“I’m sorry, there’s a what?” Three replied flatly to the odd explanation that had just been given to her.

“There’s some kind of sewage sludge monster that incubated in One’s tank crawling around the inside of the station!” Five repeated in greater detail this time, sounding just as panicked.

All four girls once again stood around a table in the dormitories, having been brought together by Five’s frantic call for a ‘group meeting’. Three sighed and turned elsewhere for answers “Two, what spooked her?”

“I’m… afraid she might actually be right on this.” Two nodded, a look of astonished worry on her face “Something burst out of a pipe in helm maintenance. If that were the end of it, I’d just say it’s because the station is ancient, but then we found a trail leading from it. The trail made movements like it was alive. And it was recent.”

Three furrowed her brow and stared at the two girls like they were crazy “Right. I suppose One’s chamber was a cesspool for all kinds of bacteria for six years… the thought that it would evolve a primitive organism, though? That’s absurd.”

“Well something’s loose on the station, and I don’t know what it intends to do.” Five crossed her arms and looked around with concern at all of the room’s atmospheric vents in turn.

Three sighed “Okay, let’s think about this… rationally. Let’s say that there is a ‘creature’ that was born from One’s chamber.” she still didn’t sound like she was taking this as the actual events at play, though. “It wouldn’t be capable of higher thought. MAYBE instinct, but it isn’t planning anything, Five.”

“That doesn’t make it sound any less dangerous!” Five shouted before she took a deep breath to try and calm herself down “I say we implement the buddy system again. Even when we’re sleeping. If it attacks one of us, the other will at least be able to help.”

“Personally, I never thought we should have stopped using that system.” Three sounded bored now “So I’m actually with her on this, but not because I’m scared of bio-monsters.”

Two looked to the side, a little embarrassed to admit what she was about to say “I don’t like Five’s explanation either, frankly, but I don’t have any better ideas of what it could be after seeing that trail… and smelling it. It smells like One. I agree we need to stick together at all times until we figure this out.”

“Well what do we do about it, though?” Seven asked, finally piping up.

There was a short silence as everyone looked to Seven, unsure what she meant “What do you mean?” Five asked.

“It’s not like it’s hurt anyone yet.” Seven shrugged innocently “Maybe it’s friendly?”

“If it exists, it won’t understand the concept of ‘friendly’. Or ‘unfriendly’ for that matter.” Three crossed her arms, still finding this whole exercise to be a fantasy “But you’re right about one thing, we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it. They said they found a residue, that’s not nothing. So let’s get a sample and put it under a microscope. I’m not Six, but I have a general idea of what a pathogen looks like, so I might be able to make some conclusions.”

“I-I’m not going back down there.” Five shuddered. She was entirely too spooked to make another adventurous trip that day.

“Scaredy-clone.” Seven smirked “I’ll go with Two then.”

Two nodded in agreement “That leaves Three and five to go get us some gloves and slides to handle it with.”

The four girls nodded in agreement at the plan, and started preparing for the day ahead of them dealing with their bizarre new problem.

—

Two walked down the familiar hall with Seven at her heel, walking carefully and listening closely “Eugh…” Seven finally broke the silence as they neared the broken pipe again “Yeah, that smells like One.”

Two nodded “I guess that’s something. We’ll be able to smell it coming long before we see it.” she started to pull on the nylon gloves Three had given her “Just don’t touch it. It could be toxic, or even acidic.” she warned the smaller girl.

“It’s not like I plan on eating it.” Seven mimed retching before she continued to follow right up to the burst pipe “Oh wow… the trail really does move like it’s alive.” she mused.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Two paused though. Something was wrong “There was only one trail before.” she said quietly. Another, fresher trail of the mysterious gunk could be seen moving through the hall and disappearing back where it came from again.

Seven stared it the winding movement of the trail for a few more moments before declaring “Okay… I’m a little scared now too. Just a little.”

“It’s okay, we won’t be long.” Two approached the fresher trail and retrieved two of the slides Three had given her from the genetics lab. She let out a groan of disgust when the slime stretched like jelly onto the glass before it would part. She did the same with the older trail, though this one was more cooperative, having dried out more by now.

“Okay, is that what we needed? Let’s get out of- ah!” Seven let out a quiet yelp and pointed down the hall “I saw something move! On the floor!”

Two looked where she was pointing and saw that there was indeed another trail that had just appeared and slid back around the corner again. It was right here with them. “Seven, stay calm. Back up slowly. We’ll make our way back to the maintenance access. If you see it again, run.”

Seven nodded, shaking in fear now. This was serious after all. There was actually something else alive on the station with them. Something inhuman.

The pair slowly carried their prize back, keeping an eye on the hall behind them as they backed away from what they now had to assume was the creature’s territory. It didn’t take too long for the pair to emerge into the hall, where Seven shut the door quickly behind them. Three and Five were waiting for them.

Three looked concerned at both of them “You two look… drained. What happened in there?”

“I saw it, it was this little blob thing!” Seven immediately cried out, running to put her arms around Five for comfort.

“Five, don’t touch her!” Three yelled out suddenly, and Five, surprised by the command, followed her instruction “Seven, I need you to back up and very carefully remove your shirt.”

Two hadn’t seen it until just then, but there was a large discolored splotch on the back of Seven’s shirt. She must have mistakenly backed into the residue on the wall at some point. Seven went pale, not understanding the implications of what was going on yet “W-What?”

Three approached quickly, her hands already gloved, and pulled on the section of shirt that was stained, clicking her tongue in frustration “It soaked through. We need to get you to medbay.” she said as she guided Seven out of the contaminated clothing, careful to hold the stain away from her body.

When she saw the yellowed stain on the back of her shirt, Seven’s eyes went wide with worry “A-Am I gonna die?” was the first thing she asked.

Three sighed “Truth is, I have no idea. It could be nothing, but if your skin absorbs it, it could be dangerous. I’ll need to look at that sample.” she took another slide and slide it over the residue that had transferred to Seven’s back, and two more from the shirt. before she took Seven’s arm and started to guide her back toward the medbay, deep concern on her face and terror on Seven’s.

Two looked to Five and saw the larger girl was also paralyzed with fear at what had just happened. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll figure this out.” Two tried to reassure her “I’m sure Seven’s going to be okay, it barely touched her.”

“Yeah, and I almost touched it too.” Five muttered, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath “She said she saw something moving, I knew it, there’s some kind of monster on board with us.”

Two nodded slowly “Y-Yeah… I suppose that’s… hard to ignore at this point. Don’t touch me either until I get these gloves off.” she said, starting to follow Three to make sure she disposed of them correctly.

—

Seven was spread nude on her stomach on Three’s examination table, where the medic was administering alcohol vigorously to the patch of skin that looked mildly irritated by the gel that had been on it. It already looked like a small rash “It’s an irritant, that’s for sure.” Three muttered, sighing as she stopped pouring disinfectant over it “Let’s hope that neutralized the worst of it.”

Seven was crying quietly beneath the barrage of harsh chemicals and the implication that she might be in far more danger than they knew.

Two crossed her arms now that her gloves were safely sitting on the lab table next to the shirt slide samples, and a microscope. She had made sure to wash her own hands thoroughly as well just to be sure.

Five stood outside the room, still looking pale and worried while she promised to play lookout and make sure the weird thing couldn’t sneak up on them that way.

“Alright… I’ll need to examine all these samples.” Three looked around the room “This will take awhile. You two, out. I need space to work.” she demanded, pointing to Two and Five.

Five gave a quiet grunt “I am out.”

“You know what I mean.” Three said “Go away. Give me some room and some time. I’ll take care of her, I promise.”

Two shrugged and stepped outside, while Three closed the door right behind her. It seemed she was serious about needing some time alone with the patient. Two and Five were both worried for Seven now, though, after seeing the damage just a mild touch gave.

“Doc needs to work on her bedside manner.” Five muttered, still glancing nervously both ways down the hall.

“We need to work on our own side of this problem anyway.” Two said, beginning to walk toward the labs.

Five threw her arms out to the side “What are you talking about? Where are you going? Don’t leave me alone here.”

“We’ll have to find or make something to contain it with.” she explained “You know how to make stuff with all those tools you got out of engineering, right?”

Five hesitated for a moment before beginning to follow after her “Well, yeah, but I can’t make anything too complicated without the machinery that’s still stuck in there. I definitely can’t make an alien bio-monster containment chamber thing.”

“Then make a box. A really tough box.” Two said as they arrived at the makeshift workstation Five had been using outside of engineering’s sealed doors “Or better yet, let’s fix engineering.”

“Oh, yeah, let me just go put on my child-size spacesuit and go take a look at the couplings out in space.” Five spoke in a loud sarcastic tone “Forget it. I’ll make you a box.” she muttered as she pulled a thick plate of metal onto a table.