Something was wrong.
Something was so wrong that it forced Ash awake, her breath steaming the frigid night air in front of her.
Wait. Why was she asleep outside? Why was she asleep outside in the cold and dark?
Adrenaline spiked through her, and she jerked awake, tossing off the layer of snow that had already started to blanket her. Patting herself down while trying to figure out what had happened, she found that she was in outdoor clothing and gear, and even had her father's rifle at her side. Flashes of memory returned to her that didn't make sense but gave her clues.
She remembered being out on a hike, a patrol. She had found evidence of a potentially rabid bear, radioed it in, and then started heading back to camp. And then…
And then what?
Concerns for the past faded as awareness of the present came into better focus. Ash wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious and how long she simply couldn't remember anything, but it was night out and it was snowing. That actually rather unsettled her since it was unseasonably early for snow like this, and she had an uncanny feel for the weather. There was something about this that felt wrong.
The sense of wrong was probably related to the eerie blue and violet aurora currently lighting up the sky in disturbingly close seeming ribbons and rays. Looking up for too long set her teeth on edge and simultaneously stirred and suppressed memories. On some level she felt like she was seeing this light for the first time, and on another level she felt like it was an echo of a dream. Some part of her wanted to just lay down and go back to sleep rather than deal with this, but whatever instincts had woken her up were now joined by her rational mind screaming that to sleep now was death.
Ash needed to figure out what was going on, and that meant getting out of the woods. Most of the time that would have meant waiting for morning, sitting tight for rescue while setting up shelter and possibly a fire. Unfortunately Ash's radio was dead, the gap in her memory meant that she had no idea if anyone knew she was out here, and her instincts were telling her that she had to move. Fortunately, she probably could have hunted a potentially rabid bear in the dark on her own, it was just unnecessarily stupid and risky. With her decades of knowledge of these woods she felt quite confident in her ability to find a landmark and then make her way back to camp.
In short order, that level of confidence led to disaster, although not of the sort normally associated with wandering around in the wilderness when lost. No, the problem was that Ash quickly found a road, and even more quickly spotted a truck that seemed to have gone off and into the brush along the side. In the inconstant light of the aurora she could make out a number of figures mingling about the vehicle, but little more than that at least one of them appeared to be child-sized. Of course Ash called out to them.
One of the shorter figures raised a hand to point at her, and in that instant Ash knew that something was very wrong. Acting on that little voice in her head, she hurled herself to the side right as there was a flash of blue-white light. A feeling best compared to standing too close to a cutting torch passed across her back as she rolled along the slushy mud of the road.
Shedding her pack and unslinging her rifle while scrambling for cover in the trees while more eye-searingly bright spears of heat flashed through the darkness, Ash began to mutter a prayer to all her ancestors, the spirits of the world, and basically anything that might be listening. She was panicking slightly, but she really didn't care all that much, she was just trying to ground herself in something from her childhood as she lined up her rifle on a monster.
Glossy black, soulless eyes were reflecting the blue-white glow of the weapon. Bulbous of head and emaciated of frame, the naked leathery grey skin and diminutive stature should have been comical. In the dark as it was very clearly trying to kill her with otherworldly weaponry, there was nothing funny at all about the grey alien.
Ash caressed the trigger of her inherited rifle, and it kicked her shoulder while giving out its surprisingly quiet warcry. She had been aiming for roughly where the sternum would be on a human, but from the results of her shot she was fairly certain she had struck the neck or just below. Rounds meant for dealing with grizzlies or very lost polar bears did terrible things to pencil thin flesh, and the alien's head popped off like a broken action figure.
For half a heartbeat everything went still as the corpse crumpled, disappearing into the dark, and then all hell broke loose. An explosion went off next to the alien's body at almost the same time the other figures in the darkness opened up with their own horrible ray guns. Their response was mostly undirected as Ash dove for cover, but the trees around her began to explode from the bolts of burning light impacting them.
For her part, Ash was completely uninterested in sticking around to fight this out, and instead she moved further into the forest. Stopping after a moment despite the fear clutching her, she forced herself to slow her breathing and settle her mind. Running in the dark was a great way to trip and die, and even if she had no interest in getting into a shootout, the worst thing to do was to lose sight of a dangerous animal. Better to keep it in view while backing away slowly.
One of the figures seemed to agree with her, as the largest member of the group seemed to order the rest to stop firing. It was hard to make out with the distance, trees, and darkness, but it seemed that there was one vaguely human sized creature alongside two or three of the smaller ones, and it was giving directions.
Crouched in the dark, Ash watched the aliens mill about for a moment, before she abruptly felt a wave of fear wash over her. It was something raw and primal and it made her want to get up, to scream and run for her life in total panic. Instead though, the emotion slammed into a memory. A memory of being out hunting with her father and "Uncle" Denis as a child. She couldn't remember what exactly had scared her, but she remembered them being so big and calm as they taught her how to be at peace with her fear and to let it go, lest she scare the animals.
The fear washed over her, and then through her, and she was at ease. She suspected that the tall alien had something to do with what she had just felt, since it had been so abrupt and overwhelming. The fact that the aliens seemed to mill about for a moment before going back to what they were doing with the truck seemed to confirm it. Had whatever they done been some attempt to flush her out?
Something weird was going on out on the road, the wind picking up in odd ways, kicking up frost and snow and swirling it into dancing devils. Maybe all that ray gun bullshit had created a heat pocket low to the ground on this freezing night, maybe the spirits of the wind had been listening to her plea for aid when she had been lining up her shot.
Fuck, now she had that stupid metal song stuck in her head. Okay, it was kind of cool that someone she was kind of related to was a giant badass, but unless the aliens were dropping poison gas she wasn't sure how useful the spirits of the wind would be right now.
Something clicked in her head. The idea of knockout gas or some alien bullshit equivalent now explained a lot about why she would just fall asleep in the middle of the woods with the temperature dropping and night falling. She had a creeping feeling up her spine that it was more related to the eerie aurora flickering above, and that her radio being out and the truck being stopped were probably also related.
Watching from the relative safety of the darkness and the trees, Ash watched as the little aliens went over the truck and started to haul out the passengers, while the leader walked over to the corpse of the downed creature and fired some green lightning bullshit from a weird looking rifle-thing into it. The creature was illuminated well enough that Ash could see more of its features, and it seemed to be in some sort of suit with a bubble helmet. The reflection off its helmet obscured most of its face, but in the acrid green flashes Ash got an impression of a skeletal rictus grin beneath a bulbous head.
Ash should run. She should slink off into the darkness and wait for morning and hopefully someone would provide help after this nightmare had passed. It was the smart thing to do, especially since those alien weapons hit like artillery, and it was pure dumb luck that none had come close enough to cause injury.
But…
But there were people in that truck. Those things had shot at her without prompting, and she knew it in her bones that they had caused all of this and absolutely had malicious intent. Could she really just skulk away?
The snow whirls that had been kicked up were bedevilling the aliens, but the curtains of swirling snow broke often enough that Ash felt confident in her ability to compensate, especially since they seemed to be of the opinion that their blind barrage into the woods had finished her off. A surprise attack to the leader could do a lot of damage.
Or she could not do enough with her opening shot and give away her position and get killed.
Or… or maybe she could stalk and track these creatures? They didn't seem to have a flying saucer nearby, so presumably they were abducting the occupants of the truck to bring them somewhere, and Ash was a fucking great tracker.
Of course, if she decided to do that there was a big "And then what?" at the end of the journey.
Two paths stand open to Ashley
[ ] Fight here
[ ] Stalk the aliens
[ ] (Nemesis) Something worse shows up
