I'm a new animal now...

I wanted to be just like him.  I shaved my head and made goggles to match his.  I wanted eyes like his that shined in the darkness.  I wanted to see who was trying to sneak up on me.  I had to survive.  I was out in the black all alone.  Riddick said I had to be put away in a slam where they say you'll never see the light of day again.  That I had to find a doc, who for twenty menthol cools would give my eyes a nice shine job.  I wanted that, I wanted to be just like him.  I wanted to be his brother even though I was a girl.  Or his partner at the very least.  I wanted him to teach me everything he knew.

But then he left me with the holy man, Imam on Hellion Prime.  He didn't even say goodbye.  He just disappeared into the night.  I wasn't meant for the simple life on that planet.  Thousands traveled there every year to come to New Mecca.  There were too many.  He would never come back to a place with so many people.  I guess he thought I would be safe here.  If I had stayed I might have been.  But I couldn't stay.  I had to find him.

I thought if I hired myself out as a mercenary that eventually I would find him.  That I could prove to him that I could survive just like he could.  That I could kill without remorse.  That I could fly a ship just as well as he could.  They said they would take me on as an apprentice and teach me the trade but they lied.  They treated me like one of the guys for a while.  I didn't know it was all a shame.  They taught me how to clean a gun properly, their guns.  They said until I could prove I knew how to clean one properly that I wasn't ready for my own.  They even let me take the helm a few times.  We were out in the middle of no where but still I felt free and in charge of my own life.

That is until we landed on the first God forsaken planet.  They told me I had to earn my keep since I wasn't ready to have my own gun and couldn't help them land their bounty.  I didn't understand at first.  Cage gave me clothes that fit very tightly around my newly budding body.  A body I had tried to hide for so long.  I knew it wasn't safe for a girl out here.  I didn't know they had figured it out until that moment.  

I was twelve years old the first time Cage bedded me.  He told me I had to know how to bring in the money.  That they had all started like that.  I was too stupid and young to know better.  Every new planet meant new men and sometimes women that I had to sleep with for money.  But I never saw any of that money.  I tried to suck it up cause that's what I was suppose to do, right?  If I was going to prove that I could be a merc I had to survive this.  I thought it was all a test.

I would ask when I got to have a gun.  When I was ready they would say. So I would practice shooting with the other men and I was a better shot than many of them.  But still they denied me.  I took as many 'Johns' to bed as I could in a night to show them I had stamina and I could keep up.  That I was ready for anything that came our way.

A whole year passed like this.  A new planet and hundreds of new 'Johns'.  I began to realize that they were never going to give me a gun.  They were never going to cut me in.  That I was just another way for them to make money quick and not have to work for it themselves.

I began to hate them.  I seethed every time I had to lie on my back or get on my knees for one of them.  And the more anger that welled up inside of me the more courage I had to fight back.  But fighting back only got me into trouble with Cage.  He would beat me within an inch of my life and tell me this was how he knew I wasn't ready. But I realized that I was ready.

One night when they had all passed out and the current 'John' had as well, I got up as quietly as I could and put on every item of clothing I could.  I had been able to hide a shive under my mattress one night.  It was my only means of defense if a 'John' got too out of line.  I had never had to use it but that night I was going to.

I sneaked to the main cabin of the ship where Cage and his men had passed out from mass quantities of a very potent alien drink.  I hated every single one of them for everything they had done to me and everything they had made me do.  But I was also thankful.  They gave me survival skills and taught me how to kill.  I was thankful because now I had the chance to show them that I was ready.  I slit all their throats that night.  The first one was hard.  Only because I wasn't sure how much pressure to use.  I found I didn't need a lot.  They didn't struggle and they didn't wake.  They never would but I had proved that I could kill a few people.  Riddick couldn't say that I couldn't make it on my own now.

With the skills I now possessed and the money I had taken from all the dead bodies I bought myself a hardy pair of boots a good bag to stow my gear and had a nice leather double holster made for the guns I had taken from Cage.  His were the best and I had always admired them.  

I had been slaved out by my last crew but I knew what to look for now.  I knew how to handle myself.  I knew how to fight dirty and shoot a gun better than any man.  I stopped calling myself Jack.  She was weak and I was no longer that weak little girl who had flown off that desolate planet of monsters with a whole different kind of monster at my side.  I called myself Kyra.  I changed my body language and held myself tall and didn't put up with anyone.  If they messed with me I put them in their place and if that still didn't work.  I shot them.

I was a good merc.  I had made a name for myself and the crew I ran with respected me.  Or at least had a healthy respect for their own lives.  Maybe I was too good.  At fifteen I had brought in just as many live bounties as dead ones.  Some times it didn't matter and sometimes it couldn't be helped if they were dead.  It was me or them.  There were times I even ran a job without a crew.  I never stayed with one crew for very long before moving on.  I learned what I could and kept going always hoping Riddick's name would come up and I could prove I was good enough to catch him.  

My reputation became synonymous with death.  Jealous mercs had started to spread the word that I liked killing.  They weren't wrong.  My favorite game was 'who's the better killer'.  They said that I would kill a bounty and anyone who got in my way of collecting my fee.  It wasn't long before I had a bounty on my own head.  But I thought I was the best.  They would never catch me just like they would never catch Riddick.  I was cocky.  I didn't realize that somewhere along the way I had started to make enemies.  I was a kid and all I saw was survival.  I never saw the merc who came after me.

They put me in a slam and told me I would never breathe free air again.  It was called Crematoria and for good reason.  It was hotter than Hell.  I looked for a doc to shine my eye's like Riddick's but there wasn't anyone in the slam who could do the procedure no matter how much prison currency I threw at them.  

I had lost my chance at ever finding him. But one thing I did know, I was just like him.  I had become what he had tried to save me from but I didn't realize it until I was dropped in the deepest hole of my young life.  But it wasn't over.  All the horrors of my misspent youth saved my life more than one time in a slam reserved for the worst criminals in the galaxy.

Sooner or later he would pass through and I was going to show him that I was a new animal.