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Something feels wrong, I think to myself as I listen to the pitter-patter of the crimson rain, trying to gather my thoughts. Mira HQ has been completely deserted without a trace of anyone or anything, but there’s broken equipment everywhere. Intentionally broken equipment. There were gashes and puncture holes all around the headquarters. Looks like whoever was here before our team had a hell of a time. Not only that, our shuttle only had enough fuel to make it to Mira HQ, and the acid rain outside makes it impossible to leave on foot. Our only hope now is to fix up the Headquarters and try to contact other interplanetary stations. We were delegated tasks and I got stuck with the newbie, Lime, as her guide. Speaking of Lime, she’s been getting on my nerves. I told her not to get in my way, but she’s hovering over me like a bat while I’m trying to clean the O2 Filter.
“What are you doing?” I ask, more than a little irritated.
“Just watching you,” Lime says. “It’s an honour to watch an experienced veteran work. I hope one day I can be as skilled as you!”
I side-eye her as she intensely watches me pull out some dry leaves from the filter. “Don’t you have tasks you need to do?”
“Uhm, that’s the thing,” she says hesitantly. “I’m not sure what I need to do, I wasn’t paying too much attention during the mission briefing.”
“Check your tasks list, it should be on your communicator. Just leave me alone,” I reply.
Lime fiddles with her communicator for a bit until a screen pops up, and she walks over to the plants and starts to water them. I continue to listen to the pitter-patter of the rain as I finish cleaning the O2 filter. I start to work on the wires when-
KABOOM!
Thunder cracks outside with a deafening roar as the lights go out. Great. “I’ll go to the office and check the lights,” Lime says as she walks away.
Good, I thought, some peace and quiet. I work on the wires for a while before I finish. The lights still haven't come back on. Lime still hasn’t handled it ? Just how incompetent can she be? I start walking over to the office to make sure she doesn't break anything when I hear a sound.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I groan in frustration as I realize she probably broke a ceiling panel while fumbling around in the darkness, and it’s going to be a mess that I’m going to have to clean up.
“You need help with that mess?” I ask as I enter the room. “I already see the pool of acid rain…” I look closer at the red liquid. It’s not acid rain. It’s blood. I look at the walls. There’s text written in blood, but it’s too dark to read.
“Lime? Lime, where are you?” I start to shout. “Lime!? Lime!?”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
There’s blood trickling down my visor. I slowly look up. Suspended by wires in mid-air is the headless corpse of Lime.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I see a shadow move from the corner of my eye, but it’s too dark to see what it is. I rush over to the light panel and restart the electricity. With a slow hum, the entire room comes to light. Time seems to stand still as I take in this horrifying scene. The pool of blood with footprints leading to the vents. The text written on the wall. The multiple bullet holes on Lime’s body. The writing on the wall that reads “THE DAY OF DELIVERANCE HAS COME ONCE AGAIN!” I immediately reach for the emergency button on the inside of the suit. The crew gathers into the cafeteria.
“So, why did you call this meeting?” Blue asks.
I try to talk, but no voice comes out. This is going to be harder than I thought. “So… the reason-”
“What’s wrong with your voice?” says Red. “You sound hoarse.”
I try to take deep breaths, but all it does is make it worse. “Well that’s because-”
“Where’s Lime? She should be with you, Black; unless you ditched her, that is,” White says in an accusing tone.
I start to feel lightheaded. “The thing is-”
“Why are you covered in blood?!”
“LIME WAS MURDERED!” I shout at the top of my lungs. The room goes quiet. I take a deep breath. “The… The lights went out, and there was a dripping noise… so I went to check the office and Lime was, Lime was…” It feels as though there’s a frog in my throat. “Lime was killed.”
I spend a minute or so explaining the situation with the writing, the hole in the suit, and the thing that slipped into the vents. They all sit there in disbelief.
Yellow was the first one to speak up. “So what you’re telling us is that in the minute that the lights went on and off, something murdered her, hung her up on the wires, and wrote writing on the wall, all without a sound. This better not be some joke, Black. Because if it is, it’s in very poor taste, even for you.”
“Follow me. I’ll show you, just be prepared,” I say. They all follow me to the office. Despite my warning, everybody is still in shock when they look at the scene before them.
“I’m… I’m sorry I doubted you Black,” Yellow says in a sorrowful voice.
“It’s fine, it’s not an easy thing to believe.”
“How… How did this happen? The admin table showed that there was nobody except us, and it’s not like any of us had a vendetta against her, right?” Brown insists.
“I think I might know what’s going on,” says Purple, matter-of-factly. “In the laboratory, there were some broken vials and this tablet was on the counter next to it.” They placed a tablet and three broken vials on the table. We all gather around it.
The “Imposter”
Scientific Name: Sus
Planet of Origin: Polus
Weight: None
Type: Parasite
Food: Brain Matter
IQ: >300
Behaviour: It infects any accessible animal and is almost indistinguishable from an uninfected member. It tries to eat all the lifeform’s heads in the area. The parasite can emit electromagnetic wavelengths around the frequency of x-rays, which it uses to open another mouth around the stomach. The tongue is able to pierce through most things, including bodysuits, killing the victim. Afterwards, the parasite breaks off the head and chews for about 3 minutes if it’s a chicken head, and around 5 minutes if it chews on a human head. The parasite is able to release bursts of energy of the same electromagnetic frequency as what it uses to open its mouth, which can cause some of our major support systems to malfunction including Oxygen, Vents, Reactor, and the Lights. It seems to be unable to trigger the same response afterwards for about a minute.
Notes: If the parasite is to escape and infect a host, determine the host and terminate it. Killing the host will release the parasite, but make sure that it is as far away from you as possible as it will try to infect another when the host dies. Time is of the utmost importance as it will try and kill all other life forms that have the possibility of revealing its identity, and harbors a particular resentment towards humankind. We have tweaked the emergency button to also emit radio waves and microwaves, which seems to block the parasite from communicating with its second mouth. It also has night vision.
“Great!” exclaims Orange. “Just great! So we have three imposters among us that are actually murderous parasites who want to get revenge against humans inside a building that we can’t escape. How could this get any worse?”
“Calm down, Orange,” Rose replies, “this is a very dangerous situation, but we can deal with it. It can’t kill us all at the same time, so the top-priority should still be to contact another ship. In the meantime, we need to figure out a way to ensure that the parasite dies. It seems that the only way to get rid of the parasite is to kill it from far away. Now, how to do that…” His eyes drift toward the roofed balcony.
“You couldn’t possibly be thinking-” Tan starts.
Rose cuts him off. “The acid rain and the long fall will surely kill it. If you have a better idea I’d love to hear it.” Nobody responds. “I think the only fair way to do this is through a majority vote. I know it’s cruel, but we don’t really have any other choice.” After Rose finishes talking, the meeting ends and we all leave the cafeteria. I go over to a broken panel and try to fix it, but my hands are so shaky I can’t keep the wires in place. I can’t stop thinking about the murder.
There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head that I can’t concentrate, but there’s one question in particular I can’t stop thinking about. Could I have saved her? If I had stayed with her like I was supposed to, could I have stopped the murder from happening, or at least have seen the culprit? I don’t even notice Coral in the room.
“Hey,” he says, trying to catch my attention.
I continue to mutter to myself.
“Hey!”
This time I hear him and turn around.
“Are you okay? You usually aren’t THAT colourblind.” I look over to the wires. They’re all connected to the same point. “I never expected you of all people to be that squeamish.”
“It’s not about the blood and gore,” I say as I cut and reconnect the wires.
“Then, is it about how you think you could’ve saved her?” At this, I stop and glare at Coral. He crouches down next to me as if he’s talking to a child. “I thought that was the case. You want to talk about it?”
I close the panel and stare at my reflection. “I… just feel guilty, you know? I was so rude towards her; the last thing I ever told her was to leave me alone, and yet she never got mad at me. If I cared about her, if I had been concerned about her in the slightest, maybe I could’ve… maybe I could’ve…” My words trail off.
Coral finishes my sentence. “Could’ve saved her?”
I nod.
Coral sighs. “From my experience, I think that even if you were there, the parasite wouldn’t have hesitated to take revenge.”
“I could’ve seen who it was though. I could've avenged her.”
“Well, personally, I don’t think Lime would want you to wallow in her death and keep thinking about what you could’ve done. I know it’s easier said than done, but you need to let go of the past. We need to focus on the future if we’re going to survive. I think that’s what she would’ve wanted for us. For all of us.” Coral looks at his clock on his communicator and stands up. “Well, if you want to talk more, I’ll be at the launch pad checking the diagnostics.”
Coral waves as he walks around the corner. I wave back slightly. I walk into Communications and I bump right into Rose. We both fall to the floor.
“Sorry,” Rose apologizes as he dusts himself off.
He offers me a hand that I accept, pulling myself up. “Why were you in such a hurry?” I ask.
Rose replies, “I was just in med-bay and when I checked my communicator and there were SIX dead bodies on vitals. I started running to the cafeteria when I ran into you.”
Before I can ask them why he had a vitals machine on their communicator in the first place, all the lights go red and the speakers blare out, “Dead body reported. Gather in the cafeteria. Dead body reported. Gather in the cafeteria.”
We both walked over to the Cafeteria. I look at the vacant seats. Tan, Orange, Gray, Maroon, Pink, and White. Each person mercilessly killed. How many more must fall? I think to myself. Before we even get to the table, an argument has already started.
“It was Red!” shouts Brown. “Red is one of the imposters!”
“You’re lying, it’s obviously you!” Red snaps back.
“Where?” Blue asks, only adding to confusion.
“Hold on, hold on,” Rose interjects. “What exactly happened? Brown, can you tell us your story first?”
Brown immediately takes the chance to talk. “So I was in the middle of decontamination trying to get to the reactor, but when the doors opened there were six dead bodies and Red was right in the middle of the bodies!”
“That’s not what happened at all!” argues Red. “So Brown, Orange, and I all went to decontamination when we found five dead bodies and before we could report any of them Brown stabbed Orange and called an emergency meeting to try and cover it up!”
Brown retorts, “Stop talking lies!”
“I think Red’s story makes more sense,” Yellow says.
“But can you be 100% sure?” Purple challenges. “If we don’t get the imposters out soon, we’re all going to die.”
“Fine then, vote me out,” Brown says calmly. “Afterwards, vote for Red.”
“Have you gone mad?!” Coral yells. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”
“It’s the only way for you guys to make sure an imposter gets out. I’m doing this for the group.”
Coral says, “What if neither of you guys are imposters? Then what?”
“Their stories are conflicting. That means at least one of them is lying,” Purple says, trying to avoid eye contact with Coral.
“There has to be another way!” Coral pleads.
Red put a hand on Coral’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Coral.”
All of us except Coral vote for Brown. “I just… can’t do it in good conscience.”
Brown walks over to the glass railing. Strangely, she doesn’t look scared at all. She just looks up towards the acid rain. The last words I hear her say are, “This is some terrible weather,” before jumping off the balcony.
We all watch as she plummets until she falls through the clouds, never to be seen again. The crew is silent as we wait for the emergency button to reset. Once it does, Rose presses it. We all look at Red, who just nods and goes to the balcony. They sigh, and join Brown in the abyss.
We all wordlessly leave the Cafeteria to do our tasks. Coral seems down, and I can’t blame him. He did give that entire speech about moving forward, but it’s hard not to be in low spirits after seeing two people commit suicide. I would try to help him, but I’m not nearly as good at connecting with people as he is. I go back to Med-Bay and finish my scan. As I’m walking towards the Decontamination chamber, I see Purple on the Door Log in communications.
“I can’t make heads or tails of that Door Log,” I say to Purple. “I’m surprised you can.”
Purple, still looking at the computer, replies, “I think it’s pretty easy, but that might just be because I made it.”
“Wait, you built that?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yeah. I built most of the electronics in Mira HQ,” Purple says as they turn off the computer. “It’s kind of sad to see them in such disrepair, but hey,” they look at me, “better a machine than a human life, right?”
“Huh, I didn’t exactly expect you to have empathy,” I replied.
Purple laughs flatly at that comment and says, “I felt the exact same way about you.”
I make an attempt at a laugh and almost instantly regret it. I immediately turn around and walk away, making sure not to make eye-contact with Purple until the decontamination door closes.
I sigh a breath of relief, but in the middle of the decontamination the alarms go off again saying “Emergency Meeting. Please gather in the Cafeteria.”
I groan and begrudgingly walk to the Cafeteria. As I enter, I see Purple look at me and stifle a laugh. I try to ignore it as I walk over to the table. “Nobody died?” I ask.
Yellow, who looks more like White with how pale her face inside the visor is, cries out, “Blue tried to kill me!”
Blue is caught completely off-guard. “Wh-What?”
“You vented onto the balcony and started chasing me!” Yellow screams.
Blue tries desperately to turn the tables. “Uhm, but what if… What if you’re the imposter?”
Purple gives Blue a judgemental look. “Ignoring the fact that that defense was terrible, Rose and I saw Yellow scan. They’re clear. That’s 3 people confirming and Brown or Red was most likely an imposter, leaving 2 imposters.”
Before Blue can come up with a rebuttal, everybody votes for him. We all surround Blue. He has his back against the glass railing. He looks down and pleads to the group. “Wait no, I can explain, I can help you guys--I’ll do anything, please!”
Yellow, whose fear is now overtaken by fury, says, “Then perish,” before kicking him off the Balcony and falling onto the ground. “Free his soul, if not his body.”
I look at the remaining crew. Just Yellow, Rose, Coral, and Purple. I think back to just this morning, when we had 15 crewmates. It feels like ages ago. I wasn’t acquainted with all of them, but it hurts all the same. I finish restarting the Reactor, and as I’m being decontaminated;
KABOOM!
My communicator goes red and notifies me that the Oxygen is being depleted. I go over to the lower panel, where I see Purple already working on it. They finished inputting the code and the crisis was averted. Before I can congratulate them, the lights go red. We exchange glances and we rush over to our meeting table.
“It’s Purple!” Rose says before they even reach the table. “I literally saw Purple slay Yellow right in front of me!”
“I was with Purple at the lower panel though,” I say, bewildered.
“But… But… But I saw them do it! Are you both imposters?”
“There’s only 1 imposter left,” Purple states.
“Wait, Coral, You can back me up on this right? You saw Purple, right?!” Purple asks desperately.
“No… I was all the way over at Balcony. I didn’t even get there before you fixed the Oxygen crisis,” replies Coral.
“No, I know what I saw. I saw Purple kill Yellow!” Rose tries to convince Coral. “I saw it!”
Purple looks directly at Rose. “Well then, we’ll all vote on what we saw as well then.”
We vote. 2 voted for Rose. 1 voted for Purple. 1 skipped. Coral and I grab Rose as he tries to escape. We drag him over to the edge.
Rose continues to scream, “It’s Purple! It’s Purple!”
Purple flips him over the railing.
Rose grabs the railing. “Please, Coral, please help me. I don’t want to die like this. Please save me.”
Coral hesitates. He starts to go for Rose's hand slowly, but I grab Coral’s hand and shake my head.
Rose's hand slips. His outstretched hand is the last thing I see before he is taken by the darkness below.
“I guess we got them all, but at what cost?” Purple says to the both of us.
Coral continues to look at the clouds.
KABOOM!
The lightning strikes the building and causes the lights to black out. It feels like deja vu. I say to them, “I’ll go get it. Can someone come with me?” In the darkness, I roughly make out Purple’s suit shuffle towards me; and so I walk back to the office, where it all began. As I go to flip the switches, I hear a click sound behind me.
“I should've known it was too easy.”
The voice that answers me isn’t Purple.
“It was a hard journey, but the pay-off was well worth it,” Coral says.
I shouldn’t have been so naive. “Why are you doing this?”
Coral laughs. “Why did I do this? Why did I do this?! It’s not exactly rocket science.” He tosses the tablet containing the parasite info at my feet. “I have a question for you. How do you think they got so much information on our species? I’ll tell you why. They took our whole colony from our home planet and tested us. They massacred millions, all in the sake of their ‘research.’ They would torture us every day, trying to test how far we would go until we would break. Us three were the only ones who survived. Dying would have been a luxury for us. We were always pushed to the brink of death, yet they would always bring us back. Who’s the real monster? So we came up with a plan to get our revenge. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.”
“You wiped them all out. That’s why Mira HQ is empty,” I answer.
“Correct! So when new humans came, we already knew what would happen next. And you proved it to us! You guys sacrificed twelve people for three people. And for what. To die at my hands instead? Humans are really evil after all.”
“Just kill me already.”
I can practically hear his grin. “One more thing before you die. I only have one bullet in this magazine. Guess where the other eleven went.”
I grit my teeth.
“She put up a good fight in the end. Shame she died.”
I turn the lights back on and Coral pulls the trigger. I brace for the bullet… but at that moment there is a flash of light that blinds both of us. I slowly open my eyes and see the bullet shell on the ground as Coral is writhing on the ground, half transformed as Purple.
“You’ll pay for that!” he yells as he opens his second mouth, but at that moment the emergency button is called and his mouth is snapped shut, as if it’s tied by cord.
We run back to the meeting table where Purple is already seated.
Coral gets there first. “It was Black! Black was the imposter all along!”
“Really?” asks Purple. “Tell me more.”
“When the Oxygen crisis was happening, you saw Black towards the end, right?” Coral explains.
Purple nods.
“That’s because she actually killed Yellow then went through the vents and pretended to just get there!”
“And how do you know this?” Purple inquires.
“Because she told me her entire plan while the lights were off. She probably thought she had already won or something.”
“Okay then.” Purple votes.
I ask Purple, shocked, “Aren’t you going to hear my side of the story?”
Purple thinks for a second. “No, I think I figured it out by now.”
Coral votes and waits for me.
I click my tongue, and vote, defeated. “I guess this is it, then.”
The countdown ends, and we look at the results.
1 for Black, 2 for Coral.
Both Coral and I are stunned by the results, while Purple wastes no time pinning down Coral and they yell at me, “Grab him too! I can’t hold him off by myself!”
I break out of my confusion and grab Coral. Coral, shocked, asks, “Wait, what are you doing, Purple?!”
Purple replies, “Throwing out the imposter.”
We drag Coral over to the balcony, who is trying his best to break free of our grapple.
We manage to pin him to the railing, but he won’t budge upwards. The rain has turned into more of a torrent, and I keep having to wipe my visor.
“We don’t have time!” Purple shouts over the storm, “Run!”
“What about you, though?!” I shout back as acid starts to seep through my suit.
“It’ll be fine! Just trust me!”
I put my faith in Purple and let go of Coral. Purple then breaks the railing with their foot and pushes him off.
At that moment, Coral grabs Purple’s leg. “If I’m going down, you’re going down with me!”
Purple starts to slip.
I steel my resolve and rush over to the balcony where I hold onto Purple. The acid starts to burn my skin, but I know that Purple is going through worse. I pull them upwards as Coral starts to climb over Purple and open his second mouth. He grazes me as I kick him in the head, causing him to fly off the balcony.
I was finally able to pull Purple back into the Cafeteria. I look at our suits; they’ve been cut, torn, and melted by the acid rain. We go over to the Locker Room and grab our spare suits.
“I have to ask, Purple; how did you know that Coral was the imposter?”
Purple walks over to one of the vents and taps it with their wrench. The vent opens up. “I told you, didn't I? I made most of the electronics here.”
As they start to explain to me the specifics of how the vent functions and how it would boot them after a certain amount of time due to tampering by the imposters, my mind drifts back to the bullet in the Office. The bullet shell had been dented, obviously by something, but there were no dents in the walls. I also swear when the lights came back, there was someone in front of me, protecting me. A guardian angel. Maybe it was Lime, stopping a murder right where hers took place. I’m too tired to think of this all. I just listen back to the pitter patter of the rain once more…
We buried all the bodies we could find in the Greenhouse. We were eventually able to fix Mira HQ and call a shuttle to pick us up. Of course, we did have to tell them about the containment breach of the parasite. They came to the Headquarters with full body armor, despite our insistence that we had gotten rid of them all. They bioscan us, obviously, and we walk into the shuttle, where we are extensively questioned about our interaction with the parasites. I look through the window.
The sky is clear.