I was sitting in my cage gazing at the fly who was nonchalantly crawling across the floor in the search of something I didn’t know. It was just knocking around, and I was attentively watching its legs move and its wings tremble. It may seem boring, but when you are so drugged you cannot turn your head, even a fly within your sight will be an exciting show.
Outside the cage, a plastic bag with sedative swayed and rhythmically hit the wall of the cargo body. The narrow intravenous line stretched from the bag, ending with a needle that pierced my arm. I was staying like this nearly all the time since I’d been saved from the city besieged by the aliens. Right after that, the military had forced me into the testing of some medical crap.
Despite the fact that my limbs were securely chained to the floor, two soldiers armed with machine guns were permanently near.
There used to be one guard not long ago, but one day I sneezed in my sleep, making a soldier wet his pants. Since then, two have been on duty all the time. Like that, they are less afraid. It can hardly help if my blood isn’t diluted with tranquilizers even for a short while, but people tend to calm themselves with the illusion of security. You might think I am nuts. But they don’t send fully armed soldiers to guard an ordinary madman. In fact, I am much worse than that.
The cargo body swayed when the truck skidded on a bend. The fly flew away, leaving me without entertainment. Shit!.. My claws loudly scratched the floor of the cage, leaving shallow traces.
The truck rushed along the main street, looping at full speed between the craters from explosions and the wreckage of buildings. The Black driver miraculously fit into another turn without letting the car turn over. He didn’t know what was a greater menace - an alien ambush or the man in the cargo body.
People from the base told a lot about the shackled passenger. This guy was found in a besieged city in the first year of the invasion. He found himself walled up in the basement, where he had nothing to eat but the corpse of an alien he had found there. The sergeant felt sick. At the survival training, he was also forced to eat everything that moves. But these were earthly living things, after all.
When the commanders found out that the survivor had consumed extraterrestrial flesh, they locked the poor guy at a research base. The sergeant had no idea of what the man had gone through, but after the first escape of the “subject” the crew had been completely renewed, and the few ones who took part in the capture and survived, found themselves in a psychiatric asylum.
“And now I have to deliver "it" straight to the front line! What on Earth do they think about?!” the driver wondered.
The truck stopped. I wish I knew where we arrived… I heard something explode, I heard machine guns clatter, I heard someone yell… Good sounds… My guards bustled around. One of them unlocked the chains that attached me to the floor. The other changed my sedative doze for a smaller one. Oh, what a luxury!
The doors of the opened, letting in some daylight. The fresh air brought a wave of odors: smoke, gunpowder, blood… Good smells....
A group of marines opened my cage and pulled me out of the truck, while my convoys stared after me in awe. At the last moment, one of them came to his senses, grabbed the bag with the narcotic, preventing the dropper from slipping out of my vein, and followed. That’s sad.
Under the reduced dose of the drug, I could have walked on my own, albeit staggering, but the marines dragged me threw me at the feet of a gray-haired man with intricate shoulder straps.
“The subject is delivered, General!” someone said.
“Be careful!” my guard attempted to stop the marines from removing my dropper. But they pushed him aside and forced me up to my feet.
“You should have been put down this morning...” the General tried to sound ominous, but I didn’t give a shit. Who cares about what they should have done, if I am standing here safe and sound, and the drug rapidly drains from my blood. “You should have died, but our current situation…”
Closing my eyes, I deeply inhaled. I held my breath for a moment and exhaled sharply, instantly sobering up. The fog in my mind disappeared, and my right hand caught the throat of the marine next to me before anyone could notice. The bastard had swung his rifle-butt at me...
“The sedative... It’s out...” my guard informed the others in a fallen voice. - He's come to his senses...
As the haughty military prick saw my displease, his face changed in horror. I finally spoke, loudly and distinctly:
“I don’t like being thrown like a sack of shit,” I said, throwing the marine’s corpse on the asphalt. “You could only call me for one thing. So just show me the direction, or I will continue murdering here and now”.
The general swallowed, watching me lick his soldier’s blood from my own claws, and waved to the side from which screams, gunshots and other beautiful sounds came.
My lips extended into a smile and then into a grin when I rushed in the indicated direction...
Author: Egor Medvedev
Translated into English: Olivera
Picture credits: https://www.deviantart.com/emily92896