“Again, for the millionth time, the squid object is floating there.”

“No change?” asks the grumpy captain.

“No change,” I reply.

Seriously, I’m stuck out here in reality watching a giant floating might-be-a-rock instead of dodging my guild leader who will doubtless be on my case for missing a whole weeks worth of guildy stuff.  There is probably a ton of awesome things related to rebuilding the town, and I get to sit in reality just in case the scanners pick up something weird again.

We already have to plot out a new route to move us out of the nebula the squid thing is floating in, so that means I get the joy of confirming what the slingshot targets we can use are so we don’t accidently pass by a star about to go nova or something.  Not that the science guys are incapable of figuring that stuff out, but double checking is a good, safe practice.

“Alright, Jackson.  You’re free for the next few hours.  Grab lunch and be back here for the next scheduled viewing.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

Now I can do something just as productive, so long as I’m near a monitor that can ping me if something comes up.  Have I mentioned how dumb it is that there are no phones or ship-wide com system yet?  Probably only a thousand times since we’ve been drifting through space.

Anyway, back to unplugging myself so that I’m not staring at twitching squid-eyeball.  Stuff like that is why I don’t eat fish.  Water creatures creep me out, and they taste funny. . .fishy even.  THankfully, for lunch we just have flavored pastes to curb the ever-present hunger that dewlls within the bowels of men.

Swing myself onto the ladder and just free-fall down with one hand on the rail so I don’t go floating out into the center.  That way I can get to lunch and maybe ping Buffy for news before I get back to real work.  As real as watching a weird rock-thing in space is.  Is it really work to make sure that it doesn’t do anything. . .um. . .it blinked at me back then, right?  My psyche evaluation came back mostly fine, so I’m probably not in a hallucinating stage yet, right?  So, if it blinked right before I unplugged and got out of there, that would mean I missed reporting something that was probably important. . .

Captain McGreggor is going to be more grumpy than usual when I tell him.  Do I climb all the way back up there right now and skip lunch?  That’s probably what I should be doing.  We are still heading almost right at it at the moment, so maybe early warning would be good?  We are still weeks away from it though, so we should have all the time we need.  Plus, I might be slipping from videogame withdrawal or boredom, so maybe checking after I get back will let me know if I was right?  Double checking is good after all. Just went over the virtues of doublechecking even.

So let’s leave it for now.  After all, What’s the worst that could-

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

. . .

Huh.  Well, that’s interesting. I could swear that that shadow moved.  I mean, unnaturally moved.  Not like I moved and that moved that shadow.  Yeah, there it goes again.

. . .

This has nothing to do with the squid, right?  Just some sort of weird lighting problem?  Maybe I’m finally breaking from reality?  Obviously the shadows on the ship aren’t growing eyeballs and devouring the light around themselves.  The commotion from up above me is probably something to do with the new planned route that we’re going to take and has no relation to the possible shadow monster thing or the squid.  Nope nope nope.

. . .

Ok, that is obviously a beak.  No teeth, really, but the thing is right under some eyeballs and looks like its smiling.  At me.  Yup, giant opening beak-mouth complete with a hole that absoulutely should not open into nothingness that can’t be space because all of the air is still inside.  That’s. . .oh, it has a neck too.

. . .

Did I just get. . .swallowed?  Is that Captain McGreggor?  Just floating in something approximating space now.  Not actually space, I’m pretty sure, since again, I can somehow still breathe, but its certainly not normal air.  Captain McGreggor looks like he’s cussing up a storm, but I can’t hear a thing.  His face is more red than normal, and his eyes are flickering around through the darkness.  When he spots me, they stay focused on my face.  Somehow, he looks even more scared and angry now.  Still can’t hear him though.

After a few minutes of him attempting to sort-of swim towards me with no real progress, we both end up sitting still, waiting for whatever will happen.  I’m hoping that this is all just me having hit my head or stress building up or something, because being eaten and possibly digested by some weird space creature sounds unpleasantly boring.

Then the pods start showing up.  One after another, spaced out away from each other, the stasis pods are sucked in through more beaked mouths that disappear completely once finished eating.  It’s like space itself was ripping open and then repairing itself.  They aren’t all arranged relative to where they should have been on the ship, so it isn’t some sort of parallel world or anything.  Everyone on board is in a large floating cloud.

The weird part, if saying it like that is in any way descriptive, is that the pods seem like they’re still working despite not being connected to the ship and the computer system.  I’m pretty sure that they aren’t self-sustaining from all the times I had to muck about inside the walls getting things fixed.  People aren’t hopping out of the pods either, so that means they either died from the disconnect, or they are happily oblivious to the state of things.  Not sure which I would rather it was if I were them.

Then came the plants.  Plant after plant from the greenhouse was eaten and peppered into the cloud of pods and people.  Maybe whatever this is is collecting all the living things?  Then why brings the pods, though.  It isn’t like they are alive, and it already grabbed the captain and I out of the middle of the ship.  Maybe it didn’t want to unplug them?  That could be seen as a good sign if it cares for our well-being.

. . .

Those people might still be playing the game in there with no cares in the world, and I’m stuck out here experiencing some sort of space-horror show.  Why did I have to be unplugged when this happened?  I really wish that-

Oh.  There’s my pod.  Number 837 stenciled on the top.  Slightly ajar like I left it, even though I’m supposed to keep it latched at all times.  It’s just floating there, just outside of my reach.  Taunting me with its presence from this insurmountable gap of inches.  Somehow, I’m starting to get the image of a rather sadistic entity from how this is progressing.  Next thing to appear is probably going to be a delicious meal of real food sitting just outside of my reach.  I haven’t eaten lunch yet, and this is taking way too long.