I'd slept on the hunt before, that wasn't new. Sometimes the target would prove too smart to find and kill in the span of one day and when that happened I would retreat to my ship for the night and pick up the trail in the morning. This time was different. This time I was the hunted and unlike the people I hunted who may or may not have believed that I was still out, I KNEW my hunter was still out. I could hear them, slithering and moaning through the nearly foot thick steel walls. They were helplessly scratching at the heavy barriers with there diseased, crippled hands and the ones who had claws were using them, you could hear the scrapes and scratches of them on the wall. If you want to talk about shit that keeps you awake, there was the subject.
Unable to sleep, I opened my eyes and starred up at the inky darkness above me. The only light in the room was coming from the microwaves sitting on the counters. I took a deep breath, trying to slow my heart rate down. The fear was very real. Your one of the Galaxy's most feared killers in your own right, to say nothing of your species in general, are you really afraid of a few mutants? Yes I am. I put my hands behind my head, like I used to do when I had headaches when I was little. I could almost picture the stars above me, shining in the night, the old memories of the cages and the long sleepless nights came rushing back. Get outta my head. I stretched a little and rolled onto my stomach, trying to get back to sleep, but couldn't.
“What time is it?”, I asked myself.
I checked the clock on the microwave.
“12:10 AM.”
“Hope their scratching stops”, I said to myself, “it's too late in the night for this.”
I got up and grabbed a few blankets from the couch before wigging back under my poncho liner. I lay the blankets on top of me and stretched out, trying to get as comfortable as I could, hoping that I would manage to get back to sleep.
I was near the edge when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I cracked one eye open to see the little boy crouched there, his bright green eyes, quite literally, glowing in the dark.
“Skyline?”, he asked, “are you awake?”
“Yeah”, I whispered sitting up, “I'm awake. What's wrong?”
“I can't sleep”, he said, “the things outside are scaring me.”
I pulled him into a tight hug. I knew a Xeno was probably the last thing anyone wanted hugging them, but this little boy didn't seem to care. It wasn't a bad feeling if I was honest with myself. Did I understand it? Nope. Did I care that he was doing this? You better believe I cared.
“Hey Skyline”, he asked as I let him go.
“Yeah?”, I asked.
“What are all those marks on your arms?”
“Scars”, I said, “you get them when you get hurt badly.”
“Why do have so many of them?”
I sighed, “when I was little, less than half your age, my home was attacked. Some bad people took me out of my home and then beat on me constantly for the next 15 years. I managed to get away when I was about 19.”
The memories of the Invasion, the deaths of my parents, the brutal torture, the nights of chains, cages, the sneering and the name calling. The...showings. The...examinations by scientists from so many different planets. Hell. I sniffled, feeling the tears coming, dripping down my face and collecting where my visor met my skull, they'd soak up with time, but right now it wasn't even tears, it was agony.
“Do you need a hug too?”, the little kid asked.
I nodded as he hugged me tightly. I didn't understand why he seemed to care about me when no human ever really put forth any effort to make me feel like I was compatible with the universe. I guess no one ever thought that I deserved to live.
“Your not gonna let the monsters get us are you?”, he asked.
“No”, I said, “the monsters aren't going to get you. Not while I have a ounce of strength left in me. Now get back to sleep.”
“I'll try”, he said.
He crawled over to his bean bag chair and covered himself in the blankets. I lay back down with a thud, feeling like I had just come home from a long work meeting. But in a way....I felt relaxed. It felt like a weight off my shoulder to finally have an outlet for the years about my tortures, even if it was just to a little boy. I closed my eyes. Somehow, I felt content, for the first time in years.
