Back in her lair Rachel paced around nervously.
She wasn't sure whether whether or not this was a smart idea. For the past few days, she'd felt an aching within herself to do this, but wasn't sure now that she had the opportunity whether she actually wanted to. She knew that every minute she wasted was more battery power gone, and she knew it would be harder to find someone with a charger than an actual phone.
She glanced down at the phone and saw 27% in the top right corner.
"I might not have another chance to do this" she said to herself "I don't know how much longer I have"
She stroked her belly one last time, and holding the phone up in front of herself she began dialing. Once the number was entered she held the phone up to where her ear would be and waited as the dial tone buzzed.
After six buzzes, she heard a click and then a flurry of indistinct noises.
"H-hello?" The voice of her mom stammered.
Rachel didn't say anything, but by the silence she knew what her mom was thinking.
"Rachel? Rachel is that you!?"
Rachel began to sob, though her mask didn't produce any tears.
"Mom..." she said. Her voice cracked slightly, different from the unwavering confidence the suit usually filled her voice with.
Rachel thought she heard someone say "That was fast" in the background, but couldn't be sure even with her enhanced hearing.
There was another moment's silence.
"Honey...honey are you all right!? Where are you? What happened to your voice?"
Rachel felt the urge to tell her mother everything, everything that had happened, but she knew what she would think of her if she did. She didn't want her mom's last thoughts of her to be of what she had turned into.
"I can't tell you" she finally answered.
Another moment's silence.
"Are you in trouble? I swear I won't be mad if you've done anything wrong."
"No" Rachel mumbled shaking her head slowly.
"Why can't you tell me Rachel?"
She knew her mother at least deserved and answer.
"Because I don't want you to find me"
Again, neither of them said anything. There was an odd clicking sound, and for a split second Rachel thought her Mom had hung up on her. Just was she was about shut the phone off...
"Sweetie, why on earth don't you want me to find you?"
Rachel reached down to her belly, wrapping her claws around the bottom of the protrusion and squeezing it. She could feel it begin to stir within her. She felt a slight seizing in her lower muscles and knew instantly that it was time.
"I don't know what you'll think of me if I told you" she said.
She gasped. She felt the thing inside of her begin its downward descent.
"I'm sorry..." she managed to breath out.
"No! Rachel! Don't hang..."
*CRUNCH*
Rachel crushed the phone with her hand and let it fall onto the ground with a clatter.
Her body was starting to get hot. She was waiting for the suit to give her instructions as to what she needed to do now, and sure enough soon she felt the onrush of instinct take hold and she knew what she needed to do now.
She made her way to the corner she had cowered in. She needed to be in position to begin delivering her spawn. Once she reached the corner, she began to climb. Before she even got a few feet off the ground she turned and faced outwards into the darkness. Still suspended by the balls of her feet and her fingers, she lowered her torso down until her body hovered a short ways off the ground.
"NNNHAAA....NNNNHAAAA...NNNHAAAAAAA...."
With every contraction she felt the mass within her uterus push itself out an inch at a time. It wasn't painful, not physically at least. Her mind, though, was swirling with horrid, grotesque emotions. She felt overwhelmed with a preemptive feeling of loss, like she was losing a part of herself because this thing leaving her body. As the minutes passed, the bump on her belly became less and less noticeable, moving down along with whatever was inside of her.
[DON'T KNOW WHAT DEVIANTART'S POLICY ON GROSS ALIEN CHILDBIRTH IS; REMOVED JUST IN CASE]
She let out a muffled sob, a wave of terrible, conflicting emotions washed over her like a tidal wave. She didn't want to look at the thing behind her, the thing she had a hand in creating. She reached behind the back of her head and almost instantly found a place to slide in her fingers. With a desperate, solid yank, she ripped the back of her mask apart and pulled the tube in her mouth. She coughed and gagged as it slid out. It had been in there so long she had almost forgotten what breathing through her own mouth was like.
She could no longer see like she did when she wore the mask, but the darkness that enveloped her was the most beautiful thing in the world after over two weeks of seeing. She felt the first traces of slime lining ooze down the side of her face from her slicked hair. She reached one of her claws up and pulled a strand off and shook it off. The fluid was much more plentiful than the first time.
Reaching into the neck she pulled again and began to felt the suit stretch and loosen along the small of her back. It felt like pulling a mixture of tape and dead skin off of her body (minus the pain). When her shoulders where free, her arms began to slide out, until her fingers slid out of the glove hand of the suit and twirled about in the air, free. Her petite frame and small breasts were caressed again by the moist, dingy air. It was duller than it felt while wearing the suit, but it was her own skin that was feeling it, not the other's.
With her entire upper body free of her second skin, she let the front hang down in front of her and lay out on the concrete floor. As her eyes began to adjust to her surroundings, Rachel glanced about herself, trying to remember the way that she got in and wondering how in this darkness she was going to get out.
First thing was first, though: she had to finish off removing her captor.
[SEGMENT REMOVED DUE TO EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT]
She stumbled quickly to her feet, and like pulling off a pair of tight jeans she peeled the legs of the suit off of hers, the toes of her right foot being the last things to be freed. With all the force of her revulsion Rachel tossed the suit to the ground in front of her. Now all it was was a heap of organic slime and pink and green flesh. She swore she could see it move slightly, but it didn't raise itself off of the floor again and that was enough.
It was then that she suddenly became aware of just how cold it was. Standing there naked she suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable in a way she'd never felt before. Her breaths came and went with the shudders of her bare flesh. After realizing that it was only going to get colder she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She wanted to cry, but she found she had no water in her to produce tears.
"What do I do...what do I do...what do I do" she repeated to herself.
First thing was first; she had to get out of this place.
Leaving the suit behind, she took her first step forward, only to trip and stumble forward, landing with a gasp and a thud on the hard concrete floor next to the suit. When she glanced to her right, she saw its empty black eyes staring back at her, its mouth curled in a mischievous smile. Her heart skipped a beat, and with a yell she scrambled to get away from it on all fours.
Catching her breath, she grunted and pushed herself up onto her knees, and then onto her feet. One step, two steps, slowly she made her way in the only direction she knew to go: forward.
Though her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, she could see anything that was more than a few feet in front of her. She knew there had to be some light coming from somewhere, or else she wouldn't have been able to see anything at all.
After two or three minutes of hopeless wandering, she rounded a corner and came upon a soft, low, light, which shined from the ceiling only ten feet away from her. Beneath this hole in the ceiling was a decaying wooden ladder, leading up into the building and hopefully a way out.
Hope now blooming inside of her, she walked around to the front of the ladder and placed her hand on the first rung above her. Before she had even brought her first foot up, though, she felt a slight tug at her ankle. Something warm had wrapped around it. She glanced down and saw the sagging, limp claw of the suit gripping around her ankle.
Her chest seized up, and as the suit tightened its grip Rachel felt the familiar desire to wear it begin welling up inside of her. Before the feeling took hold of her, she shook her head and began wildly thrashing her foot about.
"Get off of me!" she croaked feebly.
With a final firm kick the suit loosened its grip and fell limp on the floor.
Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Rachel hoisted herself up the ladder rung by rung, approaching the hole in the ceiling as fast as her weak, thin legs could push her.
Once she got close enough, she threw her hand up and planted it flat on the floor at the top of the ladder. She may have been imagining things, but she swore she heard something hiss below her. She brought her other hand up and grunted as she hoisted herself up.
Once she had emerged to her waist, her body fell forward and hit the floor with a thud. After more desperate clawing and a few more kicks, her whole body was up and out of the basement.
Wasting no time, she pushed herself onto her knees and staggered to her feet again, beginning her long, cold walk through the lobby to the front door. The plaster had already peeled off the walls, and the desk to her right had long been stripped by looters looking for raw materials to sell. She tried to keep her feet as much on the dust encrusted carpet as possible, looking for any warmth she could find in this freezing hellhole.
Before she was even halfway to her destination, though, it burst open and a blinding white light poured in blinding Rachel. Her hands instantly shot up to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness. She had gotten so used to the darkness that she could barely peek out from under her eyelids without a searing pain shooting through her brain. The sound of sirens and car engines erupted all around her, and the slamming of a dozen footsteps rapidly approached.
"We found her" she thought she heard someone say "she's right here! Gale! Get over here, and bring the blanket!"
She took a couple steps forward, and just as she began to remove her hands from in front of her eyes she felt a gloved hand firmly grip her arm. Rachel's first instinct was to yank her arm away, but when the arm tightened its grip she relented and let it guide her along out the door and into the blinding light.
Whoever was guiding her slowed down briefly to allow Rachel to step down the stairs, but then instantly picked up their pace again. She could here countless more people swarm around her. A few more steps later, she felt something warm and dry drape over her shoulders. She panicked, thinking it was the suit, but by the rough, stringy texture she quickly realized it was just a woolen blanket.
That just made her more aware of the fact that she was naked in front of who knows how many people.
"Thanks, I'll take her from here" a feminine voice said.
She knew that voice...where had she heard it? The shapes of the people around her were beginning to come into view, and Rachel took this moment of lucidity to look up at the person whose hand was now guiding her along.
It was Ms. Simmons, her biology teacher.
A million questions suddenly rushed into her mind, but when she tried to speak all that came out of her mouth were hoarse screeches. After trying to force out a few more meager words, she stopped, pulling the blanket tightly around herself in an attempt to block out the bitter cold.
A man in a hazmat suit quickly approached, making Rachel recoil slightly at the sudden strange looking person.
"We couldn't find the extraterrestrial, ma'am" he began "but we did find its molted skin at the base of a ladder leading to the basement, we searched the area but found nothing else suspicious"
"Alright" Ms. Simmons replied "good work."
"What should we do with the skin?"
"Bring it to containment for examination. I'm sure the lab rats would love to get a good look at it."
A whole host of questions came to Rachel's mind. Why didn't they find the egg? Could it have been the egg has a way of keeping people from noticing it if it didn't want them too? What were they going to do to her suit? Rachel could barely piece together a coherent thought together before she felt a slight pain twinge at the back of her mind.
After the man in the hazmat suit had left, Ms. Simmons again began guiding Rachel through the throng of busy people. She looked down at Rachel again and noticed the look of distress her head pain was causing her.
"It's alright, you're safe now" she leaned in and said "You'll be fresh and back to school and no-time, just give it a few days."
By the fact that Rachel didn't look the least bit reassured by this, Ms. Simmons realized her promises of returning to school weren't doing her much good.
"In the meantime, I'll take you back house so you can wash up" she said rubbing her back "Your mother's very worried about you."
Rachel stirred at the word mother and gave a quick, suspicious glance upwards towards Ms. Simmons, and then looked back down again. She began moving her mouth slowly as if to say something, but not even she seemed to know exactly what she was saying.
After a few more feet of walking she glanced back at the apartment building and saw a number of official looking men pouring from the entrance and into their nearby vehicles. It looked like they were done with their search. She saw four men with gasmasks carrying a large metal container, which she knew instinctively was carrying her suit. They hurried behind an armored car, and just as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished.
Having seen enough of the hubbub going on around her, she glanced down at her womanhood again, still raw from the suit's removal. She felt it twitch slightly as memories of what had just transpired began to piece together in her mind again.
"Mother..." she muttered softly to herself.
Now finally out of view of the rest of the clean-up crew, Ms. Simmons led her around to the back of a large black van, and with one hand still on Rachel's back she gripped the handle on one of the doors and pulled it open. Rachel looked up and saw a well-lit lab area filled with desks and chairs, and on them were a number of computers, beakers, and other scientific paraphernalia. Against one of the walls was an inviting looking cushioned bench which she suddenly longed to sit on.
Ms. Simmons gave Rachel a soft shove egging her on to step up into the van. Half reluctant, she complied and brought one foot up and planted it onto the hard metal floor. Bracing herself against the side of the other door, she hoisted her other leg up and took a few tumbling steps deeper into the van. She didn't look back, but she knew that her teacher was looking at her with an expression of helpless worry.
"There are some clothes on the shelf over there" She said "go ahead and get yourself dressed."
She swung the door closed hard, and with a thud Rachel was again left alone.
She looked along the far side of the van and saw a pair of scrubs and pants folded neatly on the shelf above the darkened glass that looked into the driver and passenger's compartment. Before she had made it across the tiny room she felt a rumble as the engine came to life. She hurried to grab the clothes and slip them on before the van started moving, and soon she was wearing normal, human clothes again, though not exactly the kind that she expected.
Finally sitting herself down on the cushioned bench, she planted her elbows into her knees and ran her fingers through her hair. The slime had started to dry out, but all that did was make it so that her hair was caked with the stuff rather than dripping with it, and she knew from experience that it'd be hard to wash out.
There were no windows in the van, nothing to give her any sign as to where she was going or if they were even going to take her home. How did they even find where to find her? Everything was strange and frightening without the suit on. All that confidence literally ripped from her body. All of those paranoid worries were overridden, though, by thoughts of the egg which she had left behind.
She hoped they wouldn't find it, in fact she hoped nobody would find it. She knew that no-one usually went there, but who knows who would go there once word spread it was once where a hostage was stored. All the same, the people who just searched the place couldn't find anything. She thought that maybe without a host or anything to keep it incubated it would just die off.
Or at least that was what she hoped.
Rachel felt empty. She hadn't eaten anything in two weeks and her body just didn't have the energy to move. She knew, though, that her present emptiness wasn't just caused by that. It felt like a part of herself had just been ripped away from her, like she was less whole than she was just a few minutes ago.
Her hands sank down from her hair along the sides of her face until they covered her eyes. She lowered her head down, and released the tension in her back allowing her shoulders to sag forward. The shirt she wore was slightly too big for her, so when she leaned over her collarbone slipped out and were briefly exposed to the warm air of the little mobile room.
With soft, muffled sobs, Rachel began to cry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the murky gloom of the warehouse, the egg began to pulsate violently. It's movement sent tremors throughout the web of slime holding it. It held firm, making the thing practically helpless in its current form. Its sentience was limited to finding someone to bond with, and until then it was a blank slate.
But then it felt something.
It sensed the presence of a potential host nearby, and it wasn't the humans who had tried to find it earlier. It was younger, more vulnerable to its suggestion. It knew that unless it were removed soon that it would either be discovered by the people seeking to stop it, or it would die due to insufficient incubation. While this place was suitable as a temporary home, it wouldn't survive for more than a few more hours.
It could feel it come closer. Already the egg knew that its pheromones had hit their mark and the host was on its way. It could sense a beautiful combination of narcissism and self-loathing that made someone a perfect host. Even better, this being seemed to have repressed is sexuality so deep that it would only take a slight nudge to push him over the edge.
What's more, he was a male, and for his species men were FAR more efficient at reproducing.
A thin flashlight beam rolled around the corner, cutting through the darkness and quickly landing on the glistening membrane suspending the egg in the air. As the figure holding the light came closer, the reflected light cast a soft glow across his face, making it clear that the intruder was none other than Nick.
He had heard from his neighbors that they'd found Rachel there earlier in the night, so he wanted to investigate to see what had kept her there. He thought that maybe he would find some evidence the cops had overlooked. Maybe he'd be the one to bring in the critical evidence that would bring his love's captors to justice. Maybe then she would realize how true his feelings for her were.
Once he saw the egg, though, every trace of his original intentions was pushed out of his mind.
"What the fuck..." He muttered a few times under his breath.
Still holding his flashlight in one hand, he reached out with his other, bare hand and lightly touched the surface of the strange oblong object. It had stopped pulsating; it didn't want to scare away this incredibly rare opportunity. Nick traced his fingertips along the veins, stopping and redirecting as they met the membrane suspending it in the air.
Worming his hand through and cupping the back, he gave the egg a slight tug, and with soft rip it came free from the mucus. With noting to support it, Nick balanced the object in the palm of his hand.
Placing his flashlight on the ground, he held the egg with both hands, cocking his head slightly to try and get a better look. He turned it about in his hands, feeling the warmth against his fingers as they sunk slightly into the fleshy membrane that held the thing together.
"Maybe I should keep this" he thought "just for safe keeping, so when Rachel comes looking for it I can just give it back to her."
He wasn't sure why he thought Rachel might have wanted it, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.
He unzipped his coat and slid the egg inside, sealing it back up so that it looked like he had some sort of pot belly. Once in place, he adjusted it slightly, letting the bulk of his coat hide most of what made it stand out. Using one hand he cradled it gently and used the other to pull the flashlight out again. With a flick of the switch, the light came to life, and he turned to make his way out of the warehouse.
Behind him, the latticework of membrane began to melt. It shrank and shrank until there was nothing left in its place but a dark puddle.
Nick reached the ladder quickly and stored his flashlight in his coat pocket. Using one hand he pulled himself up rung by rung, and continued to use the other to cradle his incredible find. The egg began to pulse again lightly inside Nick's coat, keeping close time with his increasingly erratic heartbeat.
