Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Farewell to Fear

His brain, once occupied with his own reflection, wandered back to earlier thoughts.

It looked like a finger.

Or a claw.

But no, no, that could hardly be. Shiver ran up his spine.

He needed to stop psyching himself out.

He turned his eyes back to the mirror and jolted slightly.

There were two thin lines now, black and dark against the glittering glass. His heart sped up in his chest, hands gripping the sink, and he watched, as a third line slowly unfurled itself from the side of the shower, clutching around the edge of the glass to join the other two fingers. They were impossibly long, and impossibly thin. A fourth finger curled around the glass to join them tapping gently against the glass. His heart was pounding so loud and so hard that he couldn't hear the tapping.

Wasn't even sure if what he was seeing was real.

Dammit marine!
It was the stupid mirror, just turn around.

He stared at the hand as it tapped, tapped, tapped on the glass afraid of what he might see f he turned around.

It wouldn't be there.

He promised himself.

He was just tired and that was making him hallucinate or something.

He was just

Tired.

Taking a deep breath Ramirez whirled sharply hands gripping the sink as he stared back into the darkness his eyes catching up to his body and falling on the shower door behind him.

The hand was no longer tapping.

They were cold and still against the cool glass.

Ramirez stared at the hand, his vocal cords frozen in fear.

And then the hand jolted, becoming a claw against the glass. Ramirez opened his mouth to scream, but the arm shot out straight towards him, impossibly long. He gasped and leapt to the side, slamming into the wall, further away from the door and closer to the opening of the dark bathroom stall where she stood.

A tall woman with long, dark hair, and impossibly long arms, her dress billowing white.

He let of a garbled choking sound

And she smiled

***

Narobi Held her back against the wall lips trembling legs aching, sitting I the darkness of the lowest most point of the ship. The fear for her life the only thing keeping her from falling over, as the writhing mass of snakes churned beneath her, so thick and so many that it looked as if a bowl of intestines writhed at her feet. She pressed her eyes shut and whimpered in terror at the soft hiss from below. She looked down watching slowly as the cobra's head rose, impossibly high, too high, higher than nay cobra had ever lifted its head, A black shadow against an even blacker background, leaning towards her face with glowing red eyes.

Until they were face to face.

***
Dr, Katie hurried down the hallway in which she had been trapped when the lockdown came. She hadn't noticed but there was another person here with her. She didn't recognize them as their hair was down in long black ringlets, and they wore a surgical mask over most of their face, a habit not uncommon when someone got sick on the ship, but now was not the time. Something was going on and she had to find out what.

"Are you alright?" She called, hurrying over towards thew woman, "I think soemthing happened with the ship. We need to call up to the Admiral, and-"