among us forehead used as surveillance radar

Upon entering the cafeteria I take a seat at the main table closest to the entrance from reactor. No one is here so everything is eerily quiet, silent to the point where I can hear my ragged breathing and the pounding of my heart. I continue to sit for a minute or two until I hear footsteps approaching from the lower entrance, they are small, light footsteps, possibly belonging to that of a child. I wait silently for them to enter the room, desperately attempting to silence the beating of my heart. Suddenly the door opens and a young girl emerges from the hallway, it is pink, a new recruit from Barbados. I look across at her with our eyes emergency meeting for a flickering moment. I am again reminded of the passion that flows sussily through my veins, and my face flushes a bright pink as I quickly avert my eyes. Oh, her beauty is so brilliant that it teaches the reactor to burn brightly. Did my heart love before this? Have I yearned for the embrace of another quite like this?

“My fair kitten, will you give me the honor of this dance. Can you see how my heart pounds, how my sussy lips pine for your own?”

“Oh what a joyous day, in my 18 years of life I have never met someone so sussy, one who is so much of a baka as yourself. If you find me to be satisfactory, I would be honoured to dance with one such as yourself.”

We lock arms, my chest pressed up against hers, the frenzy of mutual possession assuaged by our imbibing and assimilating of every particle of each other’s soul and flesh. We are locked in a tight embrace, my body pressed against hers and hers against mine. I close my eyes and methodically feel every inch of her petite frame, first focussing on the light touch of her thigh against mine and working my way up, making sure to take in every sound, touch and taste as we waltz our way across the cafeteria.

But our bliss is only momentary, as only seconds after our first embrace fate rips us apart, just as it had brought us together. I reluctantly push her body away from mine and contemplate giving her a kiss as we are called up for an emergency meeting.

“So, please state your location on this vessel and current tasks in order of priority before this meeting was called.” White enunciated carefully, apprehension clear in his voice.

As the current elected captain of this ship, he felt that it was his responsibility to keep an eye on the situation. He knows that amongst the crew there is an impostor, a pretender of sorts, a false crewmate, one could say, who can be said to have acted in a manner which is unusual, eye-catching or suspicious even. He does not know what the impostor wants, but he feels that the duty lies with him to complete the mission objectives, and the sussy impostor is getting in the way. As such, it was his responsibility to ensure the crew’s safety, and yet he has failed to prevent the tragic death of yellow. Little does he fathom that his problems have just begun, and he will be powerless to prevent the calamities that befall himself and this ship. Out in deep space, there will be no chance of rescue, no chance of a call for help before the souls, hopes and lives of the poor crewmates dissipated into the infinite void, unchanging, unfeeling.

“Engine bay Bravo, fuel, and then data checks in admin.” Red spoke up. I glanced at the others, trying to gauge their reception of these words. Silently observing the actions of each crewmate, I picked out the vulnerable, defenceless ones, pondering which one I should follow, and to them grant the sweet release of death. The more I thought, the stronger the urge to kill became. My head was filled with it; fantasising over the feeling of my knife cutting through their suits, plunging into the fragile flesh within. The adrenaline rushing through my veins as I take their petty lives. Alas, now I must purge these thoughts, and do my best to give myself an alibi. I looked over at white, but his expressions cannot be deciphered.

“I was working in administration when I saw yellow disappear from electrical.” Purple chimed in. “It didn’t look like there was anyone too close to the body.” I was relieved. My deed has gone unnoticed. The sus energy levels were still low, and it is a good thing. I must earn the trust of a few crewmates, and then I must bring out the crimson within them. It brings me no pleasure to do so, to betray my comrade in arms who have been beside me since the launch, driven mad by the horrible pestilence which plagues me. Who knows, I may be doing them a service. The original wishes of base camp have long been ignored, and what we’ll encounter when we eventually arrive is up to debate. The crew that started this journey is not the same as the crew that will finish. Though we may be the same in body, our spirits and soul have been fundamentally altered, battered and bruised through the long journey into the abyss.

“Was anyone in security or monitoring life-support systems?” I asked, trying to subdue the feelings and the voices in my head. “I hope that someone can give us another lead. I was in navigation and didn’t see anyone when I was correcting steering.” The crewmates glanced at me, and judging by their expression, it seems like they trust my words. After all, they have no reason to suspect me for the killing, not without evidence. Nevertheless, I needed to be on guard in case anything untoward happened.

The rest of the meeting progressed uneventfully, and eventually we arrived at an impasse. Due to the lack of hard evidence, white decided that it was not worth sacrificing a crewmate in order to remove the sus energy from the ship, and he deems that the death of yellow, while tragic, does not compromise the mission objective. We are to push on towards our original destination and survive. Once the tasks previously assigned to yellow were divided out among the rest of the crew, we went our separate ways. I am sure that we all felt uneasy and tense, but we were too duty bound to enact on emotion and step out of line. A few minutes passed and I found myself near the reactor of the ship. Checking its operating parameters, I find everything to be humming along nicely.

The voice of the pestilence grew louder, telling me to relentlessly further my goals, my goals, which deviated greatly from everyone else on the ship. My goal now aligned with the pestilence, focusing on one single objective. I have no control of my senses, and the urge to lash out is desperately attempting to consolidate itself into my mind, defining my new persona. I was no longer one of us. I am an impostor. A false crewmate. I. Am. SUS.

To the sound of shattered glass, the reactor core quickly overstressed and began to heat up as the control rods were removed. Vanishing into the background, I sought a respite from the voices, now crescendoing into a deafening roar. The noise clouded over my thoughts and I headed to a secluded hallway to regain my bearings. Mercifully, the voices seemed to disappear all at once, leaving me alone in the hallway, in blissful silence. However, the respite was fleeting, and before I could open my eyes the lights turned to a deep red, and a new noise permeated every nook and cranny of the ship.