I was up early this morning. Very early, in fact. The lights were still dimmed. I was hungry and so made my way from the Dorms to the Cafeteria. I got some kind of circular grain food; it was called "wiffles." At least I think it was.

Finding a seat far from the one with that emergency meeting button, I began to chow down on those weffles as I stared at the stars above. The room was dark and shadowy, so the only real light were the stars so far away.

"Hey, you're in my corner, Brown," said someone from the shadows. I whipped up quickly to spot Black camouflaged in the creeping darkness of the room.

"I'm not Brown, I'm Maroon," I corrected him, standing up so he could see my ID and suit better.

"Oh, well, Maroon, whatever, please leave me alone. Ho. Take your waffles. I don't. Want you here. Okay?"

"Fine, don't be annoying like Yellow," I grumbled as I shuffled over to a different corner with my woffles. What was that about? What's Black's problem? I didn't want to talk though, because then he'd probably get mad at me. Who am I kidding? From seeing around The Skeld, he'd probably sulk if I said his name too loud. Plus, he didn't get his tasks done yesterday until late. Speaking of tasks…

I whipped out my pad, making a mental note for myself to ask someone for a spare megaphone or just find one myself. It glowed on, but I had no new notifications. I did find that list Green forwarded us all with my tasks for Day 2 of the voyage, though, and once I finished off my wuffles I got moving through the hallways.

I had Refuel Engines, Storage; Divert Power to Navigation, Electrical; Swipe Card, Admin; and that was all! Shorter than yesterday, I thought as I found my way to Storage.

I filled up a grimy canister next to an oil tank, then hauled the canister down to the Upper Engine. This room had one of the jet engines, humming and steaming with power. A dirty railing blocked off the engine from direct contact, and a long fall in between an overlook and the engine. I found a big tube next to a greenish computer pad and filled the thing with oil. My pad then updated to show I had to give the Lower Engine fuel, too, and so I repeated the process. The two rooms were very similar in appearance, though both quite important; the rooms were positioned on either side of the great big doors to the Reactor, and across from Reactor down a hall was Security.

Partially filthy and with oily and slick gloves, I put my hand garments in the wash in Medbay before going down to Admin. Thankfully I wasn't using my oily rubber gloves to swipe the card, because that'd be a nightmare! I actually ended up struggling as much as Orange, which made me feel ashamed. Suddenly, though, just as I was about to do a correct swipe for that dang machine, a tremendous noise shook the room and my card slipped from my hands and under the Admin Map table, making the displayed holograms on it flicker.

"Turning on lights for the day! Good morning, crewmates! Get started with your tasks!" Came Commander White's booming voice from one of the intercoms in Quarter 1, which had been positioned right behind me. The lights flared into life, practically blinding me with my dark-adjusted eyes and dirty visor. I stumbled around under the table, trying to find that stupid card with bright white lights showering over me along with the flashing hologram map. I finally snatched up the tool and slammed it into the reading machine, only to find the machine responded with "too fast".

Blue was in Admin before I knew it due to my scream of agony. "Maroon, kid, you alright?"

"I got the Swipe Card task," I growled, staring at the machine. I attempted a few more times, gradually getting slower, until the card reader finally accepted the swipe.

"Chill, man, didn't you help Orange do this task yesterday?" He recalled as he began to fix some wiring near Admin's entrance.

"Yeah, I guess I did, sorry," I apologized.

"I know, the task sucks, but you're done now, right?"

"You sound like Banana."

"I don't know if that's a compliment."

"It's neither an insult nor a compliment, Blue. I probably just…got up too early. Trying to get some tasks done with time to spare."

"What've you done? Most of the crew, including Cyan and I, just got up."

"I had to refuel the jet engines, and I just got this stupid thing done, so I think I just have to Divert Power to Navigation and I'll be good to go!"

"Nice! Unfortunately for me, I have, like, five tasks today, so it'll take a while for me to wrap things up."

"I could help."

"Alright, I have a Divert Power task as well, so let's both go to Electrical again."

Once we finished our conversation, we made the trip to Electrical, diverted power, and then split up temporarily to provide assistance in getting the places to accept that power. I liked Navigation even more than Shields because, well, it had a bigger window. I looked out through it for a long time after completing my tasks, watching that nebula and those stars splattered like diamonds over obsidian, the nebula an amethyst cluster the shade of Purple.

Green came in eventually and ordered me to move so that they could do some task on the starboard in Navigation.

"What're you doing, Maroon? Which task, I certainly know them all!"

"Stop being so haughty, Green. I diverted some power to here and now I'm done."

"One task? What do you think-"

"No, no, that was my last task."

"Then what were your others?"

I shoved my pad in their face so they could see that it read all my tasks were done, and which ones I'd done in the first place. I then stormed out of Navigation, leaving Green behind and grumpy.

After walking off some steam, I was passing O2 when I saw Orange and Green (again with that crewmate!) chatting quietly. Green was pointing at the plant inside the glass case, the one that provided all of our oxygen, and Orange was nodding but not really listening; instead, he was sipping a soda can with a straw under his helmet. My eyes and visor squinted at them, but I ran past. Green must've heard me, though, because they said "Did you hear that, Orange?" and peeked out of O2. Luckily for me, I had ducked into Communications, and I stayed there a while, disturbed, before heading off to Cafeteria.

I later met up with Blue in Storage. He was chatting away with Cyan and Brown about something.

"Hey guys, I've been looking for you," I told them as I came into their group behind some neatly (and recently) stacked crates.

"Hey, crewmate." Brown greeted with a nod and tip of his hat. "We were discussing how we could prank Yellow."

"Huh, I see," I said with a mischievous grin. "Sounds fun."

"Yeh, but Cyan is too wimpy and Blue doesn't think it's a good idea," Brown disappointed me. Yellow deserved to get pranked, the jerk!

"I don't w-w-want them to think that, uhhhhh…" Cyan trailed off.

"...that we're, um, Imposters," finished Blue with a shudder.

"Imposters aren't real!" I argued, backed by Brown. Blue and I got into an argument about Imposters and Yellow needing justice and Commander White being whiney, roping Brown and Cyan into the frenzy. Green came in before we went too far (thankfully, in retrospect) and scolded us for being off-task.

"But we're done with our tasks, fool," Brown returned.

"I'm no fool, runt," Green shot back.

"Hey, cut it out, e-everyone!" Cyan yelled, echoing through Storage.

Green tried to bicker again, but then the backup blast doors shut themselves, sealing us into Storage and in almost complete darkness, save for a lamp on the ceiling. Cyan shrieked like a little kid and clung to Blue, who shook him off with embarrassment. Green said something about it being my fault or something, but then Brown had to ruin everything.

"Maybe it's the Imposter, sealing us in, making us their victims, oooooh!" He waved his hands like some lame Halloween joker, but Cyan bought it. He started to scream in terror, but Blue and I confronted him.

"I'll just open the doors," Green said and put their green, clean pad up to the scanner. The door did not open.

"Uh-oh," I said blatantly.

Green tried it many more times, but the feeble attempts did nothing, like Orange struggling with Swipe Card. Guess I struggled too.

"I. COMMAND. YOU. TO. OPEN!" they ordered, but it was useless.

"What now…?" Blue thought aloud just as the blast doors emitted a grinding sound and came open. Now we were all confused.

"Must've been a malfunction," Green said with a shrug, tightening this snappy suit they wore over their green crewmate one. "I'll go check Electrical for anything out-of-place," they then strode off down the hallway to the compact room of wires. Brown went the opposite way without a word, and Blue and Cyan and I came up past Admin and into Cafeteria, where Banana was, downloading some data about food. We hung out for awhile, still feeling in warm water from the argument in Storage-and speaking of warm water, I got my original suit and clothes, along with my gloves, back from Medbay and put my current attire in. Red was doing a task in there, some chemical anomalies or something. Yellow was waiting around him, as always.

Blue and Cyan went to rest early along with Banana and Orange that evening, but I stayed up and alert even after a message from Commander White and The Skeld settling down for the night, lights dimming again. I decided to head down to Navigation to watch the stars for a little while with that big window, but on the way down I ran into someone I didn't expect to see for a while.

It was Pink. And not just any pink crewmate, but the Pink I knew. Her ID gave it away: Crewmate 550-9998-207. I still remembered that.

"Hi, Pink," I said as I slipped into the hallway she was in, the one going down to Navigation. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, noticing me with my leaning-on-a-beam pose, visor glinting. I was smiling under my helmet. "Hello, Maroon. Yes, Quarter 1, same ID…shouldn't you be in bed?"

"With Yellow's pad-flashing antics? I wanna wait until she cools down before I dare step into the Dorms. I was going to watch the stars from Navigation to pass the time…"

"Oh, am I in your way?"she sidled into O2, the closest room to her.

"No, you're not, it's fine. What're you doing down here, anyway?" I asked.

"Just checking on how things are going. Reviewing the data uploaded to Admin. Sanitary hall-cleaning welfare. Surprised that isn't a task, with cleaning vents and filters…oops. Sorry, a little off the charted course. That's just what us Pink assistants do for Commander White."

"Ah. I see. Well, I'll be going down to Navigation. See you around, I guess."

"Yeah. Okay." Then she slipped away down the hall, sharp shoes clacking with each stride, hugging that tacky clipboard and pen…

I found myself in a comfy chair next to the starboard Green tinkered earlier today. I observed the stars out the window, thinking about the Skeld life I've found myself in, those Imposter rumors, MIRA HQ. All of that, you know? Try star watching sometime, if you haven't. And if you have, I suggest doing it again. It really is amazing. That's how my day ended. I think I might've dozed off in my chair, though, because that's where I found myself when I woke up in darkness.