“Hey Cai, what does this thing do?” The creature asked, pointing at the EMAS console with its index finger. Cai couldn’t think of it as a child, as closely as it might resemble one. Its features shimmered momentarily, then its face took on another form like how a chameleon changes colors.
“Don’t touch that.” Cai said grumpily, but when he turned to the demon he no longer saw the gleaming boy with golden hair. His place had been taken by a dark-skinned girl of the same age. Like the boy, this girl had been cared for with an immaculate eye for detail. Her long, black hair had been braided with an artistry Cai had not even known was possible, and her skin was completely flawless. A kind of perfection which should not exist outside of myth.
The only thing that had remained the same were the eyes: Those striking gold irises encysting a core of the blackest black. Cai involuntarily stared right into them for the briefest moment, swearing that he could see movement behind the creature’s pupils.
By the time he managed to tear his gaze away from the demon’s false eyes, its appearance had already shifted back to that of the boy Cai had first met when he woke up.
The creature had been pestering him for nearly twelve hours now. In that period it had briefly changed form about twenty times, assuming the likeness of a different child every time. These transformations never lasted more than a minute before the demon reverted to its original shape, but nevertheless added yet another layer of uncanniness to the apparition’s presence. If the Demon was aware that it changed faces every so often, it did not touch on the subject, and he had obviously not asked about it. Discounting his outburst just now, Cai had managed to avoid speaking to the fiend at all, to its apparent frustration. It was the little victories that mattered, hethought wryly.
The Striker Nebula was quiet now that she had reached her destination, almost eerily so. Quieter even than when she had been on her float. Without the muffled, rumbling roar of the powerful engines, it was like an unnatural blanket of silence had descended on the ship. The serenity would have left Cai feeling uncomfortable under normal circumstances. Given his current company, it was nigh-unbearable.
He ignored the Demon’s question, and the disappointed pout that followed, to instead take a detailed infrared reading of the alien wormhole the Nebula was posted at. The sensor sweep was ten minutes premature, but Cai simply wanted to make himself seem busy.
The results came back a little blurry, and Cai took a deep sigh to mask his relief. Clearing the picture up would take some time, another excuse for him to not engage with the strange, nightmare-inducing creature.
In truth, he didn’t know what to do. The navy had a lot of emergency protocols which told him the exact course of action in nearly any scenario, but first contact with an actual Demon was not among these. Such supernatural beings were the stuff of history books. Before today, Cai might have even secretly doubted their existence.
For not the first time in these past hours, Cai’s hand hovered over the comms console on the armrest of his seat. It would only take him a few seconds to beam an emergency lux-transmission to a relay station. Accounting for both light- and bureaucratic delays, the knowledge that the Veil had been compromised could reach officials on Sindrion Tertus in five minutes. About half an hour later, both Primus and Secundus would receive the message as well.
And then– well, Cai didn’t know what would follow that. Most likely the small flotilla accompanying them would be ordered to turn their weapons on the Striker Nebula, swiftly eliminating the threat. If he sent that message, he and his crew might be reduced to swiftly cooling space dust less than fifteen minutes from now.
Cai wondered if he owed them an explanation before that happened. How would Veriss react to the knowledge that he’d marked them all for death? How would Harlan?
Actually, what was stopping them from taking swift measures themselves? A well-placed pistol shot should put him out of commision with equal ease.
But then… would it kill the Demon? He had no idea what magnitude of firepower would be required to harm it, so maybe–
“Ugh, are you always like this?” Complained the Demon from behind him. “All that yappin’ in your head, hopping from one conclusion to another while you have no clue what you’re talking about. It’s just dumb!”
Cai swiveled his command chair around to find the childlike form of the creature making slow, weightless cartwheels with a look of utter boredom on its face. Its tone combined with the childish antics would have been somewhat funny to Cai, had he not been terrified to his core.
“Let me make some things clear:” The fiend said, pointing an accusing finger at him while still spinning.
“Your death solves nothing. I’m here to stay, and I’m gonna make really bad stuff happen if you keep ignoring me.” It finished talking, nodded to itself in satisfaction then somehow propelled itself upwards and phased through the bridge’s ceiling.
Despite himself, Cai scoffed at its words. Whatever he had imagined interacting with a Demon to look like, this certainly wasn’t it.
The cosmic horror of the eyes in the void, the gory blaze in his dreams, those he could associate with horrors from beyond the universe’s borders. A civilized conversation? Not so much.
The few fragmented records from before the Veil only spoke of Demons as utterly chaotic and violent beings, though a scant few did supposedly take Ruvos forms. Whether they used a twisted disguise or a corrupted host, the records never specified. Cai had been taught that both were possible, and that the two were nearly indiscernible from one another.
With what he had seen from this Demon, he suspected it to fall into the former category. Its body appeared to be physical only when it needed it to be. Cai had seen the child-form interact with objects around it, and felt its unnatural strength for himself, yet he had also witnessed it move through the ship’s walls and floors as if it were intangible several times.
If was trying to possess him, which Cai had no doubts about, it apparently could not do so by force. It needed to coax him into it, to get him to agree to some kind of bargain.
Either that, or the Demon needed him for something. Something it could not accomplish on its own.
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If he was right, then he might be better off playing along with it. Cai knew that would be equivalent to poking a lion with a stick while wrapped in a suit made of bacon, but that was likely to be the better option compared to the Demon cutting its losses and finding a new potential host.
If Cai played his cards right, he might even be able to glean some valuable information before contacting the relevant authorities. He would just have to be incredibly careful, and take everything the fiend said with a bucket load of salt. Cai sighed and slumped his shoulders. Even if his intentions were purely loyal, to indulge the Demon felt like treason somehow.
“Fine then.” He said, but there was no response. “I’ll talk to you, some come out and face me!” He said, a little louder this time. Still, the golden child did not appear.
“You sure, ka?” A familiar voice came from behind him. “Because yous been feeling bad, Dodger. No hiding that from le me.” Cai turned around, just in time to see Maxin pull himself through the armored bridge doors.
“Maxin… hey…” Cai said awkwardly, turning back to the infrared reading he had been working on. This was not the moment for this. He couldn’t involve Maxin at all, or put his life at risk as well. If it wasn’t already. “Thanks for checking up on me, but I’m fine, really.”
“Nono. Been acting strange, yous.” Maxin blabbered, then pulled himself around Cai’s command chair to face him. The exo leaned in close, looking him straight in the eyes. His face was dead serious in a way Cai had never seen before, and it freaked him out. Cai was now painfully aware of the magnitude of the secret he carried, and that he was in conversation with the one person who always seemed to find out about everything.
“Could you… give me some space?” Cai asked hesitantly. “I’m trying to work here, y’know. You’re not supposed to distract me while I’m keeping watch, what if the Baknian breach?” He gestured broadly at the multitudes of monitors littered around the bridge. Screens he was supposed to keep an eye on. In reality, the sensors were all being run by powerful watchtower algorithms which would alert him the moment something unexpected appeared.
Keeping watch was a fairly boring thing to do, which is why Veriss had assigned him a double shift as punishment for his outburst back in port.
A moment of silence followed, then Maxin took a deep breath and shook his head, his long hair swimming freely in the lack of gravity.
“Nothing wrong with feeling bad, or having shitty night-horses.” He said eventually, then pulled back. “But he probably be finded by now, ka?” He asked, his face set in compassion.
“Wait, who?” Cai nearly wanted to ask, but he realized what Maxin was talking about right before the words left his lips. Of course… Maxin thought he was being worried about Noah… and of course he was, but in the horror of the past hours Cai had not even had the time to think about the peril his little brother might be in.
A sickening tang of shame and renewed despair grew inside him and he cast his gaze down. Had he really been that selfish? He shook his head no, trying to push the feeling away. That thought was not helping him. He could do nothing for Noah, and he would have to accept that. If not, he would not be mentally equipped to deal with his own problems at hand.
“Thanks, Maxin… I’m glad you’re checking in, even if it’s against protocol.” Cai said with a melancholic smile. He found that he was indeed grateful and briefly wondered what he had done to deserve a friend like Maxin, but he couldn’t allow himself to grow distracted right now. “I should probably… get back to it, though.” He said, then turned his head back up and nearly choked on his own breath as he saw what was going on.
The Demon had reappeared and stood right behind Maxin, but it looked nothing like it did before. Its childlike form was still there for the most part, but twisted in a horrible, writhing amalgamation of flesh, chitin, spikes, scales and feathers colored a grayish black. A viscous, golden liquid seeped from between the gaps left by this unholy lump of features, dribbling down the creature’s body to form a small pool around its feet.
Worst of all was its head: The demon’s pristine visage, however uncanny it had been, had been replaced with something far more terrifying. Its eyes were sewn shut with string formed from pure light, and its mouth was set in a hideous grin extending from ear to ear, revealing row upon row of razor-sharp, serrated teeth. The same golden liquid poured from the creature’s closed eyes like tears, and dripped from its teeth and thin lips like drool.
The Demon had blade-like claws extending from its fingers and held them mere millimeters away from Maxin’s throat, grinning at Cai all the while. The exo seemed oblivious to everything, and simply continued speaking words Cai could not understand anymore.
Once again, Cai moved his trembling hand to his comms console. He was one movement away from sending a warning to his superiors, and from alerting everyone on the ship. The Demon had revealed its true form, and it took every scrap of Cai’s willpower to not soil himself then and there at the sight of it.
“I’ll report you…” He whispered, hoping to lay as much threat in the weak words as possible. The demon tilted its hideous head a few degrees in what Cai hoped to be contemplation, then shrugged and withdrew its claws, leaving the clueless Maxin with not even a scratch.
The exo frowned at Cai’s expression, and turned around to follow his gaze.
For a few seconds, the Demon and Maxin were eye to eye, but the latter didn’t give off any signals that he saw something out of the ordinary.
“If yous saying so.” He finally said, turning back to Cai with a slightly hurt expression. Cai realized that while he could not see the demon, his crewmate must have heard his words and taken them the wrong way. That was good. Maxin had to get out of here as quickly as possible. Cai made a corresponding jerk with his chin, gesturing for Maxin to leave. The exo slumped his shoulders, said his goodbye, and pulled himself back the way he came.
Cai didn’t dare take his eyes off the monster before him for longer than a moment, but as soon as he anxiously looked away to check in on Maxin’s progress, the demon reverted back to its less threatening form.
The door closed with a hiss, and the demon clicked its tongue in dissatisfaction. “I do not like that one.” It simply stated.
“Yeah well, I do.” Cai bit back, feeling his confidence return slightly now that he was speaking to a form that at least looked like something he could beat. “So if you hurt him or anyone else on this ship, the deal’s off.”
“Ugh, fine!” The creature complained, putting its thumb and index finger to its chin as it started to pace in front of Cai, phasing through multiple consoles as it did so. Compared to that, the fact that it was acting as if there was gravity was not so strange.
“Are we gonna talk now, then?” It asked, turning some dials on the EMAS console Cai had specifically told it not to touch. He pulled up the override and slaved that console to his command throne, then reverted the settings to their original values. “Sure, chat away.” He said, groaning as he saw how the creature’s intervention was already resulting in a few ghost returns, returns Cai had to filter out manually.
“Well, if we’re gonna talk, we gotta introduce ourselves!” The Demon chirped excitedly, then appeared directly in front of Cai, its lips set in an eager smile. A smile which, once again, did not reach its eyes.
“You already seem to know everything about me, though.” Cai said with a sigh, then froze up as he realized the demon’s true aim. He was standing on a slippery slope. Right now he was still stable and near the top, but everything the demon did to make itself familiar with him put him one step closer to the edge. If he started calling the demon by a name, that would mark a step down from where he was right now.
He was struck by the creature’s insidious purpose, and had to remind himself that there was not a shred of innocence in that tiny body before him. Despite that, he could not back down over something so small. Small compromises would have to be made if he was to keep the demon on a leash.
“So… do you want to introduce yourself instead?” He asked tentatively, his heart skipping a beat. He spoke to it. There was no going back now.
“You finally asked!” The demon giggled, then danced back to the center of the bridge and spread its arms dramatically.
“I am the Child of Curses, but you can call me Apicem!”