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Description
My progress through the city was painstakingly slow. I stuck to the shadows, creeping through alleys and ducking behind rubbish bins to avoid the prying eyes of marine patrols. A few times I saw the same attack helicopter fly past, and I couldn’t help but bare my teeth in anger at it.
The constant state of alert keeps my heartbeat accelerated, and it’s not until I reach the safety of a large warehouse that I begin to calm down. I walk down a hall that is mirrored on one side, and I can’t help but pause at the sight of my body; I had been so focussed on finding the source of the voice that I hadn’t noticed I’d gone through another metamorphosis.
In the mirrors I saw the ridges on my carapace had grown even more pronounced, and the ribbing on the sides of my head was becoming far more apparent too. My ears were now completely gone, melted to the sides of my head to leave only two thin slits in the sides of my carapace. I looked at the ribbing on my chest, glanced at the black chitin on my arms and legs, before gently rubbing my face with my claws; my face was now the only thing left to me, the only thing that hadn’t been altered. With a snort, I shake away the momentary distraction and continue further into the building’s toilets, barging into the men’s room.
A sweet scent guides me into a ruptured sewer pipe at the back of one of the cubicles, and the soothing directions of the voice in my head propel me onward. Mists swirl around me as I descend further into the sewers, growing thicker until my eyes become useless and I’m forced to rely on my improved hearing.
Full-blooded xenomorphs, as everyone knows, have no eyes. To compensate for this lack of sight they possess advanced senses of hearing and smell; the quiet tap of my claws on the slimy concrete is enough to show me the pipes for almost twenty-metres around. My sense of smell, in this dank and shit-filled environment, was next to useless, so I was relying completely on echolocation.
Eventually I arrive at a gaping hole torn in the pipe, and I crawl through into what was once a large junction point. Now, the walls were warped by a thick coating of black resin that was coated with moisture. Water ran down the walls in thick rivulets, and the steady drip-drop of the water falling to the floor gave me a constant image in my mind’s eye; even in the complete absence of light, I could see as clear as day.
I took one step forward...
Then the walls started to move.
I tensed and backed down as dozens of xenomorphs emerged from the walls and ceiling, uncurling themselves from hidden niches as they crawled down to surround me. Their black, serpentine bodies writhed in front of me, their shrieks and howls screwing with my echolocation until all I saw was a writhing mass of blade-tipped tails, gnashing fangs and spidery talons.
Despite my instincts screaming at me to flee, I stood my grounds. I whipped my tail around me, cutting the air with its bladed tip as I peeled my lips back from my fangs...
“Let him enter...”
The voice rang through the tunnels, and the horde around me froze at the sound of it. I still kept tense, ready to fight, but the dozens of xenomorphs reluctantly backed down, clearing a path for me to continue into the hive.
I glared at them as I passed, watching warily as they retreated back into the nooks and crannies they had hidden themselves in. Once inside, they became motionless again, ready to deal with any more intruders.
I didn’t need a guide anyway; the presence in my mind, now so clear I could see her face, drew me towards her. As I moved deeper into the hive, the air became thicker and warmer. Without breaking stride I stamped my foot hard, and the soundwaves filtered up through gaps in the hive’s slimy walls into the building above.
The ripples of sound painted a picture in my mind’s eye; giant vats, catwalks, heavy machinery and a thick layer of smoke that distorted the image I received.
A steel mill, or some other kind of metalworking facility. The heat from the giant vats of molten metal was permeating the hive, warming a space that would’ve otherwise been as cold as the surface of Acheron.
The spongy floor gave way to a flight of stairs that sprouted from the black resin, and I descended them quickly. My footsteps echoed back at me as I squeezed through a spark-spewing automatic door that, despite being choked in black resin, was still trying to force itself shut.
The room that I entered had once been used as a control room for the city’s underground sewage treatment plant, the black-cocooned machinery still visible through a badly-cracked viewport at the far end of the room. But it was no longer a simple control room, I noted, as I turned to gaze up at the room’s lone occupant.
It was a throne chamber.
The Queen loomed over me, as majestic and terrifying as a warrior goddess, glaring down at me with a visage clad in chitin as hard as steel. Her skull grows back and up from her head like a massive spiked crown, and her black frame rests on a cream-coloured ovipositor large enough to accommodate a four-wheel-drive. Black struts have grown from the hive’s walls to support her immense bulk, and she slowly flexes her ebony talons as her head lifts to regard me with an eyeless face that, I somehow know, is not as pleased to see me as I’d believed.
Her jaws extend from her face, and she lets out a low clicking snarl that sends shivers down my spine. My revulsion and fear is forced down as I bend my legs, kneeling before her.
“What are you?” she hisses at me.
I hesitate. Gone is the motherly, caring voice that guided me down here; now there is just malice and open disgust in her sadistic, serpentine growl.
When I hesitate, she snarls again, louder.
“When many miles separated you from me, I thought you were just another of my brood; I thought you’d been driven away during the escape, that maybe you’d lost your way home.” She cranes her neck, and I can feel her warm breath on the back of my carapace.
“But now I see you for what you are, imposter!”
Her voice is augmented with a roar, and she sends me to the floor with a vicious slap. I look up at her, stunned. Her breath sends waves of sound out that paint a chilling image in my mind; the hive has come to life.
“Imposter! Abomination! My children were torn from my womb and ripped apart by those disgusting humans, just to create you and your bastard kin. Your scent is sickening to me; the very sound of your breath is an insult to my race!”
She said ‘your kind,’ I thought. Are there more like me..?
A bestial wail attracted my attention, and I turned. The scream echoed down the passageway to the thunderous chorus of hundreds of claws as the hive moved to do the bidding of their Queen.
“Run, if you wish,” the Queen said. I looked up at her, betrayed. I could feel the revulsion in her voice. “But know this, abomination; even should you survive, there is no place on this planet or under it for you!”
I sped across the chamber, diving along on all-fours. I slashed at the wall desperately, hacking away with my claws until I’ve cleared a metre-by-metre strip of the black material from the wall, exposing an air vent that was just big enough for me to fit into. Before I leave, I flush with anger and turn to the Queen.
“After I get out of here, I’m going to come back,” I promise her. “And I’m going to kill you.”
The Queen roars with indignation.
“You dare threaten me?” she shrieked.
At that moment, I feel a strange sensation pass through my body, like a trickle of cold water flushing through my entire system. The Queen’s malevolent presence in my mind is washed away like a bad dream, and new strength flows through my veins as I shake away the mental shackles that the hive-mind had placed on me. The bestial, instinctive monster inside me was still there, no question; but now it was quiet, more subdued.
Control, for the moment, belonged to me.
The Queen noticed the change, stiffening in her throne as she scented the subtle transformation in the pheromones my body pumped out.
“No; impossible...”
I shut her voice out of my head, and burrowed into the ventilation shaft. I reached out and pulled clumps of the torn webbing back over the vent, sealing it with my spit to buy myself a few precious seconds, before taking off at full pelt down the shaft.

To be continued...
Hand-drawn, then coloured and touched up in Photoshop. The floor and background are from an image of a Xenomorph hive wall, courtesy of Google Images.
Enjoy

Description
My progress through the city was painstakingly slow. I stuck to the shadows, creeping through alleys and ducking behind rubbish bins to avoid the prying eyes of marine patrols. A few times I saw the same attack helicopter fly past, and I couldn’t help but bare my teeth in anger at it.
The constant state of alert keeps my heartbeat accelerated, and it’s not until I reach the safety of a large warehouse that I begin to calm down. I walk down a hall that is mirrored on one side, and I can’t help but pause at the sight of my body; I had been so focussed on finding the source of the voice that I hadn’t noticed I’d gone through another metamorphosis.
In the mirrors I saw the ridges on my carapace had grown even more pronounced, and the ribbing on the sides of my head was becoming far more apparent too. My ears were now completely gone, melted to the sides of my head to leave only two thin slits in the sides of my carapace. I looked at the ribbing on my chest, glanced at the black chitin on my arms and legs, before gently rubbing my face with my claws; my face was now the only thing left to me, the only thing that hadn’t been altered. With a snort, I shake away the momentary distraction and continue further into the building’s toilets, barging into the men’s room.
A sweet scent guides me into a ruptured sewer pipe at the back of one of the cubicles, and the soothing directions of the voice in my head propel me onward. Mists swirl around me as I descend further into the sewers, growing thicker until my eyes become useless and I’m forced to rely on my improved hearing.
Full-blooded xenomorphs, as everyone knows, have no eyes. To compensate for this lack of sight they possess advanced senses of hearing and smell; the quiet tap of my claws on the slimy concrete is enough to show me the pipes for almost twenty-metres around. My sense of smell, in this dank and shit-filled environment, was next to useless, so I was relying completely on echolocation.
Eventually I arrive at a gaping hole torn in the pipe, and I crawl through into what was once a large junction point. Now, the walls were warped by a thick coating of black resin that was coated with moisture. Water ran down the walls in thick rivulets, and the steady drip-drop of the water falling to the floor gave me a constant image in my mind’s eye; even in the complete absence of light, I could see as clear as day.
I took one step forward...
Then the walls started to move.
I tensed and backed down as dozens of xenomorphs emerged from the walls and ceiling, uncurling themselves from hidden niches as they crawled down to surround me. Their black, serpentine bodies writhed in front of me, their shrieks and howls screwing with my echolocation until all I saw was a writhing mass of blade-tipped tails, gnashing fangs and spidery talons.
Despite my instincts screaming at me to flee, I stood my grounds. I whipped my tail around me, cutting the air with its bladed tip as I peeled my lips back from my fangs...
“Let him enter...”
The voice rang through the tunnels, and the horde around me froze at the sound of it. I still kept tense, ready to fight, but the dozens of xenomorphs reluctantly backed down, clearing a path for me to continue into the hive.
I glared at them as I passed, watching warily as they retreated back into the nooks and crannies they had hidden themselves in. Once inside, they became motionless again, ready to deal with any more intruders.
I didn’t need a guide anyway; the presence in my mind, now so clear I could see her face, drew me towards her. As I moved deeper into the hive, the air became thicker and warmer. Without breaking stride I stamped my foot hard, and the soundwaves filtered up through gaps in the hive’s slimy walls into the building above.
The ripples of sound painted a picture in my mind’s eye; giant vats, catwalks, heavy machinery and a thick layer of smoke that distorted the image I received.
A steel mill, or some other kind of metalworking facility. The heat from the giant vats of molten metal was permeating the hive, warming a space that would’ve otherwise been as cold as the surface of Acheron.
The spongy floor gave way to a flight of stairs that sprouted from the black resin, and I descended them quickly. My footsteps echoed back at me as I squeezed through a spark-spewing automatic door that, despite being choked in black resin, was still trying to force itself shut.
The room that I entered had once been used as a control room for the city’s underground sewage treatment plant, the black-cocooned machinery still visible through a badly-cracked viewport at the far end of the room. But it was no longer a simple control room, I noted, as I turned to gaze up at the room’s lone occupant.
It was a throne chamber.
The Queen loomed over me, as majestic and terrifying as a warrior goddess, glaring down at me with a visage clad in chitin as hard as steel. Her skull grows back and up from her head like a massive spiked crown, and her black frame rests on a cream-coloured ovipositor large enough to accommodate a four-wheel-drive. Black struts have grown from the hive’s walls to support her immense bulk, and she slowly flexes her ebony talons as her head lifts to regard me with an eyeless face that, I somehow know, is not as pleased to see me as I’d believed.
Her jaws extend from her face, and she lets out a low clicking snarl that sends shivers down my spine. My revulsion and fear is forced down as I bend my legs, kneeling before her.
“What are you?” she hisses at me.
I hesitate. Gone is the motherly, caring voice that guided me down here; now there is just malice and open disgust in her sadistic, serpentine growl.
When I hesitate, she snarls again, louder.
“When many miles separated you from me, I thought you were just another of my brood; I thought you’d been driven away during the escape, that maybe you’d lost your way home.” She cranes her neck, and I can feel her warm breath on the back of my carapace.
“But now I see you for what you are, imposter!”
Her voice is augmented with a roar, and she sends me to the floor with a vicious slap. I look up at her, stunned. Her breath sends waves of sound out that paint a chilling image in my mind; the hive has come to life.
“Imposter! Abomination! My children were torn from my womb and ripped apart by those disgusting humans, just to create you and your bastard kin. Your scent is sickening to me; the very sound of your breath is an insult to my race!”
She said ‘your kind,’ I thought. Are there more like me..?
A bestial wail attracted my attention, and I turned. The scream echoed down the passageway to the thunderous chorus of hundreds of claws as the hive moved to do the bidding of their Queen.
“Run, if you wish,” the Queen said. I looked up at her, betrayed. I could feel the revulsion in her voice. “But know this, abomination; even should you survive, there is no place on this planet or under it for you!”
I sped across the chamber, diving along on all-fours. I slashed at the wall desperately, hacking away with my claws until I’ve cleared a metre-by-metre strip of the black material from the wall, exposing an air vent that was just big enough for me to fit into. Before I leave, I flush with anger and turn to the Queen.
“After I get out of here, I’m going to come back,” I promise her. “And I’m going to kill you.”
The Queen roars with indignation.
“You dare threaten me?” she shrieked.
At that moment, I feel a strange sensation pass through my body, like a trickle of cold water flushing through my entire system. The Queen’s malevolent presence in my mind is washed away like a bad dream, and new strength flows through my veins as I shake away the mental shackles that the hive-mind had placed on me. The bestial, instinctive monster inside me was still there, no question; but now it was quiet, more subdued.
Control, for the moment, belonged to me.
The Queen noticed the change, stiffening in her throne as she scented the subtle transformation in the pheromones my body pumped out.
“No; impossible...”
I shut her voice out of my head, and burrowed into the ventilation shaft. I reached out and pulled clumps of the torn webbing back over the vent, sealing it with my spit to buy myself a few precious seconds, before taking off at full pelt down the shaft.

To be continued...
Hand-drawn, then coloured and touched up in Photoshop. The floor and background are from an image of a Xenomorph hive wall, courtesy of Google Images.
Enjoy