A million hateful eyes glint their fury from the darkness, distant and cold caught up in spirals and clusters of ancient anger and the deepest most resounding quiet. They pull towards each other, spiraling, forever spiraling downwards and inwards into an unknown darkness where, if one were to be caught up, they would be suspended in a state trapped between death and life skewered on the descending claws of time.

We knew man was strange when we first met them, a consumer, one of flesh and of resources and of worlds powered, not by the laws that govern our existence, but by a strange and unknown entity glistening behind their eyes. Man is not man, but a shell powered by something strange, something eerie, something not of our plane. I have argued this many times over the years.

But why will no one here me.

***

Dr. Krill floated quietly on the bridge in the sallow yellow light of an ambient star cluster. Commander Vir sat Stiff and rigid in his seat. His single green eyes glinting with a fine filmy layer of reflected mucus glinting with the pale sickly yellow of that pallid light. The rest of the bridge was unusually silent many silhouettes holding bated breath expressions dark as the unexpected transmission warbled over the line.

It came in sibilat whispers, gurgles and and the distant sounds of guttural wailing crackling backwards into the maddening chatter of static.

Krill examined in mild fascination as tiny hairs, like detached spider legs erupted upwards on the man's skin. The delicate hairs glittered in response to the insipid, sensuous caress of waxen light down the man's protruding spine delicate mounds and bumps of bone just visible through the back of his shirt.

The man's skin had gone ashen like that of a bloated corpse decaying in a static pool of water.

"Can anyone understand any of that." The man demanded, and despite its strength his voice fell flat crushed and squeezed with the weight of the air around them.

"I'll try to clean it up sir."

The transmission had begun without premonition. One moment they had been floating quietly through the vast nothingness of space, and next, they had been bedeviled by this Insidious cacophony of voices that seemed human, though individual words could not discerned.

Under the pressing weight of those horrific voices, the bridge remained hushed as the communications officer attempted to untangle the message.

A shadow fell over the Commander's back, and a set of three tallenous fingers came slithering down over his shoulder to rest against his clammy skin. Sunny lingered at the Commander's shoulder luminous golden eyes fixed upon the speakers which still crooned that gastly whispering.

"I think I have it, Sir." The woman stammered

"Alright then, let's hear it."

There was a long moment of silence, like the catatonia that follows psychosis.

"Help, please.... Anyone.... Please help. This is , colony transport.... 331.... Out of fuel..... Running low on food..... The lights... gone out..... eating ..... Can't stop... requesting help."

The chattering began again in earnest rising upwards upwards upwards until a crescendo, until the room was filled with it's warbling madness,

"STOP!" The transmission cut and the lascivious whispers died. Commander Vir stood from his chair, "That's enough." He finished softly, "Someone take a look in the database for a civilian transport with that flag ID." He stabbed a finger at their radar technician, "Do you see anything."

The woman stammered for a moment, spun in her seat and scanned wide unblinking eyes over her console, "Uh ... y-yes sir, I have something, not very far at all, its small, about the size of a colony transport."

"Well what the hell would they be doing out here?"

"I have no fucking clue." The Commander muttered darkly glancing towards the eerie image looming over their pathetic tiny ship still thousands of miles away, psr b1509-58 (nicknamed the hand of god) metastasized into the sky less like the hand of god and more like some creeping eldritch horror. The strange, hand-shaped bluish dust cloud writhed from the blackness grasping upwards towards a ball of yellow red fire.

"ID tag confirmed, Sir. The ship has been missing for... Well over a year."

Commander Vir blinked, "No, that can't be right." He shoved past his chair to peer over the shoulder of the technician his face bathed with a hellish red.

"Yes sir, Looks like they lost contact immediately following warp procedures. They did not arrive at their original destination."

""Well, I'll be damned." He mouthed standing, "Sunny, prep a shuttle and a landing party, get our suits ready. I want the rest of you to try and hail that ship. I don't have much hope for these people, but done right, a ship can be stocked with enough food to last a year."

"But.... Commander, what about...." The man's voice shriveled and ebbed into silence.

Commander Vir nodded expression sombre, "It doesn't matter. If there is even the slightest possibility that someone aboard that ship might still be alive, than we have to do what we have to do. Come on Sunny, let's prep a team."

***

The mood leading up to this mission had been one of inexorable unease, though none of the men or women could really have explained why. Only the Commander had heard the full recording, and as he sat in the pilot's seat of that shuttle he felt the cold hand of dread slip around his chest, an icy choking feeling on his heart in a way that he had never experienced before, and wished never to experience again. Outside that shuttle window, the icy blue hand of god had beckoned them silently into the lap of eternal darkness.

The civilian transport appeared as a black cancerous spot on god's wrist,swelling outwards in their vision sprouting sharp, black spines like charred bone pierced through skin. The entire ship, was like that, the mangled corpse of something that had once been now lurking in the shadow of space. But it was odd despite the feeling it gave him, other than the absence of lights, the ship appeared..... Mostly whole. It didn't look broken down, dilapidated or in any way decommissioned.

It was just, Still, and silent.

-

The airlock doors shuttered open with a protracted squeal. A wave of putrid humidity washed over them from the pitch black interior. That humid putrefaction slithered past them causing delicate crystal drops to form over the face of their visors foreshadowing nothing but a world of ceaseless decay from within.

And now they had come to stand before a bottomless pit of profound blackness, assaulted by a lurching humid wind that dragged her feted tentacles over his body. Commander Vir felt it, a presence like the weight of an unwanted lover pressing against him with putrid rotting flesh wet and slimy against his bare skin. Like a tongue caressing seductively up his neck, and towards his mouth.

A sensation so malevolent and vile, that began in his stomach, a tingling tightening sensation which wriggled up his throat bringing with it a horrific eruption of tingling beginning at the back of his thighs, trailing up his sides across his back and into his head.

His entire face erupted with that same tingling sensation. His nose and eyes prickled with unshed water, his throat constricted, his cheeks tingled, his teeth gritted. He felt as if he was about to scream, or weep. The impenetrable wall of darkness before him was not just a simple darkness..... It was a message.

GET OUT!

A warning.

Every human in that airlock, every marine, simultaneously erupted into a mass of animal panic. Lights flickered on wildly swinging towards the ceiling as if expecting to see a face come scuttling towards them from the darkness.

"Fuck this." one marine whimpered crouching low to the ground his weapon raised towards the darkness. The aliens that accompanied them stared in abject terror at the response of their human counterparts. But they could not feel it, the creeping slithering, horror.

"What's wrong." Sunny demanded, her voice echoing out around them, thundering down the passageway, not making it very far before being consumed by the dark.

And it was as if, all around them, the creeping malignancy went.... Silent.

Stopped as if holding its breath.

The humans shifted uneasily in their space weapons pointed into the darkness, though the beams of their flashlights seemed to terminate long before they should have. Despite waiting, the feeling from earlier did not return, though Commander Vir still felt.... Something. It was strange, like the buzzing of flies or a soft humming just out of range of hearing, or perhaps a sound just deep enough to be undetectable by humans, but still acknowledged by the unconscious parts of the brain.

Whatever it was sent the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as tiny shutters ran up and down his spine.

The darkness stretched on before them.

One of the marines stepped back breathing loud over the intercom inside his helmet, "Commander, we shouldn't be here."

Adam agreed.

And he had never wanted anything more than to agree with the marine, and turn tail. But he knew that wasn't an option, "Stand your ground marine, we have an obligation to these people."

The group was somber, "I want two of you to stay back with the shutte. Make sure to keep in constant contact with the ship and update them on our progress, the rest of us are going to keep going. I am going to have our hazmat team meet us down here with body bags. With the way everything is looking ..." His voice fell flat on the dead air, and the marines stayed uncharacteristically mute.

"I'll take point." He said lastly, and that seemed to at least galvanize them into action. Pulling his weapon more tightly to his shoulder, Adam faced down the halway following the cold steel line of the floor as it traced it's way up into blackness, and then vanished.

He took a step, and listened to it echo into the dark passageway down further and further along what seemed like an endless distance.

His heart throbbed, and that same tingling sensation from earlier erupted over his cheeks, "Sunny." he muttered quietly, Reassured when her voice came over the line distorted and warped, but otherwise familiar.

His team continued on softly, pushing back the reluctant darkness with the beam of his light. The floor ahead of him was bare and clean.

"Commander."

Reluctantly, he turned to the side just slightly to get a look back at his marines, though his eyes still fixed upon that impenetrable blackness, "What is it marine."

Ramirez's face was gaunt in the yellow pallor of his helmet light giving him a sickly jaundiced appearance if not that, than the appearance of wax read to drip off a melting candle, "I can't do this." The man's voice quivered with a strange hum that seemed to match that distant buzzing, "I have to go back."

"What's wrong marine?" The commander wondered, "We have to keep going."

"If you can't tell why than you're a FUCKING IDIOT" The marines went absolutely still with shock. Staring at their companion in utter disbelief.

"Ramirez, what the hell."

"Not cool."

The man began to rock on his heels, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, "We shouldn't be here." The mareine was shaking his head erratically, "We have to go. We shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be here." His voice once frantic, raising in pitch and desperation.

"MARINE, calm down!" Commander Vir snapped, "Get ahold of yourself!"and the man quieted, but continued to rock refusing to move one step more.

"Someone take him back to the shuttle." The commander ordered, and one of the marines quickly volunteered, glared off by his companions. Commander Vir could see it in their eyes, what for a moment seemed like terrible.... Ravenous anger.

He shook it off and turned back to the darkness. Inside, his chest was suddenly filled with the feeling of a thousand scuttling spiders digging their way into his lungs clambering through his alveoli, yet they continued onwards. The pale yellow gleam of their lights continued to show.... Nothing, nothing but the long, dark hallway stretching into blackness.

They came upon a few doors on their way down, which the marines cleared in their usual fashion, but what they found was no more than storage rooms and offices. It all seemed well at first, stacks and stacks of boxes piled atop one another, a desk stacked with papers, the chair pulled out as if waiting for its occupant to return. The life support lights blinked a soft green to demonstrate that they were working.

Commander Vir stared into one of the storage spaces, and inside he felt a deep sense of dread and unease, but these were simply boxes, just stacks of boxes, nothing to worry him at all/ They even checked behind the crates out of a sense of paranoia, but there was nothing to be seen. Out in the hallway, Sunny, and a team of marines kept their eyes down the hall.

Commander Vir turned to position.

Why had those rooms bothered him so much.

It was just then that a deep, prolonged moan echoed down the hallway. The marines snapped into position facing down into the blackness guns raised. Commander Vir felt a rush of bubbles into his nose and throat.

"The fuck was that." Someone was saying

"Where did it come from?" Demanded another

"It came from behind us, I swear!"

"Shut the hell up all of you!" The commander snarled, "Our ship makes noises like that all the time, it's simply the beams settling, that's what happens when your ship is in a vacuum." The marines went silent again. Inside his head the background buzzing intensified, like the static of a TV or the distant muble of a vacuum cleaner.

Inside his suit his hands had gone icy cold. Little eruptions of tingling rolled up and down his left side, like the response one gets when a sensual whisper caresses the ears. His palms and feet were horribly cold, his jaw locked, and his teeth gritted. His face felt as if that distant static had somehow made its way into his skin. Metal clattered and clanged vibrating up into the souls of his feet. The inside of his suit was hot while simultaneously being freezing cold. His only safety came from the reassuring weight of a weapon in his arms.

The floor fell away before him as the dying moan seeped into the metal below his feet and above his head.

Above his head... he hadn't thought about above his head, and the horrendous feeling of being watched.

Watched by something..... Something stretching down from the ceiling in long gelatinous strings, just inches from his head!

In a panic he dropped to one knee thrusting the muzzle of his weapon upwards images of wild eyes and rotting flesh burned into his mind. Behind him the marines cursed or screamed reacting as their Commander had.

His light fell upon the ceiling and saw.... Absolutely nothing.

Breathing heavily, Commander Vir cursed. His entire body was a mass of static tingling, like his very skin was infested with maggots. His heart beat so hard and so fast inside his chest, the only thing he could hear was it's frantic beat, "F-false alarm." he stammered, unable to shake the feeling that something HAD been reaching for him. There was no way a feeling that potent could have been so wrong.

They continued onward, and as he listened, the echoes branched outwards seeming to reach upwards filling a substantial space around them. The marines fanned out in a wide semicircle, two facing back in the direction they had come.

"Cargo bay. Alright marines, this is going to be basecamp. I want those portable floodlights set up, and a guard on any and all exits at all times. Once we have secured the area, I want our other teams to join us." Honestly, they didn't really need that may marines for this sort of operation, but Commander Vir was well and truly disquieted, and that trepidation made him eager for more guns.

***

"How's he doing?" Commander Vir asked, standing at the center of a brightly lit cargo bay made that way by no less than twenty portable floodlights.

Krill's voice came crackling over the line, "Ramirez... it's strange, he says he's feeling better, but he looks terrible, clammy skin pale, rapid pulse. I can't find anything physically wrong, so I'll probably get a consult down from psych. He wants me to tell you he's sorry, says he doesn't know what came over him."

"Tell him it's alright, we were all sort of freaked." easy for him to admit in the comforting light of over a dozen spotlights, but beyond that, where the radius of light gave way to the darkness.....

"Oh... and captain, there is probably something you should know. I wanted to tell you earlier, but you had already left."

"Oh, go on."

"It's Conn."

The commander stood straighter surprised, "Conn, has he woken up?"

Krill was silent for a moment, "Not exactly, but a few hours ago, he started moving around, mouthing things. His eyes are open, but he doesn't seem to be registering anything. He seems aggressive agitated, and the uh.... Glados and the others seem very upset too. I have waffles taking care of them, but it's only so much ..."

"Guess everyone aboard the ship is freaked out, eh, anyway, keep me posted." He finished the conversation and motioned to a group of marines supervising the setup of the hazmat team, "Alright, you guys, on me, we are going to get this party started."

Since boarding the ship, and seeing that the life support was still functional, they had chosen to take off their space suits, for gear that would be less cumbersome in close-quarters combat. Commander Vir was still not entirely sure that taking off their respirators had been a good idea. The instant he had pulled off his helmet, he had been nasally accosted by a sickly sweet, rotting pungence that permeated the air and wriggled itself into the very fibers of his soul.

It was also a heavy smell, one that crawled deep into the nose and implanted itself at the back of his throat. So pungent were the smells, that, he felt like he could almost taste it, and was forced to fight bodily against his gag reflex as bile bubbled into his throat. He had quickly ordered better respirators from the med bay, and was currently sporting their crew's newest fashion trend, a hard plastic mask that strapped around the back of his head but giving his full coverage over his mouth and nose.

Despite their heavy presence aboard the ship, going on almost half a day, no living being had appeared, that in itself did not bode well, considering the remaining options.

Either, no one was still alive to appear.

Or the living had chosen not to.

As for that feeling from earlier? Well here in the floodlit cargo bay, he could almost ignore the distant buzzing of static, and the chills had died down to a cold clamminess, but beneath all the bustling and movement, it was still there, like the ringing in one's ears that establishes itself as a high pitched squeal, unheard when talking or working, but deafeningly loud when the quiet takes over.

A team of marines formed up around him, augmented by an extra woman to take the spot Ramirez had left. Somehow, she managed to seem surprisingly unphased while the rest of them were close to pissing themselves. Generally, at this point, he would have fallen back to direct from the rear, but left it up to one of the more experienced marines while making his way to the forward middle just behind the woman from earlier.

He knew how to clear a room ,though this wasn't his area of tactical expertise.

"Ready Commander?" The marine called form the back.

"Ready when you are, marine."

"Tac lights on, we are going to do a slow sweep, pause the stick at every door keeping watch forward and rear, middle clearing rooms. Let's go."

Behind them, comforting glow of the floodlights faded. To their right, the marine on guard duty for the passaged looked at them with an expression of trepidation, her eyes wide and glinting wetly with the dull glow, "I'm not sure if it's just the ship, Commander, but I... it sounds like there is something down there."

He did not particularly appreciate her warning though it was taken into advisement.

Soon, the comforting cacophony of the cargo bay began to fade warping and melding into a strange distant hum. The light dimmed with it, leaving only the thin beams of their flashlights to cut through the murk. He could feel droplets of condensation beading onto his skin in hot, humid droplets. Beams of their flashlights cut down the hall moving and warping shadows across the hallway and floors. The distant buzzing from earlier grew louder and louder, until he was accompanied by a continual stream of static.

Their footsteps thudded loudly on the meta floors despite every attempt to stay quiet.

Halfway up the hall, a warm gust putrid wind blew past them carrying with it a soft, mournful moan. The marine at their head slowed casting her light over the distant hallway.

"Everything alright, marine?" The commander wondered.

"Yes..... I just, for a second I thought..." She trailed off shaking her head, "Nevermind."

The hair rose down the back of his spine.

"Two doors, right and left." The point marine called, coming to a stop just past that point.

"Clear door." The column stopped, and Commander Vir turned to assist a marine on the left, while another two took the door on the right.

They found nothing more than abandoned storage rooms, stacks and stacks of crates illuminated in the light of their torches, and continued onwards.

Something plagued him at the back of his mind.

"Commander, the methane levels are climbing. Same with Hydrogen Sulfide." The group remained quiet at the news.

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, surrounding them in a dim bubble of light crowded on all sides by darkness. The hallway ahead was silent and empty but for the writhing of shadows.

"Opening."

They were directed into a quick fan pattern, one of their members facing backwards against the pursuing wall of darkness as they came into the room. The ambient glow of their torches provided just enough light to illuminate some sort of dining hall, or a kitchen. It was an eerie scene in the dark, chairs pulled form the sides of tables, waiting to be pushed back in abandoned plates left with moldering crumbs upon the counter. Cans and cartons were left abandoned to spoil, like whoever had been here had left in a hurry and never bothered to return. A single lone chair sat isolated in a corner washed of all color transporting them into a dark, alternate dimension of black, grey eeriness.

Long reaching shadows stretched grasping fingers into the darkness.

The illumination of their tac lights roved about the room in a thin nebulous columns showing nothing of great interest..... until

A hunched figure came into sharp relief against their lights.

One of the marines cursed, lights quivered. The commander raised a hand.

Even from here, he could tell the man or woman was dead.

Slowly he motioned the others into the room approaching the corpse himself. Not so much a corpse anymore as grinning skeleton. As the light washed over it, the sockets of the eyes sunk into deep pools of blackness. Teeth, still white in comparison to the stained brown bone, grinned at them with a horrid gap-toothed smile just visible through a ragged tangle of drying hair which stick in vein-like trails over the moldering bone.

The skeleton was undisturbed.

It sat at one of the tables slumped heavily against the wall. Dried brown stains coated the floor and wall around the corpse in a discolored puddle. The putrid discoloration had oozed onto the wall and slowly wormed its way into the minute seams leaving a cracked and drying crust behind it. The clothes, still somewhat intact, clung stiffly to the bone, rigid and brown with dried residue.

But strangest of all was how the corpse sat, propped against the wall bony fingers still clutched loosely about an oxidized fork and knife, a pristine white plate sitting before him on the table. Aside from a small amount of dust, and residue shed from the hands, the plate was..... Clean.

The man looked as if he had died while sitting down for a meal, though there had been no food on his plate.

"Its like he just... sat down and died." one of the marines whispered

Just then a horrendous screech and crash shook quaked the room. A moment of sheer intense panic seized the commander, like the feeling of being constricted from all sides. The static in his ears roared to a crescendo as their lights sent shadows into a crazed and ghastly dance. Adam would have sworn he saw something large, and fleshy skitter away into the shadows just as his tac light fell on a pan still rolling and rattling against the floor. Frantically he panned his weapon in a tight arc, over the floor and across the walls.

The sound of skittering, like the movement of a million bugs washed over him, so intense he felt as if he could feel the little creatures crawling up his body, burrowing into the fabric of his clothing, and crawling into his ears. His skin crawled and squirmed with a thousand maggots. They invaded his shoes, squelching between his does, filling his mouth and nose, worming their way down his throat.

He could feel them crawling on his insides carving tunnels just under the skin of his back.

He gagged against the feeling batting at his arms and neck dropping his weapon on it tac sling to bounce against his upper thighs as he swatted at his face and skin spitting and gagging.

Something grabbed him by the arm, "COMMANDER!"

The feeling vanished.

He stood in a cold sweat tingling like his entire body had fallen asleep quivering with the remembered feeling.

"Commander, are you alright."

Adam dashed a hand across his mouth expecting to find bugs, but found nothing more than strings of saliva. He wiped his mouth again, "Shit, what the hell was that?"

"Nothing, sir. No one SAW anything, and we were guarding all the doors."

His body trembled. So, either it had somehow snuck in, or it had been here the entire time..... If there was in fact anything there? Perhaps one of the marines had brushed the pot handle as they walked past causing it to slip and vibrate against the floor.

He took a deep breath, unable to quell the urge to spit another gobit of phlegm onto the floor wetting his cracked lips with a raspy tongue, "Deploy the micro-drones. Have them get some samples and take pictures, then we will take care of the body."

While his orders were being carried out, the rest of the marines busied themselves searching the room rummaging through cupboards and drawers though one marine had backed himself into a corner nervously sweeping his light across the floor and ceiling.

There were no more disturbances, and they found nothing but stacks of tins, boxes and packages. They came across a drawer full of pristine, dusty, coated utensils, but nothing remarkably out of the ordinary.

Radio calls were made, and another team came to collect the body. Commander Vir watched from a pool of darkness as the yellow-suited hazmat team worked to peal the skeleton from it's cracked juices. WIth enough urging the bones came apart, and the man was slowly disassembled into his component parts and crammed into a black bag whose surface glittered and shone like freshly pourn tar.

His hands were the last to go, rusting metal utensils wrestled from the still clutching fingers, and left abandoned on the table next to the glittering white plate.

The sull, hunkered in a bed of its own bones, gave him one last knowing grin, before being zipped shut.

The hazmat team retreated with their group of marines, taking with them the rustling of their suits, and the solemn comfort of their voices. Again they had been left in that dark colorless place surrounded on all sides by the ghost of an evening that would never come to pass.

There was no knowing how long it had been stuck like this, though a thick mat of dust covered the floor. Nervously he glanced towards the fallen pot, but the ground was far to disturbed to determine what had actually happened.

But perhaps that was a hand-print?

No, it couldn't be.

"I'll take point," He announced stepping in front of the female marine as they made their way into position. He wasn't technically supposed to be here, but the fear.... The fear was starting to overcome him. That feeling, from the first moment they had stepped onto the ship, that cold icy sensation that licked slowly up his back to the point behind his ear. His skin crawled and his heart hammered as he tucked his weapon against his shoulder in a low-ready position. The only thing keeping him here was the desire to protect his marines.

Stepping into the hallway, his imagination wandered with him into the dark. His marines sitting silently on the floor of an abandoned back room, their bodies withering with the slow decay of time, their flesh dripping like candle wax from their bones forgotten in the slow progression of time as the cold darkness of space surrounded them, lost and entombed forever.

He shivered, "Door right." He called, just before his light passed over a second door, "Door left." He called out taking a few steps forward into the darkness and stopping while the marines readied themselves to breach the room. He kept his body at a slight angle head cocked towards the doors so he could hear, eyes looking off down the hallway. He heard the door open, and the marines entered. It must have been a larger room, for it required more than one marine to actually enter and make the sweep.

He heard them speaking, calling out to each other, and tilted his head just a little further in their direction eyes, momentarily, closer to the marines than it was to the hallway.

And that's when the sensation came, a malicious presence rushing headlong from the darkness, a scuttling evil presence fed by spiteful purpose, carried by the slapping of wet feet, and hands upon cold metal. WIth a cry of alarm, he whipped around expecting to find the ravening beast leap at him from the darkness.

But, as before, there was nothing, nothing but the endless dark hallway stretching back into the gloom. Another sluggish breeze cut past him bringing with it a deep and tenuous moan.

The commander felt sick to his stomach, his hands shook and his face tingled. Tears pricked at the corners of his vision, and inside every fiber of his being told him to turn back. There was something wrong about that presence, something more horrific than any monster or beast, though that's what he had called it in his haste.

Though he had not seen it, he could feel it's malicious intent, its hatred, its unholy evil.

An emotion no animal could comprehend, no alien reconstruct.

A human emotion.

-

He told no one what he had felt when they returned, though Sunny seemed suspicious. The rooms had been sleeping quarters at one point, all the beds put neatly away, dusty family photos left forgotten atop nightstands and laying about the floor. It seemed odd how deliberately the beds had been made though family photos were discarded upon the floor.

Though he wished for nothing more than to turn back, he forced himself to keep going reminding himself constantly of the companionship giving him by the marines, and Sunny.

They cleared several more sleeping quarters, multiple offices and the occasional storage room, though all were left in similar states of, perfect tidiness or abandoned disarray. None of it had been touched in months. He was beginning to wonder if they would ever find the rest of the crew, when the buzzing began.

It was a distant sound, similar but not holy the same as that soft malefic buzzing that had plagued him through this journey. It was, somehow, more substantial, and as they moved down the hall, the sound swelled, louder and louder and louder until it was almost deafening.

"Methane readings are extremely high commander."

In response, Commander Vir panned his weapon about the hallway causing a beam of light to cut upwards onto a set of doors as well as the ceiling and floor beneath, and stopped. The ground outside the door was coated in a glistening greenish-black sludge, the door itself was lacquered in, hot thick moisture, and, somehow, a trail of rotting putrid mold had begun festering upon the ceiling above the door. The buzzing was louder now, louder than it had ever been, and inside Commander Vir knew what he was going to find.

And for that reason, he had chosen to switch spots with the female marine behind him. He didn't want to do it, but he knew it had to be done.

He positioned himself to the side of the door, and motioned for a marine to open it.

The doors slid open with a sickening squelch. Commander Vir took one step in, and then stopped as his tac light fell on the opposing wall. The very room itself heaved a breath as the walls and floors around him pulsed and throbbed expanding and contracting like a writhing vat of putrid decay throbbing like the beating of the ship's oversized heart.

And the sound a gelatinous high pitched squirming in time with deafening, droning buzz.

Behind him, a marine wretched.

"Not in your mask dammit!" one of the others yelled at him

Commander Vir, couldn't move. He was frozen on the spot hands like ice knees locked. His stomach clawed its way first ito his pelvis, and then into his throat seeking escape. The feeling returned, maggots crawling through his skin chewing their way through his brain and out through his eyes. He could feel them, as real as anything slithering about his body.

"Holly mother fuck!" one of the marines whispered, and he too turned away to gag. Finally, commander Vir was able to step away backing out of the door and ordering it closed behind him.

"Call the hazmat team and get them down here. We have a lot of work to do."

-

When all was said and done, a staggering sixty percent of the crew was recovered. Krill ,ordered over as the ship's coroner, had been forced to use skulls to count bodies and determine at least sixty percent of the crew was present. Commander Vir tried not to look at the small skulls instead forced to face the reality that, some of the crew were still in the active stages of decomposition, which, as Krill explained, meant they had died within the last month, some at least within the last weak. He felt his heart sink.

Perhaps, if they had been a couple days earlier....

The issue was, the bodies were in such a state that Krill was having a hard time figuring out what had been their cause of death. Another team of marines returned from the other end of the ship, towards engineering and reported that they had come upon a locked door. The door, they said had been marred with many strange scratches and dents. They were forced to open it with extreme force, and upon coming inside, they had been, again blocked by stacks and stacks of equipment apparently used to block the door.

Another ten percent of the crew had been found inside.....

Nothing was making sense, a least nothing except for what the engineers had found when they inspected the warp core. Whatever it was, it had been a catastrophic malfunction which had taken out all central power to the engines, and sent an emp burst which permanently fried their long-distance communications. The backup life support generator had survived though the main one had also been taken out in the blast. The transmission itself had come from a short-wave radio stored in a sort of faraday cage in engineering. In space, the signal would be practically useless, which is why they hadn't picked up on it earlier.

The message from earlier repeated on a loop.

Those bodies were only just beginning to bloat, and Krill determined cause of death on all subjects to be asphyxiation characterized by petechial and subconjunctival hemorrhaging about the eyes and under the skin not to mention ligature abrasions about the neck.

truthfully , having Krill here was simply a formality.... No one had been surprised about their cause of death.... Especially not after they had been found, alone, in the dark gently swaying side by side. Not alone.... Even in death.

The real question was.... Where was the other 20% of the crew?

There was only one small section aboard the ship that they had yet to explore, and Commander Vir wagered to guess they would find their answers there, on the bridge.

-

Most of the ship had been explored by this time, flood lights had been set, and informal safe-zones had been set which included a small team of marines and three to four of the massive floodlights. They began the staging of their last push in the kitchen where the first corpse had been found. It was him, three marines, and Sunny, who with the other female marine had shown no great reaction to the strange eeriness of the ship. The other two had been with him since the beginning, and were damned if they weren't going to see it through.

He adjusted the mask waiting for the other marines to ready themselves.

His eye was caught by a strange and unusual glint. Turning his head, his eyes were brought towards the darkest corner of the room, isolated from the floodlights and a wide ring of caution tape. The single, white ceramic plate from before glinted at him from the shadows it's surface empty and glistening, though still coated in a layer of dust.

It seemed out of place, though how a plate could be out of place in a kitchen remained a mystery.

He turned his gaze away as the marines announced their readiness, and together, they began their trek down the hallway, now lit by a hundred pale orbs of light lining the path to that first door, which was now sealed off with caution tape, beyond that, the darkness began again. Despite the sealed door, the Buzzing was still there to remind him of what lay behind that door.

A fly landed on his cheek, its hairlike feet sending shivers up his skin, and he swatted it away in disgust knowing form where it had spawned.

He stepped over the greasy smear of brownish film and aimed his flashlight down the rest of the hallway, there were many doors here, though only this one seemed to show hints of what it contained. The bulb in his light flickered and dimmed before brightening again. He moved forward with his team switching on and off the point position as he moved, sometimes waiting outside, and sometimes falling back to clear a room worried for what his marines would find.

He opened a small door himself, while the two others checked the hall and two more remained on watch. It was a small room no more than a few feet wide with exposed piping and electrical circuits. He reached out attempting to flip on the main breaker, but other than a dull thud, the lock remained stuck and silent. He rolled his light over the floor and paused in confusion when he saw it resting against the far wall.

A can of what appeared to be brand-generic tomato soup. Head tilted to the side, he slowly crouched, and reached out a hand for the can.

His hearing exploded as the high pitched keening swelled in his ears. All sound dulled, and his vision went white fading slowly to black, the light of his flashlight had gone grey and white, tingles erupted down his back, crawling into his face and bringing water to his eyes. His very body trembled with a sense of terror so profound, it was as if the devil himself stood at his back. Even as he thought that, he could sense it, a hateful rabid demonic presence, crouched just behind him. He could feel its hot, rasping breath on his neck, could sense it's soulless black eyes boring into his soul, and almost feel those slime-coated teeth chattering with anticipation. The sensation was one so deeply profound it was like being stared at by a thousand eyes. The buzzing static in his head became a hissing whisper, a maddened warbling.. The world around him was a slowed grey expanse of eternity, trapped in a state of indescribable panic. Darkness slowly rose up behind him, the presence lifting thin, elongated arms, too long for its body, fingers too long for its hands spreading outwards like he was sprouting an unholy set of wings.

Plunging downward

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he screamed with raw inhuman terror entire body contracting violently away from the touch. Time around his was ruptured, and he clattered against the wall, sending the can of tomato soup spinning across the floor.

"Commander!."

The marine stood over him with wide confused eyes.

Commander Vir gasped and panted against the gut-wrenching panic that still gripped his chest. His vision was tunneled into blackness, and all the shapes around him appeared indistinct, "How long.... Have you been there?" He stammered.

"I came to check on you sir, you'd been gone for like five minutes and we all got worried.

Five minutes.... That hadn't been five minutes. He checked his watch, but the marine was right,

"Are you alright, Commander. Do you need to head back?"

"No I.... I'm alright, just... let my paranoia overcome me is all." The marine reached out a hand, and the Commander took it standing and trying to conceal the fact that his legs were shaking.

There were only a few more rooms left, after all. The door shut behind him closing on that can of tomato soup inside.

The next three rooms were clear, though unlike other places aboard the ship, they did show signs of recent use. Running a light obliquely over one of the surface walls, showed raised discoloration from an oily set of hand prints going all around the room, high onto the walls, and across the floor to meld with similar footprints.

Otherwise, the room was empty.

There was only one door left.

Sunny and the female marine set themselves to the side of the doors allowing Commander Vir and the other marine to breach the room. Commander Vir stepped in first sweeping his light from the nearest corner over and around the center of the room. The other marines took their corners, and together they moved inside.

The bridge, didn't appear much like a bridge anymore, all the consuls and equipment had been unbolted and stripped from the floor. Stiff, brown fabric buzzing with flies had been strung up from the ceiling and down onto the floor giving the room a strange alien quality to it, like they had walked into a cave, or perhaps the throat of some virulent beast.

To add to the strangeness of it all, almost every available flat surface was piled with open containers, bottles and glasses and jars of water. Pillows lay discarded across the floor their generally white casings stained with filth. The jars themselves seemed to make a pathway through the room.

Sweeping his light forward, Commander Vir followed the trail of stained cloth up towards the end of the path, where a single, stained chair still remained bolted to the floor. It was a large chair sat atop a raised dais, though it was slightly tilted to one side.

The Captain's chair.

All around it lay bodies, piled together in grotesque poses of death locked into place by rigor mortis

A horrific amalgamation of naked flesh and rot. These people, they lay together in a mass pile before the seat, somehow reminding him of a thrown as if these people had been prostrated in ritual as they slowly expired.

"The fuck." Whispered one of the marines

Commander Vir remained silent, his eyes roving over the scene before him. The bodies themselves were in a general state of decay, though in better preserved condition than the ones before.

Slowly he moved up the aisle boots making a soft thud against the unseen metal below his feet, muffled by the crusted fabric. A single body atop that pile stood out to him, in the wan light of his torch, it's skin glowed a sickly, pale grey, like the body of a decaying maggot. The thing, more creature than man, was horrifically thin it's spine protruding like that of a rabid, starving dog, so thin and knobbly that it's joints were thicker than the surrounding body parts.

Its fingernails were blackened.

Commander Vir paused to take a closer look at the body drawn in b some heinous curiosity. The other marines stood behind him examining the pile of corpses.

"No.... no no...."

Commander Vir leaned in further.

"What?"

A shuffling behind him and a soft, "They were EATING each other."

It was then, he realized many things at once.... The missing 20%, the blocaded door, the tomato soup, the clean plate, the storage rooms still full of boxes, the kitchen.

And the fact that this corpse was still chewing slowly, and rhythmically.

"COMMANDER RUN!"

The chewing stopped, and an eye flashed open, a delicate cerulean blue consumed by a black pupils and surrounded by jaundice yellow sclera.

He had no time to react.

He screamed falling backwards as the thing slammed into his chest. His tac light was thrown to the floor and sent spinning across the ground. The room erupted into chaos. He kicked out with one foot catching the creature in the chest and knocking it backwards. It skidded back across the floor on all fours, the greyness of it's skin thrown into sharp relief, an amalgamation of bruising and torn open sores still weeping clear fluid and infection.

He scrambled backwards, and it scuttled after him. Light rolled around him like a strobe giving him only glimpses of the creature as it crawled towards him gnashing yellowed teeth overcome by bleeding, decaying gums. He scrambled for his sidearm running into something soft, and moist at his back. The lights flashed.

The creature plunged from the darkness, its ragged black nails scrambling for his neck.

He caught it by the arms pushed backwards into a putrid mass. Fabric tore and bone cracked desperately he strained against the creature flailing arms. It was inhumanly strong as it pushed them through the mass of corpses tumbling onto a field of open jars.

Glass shattered.

Water erupted around them. The thing began to shreak so loud that his ears rang. His hand slipped, and the creature got one arm free, more glass shattered. He could see the gelatinous film coating the creature's eyes, watched strings of saliva drip from it's open mouth. It pulled its hand back fingers curving into talons pressed close together.

"THE EYES."

The hand came plunging downwards towards his face, and he scrambled back kicking and screaming. The hand came down, again and again and again stabbing down towards his eye. He tried to catch the creature's hand, but was only able to block it.

It screamed.

Glass shattered as he deflected it to the side it's fingers stabbing into the glass coming back bloody.

It straddled him by the hips fighting to gain both hands as it jabbed at him again. Greasy black fingernails rocketed towards his face, seeking his eyes.

Teeth gnashed and champed.

Screaming form around the room.

It grabbed him, and together they plunged through a tear in the fabric. Something sharp crunched beneath him, it grew darker, light dissipated by crusted fabric.

He felt it coming towards his face catching the creature's wrist. Light grew in his vision, withering black nails inches from his face. It pressed down with all its might quivering closer and closer to the surface of his eye.

Something glinted at him from the darkness.

A panic, and desperation the likes of which he had never felt overwhelmed him flooding his body with strength. He screamed, wrenching the creature's arm from his face, grabbing it by the side of the head, and thrusting it bodily sideways.

The things scream was cut off by a sickening crunch.

The glinting, the tip of a jagged broken rib.

He lay there, on his side against a field of bones staring into the glassy face of this.... No... not a creature.

A man.

A man with shocked cerulean blue eyes faded in death strings of white-blond hair still clinging to his diseased scalp, and the ore he looked the more human the thing became. A man in his thirties emaciated diseased, probably in pain. Commander vir looked down and saw a jacket tied loosely around the man's waist.

Pinned to the collar was a dull set of captain's bars.

For a moment it was as if he could see his own face staring back at him. This man, he could be any one of them.

He felt his body heave, and he scrambled away clawing his way through the opening and into a field of broken glass.

"Don't shoot!" Someone screamed.

"Commander!."

On hands and knees his body heaved violently again his nose tingled, his throat constricted. Tears leaped to his eyes. The heave turned into a sob, but he choked it back down, staggering to his feet his breath heavy and warm inside the mask. Someone rushed to help him, while another shined his light through the opening.

"Holy shit."

"Commander, are you ok?"

He waved the marine off his ears ringing, "Order everyone back to the ship RIGHT NOW."

His orders were not questioned. A radio went on somewhere, and two of the marines helped to support him as they walked down the hall. His body felt numb, it wasn't that he couldn't move, but he couldn't feel his feet on the floor.

Eventually someone else took over for the marines. Two arms supported him from the side, in a strong inhuman embrace. Sunny tried to speak with him, but his mind was too focused to acknowledge her. They had to get out, he had to get them out. He refused to go forward unless he could see his marines checking constantly behind him as they went. Anyone they saw along the way was ordered back to the ship. Leave the equipment they could get more.

He stood in the cargo bay surrounded by bodies filtering through the doors calling out names and checking off crew manifest. Shuttles were launched back to the ship, and he refused to leave until the last shuttle was opened.

Together with Sunny, and his original team of marines, he stepped onto the shuttle. The darkened hallways lined with cheap LEDs stretched back behind him. Something clattered sending echoes up the hall. A marine sealed the door with a sharp his, and with unwavering hands, Commander Vir piloted the ship into space eyes locked forward, body still feeling nothing.

The light that hit him upon returning to his ship was the most relieving sensation he had ever felt, like taking an elevator to heaven from the depths of hell. The crew waited in the cargo bay as they exited the shuttle waiting with fearful, wide eyes. The marines especially gathered around him, but at that moment he felt..... Nothing.

He looked at the marines. He had to make sure they were ok, "The lot of you, get yourself up to psych RIGHT NOW!"

"But captain."

His voice dropped low, "Argue with me again marine, and it will be the last thing you do."

The group stepped back

He lifted his head, "THAT GOES FOR THE LOT OF YOU. Anyone who stepped foot on that ship or even listened to that transmission better have a psych referral to me by the end of the week on my desk in signed in TRIPLICATE from all three of our attending physicians psych and medical otherwise. NOW GET MOVING."

No one questioned him, and standing there in the crowd, he felt his body go numb. Cold sweat rolled from his temples and down his collar, he began to shiver violently. His hearing still hadn't come back from earlier, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded his heart pounded even as a great sense of exhaustion came over him.

Before he knew it, he was sitting on the floor. Someone was speaking to him, though he couldn't concentrate enough to make it out. Only that memory, of the repeated hand jabbing downwards towards his face.

More voices muttering, they elevated in shock, and a second later something cupped him gently about the face tilting his head back. The movement was gentle almost caring. Lights blinded him for a moment, but then a face resolved itself in his vision, paper white, humanoid and with wide black eyes.

"Conn." He muttered.

"Sleep, Commander, and I will ease your fear."

A sensation, like someone pouring clear warm water into his thoughts. His shivering died down, and he felt himself float away.

***

Humans don't die easily.

And sometimes when they do, when they should leave, they linger.