A Wish Is A Dream The Heart Makes.

Chapter eleven: In The Darkness We Run.


They ran silently, their only guide through the darkness the faint glow of the lights across Riddick’s back; Xander kept pace with the others, ignoring the jolts of pain his arm was giving as best he could. He was also doing his best to pretend that he couldn’t hear the creatures surrounding them, following them just beyond the circle of light. After they had run for about half an hour, Xander could tell the others were finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the pace. He slowed a little and called softly to Riddick, barely audible over the uneven pounding of the groups feet,


“Riddick,” he waited for Riddick’s acknowledgement to show that he was listening before he continued, “the others can’t keep up with this pace for much longer. They’re starting to get tired and someone will make a mistake.”


“Fine.” Riddick slowed his pace to a walk.


“Everyone slow to a walk for a while.” Xander said softly, “You need to get some breath back.” The small group slowed relieved to have a chance to stop running even if only for a short while. They continued on, walking at as fast a pace as they could maintain. Fry who was still bringing up the rear let out a loud gasp they all turned, just in time to see the cutting torch she carried flicker and die. The creatures began to screech loudly around them, as their largest source of light vanished. They huddled closer to the sled even as they started to pick up the pace. With the increase in the noise of the creatures, Fry lunged forward to the sled grabbing up a bottle torch and in her haste knocking one of the few flares they had, from the box to ground. Shazza saw it fall and without thinking shrugged free from the coils of luminescent tubing and she dodged back to scoop it up, yelling out, “Wait!”


“Shazza!” Fry cried as she saw what the other woman was doing, everyone froze at the shouts and turned. The creatures squealed louder and were getting closer, Imam quickly shrugged free of the tubing and lunged towards Shazza yelling,


“Get down!” He dove at her and rolled them both clear of the creature that had just started its dive for her. It hit the space where she had been seconds before and showered them both with sand, Johns immediately aimed his gun and started firing rapidly; turning as he followed its squeals blindly. There was wet sound of a bullet striking flesh and someone gasped in pain,


“Johns! Stop shooting, you’re shooting at us!” Xander cried desperately, scenting blood, Johns let off one more shot and they heard it hit something metallic, Xander spun around to the source of the sound, “You fucking moron Johns! You hit the fucking generator!” They all watched, staring at it in horror, as the generator sparked and gave a low whine as it struggled to continue working even with the damage the bullet had caused, it was a lost cause though; the sparks were increasing and the tubing it was powering had started to flicker on then off, then back on. The time it stayed off was increasing though with every spark the generator let off. Xander lunged forward and snatched a flare from the box, the generator spluttered and sparked one last time and the light began to fade from the tubing, leaving them in the growing darkness. Xander fumbled with the flare; struggling to get it to light as the creatures screeches increased around them. Finally it lit; just as the last light faded from the tubing, everyone scrambled towards the flare grabbing bottles from the box and lighting them from it; trying, frantically, to increase the brightness of the light around them and keep the creatures at bay.


“Riddick, you okay?” Xander asked as soon as it appeared they wouldn’t be under attack just yet,


“Fine, who’s bleeding?” He spoke loudly enough for them all to hear.


“I am,” Fry spoke calmly enough, but there was pain in her voice, “It’s not too bad, I think the bullet just grazed my side.” Shazza moved to check her over, holding the weak bottle light close to her side and nodding,


“It’s gone through, not too bad, you’re bleeding like hell though.”


Riddick walked up behind Xander shielding his eyes from the flare, talking softly to him, “Johns hit one of them slightly,” he inclined his head to the main source of the screeches and squeals of the creatures, “they’re tearing it apart.” He turned his head slightly and nodded it again, “They haven’t forgotten about us though.” He followed the direction the creatures were ‘looking’ in and was unsurprised to find them focused on Fry’s position. “Looks like I was right, Xan.”


“Hmm?”


“They can scent blood.”


The group began to run again, staying practically on top of the sled and trying to ignore the much more frequent calls of the creatures. After running for a few minutes the cries of the creatures increased, it sounded like there were a lot more of them now and they were closer.


“Can we pick up the pace?” Fry called out uneasily.


“Not a good idea, Fry.” Xander said without bothering to pass it on to Riddick, “If we go faster all of you will end up, with cramps and stuff in a few minutes, you can’t…” Xander was interrupted by Johns swearing and slowing down coming to an abrupt stop, causing the rest of them to stop as well. He was staring at the ground and they followed his gaze to see what had caught his eye; there clearly on the ground were the previous tracks of the sled. Johns shrugged out of the makeshift harness and stalked forward to where Riddick was crouched staring at the darkness in front of them.


“Wanna tell me what the hell’s going on?” He demanded as soon as he got close enough.


“We crossed our own tracks.” Fry muttered, staring at the clear signs of their previous passage in disbelief.


“Why have we circled?” Imam asked with a hint of fear in his voice, striding forward to Riddick‘s position, “Are we lost?”


“Listen.” Riddick spoke softly, ignoring the anger and fear coming from the others.


“Do you even know where we are?” Imam asked angrily without paying Riddick’s words much attention, Xander ignored the others as he strained to make out what Riddick had heard over the rest of the groups chatter,


“Listen!” Riddick roared, surging to his feet and spinning to glare at the others, in surprise they all went quiet and attempted to hear what he could. After a time they too could hear faintly, what he was warning them about. Xander moved closer to Riddick; a little unnerved at the sheer number of the creatures he could hear coming from in front of them, as soon as the rest had fallen silent. Riddick sensing his unease ran a reassuring hand down his arm and continued in a calmer tone, “Canyon ahead. I circled once to buy some time to think.”


“I think we should go now.” Imam offered.


“Oh… I don’t know about that.” Riddick rumbled with slight amusement in his voice, “That’s death row up there. Especially with her bleeding still.” They turned and stared at Fry.


“What the fuck are you talking about?” Johns drawled menacingly. “What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?”


“Riddick found out he was right earlier,” Xander spoke up evenly, “he watched the creatures when Shazza was examining Fry’s wound and they… focused on Fry’s position. They can scent us by our blood.”


“You gotta be kidding me.” Johns stared at Fry calculatingly for a moment, before turning away.


“They’ve been nose-open for her ever since Johns got trigger happy.” Riddick said evenly to Imam.


Fry pressed her hand to her side where she could feel the blood still flowing, sluggishly now, but with her constantly moving around it had little chance to close.
“Look,” her voice was close to breaking, “this is not going to work. We’re gonna have to go back.” Johns slowly turned to face her again,


“What’d you say?” He pointed a finger at her, “You got us out here in the first place.”


“I was wrong.” She said tiredly, the pain in her side eating away at her strength, “I admit it. Can we just get back to the ship?”


“I don’t know, Carolyn.” Johns voice had a carefree madness to it, something that again uncomfortably reminded Xander of Angelus, “Nice breeze, wide-open space. I’m starting to enjoy my fucking self.”


“What, are you high again?” Fry looked at him shocked at his sudden turn around, “Just listen to yourself, Johns.”


“You’re right. What’s to be afraid of?” His voice rose with the last to a loud shout, “My life is a steaming pile of meaningless shit anyhow… So I say mush on. The canyon’s a couple hundred metres, after that it‘s skiff city. So why don‘t you butch up and shut up with your whinging and let‘s go” Fry glared at him as he spun around.


“She is the captain. We should listen to her.” Imam words only angered Johns further and he spun back towards them,


“Listen to her?” Johns narrowed his eyes at Imam as he continued, “She was so willing to sacrifice us all.” Fry flinched at that.


“What’s he talking about, Fry?” Shazza asked softly


“This does not help us.” Fry spoke desperately, Xander moved closer to the two of them, he had a feeling things would only escalate. Johns started speaking almost over Fry’s words. Xander could hear the relish in his voice as he revealed his knowledge, “During the crash she tried to blow the passenger cabin… tried to kill us in our sleep.”


“Shut your mouth!” Fry screamed at him but he ignored her and continued talking,


“We’re fucking disposable. We‘re just walking fucking ghosts to you.” That was the last straw for her she lunged at him trying to stop his words, any way she could; before her blow landed he’d caught it and used her own force against her to flip her over. She lay stunned on the ground and he leant forward to kick her but before he make contact with her a fist caught him powerfully on the jaw and he actually flew backwards several metres landing on the floor in a dazed heap. Xander stood over Fry; arm still extended, glaring at the fallen man and growling softly, when Johns made no move to stand up Xander’s arm fell to his side, “You fucking asshole, if I ever see you strike another woman I’ll tear you to pieces. Understood?” Xander glared until he heard Johns give a faint moan something that he chose to take as acknowledgement before turning back to the others and offering a goofy grin, he shook his protesting hand, “Owwie, Riddick you’ve got to teach me how to punch assholes without hurting my fist!” Riddick just snorted at him and turned to check the area again. Xander crouched next to Fry and offered her a hand, “How bad did he hurt you?” She stared at him in shock why would he help her after what she’d almost done to them? It was only when he answered that she realised that she’d asked her question aloud.


“Why am I offering to help?” He looked at her steadily waiting for her to raise her eyes to meet his before he continued, gently, “Were you afraid when the ship was crashing, Carolyn?” She nodded faintly, “People are at their best and worst when they are frightened, you were scared and reacted to save yourself; that’s understandable.” He shrugged well aware that both Shazza and Imam were listening and judging her and not liking it. He chose his next words with care, “Since we’ve landed on this planet you have tried to do everything you can to ensure we survived, you entered the cave looking for Zeke; even though you didn’t know what you’d be facing in there. It was you that went, you didn’t send someone else. You have been the one to come up with plans in the hope that we will survive all this,“ he waved a hand at the darkness around them, “You have been just as afraid as everyone else, yet you have tried to keep the others spirits up. Yes, you acted out of fear, to save yourself over a bunch of strangers; but I honestly think that in your position so would most others.” He shot a look at the other two, Shazza looked away, but Imam met his eyes and gave a slight nod; accepting the truth of what Xander had said, “Now, enough of this mushy crap, we’re burning light. I think that it would be best to move on; the ship is not safe, too many breeches, the creatures are probably all through it now. Nope. Our best bet is to move forward and stick to the plan. Okay?” Fry nodded and accepted his hand up.



A.N: I apologise in advance everything took on a life of its own and this chapter bears the brunt of it. In the future I will refrain from giving myself exact deadlines; as my life seems to conspire to make it almost impossible to keep them! This is only half of the intended chapter the rest of it will be posted shortly, either as a seperate chapter or added on to this one. Sorry if that mucks up your reading of it. But I felt guilty at posting nothing, especially after a pinky swear.

For those who didn't like the interlude chapter and there appears to have been a few, I am sorry; but it was necessary for the rest of the story to make sense. I promise that the interludes will not be a large part of the future storyline. I never intended them to be.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review; it definately works as motivation to get me to write. The next part of this SHOULD be up in the next few days and the next chapter shortly after, fingers crossed anyway! I STILL haven't seen C of R!!!! I tried to watch it in my room when I went to bed last night and the bloody dog kept barking at it and me!!!! Some weird lady in white was talking to Riddick that's all I know!!!! Me, frustrated? NAH!!! I temporarily hate my life!