The Engineer had stared at her for an indeterminate length of time, the expression on his face a muddled mess of shock, confusion and disgust. His gaze had eventually fell to the mess on the floor before trailing into the medbay, slowly fading to an almost saddened understanding.

Reaching down, he carefully grasped at the axe handle again with his good hand. The blade had by now fizzled and melted beyond recognition, so what he intended to do with it was somewhat of a mystery; Shaw simply stood back, taking deep, ragged breaths as the pain from her wound refused to leave her, and watched as the Engineer reached through the gap in the door with the axe handle, gingerly poking the grey behemoth spread across the floor. He paused, dark eyes all but welded in place as he silently observed the stinking mass, before giving it one last, somewhat harder jab.

The creature was well and truly dead.

Heaving a sigh of apparent relief, he took a tentative step backward and set about sizing up the doors. A dented, scraped and twisted mess of steel, neither looked to be going anywhere soon; their bowed profile left them fouling against their alcoves almost half way along, leaving deep creases in the outside of both. The creature had been far too large to get out through the gap whilst alive and thrashing, it sure as hell wasn't going anywhere in its present state.

Blam.

The echo of the hollow steel frame's assault echoed about the lifeboat; in the next moment, the Engineer sucked a breath through clenched teeth and wrung his right wrist, apparently regretting attempting panelbeating with the palm of the one good hand he had left. It's not like the doors could simply be re-fashioned on a whim, though. They were designed to contain almost anything - anything except, apparently, a monster-sized trilobite.

A half-inch of gap had appeared between the jamb and the left door.

Having already taken note as he poked at the gap with a finger, the Engineer glanced the door up and down once more. After taking another step away and turning away from the injured woman, he raised one leg and landed a mighty, deafening kick against the bent left panel. The lifeboat gently swayed against the rocks below with the impact, the floor briefly vibrating beneath her feet.

A cold shiver ran down Shaw's spine as the assault belaboured the obvious; this creature was strong. There was no way could have taken him on and survived. A simple kick had reshaped the ruined door, albeit with an enormous boot-mark embossed into it, and as he quickly demonstrated with a hearty shove, enough room for the left at least to retract another foot into its alcove. Still holding his damaged left arm across his stomach, the Engineer paused another moment to warily stare at the grey mass within, glancing about its girth before giving it another gentle nudge with the toe of one boot. For his efforts, it simply slopped limply.

For a moment, he looked like he was about to be sick. Or, at least that's what she interpreted his rather upset expression to be. Perhaps she was projecting her own rising nausea onto the alien.

Grabbing the axe handle once more, he nudged at the left door with the back of his shoulder before placing the battered edge along his spine and pressing against the opposite side with one foot. The opening wasn't particularly wide, and it left him cramped in somewhat of a horizontal crouch, unable to exert his full force upon it. His eyes never left the monster below him as he raised his other leg, balancing precariously between the two doors before gritting his teeth, grunting, and pushing with all his exhausted might.

A cacophony of screeching, twisting metal clawed at her eardrums and left her teeth tingling. A sound like that could wake the dead, though she sincerely hoped it wouldn't, given the sort of dead that was sprawled across the place beneath them both. As the ringing in her ears subsided from a near-scream, she realised what the worst of the metallic racket had been; a layer of material had been shaved off the surface of each door, now lying as glinting swarf by each doorjamb.

The huge humanoid had wrestled almost a metre of extra space between the doors with that stunt, leaving him no option but to jump from his position between them, barely avoiding landing on the mass of tentacles still lying between them. He'd clearly noticed as much, and scrambled aside with a shudder the moment his feet hit the ground.

"God, you're strong," she all but whispered, alternate scenarios ploughing through her mind one after another as to the different ways he could have used that strength. How she was still alive she did not know, though the day was still not over just yet. The Engineer's dark eyes snapped to hers the moment she spoke, wide with incomprehension, seemingly pondering her briefly before turning back to the mess before them.

With a vaguely defeated sigh he reached down for the remains of the tablecloth, pinching it against his side with his elbow before twirling the length of it around his hand, resorting to using his left hand only to tuck the end into one of the loops in the jury-rigged mitt; even that was enough to elicit an agonised groan from him. At this point she had no idea what he was up to, but she thought it best to silently observe as she idly gripped her torn wound rather than ask too many questions.

An age seemed to pass as he stared grimly at the tangle of limp muscle at his feet, lips pursed and downturned into an unimpressed grimace; eventually he glanced back at her, waving her away with his mitted hand, then gave one of the longer, thicker tentacles one last nudge with the toe of his right boot. As she stepped backward, standing clear of the hulking carcass, she watched as he expelled another long, defeated sigh, pressed his eyes closed, then knelt down and grasped the appendage with his insulated hand.

The thing let out an unholy squelch as its immense body slid through the gap in the doors, tentacles slapping uselessly against the polished floor as they shifted beneath the bulk's weight. Softly grunting with each laboured breath, the Engineer made quick work of dragging the dead horror clear of the medbay and half-way across the main room. He paused to steal a couple of heavy, ragged breaths,dropping the tentacle to wave a couple of times in the direction of the medbay.

Shaw wasted little time in shuffling toward the wrecked infirmary, trying her best to avoid the trail of ooze smeared across her path as her eyes darted about the mess. The surgery unit was unlikely to be useful in its smashed, filth-smeared state; the console had burped up a litany of warnings in red, none of which appeared remarkably helpful, and the shield over the top of it had only one panel left intact. Cupboards around it had been knocked open, their contents scattered about the room in various states of disrepair. Much of it was slathered in mystery goo, no doubt courtesy of her offspring. Its own offspring - or rather, the pulpy mess left after the Engineer had smashed it to smithereens - remained by the doors, apparently dragged a small distance beneath the larger creature before coming to rest as it lay.

Where to even start, she mused. I need to clean the wounds, get more painkillers into me, begin stitching up the multiple layers of me that are currently half hanging out of me...

Grabbing a small tray from a benchtop that hadn't been turned upside down, she started with the most obvious; something to clean the wound. A quick rustle yielded several options, all of which she plopped onto the tray before moving onto the next - painkillers. Several packs had been thrown to the ground, but the rest were apparently on the top shelf of the cupboard the others had fallen from. Good, she wouldn't need to bend down to retrieve them.

Other equipment swiftly followed with a little hunting, though she was left wondering just how she was going to do this. She was not that kind of doctor, though the thought was enough to elicit a soft, humourless breath of laughter from her. Of all the times to have a degree in anything but medicine.

A distant slop caught her ear; turning toward the main airlock, she noted the Engineer had managed to drag the corpse across the lifeboat without disturbing the majority of the books strewn throughout the main room, and was now fumbling with the airlock controls, apparently making haphazard guesses as to which button, or combination of buttons, released the doors. He's a clever cookie, she thought to herself as she turned back to the tray of implements and medicines, he'll figure it out.

The beeping of barely-educated guesses continued as she found a bottle of hand sanitiser that hadn't been smashed against a wall, filling her hands with a generous couple of pumps and slathering it over what skin wasn't covered by her suit. This damn suit. She let out a frustrated groan, quickly realising she couldn't even access the worst of the incision with the blasted, skin-tight thing still on. Fingers still sticky, she set about gently prying the shoulders, then sleeves, of the suit from her body without putting undue strain on her abdomen; she could afford to leave half of it on, she reasoned, so long as she could fumble with the incision unimpeded.

The familiar hiss of an airlock being activated echoed through the main room as the Engineer apparently forced it to give up its secrets. A delightful series of slick, sloppy, heavy sounds followed as the creature was manhandled out the door and into the open, falling with a fleshy bletch to the ground on the moon's surface as the airlock hissed shut again behind it. Perfect timing to ditch the rest of the suit, she reasoned; with a final, queasy push, she managed to wriggle free of the top half.

Perhaps it was her mind taunting her, but she could have sworn she heard someone gagging and retching in the distance. When she'd finished the grisly task ahead of her, she promised herself she'd get it over and done with, and vomit her guts out.

Taking the tray of goods with her, Shaw made her way to the couch that was still on its feet; it wasn't ideal, but at least she would be able to prop herself up in such a way that she could repair the damage. It would have to do.

The world spun as she sat down, then eased herself backward; if she survived this, she had no idea what state she'd be in after a few hours, let alone what to do about it - but she would cross that bridge as it came.

In the foggy vestiges of her mind, she wondering if it was possible to overdose on the wretched things, she hastily injected herself with another dose of more targeted painkillers near the surgery site. Relief came quickly, and she steeled herself for whatever mess awaited her below; with a sigh of relief, she realised it was not as bad as she'd thought. Several staples had been torn loose and the reopened section was somewhat ragged, but it appeared at a glance that everything inside - shudder - was relatively intact.

Sanitising her hands again, followed by the incision site with something an obnoxious yellow hue and the tools she had collected, she set about carefully reassembling herself the best she could. With the adrenaline flooding her veins once more, it proved relatively easy to push aside thoughts of exactly what she was doing and simply focus on getting it done. It occurred to her that if she made it out of all this alive, there was at this point almost nothing that could shock or scare her. Surely the universe had run out of terrifying and grotesque things to throw her way.

Before long she had pulled all of the loose staples free, leaving only those that appeared to be holding, and replaced them with a row of somewhat awkward but hopefully effective stitches. They would undoubtedly leave scars, but she would happily take scars over any of the alternatives; it's not like the most damaged of organs was of any use, of course. She supposed, bitterly, that it was better her than a woman that could have made use of any of it.

It wasn't like she hadn't tried in vain, of course; she swallowed the lump in her throat as the previous few days came rushing back to her, invading her psyche from every angle, threatening to choke her as the eyes of the dead tore at her skin. She'd been so busy surviving that she hadn't had time to stop and think about any of this.

There's still surviving to do, she scolded herself, scowling through the tears that had formed as she loaded a cartridge of antibiotics into the dispenser. At least get yourself in one piece, then you can start feeling sorry for yourself.

A double dose wouldn't hurt, would it? At this point, she was probably primed for all manner of infection if she didn't. Applying a dose to either side of her repaired incision, she considered for a moment just how far she would be able to move in a few hour as she started healing; reasoning it wouldn't be far, she collected the cartridges for both the painkillers and antibiotics and placed them on the floor beside their diffusers within arm's reach, applied one last thick layer of antiseptic over the stitches, and dropped that alongside the rest before pushing the tray to the end of the couch with a booted heel, and slumping against the couch cushions with a ragged, tear-soaked sigh.

It was over at this point, surely. Stitched back into one piece and with both aliens outside, she was finally alone and out of immediate danger. And, how! She was the only living Human on this godforsaken, toxic hunk of rock; her crew, dare she call them friends, were all dead. She'd witnessed several of them meet their untimely ends, and knew just how absolute everyone else's had been. There was no escaping being torn to pieces, mutated into something truly abominable, blown to smithereens aboard a vessel on a suicide mission, being flattened or being thrown across a room room with spine-crushing force. Or being burnt to death...

Charlie.

That thought was enough to send her over the edge. Nothing could possibly have made his death right; not the cause, and certainly not the ultimate end. If there was to be an innocent victim of this entire operation, it was without a doubt Charlie.

The noises that escaped her were inhuman, choked and desperate. Part of her mind felt as if she were standing beside the sobbing, screaming, seizing mess of a woman, observing from elsewhere as an entire galaxy imploded upon one sorry being, swallowing her whole as she fell into the event horizon; the rest of her couldn't breathe. There was not enough oxygen in the place. She screamed as the eyes of the dead watched her, impassive and cold. She screamed until she choked and gagged, screamed until her throat burned.

She screamed until she could scream no longer, shaking and spent, face contorted into something unrecognisable, eyes swollen shut, mere whimpers escaping her raw throat. Finally, inflamed and spent, her overtaxed mind collapsed, at last allowing her the refuge of sleep.

---

There was nothing like being presented with a litany of one's every mistake, every poor choice, every unfavourable flip of the coin in the inertia of sleep. The moment she had drifted off, she had been standing amongst her every regret from the moment she could walk.

She hadn't been alone in the process; standing in her shadow as she marched from one disaster to the next was a growing crowd of scowling faces, each mistake stepping in behind the others as she grew from a little girl, to an awkward, nerdy teenager, to a dazed adult still fumbling with the world around her. After a while, she realised that she'd been blindly waltzing from error to error, marching headlong into each and every one despite the fact that she could easily recall what was going to happen next and knew exactly how to avoid the apparently inevitable outcome as yet another scorned individual joined the burgeoning crowd. Fate seemed to tug her inexorably toward it no matter her efforts.

The ice of the ever-watching stares drew a shiver down her spine; it was freezing in here. She clutched at her arms with both hands as she forged on in the darkness, almost breaking into a run as she tried to leave every one of them behind. Why were they judging her every damn move! Surely she wasn't such an awful person that she deserved this wall of bemused onlookers!

No matter where she ran, they followed her. Before long, she had started to leap chasms - foreign countries called, their ancient secrets promising solitude from the watchful eyes and a chance at redemption. But it didn't take long for a fresh group to begin forming in her shadow as others began to force their way back in. Each subsequent hop brought a brief reprieve, but in time, they had started to find her again.

The desire to tear her own face from her skull and thrust it at them was overwhelmingly strong; they could take her, judge her, and she would start anew.

She considered it long and hard, too. Everyone deserved a second chance. Surely she should be allowed to prove herself.

And yet, they still watched.

In the darkness, it was almost impossible to see anything except the faces that stood before her. The faster she'd run, the quicker they'd followed; the moment she stopped, they simply hung nearby. Running was little use, evidently.

Her breath caught in her throat; for the briefest of moments, she could have sworn that every single face with their laser-beam focus upon her was her own.

She blinked, and a hundred familiar faces returned; Janek, Weyland, three of her assistants, her archaeology professor, the doctor that had diagnosed her infertility, her next-door neighbour when she had just turned twenty-one, her high school maths teacher. Her father. Charlie.

No.

Someone had stepped immediately beside her. She could feel someone's breath against her neck, slow and deliberate, but she couldn't see who it was in the dark. She froze in place, eyes wide as the hundred faces dissolved into mist, and she was left with just one faceless being standing right next to her in pitch black.

Panic rose within her as she felt warm, clammy fingers being pressed into her neck, probing her jugular. The cold had since vanished, replaced with a stuffy heat that threatened to choke her, tickling at her skin, as the being remained mere inches from her.

In the next breath the back of the hand was pressed against her cheek.

With a scream she flinched away, jerking free of the unwanted touch with her eyes pressed shut.

When she opened them again, she was damn near blinded by searing white light. Searing white except for...

The ghostly, statuesque visage of an enormous white creature stared back down at her, glistening black eyes unreadable by her overtaxed vision.

Naturally, she did the only thing her sleep-addled brain could do: she screamed, flinching away with force.

The being jerked away in the opposite direction, recoiling with a wince as the short, sharp shriek escaped her. A mighty spasm of pain erupted through her body immediately after she'd shifted, and with it, reality arrived upon her like a tonne of bricks. The lifeboat - she was on the lifeboat and full of stitches. The Engineer had returned, and she was absolutely sweating.

Heaving a mighty groan, she allowed her head to roll back against the arm of the couch as she pressed her eyes closed. God, she was exhausted.