A murder mystery story (warning: graphic in some scenes, not too bad)
Chapter 1: The LSS
Across the vastness of space, further than any man or machine has ever gone, is the Lodown Spaceship. The LSS has traveled far far away across the galaxy, and possesses high-end technology never seen before. While the crew in the bridge remain only known by their occupations, their actions have gained a reputation to other ships around. At the moment, they lay across the galaxy, nowhere near the Sun, where all other known spaceships operate. The LSS is powered by the Core, a ball of energy held in the rear end of the ship providing nearly endless energy. The ship’s passengers, or in most cases- low labor workers provide research and operate the ship to live at the hands of the bridge crew. Though one fateful day, the LSS decided to finally take action to other spaceships.
The Captain stood at the wheel, his hands gripping the handles. The other crew members stood around at their stations, though the bridge was not that large in any means, it held the most important factors of the ship. One control panel next to the front windows was the laser control, the ships main weapon- of course never used as hostile force was never necessary. It could blast entire planets apart with one shot of full power. Another control panel controlled how many engines were on at once, and their throttle. Another control panel controlled the hyperjump, their chosen method of getting around the galaxy. Unlike most spaceships, the hyperjump is capable of not just going the speed of light, but billions of times faster than it. The hyperjump was only used to get to planets of interest. The Captain glanced behind him, and studied the control panels that stood there. The one directly behind the wheel was the stereo, which was powered by a highly advanced antenna to receive music all the way from Earth across the galaxy. The other panel was used for communications to other ships. The only other spaceships in the galaxy from Earth were all at the Sun and were to always be at the Sun at the discretion of the LSS crew. They were low-end technology ships, meaning that their radio waves still traveled at light speed, meaning it would take hundreds of years to reach the LSS. Therefore the communications panel was only used when the LSS was at the sun, a very rare occurrence. Other panels were quality of life functions, radar, high power telescopes able to see anything in the galaxy from the ship’s view, and other gadgets of usefulness. the Captain cleared his throat and stared out to the stars from behind the wheel,
“Sir! Captain!” A yell from behind the Captain caught his attention. He glanced at the source of the sound, a crew member seemingly wanting his attention desperately. He stood straight and let his hands off the wheel, “Yes?” he replied innocently. The crew member glanced around then back at the Captain, “We have reports of a spaceship leaving the Sun’s sphere of influence. What shall we do?” This caught the Captain’s attention, he raised his eyebrow, “Who? What is their ship name, and where have they headed?”
“It is the Norsworthy sir! They seem to have headed for the nearest system to the Sun, Proxima Centauri sir!” The crew member held his hands tight to his waist as if they were glued there. The Captain rubbed his chin and thought for a few moments. He spoke, “We’re gonna have to travel over there real quick and teach them a lesson to never leave the Sun again.”
“Sir, what speed shall we use?” The crew member asked. The Captain glanced up at the speedometer not listed by numbers, but by names of given speeds, including ‘Light Speed’ used for traveling between planets, ‘Interstellar speed’ used for going between solar systems, and ‘Ludicrous speed’ for traveling across the galaxy. The name ‘Ludicrous Speed’ was also a nod to the movie Spaceballs. The speed was never used before, as they have traveled across the galaxy over a period of time.
The crew member repeated himself to get the Captain focused again, “Sir, what speed shall we use? Interstellar speed?” The Captain looked back at the crew member, “No. Interstellar speed would take us a week to get there, we’re gonna have to go to ludicrous speed.” This caught the attention of everyone in the bridge, they stared at the Captain as a nearby crew member turned down the music. The Co-Captain interrupted their conversation, “Ludicrous speed? Sir we’ve never gone that fast before, I don’t know if the ship can take it.”
The Captain turned over to the Co-Captain, “If we can do it, the ship can do it.” to which the Co-Captain, replied with a bow, “Very well sir.”
The bridge crew began murmuring to each other, to which the Captain shushed them. He approached the ship’s intercom system, and turned it on. He leaned into the microphone and spoke, “Attention all ship workers, prepare ship for ludicrous speed. Fasten all seatbelts, secure the airlock, close down any biology or chemistry experiments, report to your nearest ludicrous speed protection seat mounted around the ship, and hold on for dear life.”
The crew in the bridge began rushing into nearby seats, an automatic countdown system began playing over the intercom starting from 90. The Captain then reported to his nearest seat and fastened his seatbelt to the max.
Among the chaos unfolding in the ship, Kyndal B. was one of the many in the chemistry lab. She quickly turned off all the machines as the countdown began.
90…
She gathered all the test tubes carefully.
80…
She spilled them all in the sink then rushed to put them in the tube holders.
70…
She ran over to a nearby worker, Sarah K.
60…
She helped Sarah in getting to a seat.
50…
She ran to another worker, Jason B.
40…
She helped Jason into getting into a seat.
30…
She ran over to another worker, Cindy E.
20…
She helped Cindy get into a seat.
10…
And finally, Kyndal herself ran to a seat and buckled tightly, then hung on for dear life.
3… 2… 1…
The high pitched sound of the hyperdrive activating was not new, nor the feeling of light speed activating. The nearby windows started to fill with glowing white light as it accelerated to interstellar speed. A slight feeling of being pushed against the wall began to occur, but the longer it lasted, the stronger the force got. The ship started to accelerate to a speed never done before, and soon enough Kyndal’s head was pushed up against the wall, and now her hair, then now her arms. It felt as though an invisible wall was crushing her, her head pushed to the side forcefully making her stare at the worker beside her, Beau T. His head was also pushed to the side, so she stared at the back of his head. She could see her vision starting to stretch as the sound of the hyperdrive began to become like a never ending gunshot. She could see the nearby window, the white glow started to change into an array of colors. Red, then green, then yellow, then blue, then all other colors before looping itself back into red. The array of colors repeated themselves as the ship peaked at ludicrous speed.
The Captain’s hands were pinned against the wall along with the rest of his body, he screamed out over the piercing sounds of the hyperdrive, “WHAT HAVE I DONE! I FEEL MY BRAINS PRESSED AGAINST MY SKULL!”
The nearby Navigator screamed in response, “WE’RE BOUND FOR 30 MORE SECONDS OF THIS HELL! JUST HANG ON TIGHT!”
Blake M. could feel nothing but his body pressed up against his seat and the wall. He held his eyes shut as he could sense blurs of repeating colors from beneath his eyelids coming from a nearby window, his glasses seemed to still stay on despite the sheer amount of force given by the hyperdrive, he waited and endured the feeling for as long as he could. Nearby workers in other seats screamed of terror, though he wasn’t. Suddenly, after what felt like forever, the hyperdrive braked, and suddenly, he and everyone else were pushed forward against their seatbelts, which held them back. Blake’s glasses were thrown off with strong force, and he heard them hit the ground, though they did not shatter. After a second, suddenly everything was back to normal. He let out a large breath of physical relief and regained his posture. He looked around at other workers who seemed as worn out as him. His blurred vision from not having his glasses made him instinctively unbuckle the belt and stand up. He heard the other workers around him start talking and getting up, he asked a nearby worker, “Can you see my glasses?” The blob in his vision that he recognized as a worker replied back to him, “Yeah, let me get them for you.” Blake recognized the voice as Athen M. Moments later he was handed his glasses and he put them on afterwards. He took a deep breath and continued to head back to what he was doing beforehand.
Chapter 2: The Norsworthy
The Captain approached the front windows and glanced around, due to the structure of the windows, he had a good 180 degree view and a view directly above him. He searched around for the Norsworthy. He overheard the Co-Captain ordering workers over the intercom to check for any damages. The crew member from before approached the Captain again, “Sir, the Norsworthy is on our right.” The Captain silently nodded and looked over, he spotted the Norsworthy nearby. He went up to the steering wheel and began to spin the wheel to the right, the ship followed in lead as the Norsworthy slid into perfect view in front of them. From behind him, he heard the radio communications activate and an unknown voice began speaking, “Hello? Who is that?”
The Captain pushed aside the radio operator and responded before anyone else could, “This is the LSS and we’re about to teach you why you shouldn’t leave the Sun’s influence.”
The Norsworthy responded back, confused, “What?”
The Captain ignored their concern and stared back at their ship from the front window, the white paint-job did not go well with their oval shaped ship. The Captain ordered a crew member, “Fire the laser at low power, just break a hole in their hull.”
The Co-Captain interrupted again, “What are you doing? Firing a laser at them, then what?” The Captain shushed him then explained, “We are going to raid their ship. Tell the workers to stay behind, we are doing this in person, everyone in this room.”
The crew exchanged a shocked look at each other, the Captain angrily yelled in response, “I said we’re raiding them! Get your guns and jetpacks ready!” The Co-Captain then replied back to him, “But aren’t you worried about their defense? What if they fight back?”
“They can’t fight back, every other ship wasn’t built to offend or defend. Just us.” Just then as the Captain finished his sentence, the laser blasted, shaking the ship. Every crew member in the bridge began rushing out the bridge to the armory across the ship. The Captain followed out of the bridge across a catwalk to the ships lobby. The ship was only a few hundred feet long in length, and was very easy to navigate as most areas were quite spacious and spanned the width. They pushed past confused workers and it only took them about a minute or 2 to reach the armory.
Inside the bridge, the Norsworthy screamed at them through the radio to no response.
After about 3 minutes the crew of the LSS were now flooding outside the large airlock and began flying towards their ship, armed. The Captain led the troop as they watched the Norsworthy’s lights flash in red. The Captain noticed the fact that the Norsworthy seemed to not move the entire ordeal, ‘Great, we must have burst a fuel line.’ the Captain thought to himself. They approached the gash and flew right in. Immediately their gravity system set in, setting them on the floor. The Captain ordered the crew members to one side of the ship, as he invaded another side solo. He forced open a nearby door, the pressure in the room immediately emptying. He closed the door and could start to hear the pressure start to fill up the room again- he had hoped they had an automatic pressurization system, and they did. Once the pressure was restored he started to invade the actual ship and started searching. He found several crew members at a nearby table panicking. One had a leather jacket, round glasses and black hair, another wore a black hoodie with red/black hair and glasses, and the third was just wearing a normal set of clothes. He opened fire on the crew and continued to do so throughout the rest of the ship.
Rocky F. was one of the many workers now standing at the windows of the LSS, they were inside the cafeteria which sat below the bridge and was the only room besides the bridge that had a view from the front of the ship. He watched the Norsworthy slowly start to pitch downwards and eventually the lights in it went off. The workers were quiet, with some gasps being the only thing to be heard at each turning event of the raid. Rocky stared down at the laser that was installed on a piece of hull directly beneath the cafeteria window. Some of it still glowed orange from the raw heat of the initial shot at the Norsworthy hull. He heard the worker beside him, Madison H. speak, “Oh my god, there they are!” Rocky glanced back up at the Norsworthy and saw the Captain and crew begin flying back to the ship.
Soon, once they were back on board the intercom turned on, “Workers, this is the Captain speaking, we had reason to raid that ship. It is nothing you should be concerned or worried about. Please continue with your duties.”
Some murmurs in the crowd were heard, and then the crowd began making their way upstairs back to the main floor of the ship. Rocky stayed behind and watched as the Norsworthy violently exploded, but with no sound as the vacuum of space wouldn’t allow sound to travel through it.
Moments later, the hyperdrive activated to only interstellar speed, indicated by the white glow filling the window. He was not affected by the speed, as any speed below ludicrous did not seem to have any effects on the crew or workers work.
The Captain turned on the radio as the LSS traveled through space at interstellar speed. The Captain was now filled with glee, feeling great after destroying the Norsworthy and their crew. Hopefully now no other ship would dare leave the Sun, the LSS rules once again.
He smiled and placed his hands on the wheel once again. The Captain slightly moved his head in rhythm to the hip-hop song playing on the radio.
He blinked, and in that small fraction of time, everything paused. The music paused, the talking of crew members stopped, and he opened his eyes.
Now the Captain fell forward as the wheel disappeared. He caught himself on the ground, but the area now surrounding him was no longer the bridge; the ground he touched seemed to be grass, and he got ahold of himself. The grass was a light gray color, the Captain stood up and inspected his surroundings. Empty plain, it was night time however no stars or moon in the sky, just black. His visibility was low as a black fog surrounded him, enclosing his vision to only 50 or so feet away. Light gray trees were only slightly visible but somewhat consumed by the fog. He spotted a nearby old fashioned record player blasting out a slowed down, pitched down elevator song. The Captain was obviously confused, and suddenly in front of him, something appeared. About 10 feet above him, 2 white dots and a U beneath them manifested, resembling a cartoon face. Glowing white mist surrounded the mysterious face as it looked down on him. The Captain, confused, yelled out, “What the h-” before he was interrupted by a deep monotone voice.
“QUIET!”
The voice seemed to emit from the face, however the mouth didn’t move, it just stayed in a locked U shape. The deep voice started to speak, “Welcome to the realm, Captain. This is what you puny humans would call ‘Narnia’ or ‘Limbo’. I have absolute power over you, and any attacks you attempt to make on me will be met with a brutal horrific fate. Do you understand?”
The Captain grew a nervous face, “Yes.”
“Great. Do you remember who I am, Captain?”
“No I really truthfully don’t. I’m pretty good at remembering things.”
The booming voice let out a scoff, “Are you? Do you remember Andrew W.?”
The Captain stared up at the face, confused, “Who?”
“What about Jay T.? Or Danny P.?”
“No I don’t. Who are they?”
“Those were all people you brutally shot and killed on the Norsworthy raid a few minutes ago. The first people you shot. Innocent and handsome looking folks, until the only thing left of them was matter flying through the vacuum of space.”
The Captain chuckled and now felt dominant over the mysterious face, “I did what I thought was needed. I don’t care who they were.”
“I demand you to not attack any ship from this point forward, Captain.” The face practically screamed at him.
The Captain let out a loud laugh, “As if! Good one. Now I demand you to take me back to my ship.”
The face’s expression did not change, but it continued to speak, “If you don’t take me seriously, I’m going to destroy your ship.”
“Go ahead and try.” The Captain smiled up at the face. The voice spoke in a slightly tempered voice now, “What goes around comes around.”
The ground beneath the Captain suddenly gave way, terror filled the Captain as he fell down a shaft 20 or so feet big. There was no bottom, but as he screamed his vision suddenly came back to him.
The Captain suddenly was back standing behind the wheel, he jolted back screaming and fell onto the metal floor.
“Captain, you alright?” A nearby crew member ran to him, the Captain stared up at the crew member as other people in the bridge started to surround him, “Yeah… I’m just fine.” The Captain said.
Chapter 3: Lawrence
Lawrence C. was one of the few on the ship who actually cared to work more than one station. He didn’t actually work on one specific station, but rather just did whatever he felt like doing- just as long as it did something. He also investigated things, such as the mystery of the highly contagious disease that occasionally comes from the cloning machine. He worked closely with his friends, Clyde, Brayden and Kaitlyn.
At the moment he stood in the chemistry lab downstairs with Kyndal, staring notoriously at a sample of the ship’s helium. For some reason, something in the ship’s helium supply had made several workers pass out when they inhaled it. For what reason the workers inhaled it Lawrence had no clue, but he was about to discover what the root cause of this phenomenon was.
“Kyndal, can you please put this in the analyzer for me?” Lawrence handed the tube of helium to her. Taking it, she replied, “Sure!” then placed the tube in the analyzer before activating it.
“The results will come back in a few minutes, just come back soon.” She said, Lawrence nodded and moved into another connected room via the corridor into the research room. This was the room where Kaitlyn and Clyde would be, putting intensive research into the planets the ship was parked at. Kaitlyn greeted him as he entered, “Hey.” Lawrence approached a nearby window but didn’t stare out as the white glow from interstellar travel would probably blind him. He stared at the floor then glanced at Kaitlyn, “Where we headed?”
“Purple planet, signs of strange flora there.”
He nodded, then looked over to Clyde and turned towards him and spoke, “You think Murphy will do good on this expedition?”
Clyde then responded, “Lawrence, I know what I’m doing.” Lawrence nodded, “Fair. What’s Brayden been up to?”
“He was down here for a bit, but he went upstairs to talk to Avianna or something.”
The hyperdrive slowed, and the white light from the window went away revealing a beautiful view onto a purple and green planet sprinkled with yellow clouds. Lawrence shook hands with both Clyde and Kaitlyn then headed upstairs to the main hallway on the main floor. Then he headed into the lobby where several workers socialized. He moved around the room and looked at the hologram of the Lodown logo, then at the catwalk to the bridge on the other side of the room. He spotted Layla M. passing by, they waved at each other as she headed into the main hallway. Lawrence spotted Brayden chilling by a window outlooking the planet. He went up behind him and struck a conversation, “Big B!” Brayden turned around and spoke, “Howdy.”
“Just got that helium in the analyzer, thanks to Kyndal. Gonna check up on it in a few minutes, and hopefully figure out what’s making our fellow workers fall asleep.”
Brayden turned to face Lawrence, “Nice! You think it’s gonna be something we can fix?”
“Perchance. Not me though, the helium supply comes from the core room, and only the core operators know how to work those machines.”
“Yeah,” Brayden said, he glanced out to the corridor to the main hallway that would lead to the core. “I find it interesting how only 2 people on this whole ship know how to work the core.”
“I guess it ain’t that important to the most of us.” Lawrence said.
Lawrence turned to head to the hallway, “Well I figured I should say hi, I’m gonna go see that helium now. See ya.”
“See ya.”
Lawrence headed back downstairs and met up with Kyndal. They both approached the analyzer in unison. Kyndal began briefing Lawrence, “Well the results came through, 95% of the helium is actual helium.”
“The other 5%?”
“Anesthesia. Like literally.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, well, if there’s something you can do about it, it’d solve your issue. Report it to a core operator or something and they’ll fix it.”
Lawrence scoffed at the fact that something in the helium machine was outputting raw anesthesia, “Yeah, I’ll go in there now.”
“Bye.” Kyndal said as Lawrence went upstairs.
Lawrence activated the core decontamination airlock and the metal door slid upwards to reveal a Ryan Q. standing on the other side. Lawrence entered the airlock chucking and activated the decontamination process.
As the airlock enclosed them, Lawrence spoke, “Ryan, what are you doing?”
Ryan jerked his head up and looked at Lawrence, “I’m the apex bro. You mess with me, you don’t wanna know what happens bro,” He said jokingly. “I don’t play any games, bro; you better cross the ship when you see me walking around, bro.”
Lawrence chuckled then the airlock opened, revealing the large machinery inside the core area. He glanced at the helium machine directly to his right and chuckled. ‘Helium Anesthesia. You gotta be kidding me.’ he thought. He passed other machinery like the gravity machine, the coolant pumps, and the fuel production line. The ship was self-sustaining, and produced its own needs to feed into the core and food generators in the cafeteria. He approached the stairs down to the core control, glancing at the core chamber itself. It was small, as it was only made to power the ship. Lawrence couldn’t see the actual core at the moment; as the inner chamber door was closed.
He walked down into the control room and only saw 1 person operating it, Allison C. She glanced up at Lawrence and spoke, “What is it?”
Lawrence cleared his throat as he reached the bottom of the stairs, “Well you got an issue in the helium supply. You’re not gonna believe what it is.”
Allison stared at him confused, “What?”
“Something in that machine is producing anesthesia and making the workers pass out when they inhale the helium.”
Allison scoffed, “Why are they inhaling helium?”
“I got no clue, but you better fix it before people start sleeping on the job.” Lawrence started ascending the stairs again, and Allison agreed to fix the machine. Lawrence looked down at the control room again and asked, “By the way, where’s Bailey?”
Allison looked back up at him and said, “She’s on the expedition team to the planet.”
“Interesting..” Lawrence remarked to himself.
As Lawrence walked through the ship he thought back on the last core operator. There used to be 3, besides Allison and Bailey. He couldn’t quite remember their name, but Lawrence would remember seeing them hang out together 24/7 when outside of the core control. Lawrence didn’t quite know her anyway, or never really spoke to her when he was in the core control. He remembered that she perished from the highly contagious disease stemming from the cloning machine however, and he remembers performing an autopsy on her in the biology lab with
Landon H. and Grady C. Quite a few died of the disease, including some people he once knew close. It was stunning however, to learn that the bridge crew does nothing to assist the workers but occasionally tell them what to do. The bridge crew don’t accept any suggestions or respond to any emergency, they just tell the workers to ‘figure it out’. The workers didn’t even know their names, and were pretty sure not even the crew members knew each other’s names.
Lawrence didn’t care though, if the bridge crew didn’t care about the workers, then he didn’t care about them.
Chapter 4: The First One
Bailey L. stepped into the lander with Murphy C. and Jaxton M. She sat in the backseat as Murphy sat herself in the passenger seat and Jaxton in the pilot seat. Jaxton had some experience in piloting landing rovers, and thus was trusted on planet expeditions. They awaited instructions from Kaitlyn and Clyde from the research room over the radio, and after a few moments, Bailey heard Clyde speak over the radio, “You’re good to go.”
Jaxton looked at Murphy then back at Bailey, then asked, “Y’all ready?”
They both nodded and he counted down from 3.
“3…2…1…”
The lander was launched out of the ship hangar through the floor opening. The hangar was unpressurized, therefore no dramatic pressure release was heard or felt. Bailey watched through the window as Jaxton tilted the lander up and activated the heat shield, expanding a few feet outwards. She saw the stars through the window, beautifully decorating the black void of space. She looked up through a window above her, the LSS moving away rapidly.
After a few minutes, the lander began to vibrate and shake, she saw through the window the edges of the heat shield catch fire. They were now a burning piece of metal entering the planet’s atmosphere. Bailey looked up through the window above her and watched as the black vastness of space slowly faded into a beautiful purple hue. The lander violently shook as the sounds of fire burning against the heat shield were present. She saw the smoke form off the heat shield as they now soared through the sky of this unknown planet. The fire dissipated and the heat shields folded back into the ship. Jaxton tilted the ship to a normal straight angle as gravity began to set in. Bailey felt the engines activate underneath them as they flew through a yellow cloud at a fast speed. Then she could see the surface covered in purple flora in which ponds and lakes were filled with green liquid.
They closed in on the surface and slowed down to land, the landing legs extended and they softly touched the ground.
“Remember, don’t try and say something inspirational, because nobody is gonna care enough to remember it,” Jaxton said. “Okay, radio packs on, because I’m gonna depressurize.”
Bailey clicked on her radio pack on the neck piece of her astronaut suit.
A green light lit up in the lander indicating they were free to step outside. Murphy was the first to exit the lander, followed by Jaxton. Bailey didn’t hesitate, she quickly followed.
Now on the surface of the planet, Jaxton was the first to report back to LSS, “Landed, we’re outside. Murphy, turn on the cameras.”
Murphy grabbed a GoPro from the lander and switched it on. Kaitlyn’s voice came over the radio, “We got feed.”
Bailey took in her surroundings, purple grass and brown soil. The trees and bushes nearby were also purple, besides the branches and wood. The beautiful yellow clouds decorated the purple sky like streaks of paint on a purple canvas. Bailey, Jaxton and Murphy began making their way around the surface, exploring the area.
“What’s that?” Clyde asked through the radio, Murphy looked around with the camera, “What’s what?” she spun around several times, “That green stuff you just looked at. I’m probably seeing stuff.”
Murphy looked at where she was headed and crouched down, “Oh! This. I don’t know. Bailey, Jaxton, come over here.”
They complied and approached Murphy and the green substance in the soil. “Good eye, Clyde.” Jaxton commented.
It looked to be like some substance mixed in with the soil, like groundwater soaked in small puddles in mud after rainfall.
“I don’t know.” Murphy said. Jaxton glanced up at Bailey and said, “Hey, come bag some of this in a sample, it’s something we can use.”
Bailey complied and started to return back to the lander to gather a plastic bag they could use to bring the substance back in.
As Bailey slowly made her way back to the lander, something stopped her forcefully. The sky slowly faded black and a thick black fog grew, lowering her visibility, and the lander in front of her slowly blew into dust and got carried away by some wind. Bailey regained herself, and quickly looked behind her to see Murphy and Jaxton gone. The grass and trees surrounding her changed into a light gray shade, as an invisible light source lit her area.
She started silently panicking as fear quickly overcame her, then she looked up to see a floating cartoonish face staring down at her. 2 white dots in the air representing its eyes, and a U shaped line below it representing the mouth. A thin glowing mist surrounded the face.
Before Bailey could speak, a booming deep voice spoke out, “Welcome to the inbetween Bailey. You may have noticed you were separated from everything else.”
Bailey looked up at the face and muttered out, “What’s happening?”
The mouth of the face didn’t move to the words it spoke, which was really strange to her.
“You’re in my realm now, and fear so.”
“What?” Bailey’s voice started breaking up.
“I want you to know- you didn’t cause this. Blame this on your Captain, who miraculously mocked me when I brought him here. Speaking of which, what’s his name?”
Bailey didn’t respond. The voice repeated itself in a louder voice,
“I SAID WHAT IS HIS NAME?”
“I don’t know!” Bailey cried out, “What do you want from me?”
The voice continued to speak, “I don’t wish anything from you, I simply require you to be taken care of. Since you’re already here, and you aren’t leaving, I’ll go ahead and explain it to you.”
“I don’t know what’s happening!” Bailey stood confused and panicked, but soon the voice began to explain.
“You see, my intent is to destroy the ship, by which means I shall freeze the core and with that the ship, however your knowledge on the core is the only thing stopping me. You’d be able to easily fix the cooling systems, which would stop the inevitable freezedown.”
Bailey looked down to her feet, then looked up at the face and spoke in a quieted voice, “What about Allison?”
“Allison’s gonna be taken care of as well. But you’re up first.”
“But why!” Bailey yelled, “I don’t want to die!”
The face stared coldly at her, “You humans always say that, then eventually die some century later. Goodbye Bailey.”
The ground beneath her gaveway, Bailey began falling through a metallic pit 20 feet big, at the bottom: Lava.
Bailey wasn’t a screamer, so she silently awaited her fate only as quiet as a mouse.
“Man, Bailey’s taking a heck of a lot of time to get that bag.” Jaxton said.
“Yeah, maybe we should check up on her.” Murphy replied.
They both stood up and looked behind back at the lander, only to see an unconscious Bailey on the ground face down.
“Bailey?!” Murphy yelled, she ran over to the body along with Jaxton.
“Guys, what’s happening?” Clyde asked, he stared at the camera feed from Murphy.
Slowly, Jaxton flipped over the body to reveal a dead Bailey in the helmet.
Murphy shrieked, and Jaxton yelled out, “Holy- What happened?”
“Oh my god!” Murphy’s arms started shaking from fear, blurring the camera feed as the camera shook violently.
“Murphy! Let us see her.” Kaitlyn ordered, Murphy took in a breath and stabilized the camera, though it was obvious Murphy was looking away from the sight.
On the camera feed, it was obvious that the body inside was in fact Bailey, though severely decomposed. Not exactly a bloody sight, but a scary one at that.
“Abandon mission, you idiots!” Kaitlyn yelled through the microphone, Clyde followed after, “Get her body or something and put it in the lander. Lawrence’s gonna have to see this. I’ll go get him.”
Jaxton complied, he told Murphy to assist him in lifting the body, she carefully did such. Together they carried Bailey into the lander and placed her in the backseat, Murphy began breaking down as Jaxton took off to the LSS.
Lawrence silently waited outside the hangar airlock as the lander slowly returned back into the hangar. It thrusted itself into the hangar and floated for a moment as the floor beneath closed shut, before landing successfully in the hangar.
Lawrence waited for a few moments as the airlock ran and opened. Murphy and Jaxton came out carrying a dead body in an astronaut suit, Murphy still panicking as she quickly dropped Bailey’s legs as soon as they got her fully in the room.
“Dismissed,” Lawrence said to the both of them, “I’ll take it from here.” He crouched over the body and stared in disgust. As Murphy and Jaxton left the room, Lawrence was left alone, “Eugh.”
It took a minute for him to get Bailey’s body out of the suit but he managed to, so now she was on the ground with her average clothes on instead of a compact astronaut suit. The smell emitting from her body was enough to make Lawrence gag, he carefully picked up the body and slung her over his shoulders before carefully making his way upstairs.
Now in the main hallway, some passing workers stepped away from him screaming as he carried a decomposing body through the ship, “Don’t mention it to no one,” He said, “Just carrying a dead body around.” He exchanged disgusted looks from a nearby David H. who was just as disgusted as he was.
Chapter 5: But How?
He reached the biology lab without any issue carrying her, as Bailey was relatively small in size.
“Grady!” Lawrence yelled out, he approached an autopsy table and dropped Bailey’s body on it.
Grady C. turned around and stared at the table, “Yo.” a nearby Landon H. also turned around and stared, “Huh?”
Lawrence looked up at them, “Look what I just found. Bailey L. dead.”
“How?” Grady asked, only for Lawrence to respond with, “I don’t know. That’s what we’re about to find out.”
Landon adjusted and swung over an operating light, lighting up every inch of the body now in front of them. Grady positioned her body to lay perfectly on the table, “God. This one is bad.”
Landon raised a slight eyebrow at Lawrence, “What do you know about what happened?”
“Well,” Lawrence cleared his throat, “I know that Clyde told me she was on an expedition, then suddenly she just fell and this happened.”
“That makes no sense.” Grady said,
“I know, but it’s what we got.”
All 3 of them put on rubber latex gloves and started to study the body,
Bailey’s skin was no longer pale, but green like a zombies. The lips were non-existent, just some thin lines and there appeared to be nothing mushy like a tongue or any eyes.
“It appears to be in the early stages of decomposition.” Lawrence noted.
“But it makes no sense,” Landon replied, “If she just fell, why is she suddenly like a whole zombie?”
Grady flipped over the body to lay on the stomach, they inspected the scalp, “It’s like she’s been dead for a whole week now.”
“Disgusting. The stench, too.” Landon said.
“Well,” Lawrence stretched. “We should definitely keep people off the planet for 1. For 2, nothing appears to be out of the ordinary on her body, literally just early stages of decomposition, as if she died by normal standards.”
Grady agreed and spoke, “Let’s just wrap her up, and get the Mental Health Consultant to hold a funeral.”
Landon, Grady, and Lawrence walked through the ship holding a mummified body of Bailey L. With less stares as the body wasn’t exposed, Lawrence felt somewhat more relaxed. They carried the body upstairs past the greenhouse and into the office of the Mental Health Consultant.
The Mental Health Consultant was a crew member of the ship, because of this, they were only known by their occupation. People in the ship refer to her as just the MHC for short.
The MHC sat at her desk in the office and glanced up at the 3, “What’s this?” She pointed at the mummified body.
“Bailey L. dead. We don’t know the cause, most likely some natural occurrence on the planet.” Lawrence said, the 3 slowly put the body to lay on the ground.
The MHC looked confused, “And? What do you want me to do?”
“Hold a funeral, like we did to the victims of the disease.”
The MHC started jotting stuff down on a paper, “Okay. Just leave her here, I’ll take care of it.”
Landon, Grady, and Lawrence walked out of the office side by side and downstairs, Grady was the first to speak, “At least the MHC is the only one on the crew that actually cares for the workers.”
“Not really,” Landon said, “I’m pretty sure she’s just forced to care about mental health. She doesn’t do anything to any emergencies like the rest of the crew.”
“Well, I better get going. I’ll see y’all later.” Lawrence said, then moved away from the 2.
Avianna M. was awoken to the sounds of the intercom turning on in the sleeping quarters. It was a rare occurrence, the intercom only played in the sleeping quarters in the event of something important, such as the ludicrous speed activation earlier in the day, when she nearly died from almost not reaching a seat in time.
“All workers besides core operators, please report to the lobby at this time. I repeat, this is your Consultant, please report to the lobby at this time.”
Avianna slung the blanket off of herself and slowly got up to the side of the bed and stood up. Rubbing her eyes, she saw other people in the sleeping quarters wake up and begin leaving. She pulled out her glasses from her built-in bed drawer, put them on, and left the quarters for the downstairs.
Now in the lobby, a crowd of people surrounded where the hologram of the Lodown logo would be, however it was not there. It appeared as though Avianna was the last to arrive, she pushed through the crowd and reached the front, where she could see a wrapped up body of an unidentified female.
The crowd shimmered down as the MHC stepped forward away from the crowd and towards the body. The unmistakable sound of Dayton K. mimicking a trumpet with his lips was audible, it would seem as though he was playing Taps, a military funeral song.
She realized the person she stood next to was Layla M.
“Who’s dead?” Avianna whispered, leaning to Layla.
Before she could answer, the MHC began a speech,
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, today is a day in which we have lost another one of our workers to a tragic incident on the celestial body we are parked at.”
Avianna could make out the sounds of some folks weeping and gasping for air, in the pause, Layla whispered back, “Bailey.”
“I don’t know who that is.” Avianna said, she saw across the crowd Brayden, Clyde, Kaitlyn and Lawrence lined up beside each other on the other side of them.
“Bailey L. as some of you may know,” the MHC said, “Was a fine core operator who contributed to the lives of all of us including those in the bridge.” The MHC stepped over and placed her hand on the mummified body.
“Today we grieve for the loss of our crewmate and shall we pay our respects with a moment of silence.”
Dayton quit his trumpet sounds, the ship fell quiet for about a minute.
The MHC spoke up again, “Now, everyone but those who performed the autopsy are dismissed.”
The crowd began leaving, some workers came and placed their hands on the body for a few moments weeping, but eventually left. Avianna, too, decided to head back to the sleeping quarters for more rest.
Lawrence, Grady, Landon, and the MHC carried the body upstairs and began making their way through the ship, “So what about the other core operator?” Lawrence asked.
The MHC glanced at him, “What about her?”
“She couldn’t attend the funeral, I heard they were like best friends or something.”
“Don’t worry about her, we’ll send her a message.”
The group went past the quarters, and entered the fully glass tunnel that extended to the exterior of the ship and connected the quarters to the airlock room. It was trippy walking through it, and a bit scary. Lawrence looked out to the ship as they walked through the glass tunnel and stared at the perfect dark gray structure that most of the ship consisted of.
“Who’s gonna take care of the core when she’s asleep?” Landon asked.
“We’ll find someone full time like her soon. It’s nothing you can’t handle for the time being though, Lawrence.” The MHC exchanged another glance with him.
“Understood.” Lawrence said.
The group set Bailey’s body in the center of the airlock and walked out. The MHC turned on the airlock process and they rushed to the nearby window and watched the other side.
Moments later, some steam released from the airlock and the mummified body got launched out of the airlock spinning.
“Rest in peace.” Lawrence whispered.
The MHC cleared her throat, “Well then, I better get to sending the message over to core control.”
Grady nodded as she walked away.
Chapter 6: The Second One
Allison C. sat at the control panel in the core control room. She looked up at the 3 TVs, one displaying the temperature, one displaying the coolant pump and cooling tower input, and the other displaying the inner chamber door status and fan input. The control panel she sat at controlled everything, tons of buttons and levers. She could control the cooling towers, whether the door was open, or the fans, or really anything in the core chamber.
Right now, the core temperature read at 1000 degrees celsius. Slightly too cold, but she was currently in the process of heating it up. The coolant pumps and fans were off, so were the cooling towers. She had closed the inner chamber door to help heat it up more. The control panel lined up on the wall behind her was communications, and it kept her in contact with the rest of the ship.
All in all, she was the backbone of the whole ship and basically kept the entire ship from exploding or freezing.
A beep from behind her sounded, prompting her to turn around. An automatic female voice message played, “You have 1 new message.”
Allison approached the control panel and opened the message.
The moment she pressed open, the lights and power shut off. The sounds of the core and machinery went mute. She glanced around- and noticed the only thing in the room on were the 3 TVs that now displayed static. It dimly lit the control room, and herself. Within a moment, the center screen turned off for a few seconds.
Then within the blackness of the center screen, 2 white dots and a U beneath them slowly faded in. It looked like a doodle of a face, the dots being its eyes and the U being its mouth. A white mist appeared on the screen surrounding the face.
“Hello Allison.” A deep, booming voice played over the speakers in the control room.
“Woah.. What?” She managed to stammer out.
“Welcome to the inbetween. You are stuck here until I say you aren’t.”
She slightly cringed, this dude was edgy and corny. She spoke up, “Who are you supposed to be?”
“I am the master of this realm, the one you shall fear eternally forever.”
Allison couldn’t seem to take this thing seriously, she held in laughter, “You really think so?” Before starting to giggle.
The face did not change its expression, “Do you not believe me?”
“No. I don’t think I do.”
Suddenly, Allison was pushed back by an invisible force and crashed into the communications panel, banging her head, “OW!”
Her face suddenly grew serious, this thing may have been edgy, but it was serious. She picked herself up and started to tremble as the seriousness settled in. The voice continued, “You are the last one on this ship to have knowledge on the workings of the core. This, unfortunately, disrupts my operations to destroy the ship as you know how to forcefully shut it down.”
“So, are you gonna do something about it then?”
The face stared coldly through the TV screen, “Yes. I’m going to kill you.”
Her eyes widened, “W-What? What about Bailey?”
“Bailey has already been taken care of.”
The TV screen next to the face turned on, displaying security footage of Grady, Landon and Lawrence surrounding the body of Bailey, studying it. It played for a few moments before turning back to static.
The voice continued, “Do not blame this upon yourself. This is entirely at fault of your Captain and his selfish needs. Your death is merely a consequence.”
“Please, don’t-” the TVs shut off, surrounding her in the darkness.
“Goodbye Allison.” The voice spoke.
She stood in the pitch black for a few moments, and it seemed as though nothing was happening.
Something large and as hard as a rock suddenly punched her abdomen, she crumpled to the floor and screamed out. She kicked the air screaming but a bonk to the head was enough to silence her.
Lawrence leaned against the helium pipe next to the core airlock and was conversing with Brayden.
“So, I get back to Kyndal. She’s got the results, and as it turns out, the 5% of the helium produced from the helium machine wasn’t even helium. Just straight anesthesia.”
Brayden chuckled, “Just raw anesthesia? That’s really interesting.”
Lawrence grinned, “Yeah, so afterwards I learned that-” Lawrence was suddenly interrupted by a scream coming from the core, a genuine scream of horror. His eyes widened as he looked up at Brayden. The screaming was suddenly silenced in an instant. A moment later, Brayden spoke up, “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Lawrence said. “But we better go find out.” Lawrence rushed into the airlock with Brayden and quickly started the decontamination process. Lawrences anxiety started rising. The door slowly opened and Lawrence and Brayden quickly sprinted across the machinery and down into the control room.
“Lord!” Lawrence screamed out loud as he looked down into the control room. Brayden looked into the room too, “Oh my gosh.” He said loudly.
Laying behind the control panel, the body of Allison C. lay in a still growing puddle of blood. Lawrence rushed down to the body as did Brayden, “First aid kit! Over there!” Lawrence pointed to the corner of the room, Brayden quickly fetched him the kit. Lawrence opened it while crouched over Allison’s body only to realize she was already dead. Her forehead had a large bruise on it, and her neck had a portion torn off which is where blood was still pouring out of. Lawrence grabbed the bandages from the kit and quickly lifted her head and tightly wrapped her neck, the bandage started to stain red where the wound was.
“God…” Lawrence said, “I can’t believe this. This one is worse than Bailey.”
Brayden was still speechless, intaking the horrific sight.
Once bandaged, Lawrence lifted up Allison’s body over his shoulder and sighed, “Oh my god..” he said under his breath.
Thankfully, the biology room was right next to the airlock to the core, meaning it was only a short walk and not nearly as many people would see him this time.
Exiting the airlock, Brayden followed Lawrence into the biology room where Grady and Landon were present.
Lawrence didn’t even introduce himself this time, he just slammed the body on to the table and let them turn around.
“Un-freaking-believable.” Brayden said as Grady turned around.
“Dude..” Landon said as he approached the table.
Grady turned on the operator light and leaned it forwards towards her neck area, “What happened?”
Lawrence took a deep breath, “Allison C. dead. Was chatting to Brayden outside the airlock and suddenly heard screaming. Rushed in to find her bleeding out of her neck.”
Brayden watched as the 3 put on their latex gloves, Landon took off the bandage off Allison’s neck. Brayden winched, for some reason seeing it not bleeding was even worse than when it was.
“First impressions?” Landon said.
“This one may have just been a murder. Unlike Bailey.” Lawrence noted, and Grady then asked, “Was anyone in there?”
“No,” Brayden said, “But they probably just hid behind the machinery and escaped.”
Grady nodded to Brayden’s guess.
“Please Grady,” Lawrence said. “Spare us the graphic details, we know she’s dead.”
“True.” Grady said, shining a light intensely inspecting the wound. Lawrence rubbed against the bruise against Allison’s head, and felt a slight indent, “Definitely was some sort of weapon, something hard and solid.”
“A hammer?” Brayden suggested.
“A hammer, then explain the neck.” Landon asked.
“Maybe, just maybe, they hit her head with the hammer, then pried off that section of her neck. Could be done with a crowbar too, I guess.”
Landon spoke up, “This can’t be the same person that killed Bailey, you can’t just decompose a body like that- and this looks fresh.”
The other 3 agreed, this one may have just been an actual murder unlike Bailey. Probably a coincidence they were both core operators.
Lawrence stood away, “Well, I need to go clean up that mess in the core control now, and review some security footage. See y’all.”
The others said goodbye as Lawrence left to enter the control room.
Chapter 7: The Core
Lawrence entered the core room and passed the machinery. As he approached the staircase to the control room he noticed the inner chamber door was open, revealing the floating burning ball of bright energy that was the core inside. He brushed it aside and entered the control room and began mopping up the blood on the floor. He nearly gagged several times, it was a disgusting job, but someone had to do it nonetheless.
After some time, he glanced up at the core status and noticed every method of cooling was activated, and the core was rapidly going down in temperature. At the moment the temperature read 500 degrees celsius. Which concerned Lawrence enough for him to drop the mop and attempt to turn off the cooling towers. He pressed the button to disable one of the many towers, to no response.
‘Huh?’ he thought, and pressed it several more times to no response. He ran upstairs to the coolant pumps and attempted to switch them off, to no avail. The core was now being cooled constantly and Lawrence couldn’t help it. He would tell Bailey or Allison to fix the machines desperately, but now he couldn’t. He went back downstairs and rushed to finish the job.
He ran out of the core and into the security room, he quickly turned on the security footage of the core control room and rewound to when it happened.
The footage showed Allison, chilling in the core control, seemingly attempting to heat it up. Then, she turned around to the communications panel and made a few clicks. The footage went static at that moment and after a few seconds, skipped forward automatically to show Lawrence and Brayden rushing into the room just discovering her body.
Now shocked, Lawrence punched the panel in front of him out of anger that the security footage had provided nothing. He swore and stormed out of the room.
He ran back to the biology room and practically yelled at them, “We don’t have time for a funeral, get her body outta here as soon as you can, the core is cooling and we don’t have a lot of time left before this ship becomes a freezing memory unless we get a solution.”
Landon and Grady nodded and began wrapping Allison’s body, “Brayden, come with me.” Lawrence said, Brayden complied.
Together, they speedwalked to the lobby.
“Lawrence, what are you doing?” Brayden asked as they walked through the lobby. Lawrence glanced back at him and said pretty clearly,
“I’m about to demand the Captain to get a man on the core machinery immediately.”
Evan L. stopped them as they approached the catwalk to the bridge, “Sorry Lawrence, but they don’t care about the core status.”
“But it’s their ship!” Lawrence reasoned, Evan shook his head slowly and silently, “The escape pods, they’ll hog ‘em up before the workers can reach them.”
Lawrence let out a loud sigh and fell to the ground, sitting.
By now, Lawrence looked up at the temperature now reading -100 degrees celsius. Then he realized just how cold the ship was starting to get. He rushed to the suit up room.
Chapter 8: The Cold
Sarah K. and Vienna C. were close friends. Right now, they sat in the chemistry lab downstairs. They watched as Kyndal continued to run experiments with unknown colored substances.
“It’s like she just does the same experiments over and over again.” Vienna said, “Yeah, no kidding.” Sarah replied. Suddenly the bridge crew came rushing in from the upstairs, confused, they watched as the bridge crew loaded into the escape pods and… left the ship?
There were only 6 pods, each of them were filled to the brim when they left.
“What the-” Sarah was suddenly interrupted by the alarm system turning on. She jumped as the sirens blasted her ear,
“EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. FREEZE DOWN IMMINENT. PLEASE EVACUATE THE SHIP AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.”
Every light in the ship turned off and the entire ship was lit by spinning red emergency lights.
“Get to the hangar!” Sarah screamed over the alarms, and both her and Vienna ran to the hallway leading to the hangar.
Once reaching the Hangar she realized the lander was absent as well. Someone in the bridge crew already took it.
Sarah felt an overwhelming freezing breeze overcome her, and she started shaking.
Leaving the hangar, the escape pod room was crowded with workers from all over the ship. The ceilings rapidly started growing icicles off of them, and Sarah’s nose and ears started to burn from the rapidly increasing cold. She pushed through the crowd and slowly made her way upstairs and reached the main hallway. She saw many workers on the ground freezing, some lined up on the wall sitting awaiting the inevitable. A majority of the doors leading to other rooms were suddenly slammed shut as the power flickered on and off.
“We’re dead.” Vienna said from behind Sarah. Sarah exchanged a look at Vienna and saw ice forming over her hairs, Sarah slowly began to faint to the growing coldness as she saw ice start forming all over the ship.
The last thing she would see was Vienna’s body on the ground, now covered in ice entirely.
Lawrence only got back up after a few minutes after all the screaming stopped. Yes, the alarms were off, and he assumed the entire ship’s power was gone. He stood up in a protective astronaut suit and looked around the suit up room. He was the only one inside. The room was covered floor to ceiling with a thick layer of ice. Lawrence flicked on the flashlight on his helmet and his adhesive boots would help him travel over the ice.
Slowly, he made his way out to the main hallway. It seemed as though he was right, the power in the ship was gone. He was lucky the suit up rooms doors were frozen wide open before they could automatically close, much like it seemed for the entrance to the biology lab and cloning lab.
Surrounding him, the bodies of workers frozen, collapsed on the ground like statues. Some sat against the wall. He made his way to the downstairs entrance, in front of the entrance he noticed Sarah and Vienna on the ground, covered in ice and frozen.
He made his way downstairs and passed all the frozen statues of unfortunate workers who were frozen in the middle of walking and rushing.
Now downstairs, most of the frozen workers he could see were in the escape pods room. He didn’t dare to step inside of it, as it was unnecessary.
He entered the chemistry lab, he recognized Kyndal sitting on top of the counter lined on the wall. He approached her, it seemed like she was crying indicated by small bumps of ice on her cheek and her general expression. He held his gloved hand to her face and accidentally broke off a frozen tear, which fell to the floor and shattered.
‘Don’t worry, it’s all over now.’ he thought.
He stepped into the research lab, Kaitlyn and Clyde were nowhere to be seen. Probably somewhere where Brayden was.
He made his way up to the main floor and entered the lobby, the first thing he noticed was the body of Layla who was still standing.
It looked like she was embracing the ice, she held her hands facing outwards with her arms glued to her side. She looked upwards with her eyes closed, as if accepting it.
Lawrence rubbed Layla’s frozen shoulder, frowning. “You’re in a better place now.” He whispered. He stepped away from Layla and noticed Landon and his girlfriend, Addison A., sitting up against the window, holding hands. At least they died in each other’s grasp.
Closer to the bridge, he noticed Avianna frozen, in the middle of falling off all positions. Some icicles formed from her torso were holding her up.
He walked past Avianna and crossed the catwalk into the open bridge. There were control panels everywhere in the bridge, he walked past them and approached the wheel. Standing next to the wheel, the MHC stood holding her hands in front of her, looking down. It was as if she was in the middle of a moment of silence. Lawrence’s best guess is that the MHC sacrificed herself to release the pods for the bridge crew. What a loyal lady. She was the only one in the bridge.
He went back through the lobby and upstairs and found the body of Ryan just chilling. It looked like he didn’t care about anything happening. The entrance to the MHC’s office and the greenhouse, along with access to the rest of the upstairs, was closed off by lockdown systems. However, Lawrence noticed that lined up against the window were the bodies of Brayden, Clyde, and Kaitlyn.
Lawrence sat next to them, having every area that was still open explored. He looked out across the room and out the window opposite of the room and stared out into space. He sat there for a few minutes thinking about his life. He laughed at things, he cried at things, but by the end, he accepted that his life was over.
Silently, with hesitation, Lawrence pressed his hands up to his helmet lock.
Hiss
The helmet popped off, revealing his head to the cold. He leaned against Clyde’s body as his ears and nose started to burn from the coldness. He started losing his breath and could barely breathe as he felt his hair start to freeze.
Lawrence’s vision slowly started to fade away. He desperately tried to get one last glimpse of the universe.
The last thing he saw, however, was outside the window across the room.
Floating in the middle of space, two white dots and a U resembling a cartoon face stared at him, with a white mist floating around it.
THE END
Credits: Festivereinhard, designer of the ship (mostly, some major tweaks in the story) and creator of the limbo face (personality is changed in story).
