--Log Entry from StarCore Co-Pilot, Katrina Harris.
--Message recorded 6-23-2055.
--Uploaded to S.S. Delaney on 4-10-2072.
<FOR CAPTIAIN'S EYES ONLY>
I'm the last one left.
Last one to get asked to prom. Last one to get married. Now this.
I fumbled with the lighter, but my fingers wouldn't work. The lights died out hours ago, after those things had disabled the power core. If I can't bring it back up again, I'll be the last one to die.
On my way to the central hub, I stepped over the captain's body, the co-pilot's body, and my husband's body, Obi. I lingered over his crumpled form, tears rolling off my cheeks. He'd been one of the first one's affected.
Don't touch the green shit, I'd told him jokingly. Then, like an idiot, he'd touched it.
Protocols, training, the mission...everything had dissolved in the moment when Obi dipped his fingertips into a shimmering emerald pool. No one had guessed at the stuff's potency, especially since he'd been clad in his starsuit.
"I love you," I rasped, careful not to touch him, but very much wanting to.
A mottled face with streaks of blood popped out of an darkened opening, leering in my direction. I barely recognized my old friend and crew mate, Lolly. It was my luck the monsters moved slowly, but when riled up, were destructive. With a shaking hand, I slashed at Lolly's head, the knife sinking through one eye and popping out the back of her skull.
The fifth one I'd taken care of myself, but there were more. Always more.
I pulled out the knife and wiped it on Lolly's coveralls. Green specks sparkled in the blood, barely visible in the emergency lighting overhead. Once I fix the core, I'll finish clearing out the bodies. Right now, I can't spare the hour or so it will take to drag the four bodies into the airlock to hit 'release'.
They monsters were too dangerous, even dead. The infection could be airborne for all I knew. Hopefully not, but anything seemed possible in this very, very bad dream. Only, it's not a dream.
I slid the knife back in the sheath and hurried onward, careful to watch for any more peek-a-boo incidents.
If one of them grabbed hold, or worse yet, bit me, I'd rather hurl myself into the ether and join the dozen other crewmates than become like Lolly, like Obi.
Just---
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Piece Simul ✔
Science FictionRuss, a former janitor, is now second-in-command on a mission to find a cure for The Storm. The Storm eradicated those sixty and older. There might be a cure, but not on Earth. After each newly discovered planet, a team finds their minds and bodies...
