No. 24 Fight, flight or freeze (blood covered hands)
~
He woke up to the sound of laughter. His head felt heavy like a stone and it was aching badly. Keenser lifted his hand to touch it but froze when he felt that his hand was damp.
His vision was blurry at first but then he recognized a strange color on his hands.
Red.
Why? Why were they red?
A disgusting smell hit his nose. It was coming from his hands. And from the main area of the outpost.
Keenser slowly got moving.
One step after another he made his way over to the room where the stench and the noises came from.
The voice laughed again.
'SpongeBob!'
He knew that annoying voice. It belonged to the main character of a cartoon that Scotty watched on his PADD from time to time.
Keenser didn't understand what the human found so funny about that old series but he really loved to see the Scotsman laughing at it. It seemed to cheer him up and make him forget about their icy cage called Delta Vega.
His heart was beating faster as he got closer to the main area.
From where Keenser was standing, he could see Scotty from behind. The man was sitting at a desk, obviously asleep since his body sat slumped in a heap.
The Roylan grunted so that he wouldn't scare the human but he didn't get a response.
Carefully he stepped over to his friend and he froze in his place when he saw something lying on the ground.
His screwdriver! What was it doing here? Next to Scotty. Stained in the same color as Keenser's hands.
Keenser felt his body start to shake as he started to move again. He made his way over to Scotty… and what he saw nearly made him throw up.
Blood.
There was so much blood.
Scotty's throat.
Somebody had stabbed right into it, using the screwdriver to slit the throat open.
The attack must have surprised Scott for there didn't seem to be any signs of him trying to defend himself.
Keenser took a step backwards.
The loud ringing in his ears drowned out the voices coming from the PADD.
What had happened here? Who had invaded their outpost? Why had it killed Scotty?!
It was only a moment later that a horrifying memory crossed Keenser's mind.
-
He was moving through the hallways, screwdriver in his hand.
He made his way to where Scotty was sitting.
He heard the man laughing at a stupid joke that cartoon character made.
He wanted him to be quiet.
So he did the only thing right. From behind he stabbed the tool right into the human's throat and moved it to the left and to the right.
A few gargling noises… then the man shut up.
Finally. Some peace. He could continue to rest.
-
Keenser shook his head in disbelief as tears dripped from his eyes.
No… no. It wasn't supposed to happen. Not until he was fifty at least!
Not here! Not now!
They had been warned. Every single Roylan had been warned about the time the somnambulism would start.
It hadn't been Keenser's time yet.
It shouldn't have happened yet! If he'd known that it would start, he'd have locked himself in his room. He… would have protected others.
Keenser didn't know what to do.
He couldn't force his eyes to look away from Scotty's lifeless body.
He just stared at it in horror, not making a single noise.
There was just one sound echoing through the hall.
The taunting laughter of a little yellow sponge.