Khadija woke up and found herself caged behind crude iron bars. She sighed, looked down with hopeless teary eyes, and saw a vile scar that looked like a snake, slithering under her skin and into her veins.
It was made up of corrupting darkness, and everywhere it slithered, her veins darkened, and she felt pain. She screamed upon seeing this and tried frantically to break free, but the chains didn't budge at all.
She threw her head down in hopelessness, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Just then something moved beyond the iron bars, and she felt such an ominous presence that it left her shivering.
What she saw left her gasping for air.
A huge, menacing snake with scales matte black darkness had appeared in the corridor and was hissing at her from beyond the cage. It had horns protruding from its ugly head, and its each fang was bigger than her. She screamed on top of her lungs, trying to scurry away from the monstrosity, but she was trapped. Luckily, it kept itself away from the iron bars.
After some moments, the snake suddenly moved his head in a direction and slithered away.
What had they gotten themselves into? She thought to herself, then frantically looked to her right in hope of seeing Isra sitting by her like always, but there was nothing. Tears rushed down her cheeks, and she started sobbing.
"Khadija" A faint voice resounded in the darkness from her left.
She turned her neck and saw a huge bird of prey also caged with its legs and wings against the wall.
"212?"
"What, how did you realize?" #212 said, he had somehow changed his form upon getting out of the gateway.
"I just had a feeling," Khadija said as she sobbed.
"212, what do we do?" She asked him desperately.
"Khadija, the situation does not look good. We could not have been ambushed in the gateway; it has never happened before. Just wait a bit and try to stay as quiet as possible. The snake cannot see, but it can hear really well," #212 said.
Soon the whole structure they were in shook violently, throwing Khadija against the wall. From somewhere beyond the bars, she heard a vile screech of pure fury, and in the next moment, Everything grew still.
A small white bird of prey, smaller than #212, appeared in front of the cage out of nowhere and struck its claws against the metal bars; it had huge scars running up its wings. Bleeding and huffing. It was the same soldier who had stung Qatan.
The bars broke, and it proceeded to free #212, then fell down on the ground, gasping for air. It was dying.
"Sir, the snake is engaged in battle right now; take the child and run away, please. And sir, Nector1 could not have asked for a better captain." It breathed for one last time and died.
#212 kept looking at the fallen soldier in disbelief; he had failed yet again to protect his squad. Nector 1 was dying. No matter what the hive made him to be, deep down, he knew that he was just a failure. He kept looking at the soldier, and then Khadija's voice snapped him back to reality. Upon this, he started burning with rage. #212 was going to kill that damn snake, even if it meant dying.
He silently walked to Khadija, unlocked her cuffs, asked her to sit on top of him, and flew out of the structure, breaking the roof. He looked magnificent against the full moon.
He kept quiet during the whole flight and did not respond at all to anything Khadija said. Dropped her off some distance away and hid her well. Looked towards the ominous structure where Nector#1 was currently dying against the snake. And without saying a word, He flew off to it.