Chapter Text
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Fighting an alien was low on my list of things to do today, and unsurprisingly, dying was even lower. Which is how I found myself barreling down a snowy hill and praying to a god I’d long since stopped believing in that I make it to the tree cover in time.
I could hear my pursuer over my own crunching steps in the snow. The chances of losing it were nonexistent in the open, but just maybe in the trees. Our loud descent down the slope was punctuated every now and then by a shriek, the very same noise that had originally drawn me off my path. I had been punished for being curious before, and here was yet another example of not learning my lesson.
I’d only caught a glimpse, no more than ten seconds, as it had unfolded itself from over the downed deer. My body had kicked in the fight or flight adrenaline, and in short succession I picked out details of the thing. My brain offered up different insects, all horrible, but also no more than a few inches. This insect was the size of a professional basketball player. That gave me enough information to settle on flight.
But as soon as I’d started to back away, it had swung around on me, a stark black contrast in the fresh snow. It made a strange chuffing noise, and then to my increasing horror, had lowered itself into a pounce. Size and quadrupedal? I was moving. No, hauling ass, back down the hill toward the trees then.
It would have me in a flat sprint, just as it had the deer, if I didn’t make it to the trees in time. But it appeared the snow was handicapping the thing, as I hadn’t been brought down yet. One more shriek and I found another small burst, not stopping for a second as I broke past the tree line.
I clipped a tree in my haste but was able to redirect my momentum into the next, keeping me upright. I shoved away from it, weaving between the large trunks, looking for low foliage. I needed cover. If I could buy myself enough time to pull out my axe, perhaps…
My father’s voice reverberated through my skull, “Don’t think Charlie, kill”. I heard another shriek, and a crash off to my right. The damn thing was trying to get ahead of me. I veered left. The snow that made it to the ground within the trees was less dense, which meant it was faster now, but it had traded a speed handicap for size. It couldn’t cut through the closer trees as easily as I could.
I risked a glance back, just as I watched it take a leap up into a tree. I watched as it started to get higher, before leaping from tree to tree. It used its tail to offset its weight, balancing surprisingly well, instead of crashing to the ground. Fucking lemur from hell.
My eyes locked on to a downed trunk a few yards ahead, the creek having frozen over behind it and piled up with debris. It was as good a place as any I’d find in the next instant, and I was already fatigued. I ripped my pack from my shoulders, launching over the trunk and down.
Having not crashed through the ice, and being out of sight of the damn thing, I ripped the straps securing my axe to the side of my pack open. I held the axe I’d used earlier to harvest some firewood and steadied my breathing to listen.
The forest was quiet, there was the rustle of wind, but there was nothing else. The crashing through the trees had stopped, the shrieking as well. I leaned back into the downed log, tilting my head up toward the trees above. I moved slowly, removing my glove on my right hand, to better grip the axe. I kept my eyes up as I put my pack back on. If the thing had kept moving right past me, then I needed to be ready to move again. I wouldn’t get the chance to double back.
My eyes caught movement halfway up a tree twenty yards ahead, just to the right of the creek edge. It was just, sort of holding there, claws sunk into the tree and tail twitching behind it. As I continued to watch, it shifted slightly, and the mandibles on its face splayed wide. I couldn’t be sure, I didn’t know a thing about alien posturing, but a rough guess was that it was taunting me.
I leaned forward on the balls of my feet, my muscles tensing. I took another steadying breath, and I waited. My heart was hammering in my ears, but I waited. Then, it was coming for me. The tree gave a huge cracking sound as it used it to launch. I watched as it sprinted toward me, another sharp shriek piercing the air as it came toward the creek. I readied myself just as it hit the ice.
I leapt forward, swinging down, and realized I’d made a mistake. As it had hit the frozen water, it had slipped. Too much forward momentum, and not enough traction between it and the ice. What I had hoped would be a hard swing down into the domed forehead of the thing was instead a glancing blow to the side of its neck.
As I tried to get past its swiping arms, the spray of semi-luminescent blood caught on the nearby creek debris. An odd popping sound followed, and I watched, mildly fascinated, as the blood began to eat away at the debris before cracking through the ice below. Spider line cracks began to spread out from the hole, and I moved quickly to the bank.
The insect had spun toward me again but was still trying to find better purchase on the ice. I turned and started running, following the edge of the creek. I could see that I was once again nearing a break in the trees. The creek was expanding, and I realized that it was a river offshoot of a frozen lake. I’d forgotten about it, but I vaguely remembered fishing the lake once a few summers ago with dad, before things got worse.
I cleared the trees against my instinct, wildly trying to come up with another plan. It was strong, armed with claws, teeth, and acid blood. I had an axe. I was sprinting across the lake now, as best I could on the snow over the ice below. Panic settled low in my stomach as I heard the thing shriek once more. I looked back as it came running and I realized I was out of options.
I locked up, barely skidding to a stop and not buckling over to the ice. My legs were screaming from all the snow running, and now I suddenly decided to go ice skating. My lungs were also at their limit, and I recognized flight was no longer an option. Now I’d fight. I wasn’t going to go down without one. It wasn’t how I was raised.
I turned back toward the black thing, wind swirling snow up around us. I dropped my pack, shed my last glove, and settled low. I knew it liked to jump, the tail it definitely had control over, and under no circumstances could I let it bleed on me.
Great. How on Earth do I fight something, not from fucking Earth?
The snow swirled again just in front of me, a little flurry kicking up. Then I saw it. Or, more accurately, I saw where the snow stopped in midair.
The insect let out another shriek, but this time, something answered.
My heart shuttered to a stop, every animal instinct in me recognizing that I’d reached the end. The insect leapt off the ice, that same pounce it had come at me with earlier, so I knew the timing better. As I went to swing down again, the insect folded to the ground as though it had been struck, a pained wail coming from it. And my axe just lodged into air, into nothing.
A strange groan met me then, and the air started to shimmer and shift, like the afternoon light used to through glass bottle shards hanging from the tree out front of my childhood home. My axe was ripped from my grip, and slowly the air in front of me turned into something else. Something massive. Bigger than the insect still collecting itself off the ground. And then it started to click, a deep rumbling rattle.
Oh fuck. There were two of them.
I had little else to process before I felt a solid connection with the center of my chest. The air my poor lungs had been trying to recoup was forced right back out of me, and I was launched off my feet. I tumbled, my head cracking against the ground, and my vision going white as heat raced behind my ears and down my spine. As I came to a stop, I laid in the snow, staring up at the sky trying to find an answer for what just took place.
Pain raced through me as I took my first breath, the cold air lodging in my lungs as I began to cough and wheeze, fighting for air. I focused hard on my feet, noting that I could move each, and then my knees. I worked through my lack of oxygen and the need to make sure I hadn’t broken my spine as quickly as I could. By the time I’d fish flopped my way to my side, the shrieking had started up again.
I watched, rattling breaths in between, as the thing that had thrown me pulled my axe from its upper left arm, discarding it as well. I guessed it was an arm. From what I could see it looked like a bicep, and then the air shimmered again, and it was like the bicep just folded back into nothing. Some liminal space. Then the insect was up again, but instead of running towards me, it started to lunge at the invisible one. I watched as it met something solid, the unmistakable sounds of a fight quickly breaking out.
A sharp shriek from the alien, and more of the acid blood shot free as a slice opened along its right side. As it leapt away, that strange clicking noise started up again, and the insect circled around. I was slowly able to pick out the movement of the invisible attacker. The light would catch here and there, or the snow in the breeze would give it away. I watched the fight progress, the insect lunging at air, only to be met with a new wound.
I looked toward the next bank of trees and recognized the decline south. I’d managed to go in a large enough circle that I vaguely knew where I was now. If I kept going through those trees, and cut right for about a mile, I’d be back toward the trail down off the mountain. I needed to take advantage of their engagement. At the very least I’d been able to see the insect when it attacked me.
I edged closer to the fight, a strange boldness overtaking me as I scooped up my abandoned axe, before getting a running start toward my pack. Survival was getting away from the intergalactic death match. I slid low on the ice, much more of it being exposed from the way they were moving around and melting the snow. The beasts were throwing off major heat, I could see it in the huffs of air, hot exhales in the cold making little clouds. It was still the best way to see the second creature as the sun sunk lower. I snatched up my pack, just as the invisible one managed to throw the insect through the air. It came down with a hard crack, a squeal reverberating across the ice.
I had just stood up and was beginning to run when I heard it. A far-off gunshot. Slow, then two more. I tried hard to pinpoint where they came from, but a sharp whistle caught my attention, and I went down hard as pain flared in my side. I caught myself on the ice, coming to my knees. I looked down at my side to find a small metal rod protruding from below my ribcage.
No. The shaft and point of an arrow.
I took a breath, looking back to see the insect curled on the ice. Twitching, but down. And the telltale puffs of the other one getting closer to me.
The invisible man fucking shot me.
I tried to pull in another breath as I worked to get my feet back under me and start running again. It was too late though, as I felt something grip the back of my head. It was painful and jarring as my protective fleece hood gave way. Tore right off my head. Claws I couldn’t see left fresh cuts down the side of my left cheek and eyebrow in their wake.
I collapsed back to the ground, trying not to cry out as the arrow was jostled about. I still hadn’t assessed what it had pierced, if it was vital, and if I needed to make sure the arrow stayed right where it was. I leaned away from the floating hood, staring up at my best approximation of where this thing’s head could be.
The shredded mask dangled in the air over me, as I tried desperately to search out my attacker, tried to find it in the shifting light. Then another puff of air, and I knew exactly where its head was. I stared, wondering if I should move, if I should try and swing with the axe still in my grasp. If I would even hit anything important down here, or if I’d just piss it off.
I’d seen how fast it had been with the insect’s attacks though. I’d only managed to hurt it earlier when it had its back to me. I tracked down, and then noticed the oozing neon goo in the air, where I’d caught it on its bicep.
Not a very deep cut it would seem, as I barely managed to see it until the thing was this close. And there were no new cuts from the brawl with the insect either. This told me two things; that I stood even less of a chance against this beast, and to some extent, the cloaking didn’t serve as a physical protection.
I glanced down at the neon blood on my axe. If it bleeds… My eyes came back up as another puff came out, followed by that low growling click, as if it had noticed my train of thought and was leaning down over me, inspecting me.
Just as I’d made up my mind to lift the axe, damn the consequences, and swing at my best approximation of its face, I felt movement on the arrow. I glanced down, and felt more than saw the thing take hold of the metal. The grip was firm, I could tell that much from the way my next inhale was met with resistance at that point in my body. I looked back up into the thing’s invisible face.
“Don’t you dare-“ I spat out, answered by a single clicking chuff, before I felt the metal give through me.
A shuddering gasp left me followed by a sharp cry of pain. I immediately brought my hands down over the front of the wound as I rocked flat on my back in the ice. My eyes found the arrow, slick with my blood, as I checked for the fletching.
None. Designed just like a big, long, bullet slug.
The relief that the way it had been removed didn’t cause further internal damage was quickly overshadowed by the need to staunch the blood flow. And to see the damn thing. Then, much weaker than earlier, a shriek came across the lake toward us. I looked back toward the insect in time to see it beginning to stand.
What I could only describe as an irritated sigh came out in front of me, and I used the exhale to note that it had turned its back on me again. Without much thought to drawing its attention back, I reached out, my bloody palm flat and meeting resistance in the air. It just stayed, my blood dripping slowly down that invisible wall in front of me. Then, it was up, and moving further away from me.
I couldn’t tell what I’d managed to touch, only that I could see the red human blood, the neon alien blood, and the exhales of this thing. I gathered my pack to me, noting the hole ripped through. Whatever that god awful arrow was, it also had the momentum to cut through my pack into me from this distance.
I pulled free my backup socks, and the scarf that I had hoped to bundle up with on the drive home. I yanked up my shirt, pressing a sock to my front, and the mate to my back. I wound the scarf once around my waist, as it really wasn’t long enough for this, and then did my best to cinch it tight.
If only I’d just packed up after I’d offloaded my firewood into the truck. A beautiful day for a hike, huh?
I continued to curse as the big thing neared the insect.
And still, still I could hear those slow, far-off gunshots. They were becoming more frequent, but they didn’t sound like they were getting closer. My eyes scanned for any other human, any anomaly in the tree lines.
If someone could see us out here, then why? Why weren’t they getting closer? Were they just trying to scare it off? Was it just some hunter? Was it-
A new worry joined all the other anxieties swirling in me. I put my hand flat to the ice, blood smearing under my fingers into the cold. I heard another shot and felt a slight rumble through my fingertips.
I glanced back in the direction my phantom handprint was headed, back toward the now standing insect, and I realized that all the freak acid blood and rampaging weight had disturbed the ice. It was breaking as the beast stomped back the way it came.
Then, all at once, the gunshots were staccato, and both the beasts seemed finally to pay attention, too late. In a sudden burst, the ground gave way, and the insect disappeared into the water below, my handprint dipping out of sight too. And then there was silence, so strange after the chaos.
I sat still for a second, listening as the ice settled. I shifted my weight forward, hearing another cracking noise. As I shifted the other way, I didn’t hear more popping sounds. Unfortunately, as I hauled myself up and tried to listen, I had to pick my way back towards thicker ice which also put me closer to the hole. Closer to the aliens.
As I tested each step, I became surer of my footing, that the ice had mostly been disturbed around their fight. I took my first full breath since this ordeal had started, gearing up to run for the tree line again. I was only ten paces out when the ground heaved.
I glanced down, immediately wishing I hadn’t, and watched as the black insect scurried along the underside of the ice, using its claws to keep from sinking. But as it went, so did the cracks in the ice. It began to claw and dig at the ice above it, once again setting off the echoes. I started running at a full sprint, leaping across ice sections as they started to dislodge. I was racing the cracks; grateful the lake wasn’t big. Then I heard the shriek, and I looked back in time to see the insect break through, pulling itself back up out of the lake.
I slowed down, watching it shake itself off and focus back on me. I looked between the bug and trees and let out a sigh. It was bone deep this sigh. I was so damn close to the tree line.
I was cold, bleeding out, and really hating the stitch in my side from running more than anything else. And I was so fucking irritated that this had happened. Pissed.
I couldn’t keep leading it closer to other humans, I supposed. It wouldn’t be nice of me to offload it on to some other unsuspecting sap. And if the damn other one was drowned, well, at least I could go down taking the last one with me? I turned back toward the bug, dropping my bag for the last time.
I don’t want to be responsible for this.
My breath was fogging the air in front of me now that the mask was gone, and my nose was running. Whoever puts me in the papers best not discuss the snotcicles.
I stood there for a second, watching as the bug began to circle the hole it had pulled itself from. It wasn’t so interested in me anymore, and I wondered if it was worried about the other one surviving the plunge. I took my first step.
As I drew closer the insect took more interest in me again, shrieking at increasing intervals. I was skirting the most fragile looking ice, and as it swiped at me, another pop sounded off the ice. I watched in real time as it paid attention to this, shying back from where I was. It was slower too. I took a swing at the limb closest to me, careful of the splash of blood. It shrieked at me, lunging, and as I dove away the ice started to groan again. The insect froze, not following me.
I listened and used my weight advantage, slipping around the broken hole and prodding at the thing. I realized rather quickly though that I was truly only poking the bear, and my slices weren’t causing nearly as much blood loss as I had been hoping for.
I needed a bigger weapon. I needed brute force. I needed fucking superpowers.
The insect shrieked at me again, cautious as it took another lunge. I steadied myself just in time to see that my redirect was what it had intended. Its nasty tail came whipping around and caught my left bicep, raking down and across the top of my forearm with the barbed end.
I folded to the ground, the pain crippling, and instant. There was no time to even scream, no time to make a sound as my brain began to flood with the signals from my arm. As I rolled on to my back, gripping at the flesh, I brought my head up. It wasn’t deep, it wasn’t deep at all, even if it felt like the flesh was being folded back from bone. Venom.
The insect began to approach in my peripheral, taking again to thicker sections of ice, heeding the warning pops and groans. I was struck then, through the haze of pain, that it really did remind me of a bug. Specifically, the Sonoran desert’s tarantula hawk. I looked up at the sky, remembering father’s instruction.
“Just lay down and scream Charlie,” he came closer, the tweezers stretched out between us. “It’ll pass.”
“Dad, wait,” I stumbled back, my legs already sore and scratched from hiking through the brush. It was hot, I’d been rationing my water like he said, but the dryness in my throat was sudden and frightening. I was scared. I hadn’t known it was going to be this kind of day. A bad day.
“I- I don’t think I can-“ I started to hold my hands up, glancing down to make sure I didn’t trip over anything, and he struck.
I looked back in time to see him push the wasp against the lower part of my right palm, stretched out toward him in a defensive measure. Too close. I’d let him get too close. The two-inch wasp was beautiful, a blue-black shiny exoskeleton. Thin, orange wings that reminded me of the stunning sunset we had seen just last night. The abdomen twisted up, the ovipositor extending into my skin.
I remember it flying away as my father let it go, and then I remember screaming. When I’d come back to my senses, I was covered in dirt and vomit. My nose was so full of snot from crying that I could barely catch my breath. My vision had been static at the edges, and I’d known I was going to pass out again.
I came to a short while later, and Dad handed me a water bottle.
“Alright there.” He said, just a short nod after. I took a sip, holding my hand against my chest. It felt vaguely numb, but slightly tingly. And I couldn’t get it to stop trembling against me, the muscles tense and tight up my whole arm.
“Be happy you’re not a tarantula- it would have taken you away and laid eggs in you to eat your carcass.” His laugh was out of place. I knew it was wrong. I also knew that was how he tried to apologize. “You did well, and now you have experience getting through a tough toxin. It’ll get easier. Let’s make camp.”
It was only as I’d laid down, curled on my side, and flinching at the insect sounds in the night, that I’d realized what he’d insinuated. I told myself I’d do better, next time I would scream, but I wouldn’t pass out. I’d gone to sleep shortly after, my arm still shaking against my side as though I was cold.
There was a rough shake below me, as I pushed up into a seat, watching the bug get closer. The pain was still overriding my system, but, it was getting easier to move again. It was slow as it loomed over me, still bleeding, mercifully not on me. It leaned forward, and my arms dropped to my sides, my right hand feeling the axe once more. Water sounded to our left, cold splashing across the ice and over my left hand. Groaning coming from the ice around us encouraged me. The insect’s mouth splayed wide, a blast of spittle and hot air washing over me as it let out that godforsaken shriek.
I screamed back. In my last moments I’d probably laugh at myself, but I was so fucking mad. And then I brought the axe up and with every bit of strength I had left, lodged it into the head of the thing. It jerked back, claws coming up to paw at the axe sticking out of the right side of its skull, slightly back behind where a human would have an ear.
I rolled left as blood dripped, and I tried desperately to avoid it. I scrambled to my feet, just barely, the ice slick with blood and water, lots of water. The ice is breaking even more.
I spun, not wanting to lose my advantage. I gripped the axe handle, prying it up and free, and then bringing it down once more. I didn’t have the force, but, I had the right place. That pained wail it had made when fighting the other alien earlier returned and a strange pride flooded me.
I was hurting it.
What had to be my last stores of adrenaline fueled me as I dodged weak swipes from the thing. The tail whipped out as I pulled the axe free again, and this time I got it against the ice, hacking at the end until it came off. It twitched around on the ice as I took another swing into the side of the insect’s head. A crunch echoed loud between us, fluid spraying from where I’d broken through, and the whines it had been making cut off. I pulled the axe free, and it slumped over.
I swung down again, more fluid running out, accompanied by wet crunching as the axe struck. It made the same sound as the lobsters being butchered in the fish market. I screamed down at the thing, swinging again into the side of it. I kept swinging until I felt like I couldn’t lift my arm again, and the side of the bug’s head was completely smashed in. I stopped screaming when I realized it was all I could hear echoing around me. It sounded feral, and it felt violent.
I slumped back down to the ice, watching as the acid ate through around the thing. I slowly surveyed myself, shocked at how I’d managed to escape getting any on me. I could still feel my other wounds bleeding, however. It was slow, but I knew I needed to move.
Everything in me was exhausted, I wanted to pass out on the ice, just slip away. I pulled myself slowly back away from the thing, waiting for any movement, any sound. I was ready to start swinging again as I shakily got to my legs. It really seemed down this time, and I didn’t take my eyes from it until the ice gave one last groan, and it broke through into the water below.
I just watched it sink away, the cold eating at me, and the pain in my arm feeling exceptionally hot. When I was sure it wasn’t coming back out of the water, I started back toward my pack. Even then I refused to take my eyes from the lake, reaching down and just sort of dragging my backpack after me in the snow. Only when I’d reached the trees, well and truly off the lake, did I give one last look for the insect. Nothing moved, no stark contrast in the snow and ice. And then, faintly, I heard a bird call out. The first one. I waited for another one to answer, and when it did, I began pulling myself back toward the trail.
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