It had been way to long since the crew had last been on earth. Even though exploring the universe was exciting, you learn what homesick means pretty easily out here. I do miss earth, as the rest of my crew does. Well, not my crew, but the crew I got stationed with. I have nothing, no one waiting for me to return, though, so I wasn't in a rush to get back. I actually enjoyed being out here. Each of us had been color coded, with code names as our colors. I had no idea why we were color coded, probably in case any tragedies happened. I frankly, did not care whatsoever about that though, as I had no real attachment towards any of the other people here. Odd, I should have more attachment to them, as I was assigned as psychologic observer, basically making sure everyone had a stable mind, including myself, while dealing with homesickness, or possible aliens. They all didn't really need it though, as they didn't listen to me when I tried. Eh, didn't matter. We had entertaining games on board that did the job for me.
"Attention! All crew on board the ship for a game night in the Cafeteria! Games up today are Snakes and Ladders, Mafia, and Figure 8's! Majority vote wins!" Speaking of. I slowly pushed myself up from my bunk, sitting up and shoving myself upwards, quickly rummaging through my belongings, shoved underneath the bunk in a black suitcase. There were 2 bunk rooms, A1 and B1, each harboring 5 people. The bunks could be reached from a hidden hatch in the Cafeteria, opposite of the ventilation shaft near the weapons room, used to clear out any asteroids that could damage the ship. A1 was to the right of the hatch, when walking in, left of the hatch, walking out. Each bunk room had pure white walls, with a slight blue hue to them, kinda like a glow. Each bunk was stacked like bunk beds. The beds had pure white sheets and pillows, which would get washed every day by the ships systematic assist mode. It would also wash, or shampoo, the matresses. Made it so that we didn't fight over reign of one bunk, which wasn't a specific color. One person could have it one night, then another can have it the next. Makes the taking turns rule more effective. I finished rummaging through my belongings, successfully finding a plain dark green t-shirt, black jeans, and my code name tag, putting them on before slipping my brown shoes on. I then started heading to the door. I pressed the activation pad next to the door, which would scan my hand for identification, before it opened the sliding, metallic door in front of me, allowing me passage up to the hatch. That also required hand identification to open. I had been well aware of being the only one in the bunk, and was especially certain when I was the only one that went down the hall. As I climbed out of the hatch, I saw everyone else was already around a table, discussing the games. I guess I was the last one. I headed towards the table, where the conversation slowly died out at my approach.
"Mornin' sleepy Green," Yellow, or Lucy, said, nudging my arm as I sat down beside her. She had blonde hair, green eyes, and was wearing her signature gray turtleneck with a plaid yellow skirt, with black thigh socks and slip on white shoes.
"I wasn't asleep, I was wasting time since I finished my daily tasks," I replyed bluntly, not realizing how tired I actually sounded. My code name was Green, so they all just called me Green. They didn't actually know my real name, so they didn't have a choice. I like it that way, though, that way no one can... persay, pretend to be me? I always felt as though that may happen, dunno why, but it works. Not even my higher ups know my real name, I just gave them a color to call me by, and they just made it my code name.
"You sure? You sound deadpan like a zombie bro," Brown, Tristan, said. He had brown hair, ocean blue eyes, and just wore a brown sweater with jeans with blue sneakers. He was sitting beside me on the right. I just looked at him with my normal side glare, which they figure out was me silentely saying, 'C'mon, really?'. In response he lifted his arms in defense with a fake exasperated face.
"Just sayin,"
"Uhhhh huh," I replied, in which then proceeded to gesture to the games, "We votin?" In which everyone picked up conversation again. After 5 minutes of debating the game, Pink, or Rachelle, stood up from her seat. She had brown hair, but wore her hair in a styled braid with pink bows at each end. She had a multi-colored shirt on, split in half with a lighter and darker shade of pink. She had light gray capris on and pink sandals.
"Alright let's stop bickering like we're witnesses of a murder accusing everybody, and let's start the vote! First game, raise your hand if you want Snakes and Ladders." She declared, met with absolutely nothing in response.
"Alright, Mafia?" Me, Lucy, and 4 others raised our hands, deciding the game. We never actually play games like Mafia that often, so it was a change of pace.
"Alrighty then! If someone would be so kind as to put the other games away," She looked directly at me as she said that, which made me sigh in audible defeat, "We can start the game! Since I hosted last game night I was thinking we vote for next GM," as she finished her sentance, I had already grabbed the games she had pulled out and started down through Storage to Communications. Since, besides Admin, was the only room on the ship with drawers for folders 'n such, although Admin had all of the drawers stuffed with folders. We kept a single drawer in Communications for our games, so we had somewhere to store them besides in Storage, where we'd probably ruin them in the boxing of heavy materials. As I opened the drawer, one in the very corner, diagonally opposite of where the desk was where we recieved task updates, field reports and objective information from HQ. I put the games back in their designated drawer before heading back to Cafeteria. They had already picked the new GM, which was Blue, or Kyle. He had Blonde hair, brown eyes, and wore a Blue bracelet on his right arm, while having a gray, baggy sweatshirt and dark gray shorts on, with black shoes and white ankle socks. They probably chose him for GM since he was a master detective, usually I was GM for Mafia, or Witch hunt. Good to change thigns up a little. Each of us was given a role, based on how many times Kyle tapped our shoulders. We had our heads down on the table though. One tap was Civilian. Two was the Medic. Three was the Mafia, and four meant the Detective, or Policeman/woman. When we all had our heads up, Kyle went and started the game by giving background descriptions of a busy city, then sent us all "to bed." Then he called out the roles.
"Would the Mafia please wake up." There were 3 Mafia in total. The boss, the right hand man, and the grunt. Me, Tristan and Black, Lucas, all raised our heads. Lucas had Black hair, black eyes, and wore a black turtleneck with black jeans and black sneakers. Basically what a Karen, average day teen or annoying person would sterotype as "emo," or "edgy." He definitely fit his code name though. I was pretty sure someone once said he was Bisexual.
"Alright, I'll give you time to silently discuss who you would like to kill tonight." Kyle had his voice set to where the scene felt incredibly ominous. As he gave us the ok, we immediately started to sign language each other. We all knew sign language, since it was a protocol in our training, just in case something happened where we couldn't talk.
'Who do you guys think?' I asked, giving them the according signs.
'Lucy, she's way too good at being detective, and she'll figure one of us out easily,' Tristan replied.
'No one believes her when she tries to be detective, and she always has enormous plot holes in her accusations, so they don't add up and just confuse everyone. I think Dizzy would be a better option. She comes up with the most random but believable shizzle it's baffling.' I suggested. Dizzy, or Lime, was sitting next to Kyle, tapping her finger on the table, silently humming a tune to herself. She had brown hair, with slight tones of orange, and wore a light green headband, with a, thankfully not neon light green tank top, black shorts, sandals, and fishnet arm piece's from her elbow's to her wrist's. She wore her hair in a tight ponytail, although it still reached pretty far down her back.
'I agree with Green, sure Lucy can be good, but I would rather risk her than Dizzy,' Lucas said, looking close to letting loose a laugh. Tristan though for a moment, than agreed.
'You've made up your minds?' Kyle signed to us, in which we all nodded.
"Alright, Mafia, please go back to sleep." In which we all put our heads down. We stayed like so for a little while, listening to Kyle having a one-sided vocal conversation with each role, before finally declaring us all to wake up.
"Some has, sadly, perished in their sleep." He declared, with such a heart broken tone you'd think the murder was genuine. "While counting her glorious stacks of money, Dizzy had forgotten to close her curtains, pretending to not be home, and got sniped through her window," Kyle declared, making Dizzy gasp.
"Awww dammit, can't believe I was too much of a moneyditz and forgot the most important thing to stop robbers or assassin's," She sighed, standing up and moving to another table. After some discussion there was suspision layed down upon 2 people, Lucy and Red, Zach. He had brown hair, green eyes and wore a red t-shirt, brown baggy pants and dark purple shoes. The suspicion wasn't on any of us Mafia, which is good. After several rounds, we had slowly picked off people one by one, until it was only one person left, Rachelle.
"So, I have some news," Kyle started. At this point, I had been dying from keeping laughter in, and I just couldn't hold it in longer. I burst out, laughing like a psychopath, in which Tristan and Lucas joined in. Rachelle, who had been oblivious at first, realized why we were laughing and then became wide eyed. I almost fell off my chair, laughing so hard, and we slowly died down to let Kyle finish, still giggling.
"Well, I guess I don't need to announce it now, but the Mafia is still alive." Kyle said, looking amused. Rachelle puffed her cheeks up and crossed her arms over her chest, knowing she was defeated.
"Dammit, though for sure we got rid of atleast two of you!"
"Nope, not even close," I replied, my voice hoarse from how much I laughed. My stomach was sore from how hard I laughed, so I was clutching it while still trying to stop giggling. The game had lasted a while, due to all the discussions, so we closed the game at that and headed off to bed. We were currently landed on Polus, so we didn't have to worry about any possible space turbulence, so everyone had no trouble going to sleep. Well, most of them.
Something felt very wrong. I couldn't get to sleep, so I got up, very careful not to wake anyone, and slowly made my way back out into Cafeteria. The first place I went to was Admin, because, for some reason, even though everyone was asleep, I felt like I was being watched. I went and ran the Lifeform Scanning Program, LSP, which would scan the entire ship for living organisms. That took about 5 minutes to complete, so while I waited for that, I did a diagnostics scan, so see if anything was wrong with the ship. The diagnostics didn't take long, so it came up with the ships layout in about a minute. There were some faulty wires, an engine bust, some communication cuts and a decrease in oxygen. The oxygen was the worst issue to be having. I grumbled, grabbing a pen and paper from one of the desks beside the O2 Admin Reboot Station, or O2 ARS, and started writing down a list of things to fix, starting from worst to best. When I finished the list, the LSP popped up on the table, with a number declaring the lifeforms.
"12 LIFEFORMS FOUND." What? Theres only ten of us. I quickly counted the crew just to make sure. Me, Tristan, Lucas, Zach, Kyle, Lucy, Dizzy, Rachelle, Mackenzie, and Sasha. Yeah, theres only ten of us! I thought to myself. Green, Brown, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow, Lime, Pink, Cyan and Purple. I decided to redo the LSP, just to see if it was having an error. It came back with 11 lifeforms this time. Strange. I decided to leave it, and went to go fix the ship. It took all night, since I wasn't the best technician. That was Rachelles job. I got them fixed so they'd last, most likely, another year without problems atleast, so it was worth the all nighter. Felt like crap though. I haven't gotten a good night sleep in days, and I pulled 3 all nighters in a row, I felt like a popsicle melting in a freezer, if that makes sense. Not gonna explain it as I'd just confuse myself and feel even worse. I didn't even bother going to the dorms, as it'd be a waste anyways. I just decided to check on my task list and start "early". Everyone had started climbing out of the hatch by the time everyone should wake up. Theres an alarm that rings through our heads as an indication, a special communication tool Rachelle created, for all different purposes. Came in real handy sometimes. It made my head start aching slightly when it rang, though. Lack of sleep. yay.
"Wow, you're never up before us, night owl. Thought you slept in through the alarm?" Zach said, walking up to me and gently hitting my back as I emptied out the Cafeteria trash chute. Everyone else had also come over, confused and baffled at how early I was up at.
"Couldn't get to sleep, felt like I was being watched, diagnostics said there were lots of problems on the ship, stayed up all night fixing them, didn't bother with sleep since it was already so close to wake up," I briefly explained, just noticing the large drag and sag my voice carried as I told them, facing them so they could hear me better.
"Geeeeezus man, never though I'd hear the day that you sound worse then when you go to bed at like, 6 and wake up at 12 and still wanna sleep," Lucas said, in which was met with a tired, but annoyed glare.
"Don't encourage me to get any sleep right now, otherwise tasks won't be done, I'll give you the list of things I fixed so you can do touch ups on them Rachelle, don't trust me, the guy who has pulled 3 all nighters now, with your expertise," I said, handing her the list before she could answer.
"Alrighty then, let's see... oh, low oxygen levels? I'll go check up on that right away." She said, dashing off towards weapons. Everyone then started dispersing to do their tasks, and I was left walking slowly to reactor to restart it. It's the worst thing I could've possibly gotten. Not only do I suck at the task, but being sleep deprived makes me stay on it for 5 hours straight without ANY help. When I arrived to the Reactor, Mackenzie was already there, unlocking the manifolds. Basically Kindergarten counting. She had light brown hair, although it was a little short, jusf above her shoulders. She had a light blue crop top with black leggings and black high-top boots. She heard me walking in, in which she turned her head towards me.
"Hey Green, what task do you have?" She asked.
"Restarting the reactor," I said, in the most robotic, deadpan tired voice I could muster.
"THAT task? You have it rough today," she replied. Everyone knows how much the reactor task sucks. When I say sucks, I mean sucks. It's basically like simon says, only the blinking lights make it harder, as it leaves a glare when it disappears, making a blur of lasting light smudges which blend into each other, messing the order up if were distracted by the lights. When your half asleep it's even worse.
"Lemme help ya, I know you're gonna be year for years if you don't have help on it right now," she offered, quickly pressing the last number on the manifolds, which made a series of clicking noises before dimming back down to the hum of the reactor. She walked over to me, standing next to me, and I initiated the restart, being guided around to the different squares when I needed it. Made me feel blind in a sense, like I was being guided around a room but my hand was doing all the work, following its guide around the room, exploring everything to make a mental map. Eventually we finished the task, in which I thanked Mackenzie in the most heartfelt voice I could make, which probably didn't even sound heartfelt because it was drowned by my exhaustion, before slowly dragging my feet back towards Admin. I went through Lower Engine, meeting briefly with Rachelle as she was checking on the engine bust, and stopped at Electrical to do my download. Sucked it was on top of the ventilation shaft, made for a great human freezer though. If you're looking for winter in the summer, standing over one of Skelds ventilation shafts works perfectly. Crawling through them to fix things is 10x worse. Only an alien or something that isn't human could crawl through those and not shiver themselves to death. Doing tasks near or on top of one was agreeably amonst everyone, one of the more torturous tasks. Reactor continues to take the cake though. As I finished my download, I started back towards Admin. Storage and Cafeteria were always the most busiest rooms on the ship, but Storage was unusually quiet. Same with Cafeteria. Even though I'm practically sleep walking, I can still realize when a busy room doesn't look, or sound, busy. I entered Admin, pullibg my wallet out of my back left pocket, fumbling around to get my ID card. I went over to the far end of the table, and started the ID machine up, before swiping my card in the slip with such precise ease that the first try got accepted. I'm the only one on board that can successfully swipe in one go, although I do get the odd few rejections here and there. Still haven't, "mastered the swipe," as Zach would say. I put my card and wallet away again, before checking the table. It projected an entire layout of the ship, and each person on board was constantly tracked by the table, showing where anyone, or everyone is, at any time. Doesn't tell you who's where though, just that someone is there. Right now, there was one in Admin, me, and everyone else was... in Shields? Why was everyone there? The only tasks down there is the power panel and the shield repair system that required assistance from a living lifeform, or one of the crew members, to press the indicated damaged parts of the shield, so the system could go and fix it. It looked as though something was going on, because one of the glowing yellow dots was running circles around everyone else, while some were pacing, others standing still. One dot was in the middle of this, weird, messed up rip off of a circle. Over all, it looked incredibly weird, so I groggily headed back through Storage to go see what was going on. As I went past Communications, I started to hear yelling, but I was way too tired to realize it was actually yelling until I reached Shields. Almost immediate headache. Everyone was screaming and yelling and looked incredibly panicked.
"SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT BECAUSE HE'S HALF ASLEEP HE COULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS? HE'S THE ONLY ONE NOT HERE!" Sasha, Purple, was screaming at Tristan, who looked boiling mad. Sasha was kind of small, with orange hair, brown eyes, and a black long sleeve with a purple skirt and slip on black shoes.
"HE WOULDN'T DO THIS! But of COURSE you wouldn't believe that! You have some stupid-ass GRUDGE on him for no reason!" He retaliated.
"Wh-as... goin- on in h-ere...?" I mumbled, leaning against the wall now, almost asleep but not quite from the yelling, my voice trailing of drowsily into the group. In response, everyone turned to look at me, some from mad to worried faces, others from more to less panicked faces, and then angry to even angrier.
"YOU." Sasha started, storming towards me. Before I could respond, she had me pinned right up on the wall, hand wrapped around my throat, choking me.
"YOU DID THIS TO HER. HOW COULD YOU!" She screamed at my face, tightening her grip, making my hand grab her wrists, trying to stop her. I couldn't reply to her, as now she was crushing my windpipe, making me choke and gasp. As soon as I felt her hands on my neck, they were gone, allowing me to slide down the wall, choking and trying to regain my breath. That woke me up a little.
"Could you relax? We have no idea how this happened, and I just saw him in Lower Engine not too long ago Sasha, he couldn't have done this from all the way over there." Rachelle said, standing in between me and Sasha. As my breathing steadied, I was helped up by Lucas and Tristan, who, in the processed, threw sharp glare-daggers at Sasha.
"What is going on and why did she attack me like that??" I asked, still processing what just happened. It was like I just killed her little sister, although Sasha's siblings weren't near old enough to come on the ship, let alone even into our HQ. So 'sibling murder' wasn't an option, although thinking about it was a little funny. My question was left unasnwered for what felt like a century of sluence, people exchanging nervous glances to one another. I looked at everybody, before realizing something.
"... Where is Lucy?"
That made Sasha scream in rage, struggling to get past Rachelle.
"Uhm, Green? I don't know if you were aware, but I think something, I'm not sure though, may have gotten on the ship with us, and..." Zach very slowly moved to the side of where he had been standing, and I had no idea what to do in that moment. My mind started racing a billion miles an hour, and I just stood there, before the sudden realization.
"Wh-... L-LUCY!" I yelled, tunning over to her like a cheetah to it's antalope. I fell to my knees, crouching over her. She had been lying on the floor, face to the floor, with a surrounding puddle of, dark, crimson sticky liquid. Blood. I started wrapping my arms around her gently, which was met by the screaming curses and bloody murder of Sasha. I slowly rolled her over onto my lap, revealing a deep wound reaching from her heart all the way to her right shoulder, which made everyone gasp in horror, even Sasha, and Dizzy to scream. My heart was racing, and the look on Lucy's face was horrifying. It was tear stained her eyes clouded over hazy, her face in what looked like pure agony, with blood leaking from her mouth. I was meant to be the psychological observer of the ship, but right now I think I needed someone else to be my role for a year.