"Dar-tol Engla-(click) slams the lid of the third cold storage container and spins the controls to crank the internal temperature down to near absolute zero. Dar-tol turns its attention to the fourth and final container that still lays open in the center of the room. One of the arms of the unconscious alien in the container is draped limply over the side and scrapes rhythmically across the floor, making scratching sounds that get on Dar-tol’s nerves. They flip the alien arm into the container with a foot and load the final syringe gun with the quick-embalming fluid that will chill the body before the blast of super-cooling fluid inside the container freezes the corpse to solid ice. With four of the aliens boxed and tagged for organ harvesting, Dar-tol’s mind is turning to the credits he will earn…and what those credits can buy in terms of necessities…and pleasures—
The long, boney hand at the end of the arm that Dar-tol has just kicked suddenly becomes animate and shoots out of the container, the gnarled fingers clamping on Dar-tol’s throat like an animal trap.
Dar-tol’s breath is suddenly cut off, and it tries to scream…But the alien (who is supposed to be dead!) clamps Dar-tol’s throat shut tight so that no sound escapes.
Dar-tol is frightened as the alien rises from the container and lifts it by its throat into the air well above the floor, yet Dar-tol’s face shows barely any expression. The features, which were essentially masculine from an Earth-human perspective, have been crafted by some of its specie’s best flesh surgeons to mimic a human countenance; eyes, nose, mouth, hair, only the eyes are exaggerated noticeably beyond the human norm, only starring orbs with a black center, never blinking. Someone who had grown up on Earth might have said Dar-tol had a doll-like appearance, but all the earth-born perished long ago.
Face-to-face.
Other-to-other.
Dar-tol’s lidless eyes go dim and fog with a film as it gazes on forever into the unknowable face of the creature it had sought to slaughter and sell for organs.
The alien stands to its full height, Dar-tol’s corpse still suspended from its flexing claws, the bounty hunter slumped and heavy with death…the alien breathes through gill-like holes along the back and sides of its neck and contemplates what we can never know."
#NFTMegaColab Project between @jamex_art and @KevinWPage.
"Alien Bounty Hunter" is an Animated Digital Painting w/ original soundtrack by Kevin Page
