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in the void, they dwell
chapter six

Written by Alex Hera

“Bruno, take Cassian to the medbay, now. I can handle myself,” she barked at Bruno, making a split second decision.

“Copy that,” he said. “Florian, help me lift…” his voice fizzled out.

It was just Adair and the alien, bathed in the light of a star few humans had ever seen. Adair wondered what the crew of Entropy IV had found out here in the dark, so far from their home… and if they had awakened the being she was now faced with. It was unflinching, so still floating in zero gravity that it seemed almost impossible. She knew that she would not comprehend it regardless of how long she stood there trying – and so, she moved, breaking into a sprint back to the airlock of Deck 17, or at least as much of a sprint as was possible in an exosuit on the hull of a space station. As she ran, the noise of her heavy breathing filling her ears. She glanced over her shoulder at the creature. It was following her, gliding through space with its body perfectly still.

The airlock grew closer. Forty yards. Thirty. Twenty. The creature was hot on her heels, and at fifteen yards, she stumbled, falling forward, glass visor scraping against the hull, both feet losing their magnetic grip. She drifted, grasping for the metal with her gloves, trying to find a grip on the station to avoid drifting off into the void. Instead, her fingers slid against the metal and the force pushed her away. She floated upwards, past the exterior of Deck 16, then 15, flailing wildly. She twisted around, looking back at the creature. It was gliding in perfect synchronization with her, still totally frozen with no visible means of propulsion – but the fact that it was defying the laws of physics was the least of her concerns. As she locked her eyes onto it, the creature’s flesh began to tear open, held together by black fibrous strands as it contorted and shifted, growing larger, encompassing a greater and greater portion of her field of view by the second. Appendages began to spring out from its flesh, writhing around and extending out, like tentacles or arms stretching to an overwhelming length. It was turning into some sort of congealed fleshy mass, its white face retreating into its body, rapidly becoming an impenetrable squirming thing glowing in the starlight. Her mind screamed in protest and fear, rebelling against the incomprehensible nature of what was before her. Against all reason, she closed her eyes, only one thought able to fully form:

Art by Skyler

IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT REAL.

GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT.

She opened her eyes. The creature was very real and somehow even larger than it had been before. She looked side to side. She couldn’t see the stars anymore – just its body, completely still and darker than the cosmos, but at the same time, reflective and evershifting. Its limbs took on shapes that split and occupied multiple spaces at once. Her mind was running on overdrive, trying to get a grip, when she felt something worming its way inside – an intrusive presence, a fervent voice speaking in tongues…

She twisted again, looking at the metal hull of the station, refusing to face the creature any longer. She raised her wrist and tapped a few buttons on the suit controls to activate the exosuit’s boosters. A new thought formed – no, screamed – at the presence in her mind as she rocketed towards the hull near Deck 4:

She slammed into the hull and quickly pressed the soles of her magnetic boots to the metal. The fervent voice retreated from her mind as her body shifted horizontally, walking on the exterior of the wall of Deck 7. She sprinted forward to the airlock, careful not to raise her zero-G boots too far off of the hull. The creature was still surrounding her, swirling and expanding, but she refused to look. She came to an airlock, and pulled the exterior lever. It hissed and began to open at a leisurely pace. She gripped the door and pulled, moving it faster than the automatic motor, and jumped inside, slamming the airlock shut behind her. She reoriented herself to stand on the floor of the square, metal room, and tapped on the wall control panel to repressurize the airlock. Oxygen rushed in around her. Before stepping out of the airlock, she dared to glance outside the small window of the exterior door one last time – only to see the creature back in the shape of a man, frozen in place in the void, staring right at her.

Adair stumbled out of the airlock, falling to her knees and tearing her helmet off. Breathing in freshly circulated air, she hyperventilated. As she struggled to breathe, she looked side to side. Through her blurred vision, she couldn’t see any immediate danger. Her mind reeled, her brain trying to catch up to what she had seen – not that she could understand it. Half-formed thoughts kept surfacing and slipping away, and she chastised herself for losing control, for being so weak, hyperventilating in a hallway at a time like this – but it was sheer information overload. Slowly, however, she managed to get her breathing under control and after a few minutes, she slumped against the wall and tapped the suit controls on her wrist to radio Bruno.

“Bruno, do you copy?” she said feebly. Her voice echoed through the empty hall, which seemed to still be in pristine condition. The killing hadn’t reached this deck.

“Adair?! Are you alive!?” Bruno’s voice crackled back through the suit speaker. For reasons unknown even to her, she laughed, overwhelmed with relief. It was one of the greatest sounds she had ever heard.

“I’m here. Where are you? Where’s Cassian?” she asked.

“Deck 10. Cassian’s in rough shape. We don’t know what’s wrong,” said Bruno. A turbolift chimed in the background of his voice. “We’ll be at the medbay soon.”

Adair, exhausted, pulled herself to her feet and wandered down the corridor. She could see a sign pointing towards a turbolift around the corner at the far end, and with the power on, she hoped she’d be in the medbay in no time. She quickened her pace – but as she neared the corner, a glint on the floor caught her attention. A trail of scrap metal and blood led from the hallway through an open door labeled ‘Storage’. She peered in, and halted in her tracks.

On the floor, she saw a mutilated corpse – one missing an arm, with its stomach torn open and intestines hanging out, which also had been… surgically modified. Cybernetic implants were sewn onto it with reckless abandon, and an arm made of sharp scrap metal sat a few feet away from the corpse, covered in blood, clearly having been attached in the past. Its eyes were a sickly black color, as were its unnaturally pronounced veins. A toolkit sat on one of the storage shelves, and above it on the wall, written in blood, was a message: “WHAT THEY HAVE BESTOWED UPON US”.

Adair cautiously approached the toolkit, noticing a kitbashed cybernetic override – a slender, cylindrical tool similar to the ones she’d seen Dyson Enterprises use before, but with some additional circuits sautered on – and it was covered with a thin, black film. As she lifted it from the kit to inspect it, something suddenly wrapped around her leg. Her eyes darted down to the corpse – not quite as dead as she had expected – with its remaining arm wrapped around her ankle. She tore her foot free and stomped hard, the bones in its hand crunching under her metal boot. It let out a scream that sounded only vaguely human, and stared up at her, its dark eyes open wide with a black liquid streaming from its tear ducts. As she locked eyes with it, an overwhelming feeling passed over her that it was not alive. Without overthinking it, she kicked the creature in its face, and its jaw tore from the rest of its skull with a sickening snap. A piercing digital shriek emanated from one of its implants as it fell to the ground on its back. She lined her boot up with its face, and brought it down once more. The room was silent again, save for a wet squelching noise as she peeled her foot away. She stepped back out of the storage room, cybernetic override in hand. From down the hallway, where she had come from, she heard the same digital shriek again, followed by a chorus of inhuman screams. There were more of them.

She didn’t have time to ponder who had created these, or how they were ‘alive’, as she sprinted towards the turbolift, following the sign around multiple corners. Every once in a while, she swore she saw a glimpse of something moving in the shadows. Finally, at the end of the corridor, she saw the lift, and pressed the call button a dozen times in rapid succession. She glanced over her shoulder to see four more of the creatures, each with their cybernetic implants and physical decay slightly different from each other, but all the same type of creature nonetheless. She expected they were the outcome of some sort of sick experiment, or a form of corruption from the creature she’d seen outside the airlock, or perhaps both. She hit the call button a few more times for good measure as they neared. They were only a few feet away. The turbolift arrived, and she ducked inside. The doors shut automatically behind her, and she pressed the button for Deck 10 as the creatures smashed against the doors. The lift shot off, and she caught her breath. She tapped her wrist once again.

“Bruno, I’m on my way,” she said. She waited a moment for a reply. “Bruno?”

“There’s something on the deck with us.” his voice came through, softly. “We can hear them scuttling around. We’re shutting ourselves inside the medbay.”

“I encountered something up here too. I’ll be there soon,” she said. The turbolift chimed and the doors opened to Deck 10. Directly in front of her, tangled amongst a bunch of exposed cables and circuitry in a torn-open wall, was another one of the creatures. It was immobile and didn’t seem to notice her. She noticed a sign overhead pointing towards the medbay and crept by – but just before turning the corner, she heard it scream. She glanced over her shoulder. The creature was staring wide-eyed at her while attempting to free itself from the tangled wires. She broke into a sprint, winding through corridors to the medbay and soon, reaching the door. She pressed the button to open it. Locked. Of course, Bruno had said that was what he was going to do. She slammed her fists against the door.

“Bruno, it’s me! Open up!” she yelled.

The screaming in the distance grew louder. She couldn’t fathom where these creatures had come from, but she didn’t want to stick around to learn more. The door slid open, and she was greeted by Florian.

“Took you long enough,” they said, pulling her inside. They hit a few buttons on the panel and the door closed behind them, sealing shut. Cassian was on the operating table convulsing as Bruno stood over him, reading the diagnostics on a nearby screen.

“Adair, you made it.” he said, barely glancing at her, too absorbed in his work.

“Status report,” she said.

“We have Cassian stabilized, for now. Something is wrong with his neural implant. It’s… infected. All the circuitry in his body is going haywire, like it has a mind of its own or something. It’s attacking his cells, starting with his cerebral tissue,” said the engineer, rushing through the explanation as Adair approached Cassian’s side.

She stroked his dark hair and cupped his cheek. She stared into his eyes, which were rolled back inside of his head. Foam dripped from his mouth. She couldn’t even tell if he was actually conscious as he writhed.

“Is he in pain?” she asked.

“Definitely. We need to do something,” Bruno said.

“I told Bruno to just cut the damn implant out,” Florian chimed in.

“Can you do it?” asked Adair, sternly.

“If I cut out the implant, it would kill him, especially in these conditions, but I might be able to cut out the neurotransmitter that causes it to function,” he replied, clearly stressed. “I’ve just… I’ve never done brain surgery. It’s not my area of expertise. I can’t guarantee his survival.”

“What are our other options?” remarked Florian.

“Fight our way out and keep him alive until we can escape,” said Adair.

“I don’t know if he’ll make it...” Bruno started.

“We could try this.” she said, pulling the kitbashed cybernetic override from her belt and passed it to Bruno.

“What the hell is it?” he said. “Amateur work. Covered in some sort of… I don’t even know. It’s a cybernetic override, sure, but… do you know what it’s been modified to do?”

“No clue. I found it with one of our reanimated friends out there,” said Adair. “You’re an engineer, shouldn’t you know?”

“If I had time to investigate it, perhaps I could figure it out. Unfortunately, we don’t have any,” Bruno said.

A slow, rhythmic banging emanated from the door. Their heads snapped towards it. Florian approached cautiously, and pressed his ear against it. The banging stopped for a second… and then Florian lept back at the sound of a muffled, inhuman scream. The banging returned, now a discordant cacophony of the creatures attempting to break through the door.

“Well, you need to do something, fast,” shouted Florian.