A/N: Well looks like I'll be solely focusing on this story until it's finished. Feels right to me since it's the one most of my readers are actually reading. Don't worry much more of this will be on the way more quickly.

Maya's Half-Life

Episode 36 – Foul Play

Now stranded on the planet's surface Maya and her partner decide to investigate the deaths further. They find evidence of foul play, but the thing that killed the innocents has smelled its next victim and is now on the hunt.

Maya hurried back to Virility and informed her partner of what she had discovered only mere seconds ago. Virility swore and turned 360 on the spot saying, "There must be another way out, right?"

"I'm not too sure, you don't know if this tunnel curves back around to the main compound?" Maya asked. She looked around her more closely and suddenly she gasped. Maya crouched down at the end of the message farthest away from the now blocked off entrance.

"What the – oh my god, that's horrible!" Virility was standing next to Maya as they both were staring at a pile of bodies in front of them. It wasn't the fact that they were dead, they knew the people would be dead when they went on this mission. The disturbing thing was how one corpse was holding a deep bowl filled with a thin layer of old blood. Maya reached a finger down to disturb the contents but Virility said, "Don't!"

"Don't? I need to … just find out whose blood is in this bowl."

"What happened here anyway?" Virility asked with a strange tone in her voice. When Maya leapt up she saw denial plain as day in her partner's eyes.

"I think you know," Maya said sadly but with a black trickily feeling slowly bubbling up inside from her gut. "Blood was needed to write this message…obviously. The one holding the bowl collected blood from the others and wrote the message."

"But the one thing that doesn't make sense," Virility said reason passing over her eyes – Maya knew this would only disguise the shock and horror – and she sighed. "Why would everyone else agree to have their wrists slit? I certainly wouldn't."

"Well to be honest, I wouldn't either. But we don't know their whole story, what if they had a legitimate reason for giving us the method?" Maya asked trying to come up with a solution completely ignoring the black feeling becoming even more prominent inside her. "And for that is the message even worth it? What does it tell us?"

"It may be a clue how to kill this … thing? Look Maya I'm just as lost as you."

"I did find something back at the blocked entrance back to the main compound – or Romulus – a note, here read it," Maya said handing Virility the scrawled note. While Maya's partner examined the note itself after reading the words written on it Maya moved back to view the message again. BEWARE THE JAGGED DEVOURER AND HIS PLAYMATES TO SOON ARIVE AND ARISE FROM WITHIN. For all intents and purposes the message seemed like a warning and maybe Maya should take it as that. She turned back to Virility and asked, "Find anything?"

"No," Virility sighed as she let the not drop to the floor. As the piece of paper drifted to the ground a sound was heard from beyond the construction, it was deep and it sounded angry.

"What was that?" Maya asked as the air around them flattened out and a warning signal was activated in their suits. "This tunnel is going to collapse, run!"

The real rumbling started as in front of the metal obstruction rocks began to fall in large numbers, by the time a whole began to appear in the rock around the metal obstruction Maya and Virility were already running down the tunnel relying desperately on their only light source – the tunnel bulbs emitting light from the ceiling spaced every 5 feet or so. As Maya and Virility ran along the corridor both of them at the same time saw something lying on the ground in front of them.

Virility ran past it shouting for Maya to get down, when Maya stooped low ducking her foot kicked the object forward by accident but luckily it sailed right past Virility's head. Maya's partner used her quick reflexes to grab it out of the air, "Yes! It's a sort of Miner's Black Box recorder; we can listen to this while we run!"

For a moment Maya thought they didn't need to run but then something touched her normal leg's armor and she jerked forward going into a headlong sprint. Virility after downloading the contents of the Miner's Black Box into her suits audio storage, and played it sharing with Maya. What followed was a collection of journal type entries that revealed the truth … or at least part of it of what happened to the bodies, and why the report had come in with false information of oxygen deprivation.

"Ahem, this is John Henry of scouting trip. My job, as the only senior elected, is to go with a couple of knuckle head sophomores to investigate the strange disturbance of the rock formation surrounding.

"Well it's the 5th day of scouting and … [sigh] … somehow we finally managed to make it to the wall. What the hell took us so long? It was Tomas. I swear he's a vindictive son of a bitch, and all he wants is gold … of whatever the fuck he thinks passes as valuable is this shit hole of a planet.

"Well…I really, REALLY didn't think that was going to happen. First Tomas says he was going to send false reports to the command center to try and cover up what we've discovered here. C – O – I – A – D – O – A – F it stands for, Collector of Information and Data on All Frequencies. Damn thing is near impossible to trick with false reports, but then I'm not the genius Tomas appears to be.

"[bloody cough] … if anyone finds this be warned, the monster is here … or one of them at least … it wants blood, but I smeared mine and all I could find on the rock wall … it can't eat rock so now I've depri-[agonizing scream]"