Chapter 2.
She slowly woke up, leaning up out of her bed. A soft hiss came from her, a long tongue extending out. She looked down at it, still weirded out by it. It felt weird to have a tongue that functioned more as a 2nd mouth, and a several foot long tail that was strong enough to lift her off the ground with ease.
Eating was much more of a chore now, Emma now restrained to just the small inner mouth for eating. She had realized it was easier to just inhale small bits of food, trying to chew usually leaving a sloppy mess in her mouth.
Drinking liquids was actually easier to do now though, her inner mouth functioning as a straw pretty much, Emma just sticking the entire thing into a cup and sucking up whatever she wanted.
She had been very glad to find she still had a sense of taste, in fact, the inner mouth actually seemed to be much more receptive of tastes than her previous body had, Emma able to taste things from her food that she had never noticed before.
She groggily climbed out of the bed, grabbing a food can out of a cabinet, then making her way over to the couch. She sat down, glancing down at her tail, seeing it trailing back from where she'd just been.
She used her claws to open the can, stabbing the top of it then ripping the lid off. She still wished she was human, but given that was likely to never be a possibility she was trying to get more familiar with her new form.
She was able to use her tail with the same finesse as her fingers now, and she was slowly figuring out just how much strength to put into stuff. She'd been pleasantly surprised to find she was now insanely stronger, the alien creatures seeming to possess a massive amount of strength.
Previously heavy things now felt light, and smaller and lighter things now felt like she was lifting up a feather.
She looked into the can, seeing that it was peaches. She uttered a delighted screech, and then she grabbed a fork, sticking one of the fruits with it. She brought it up to her face, opening her mouth and extending her inner one out, the teeth biting down on half of it.
She had also been overjoyed to discover that she could still eat a lot of the stuff she had enjoyed before, her body seeming to not care what she ate.
She took another bite, finishing off the fruit, and then she brought the can up to her face, sticking her inner mouth in and drawing out some of the juices inside it. She took a breath as she pulled away, and then she looked down at the tablet on a small table in front of her.
She reached for it, grabbing it and turning it on, going to the notes for the sections. She immediately went over to the zone that the other engineer was in.
She stared at it for a second, then let out a surprised screech. She dropped the food can and ran to her door, quickly opening it and running out, her footsteps echoing as she ran away.
On the tablet was a small message the engineer had left, telling her his room number. Also on it was a small message saying, 'Leaving to get to control board, you can wait at room. Left tablet in room.'
It had been sent 15 minutes ago.
He walked down the hall, several tools dangling off his belt as he moved. He'd had to dodge a few bandit groups, reduced to crawling through vents to get past them. He'd also had to crawl through the vents to get past blocked off areas, or areas too dangerous to risk traversing.
Quite a few areas had evidence of fighting, bullet marks lining the walls, some melted walls and flooring, and even the evidence of what must have been explosions, metal debris blocking entire pathways from explosives that had been set off, or fuel lines that had been hit.
He'd fixed a few things as he'd went, but much of it was far too gone to repair. Some places he'd had to resort to simply cutting the power so he could pass, entire floors electrified by loose wires, made even more deadly by leaking water lines.
His eyes went wide as he heard thumping in the distance again, far louder than he'd heard last night.
He looked around in a panic, realizing there were countless lockers lining the hall. He grabbed the handle of one, but it was locked. He looked in the direction of the thumping, the noise growing much louder. He grabbed the one next to it, his heart jumping in relief when he found it was open.
He jumped into the locker, closing the door, pushing his head against the back of the locker as he listened. The thumping stopped, and then a second later he heard something fall from the vents nearby.
He heard it land with a heavy thud, an annoyed hiss following. He heard it start walking around, the man breathing quietly as he heard it walk closer to him. It was walking slowly, the engineer watching as it walked by.
It was looking all over the place, and he watched as it turned, looking at a door across from him. It walked up to it, glancing down at the keypad.
He had to resist the urge to suck in a gasp as he watched its hand move over the keypad, and then it pushed in a few buttons. His eyes widened in surprise and shock as the door opened a second later, the alien walking into the room, looking around.
He could see it occasionally appear and disappear as it walked around the room, but eventually it walked back out. How the hell did it know how to open doors? And how the hell did it know the code to open rooms? How smart were these damn things?
A sense of dread came over him as he realized he had no chance of surviving a long time if one of these things was hunting him, which this one seemed to be. It glanced down both ends of the hallway, and then it started walking further down.
He heard another door open a little ways away. It didn't seem to look into it long though, because he heard another door further down also open. His heart pounded with every door that opened, the man silently praying that there was no one who was hiding in them.
Gradually the noises disappeared, and eventually he heard it climb back into a vent, the creature moving quickly in the vent, making a lot of noise as it ran away.
He sat there for several seconds, breathing heavily, before he slowly opened the door, grimacing as it creaked. He stepped out, looking around and seeing that every door down the hallway had been opened.
That was the way he needed to go, but he couldn't go that way with the alien hunting him down, he would have to find an alternate route.
He went back the other way, walking down a different hallway, making his way along, listening for any sound of the alien coming close. As he walked he eventually happened across a map of the area.
