Compartment after compartment was the same; completely devoid of people and clothing - it was as if its inhabitants had just simply… vanished. To Luna, it stung to see the massive market-hall that had once been her dream, an empty canton of clutter, turned-over stalls and dilapidated wares. Up above, a long wire of paper lights flickered with life over what had once been portrayed as the most lively place in the world. This was where her parents had met, in this very hall - it was where their adventure began. It had been dimmed for the evening market and music had played from instruments welcoming their visitors. Somewhere on the worn, rusted floor, the two had danced under the influence of the magical drinks and for the first time touched their lips to one-another, beginning a romance that would one day end so brutally.
Guy took care not to step on any of the clutter, the shards of glass and the pieces of cloth. When she came to his side to grab hold of his hand, he never even stopped to look at her - her presence was a given, after all. A much-needed, much appreciated comfort in this chaos. There was so much she wanted to say to him - so much she had planned to say to him when they finally visited Sitalii, but their current situation called for silence; silence and concentration. Not that she needed to say anything. Their glances spoke more than words ever could - their common regret that her childhood dreams of dancing in the busy market would never come to fruition. He swore to himself, he would find a way to emulate it - to give her an even better memory, should they survive their journey.
Their misadventure finally brought them to another empty metallic cubicle, a junction leading in four different directions. Guy stopped to look at the screen next to a tall set of metal doors and murmured to himself: “This is it. The engine-room. Looks like it’s still intact…”
Luna turned over her shoulders in turn and took note of how even Menta had begun to feel that sensation of dread. His cheeks were pale and his eyes were wide, glancing around the junction with obvious fright.
“Where the fuck is everyone?” The oaf whispered. Guy’s hand stilled over the display, holding off on opening the door. “We’re about to find out. The engine-room’s one of the only ones where gas is being produced. I’m not sure what’s inside here, but… keep your distance, all right?” He looked to Luna as he spoke - a gesture Menta might’ve been offended by, had he only seen it. They exchanged determined nods, steeling themselves.
… But nothing could have prepared them for the sight that met them as the doors slid apart.
Undulating tendrils of flesh hung like vines from every wall, every wire, every millimeter of the ceiling. They had all listened to the recording, but not until they saw it could they imagine what the Commander had meant when he said that the station was coming to life.
The flesh seemed to grow on the walls like algae or kelp would grow to stilts. Long nets of flesh hung from the ceiling; plexuses of pulsating red that brimmed with life.
The sounds - the horrific, dripping sounds were the worst of the experience. A wash of warm hydrogen sulfides blew past them as the chamber decompressed. In response to the change in pressure, the room itself seemed to squirm, as if a great colon relaxed after a particularly necessary release.
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Guy took a step towards the door to shine his light inside, attempting to make sense of the disgusting visage - likening it to the insides of a butchered fish that had swallowed an engine-room. It was nearly impossible to see what had once been moving or stationary parts and what had now been consumed by the writhing mess of fascia, muscles and fat.
Finally, Guy saw it. A large, spherical shape of what appeared to be skin in the middle of the chamber - surrounded on all sides by afferent, thick, pulsating vines that perforated the adipose, hairy bulb. Its blood-supply.
Ignoring Menta’s retches, Guy took another step forwards and raised a finger to his mouth and a palm to his companions - an order for them to stay put as he surveyed the waking nightmare that had once been an efficient engine bay.
The bulb contained the core and, judging by the oozing pustules of blood at its sides, all the systems had disengaged. It was, however, no mystery that the core itself had not ejected as it involved decoupling from the shell; a shell covered in wrinkled, gray-pale skin. He took cautious steps, careful not to disturb any of the tendrils or vessels on the floor - his eyes wide with disbelief of his surroundings.
Finally, as he reached the bulb, he stopped to suffer the dread at the back of his mind - the presence now screaming for him to escape. All he could do not to run away was fall to his knees, and grip his temples; a motion seconded by the girl paralyzed in the doorway leading into the engine-room. There, next to him, was the lever - the manual release that would eject the core. With a quivering hand, he reached through a thin cover of vessels and grabbed the handle, pulling it back with enough force to snap the pulsating veins and shower him with a rain of warm, ferric blood.
In his disgust, Menta had leaned back against a door panel of his own, keying open what had once been the cantina. With the same, explosive force that had opened the engine room, the doors tore apart a thick layer of flesh, revealing a scene of dread and horror.
The cantina’s windows were bare, but other than the panes of glass, the entire room was covered in gore. Strips of flesh hung from the ceiling, incorporating unmistakably human forms - all deathly still and riddled with intrusive vessels. The skin of their necks had been stripped off to allow access for writhing vessels that had bored into their veins - circulating blood between the captive humans and the massive organism.
Colons or intestines hung from the ceiling, inserted into their mouths and compressed black fluids down their throats - fluids he could see move through their larynxes in the bright flash of his light.
But the most disturbing sight, by far, was the mound of arms, legs, faces and torsos slung on a wrinkled patch on the floor. The wrinkles undulated - rippled under the human flesh. The skin glistened in the light and as he shone the beam onto the patch, he realized that the members seemed to have collapsed. That whatever fluid was coating the viscera was slowly digesting it - absorbing it into the grand machinery of gore.
It was then he saw it. How he had failed to notice it in the first place was beyond his racing mind - a monstrous thing he had mistaken for a wall. A thin, yellow sack of fluids had an unmistakable thing moving inside of it - a long spindly beast, easily mistaken for a giant oarfish, before he noticed what appeared to be appendages… ribs… a forming embryo, right before his eyes.
He retched and fell backwards, screaming with horror as he scuttled back towards his companions.
A powerful hand grabbed him by the shoulder and raised him up - pressing a small, cubical metal box into his chest.
“Take it and run, Menta!” Guy shouted from behind his back. Menta needed no more explanation and heeded the order, gripping the box tightly in his hands.
As soon as Guy had pulled the lever, he noticed them. There, in the light of his flashlight, he saw an unmistakable, oval shape in the mess of meat. It reflected his beam as if it had been a mirror. Then, another slight movement bared another white bulb, then another, then another. By the time he had reached into the plating to retrieve the core, he was surrounded by thousands of eyes - all staring at him from the flesh, conveying no emotion, no intent… only hunger. Only instinct. Only need. And it was well aware that he and his companions had just stepped into its hunting grounds.