The Predators Hunt

Reunited

   It's gonna be a long night.

   It'll probably take ages to get back to base, and even longer to explain where the hell I've been. That is, if one of those scientists doesn't rat me out and I get severely punished or something.

   I groan.

   At least those things aren't around anymore, Bear and his friends made sure of that.
   My lips purse at the mere thought of him.

   I may have never been the most sociable or even "normal" student at Military School, but even back then, if someone had told me I'd fall for a real life alien I'd just ask them what kind of drugs they were on and where I could find some.

   But this isn't Military School or some hypothetical. This was reality.
   And reality was: I had just come to terms with the fact I'm head over heels for an alien, right before losing him forever.

   A part of me wants to scream, punch a hole into every wall ever, and damn Bear and his whole species to Hell. But, really, what's the point?

   He's gone, and I'm once again alone. No changing that. If anything, I'm just more exhausted than angry.
   The second I make it to Base, I plan on just staying in bed all day. Maybe I'll even fake being sick just to make sure that happens.

   However, before I could brainstorm some convincing excuses, the ground began to shake. It shook and shook.

   I held onto a tree for balance before scrambling up onto one of its branches. I wrap myself around the trunk and wait for the quake to stop. I didn't even know the place had earthquakes!

   Except...earthquakes didn't roar, right?
   I crane my head around and see a big, black dome smash its way through the dense brush.

   It was huge.
   Before my eyes, I saw every tree and bush break like splinters in its path. The giant thing then reared up, revealing that it was a head. Then a body. Once it fully emerged, I finally got a good look at what it was.

   It was the creature from the Lab, the one that was imprisoned.

   Now that it was free, I could see its two - no, four - long, slender arms and hands that were topped with razor-sharp talons. It's equally slender yet strong body looked to be built entirely out of rigid black metal, or bug exoskeleton, with tall sharp growths sprouting out it's back and covered in every inch with what looked like ribs, and spikey vertabrae lined down its neck and all the way up to its winding tail. Below that was a pair of girthy hind legs, skeletal and segmented like a bug. Together, It all held up a large, spade-shaped head devoid of eyes or any facial features, except for a singular snarling mouth that was way too disturbingly human-like, if not for its two rows of fangs that dripped with drool.

   The hellish creature lifted its large, ugly crown to the sky and let out another shriek that shook the earth around it. I wanted to scream too, not just out of fear, but also rage.

   Just as I thought I never had to deal with these fuckers again, their leader - or whatever - comes literally crashing into me. I squeeze the tree's trunk as hard as I can as the force of the thing's roar reverberates off every surface. When it stops, it begins moving again, running off at full speed deep into the forest, shaking the ground with every step.

   I'm still for a few good, terrifying, moments. Slowly, my foot tries to slip off the branch in order to get to safety. That is until I heard scampering. Lots of it.

   The sound of hundreds, or thousands, of feet rapidly sprinting forward grew bigger and bigger. The ground shook again until a wave of more creatures came cascading through the trees. Each one, more foul than the other, clawed and trampled over each other to stay on the path of the giant. I watched as they surged ahead like rabid hellhounds following their master until the last few squirmed away into the dark underbrush.

   My arms felt paralyzed for an eternity. My lungs nearly collapsed from how hard I was breathing. I hadn't felt this horrified in a long time.

   After several minutes, I finally muster enough strength to move. My fingers unfurl from the trunk, and then my arms slowly bend down to lift my legs up off the branch. Before it snapped, that is.

   I scream and land flat on my ass, knocking the breath straight out of my lungs. Apparently, I'm not the only one because I hear something else fall down beside me with a large THUMP.
   I whip around to look at what it was, but there was nothing there. Then I hear a trill of pissed-off sounding clicks.

   Out of thin air, blue crackles of light appear, then the clear visage of a humanoid. This one isn't Bear.

   He's a bit shorter, his muscles aren't nearly as broad, and his body is mostly covered in sturdy layered armor; such as his entire chest, hips and forelimbs, and he sports the usual helmet and fishnets as well as a string of small animal skulls slung across his shoulder. What little color I see isn't the cool mossy greens and earthy browns of Bear's scales, his are an angry red that sprung from his torso, contrasted with sandy brown along his arms and legs.

   He was rather mesmerizing, but that was cut short once he stood up and  snatched me up off the ground.

   The humanoid roared right in my face. His grip tightened on the back of my neck, digging his claws into my flesh. If they were any longer, he might've punctured my esophagus.

   Suddenly, another invisible force pulls him away, allowing me to break free of his hold. As I refill my lungs, even more humanoids uncloak themselves as they step forward. There's enough to be a whole squad.

   The humanoid that pulled back the other easily dwarfed him by comparison. He was the one I saw the other night, the one colored entirely black with a purplish underbelly underneath his sparse armor and fishnets. He gripped the other tightly enough to make him howl before roughly releasing him and turning his attention towards me.

   As he took a few steps, I quickly scoot back like a wounded animal till my back hit a tree. I cowered away, hiding behind my arms, shaking like a pathetic little leaf.

   No. No you can't do this. Get up.
   How? These things could kill me. I could die. I'm about to die.
   At least you can fight.
   No I can't.
   At least you can survive. That's all you've ever done, survive. But you can't do that if you don't get up. Throw the first punch, don't run away, fight. Survive.

   Just like that, my limbs stop trembling. I suck in a deep, deep breath. My legs stand straight upward, my fists clench, and my chest arches. I stare down the large humanoid and all the others.

   For the first time in forever, I don't feel as scared. My body refuses to cower or run. I feel a fire blooming within me, a determination I had never thought possible.

   The large one tilts his head at me before seemingly looking me up and down, sizing me up. His gaze freezes at my hip. The glaive.

   I reach for it, press the button, and then hold the fully elongated weapon out in front of me. All at once, the humanoids screech and get into a kind of battle stance. This is my final chance. Now or never.

   As I'm about to thrust the long blade into the first one I saw, one of the humanoids comes barreling toward me. He looks familiar. His belt of skulls jostled violently at his side, his arm outstretched as he called to me.

   "Bear!"

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Authors Note:  I'm gonna be doing this format from now on. Now y'all can leave your comments 😉