First off I’d like to say that I don’t own predator and I make no profit from this but the characters of Ashley and Shakina are mine.

Furthermore I’d like to thank all of you that were patient enough to wait for me to update and I would like to especially thank those of you who were impatient and PM’d me about updating sooner. That showed me that I needed to get off my skinny ass and get back to business. Thank you very much.

Fear swelled within me. I looked over my shoulder to see Shakina walking confidently away. On sheer force of will I got to my feet and held my breath as I walked to the back of my cell.

A hall lay behind it and I saw several women entering from other cells and all heading in the same direction. Almost all must have been here a while for I was the only one to linger in my doorway.

There were no guards or predators to speak of. Probably no reason; where else was there for us to go but one direction. I stepped into the stream of bodies and walked with them. There was a constant noise of gossip and chatter and even a few giggles. Quite a few were silent and I was glad that I was not the only one weepy-eyed and shaky.

The walls were as white as my room. Why was everything white? Was it more appealing to them? Did it look cleaner? Was it just for us?

Finally the hall came to an end and we marched into a large room. Long tables piled with food were lined side-by-side in the airplane-hanger-sized room. I had thought the hall had been noisy, but this was worse than my old high school cafeteria at lunch. The familiarity between the two places made me pine for home all the more, but it also helped me become a smidge calmer, if at all possible. Not knowing what to do next I stood there and did what most people do when lost in a crowd; I looked for someone I knew.

First I looked for Shakina, and I saw her, or three women that looked like her at least. I groaned inwardly, my headache returning with a vengeance. As people passed me and joined friends, I was tempted to start walking around so I wouldn’t appear so…so…helpless.

To be blunt, I’m shy. I have never been the type to sit by someone I’ve never met and strike up a conversation I keep to myself and I like it, but I do enjoy the company of friends. So here I am, all alone and too chicken to do anything about it. I’m so pathetic.

“Boo!”

“Aaggh!” I scream and jump to the side. Instinct makes me lash out at my attacker with a slap on the shoulder.

My assailant is Shakina, and she isn’t too happy with my greeting.

“The hell was that for!?” she glares at me and rubs her shoulder.

“You scared me, what was I supposed to do?” I retort. Anger simmers inside, built up over time in this hell.

“Ah, it’s okay. No sense in crying over spilled milk. Too much else to worry about. C’mon.” she shrugged it off and beckoned me to follow her. I did without hesitation, also letting my anger slide.

Shakina was pretty laidback, not much seemed to really bother her. Which must have been a great thing to have here in a place like this. If you let everything get to you, soon you’d loose everything to the stress and pain.

But why was she helping me? The law of the jungle is don’t align yourself with a loser and last I checked, that was little ol’ me.

We pushed our way through the mass of people until Shakina came near a half-empty table. Three others were seated there and one glanced up when she noticed us.

She appeared to be a black woman, fairly large, and someone who could crush me in an instant for the slightest screw-up. Oddly enough she smiled widely and stood.

“Hey Shakina! Over here!” she said as she waved us toward her.

“I know where you are, I came right towards you. And how could I miss someone that big?” Shakina replied as we sat.

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t hate.” The woman remained standing and peered down at me.

“Who’s this Kay?”

“Oh, everybody, this is Ashley. She’s new.”

Two of the three groaned and one said ‘not again’.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Shakina asked defensively.

“You know what it means Kay.” A thin girl with her dark brown hair in braids said. Her green eyes glanced at me a moment then back to Shakina.

“Look, no one could have thought that she would have gotten into that much trouble. And just because she did doesn’t mean it was my fault.”

Okay, now I’m thoroughly confused. Who were they talking about, and why was it bad that I was new, and did I want to know. My 6th sense was telling me that this would not be a happy story.

“Not today Allison. This is her first day out-and-about and I don’t want you all spooking her with tales from the crypt.” Shakina looked at her friends and pleaded with her eyes for them to stop.

They did. As they continues to eat Shakina turned to me for introductions.

“Ashley, I’d like you to meet the sisterhood. This big gorilla of a girl here is Nikkia-Marie.” Nikkia had her hair drawn back and smiled warmly at me. She seemed really nice and sweet, even motherly and at the same time intimidating.

“This is Allison, don’t mind her, she’s all bite and no bark.” Allison had tan skin with freckles like myself, and although she was thin she had define muscle tone in her arms and abs. Some one you didn’t want to mess with, but would want for a friend if things hit the fan.

“And last and least, Julia.” Julia had sandy blonde hair and just sat there quietly. Hard to guess what her personality was; hard to guess what anyone’s personality was. I just hoped my rough-guessed-stereotypes were close to their marks. I hated making new friends, it was always so awkward.

“And I am the great Shakina.” she hammed in up big time and her friends laughed and chuckled, and I did too. It felt good to belong somewhere.

“The great Sha-kay-kay.” Nikkia added in with a snort of laughter. She plucked what looked to be a Granny Smith apple from the stakes of food on the table and tossed it to me.

I caught it, almost dropped it, and thanked her. I held the foreign fruit in my hands. It was the color of an apple, but the texture was like a melon, kind of fibrous. It had no smell when I brought it to my nose and I was about to like it when Nikkia said, “It ain’t gonna bite you sweetie, just eat it.”

I looked back at my food and sniffed it once more and wrapped my mouth around the slightly sponge surface. My teeth broke the skin and sank into a firm apple-like center. The skin wasn’t as thick as I had thought and the inside was like a very lemony green apple. It made my lips pucker but I was hungry and devoured the rest in about five minutes.

I looked at the food on the table and searched for another of the appley fruit and saw one. Reaching up to take it I had to raise a little from my seated position and then plucked the fruit for its place, causing a small waterfall of little grape-like things to fall on my head too.

My companions laughed at me and I laughed at myself. I picked up a red ball of whatever it was and plopped it into my mouth. I abruptly spat out the disgusting thing and made little gagging sounds.

“What the hell was that!?” I demanded with my tongue hanging out.

Julia was the first to stop laughing and answer me. “Tasted like bad eggs didn’t it?” she said quietly. I nodded and she continued. “We don’t know what their called but we never eat them, no one does.”

“It’s like the piece of lettuce or spinach on the side of a fancy dinner plate,” Allison interjected, “just for garnish.”

I munched on my ‘apple’ to get rid of the taste and just listen to the conversations around me. It was so noisy, why weren’t they all scared like me? Some were and some were sobbing but not many. I made my questions known.

“How come everybody is so noisy? Aren’t they scared?”

Nikkia answered me, “You can stop the jabber. Girls gotta talk. The more girls, the more talk. And I guess it helps us keep our sanity.”

That would make sense. Doing something familiar to you can make you feel comfortable. I certainly felt better talking so someone then I had been sitting in my cell.

I decided to save my other questions for later and emerse myself in my surroundings. The walls here were white as was everything else in this building probably, and there were catwalks running across overhead. I saw creatures like Jim walking the catwalks, Predators. Were they guarding us? Making sure we didn’t try anything stupid?

“What do you think Lee?” Shakina said to me.

“What?” I said returning to the conversation.

“What do you think about how long you’ll be here for?” She repeated for me.

My brow furrowed, “How long I’ll be here? What do you mean?”

WWWWIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

The same siren fro before sounded again. Everyone in the room got up and funneled down their selective hallways. I immediately followed Shakina and we walked back towards our cells I would guess. I tried to keep up but there were so many people and it was so loud.

“Shakina?”

I was shoved and herded with the others and soon lost sight of her…again.

“Shakina?”

I won’t bother with the so-many-comments-until-I’ll-update crap, it didn’t work before. I’ll try to keep up on this better but like I said, thank you to those who were impatient with me. PREDBABE1