Visions of marines being torn apart by deadly claws filled his mind. No, this is all wrong. I’m not thinking right. A coppery taste filled his mouth, and he felt a thin trickle of fluid drop down onto his chest. Blood. I’m dying, he thought. No, it is our enemies who will die. Death cannot stop us. That feeling came to him with complete certainty. The visions continued. Huge creatures leaped over the dead bodies of their brethren and pushed on towards the enemy.
Those aren’t my thoughts, he realized with horror. He still sat in the same spot with his back against the cold wall. The sounds of gunfire echoed down the hall. Where are these thoughts coming from? He clasped his head in his hands and doubled over in pain. A sickening sensation crawled through his veins, from his stomach up to his brain. The backs of his eyeballs felt so hot they could melt.
A flurry of bizarre images and impressions assaulted him. Two ominous thoughts stood out from the maddening din and shook him to the core. You are growing. You are mine.
Madrid screamed until he ran out of breath.
He felt another presence in his mind. What are you? He searched for it in his thoughts, but found nothing. Suddenly a horrifying image overtook him, eclipsing all else: a sprawling mass of living tissue pulsing with a dark, alien intelligence. Madrid reeled as he felt its sinister consciousness permeate his being. Although he had feeling throughout his body, he found himself unable—or perhaps not allowed—to move.
Gunfire and screaming erupted in the hallway, ripping Madrid out of his trance. A number of marines backed into the room, firing their rifles into the hallway. The wounded men around him sat up in alarm as a group of aliens skittered into the room and tore into the defending marines. Everyone capable of movement grabbed a weapon and tried to fend off the invaders. The creatures flooded the room and overwhelmed the scrambling Terrans, tearing them to pieces. Madrid closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the carnage. Wet, slashing sounds and the tortured screams of the dying filled his ears until the fighting ceased and all that remained was a soft, humming vibration.
Madrid opened his eyes to see two of the creatures staring straight at him, standing close enough that he could feel their hot breath as they sniffed him. Their black, menacing eyes were hooded by the flat carapace plates that adorned their bestial heads. Their muscular, catlike bodies were covered by tough, leathery skin, and long segmented tails stretched out behind them.
Madrid closed his eyes and waited for the creatures to strike. But just as suddenly as they had appeared, they skittered out of the room, leaving him alone among the dead. Minutes stretched into hours as he sat in the dank corner, contemplating his fate and trying to shut out the luring whispers of the alien voice in his head.
FINALLY THE ROOM’S SILENCE was broken by shrill screams echoing down the hallway. Madrid cowered, frozen in place and unable to pry his gaze from the entryway. He could hear scuffling and scratching noises in the hallway. Have they come back to kill me? he wondered. As his vision faded to red, he focused his thoughts towards the creatures scurrying in the hallway and briefly touched their bestial minds.
Four creatures. All of them alien. All of them born of the same terrible species.
Three small creatures, like those who had killed everyone else in the room, skittered through the hallway. However, a far more frightening creature accompanied them. This was a dark, clever beast, and Madrid reeled from its soulless presence.
One small creature snaked its head around the door frame. The catlike alien stood there for a moment just staring into Madrid’s eyes. It scurried forward and cleared a path of entrance for its brethren. The two others entered the room slowly and took positions beside it. The creatures, seeming relaxed and almost playful, simply sat watching Madrid. What the hell do they want? It’s like they’re just waiting for me to die, he thought.
Madrid’s breath came in short gasps as the fourth creature slowly approached the room’s entrance. He could hear the sound of its passing now—a resonant, serpentine hiss that could only come from a creature of enormous size. A scraping sound split the air as if sharp barbs were being dragged across the room and walls. The smaller aliens seemed to straighten and alertly shifted their attention towards the doorway.
Madrid imagined he felt the stale air being sucked from the room as the huge, graceful creature entered. Filling the entire doorway, the monster opened its hideous, dagger-lined jaws and shattered the tense stillness with a ferocious scream, causing Madrid to shiver with quiet panic.
The creature’s head and muzzle looked similar to those of the smaller aliens, except that its eyes held a glimmer of intelligence. Its long, craning neck was covered by a massive carapace plate that had a distinctive pattern, not unlike snake-skin. The armor plates covering its enormous upper body bore a variety of spikes and jagged growths. Madrid noticed a number of barely distinguishable fractures along the length of the creature’s flexing shoulder plates. As he ran his eyes over the creature’s grotesque body, he made out the long , spindly arms it held tightly at its sides. The arms, which ended in razor-sharp, bony scythes, looked as if they could tear apart a solid paristeel bulkhead with ease. The most bizarre aspect of the creature was that it supported the weight of its huge upper body with a thick, snakelike tail. Just as with its plating, the tail was encrusted with spines and strange deformations. The creature’s horrid appearance reminded Madrid of the terrible dragons that had filled the myths of ancient Earth.
He watched helplessly as the creature slithered slowly across the broken floor with an eerie grace. Thick, milky liquid dripped from the beast’s open jaws as it lowered its great crowned head until its eyes were even with Madrid’s. Its burning eyes bored into Madrid and locked him in their hypnotic stare. He could feel the creature’s hot, rancid breath upon his skin.
Groaning through gritted teeth, Madrid was suddenly overwhelmed by the creature’s base musings. Harsh and unintelligible at first, unmistakable impressions raced like quicksilver through his mind.
Unity…soon.
Just then, an explosion rocked the room from outside. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the ground shifted under Madrid’s body. New, metallic sounds rang through the hallway.