Alexander North

“Shit,” I hear Michael mutter right before the creature goes berserk and tries to literally tear the door apart, only to fail at that and instead begin scratching and clawing at the door like a wild animal.

Good thing the door is a prison door, because I get the feeling it would probably be able to rip a normal door right off its hinges. At least, if the groaning sounds coming from the wall are anything to go by.

“Don’t shoot just yet,” the captain says with his arm raises slightly, “we don’t know if there are more things like this outside.”

I turn my attention back to the blizzard and the many glowing blue lights in it before focusing on the creature and the glowing blue light at its chest.

Either those lights outside are more of these things, or they’re more of those shards that likely turned that pirate into this.

And if that’s the case, then it’s very likely that the other pirates have met a similar fate.

We continue watching the creature attempt to destroy the door for several seconds without much luck, considering that it’s a prison cell door, before the captain says, “We need to get back to the base. It should only be a short trek from here if we walk, and even shorter if we run.”

“Run? Outside?!” Robert suddenly asks, finally having gotten free of Gabriel apparently. “With that thing outside? And possibly more of them? Are you insane?!” But he quickly raises his hands to his mouth as he realizes what he had just said to a superior officer.

The captain glares at our pilot and coldly states, “Unless you want to stay here forever and starve to death, then by all means.”

That shuts the guy up.

Several tense seconds pass before I let out a sigh and say to the captain, “Cut him a little slack. This was just supposed to be his first ever job, and now we have this going on? It’s just too much for a rookie to handle.”

The captain opens his mouth to say something, but I just raise my hand and turn to Robert while saying, “And you? I can understand how you feel. I really do.” Probably. “But all freaking out right now will do is get you killed. So, unless you want to end up as that thing’s chow,” I say while pointing at the creature that I still think looks a lot like a wendigo, “then you better stop it and act like the soldier you are.”

Now Robert’s the one to open his mouth in shock at me, with the others in the group all staring at me like I had grown a third eye or something. So I just shrug and turn back to the angry creature trying to tear through a solid steel prison cell door.

Only for my eyes to widen in shock as I mutter, “Uh, look outside.”

The others follow my gaze to find some sort of large, bulky creature walking through the hole in the ship. It has a humanoid shape despite its large size, the same white skin as the first creature, and even the same glowing blue light where a human’s heart should be, but it doesn’t have any nose for some reason. Just two ears, two eyes, and a mouth. And a size reaching upwards of three meters in height, with bulk equaling or even greater than that of a bear.

But what looks odd with all of that bulk is the fact that it has some blueish bones sticking out of parts of its body. Which looks rather odd.

“It looks like there’s more than one type of monster here,” I state while staring at the creature that is currently looking around at the room. And surprisingly, the first creature seems to shift its attention away from us at the sound of the new one’s entrance.

Then it suddenly charges at the creature and begins to tear into its leg like a wild – and rather rabid – animal.

“It’s… attacking the other monster?” Michelle mutters in confusion.

Guess the monsters aren’t friendly with each other then.

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Right after that thought runs through my head, the larger one reaches down and grabs ahold of the first one before smashing it into the ground repeatedly, causing a pale blue blood to begin coloring the prison floor as the wendigo-like one takes a rather brutal beating.

“Holy fucking shit,” Michael swears rather slowly as we all watch the large one continue smashing the smaller one. But despite how much of a beating it’s taking, it’s still alive, clearly showing it as a lot more durable than a regular human being would be. Which serves to prove that whatever the prisoner turned into is clearly making them a lot stronger than a human, if the groaning of the door earlier wasn’t already enough to prove that it had nearly as much strength as the captain.

“So, captain?” I ask without taking my eyes off of the monsters.

“What is it, second lieutenant?” he answers from beside me.

I continue watching the display for a few seconds before turning to look at the captain and asking, “Do you think this door would hold up against a beating from that thing?”

The captain stays silent for a couple of seconds as I assume the realization takes hold, only for him to mutter, “Shit.” He then backs away from the door and says, “Everyone, we’re leaving! Preferably before that creature finishes flattening the other one!”

I raise an eyebrow at that, but follow him towards the outside hatch, which is fortunately located on the other side of the ship from the prison cell. Once we get there, he looks back at all of us to make sure we’re all here before pulling the emergency lever to open the door without the use of the ship’s systems.

And as soon as he does so, a wave of snow, ice, and mist surges straight into the ship, further serving to decrease the temperature. But surprisingly, I don’t see very many of those blue lights out around here.

Does that mean that most of those we saw out of the prison cell were the prisoners?

Guess that means we don’t have to go hunting them down again after all.

Wait a second…

“How are we going to find the base, sir?” I ask him through my terminal, only for the connection to not connect and have to repeat myself out loud.

Guess the terminal towers must be down.

Terminal or not, the captain seems to hear my words through even with our helmets on and the storm going and answers, “I have our coordinates, a GPS, and a map all loaded into my own terminal, so it won’t be too difficult as long as we can get through the storm without running into any monsters.”

Without running into any monsters. Yeah.

That’s wishful thinking if I ever heard it. Also not something I really ever expected to be a problem in my life, to be honest.

Not to mention that we don’t know if our terminals might just stop working entirely at any moment, or if the map or GPS might stop functioning. After all, it uses outside technology, just like the indirect connections which are down.

“Move out!” the captain shouts, leading us all into the blizzard outside. And after not even three steps into it, I notice a blue shard flying our way.

“Watch out for the shard!” I shout while ducking, making it fly straight past my head. When I look back to see if it hit anyone, I find that everyone else had ducked out of the way as well.

Everyone except for Robert, who was shaking too badly to do so. But surprisingly, it seems to have just cut through both his helmet and his cheek without actually seeping into him.

My eyes narrow on the damage to his helmet before I realize something.

Our armor is only bulletproof because of the technology and cybernetics inside of it. Which means that if the technology fails, then it’s just normal armor…

But we have bigger problems right now than worrying about armor.

“Captain?” I ask without taking my eyes off of Robert.

The captain narrows his eyes at him before saying, “We don’t know if he’ll turn without absorbing the shard.”

Robert lets out a sigh of relief at that and stutters, “Y-yeah, and we aren’t even fully sure that it was the shard that did it!”

Yeah, it’s most likely the shard. But telling him that wouldn’t be good.

“Walk up here with me, private,” the captain states while looking at Robert. “I’ll be able to protect you better.”

Robert stares at him for a few seconds before joining him at the front of our formation.

I narrow my eyes on his back as we continue forwards.

Yeah, he’s having him walk up next to him to make sure he doesn’t turn into a monster behind us and kill us all. But I guess that’s for the best.

We continue walking for several minutes without much to go off of besides our maps thanks to the blinding thickness of the blizzard. But what surprises me about it is that both A, Robert still hasn’t turned, and B, we haven’t run into any other monsters ye-

My thoughts are interrupted as a loud screeching noise can be heard from the ship behind us as if a large amount of metal was being ripped off of it and bent. Following that, a loud roar can be heard from the same direction.

“Looks like that monster is finished with the other one and is checking out the ship,” Michael mutters as we continue walking.

The captain doesn’t so much as turn back as he says, “Keep going.”

Then, not even a second later, another blue shard enters my sight and I shout while ducking, “Another one!”

The shard quickly flies by overhead before digging straight into a tree.

I stop walking for a moment to look at it, only to find it digging itself out of the tree and going back into the blizzard further away from us.

Huh. Guess it can only infect animals then? Or just creatures in general and not plants.

“Second lieutenant!” I hear the captain shouting from a little ahead and I rush to catch up with the others.

Actually, I wonder what would happen if it infected a symbiont host like the captain? I doubt it would be a pretty sight.