Killer
Death after death, the spaceship gets quieter. The constant background hum pierces my ears as I walk through the corridors. Paranoia has settled in. None of us trust each other anymore. People are hiding, and the robots have been mounted to the walls, shut down, until the murderer is found.
I have taken it upon myself to find who has taken so many of us, against my own security, by not staying in a locked room. I can’t stay still. Not just because of my motor restlessness; the killer has taken someone who means a lot to me. They have taken my kind-hearted brother, who has done nothing bad to any living soul. He was a gentle giant.
There is a click behind me. I turn to glance over my shoulder. The lines of robots that had once been our servers and surveyors for distant planets are mounted in their places, still. The lights are out of their lucid eyes, mimicking ours.
I listen to the corridor and the air conditioner humming in the background. No one is there, but I lower my hand to my dazer, ready to pull it out if I need to, as I continue toward the ship’s kitchen.
I have become a ghost haunting the halls of the spaceship, and I feel like it; my skin has turned gray with worry, and a sluggish energy weighs on my whole composure. It is as if I am waiting to join my brother.
Or maybe this is all a dream I dreamed inside a mental institution. The white walls of the ship are my room; the constant hum comes from the staff monitoring me, and the robots are other patients like me. Yet I remember my history, my work as a scientist, and the specimens I took from planets in search of a place to settle. It all can’t be a lie.
I turn left, circling closer to the center of the ship. All corridors lead to the kitchen. You just have to walk long enough. I follow the lines on the floor, the lines color-coded to take me wherever I want. The kitchen is marked orange.
The click comes again. This time closer than before. I turn to face the corridor I have just come from. I draw my dazer, waiting. The clicking is frequent. Someone is there. Then it stops. I rush into the corridor I came from, and there is nothing—just the robots on the walls. I check them all, confirming that they are shut down. Not a single one of them is online.
Not a robot. Human then. Something I have feared.
I continue down the orange line, taking me to the ship’s kitchen. Everything is white, lit, and comfortable. I have endless memories of talking, laughing, and gaming with the other crew members, wasting our free time away. The thought that someone has used that time to assess us and become a killer seems strange, seems wrong.
I hide my cameras in the kitchen so the ship captures what happens from every angle, and I wait, taking my usual seat. The clicking starts again. This time it comes closer with every sound. I keep my spot, and I finally see them. It is the captain.
No, not the captain. Something else. Her eyes are bloody, and her mouth hangs open. All the veins on her face are black. She cocks her head toward me and smiles. There is a gurgle before she rushes to me, and I hit my dazer hard against her leg. It doesn’t stop her. Her hands are forceful, and they pin me against the back of the bench.
She moans as she searches for my neck. The captain pushes her face closer to mine, and I smell the rotten stench coming from her mouth. She was the first one to die, and something is keeping her alive. That something is going to kill me. Then another click, and the captain is hoisted into the air. I watch a robot standing there and seizing the captain.
Then I see my friend Judy. She stares at me with a smug grin. I have been nothing but bait all along.
—
What I got today was a period mystery about overcoming a monster, written in the first person. I have redefined period, and it means whatever goes! Stupid rules. They’re meant to be broken, even the ones you create yourself. Nothing is so stagnant and major that it has to be obeyed without a thought and the question of what if.
Still having fun writing short stories. I have given myself more time to write them as I haven’t been able to write my book. After losing my cat, I thought that I needed to give myself some leeway and not push myself from all fronts. I think it has helped. I have a more coherent picture of where I want to go with my book. I think it could become one of my best works. I just need to get the tone right.
Thank you for reading! Have a what-if day, and see you tomorrow ❤
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