Chapter 1: "Just A Bad Dream"

The power door beeped and slid a few inches open, allowing the face of a woman with dark brown or possibly black hair depending on the tone of the emergency lights as they pulsed, peer round the edge of the door runners into the Medical research bay beyond.

From the woman's perspective, the room was filled with silhouettes of hundreds of beings screaming and shrieking in pain and fear.

She pulled back behind the door and closed it, just as the sounds of the dying reached Medical Officer Laura Hainz's ears. She shuddered and resealed the door with her RIG's holo-controls, whilst overriding any access to those below her status. She grimaced as she heard a scream and the sound of ripping flesh barely half a second before something slammed into the door, with a squishy thump that accompanied the sounds of a broken body.

"What do you think?" Came the shaky and strained, yet quiet vocal tones of Engineer Gordon Simov.

She looked over at a man who was propped up against the wall; his left arm was bandaged up from the muscle to the elbow, and a bone-Defragmenter brace was rodded through the loops of the medical fabric. The device used small blue lasers crisscrossing the bandage and into his arm, as the device restructured, and repaired the man's bones. His lower arm had been shattered after he took a vicious slash from a plasma cutter, whose owner was probably now floating somewhere over the Ishimura's hull amidships.

The burns had been cleared by the medical crew, but it was the senior medical officer in the room opposite him who had done the rest of the work.

Gordon's face was spattered with blood, yet not covered and it had taken all his strength to fight off his crazed co-worker. And even more strength to make his way from the Mining Deck to the Medical Deck. In fact, he had been unconscious until just a few minutes ago.

Laura had to choke down the chills, brushing her black hair from her face and hazel eyes, to look directly in the Engineer's own eyes. "We should wait till those, those-" her words choked, "creatures leave."

"Necromorphs. That's what Doctor Kyne called them, right?" Security Officer Simon Horten spoke up from the corner of the storage room to the medical bay. He had his pulse rifle with him, a long tubular shaped barrel, with a light and laser pointers attachment. It was fully loaded and ready for another "Necromorph" to crawl it's way to them. "What if they don't just leave, huh?"

Laura tried to smile at the Security Officer but could only manage to tremble her lips ever so slightly. "I don't know." She said quietly. "Doctor Kyne was insane, we could all see that. You were sent down here to arrest him for murdering the captain. Remember?"

Simon didn't reply, but looked down. They all knew that Kyne wasn't crazy, a little wacky maybe, but not crazy. He had been the one who tried to show reason in adversity. However the Church, and that included the captain, would have none of it.

The U.S.G Ishimura. She was the first, biggest, and oldest Planet-cracker class starship in operation within the colonies. And she had been digging up an allegedly ancient alien marker that had been buried within the planet below for centuries. However they were in this system illegally. So far, during the Planet-Crack, many of the crew both downside and on the Ishimura were slowly going insane.

The whole situation was madness in it's own right.

Gordon sniffed, and wiped a splatter of blood from the woman's chin. "Thanks for saving my arm, Laura. I owe you."

She finally managed to smile, just as someone began pounding on the door causing the three occupants to turn and face the "locked" holographic display. A voice that was female, muffled, panicky but clear, shouted. "Let me in! Let me in! Oh God they're coming!"

Gordon tried to move forward, and shifted his position. "Quick let her in! We can save her."

Simon trained the pulse rifle at the door and shook his head when Laura looked at him for permission, trusting his experience. Besides the grim expressions on both their faces was saying all that was unsaid between the pair. Softly, quietly she spoke to the Engineer. "We can't Gordon, we'll put our own survival chances at risk."

The man's expression was not a satisfied one but he already understood. The woman on the other side of that door was already as good as dead; and if they let her in so were they. They stopped talking and listened as the pounding quickened, and the woman became more desperate.

"You have to help me! Let me in!" Came her pleading voice, the pounding on the door now the sound of scratching. "Please," she continued, "open the door! Help us!"

The scraping stopped suddenly, and something beyond the door gave what sounded like an inhuman cackle. Her voice rose in volume, shouting for something to get off of her, and seconds later her screams of pain sent shivers down their spines.

They all watched the door, Laura and Gordon with horror, Simon with the grim expectancy of a Security Officer. He half expected the door to be torn open amid the screams of the woman, and the sound of her body being torn apart. The sounds stopped soon enough, but not before Laura felt the bile rise in her stomach. From above their heads the sounds of clanging metal made their blood freeze and they all looked up. But nothing was there except the air vent.

"Shit!" Simon slowly lowered the pulse rifle, having snatched it up as the sounds passed. "We should move to the Flight Deck and try and get a shuttle out of here."

Laura nodded her agreement, and sat back, badly shaken by the incident at the door. Brushing a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes again, and with a deep breath she removed a syringe from her med-pack which she then injected into Gordon's arm. "It's a mild nano-actuator, it'll will rapidly accelerate up your healing process for a short while." She emptied the contents of the vial into the man's blood stream, and withdrew the syringe, closing up the med-pack and smiling at him warmly.

"Your arm should be fine, and fully repaired in an hour." Laura stood, walked around the man and flopped onto one of the chairs. Closing her eyes she mumbled. "I hope this all turns out to be-" Laura squeezed her eyes closed even tighter as a shriek echoed from the air-vent, she whispered, "-just a bad dream."