Forgotten Past: Chapter Thirteen-Escape From Hell

“Tell me your story,” Riddick whispered in the dark.

Carolyn shifted in Jack’s bed. “All right.” And she began.

*

Three Years Earlier

*

“I didn’t say I’d die for you,” she told him fiercely, pulling Riddick
through the mud and rain. They were getting closer and she spun him
away from them, trying to diffuse the scent of his blood in the rain.
They staggered and stopped.

Carolyn looked into Riddick’s silver eyes as the spike stabbed into her
back, barely missing her spinal cord. Riddick’s eyes went wide and she
swore she saw a tear as comprehension dawned on them both. She was
going to die for him after all.

Riddick’s fingers gripped her wrists like steel bands, but his strength
wasn’t enough and Carolyn felt herself being ripped skyward by the
predator above her. Riddick’s deep voice called for her in the rain and
she heard this before she gave up hope, “Not for me!”

Then something thudded above her and she was dropped, hurtling
through the air to slam breathless and bleeding into the ground. The
mud splashed around and over her and she laid there, trying to catch
her breath and see what happened. She rolled over and saw her captor
struggling in a dog fight with another of the creatures.

This was her chance, she told herself, and she pushed to her feet, back
throbbing and hot, and she began to feel weak. But she wouldn’t give
up, she would survive.

Carolyn ran through the mud and driving rain, hearing the clicks. The
bottle with the blue larva lay covered in mud and she dove for it, sliding
on her face and then stumbling back to her feet, clutching it weakly, like
a weapon.

Grinning grotesque faces circled her and she ran for the colony.
Praying that Riddick would still be there. That she could get onboard
before he took off with the others.

She stumbled into the colony just as the skiff lifted into the air, and she
cried out as a horde of alien bodies fell to the ground, having been
torched by they skiff’s thrusters.

It wasn’t time to give up yet, though, she told herself fiercely, and
circled towards the coring room still clutching the bottle like a lifeline. It
glowed faintly and she fell through the door of the coring room. The
grate over the hole in the floor was closed and she dug around the
contents of a table to find a lock that would suffice. Four large padlocks
laid across the table, covered in papers and other paraphernalia. She
grabbed the largest two and slammed them into place, locking the grate
in place. When the large front doors were also locked, she began
checking for holes in the walls.

Furniture covered those, stacked in piles to keep the creatures from
getting in. And now the wait, with her meek little bottle of blue larva,
barely lighting a two foot space around her. The aliens began to attack
the building.

Their screams and clicks echoed eerily through the room and Carolyn
wrapped her arms around her drawn up knees and rocked back and
forth, whispering to herself that she just had to hold out a little longer.
That she could make it through the night.

And so the darkness continued and Carolyn’s sanity began to slip
beyond her grasp. Time ceased to exist and suddenly she was growling
at every sound like an animal, baring her teeth. All memory and
thought left her and she ran at the walls, screaming back at the
creatures. Her back throbbed and she reached for it blindly, trying to
press her hand against it.

No matter of mumbling to herself or praying could keep her whole.

Forty-two hours passed before the sun began to make a reappearance,
and by then it was almost to late. No food, no water, no one to talk to.
The noises of the creatures. Carolyn was on the brink of insanity and
close to dead from blood loss, hunger, and thirst.

She stumbled out into the light, holding the bottle, still, and a hand
above her eyes to shield away the bright sun. Food. That was her first
thought and she fell into one of the shelters, digging through cabinets.
One contained a cans of some sort of meat and she dug for a knife and
pried it open. Carolyn dug into the contents with her fingers, shoving
the pieces into her mouth roughly.

Three cans and many gulps of water later, Carolyn was sitting in the
dust. Lost and not knowing what to do. Her identity was almost
completely lost and she fought to remember who she was. The noises
and the screams still echoed in her head and she struggled to turn if off.

Two more days passed with her living off what was the equivalent of
Spam. The moisture harvester still worked as it should, so she wasn’t
without food or water.

Then there was a ship. It had picked up the distress signal still
transmitting from the Hunter-Gratzner.

Carolyn knew it was her one chance and ran for the ship, waving her
arms wildly.

~~~

“I don’t see anyone.”

“Me neither. What do you think happened to them?”

“I don’t know. Let’s check out the ship.”

“All right.”

The two men entered the hull of what used to be the Hunter-Gratzner.

“There ain’t no one in here. These people are gone. They have to be
around here somewhere.

At that moment, Carolyn stumbled into the ship and the men turned to
look at her, surprised at her loud entrance.

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out but a dry hiss.
She fell to her knees, stretching her arms out to the men. Carolyn had
spent the last four days in a sleep deprived, blood loss induced fever.

The taller of the two men rushed forward and grabbed her shoulders.
“Who are you? Are you all right?”

Carolyn shook her head and let out a choked scream before falling
against his chest, curling up on herself.

“We have to take her with us. I don’t think anyone else survived. This
place is creeping me out, let’s get outta here,” the man holding Carolyn
said and stood up to carry her to their ship.

When they got on board and Carolyn was sleeping in a cryo-tube, the
first man turned to his companion. “Who do you think she is?”

“I don’t know, Bruce,” Jarod answered. “And only God knows what
happened to her down there.”

~~~

The group landed at the Nylorac space station two months later. Bruce
and Jarod had been scouting for new recruits without results when
they’d picked up the Hunter-Gratzner’s distress signal. No one, it
seemed, wanted to oppose the Company.

Bruce carried Carolyn out of the ship and to the medical ward for
treatment.

The doctor didn’t have good news about her condition and told Bruce
and Jarod all they could do was wait.

After two more rough nights, Carolyn pulled through, finally regaining
consciousness. But not complete sanity.

Bruce sat beside her on the bed and she glared at him from cold,
emotionless eyes. “Who are you?” she asked quietly, her voice scratchy
from lack of use.

“Bruce Levake,” he answer, then pointed over his shoulder to Jarod.
“And this is Jarod Verheul. What happened to you?”

Carolyn shifted to sit upright. “I crashed. Everyone was dead.” The
animal side of her, the side that had taken over after those days of
isolation in the coring room, was screaming for her to run. Escape.
They’ll send you back, it told her, but she fought it, trying to pull the
old Carolyn back to the surface.

In the end, the two sides of her mind compromised. Carolyn Fry was
dead, but she wouldn’t run.

“Who are you?” Jarod asked her, and she snapped her attention to him.

Memories of a barely restrained darkness entered her mind. “The creed
is greed...” a dark voice whispered in her ear.

“Creed.” She turned her head and spotted one of the machines
registering her pulse. Xander Medical Supplies was printed on the
plastic. She turned to the men. “Creed Xander.”

***

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