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Wow... Scary Nedd. Poor Dan doesn't understand it completely. Nice reaction with the "We're all gonna die!" thing.
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Thanks!
Okay, seeing as its spring break, i've been trying to cram as much as I can into these chapters to make up for what i've missed.
Here you go:
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Nedd’s face was pressed roughly against something small and sharp. He pulled himself up and brushed the piece of broken glass off of his face with his fingers, wincing in pain as he felt his muscles strain against the gashes in his back. He had no recollection of what had happened after his sanity had returned; he finally decided that he must’ve passed out. He wasn’t surprised.
He looked around quickly. The room was scattered with broken glass from smashed bottles containing preserved animals. The formaldehyde from the bottles was mingled with blood that drenched the floorboards and left a gut-wrenching stench in the air that burned his eyes. He looked himself over quickly- his headphones and baseball cap were gone, lost to the basement. He wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and the blood all over the floor was measured in gallons. If he had lost that much blood, he would’ve died.
‘What is happening to me?’ He wondered, dusting shards of class off of his body. ‘How long before I completely lose it?’
He closed his eyes for some serious soul-searching, considering his options. He was angry and scared out of his wits, yes,
scared, and that troubled him. What did he have to fear? He was a berserk cylonite victim, for odd’s sake! He could crush his enemies like grapefruits! He could cut through slogs as easily as though he were dissecting fuzzles!
He grinned wickedly over his newfound courage. He could kill!
For once,
he was in control! He had the power to do whatever he pleased! And what did he want to do?
He wanted to
live.
The depression came rushing back. He could do anything he liked, but he couldn’t delay the inevitable; he was going to die soon. He would be lucky if he lived half a month with the cylonite in his veins. He whined pitifully. His stomach groaned. He hadn’t eaten in days.
Nedd left the room and stalked down the corridors, searching for the exit to the basement. If a slog scurried through the darkness, he didn’t jump; if the floor creaked, he didn’t flinch. He was slowly losing his ability to fear. It was reassuring in a twisted, macabre way. After a few minutes of wandering he came to the staircase leading to the main intersection on the first floor of the airship. He crept up the winding staircase and nudged open the door with his hand, recoiling as he waited for light to come pouring out. None came.
Satisfied, he looked up to check the lights. Every light in the elaborate hallway was off, meaning that it was night. He could tell by looking out one of the windows that it was at least midnight, possibly earlier. He carefully left the basement, making sure to leave the door open enough so he could get back inside. Then he snuck rapidly down the hallway, flowing through the corridors with the speed and agility of water. He was careful to avoid security cameras and moved faster and with more stealth than ever before without even realizing it. Occasionally, when he came to areas packed with obstacles, he would creep over everything in his way on all fours with catlike grace. His gracefulness before the fuzzle accident could be compared to that of a drunk cow.
He slid through a tall but wide doorway and examined the room before him appreciatively. The room, more like a chamber, was fifty feet long and a hundred feet wide. It was full of long, coal-grey tables with chairs attached. Trash cans that looked as though they had been used a hundred times and never cleaned were placed randomly in-between tables. The walls were painted a pale, greyish-green color, like something that had been rotting outside for weeks. This was the cafeteria. At the end of the room, Nedd spotted his target; a small doorway leading into the kitchens.
‘If the kitchens don’t have food,’ Nedd thought, ‘then I don’t know what will.’
He weaved around and under the tables, his head down. His night vision had improved so much in such short time that he could now see as easily as though it were daytime, which made his job much easier. Nedd roughly shoved open the door.
The kitchens, unlike the cafeteria, were sanitary and colorful. The walls were painted a cheery golden-orange, while the small ‘island’ counters in the middle were dark red. A dozen round, festive lights with spider-webbed, silvery shades hung unused from the ceiling. The appliances, such as the refrigerator and the microwave, were a pale, champagne-grey. Nedd sniffed the air- it smelled like baked bread and chicken broth. After double-checking the walls for security cameras, Nedd wandered over to the refrigerator.
Normally, interns lived off an unhealthy diet consisting of espresso shots and energy drinks as thick as gravy. They sipped it through thin straws that fit around their stitches. Interns didn’t need much to survive. Nedd, seeing as he had only a short time to live and no mouth stitches, planned to gorge himself on whatever was in reach.
He opened the refrigerator, and light came out!
Nedd shrieked and withered, quailing as the small light illuminated his sickly skin. He slammed the door shut and looked around hopelessly; there was food in the fridge, but how could he get to it? He opened the door a crack, just enough so a thin beam escaped. Nedd stepped aside to avoid the light, but just looking at it made his head pound. Then he swung the door open with such force that it almost snapped off its hinges.
Nedd caught sight of the lightbulb through the blinding, sickening light, and slammed his hand against it with maximum force. His hand tore through the cheap plastic and into the wires in a flurry of sparks and snaps. Oil bubbled from the rip in its roof and down Nedd’s arm. He gave an inhuman roar and jerked his arm back, pulling out a handful of wires and cords. The light flickered and died. Nedd dropped the cords, satisfaction radiating from his face, and sorted through the refrigerator.
It was mostly full of raw vegetables and uncooked meat, but he was too hungry to care. After binging all the alcohol and draining all the canned food in one mammoth gulp, Nedd started tearing into an uncooked, turkey-like bird plucked of its feathers and ready to roast. Who on the ship would take the time to cook a whole turkey anyway? He shrugged and ate it nonetheless. He was just getting to the good part, the little plastic packet containing the heart and gizzard, when suddenly a weak voice called out
“Who’s there?”
Nedd ducked down and army-crawled across the floor, hiding behind a counter. He could see light coming from an open door at the back of the kitchen. A mudokon scrubb, with his typical dirty-grey skin and monochrome loincloth staggered in, shakily wielding a frying pan. Scrubbs were used on board the ship only for cleaning the floors. A few, however, worked after-hours in the kitchen, making sure everything was tidy. The scrubb looked at the half-empty, nearly destroyed refrigerator and the mauled turkey on the floor in sheer horror.
“Who’s there?!” he demanded, waving the frying pan around. “Show yourself! I’ll tell the chef, I really will! ”
Nedd’s breathing slowed. He kept as silent as possible, leaning against the counter. In different conditions the scrubb would’ve spotted the tips of his horns poking out from behind the parry, but seeing as it was nearly pitch black, he didn’t notice a thing. A look of determination suddenly crossed the scrubb’s face.
“Fine. ” he said. “Have it your way. I’ll---”
His sentence was cut off as he caught sight of Nedd, his eyes red and lifeless, his body so hunched that his fingertips dragged the floor, his mouth gaping and ragged, his back torn like fabric. He lunged suddenly, snarling and snapping his sideway jaws. The scrubb screamed and flung the frying pan. It clattered against Nedd’s head, but it didn’t stop him.
The pan landed with a noisy clatter. Nedd flinched, hoping that all the noise didn’t wake anybody up. Then, suddenly, the scrubb fainted on top of an entire rack of frying pans.
‘Shit!’ Nedd thought, making a break for the door to the cafeteria. The pans all struck the floor with a reverberating clang that broke the silence effortlessly. Lights started turning on everywhere. Accusing voices rang out. Somebody shouted ‘What the HELL is GOING ON IN THERE?!”
Nedd sped down the hallways like a bullet from a gun, aggressively pushing over anything that got in his way. He came to the basement and darted inside without a second glance. The door slammed shut behind him, and the accusing voices died off into the distance.
<~{.epidemic.}~>
-The next day-
“It was big.” The scrubb looked around worriedly. Every eye in the kitchen was on him, and he could barely remember what he had seen last night. “It was... tall.”
Somebody yawned. The scrubb flinched.
“Is this going anywhere?” Durc asked. He was dressed in his typical full-body armor, though it wasn’t necessary. The scrubb gulped.
“Uh... it had red eyes... I think---”
“How do we know,” a slig asked, prodding the scrubb with his baton, “that you didn’t eat all the food yourself?”
“Of course he didn’t.” A voice said. It was, of course, Helix, doing what he did best: disagreeing with everything everybody said. Being a high-ranking vykker gave him the permission to do whatever he wanted, and that meant pestering the hell out of everybody in the kitchen. “I don’t think a scrubb that drank all our booze, ate twenty cans of creamed corn, and devoured half of a raw turkey would be fit to tell us anything.”
“But still---”
“Plus,” Helix added, “he hardly looks like the type of person who’d tear all of the circuits out of a refrigerator.”
A vykker slowly turned and stared a him humorlessly.
“Do you have to disagree with everything?” He snapped.
“Its what I do,” Helix said, crossing his arms smugly. “Its my talent. Kind of like a hobby, actually.”
The slig jabbed the scrub again with his baton harder than before. “So that’s all you can tell us, huh?” the slig asked menacingly, prodding him for dramatic affect. “That it was big? Why should we believe you?”
The scrub gulped, straining his brain to dish out a few more details. “It sort of looked like an intern, a little bit.” He said quietly. Durc rolled his eyes.
“This is getting nowhere,” he said bitterly. He swung around and barked, “DAN!”
Dan turned, startled. He had been admiring his reflection in the back of a saucepan, seeing as he had just received his silver full-body armor. It came complete with a snoozi and a walkie-talkie strapped to the belt. Dan had to say that it him look quite dangerous and rugged.
“Stop gawking at your reflection and get over here!” Durc snarled. Dan walked over obediently. Durc handed him a tethered leash that he had been holding. Dan looked at it in confusion, when suddently the end of the rope jerked, and a lopsided figure burst out of a cabinet. It was a slog tied to the end of the leash by an intricate knot. Dan looked at Durc with a comical ‘huuuur?’ sound.
“This is Lady,” Durc said, lovingly patting the slog on the head. “She’s a biochemically-engineered super-slog. She can track down anything miles away with just a whiff of their scent. See?”
Dan looked. The slog looked normal except for its snout, which ended in an arrow-like shovel shape. The sides of its snout were dotted with a pair of huge, perfectly round nostrils that flared every time it breathed. The slog licked its jaws happily and sniffed the ground.
Durc wiggled an accusing claw in Dan’s direction. “Your first job is to take Lady and see if she can track down who did this. She’s one in just twenty of these slogs that we have, so if anything happens to her, I’m holding YOU responsible.”
‘Lady,’ Dan thought. ‘What a gay name.’
“And be gentle,” Durc added. “She’s very sensitive, aren’t you, Lady?” He pet Lady affectionately, and Lady barked and jumped up at him. She could’ve easily torn his face off if she had slipped. Dan blanched and turned the other way. “What are you waiting for?” Durc snapped. “Get going! We don’t have all day!”
Dan jerked Lady’s chain roughly. Suddenly Lady took off running in the opposite direction like a miniature juggernaut, pushing over people as she went. Dan grinded his feet into the tiles, but no matter how hard he resisted, he couldn’t help but be pulled along. She lead him through the kitchen and into the cafeteria, where she bowled over trash cans and chairs like an armored tank. Dan winced as he felt rug burns cutting through his armor and digging into his feet. Durc and three sligs followed behind, discussing the latest guard gossip, while Dan grappled with Lady’s leash in an attempt to slow her down.
“Whatever you do,” Durc advised, “don’t let go of her leash.”
Dan shot him a loathing look. After a few minutes of Lady’s unstoppable marching and Dan learning a valuable lesson in friction, Lady finally stopped. She sat down and licked her paws, satisfied. Dan stared up at the huge metal doors before him in awe.
“The basement, huh?” Durc asked, patting Lady on the head. “I guess it makes sense.”
He brandished a walkie-talkie with a flick of his wrist, a wild grin on his face. “I’m calling in backup. We’re going in!”
A Tale of Epidemic Proportions
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