"Tristan, Sasha, Mackenzie," I listed the three people who I hadn't seen on cams.
"Sasha and Tristan were supposedly the only two I saw with a path to Storage, I never saw Mackenzie,"
"Then Sasha and Tristan killed him, problem solved killers caught," Lucas said, with slight sarcasm and extreme doubt. I bet he was told about the vents by Tristan and knows I trust him, so he most likely doesn't mean what he said.
"That doesn't explain Mackenzies location," I stated.
"Can cams not see the obvious fact I was in Navigation?" Mackenzie stated, quite annoyed.
"I-" I started, before Tristan started talking.
"I did go into Storage, but I had just gone to Navigation before Green reported, and you're not in there," Tristan stated, giving her a glare of suspicion.
"I was in Admin doing card swipe if that helps, cams can't see that far in," Sasha said, breaking the silent arguement.
"No one can prove Tristan or Sasha is right, it's clearly not me and Tristan is clearly lying so let's kick them off so we don't die!" Mackenzie said.
"Guys-"
"WHAT?! YOU'RE THE ONE LYING!"
"Guys-"
"Why am I being accused? I was in Admin!"
"GUYS-"
"That's above Storage, you could've killed him and simply walked up when you saw cams turn off,"
"FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD CAN YOU GUYS SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME!" I screamed, getting up and bashing my hands down on the table like the wrath of Thor, shutting everyone up immediatly, gawking at my sudden outburst. I have never gotten this mad in front of them before.
"MACKENZIE IS THE FUCKING IMPOSTER, SHE WASN'T IN NAVIGATION, AND SHE POPPED OUT OF A GOD DAMN VENT BEFORE THE REACTOR MELTDOWN, SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE A SECOND TO REALIZE HOW GOD DAMN SUSPICIOUS SHE SOUNDS WHEN TALKING!" I almost blew my lungs out, panting after I finished giving myself practical lung cancer. My hands had started to bleed again through the bandages, due to my outburst.
"Wait... Yeah, yeah! You can tell whos suspicious by how they act, I forgot!" Tristan said, seeming to wake up from the daze first. Everyone turned to Mackenzie, who was looking at the ground. All of a sudden, a loud noise became apparent.
Dggrrrrrrroaaaaaaaagwwlllll...
It only took a second, but it felt like the longest second in the universe. Mackenzie, no, not Mackenzie... it... was different. I had to keep myself from screaming, as I met the creatures eyes. 18 of them. 3 heads,6 eyes each. Its slimey, brown, ragged, scally skin dragged across the floor, splitting into 3 long, coiling tails, scaled and spiked like a dragon. 4 hands, 2 on each side of its body, with ragged but sharp claws, sharp enough to probably cut through steel like paper. Its legs looked kind of like a dragons, too, only more disoriented. Each of the heads' mouths had ragged sharp teeth, too many to count, and long coiling tentacle-like tounges. It oozed clear slimy liquid, kind of like a snail or slug. It met my eyes, and grinned. That almost made my soul leave my body. Everyone else... no idea what they were doing.
Grrraaaaagggglllll...
It sounded as though it was attempting to talk, and at that, I decided right then and there it had to die. I lept over the Cafeteria table, ignoring the giant alien, everyone sitting at the table, the screaming of Sasha wanting me not to move, and the pain in my hands. I immediately booked it to Weapons, ripping one of the loaded guns off the pedastals and racing back around to wrap into Cafeteria again. I could definitely tell the alien was behind me, the crashing, scraping and stomping of the beast was one thing no one, not even a deaf person, couldn't hear. If not atleast feel. I booked it through Storage and back into Cafeteria like a rocket, only at the entrance returning to face my opponent, aware everyone was still in Cafeteria. The beast rounded the corner, charging me with unmeasurable speed. Ok, you can do this... remember what you are, and your job. Your designated birth job. Everything went into slow motion as I raised the gun, angling it to where I had a perfect view of every spot I could shoot this thing. It came naturally. Every single weakspot became visible, each having a bright glowing light, I aimed the barrel up at the head to the right, in the middle of its forehead, and pulled the trigger. Time sped back into motion as the shot echoed in the halls. The alien let out a death cry before collapsing to the floor, dead. I was breathing heavily, quite light headed from the sprint around half the ship. I dropped the gun and fell onto the floor, staring at the ceiling as I breathed in relief. Sitting felt much better right about now. I slowly turned to the others, who were still sitting at the table, looking petrified.
"One... down..." I panted, my mind snapping back to normal, telling me it was dumb luck I killed that thing.
"Guess... panicking... is... useful...?" I said slowly, catching my breathe, slowly standing back up and kicking the corpse.
"We need to eject that... thing," Lucas said, coming to stand by me.
"Anyone know what happened to Mackenzie? She definitely wasn't an alien for 5 years since Green told us there had been 2 other lifeforms last night," Dizzy said. Something told me I knew where, but I couldn't do anything yet to actually check. I just stayed silent as I glared as one of the things that had killed the people who had forced themselves close to me.
"Couldn't care less," I said, making everyone silent.
"I haven't really cared other than the fact everyone is dying, I never really grew attached to anyone here, as far as I'm concerned anyways. Some days I had actually wished you all dead, but obviously didn't expect aliens to do it, of all things. I wouldn't have been shocked by an exploding engine or anything causing us to die, but aliens? I don't know why but the thought of us all being picked off by them ticks me right off to another universe." I stated, making myself sound as clear as clean water. Without anything more, I jump as best as I can over the corpse, grab the dryest spots on one of its tails, and start dragging it to Storage. It was heavy as hell, but I wasn't about to complain. I suddenly felt it get lighter, and glimpsed behind me to see everyone picking up a part of the corpse to carry it with me. Lucas and Tristan caught my glance, and, to my utter surprise, smiled warmingly at me. After I said all of that, they didn't care? I just gave them a nod and started walking again. Eventually we got to Storage, put the corpse in the airlock, and ejected it. We stood looking outside the window for a while, watching it float away.
"Good riddance that thing is gone," Dizzy said, sounding triumphantly annoyed. In a way, I agree with her tone. In other ways, I don't. I just sigh and turn to the mess behind us.
"Slime, blood, more slime, more blood... Guess we have to start cleaning," I say annoyed. After thos all ends we have to clean up the other bodies too. Never knew I'd become one of those body janitor guys on the police force. Dunno what they're called though. I heard Sasha groan, and I agreed with that.
"Clean? Why can't the aliens just clean for us, the least they could do for killing us is clean the ship," She whined. She seemed more inclined to trust me, which I guess got fixed from someone lecturing her a little while ago.
"I'll go grab some mops," I said lazily, my sleep deprivation slowly kicking back in. This would be long.
"Finally! It's clean!" Dizzy cried, looking relieved and exhausted. It wasn't just Admin hallway and Storage, the slime trailed all the way from where I ran, Weapons, to Shields, and then back up to Admin. It was in Cafeteria too. We obviously couldn't fox the walls or the floor, but you can't clean dents and scratch marks with soap, can you? That would've been Rachelles job. I just stood there in the hallway, rubbing my eyes. I felt as though I was about to collapse.
"I don't think there actually was 2 aliens, so we can all finally, somewhat, relax," Tristan said, sounding all kinds of emotions. I knew he was lying. I saw his plan, too, trying to lure the other alien out. It was smart, but it didn't sound realistic.
"Ok!"
"Thank god,"
"Uhhhh, yeah..."
Nevermind. Just me then, the girls are dumb. Lucas, dunno if he was unsure or just on edge still, but I could tell it was definitely either of the girls. Maybe. Hopefully? I would feel stupid if it was Lucas or Tristan. I decided to leave that thought and head into Cafeteria for a drink.
"Anyone hungry? I think the stress and anxiety of today is more than enough to eat," Dizzy said. She half read my mind, although I have a bad case of anorexia so regardless I wasn't going to.
"Nah, just thirsty, since I was the one being almost eaten alive by the Mackenzie imposter but ended up shooting it and somehow killing it," I lied, making it as believable as I could. The others just looked at me, Lucas giving me a side glance I know only too well.
"I'll grab something when I'm hungry," I replied, attempting to get him to stop looking at me like that, which failed.
"Alright then," Sasha said, coming next to me and whipping the fridge open and I open a little cabinet that stored the glasses. As she ripped out her last night leftovers of steak and chips before putting them in the microwave on top of the cup cabinet, setting it to 3:30 time. I just used the sink for a glass of water, since that, besides punch and juice, was the only drinkable liquid we had on the ship, although Dizzy amazed me one time by drinking straight gasoline, and not getting sick because of it. That was around the time we first got on the ship. She boasted about how she had to train her body to adapt to having to drink toxic or unhealthy substances to survive, and I even got confirmation from several of her business associates about it. Dizzy eveb said gasoline wasn't half bad, and that it tasted like old half crappily made salsa. How could gasoline even taste like salsa anyways? I quickly snapped out of my thoughts and inhaled my drink, quicjly grabbing a second filling before sitting down at a table near the window, glancing into outerspace. The other had sat at an opposite table, eating their food. Even if I had wanted to eat, I was a vegetarian, so it defeats the purpose of eating leftover steak and chips, I just never told anyone I don't eat meat and let them eat whatever they wanted. On rare occasions when Lucas or Tristan found out I had anorexia, or that I hadn't eaten in 3 weeks, they would force lettuce or carrots down my throat, which I was then forced to keep in for the entire night until I didn't have the urge to throw it out down the toilet, which sucked because it gave me a stomach ache after. I haven't eaten for a month this time, but I've pretended to eat in front of Lucas or Tristan well enough they actually started to believe I was trying to cure my anorexia. Sometimes they're dumb, sometimes they're smart. Before I had finished my second glass, everyone had devoured their food, and were already washing their plates. Pigs, but it's understandable, I thought.
"Imma go finish my tasks," Tristan said, Lucas nodding in agreement.
"Aight, once I'm done in here I'll do them too," I replied, with Sasha and Dizzy already speeding down different hallways, looking slightly rejuvenated. Soon, Cafeteria was empty except for me. No noise, peace and quiet, no screaming or panick or fustration or sorrow, just peace. If I didn't know any better I'd have said this is what death feels like. Made me want to sleep. I downed the last of my drink before pushing it closer to the middle of the table, sighing. I put my head down in my arms and I leaned onto the face of the table, level with where the emergency button was on the middle table. I sat like that for what seemed like forever, before I felt a cold breeze pass by. I slowly looked up to face a familiar face, and without realizing what was going on I say up slowly.
"Hey Lucy," I said, rubbing more sleep from my eyes. It took me a solid ten seconds to realize what I had just said before slamming my yands down on the table and standing up, staring at the face of the young girl. My eyes widened as she solemny smuled at me, with teats falling from her face. How is she alive??? No, shes see through, and she was stabbed in the heart, what??
"Green, you are not safe. One still lurks, you must be alert," she whispered, with an echo to her voice. I just stared at her, my mind racing. I was having a million thoughts at once and I couldn't decide which one to pick. Then I saw Zach appear beside her.
"Mackenzie was killed before impersonized, and same with the other. Trust your instincts, you know the other alien," he said, his voice omniscient and mesmerizing. Before I knew, they both had vanished, leaving me to my thoughts. I slowly sat back down, considering the warning. I know who the other imposter is?