heavy breathing, the old man offered me a hand, "Alright big girl, lets get you up." The ship did another lurch and I quickly latched onto the other person.
"Oh, shit," I gasped looking frantically around.
"First crash?" the old man asked jokingly.
"First flight," I replied dryly as I steady. The old man's eyes glittered.
"Should of taken first class," he chuckled.
I rolled my eyes, "You're telling me."
There were shouts from the other end of the car and I could see blurred outlines of people through the flashes of lights. I almost sighed in relief, we weren't alone.
The older man looked at me curiously, looking over my person with cautious eyes.
"You're bleeding,"
I blinked and touched my neck in surprise. I had completely forgotten about it. He gently pushed my hand away to inspect it closer with those hawk like eyes of his.
"We should get that looked at," he suggested and pushed me onward. Before I could speak, nod, gasp, scream, breathe, or do anything; I was violently thrown forward. I fell flat on my face once again, and before I could regain my wits, I was pulled backwards. An invisible force had gripped itself around me tightly and yanked me towards a vacuum; a large hole that had formed in back of the car. By luck my fingers wove themselves around the holes of the floor, and I jerked to a sudden stop.
I screamed and yelled and cursed as I felt the tips of my toes dangle to close to the edge.
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I was going to die.
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I was too young to die.
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I didn't want to die.
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If I died, who would tell my family?
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Would they know what had happened to me?
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If I died...if I died...
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oh god, please, I don't want to die.
"Hold on, darlin'," shouted the old man. I jerked my head upward and was surprised, and relieved, to see the old man just a few feet above me; also hanging on for dear life to the floor of the broken ship.
I was beginning to unable to feel my fingers.
"H-h-help me!" I cried; begging, "I-I don't want to die."
Don't abandoned me, was the thought left unsaid between us. I held his gaze before the old man cursed and looked back up.
"Just don't let go," he yelled back to me as he pulled himself upward. I wailed in despair as he reached up to grabbed onto a hanging cable. With one hand, and unimaginable skill, he tied it tightly and securely around his waist. Then reaching up, he yanked another down causing tendrils of wires to fall about him. Securing another around his arm, he gave a final curse before free falling downward toward me. His arms encaged me as he pushed the loose cable towards my face.
"Tie it around you," he commanded, helping me slip it around my waist. I nodded vigorously, paying little mind to the dangerously sparking end. He helped tie it into a tight knot before pulling away. I quickly let go of the floor and gripped the cable with all my might between my hands. The wire pulled and tugged around my body but held its place in the vacuum.
"Just hold on tight," the old man shouted as we bounced on and off the floor, "No matter what, don't let..."
A cryo-tube fell from the heavens and met with the old man. Together they both went, flying into the vacuum, leaving only a blood trail and an echo of his voice ringing in my ears.
He was gone.
I stared on in stunned silence. My mind unable to compute on what had just happened.
"Ah. Ah. Aaahh - !"
Then the world went completely dark as I was lifted once again into the air and slammed back down for one final time.
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I never even got his name.
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I felt like playing with Riddick.
(And yes, I meant it the way it sounded)
Hope you don't mind :p
Review you sexy things.