among us forehead visible from behind

Riverrun, an endless void loomed cold as the hum of electricity filled the room. A lone voice echoed down the corridor, “YOU’RE SO SUSSY”. My conscious was drenched in deep red blood, filled with thoughts of murder.

“I know you are the impostor, but I beg you, act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

I raised my knife to the crewmates, knowing that they would have no means to defend themselves. The sus settles deep into my heart as it is carried to my hand. Quietude of resolve layered over fear. It is this resolve that pushes me, the knife and me, deeper and deeper into the crewmate beneath. This is an incision that is beyond caress; still, it is among us the gentlest of acts. Stroke, stroke again, joint as the steel blade deflowers the victim beneath. Red mixed with the golden highlights of the spacesuit glitter as the tip of the knife conflates with the youthfulness of the skin; akin, seduced, like Leda to the swan, innocent souls tainted with crimson, wrapped and woven as threads of fate. The knife guided Cerberus hunting its victim, its sharp and long fangs split the red sea, but yet again, lost in the process, aimlessly searching for the next incision. One, two, three quick stabs, limbs drop like petals on a flower, withering away, as if it was the final futile resistance against the cruelty of this world. The sound that the body made as it fell to the floor comically unsuited to the situation. I laugh, like children absorbed in a game or the craftsmen of some place like Susa. Dust fell from the aging wires and switches, landing silently on the now corpse of yellow. Pompeii, Buried, their expressions forever unknown, their last words spoken only to the wind. How long till those frozen in time are uncovered, before the knell is signed and the fallen acknowledged. Bone, crowned by the waist high flesh, coronates my first kill, an impostor of sorts, hollow without substance. I wash away the evidence of my deed, but cannot erase the sanguine name assigned to me by the heavens, hung high like a noose above my non-existent neck.

I slowly and somewhat gingerly bend one leg after the other, leaning my back on the frigid steel that lines the wall. The feeling of immorality mixes with the adrenaline running through my veins, it is both visceral and sensual, and I am wrapped in a whirlwind of emotion as the blood rushes to my head. My arteries throb and bulge, pulsing as new blood is pushed to and fro within my body. This is the climax, the final movement of a masterful symphony, oh what a feeling, and to think that there are still nine more for me to kill. I opened my eyes once more, as the sharp shriek of the alarm interrupted my dreams.

“I’ve called this private meeting here today because there is an impostor among us, one of us brothers has been killing crewmates on the side, yes he has”