Dreams curled and twisted behind his eyelids.

Hands on his shoulders?

His neck ached, and his eyes rolled open with the force of being shaken, vision blurred around the edges. An unfamiliar face swam into view, but he couldn't focus on it. In the back of his mind lay a sense of unease.

His eardrums vibrated; hummed in confusion; realised what they were hearing was a voice, but still his mind could not pick apart the words. They held an urgency - a desperate, nagging fear, like the clawed remnants of a dream.

He realised, with a flash of clarity, that the language wasn't English. The rolling burr of her words, the colour of her skin - she was a V'rillian soldier. He jolted upright in a moment of pure panic, fingers scrabbling desperately in the dirt for his gun or a knife.

The enemy's hand dropped onto his and pressed it to the ground. Be still.  She placed a finger to her lips. Be silent.

His mind disagreed, screamed at him to fight back, but his head spun and his body rebelled; he sank back against the ground, stones digging into his back, and something beneath his head that smelled of sweat.

His forehead sported a bandage. Where from?

The enemy soldier watched him for a time, crouched and ready; body wound tight as a spring. Dark eyes caught the dying light of the sun through the window.

Where had this hut come from? Half of it had sunk deep into the muck of the swampy battlefield, and a machine-gun took up most of the remaining space. Where were her companions? His hands weren't bound, but he felt confident in considering himself a prisoner of the V'rillians. Where were his own friends? His army? The V'rillian army?

His head ached, but he couldn't control the whirling thoughts.

The sun disappeared, and a long, low growl shuddered through the air like the voice of a rockslide. The V'rillian's face grew whiter than snow. Once more, she put a finger to her lips - and gripped his arm.

Ryan - his name was Ryan! - snatched his hand back, but the enemy's eyes flashed with warning, and he did  want to know what the sound had been - and maybe, just maybe, up close he would have a chance to overpower her. He let her sling his arm around her neck. She hauled him to his feet, and stood swaying for a moment in a sure-footed dance.

Ryan's head whirled like a loose wheel, and he had no choice but to cling to his enemy. He had no chance of escape. He couldn't have kept his feet without her.

The V'rillian dragged him over to the window and Ryan's legs folded, but the soldier forced him up again, fingers digging hard and cold into his cheeks as she forced him to stare through the glass.

The outside world was dark. Unnaturally dark. The emptiness of it swallowed his senses, not unlike staring into an empty grave. Red spots swam in his vision.

Then something moved.

Ryan only caught a hint of it - the gleam of something sharp; a glint of something wet - but it was frighteningly large, larger than anything he had ever seen before besides Mt. Himali, and it was right outside the window.

He sank to the ground with the breath beaten out of him, heartbeat rattling in his ears.

The V'rillian crouched nearby, elbows on her knees, fingers dangling and dancing in the dirt. Watching him quietly. Ryan lay his head back and tried to swallow the tears.

He wasn't ready for this. He was the rookie,  and - A finger tapped his boot. He forced himself to look at her.

The V'rillian pointed to the machine-gun, and jabbed a thumb at herself - then pointed to a crate of ammunition, and stabbed a finger at Ryan. Ryan shook his head. He would not be a slave to this - this alien.

Frustration colouring her face, she pointed to the window with a finger, then drew the same finger across her throat. We're going to die.

The door rattled on its hinges.

Faster than he could react, the enemy soldier grabbed Ryan by the collar and threw him at the ammunition, slamming a pair of muffs down over his head.

He was going to die - they were going to die - but he wrestled with a round of ammunition anyway. The V'rillian dove for the trigger.

Inhuman screams cut through the gun's roar. Holes bloomed in the wall. Ryan ignored the tremble of his pulse, body cold as the ammunition he handled. He could barely keep himself upright, but he fed the gun's inexhaustible appetite. The swamped end of the building sank lower.

A vast, hoarse, roaring scream and the world exploded. Ryan hit the ground again before he even knew he had left it, shards of wood cutting at his face and hands. Blood welled through his sleeve from what felt like a reopened wound.

The V'rillian lay across him, terrifyingly limp.

Ryan swallowed back vomit, trying not to think, beating against the thoughts that hammered at his battered mind - what was that what is happening how did I get there how did this happen -

Heavy footsteps rattled the ground; hot blood sizzled through the roof and dropped, hissing, onto the ground mere centimetres from his eyes. He couldn't breathe; the terror lodged in his throat and he couldn't breathe -

The V'rillian's fingers twitched.

Ryan stared, eyes wider than his face, as the soldier slowly pushed herself up. Blood ran down her head in a steady stream, and her face was bloodless - with pain or fear or both Ryan didn't know - but she regained her feet, and a knife appeared in her hand, and when Ryan rolled, trying to gain his stomach and climb to his feet, she pushed him back against the wall of the building.

"Stay. I - w-ill - not - leave - you," she whispered in English, the burr of her native tongue thicker than blood. "I - w-ill - come - back."

Then she was gone.

Ryan lay still, gasping in the dark.

Fire slashed through the night, and he curled around himself. Alone. Alone in the mud. What could he do? Why had this happened to him?  What could he do?

A scream rang out, and the beast's cry harmonised with it, and Ryan's eyes snapped open, and he began to claw his way forward. He couldn't do nothing. Mud clung beneath his nails, sucked at his body, but he reached a knife buried in the dirt, and held it tight in his shaking hand, and clawed his way up the wall and onto his feet.

The cry of an ended life tolled like a bell.

Stay. I will not leave you.

If she was dead, he had to find the body.

Ryan stumbled from the ruined building in a drunken stagger, feet catching on grass and on nothing, and collapsed. Was the world spinning or his head? It was too dark to tell.

He raised himself up again. Fire burned in the distance.

I will not leave you.

Ryan forced himself to move. The fire danced around a monstrous body that sucked the light from the flames. A still mound.

I will not leave you.

Ryan ran. He ignored the trips, the falls, the stumbles - he didn't notice when he landed on the knife. He ran, tears blurring his vision, and fell again when the ground gave way to swamp. He could feel the heat of the dancing flames, and the swamp moaned as the creature's body settled.

I will come back.

"Hey!" he screamed into the night. If another godforsaken monster roamed these lands, at least it would kill him quickly. The terror in his bones ran too deep. "Hey!"

A muffled call answered him.

Heart leaping into his throat, Ryan stumbled forward, searching desperately for his fallen friend. Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

But, near the fallen beast, a shallow gasp snatched at his ear, and Ryan spun just in time to see the V'rillian's head vanish beneath the mud.

"No!"

Ryan dove forward, anchoring himself with a nearby claw, grabbing frantically at her hand. "Come on!"

Fingers caught his in a vice-like grip.

Ryan pulled, pulled until he screamed with pain, and at last  a gasping V'rillian broke the surface of the swamp. He laughed - he couldn't help it.

After she had regained her breath, the soldiers fought their way out of the swamp together, hand over hand. Ryan thought he might cry when they at last lay on solid ground.

"I will not leave you," he panted, patting the V'rillian's hand.

To his shock, the alien pulled him into a fierce hug. After a moment, he returned it.

Then they sat, simply breathing, until - struck by a thought - Ryan thumped his chest.

"Ryan. Ry-an."

He extended a questioning hand, and the V'rillian grinned tiredly. Accepting it would be the first official peaceful interaction between their two planets in over a century.

"Koyalr."