Chapter Text
...
"Wait, there's a second impostor?" Red asked, their visor widening.
"And it WASN'T Heracles's fault that things went wrong like SOMEONE was saying!" Purple snapped, glaring at Red and pointing a finger right in their face.
Suddenly, the doors to the Oxygen Room (or, as Red had called it while experiencing Hypoxia, the Oxygen HOUSE) opened again, startling them all. There stood Cyan, their hands covered in blood, tears streaming from their visor, looking like they'd just seem a ghost.
"Y-yellow's... dead!" They managed to say through tears.
A collective gasp filled the room. Purple completely forgot that they were yelling at Red and rushed over to Cyan, Green was frozen in shock, Red reached for their Captain's handbook before apparently deciding against it, and Brown slid down the wall onto the floor, refusing to believe that Yellow was gone.
Black froze. They looked at Cyan, then at the floor. Something about seeing Cyan like that, it hurt them, even if they wouldn't admit it. They almost wanted to go to them like Purple, but their argument just a few minutes ago kept replaying in their head: Cyan probably hated them now, and they deserved it. They'd already known that while it was happening. They'd thought it was better to be hated than to let people in, but now...
If they hadn't upset Cyan, Yellow wouldn't have told them not to come, and maybe they wouldn't have been killed.
Why they were so relieved that Cyan was alive? They were supposed to hate them, right? Truthfully, while they found their constant spiritual babbling extremely annoying most of the time, they didn't genuinely despise them.
By now they were well aware of their habit of pushing people away before they got too close. They didn't question it or want to change it, they preferred the solitude anyway. However, now they had indirectly caused the death of another crewmate because of this. Or at least, thanks to them, Cyan had had to witness it alone.
Because of them.
They should have argued back when Yellow told them to go back to the Oxygen Room, but how could they have known? They weren't yet aware of the fact that there was another impostor on board.
They were distracted from their thoughts as Red seemed to remember they were in command and ordered them all to Electrical. The Captain tried to sound authoritative but Black could hear the hesitation and even a hint of fear in their voice. During the walk, no one spoke a word. Even the ship itself felt quieter, despite the faint humming of the reactor. Brown stared at the floor, not looking at anyone. Green appeared terrified and jumped at every slight sound. Purple walked next to Cyan, who was no longer crying, but had nothing positive to add, and didn't even say anything about auras or star signs. Black didn't think they could ever miss their constant chatter about vibes and "connected energies", yet at some point they had started to find it endearing in a way, though they'd rather get ripped to pieces than admit it. Red was leading the way, trying to look like a good leader, though even they were still visibly shaken and kept glancing at the others as if to ask them if they knew what to do.
After what felt like an eternity but had in fact only been a few minutes, they arrived outside Electrical. There, tangled in the wires as if they had attempted to escape, was Yellow, lying on their side, absolutely drenched in their own blood. The worst part was, their visor had been sliced clean off and was lying next to them on the ground, stained red. Green shuddered and gagged. Brown collapsed onto the floor next to the lifeless body of their best friend, begging them to come back, to wake up. But of course, they didn't. They couldn't.
Eventually, Red spoke up, somberly ordering the unfortunate Green to clean up Yellow's corpse and then join the others in the Cafeteria for an emergency meeting. The unpaid intern responded with a miserable: "Yes, Captain," and headed in the direction of MedBay to get a body bag, their shoulders slumped.
It took a full five minutes to get a devastated Brown to leave Yellow's side.
During the walk back toward the Cafeteria, Black uncertainly moved closer to Cyan, avoiding eye contact. They weren't good at this and they knew it, but they couldn't just let Cyan think that they hated them. As if it wasn't already too late.
They didn't know what they could say, so they remained silent. They weren't sure exactly what had changed, they supposed they had regretted saying what they did the second Cyan had run away crying, they didn't even want to hurt them in the first place, they just... Something about Cyan, their love for crystals, their positivity that was so different from Black's own pessimism, and their absolute refusal to give up on them despite being constantly dismissed and mistreated by them, it did something to them, something they couldn't explain logically, so they did what they knew how to, what they thought made sense, they pushed them away.
Cyan could have died in Electrical, and it would have been entirely their fault. Maybe that realisation is what prompted this change. They supposed it didn't really matter, they just couldn't continue to hurt them like this. Not even because of Yellow (even though they couldn't get it out of their head that it was their fault), but because, just like the gemologist had said, they didn't deserve it.
They would have died thinking Black hated them.
Cyan had every right to never talk to them again.
Black didn't even realise that they'd almost reached the Cafeteria until they heard the heavy metal doors slide open. The six crewmates (including Green, who had already caught up) sat at the center table.
The room felt eerily quiet and far emptier than it had the last time they had a meeting. They glanced at the five empty chairs, the ones that White, Blue, Lime, Orange and Yellow should have been occupying.
But there was no time to dwell on the past now, they owed Yellow and the others justice.