PARASITIC (Among Us)

Twelve: Cons of Teams More than Ten, so Find Us in Morbidly Mint Condition

After I lift him up into the pod, I close the curtain. I can't say goodbye. That's too hard for me to do. If I say goodbye, then I'm admitting defeat. Defeat that would ultimately be a win in the long run. I grab my oxygen tank and helmet from the Resupply Rack. Getting back on the lift, I look up and see Con and Minty exiting Admin, both walking toward me. Minty holds her hands out. "Your PDA."

"What about it?"

"Give it to me," she insists. "I need your PDA, it's the last one." I pat my chest, my PDA missing. "Morbid don't tell me..."

I check my satchel pulling out the PDA I pulled from the vents. "It's not mine, but it should work."

"What do you mean it's not yours?" Con inquires, confused. I see caterpillars crawl around under his skin, and he scratches right on top of it. "Who's PDA is that?"

"A crew member from a different mission." I turn it on, the screen having trouble with displaying formation. "This is... DoodleBees from mission Simon-Twelve. She wrote crew notes."

"What do they say?"

I scroll, gentle with the screen so I don't break the device. "'It's already inside, you may as well die.'"

"Lovely," Minty digresses as she takes the device from me. "Final touches to commence contingency, stay here."

She runs back to Admin by herself, and I turn to Con, swaying back and forth on my heels as I unclip my helmet. "Con, are we going to die?"

He exhales as he looks to the ground. "No matter how you look at it, yes. This is the only way, Morbid." He scratches the bugs under his skin again, a red blister forming on his chin until it bursts with brown, sludgy pus and a centipede crawls out and down his neck into his suit. He's unbothered by it. Minty speed-walks around the corner and stands behind me, Con crossing his arms. "They should've been back by now."

"Cole's a handful, so she's probably being difficult intentionally," I say. "I'll go get her."

"No need to!" Cole triumphantly announces as she drags Ten in by the foot, leisurely making her way into the room. Minty draws her gun and points it at Cole with her finger ready on the trigger. "Whoa, hey! She's not dead. Yet."

"What did you do to her?" I ask.

"Nothing!" Cole reinforces as though we're all joking about, but her face drops like a hat. "Yet." She drops her leg and stands, arms akimbo. "Go ahead, press the button. Might as well make our last moments together official." Con reaches behind him, but she makes noises to stop him. "Uh-uh, I want Morbid to do it. For antagonistic self-righteous reasons. I still have an ego status quo to fulfill, y'know."

My bottom lip pushes upward, as I glare at her. So be it. I turn and slam the button with my fist.

"Emergency Meeting initiated. Immediately cease all tasks and activities and head to the Cafeteria for a rendezvous."

Cole waltzes over to the side of the table as Con and I go to help Ten, only to find that she's dead from a snapped neck. Cole chuckles. "Whoops, I lied." We reconvene at the table, Minty and Con on either side of me as we look across at Cole by herself. "Three on one hardly seems fair."

"Why are you doing this, Cole?" I ask. "Why is It doing this?"

"It would take too long to explain why It wants me to do this, and I personally have no interest in Its motives. I mean, c'mon, dude, the fuck do I look like, a history book? So why am I doing it?"