** The following tale is fiction. It contains graphic descriptions, intense situations, and consenting sexual material involving
teenagers. If this kind of material is illegal where you are, if you are underaged, or if material of this
sort offends you, you are urged to turn back RIGHT NOW.  Otherwise please enjoy.

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Origin: Chapter Two

There were many concerns as I exited my brother's room and started jogging down the corridor toward the location of the first panic room.

Primarily, I wanted to know what the creature was. I had never seen anything like it in my studies or in my teachings. It was clear it was not human. It smelled nothing like one. It also did not speak like one. It spoke with its mind.

This confused me because the monster spoke just like my siblings and I (when they were alive) were able to. Along with that, I was able to sense it in the same way my siblings and I were able to sense one another. It was how I had known the creature was coming. It was how I had discovered that the creature was not alone.

There were more of them out there.

I did not know just how many. What I did know was that they were a distance away from my location. This made me believe that the monster I had encountered might have been a scout. If that was true, I would not have much time. Unsure of how the creatures functioned, I did not know if they would eventually realize their scout was missing. And if they did, would they investigate?

Beyond my primary concern was the second. The transformation my body had undergone during my encounter with the monster. No change that drastic to my physical or mental form had ever happened before.

My first thought was that contact with the monster had affected me in some way. However, I had not felt an intrusion on my physical or mental forms. There had been no pain, only the strange sensations of the change itself. It had even receded on its own after the monster was dead, as if my body and mind were somehow already built for it. This indicated that whatever transformation had taken place was not the fault of the monster. It was something I had always been capable of.

A second answer came to mind. The fact that the monster had threatened my life. In all our years of existence, my siblings and I had never been put into a situation where we felt our lives were at risk. Mother and Father taught us what happened when the life of something was threatened. It reacted by shifting into fight or flight mode. Perhaps the transformation was some type of fight or flight reaction to the threat of the monster.

"I will have to ask Mother and Father." I thought to myself, figuring it could have been why they never put us in such a situation.

My jog became a brisk walk, which slowed to a stop, as I came to the section of wall that the corridor to the panic room was supposed to be behind. The wall itself was silver and reinforced. It did not look as if it had been noticed by the monsters.

That was good.

The wall was separated into upper and lower halves by a black colored bar in the center. The black bar had the purpose of supporting the upper and lower halves of the wall. However, when one was at the entrance of a panic room, the bar served as a fingerprint strip. As I had been taught, I placed my finger horizontally against the strip and ran it slowly across for about five inches.

There was nothing at first. I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake when a low "click" sound was heard. Functioning like one unit now, both the top and bottom halves of the wall opened to reveal a dimmed corridor beyond. Quickly I entered, making sure to shut the door behind me.

The corridor was a security measure. Had there been power, there were cameras that would have been watching the passage. It also would have been much easier to see. With the door closed, there was no light coming in. I had to use my hand to guide myself along the wall, using the other hand to make sure I did not run into the door that would eventually be in front of me.

Unexpectedly, the entire passage flooded with light. It startled me. I could not help the action I took to shield my eyes with my hands. I was unable to give them proper time to adapt, before I removed my hands and began looking around. I had not felt any of the monsters.

That did not mean they were the only things to be concerned about.

Something opened up ahead. Looking there with my slightly stinging eyes, the discomfort was quickly overtaken by happiness.

"Father!"

He was there at the door leading into the small chamber just before the panic room about three feet away from me. I was going to start toward him when,

"Don't come any closer, Finn." he instructed.

I stopped and got ready to ask why, when he tossed out a black bag in my direction.

"Do you have underwear on?" he asked.

"Yes." I nodded.

"Take everything off but them and put them into that bag."

I did not know why he was requiring me to do this, but I did not question him. I obeyed.

"Bring the bag and step into the sanitization chamber." he further instructed.

I obeyed again, walking with the bag the final three feet into the chamber that stood between the panic room and the corridor. He stepped into the panic room, leaving me and the bag in the chamber. I knew what was going to happen. The air was going to turn on and spray me with some type of material that would sanitize my body and my underwear.

"Close your eyes, son." Father's voice spoke again.

I obeyed again as the machine did its work.

"Okay, step out." his instruction came again.

The door ahead of me came open, giving me access to the panic room. Once I was in, I saw that the entire room was with power. I did not know how it was possible for there to be power for the panic room and not the rest of the facility, but it did not concern me. I was simply happy to see that Father, Mother, Angelo and Juanita were alive and well.

"I'll go ahead and take that." Angelo took the black bag from me and put it into a sealed container that resembled a trash can.

Mother came forward.

"Finn, thank god!" there was joy in her voice as she wrapped me in a hug.

"I am glad to see you are well, Mother." I returned her hug.

"What about you?" she pulled away from me, beginning to look me over for any physical scars.

"I am unharmed." I told her.

Mother was always one to show her affections. Father always seemed to keep his reserved. This time, however, he embraced me in a hug just as Mother had done.

"I'm glad to see you alive, son." he said.

"I am happy to see you unharmed as well, Father." I hugged him in return.

After our moment was over, I looked to all the others in the room.

"It is good to see all of you unharmed as well. I am glad the monsters did not get to you." I said.

"Wait...you've seen them?" Juanita had the sound of surprise in her voice.

"Yes. I had to engage one in a fight." I answered.

"And you walked away?" Angelo asked next, more surprised.

"Yes."

All of them exchanged surprised and confused glances.

"With no weapons?" Father asked next.

"I did not have any weapons, but something happened to me. A transformation of some kind. It made me faster than I have ever been. My fingernails grew into claws. Something occurred with my mouth that I could not see. My eyesight was good enough that I could see perfectly in very little light."

Again they exchanged the same looks with one another.

"But you look like yourself now." Mother said.

"Yes. The transformation reverted after the confrontation was over." I told her.

"Has it happened again?" Father asked.

"No."

"Do you feel like its safe for you to try and do it again?"

"I believe the threat of the monster caused it to happen. Like you taught us. Fight or flight."

Father thought for a moment. Mother was thinking too.

"That's a very strong possibility." Father spoke to no one in particular. "It would make sense."

"So it was a fight or flight reaction?" I wanted to be clear.

"Considering what we know now...I'd go with yes." Mother answered for him.

The others in the room were also nodding in agreement. I figured the answer given and the topic closed.

"What was that monster?" I moved on to my primary concern.

Now there was absolute silence for a few moments.

"We don't know what call them other than Xenomorphs...or Aliens." Father answered.

"Aliens? Like creatures from another planet?" I asked.

"Yes."

That would explain why the monsters were like nothing I had ever seen before and the cause for the state of the facility.

"Are we being attacked by them? Is that why there was an explosion earlier?" I asked.

"That's a positive on both of those." Angelo answered. "They destroyed the power station that was feeding power to the main facility. Then they came inside and..."

Angelo's expression changed for a moment. It was easy to see why he could not finish his sentence. Angelo was a strong man in mind and body. It would take much to shake him. Whatever he had seen when the monsters came in had clearly shaken him. His expression was one of momentary terror.

"You do not have to finish." I told him.

Angelo nodded and cleared his throat.

"Anyway, we're lucky the panic rooms run on their own separate power supply. Those bastards would have to break through reinforced wall to get to them without lock and key." he continued.

"The monster I encountered spoke of something called The Harvest. Is that what happened when they came in?" I hoped the question would not shake Angelo any further.

It was clear a few seconds later that it did not. The looks on their faces answered for me.

"Were you able to speak to them, Finn?" Juanita asked.

"Yes. They communicate like my siblings and I used to, with their minds. They do not use words as we are doing now." I answered.

"What did it say exactly?" Mother asked next.

"Before we engaged it saw me and said: "another body for the harvest."

I was not sure what part of that got their attention, but it had. Looks of sheer horror washed over their faces.

"Oh my god...they're starting to reproduce!" Mother voice was an intense whisper.

"What!" both Juanita and Angelo exclaimed.

"That's impossible, Dana, there was only one egg. There was only one of those...those things. We found it dead." Father said to her.

"It's not like we have a PhD in how these damn things operate, hon. Who's to say that each and every one of them isn't capable of laying more of those eggs themselves?"

A moment of silence as Father tried to counter her statement.

"Goddamn it, you're right." he sighed. "And if that's true...they'll move toward the city for more bodies. Aside from us, nobody even knows these things exist yet. Those people won't stand a chance."

All of this new information put new questions on my mind. Some of them were questions I did not like. They were painting Mother and Father in a color I did not agree with.

"Father, Mother...did you bring the monsters here?" I asked a question I did not want to.

Once again they did not need to answer with words. Their expressions answered for me.

"We might as well tell him the truth, Henry." Mother said to Father.

"Finn, come over here with me." Father called to me, as he began to walk toward one of the computer consoles."

I, as well as everyone else, joined him at the console. He began to input commands into the machine through its keyboard. A moment later, a picture that I was familiar with came onto the screen. It looked like a large discolored boulder shaped almost like an oval.

"Do you remember what this is?" Father asked me.

"Yes. That is The Fossil." I recalled.

"Yes it is. Recovered from a dig over twenty years ago and brought to Weyland Industries for research, we thought the exterior was a process of the Earth's doing. We would later find out this wasn't the Earth's doing at all. It was the actual structure itself."

Father turned to me.

"What does it look like to you?"

"It looks like a giant egg." I answered.

"That's what it turned out to be. It was from this egg that we took samples for analysis. It was from this egg that we recovered DNA samples that would wind up testing most compatibly with human DNA. We thought that maybe, just maybe, it was the egg of some type of pre-historic race similar to humans."

Father input more commands into the computer and it began to display the DNA sequences. It showed the DNA sequence from the fossil egg and human DNA. They looked almost identical, with the fossil egg DNA being more detailed.

"We did more experiments, more research. It would take years before we would begin active experiments with the DNA's use. It would eventually lead up to combining the DNA from the egg with the DNA of a human."

More input into the computer. It displayed the process of the DNA combining and unification.

"It would culminate in the joining of the two DNA's into human egg cells. Using invitro fertilization, the egg cells were fertilized and would be carried one by one to term. You, Sawyer, Alice, and Dorothy were the ones who survived the process."

Neither Mother or Father thoroughly explained this to any of us. We had not been lied to. We had just not been given all the information. We knew that we were a combination of DNA from human and the fossil egg. It was always assumed that the fossil egg was something of similar origin, but not of the typical humans that currently existed in the world.

"Did Mother carry these monsters?" I asked another question I did not want to.

"No." Father shook his head, relieving me of that thought.

He input more commands into the computer. The image changed to show what I believed to be the fossil egg, only it did not look like a fossil anymore. It looked more like a real egg. Its color was a familiar shade, just like the skin on the monster.

"The process of trying to restore the egg was the other half of the project that produced you, your brother and your sisters. Once the technology was finally available, we were able to replicate the egg in its original form."

The image on the screen began to cycle, showing the maturation of the egg until it was full size.

"We thought we'd made the most significant discovery in science. The ability to repopulate extinct species of life..."

Father sighed heavily and shook his head.

"If only we'd known what we were repopulating, we would've abandoned the project before that egg was ever replicated."

"What happened, Father?" I asked.

"Twenty one days after its creation, the egg hatched. This emerged."

The commands inputted into the computer brought up the egg again, only this time its top was opened, separated into four even parts. The material inside looked like living, pulsing muscle. One of the personnel was observing the egg when something leapt out of it and attacked him.

The next image, or as they had become now, videos, showed the body of the person who had been attacked lying on an observation table with a large spider attached to his face.

The spider had wrapped its fingers completely over the head and face. It also possessed a tail, which was wrapped tight like a coil around the neck of the person. The spider looked as if it were two colors. On top it was dark colored, almost like it was covered in some type of exoskeleton. In the places where there were joints, like its fingers, it appeared to be flesh colored.

"What is that, Father?" I asked.

"One of the monsters, son. This is how they start. This thing got onto Miller's face. It fed him oxygen, kept him alive for the thirty minutes it was on his face. Then...it was like it knew we were watching it, because it came off his face and escaped into the ventilation shafts the second we turned our backs. It would get to five more personnel before we would find it dead in the shafts."

With somewhat shaking hands, Father inputted more commands into the computer. A new video came up and began to play. The assaulted man, Miller, was still on the observation table, but seemed to be communicating and acting normally.

"We thought he was fine. He was talking, laughing. Only seemed to have the slight symptoms of a cold. Four hours later..."

The video showed Miller sleeping. Suddenly, his eyes came open and a scream of pain came from his mouth. Other personnel rushed in to try and keep him clam, but it was as if Miller was going into hysterics. He was screaming in agony and his entire body seemed to be reacting as if he was trying to break out of his own skin.

Then, something hit his chest.

It was not something from the outside. It was like something was inside of him and it was trying to get out. It kept hitting him there, eventually causing him to bleed and for his chest to become disproportionate. Whatever it was kept assaulting him until it broke free in a small geyser of blood from his chest.

My first thought was that the creature was a snake. It was flesh colored underneath the blood it was covered in, and uncurled itself quickly. It opened its small mouth in what looked like a scream or a hiss. The mouth was the only thing it seemed to have. No eyes. No nose. Just like the monster I had fought.

The personnel tried to capture it, but it was fast. It escaped them by breaking its way through the ventilation cover and entering the shafts.

The video ended there.

"That little creature you just saw grows up to become the monster you saw. It does this very fast. This same process happened to the other five personnel who were attacked. It was already too late once we'd found them. That created six Xenomorphs. Just six of them were enough to compromise this entire facility and most of its people in a matter of a few hours."

Father turned away from the screen and looked at me.

"So to answer your question, son, yes...we brought them here."

I could tell he was shamed. Deeply shamed. This was not something he wanted. Looking around at all the others in the room, I could see that their stance was also the same.

I found that I could not fault them. Up until the current phase, what they had done had not yielded such negative results. Now, however, I had understanding. I knew now why the monsters felt familiar to me. I knew now how I could understand them. Most of all, I now knew what the transformation had been. It was that part of them that was part of me coming out to the surface.

"They are the other half of us." I said. "The monsters."

"I'm afraid so, son." Father answered.

Hearing that after seeing what the monsters had done, I could not help the shame I felt.

"Then we are monsters too." I had not meant to speak the words aloud, but I did.

"No!" Mother spoke suddenly, shaking her head. "You are not one of those monsters!"

"Part of us is..."

Mother came to me and put her hands on my shoulders gently.

"And part of you is not. You...all four of you are our sons and daughters. You are our children." she said. "Those things you saw on the screen and that thing you fought, they are monsters."

Mother's words reminded me of the monster's words when I told it I was not human. "Nor are you one of us" it had said. Now that I had seen what they were capable of, I was glad not to be.

"They did not see us as one of them either." I told her. "The monsters...they took away my sisters. They took away Sawyer. That was why I had to fight. It wanted to take Sawyer's body, and it wanted to take me."

This news hit Mother hard. It affected all of them in the room.

"You...you're sure." Father asked.

"I could not feel Alice or Dorothy when I awoke after the explosion. When I reached Sawyer, he had been assaulted by one of the monsters. He was not well enough to keep from expiring. That was when I could no longer feel him." I revealed.

Mother's hand went to her face as the emotion of grief overtook her. She turned away from me and walked a couple of steps. Father went to her and embraced her. She began to cry.

"You did good to make it here, Finn. I'm sorry about your brother and sisters." Angelo said to me in a comforting tone.

"Thank you, Angelo. I am sorry as well." I returned, unable to keep a bit of grief from coming to my voice.

Juanita came to me and gave me a hug.

"I'm sorry, babe. I'm sorry you have to deal with any of this." she gave more words of comfort.

"Thank you." I returned her hug. "But we must deal, and we can not stay here. Sawyer wanted me to get you to safety. I told him I would."

"That's gonna be easier said than done, buddy." Angelo said.

"Why?"

"When the Xenomorphs destroyed the power generators, it kicked all the security systems into overdri..."

Angelo's words ended suddenly as a strange expression came to his face.

"Which is why I now don't understand how you managed to make it here." he concluded.

"Aside from the monster, it was not difficult." I did not know why my making it to the panic room would be otherwise difficult.

"Oh my god, why didn't I just think of that until now?" Juanita appeared to be realizing something. "The gas! He's not affected by the gas!"

Had there been gas?

"What gas?" I asked.

"One of the security systems that went off as a protective measure. This place has been flooded with a nerve gas that is deadly to us...us humans. We step outside this panic room and inhale it, we'll die." Angelo answered.

I had not noticed any gas during my travels. The only thing I had noticed was the tangy smell in the air. A tangy smell that could have very well been the nerve gas Angelo and Juanita were discussing. Perhaps it did not have a color.

"Would a breathing apparatus help?" I suggested.

"If we had some here." Juanita sighed. "But we don't. And we aren't sure where any spares might be."

"Is there a way to remove the gas?"

"Not until it dissipates naturally in another 72 hours." Angelo replied.

Perhaps we could have waited there in the panic room for 72 hours until the gas had dissipated and then made our move. However, I did not know how strong the Xenomorphs truly were. If the words Mother and Father spoke were true, then it was clear that they had a high intelligence. For the time, the Xenomorphs did not know that the panic room existed. How long would it be until they discovered it? Even if the entire panic room was reinforced, would they eventually be able to find another way in?

"Then I will go for help." I suggested.

Mother had collected herself by this time. Father was still by her side. She turned to me upon hearing my words and shook her head.

"With all those things running around out there? No way. It's too dangerous." she objected.

"But there is no other alternative, Mother. Father and yourself have already said that the Xenomorphs are smart. How long do we have until they find out we are here? How long after that will we have until they find a way in?"

My logic must have been something not thought about by any of them. Everyone fell silent, their expressions those of dim realization.

"He's right, Dana." Father finally spoke.

"Yes," Mother nodded. "Yes he is. But he's all we have left, Henry. The rest of our children are dead. Would you be so bold as to send our last one...our youngest out there so he can die too?"

Father wanted to argue with her, but Mother did have a point. However, there was no guarantee that staying in the panic room would ensure our survival. We could all still be found and all still be killed.

"I understand your concern, Mother." I spoke to her. "However, you can not argue that we are not safe here. We must escape. If that means I have to go out there to do it, then I must. I have stood against these monsters before. I can do it again if necessary."

She was quiet.

Everyone was quiet.

I could see them thinking.

I hoped that my words would help them understand.

Finally, Mother let out a long, low sigh.

"This goes against every fiber of my being." there was defeat in her tone. "But you are the only one who can go out there and get us the help we need."

She came to me, hunching down on her knees so that we were at the same level. She caught my face with her hand and held it.

"So I'm going to say yes...even though I really want to say no."

T o  B e  C o n t i n u e d.