Xenomorph King

Drifting Tomb*

The blackness gave my frantic mind some time to process the implications of my situation. The horror and fear of the unknown...the dread that came from asking too many questions. What had happened to my friends and colleagues? Why had this happened? Who knew this had happened? Yet, one singular question tore itself through all others to take its place at the foremost of my thoughts: who was left? The urgent need to answer such a question must have jolted my body from the coma it had been placed into, my eyes flashing open only to be met with a pool of drool and sweat that had formed in the downfacing helmet. My face scrunched up in disgust at my body's lack of self-control and I attempted to shift my arm up to open the face plate. 

The limb reacted slowly and painfully, obviously having been in the same position within a hardened suit for quite some time. However, with enough cajoling, I managed to bring it up to snap open the face plate. Once the pool was poured off to mix in with the unnamed liquid under me I shut the plate again and rolled myself over into a semi-sitting position against the wall. Well aware that the creatures could still be nearby my movements were slow and deliberate, one hand reaching down to grasp at the pistol on my hip that was luckily still attached. The clock within the helmet HUD showed that I had been lying on the floor for approximately four hours since I had last checked, though I was relieved to still see that the connection to the ship's internal servers was active. As I sat there against the wall, turning my head inside the helmet to pace between the two ends of the hallway, I attempted to slow my breathing.

'I...I need to find a log server...someone has to have made some sort of report on this...someone has got to have said something to someone!'

With bones and joints straining I stood to my feet. The pistol moved from its holster to take partial aim down the corridor, my mind racing to determine where I was in relation to the various relay stations within the ship. While I knew that nearly all rooms aboard the vessel had some sort of general use communications pad and relay station within it for emergency reasons, I also knew that if a lockdown had been ordered all relevant information would have been transferred to either the security room or the ship's black box located within the forward engineering bay. I was fortunate enough to still have the suit's system's operational, which included an active schematic map of the ship with highlighted sections meant to assist me in identifying issues within the ship. Ignoring the thousands of alarm notifications, flashing red areas, and generally bad signs regarding the state of the ship I charted a course to the nearest security station, one that had been co-opted for use with the engineering department. It would have more access than most stations, but if nothing was there I would need to find a magnetic pass card before heading the main security department. I winced at the sudden thought of plucking a bloodied card from a guards fingers and gulped down my apprehension.

Another thought started nagging at my brain. My face furrowed in irritation as I pushed back the emotional tidal wave to allow myself to keep moving around each corner without tripping over the root-like structures around me. With not much else to draw away my ever-present dread, I began attempting to piece together any pattern within the distribution of the "infected" areas. 

'I need to avoid their normal routes...best not to walk in the footsteps of a predator...'

The first piece came to me after seeing several perfectly open and connected hallways with either very little or no structures within them. I thought it was odd that such places would not be covered in at least some of the material. I had to check the navigation program several times cause no matter where I went I always seemed to find more signs of the infection. 

'All these side hallways don't have shit in them! I just want to have a clear path for fuck's sake!'

My frustration at the seemingly inescapable terrain had started to get to me. Only when the clusters of mutilated bodies that lined the walls had dwindled out did I start to breathe normally. You can only look a corpse in the eyes and only see yourself reflected back so many times before it breaks you...and I had stopped counting a while back. It did not help that every sound or hiss of a vent sent my body swinging in the direction of the potential foe only to be met with an empty hallway and another reminder that the ship was degrading.