Alien

Chapter One

One

110 years later

Thump, thump, thump. The bass rattled through his bones again, vibrating in every corner of his body, then again, and again. Thump, thump, thump. Even his body had gotten used to the ground-shaking beat by now; his heart was thumping happily along to the music, as was his foot. It wasn't exactly a foot-tapping song, heavy metal never was really, but Kane had always been a fidgeter. He shouldn't be standing this close to the speaker, he knew that; it would leave him deaf for the rest of the night. But maybe that was for the best. He didn't really want to hear the sound of Kara's dad bellowing that he wouldn't live until the end of the week just yet; maybe he'd face that storm tomorrow.

On second thought, that was looking less and less likely. He was bound to have one hell of a hangover in the morning and the shouting wasn't really going to help that too much.

No, that was just an excuse. The truth was, he didn't really feel like being murdered by a psychotic gang leader within the next seven days. Despicable of him, he knew, but he had always been rather keen on self-preservation. He looked down at his empty glass. A few dregs of whisky were left in the bottom and he quickly slurped them up. That was his second glass; he expected there'd be quite a lot more to come.

He trudged over to the bar, shoving his way through various clumps of bopping clubbers, and half-sat half-fell into one of the stools. A woman behind the bar immediately came over, deliberately leaning provocatively over the counter, her low-cut top leaving nothing to imagination. Any other day he may have flirted back, but today wasn't one of those days.

"A whisky, please."

She grinned at him and raised her painted eyebrows. "Oh, I even get the magic word, do I?" She leaned even further forward, her breasts almost spilling out of her top. "I must be special." She swayed her hips from behind the bar. Kane sighed, disgusted with himself; he couldn't believe he was actually happy with a woman like that before Kara. Talk about cheap.

"You're not. Now get me a whisky." She scowled at him, but grabbed a glass from one of the shelves. Whisky in hand, he looked around. Having seen no signs of Kara or her family, he relaxed. Further down the bar though, someone caught his attention. It was a woman, well not even that really, a girl. She looked about eighteen, but there were signs that told him she was at least a few years older. The way she held herself for starters, this wasn't a naïve teen fresh out of school, she had more experience than that. He guessed she must be early twenties at most, and yet she wasn't at a university. She can't have been; this week was quite an intensive one for finals apparently. A girl like her wouldn't be drinking her life away in a bar if she had exams.

Wait...why was he analyzing her already? He shook his head; he needed to remember that he wasn't in that world anymore. The world where he had needed to analyze people, where he needed to sort the good guys from the bad. That world was gone, behind him. He was normal now.

Relatively.

He kept watching the girl though. She had a beer in her hand, but she must have still been in the early stages, as she was showing no signs of drunkenness just yet. But the empty look in her eye told her she was intending to show those signs soon. He didn't know what was so fascinating about her. Maybe it was the fact that he saw so much of himself in her: the loneliness, the brokenness...and those sad, dark auburn eyes that stared at the bottle in front of her with a barrenness that only he could emphasize with. Suddenly those eyes snapped up to meet his, and widened like a deer's caught in headlights. One second went by...then two, and they were still staring at each other. It was an odd experience, being so connected to a stranger. The first feeling he had was panic, what was he supposed to do? Look away? But then, some part of him didn't want to...a broken girl sat before him and he wanted...no, needed to find out what had made her break. A bad break-up perhaps? That had broken him, and he had thought himself almost indestructible beforehand. Or maybe a family member's death? Or a close friend's, maybe? All were possible.