"She'll breed. You'll die. Everyone will die."

La'an Noonien Singh: "Sorry, Captain. Just something my father said not long before he... Well, you read my file. You know the Gorn captured my family's colony ship and deposited us on one of their... planetary nurseries. Didn't understand what he meant at first. But I had a lot of time to think about it. About why I was the only one to survive. Do you know what I saw on the faces of so many of the people I loved as they died? Before they were slit open and fed on alive or used as breeding sacks? Do you know the last thing they felt?"

Pike: "Surprise."

La'an Noonien Singh: "Yes."

Pike: "Because right up until the last moment, they... couldn't imagine dying."

La'an Noonien Singh: "Yes."

Pike: "But not you."

La'an Noonien Singh: "No. Not me."

Pike: "And that's what kept you... alive."

From Memory-Alpha:

As a child, Noonien-Singh lived aboard the colony ship SS Puget Sound, which was attacked by the Gorn. The population of the colony ship was captured and placed on a Gorn planetary nursery, where the entire population of the ship except La'an were subsequently either eaten alive or had their bodies slit open and used as breeding sacks. La'an, the only survivor, was then sent into space on a "raft" as part of a ritual. She was eventually rescued by the crew of the USS Martin Luther King Jr., including Ensign Una Chin-Riley, who helped her recover from the incident, and inspired her to join Starfleet. (SNW: "Strange New Worlds")