The station hums.

Gottlieb stands out in the upper corridor, having just come out of the shaft from the gunner’s bay. He sets Grunheide down, looking around the area.

The emergency lighting is on again. But it’s been reduced to as low a level as possible. He can only assume that this is Kai’s doing. It’s likely just another slight aimed his way. Kai’s such a diva. It’s unbelievable.

“Come on,” says Gottlieb, walking down the corridor.

Vampires?

He can take on a couple of vampires.

Sure, he’s never fought a vampire before, which is obvious, given that they never existed in his old world. Well, as far as he knows, at least. But what’s some pencil-necked dweeb in an old-world turtleneck going to do about his arms the size of the orbital-cannon?

Jack-shit.

— He feels something grabbing his leg from below. Gottlieb turns his head to look, seeing Grunheide, pulling on his pants and shaking her head. She points back towards the shaft and turns to run. He grabs her, picking her up again and setting her down in front of himself. “Oh no you don’t,” says Gottlieb. “The gun’s off anyway, with Kai throwing a fit. So you might as well stay here with me,” he says, scooting past her to head towards the intersection of corridors.

His eyes wander up towards the ceiling, past the softly glowing blue lights that betray Kai’s presence, towards the red, flashing light of the digital clock that sits between the passages. It’s reset and blinking constantly with no clear time being depicted. Instead, there is simply a jumble of various lines that the digital clock can produce.

Gottlieb lowers his gaze, looking down the two hallways he has to choose from. Each is as dark and as foreboding as the other. They are simply tight, metal passages, lined with dim, glowing bulbs, which fail to illuminate the corridors in any meaningful manner. Rather, they remind him of the stars he had seen while outside of the station on his space-walk, while the sun was missing.

They’re just small, faint dots that glow in the distant darkness to signal that, while there may possibly be something back there, far, far away — Right here, where he is now, there is nothing.

Gottlieb takes the right corridor, because it’s his favorite direction, and walks down it towards the first door. The labs.

Kai had locked this door on his request. But he assumes that these rules of their current gentleman’s understanding of one another have now been made null and void.

— Sure enough, the door slowly slides open. It does so far slower than usual, which of course, does not help the unfortunate ambiance of the station. However, this is just because the station is currently running on a series of wires that lay even deeper than the emergency fall-back systems that jump into place when the sun goes out now and then. There simply isn’t a lot of energy to go around.

The man scratches his head, wondering; why the hell does the station need fancy upwards sliding metal doors? Surely, any old door from the hardware store’s recall section would have been good enough? It would have spared him this melodramatic visual here now too.

Fog leaks out of the slowly rising door, casting long shadows around his legs.

— Grunheide coughs and splutters. “Oh yeah,” says Gottlieb, remembering. He grabs her, pulling her out of the chemical smoke that reaches up to his thighs. She was entirely bathed in it. She gasps for air. “Shouldn’t breathe that in,” says Gottlieb, as if it was obvious. The door opens and he looks inside.

No vampires.

Gottlieb tsks and steps into the lab, looking around. The last time he was here, there was…

— Something wobbles in the shadows.

Ah.

Gottlieb leans sideways, holding Grunheide aloft next to himself, as they look around the workbench, towards a strange, blobby mess that sits in the distance, gorging itself on the chemicals stockpiled here in the lab. The little creature, the small slime that had once attempted to create itself a face akin to a human’s, is now far, far larger. It is easily as large as the other slime that still remains trapped in the gunner’s bay.

The creature turns its head. Wet slime, shimmering with a toxic gloss, drips down across the metal floors of the station in an incoherent mess that can barely hold itself together.

“Fa…” says the monster as it lurches around. A face presses itself out of the shapeless, bubbling mass of poison ooze. “- Fa…ther,” says the slime, crawling towards them. An appendage, the shape of a hand, presses itself out of the body, reaching for him with long, slimy fingers that have no bones, apart from the shattered glass beakers that it has swallowed. A face presses itself out of the slime, looking at him with large, hopeful eyes. “- Father!”

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Gottlieb sucks on his teeth.

“No vampires here,” says Gottlieb, turning around and leaving. He slams his fist against the emergency containment button on the lab’s exterior.

— The metal door slams shut behind himself. Maybe he was wrong about those cheaper doors after all?

“…Ah?” asks Grunheide.

“We’re not going to talk about it,” replies Gottlieb, walking far enough away to be able to set her down again without concern. The lab is clear. Nothing there. He heads towards the observatory next.

He hasn’t been there since day one.

----------------------------------------

An arm presses itself in through the door of the observatory, holding a goblin out before itself.

“Nix,” says Grunheide a moment later, looking back towards him.

Gottlieb nods, stepping inside of the observatory. “Good teamwork,” he says, setting her down again to look around the room.

She sniffs the air and then scampers towards the table that had been decked out for a celebration days ago, or however long it has been.

— How long has it been, actually?

He doesn’t really know anymore. He should ask Kai. That is assuming Kai will cut the shit.

“Ah… I wouldn’t do… that,” says Gottlieb, too late. Grunheide is already trying to salvage what can be salvaged from the heap of nutri-rations and reusable metal cups. Goblins have low standards, apparently.

He shrugs, walking towards the only window on the station, to stare out into the darkness.

There are no vampires here, either inside or outside of the station.

Maybe Kai really was just fucking with him again? Gottlieb lifts his gaze towards the blue light above his head. Unlike during the lights-out that had happened when the sun went out, Kai is still active now. Kai is watching. Kai is always watching.

He can feel it now, Kai’s gaze, drilling into him from above. He can imagine it, the AI is probably laughing itself silly, assuming it can do such a thing, watching him run around the darkness.

— The man looks over his shoulder.

No vampires anywhere to see at all.

He’s actually kind of let down.

----------------------------------------

“- So, tell me more about this ‘vampire’ of yours,” says the station’s mental health counselor.

Gottlieb, laying on his back on a soft bench, plays with his fingers atop his chest as he stares towards the ceiling. “…I dunno, Doc,” replies the man. “I’ve just been out here, looking for a vampire and I really don’t even know why,” he explains. “I think I’m just angry and I want to take it out on something, you know?”

“Mm, mm,” replies the counselor, scribbling down into his notepad. The man sits off to the side on a small chair. “It’s good that you’ve already done some introspection. This seems to be something that’s bothering you.”

Gottlieb sighs, returning his gaze towards the ceiling. “What can I say?” asks the man. “There’s nothing else to do up here all day, every day.” He thinks for a moment. “I know it hasn’t been that long, Doc,” says Gottlieb. “Maybe a week at most. But I’m telling you, I think I’m cracking.” He rubs his chin, thinking about the changes that not only Kai has undergone in its ‘personality’, but also the changes he himself has undergone. He always used to be kind of a stubborn dick, but at least he was good at what he did. “I feel like I’ve been changing, you know?”

“Mm…” replies the counselor, scribbling into his notes. “And why do you think this is?”

Gottlieb thinks for a time. “Well… I mean, it was a lot of stress.” He nods to himself. “After everyone died and I realized I was stuck up here, it was just… a lot. I mean…” He sighs. “I always thought I was tough. But I guess it did get to me.”

“Only natural,” replies the counselor. “We’re all just human, after all.”

“So, what do you think I should do?” asks Gottlieb, looking towards the man.

— He’s wearing a turtle-neck. It’s somewhat odd attire for the orbital-station, given that they have to be in uniform at all times. But he assumes that medical-personal can do whatever they want because they’re in short supply.

“My first suggestion would be to dig a little deeper. This was a traumatic event by any human’s standards, but I believe it triggered something that was laying deeper. Maybe something from your childhood?”

“…You think?” asks Gottlieb. “Damn. That’s good advice, Doc,” he says. “What else do you got for me?”

“— Turn your head to the side,” says the doctor, spinning his finger.

“Huh?”

The counselor gets up. “Your head. Turn it to the side.”

Gottlieb shrugs, rolling his head to the side over the soft, fabric bench. “Is this normal?”

“It’s uh… it’s the newest medical procedure.”

“Oh.” Gottlieb narrows his eyes, staring at the wall before himself for a moment.

Something seems a little fishy here.

“Can I ask you something?” asks Gottlieb, listening to the steps shuffling towards him from behind. “Is a counselor allowed to give medical advice like this?”

— The man behind him stops moving.

“- I mean, I just thought that counselors did like… relationship junk, you know?” asks Gottlieb. “I thought therapists did all the ‘my daddy beat me with a belt’ stuff.” He thinks for a moment.

Something really doesn’t add up at all here.

Since when does the military give a crap about mental-health?

“…Wait a minute. We don’t have any counselors on the station…” mutters Gottlieb under his breath.

He spins around, grabbing the long-toothed man around the neck. The vampire lets out a squelching noise. “Aaaah~!” says Gottlieb, knowingly. “- You almost got me there. Hah. Nice try, pal.”

The vampire tries to lunge towards him, but has little success, grabbing at his wrist with its hands. Gottlieb jumps off of the padded bench, that may or may not be inside of the captain’s quarters, before pressing the vampire against the wall.

“Hey, question,” says Gottlieb, looking at the vampire. “Can vampires die in space?”

The vampire has no response, given that he’s crushing its head with his other hand. The monster’s skull begins to crack, its long teeth bared, trying to reach him to little avail.

----------------------------------------

Gottlieb wanders down the corridors of the station.

Well. That happened.

— After the monster had died, something shifted. Its appearance, that of a well-dressed man in modern clothes, changed. The corpse of the man had fallen apart into a jumbled heap of meat, out of which grew too many arms. Its neck was long and elongated, broken and coiled like a snake’s.

So, it was just kind of weird, really.

He looks around, trying to find Grunheide and, presumably, the second vampire.

They must have gotten ambushed in the observatory. Though he doesn’t remember a thing. They were just there and then, all of a sudden…

— He hears a voice to his right, coming from medical.

Gottlieb wanders towards the door.

“- I see. I see,” says an unfamiliar voice, belonging to a strict-sounding woman. “So, tell me more about this sensation of yours of ‘being chosen by the gods’,” she says.

“Ghatar,” replies Grunheide. “Ghatika, bli uh… chetim.”

“Mm. Mm,” replies the communications-counselor. “Fascinating.”

Gottlieb cracks his neck, stepping into the session.

It looks like he’s found his second vampire.

----------------------------------------

[Meridian]

Meridian sits before a table. Maps and plans lay scattered around its surface. They’re maps from the prior rebellion and, now, ironically enough, are being used in preparation for what his appearance in public will cause.

— The fires of rebellion, freshly extinguished with blood, will rise to a height they have never seen before.

The new thrones of power, the new wave of politicians and nobles, freshly elevated from their prior states of life, will not give up the positions they have only just seized days ago.

His finger taps against the table as he looks at the map. The guards, the city, the soldiers, everyone is on edge. Everyone is on the watch for any more signs of trouble. There isn’t a single easily available opportunity for him and his people in days such as these.

But he fears what will happen if he fails to make progress, if he fails to advance forward on the orders he has been given by a power higher than the words and anxieties of any man.

They need something. A distraction. A commotion. Maybe another splinter-group of loyalists, who could rise up and shake things around for a week or two?

He lets out a tense sigh, continuing to look at the map.

But nothing comes to him.