The powdered residue on the outside of the Forget Me // Nots tasted bitter as Violet placed the capsule on her tongue and swallowed. The lights in her tiny apartment onboard the station flickered. They were on the fritz again. Something was always broken on Tryptek Station.

The light flashed on and off several more times and each time her body was farther from where it started. First the hallway, then the lift. Flash. Flash. Flash.

How good were those pills?

Her head swam. She felt disconnected from her body, floating down the hallway like a spirit, if she believed in such things. Although, late at night, the noises she sometimes heard out in the hall or coming through the ventilation system—she wouldn’t be surprised if ghosts really did exist. After all, who wouldn’t feel like they had unfinished business when they spent their entire life stuck on a mining station?

But not her—she was getting out. She just couldn’t remember why.

And why was it so dark in the hall? The lights flickered off and on.

Behind her, the sound of nails scraping against the metal bulkhead of the hall flooded her system with fear and adrenaline. She knew she shouldn’t turn around, even told herself as much, but her body wouldn’t listen. Against her mind’s will, she turned anyway to see the source of her fear.

The pungent odor of blood filled her nostrils. At the end of the hall, illuminated by one of the flickering lights on the ceiling was the monster. It hung from ceiling like an insect, its hands and feet somehow able to defy the pull of gravity in an unnatural feat of strength.

The lights flickered again and Violet screamed silently inside for her body to snap out of the paralysis which held her in place.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

The monster’s head snapped up and locked eyes with her. That face…she knew it from somewhere. She strained, but couldn’t recall the memory.

The heavy clink of footsteps surfed down the hallway as the monster crawled down the ceiling, closer to where Violet was rooted in place, like a tree awaiting the lumberjack’s ax.

Some unseen force released her from its hold and she turned to flee.

To call her attempt at escape sluggish would be an understatement. One heavy foot followed another as though they were cast in cement block shoes. She tried to hurry, afraid to look behind her. She knew what she would see if she turned—the monster’s face mere inches from hers, jaws open wide, fangs dripping with a mixture of blood, venom, and saliva. Her attempts to speed her feet up only served to off-balance her top half, threatening to send her sprawling head over heels.

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Something was wrong with her. She felt—the word was nearly there, just beyond her grasp. She reached for it harder, like child standing on her tippy-toes desperately trying to get her fingers on a tasty treat that mother had purposely placed on a shelf beyond her reach. And then she had it. She had the word and now it was as if she’d always had it. Couldn’t fathom a time when she hadn’t had the word. She felt—drugged.

And then she remembered the bitter residue of the pill she’d swallowed. Of course she felt drugged—she was. She’d gotten them from her best friend Becky.

A pretty brunette dressed for a party popped into Violet’s mind. That was Becky; always ready for a party. Maybe it was time for Violet to find some more mature friends, she thought, standing in front of the mirror gazing into her reflection. Her face was filthy, covered in—she touched her lips and her fingers came away wet and sticky—blood.

A searing pain flared up in Violet’s back as the monster slashed at her, reminding her it was no time to be staring at herself in the mirror—she was running for her life.

The mirror shattered and then she was running, streaking past open doors down the corridors of Tryptek Station. Heavy footsteps fell behind her—close behind her.

She knew she should focus on running, on escaping from the murderous rage of the monster that was meters away from her, but she couldn’t help but look back, like Lot’s wife fleeing the destruction of Sodom.

The open doors she passed by belonged to her neighbors and fellow citizens of Tryptek Station, or at least they used to. The sudden urge to vomit caused her to slow. What she saw inside those doors was so encompassing that she momentarily forgot about the homicidal maniac behind her. The portals held friends, neighbors, people she knew—all dead in a pool of their own blood. Horrific slashing wounds on their necks and faces. And then she saw a face that froze her in her tracks—Becky, her best friend.

Gone was the carefree laughter that she and Becky had shared, getting fucked up and party hopping on Saturday nights. In its place was a petrified expression of the terror that Becky had experienced before she finally died. Anger and grief welled up inside her and she turned to—

The monster crashed into her, tackling her to the ground, pinning her back to the cold floor beneath her. His blood-soaked hands enclosed on her neck and began to squeeze.

The fear Violet expected to be there as her air and blood supply were cut off wasn’t. Instead of fear, she found surprise as she registered who the monster’s face belonged to: Zane Anderson. She’d met him just the night before, but there was something else…she couldn’t remember.

Her vision was fading, she was dying.

No! She had to remember what it was before she—

Violet sat up in bed, gasping for air. “Lights,” she commanded, nearly breathless, and her tiny apartment onboard Tryptek Station brightened. She was alone, covered in sweat, again. Another nightmare. She’d had one nearly every night since the transformation. Just one more reason to put her life on this godforsaken station behind her.

She summoned the time from her comm. It was early still, but there was no chance in hell she was going to fall back asleep. Not now.