Chapter 8: The Stranger

Gabriel rammed the cart toward the transport. Jenna had sent two crew members back to help haul the pod upstairs; they were ahead now, clearing the ramp. Disconnecting the pod’s old supply had started its emergency revival sequence. The indicator above the lid counted down while a wheel dragged sideways through the rubble.

A creature struck from behind. Its claws tore his sleeve and scored the protective layer beneath it. Pain ran down his arm, but he kept both hands on the cart. He could inspect the damage if he reached the ramp.

The pod vented and its lid lifted. Inside, the woman stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped—sharp and terrified. She tried to sit up, her movements jerky and disoriented. The cart’s uneven wheels hit a crack in the pavement, causing the pod to tilt. The woman tumbled out, landing heavily on the ground.

“Stay down!” Gabriel yelled, pulling his knife with his free hand as he tried to steady the cart with the other.

The creature lunged again, aiming for Gabriel’s exposed side. He braced himself, knife raised—

—but the woman, disoriented as she was, rolled forward in an awkward attempt to stand. Her unintended move placed her body between Gabriel and the alien. She stumbled directly into its path, shielding Gabriel with her own body.

The alien’s claw raked across her arm, drawing blood. The effect was immediate and shocking.

The creature convulsed, its body locking up as her blood ran over the raw tissue between its claws. Within seconds, the alien collapsed, its twisted form dissolving into a harmless, inert mass.

Gabriel froze, staring at the remains. “What… the hell?”

The woman looked at him, her amber eyes wide with terror. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”

“I did that,” she whispered.

“No spores,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “That thing should’ve released spores.”

The growls in the distance were getting louder, snapping him out of his shock. Gabriel caught his balance and grabbed her hand. “We need to move. Now!”

She nodded, her body trembling as she struggled to stand. Together, they reached the transport, where Jenna was already waiting, waving them in frantically.

“What took you so—who the hell is that?” Jenna asked, her eyes darting between Gabriel and the stranger.

“The woman from the pod,” he said, helping her up the ramp. “Drive. Now.”

She kept looking at her arm, where the bleeding had already slowed. “I was dying,” she said. “At the hospital. They said I was dying.”

Gabriel looked from her wound to the empty cart outside. “We’ll get you checked.”

At the evacuation staging point, Gabriel stood outside the quarantine tent while a medic inspected his arm. The claw had scored him through the damaged inner layer; the wound was shallow, but the medic cleaned it and sealed a dressing over it before taking exposure samples. Gabriel kept his mask on until decontamination was complete.

Through the tent’s observation panel, he could see the woman sitting on a cot. She had tucked both hands beneath her arms. When someone approached the entrance, she drew her feet up too.

Jenna joined him with the monitor she had been using inside. She had spent the past hour asking the woman simple questions through the intercom.

“She gave me a name. Ava,” Jenna said. “Nothing else she’s certain of. I’ve asked them to prepare the transport’s quarantine compartment for the journey north.”

Gabriel looked at the new dressing beneath his sleeve. “She said she was dying,” he murmured, his brow furrowing. “Some disease.”

Jenna frowned. “Well, she’s not dying now. In fact, her vitals are… unusual. Elevated heart rate, but no signs of infection. And then there’s the alien she killed.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel muttered. “Her blood killed it. No spores.”

They fell into silence, both of them staring at the frightened woman on the other side of the glass.

“She’s terrified,” Jenna said softly. “We need to figure out what she is, Gabe. Before someone else does.”

Inside the tent, Ava had found a loose thread in the blanket. She wound it around one finger, unwound it before it tightened, and began again. The people outside were speaking beyond the reach of the intercom. Occasionally one looked in.

She could remember the creature falling. Her own blood on it. The wrongness of that result would not fit beside the hospital, where her blood had meant she was going to die. Had they cured her? The thought offered a moment of relief so desperate she almost called to ask.

Then she saw her reflection in the observation panel. Amber where green should have been. She moved her face, and the eyes followed. She remembered being watched through another pane, although she could not yet hold the room around it in her mind.

Those aren’t my eyes.

Her name was still Ava. She had managed to tell them that. Now she mouthed it without making a sound, testing whether it belonged to the face in the glass. She wished they would call her again so she could answer.