Child of the Xenomorph

3

This couldn't be real. I was safe, wasn't I? I was in the Hive, untouchable by human hands.

But that didn't stop the fact that I was being tortured by my worst nightmare

The whip bit into my back, ripping up bits of torn flesh. I screamed, the pain being the worst I had ever felt.

"Hold her down," Calvis sneered in an oddly feminine voice. Several soldiers ran over and pinned me to the ground stomach down, my flailing making no difference in the face of their strength.

"Wake up! Hold in there, Shaniya!" Calvis said once more. I was suddenly confused through the pain. Was this a dream?

Just as the thought raced through my heated head I woke up, coughing and sputtering. I was convulsing uncontrollably, a horrendous pain searing through my entire body, located in my spinal region. J'Khati was beside me, with several other Xenomorphs, holding me down as I thrashed.

'Stay calm, it'll all be ok,' she cooed.

I didn't quite believe her. Was their hospitality a trick? With a shoot of horror I thought that I had been infected with a chestburster. Was I brought back just to be a host?

I screamed as flame and nails shot through my bones, my veins, every fibre of my being. I could feel the creature coming out of my back...spines splitting my skin...I could feel the warmth of my blood dripping slowly down my back.

I suddenly started choking on what I presumed to be my own blood. My skin inside my throat felt like it was melting. My spine seemed to be thrashed and extended. I looked over my shoulder and saw that a spiny, gray, wormlike creature had sprung from above my posterior. I screamed again, but no human voice came out.

An alien cry echoed from my throat, sounds no human voice box could make. I tried saying, "what", but all that came out was a series of clicks.

Just when I thought it was over, a new wave of pain smashed through the roof of my mouth and below my tongue. My mouth filled with blood, and I had to keep spitting to prevent myself from choking on it.

And just like that, as suddenly as it had come, the pain vanished. The Xenos keeping me down backed away, and to my horror the worm that had came out of my back started moving as I started to rise.

Wait a second. I paused, staying completely still, and so did the worm. Now that I thought about it . . .

Concentrating all my thought, I lifted the worm to my face. It wasn't a worm at all, but a tail. An extension of me. I was black with little glints of extremely dark grey, and I admired the shiny blade at the end. I whipped it back behind me, wincing as I almost knocked a nearby Xenomorph in the face.

'Watch it!' He grunted into my mind.

'Sorry,' I mumbled back to him.This would definitely take some getting used to.

'Could you lead me to something I could examine myself in?' I asked J'Khati.

'Follow me,' she said, and I followed her down the winding hallways.

She brought me to a particularly reflective wall. I stood in front of it and looked at myself.

I would look somewhat human at first glance, with me appearing to be so in nearly every way. My pointed, elvish face was the same, as was my black hair and eyes The black veins squiggling along my body hadn't changed, and I still just looked human. But when I turned, the resemblance ended.

Black spines pointed downwards, unlike the more tubular spikes arching from a Xenomorph's back. Following my spiked spine ended with a long, black and grey tail, tipped with a gleaming blade, very much akin to a Xenomorph's tail. My white hands were tipped with wicked looking, hooked black talons, and my toenails had undergone a similar transformation.