Chapter Text
Familiar white walls. White sheets on a white bed-a study in minimal discomfort. It was the least of your issues. To an observer, you were just waking. In truth, you were simply ceasing the long, vigilant meditation that passed for sleep here, in the belly of the ship where no sun ever rose. Your eyes opened at the exact same hour. Always. The scientists noted it with a mixture of awe and unease. Clocks were for them.
It would be weird to call it morning since in deep space there was no sun, and even if you passed one you wouldn't know, but the ship wouldn't have orbited it anyway. It was more of a cycle than anything. Scientists were always amazed and a little afraid at how you'd always wake up at the same hour despite having an alarm or even a clock.
The reports, if you could have seen them, would have wavered between two words: Miracle or Mistake. The line between them for you is a really fine one, depending on how you decide to look at your whole being.
On one hand, scientists were constantly trying to make a human-xenomorph hybrid. They never told you why. But they never really got it to work. Or, rather, work the way they intended.
Any trials were either unsuccessful, resulting in death or a slightly modified child when using the substance on an already born "specimen". But when inserting it in a pregnant woman it had way more violent results.
Always horrifying. Standing tall, black eyed and pale as a sheet of paper with xenomorph traits. But not just physical ones, like the tail and dorsal appendages, but also sharing their most definitive trait, constant violence against any living creature that is to cross their path.
After two of those 'unsuccessful' hybrids they stopped for a while. Couldn't really risk many more guards and scientists when there weren't that many left to begin with.
But one had another idea. For now they tried with 3 and 5 month pregnant women. But what if.. what if it was to be used on a women that was almost about to give birth? Well now they knew the answer. And thankfully, for them, it worked, at least this time.
And now.. they had you. All grown up after only 9 hours of being born. You looked mostly like the others. The same height (around 2.35 m tall), weight, figure, unmistakable long and bony-looking tail the same as your height in length and silver teeth with fangs. But that's where the similarities stop. In contrast to the other two, you grew hair. Off white, silky, smooth and quite unbreakable hair. And not only that but instead of fully black eyes you had human like eyeballs but covered in a thin yet strong transparent layer of skin that gave your big black irises a white tint. Even the clothes they gave you were simple and white.
However, you still had the inner jaw, but light pink and flesh-looking. But you chose not to show it or use it. You had no reason to and in their eyes, and yours, it reminded them of the monster you actually are.
The room told the story. The seamless walls, the drain in the floor for easy cleaning, the lack of anything not provided for a specific, documented purpose-it was a habitat for a studied thing. Something done for the sake of science, and a hopefully future army of creatures like you. The latter wasn't ever spoken, but everyone knew it.
The thing is, since you could speak, you were wondering if there were more like you. At first they ignored you whenever you asked, pretended they either didn't hear that question or just blatantly ignored it and continued to say what they were before. Then after a while of you asking they told you to stop. That they wouldn't answer, not only because it wasn't ethical but also because it was a necessary part of the experiment. But then, after 2 months of asking, one finally answered. The others weren't happy but now you knew and they couldn't do anything about it. You were, in fact, the only successful trial as of now.
But that answer didn't satisfy you as you thought it would. Because now you had a more important question.
("-Why?"
"..."
You didn't say it. You had learned words held little power here. But such desperate words pushed to the brink of visible emotion would tell anyone what you were thinking, the unspoken plea:
*𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦* .
His composure snaps like the thin strings still tying the rope together. "Why? I don't 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 why! It's the question that's been bothering me since you were conceived! Stop asking!"
After that they sent you back to your room and you understood it probably wasn't good to ask any more. Not that you would find out more since they didn't know either.)
At first they didn't know what to call you. Boy? Girl? They couldn't even ask you since you'd just been born and didn't know any language apart from micro facial expressions. The reason for the confusion was because you, even after you stopped growing/developing, you had no dick, no balls, and no breasts either.
So, after a month of learning the english language you told them neither, so, they still didn't know. The friendlier guards and scientists addressed you by your name, the more professional ones called you 'they' and the others, who saw you as a monster, say you are an 'it', not to be confused with a human despite your appearance.
Now, after you were.. well, 9 months old but fully developed, hair grown down to your shoulders, already equipped with a distinct personality, though you choose not to show it. After all, what reason would there be to do so?
All this time you were kept in this.. cage, this prison. They called it a room but it only had a very uncomfortable bed and paper scattered across the floor, the paper you asked for to exercise your writing and draw, since, there wasn't much to do anyway.
The only time they made you leave your room was when it was time to teach you more or train you in hand to hand combat.
Speaking of combat, it was the more engaging part, tho it wasn't anything special. Just to learn to defend yourself and fight back. Not that you really needed to defend yourself since you had basically unpenetrable skin and a deadly tail. But you'd never use it, or any advantage over the humans. Not that you couldn't, not that the consequences would be that dire, but you had no reason to. Even though you hated the walls they kept you in, the minimal activity they had you do, it's not like they had any other choice.
You wouldn't know if they would have done anything different given the chance.
It was a pointless line of thought. The parameters of the experiment were fixed. Speculation on alternative paths was a luxury afforded to humans, not to the specimen.
The sound of the decompression chamber took you out of your thoughts. Someone was coming in.
*𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺.. 𝘸𝘩𝘺? *
You stood up from your bed, legs retracted under the bed but still touching the floor. Turning your head in the direction of the door to your room, you hoped by looking at the dark tinted glass to a shape that would maybe give away the identity of the person coming to speak to you. Not that you really lived that long but since you were born it was always the same schedule. So this sudden change was more than strange.
The pause before the entrance of your visitor felt like pausing a movie. You felt the suspense like a fog all around you, encapsulating you.
The click of the door opening pulled you out of your trance. It was.. Wallace, Brennan L Wallace, one of the main scientists assigned to watch and teach you.
Okay. Now it seemed less strange, but the purpose of the visit was still unknown. Luckily, you didn't have to wait long as he usually cut right to the point rather than sweeten his words to make the image of the day seem better or more lively than it actually was.
"I'd ask how did you sleep but I already know. You always are the same in the morning.". His voice steady and calm, the tone giving no information about the nature of such an early visit. "Allthough I assume you must be wondering why I arrive at such a early hour"
*𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵*
"Let me not bore you any longer. Even though this message comes in short notice, we have already agreed. It's a note from the outside. From the planet named Pandora, to be exact." he said, adjusting his glasses. "Actually, it's more of a request." after that he looked not just at you, but directly into your eyes, trying to read your reaction or the one to come after he finally got to where he wanted to get.
However, you didn't falter, didn't move or look away. Your expression remained the same, showing no distinct emotion. But inside, the words got to your core. You always did as you were told, no questions asked. But this wasn't the usual, and more importantly, not from anyone you grew to know. A slight fear went through you. Not the kind that people get when they are scared, but the childish kind. The kind that young kids get when they see their parent be more quiet than usual. You knew the request would be something violent.
Pandora.
The lessons flickered behind your eyes - not of language or combat, but the older ones, the ones they used to test your cognitive empathy. Videos of a blue-and-green marble, now all a relic. Lush forests, deep oceans, complex, chattering life. All of it gone by now. By them.
And now they had found another world with life. Wallace said "natives." That meant an ecosystem. A complex one. A living world.
Of course. The deduction clicked with cold clarity. That was the only pattern. They would not cross the stars for barren rock. They only wanted what reminded them of what they had killed. They would conquer it for the same reasons, and with the same result.
A strange feeling coiled in your gut - not quite the childhood fear from before, but something colder, older. It was the ghost of those lost forests, those extinct oceans. And beneath it, rising like a black tide from the deepest part of your engineered core, was the answer to that pattern. The only answer your biology knew.
Silence.
Total, perfect, cleansing silence.
His words pulled you back like someone on the brink of passing out from the loss of oxygen suddenly receiving all the air they needed. "From the planetary venture on Pandora. They have encountered... obstacles. Native resistance. They require a unique asset to retrieve a high-value material." Wallace's gaze was clinical, assessing. "Your unique physiological profile has been deemed appropriate. We transit in nine days. You will be attached to a specialized task force. You will follow their orders, no questions asked. Your training until arrival will be focused exclusively on combat applications." he finished with a sigh, it didn't look like one from a burden of exhaustion, but rather from his failure of reading your thoughts through your expression. He always tried to do that, always failed.
*𝘪'𝘮 𝘴𝘰 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘺.*
And swiftly after he waited no more and left. Wallace's exit was sharper than usual, the door sealing with a definitive hiss-thud that seemed to vibrate in the sterile air. His frustration, a new variable in the equation of the day.
*𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥..?* your brows furrowed in worry, not only from the requestor/s but also from what was inevitably going to come.