Red

The room was dark, only the dim red glow of the nearby table clock lighting the small room. Suddenly the stillness was shaken by the distant sounds of artillery, a thunder that woke Red. Following instinct she curled into a ball. Her nightmare had become real. She wouldn’t go. Not again. No.

A dull red 4: 44 A.M. flashed rhythmically before the emergency protocol activated. On her wall, a display activated revealing the face of the commander, heavy bags beneath his bloodshot eyes. “Red. Red. Get up. You Need to get to Unit 09.” He shouted in an uncharacteristic panic.

A few moments passed, Red said nothing.

“Red. Please. Please! It’s over! It’s all over. This is the last thing I can give you.” His voice turned to resignation.

This made her react. “What?” She asked in confusion.

“Red. Please. Get to 09. I’ll explain when you get there. This is it, this is the end.”

Something twisted in Red’s gut. Something she had long ago thought had twisted and broken itself. Half starved from another week of hiding, she left her room as an impact on the surface loosened cement dust from the ceiling. It caused her to pause and stare. She was over twenty miles underground, no explosion should reach her.

Another detonation shook the room and like a gazelle she bolted down the hall, The five minute walk became a thirty second run. In the unit bay she activated the launch protocol- no one else was around to do it. In a flash the bay lit up, casting light on 09, the ninety meter tall humanoid machine stood still, its command plug extended and waiting for a pilot- just as it always had. Red didn’t hesitate this time as she threw herself in, not waiting for the ladder to extend or safety rails to retract.

Voice shaking, she asked “Commander, what was that? What was that blast?” into the communication screen

“We don’t know- it came out of nowhere. The stars are gone.” The commander said, waiting for a response. “The stars are gone, Red. There’s so many- the orbital guns are-” Before the commander could say another word the door to the command bunker blew inward, a black mass filling the screen before the connection cut less than a second later.

After a moment the comms reconnected. “This is launch officer Laurence, I’m in the launch room above you. Everyone else went for the shelter but ... Say when you are in the plug and I’ll send you up.” A sole lit room higher in the launch tunnel was all Red could see of the new voice.

Fastening the last strap of her suit she took her seat. “I-I’m in position. What’s happening? Who is attacking us? I thought the next one wouldn’t be for weeks.”

“I don’t know. We lost contact with the surface batteries a minute ago. The upper floors are being breached faster than they can be sealed.” He said, the usual still voice that had guided her through the launch procedure time after time was now replaced with one on the verge of panic.

“I don’t think any of us are surviving this one.” He said after a pause. “I. I think this is the last launch for you. Please, just hold out as long as you can. Maybe you and 09 have another miracle to hand us.”

Miracle after miracle and this was how it would end. Something twisted in Red’s gut. Something she had long ago thought had twisted and broken itself. Then it unwound. The pressure was gone. “Send me. SEND ME!” She shouted into the receiver. Red did not recognize her own voice.

Laurences voice wavered as he made the announcement. “Launching immediately: Red 09. There is no retreat for repair today. In five minutes, there will be no one left to hear our distress signal. Your orders… No, final order: Survive!”

With the press of a single button the launch sled holding 09 activated, rocket boosters melted the tracks as they propelled her and her to the surface- they would not be needed again.

“Obstruction detected.” Voiced the launch computer. The doors covering the launch silo were already destroyed. Had Red not been miles beneath the surface, the mass would have caught her before she could enter her plug. Even now they filled the tunnel, less as individuals united in her destruction and more as an amorphous mass of darkness to snuff her light.

With a simple pure thought from Red, 09’s Dread Point Field activated, triple thick. 09’s field struck the mass, reducing them to naught but dread as they were separated to the basest forms of energy and dissipated, as though they had never been matter to begin with.

09 and Red were as a bullet fired from a gun, propelled high into the atmosphere. As she accelerated to the high atmosphere Red could see no stars, no light. There was nothing but the unending masses that had fallen from the sky or were yet to fall. 09 was not meant to launch today and as such no weapons were prepared, not even the hyper knife that had saved Red a dozen times over. All Red had was the energy for her Dread Point Field and 09’s automatic threat calculators. According to the displays, she would return to the ground in two minutes, her energy would run out in five, and she would be dead a second after that.

Like the unintentional blinking of an eye the landscape beneath Red was clear and the stars returned to the sky.

A glitch? A visual trick? Red’s fingers danced over her controls, sensors verifying what her eyes saw. Red felt nothing but shock as she landed. There wasn't even a scrap of vegetation between herself and the horizon that encircled her. The world around her was now a barren, lifeless ball as even the soil, once black and living, was now drained- brown and empty.

Seeing 09’s power was almost out, Red shut down what she could and activated the emergency exit. The command plug slid from its hole where 09’s heart would be, the metal groaning as it sat unsupported by its usual launch bay apparatus. The ladder extended and Red climbed down, her feet confirming the powdery, dustlike dirt to be empty.

Dumbstruck at the world around herself, she chose a direction and began to walk. By the time the sun rose over the horizon, Red had found a surface entrance to the command bunker. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was intentional. She had never entered here before, only seen it from her comms screen.

She felt cold and alone as she walked the empty halls. The backup generator hadn’t been damaged, leaving the lights on and not much else but there was nothing here. Anything biological, or in the loosest of terms organic, had been consumed. There wasn’t even blood on the walls to mark where people had been killed. It was all just gone.

The words kept bouncing in her head. Gone, all of it, they were all just gone. Gone, gone, gone. Nothing. She felt sick. Gone. Every last one of them. Like they were never here. She recognized the terminals she walked past. That one was Jack's. Lindsey's. John's. All those people she had talked to, all of them who had relied on her to save them time and time again ...while cowering in her cockpit. Gone, gone, gone. She began to dry heave, doubling over but struggling to remain on her feet.

It was hours later, or maybe days, when she exited the bunker- weaker and more weary then she had entered. She didn’t know what to do, and there was nothing left.

Downhill, some miles away, she could see where she had left 09. The hulking machine had never been this long without power, and its crimson red coolant that she now recognized as blood had begun leaking from between its plates of armor.

It called to her, and with seemingly nothing else left in the world to draw her attention, Red began her slow walk back to her 09. It was miles from the entrance to 09 and with every step, her thirst and hunger grew. The heat of the sun beat down on her like a drum; She guessed with how much fell from the sky, something had been messed up with the magnetosphere. Soon the atmosphere would probably be stripped away. Soon her world would just be another rock floating in the cold of space. She didn’t even have the water left in her body to cry.

Standing at the base of her 09, she found herself again unsure what to think. The protective face plate had come loose and fallen off, revealing a giant face. It looked like hers. It even had the same bright red hair. It stared at her, and she stared back.

Before she could ponder this for much longer, the metal of the command plug gave a final groan and submitted to gravity, falling from its hole and ripping a chunk of 09’s back through with it. Red stared at the gray sky through the near perfect hole through its chest, right where a heart should have been.

Any heart would do and with nothing left but to wait for the end, Red climbed 09, pulling herself into the void where her plug usually rested and sat down in the cylindrical hole of flesh and circuits

----

Blue

Blue stared for a moment at the cargo bay floor. The desiccated remains were unmistakably human, rare for this area of space. There was no telling how long this lone stranger had sat dead on that uninhabited world, the suffering she must have felt as the air was ripped from her lungs. Curiously the look on the corpse's face wasn’t the pained gasping of someone suffocating, but the soft agony of despair. The look was almost infectious, as though all the human wished was to have another to share in their curse of sorrow, for one other person to understand.

Shaking the thought away, Blue resumed the medical scan. Around the corpse lay a massive skeleton, about ninety meters tall, with the Jane Doe where the heart would be. There were also a series of massive metal plates that had been brought aboard with them all and judging from the size and shape of them, they were meant to be armor for the titanic being. After a short discussion it was decided Blue would take custody of the Jane Doe for study while engineering would look into the bones and armor.

After a few minutes the body was loaded onto a gurney and sent to Medlab 1, a few minutes after that Blue began his investigation. The corpse before him was dry, the skin was stretched and tight, like leather and the soft tissues that hadn’t rotted were shriveled and misshapen. Blue spent a few minutes with his medical scanner, checking the body for identifying marks.

“Cause of death most likely starvation in an atmosphere, then Jane Doe was dumped on the barren world,” Blue muttered into his recorder. Looking back at the face again, the medical officer couldn’t help but feel bad. “Suggesting last rites be performed by Priest McCoy.” With the investigation done on his end, Blue moved the gurney to cold storage. Without sustained humidity the corpse would remain like this indefinitely.

A few days passed and the patrol had resumed. Without much to do, Blue gave himself less time on the roster, justifying this as time for his subordinates to have some ‘hands on’ experience with the paperwork of the regular schedule. Now, he happily floated in a VR vat, lost in some digital world. “Medical Officer Blue, report to the bridge immediately,” came the order over shipwide comms. Exiting the vat of suspending fluids he quickly toweled himself off and dressed in his uniform. For most the VR feed tube would leave their mouth with a harsh red line after so long but for someone as experienced with the vat as Blue, it was fine.

Less than five minutes later, he was awake and alert. The lift to the bridge hummed lightly as it descended. With a hiss the door opened, Blue stepped out onto the bridge and towards his captain, “Medical Officer Dan Blue, reporting.”

“Dan,” the captain said, he rarely used his officer’s first names unless something went wrong- this strangeness almost caused Blue to jump. “Dan- How thorough were you with your scans? I need you to be honest.”

“Full scans, sir. primary spectrum, X-ray, then an organic pulse to be certain.” Blue didn’t like this, he of all people was not going to make a mistake or be lazy with his work.

The captain stood, then began typing on his chair’s armrest keyboard. “Several abnormalities… On your station now,” Checking his screens, Blue couldn’t believe it. Less than an hour ago tissue growth had begun in cold storage locker 3, the one he had placed the Jane Doe in.

Blue stammered out, “Sir. There was nothing living on it, not even bacteria. I should get back to medlab and begin an investigation. Someone could have tampered-”

“See to it Dan, I am revoking your off time privileges until this matter is resolved.” Harsh but not entirely unfair. The captain knew Blue would expect them to be taken if he had messed up, he had never learned to relax about his mistakes and without some punishment he would fret over it for months.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The cold storage cylinder slid from the wall, revealing that desiccated corpse inside. Cold storage was normal for any military vessel, but on a low level exploration ship like the S.V. Doxa, proper cryonics were too expensive. Instead, freezing air was used. Examining the corpse again, Blue found what had activated the sensor- where the odd patch of ice had formed, the flesh had almost seemed to rehydrate. Blue made a few notes as he re-scanned the body, mainly that his original assumption was wrong.

“It seems the corpse was freeze dried by some crude means shortly after death,” he reported, “With proper moisture balancing the flesh may be rehydrated for better identification, though I find it unlikely we will find a next of kin.” As he spoke he rotated the corpse to finish his visual inspection. On the base of the neck he saw something he had missed, a small red splotch. “Found previously undocumented identifying mark. Could be nothing, but to be thorough, I will be rehydrating the body.”

Rehydration was a simple process, all one has to do is introduce humidity and hold it at a nice, steady rate. At least that’s what the ship’s literature said on the topic. After reading for most of the day, Blue started the process just before heading to dinner. Today he chose to eat in the mess hall, a foreign place to him.

Any other day Blue would rather take a dunk in the VR tank or just eat in his room, this time was different, he felt he had forgotten something, but what? To add a paragraph divider in one of his reports? He poked for a few minutes at the tray of nutrient paste and bread, what was it? It had to be important.

‘Clank!’ he dropped his fork at the dread realization. Tissue growth, the scans had shown tissue growth, not rehydration. Running down the main corridor of the ship, Blue shouted whenever someone got in the way. “Make a hole. Emergency in Medical.” To many it was shocking, seeing the thin, normally unassuming medical officer in a hurry, but on hearing his words they obeyed and stood aside.

As he reached the door to the lab, the alarm began to blare. “Unauthorized access, Unauthorized access, security to Med one.” It shocked Blue, losing precious seconds as he leapt, terrified, from the door. In a moment he regained his nerve and dove for the handle, but it was too late. With the alarm active he would have to wait for security to open the door.

“17:45: humidifier activated. 17:53: fault detected in water regulator. 17:56: Fault detected in humidifier heating element. Temperature set to 451 F, 232 C. This sudden fault caused the water to flash-boil, detonating the front panel of the humidifier and sending shrapnel across the room. The water that struck the door panel was hot enough to melt the keypad, inputting the number 4 until attempts were maxed out and the alarm was activated,” Security Officer Bragg reported, passing the tablet to Captain Christopher.

“You got lucky today, Dan. If you hadn’t stepped off for dinner we might not be having this conversation. Before I send this report, I want to hear what you saw, just as a formality.”

Blue took a moment, his heart sinking in his chest. “It’s my fault sir. I shouldn’t have been using the humidifier. I was so worried I made a mistake, when I found the partial tattoo on the body I got excited and forgot about the tissue growth you mentioned.”

The captain raised a hand, halting the doctor’s self deprecation. “It’s not your fault the machine was bad, all you did was plug it in. If it wasn’t you, it could have been Nurse Mox or anyone from your department. Don’t be hard on yourself, that’s my job and it will be the manufacturer receiving my ire.”

Blue took a breath, calming the tears he didn’t realize were about to fall. “As soon as security gave the all clear, I checked the body and checked it real good this time. No tissue growth, not human and nothing foreign. The flesh had re-hydrated well enough to trip the sensor- I was able to get a good picture of the tattoo on the back of Jane Doe. It’s some old military identifier. I logged it but the computer had no match for it.”

“Alright. Tomorrow I will have you and the other two teams compile your reports on the metal plates, bones, and corpse. And then dispose of them properly. As per your suggestion Priest McCoy will perform last rights.” The captain dismissed Dan Blue for the night.

Later that night, Blue sat in his room staring at the ceiling. He knew he shouldn't but he felt responsible for the damages to the medlab. At least tomorrow he would be free of this duty and allowed back into the VR tank.

A knock at his door, a rare thing indeed. For a moment he didn’t believe it. Was it really on his door or had the knocker simply been too loud on one of his neighbors doors?

Just as Blue was going to turn off his light, another knock. This time there was no mistaking it. Standing from his bed he pulled on some clothing and peeked through the peephole. “Who is it?” He asked, only to see no-one there, the hall empty.

So, it must have been a knock on another door, ‘Silly me,’ Blue thought to himself, again undressing and laying in bed.

For the third time, the Bang, the force behind it, unmistakable.

This time, determined not to miss the prankster Blue threw open the door and jumped into the hall.

Nothing

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Not light shone, not one door panel was lit.

Spinning around in space, it was as though the ship had run out of power for everything but Blue’s room.

Blue pressed his hand to the comm panel, “Medical Officer Dan Blue to bridge. Dan Blue to Bridge.” No response. He pressed the button again, this time the panel died. Looking back out into the hallway his eyes confirmed what he feared- darkness.

After a moment of pondering, he wondered if he had forgotten taking an early dip in the VR tank. Yes, that must be it. This is just a moment of being lost in VR. It’s happened plenty of times. VR is not terribly complex, even with the deep dive the limbs still move and the user may remove their own headset. All he had to do was grab the air-tube at his mouth and YANK.

He looked down at his hands, holding nothing in the air before his sternum. He grabbed again, this time at the air over his eyes where the connector cable would meet the headset and swiped down. Nothing. He wasn’t in a VR tank.

Stepping into the hall, he dared not step out of the light cast from his room. He knocked on the door directly adjacent to his, the room of a security officer, he couldn’t remember the name and the panel wasn’t in the light. His knuckle sounded as it struck the door. He would know what to do. Certainly everyone in security knew what to do if the power went out. They would.

He knocked again, louder this time. After waiting a few moments Dan lost his patience, now hitting the door with all his strength. “Wake up, wake up you fool. WAKE UP!”

His anger flashed Red and hot. If the officer wouldn’t wake up, he’d find someone who would. He turned and looked into the darkness. Instantly his anger returned to dread and, like a scared dog, he yelped and jumped back into his room and shut the door.

The darkness, it was so absolute. So smothering. A primordial fear gripped him as he paced for an hour. Out his window he could see the stars, the same stars from an hour before and a day before that. If they were moving, it was on the sub-light engine. Moving at sub-light and the power is out, all the power but this one refuge in the darkness. He raised his hands again, trying to feel for the air above the VR tank, then in front of his face again for the headset.

“This can’t be real, this can’t be real.” He felt sick, worse than sick, he was ready to find a security station and end the dread one way or another, but when he looked out the door of his room or the window to space outside, the horror of that perfect abyss was absolute. Now, no star twinkled back, no ship’s light shone bright in any corner of the distant dark.

---

Green

Captain Christopher Green looked at the readout on his command seat, the time blinked ‘4:44’ steadily. He thought for a moment, remembering. “4:44, just like the pad in medbay a week ago.” he thought with a chuckle.

First officer Whistler turned to the captain, “Sir?”

“Oh, the time. 4:44. Just like that panel a week ago,” the captain paused, suddenly unsure. “Wasn’t Medical Officer Blue supposed to submit his files a week ago?”

Whistler tapped his screen for a moment. “I have nothing on file sir. Could he have forgotten?”

“No, it’s quite unlike him.” The captain stood, straightening his uniform as he did. “Computer, locate Medical Officer Dan Blue.”

The computer processed for a few moments before the nearest wall panel chirped, “No such personnel on record. Please clarify. Did you mean Fire Controlman Dough Belleu?”

“Has anyone seen Medical Officer Dan Blue?” asked the captain, standing from his seat.

“Computer, disregard.” The wall panel clicked off and the regular movement of the bridge came to a halt. “Has anyone seen Dan Blue?”

“Sir, wasn’t he just-” Bragg began to say before turning to his console. “I’ll get to it sir- we will begin a full sweep.”

“Helm, full stop.” Green ordered. As dictated by protocol in the event of a missing crewmate, the ship came to a halt.

“Captain, something approaching on the sensors…” reported the helmsman as his station began to flicker. “We are losing telemetry. I cannot verify our position.” Around them the lights flickered, causing the crew on the bridge to pause. With them, the main viewscreen also began to shut down, past it, outside the pressurized glass the crew watched as the stars themselves began to fade and twinkle away.

“Sir- The stars. The stars are-” Science Officer Linette began to say, her voice shaking as her own terminal began to flicker.

“Take us to condition Red. All crew to action stations. Linette, identify the source of this,” Christopher ordered. In a moment the comm panels across the ship began flashing the Red emergency lights before likewise losing power.

“I am tracing the power drain to a device located on deck 4, room 44,” the science officer stated, struggling to keep power to her station. “I cannot remote access it. We have five minutes before life support fails, a second after that-”

“Officer Bragg, call a security detail to Deck 4, room 44,” Green ordered, cutting her off. “Officer Linette, Bragg, you are with me. The First Officer has the bridge,” he ordered. Bragg sent the order from his console before joining the other two in the lift.

The ride down began smooth but quickly slowed as the lift swapped to emergency power. It came to a stop halfway onto deck 4. “The door, help me.” he said pulling at one of the sliding doors as Bragg grabbed the other. After a few moments they came loose, opening for them.“How much time do we have?” he asked Linette as she climbed out onto deck 4.

“Three and a half minutes, sir,” she replied as they climbed out behind her.

As the three ran down the hall the lights dimmed steadily, as though they were walking into a dark, sunless cave. Finally they arrived at room 44 of deck 4.

“Sir!” shouted Bragg, holding out a hand to stop the others as he drew his sidearm, fired at the door, but the laser died in his hand.

A thick, viscous dark like none other covered the door. It was unaffected by the strike. “I’ve seen this before. When I was a boy- my father…” said the Captain before extending a hand towards the barrier. “Sir I wouldn’t-” warned Bragg, reaching to stop the captain, but he wasn’t quick enough and the captain’s hand harmlessly passed through the darkness.

“We can get through this, but I need you with me,” He said, retracting his hand, unharmed from the barrier.

Linette was frozen, utterly horrified by the perfect darkness. She took a step back. “I- I don't know.” She tried to look at her scanner, only for it to die in her hand as well. “I- I can’t-”

“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. Please, trust me. Together we will get through this. We need to stop whatevers causing this or the ship- the crew… Everyone is counting on us.” Again, he extended his hand.

“I trust you, Captain,” she said, taking his hand. Offering his other hand to the Security officer, he likewise took it.

The three stepped forward, into the barrier.

The Barrier did not lead to the medical officer’s room.

The sun was blocked by thick, turbulent clouds as perpetual fog covered the rocky, barren planet. It was more than Green was expecting, but he understood all the same.

“Where are we captain?” Linette asked, drawing her scanner and trying to get a reading.

“Somewhere most people don’t want to be,” he replied ominously. “We have to find the girl. We have to get to her.”

Bragg took point, leading the three with his empty laser gun. “What is this place? You said you’ve seen this before, Captain.”

Green explained as they walked. “It's where you go when you lose everything. When you lose your home, your family. The darkness consumes you and you end up here.” Bragg felt a snap beneath his foot and looked down to find a now broken femur. “Not a lot who are taken here can escape. Be careful, we’re walking in a graveyard.”

Giving up on her scans, Linette asked, “What about us, Captain?”

“If it let us in, it will let us out. We just need to find her.”

Before Green could answer, the three stumbled out of the fog and into a vast open desert, the sun’s heat beating down like heavy rain. Without waiting for his eyes to adjust, Green began scanning the horizon with his eyes. There, just ahead, sat a lone figure at the heart of a massive set of bones. The only thing he could identify her by was her vibrant red hair.

“Is that her?” asked Linette, having to hold a hand up to shield her eyes.

“Yes. She must be the core of this place.”

“Should I-” Bragg began to ask, raising his laser gun- only for the thing to break into pieces in his hands.

“No. We only need to get to her. She is as much a victim of this as us,” said Green, taking off his uniform jacket. “Spread out, we need to help her even if she doesn’t-” Before he could finish, a beam of darkness shot out of the girl, arcing like lightning through the skeleton’s arm, lifting it as though a puppet on string. “Scatter, now!” the captain shouted.

The three split up with Bragg flanking left, before he could get far, the hand targeted him, slamming down with righteous indignation. “HOW DARE THEY!” echoed a ragged, bloody voice. More out of luck than particular skill, Bragg managed to dodge, only to be sent flying by the force of the impact. Unsatisfied, the arm lifted before slamming the same spot again and again and again. All the while the voice shouting an incoherent rage.

Seeing her chance, Linette ran around the right, cursing her uniform shoes as they dug into the sand with every step. “THEY LEFT ME BEHIND!” the voice boomed, “I DID EVERYTHING I COULD!” Another beam shot from the girl, this time striking the skull. Like rotting flesh regrown the head animated, red hair draping from her scalp. As it turned to Linette it began to scream, a cone of compressed air striking the area just after the science officer could duck behind cover.

Hands clamped to her ears, Linette writhed in pain as the relentless barrage began to crack the rock she was hiding behind.

Jumping from behind a rock near the ribs, Green made his move. A third beam shot from the girl, this time aimed for the other arm- “STOP! I CAN HELP YOU!” Shouted the captain, trying to be heard over the screaming of the head. As the bones began to lift into the air, he ducked to the side, easily dodging the first slam. Heart racing he shouted again as he stood and continued running, “I CAN HELP YOU BUT YOU HAVE TO LET ME!.”

He could see the girl more clearly now, she was turned away, sitting with her legs crossed, red hair draped over some sort of red jumpsuit. Her hands slammed her head as she hit herself, then again and again. With each self inflicted beating the bones around them rattled, rattled and oozed the same darkness that had captured the ship. The captain knew it was dread.

“I COULDN’T. I CouLDN’t...” As the arm raised again the captain dove.

Nothing. It fell to the ground, the strings cut.

The other arm stopped moving as well, dropping to the ground around the security officer. The head as well stopped, the flesh receding, dry bones returning to the sand.

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t-” The girl tried to say, collapsing. She didn’t even have the water left in her body to cry.

Around the two the dread seeped from the bones like poison.

Red grabbed a jagged chunk of metal, holding it briefly at her neck before dropping it. “I don’t even have the guts to- to…” Her body shook as she tried to cry again.

The captain approached, ignoring the clouds gathering around them. Kicking away the metal he sat with her, resting a hand on her back. Her face was purple and bruised from where she had hit herself, her suit was torn in a dozen places, red lines crossing the skin beneath- probably from similar efforts to the one she had just abandoned.

The captain didn’t know how long they sat like this. In a place like this he suspected time didn’t matter, they had all they needed.

She was maybe 18, probably younger. Green didn’t pretend to understand what she had been through, why the suit-the bones, all of it. “I’m truly sorry. Sorry for what you were put through. I mean it. When I lost my father-” he said calmly, thinking his words through carefully. “He was all I had, then he was gone. I won’t pretend I lost more than you, but I understand- at least partially- what it is to lose the people you love.”

She sobbed a minute more, the cloud of dread drawing darker around the two. “I failed. They all died and I couldn’t- Nothing I did mattered. Every time something came and- and I fought it off but then- I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

The darkness grew, denser and denser still until the two were encapsulated. The only light cast by a small pip on the captain’s communicator. He spoke again, calmly, not raising his voice. “I think they knew. They knew you loved them with every time you faced what they couldn’t. You could have ran, you could have hidden but time and time again you faced what no one else could.”

Red calmed, her body shaking less and less with each moment. “I think I knew that.” She whispered. “What do I do? What do I do? I have nothing.”

Quietly, the captain replied,“That’s a question everyone asks. Some aren’t so lucky to have someone else around. Tell me, what do you think you should do?”

“I don’t- I don’t know.”

“Tell me, tell me about them. You have only lost them in this world, this life. Yet they live in you, please tell me about them and let them live on in me as well.”

First officer Whistler stood at the ready, the crew had fled- God knows where, but they were finding what peace they could in what would be their final moments. But as the officer stood, watching the dark barrier that covered the door to room 44, deck 4 he counted down the seconds on his pocket watch.

10

9

8

7

6

Before the hand pointed to 5, the lights reactivated and the barrier dropped. Just in the door Whistler could see the captain, sitting on the floor with a strange girl. Around the two lay Linette and Bragg, as well as the missing medical officer.