Chapter 2: The Creature

Avian Frisk's great day is not going great at all. In fact, it's all quite going downhill. In all the worst ways.

Avian stared in horror at the creature before him that had been a man just moments before. It was still vaguely human-shaped, but it was… wrong. With the skin gone, Avian could see the muscles move with every small shift in the beast’s weight. They seemed to be stretched out against the bones, as if they hadn’t elongated as much as the rest of the beast’s limbs. The only muscles that didn’t seem to move at all were those of its face. The terrified face of the man was eerily still, as if it had been turned into a porcelain mask. Even when the creature shrieked, nothing moved in its face.

The young first mate quickly glanced around the room, assessing his options for his next move. The man’s gun lay on the ground a few feet away from Avian and the crew had all stood up when the man transformed and were now staring at him and the beast in shock and horror. Those two things alone were enough to form a plan in Avian’s mind.

He drifted his eyes from person to person around the room, subtly gesturing with his hands to get down slowly enough that the beast wouldn’t immediately attack. Those who caught his movement immediately did as he instructed, and everyone else took the hint and did it as well. The sudden movement of all the crew members caught the monster’s attention which gave Avian the opportunity he needed. With the beast distracted, he lunged for the gun, quickly whipping around once its in his hand and firing a bullet up at the beast’s head.

The bullet ripped through the side of the beast’s face. It screeched at Avian and flung itself onto the ceiling, slithering across and causing a ripple of panic through every crew member on the bridge. It came crashing back to the floor on top of an unlucky technician and began tearing into the poor soul. Its claws ripped through him as he fell screaming to the floor, blood and flesh flying off of him in ribbons.

Avian tore his eyes away from the scene, trying to keep calm, and shouted orders to the rest of the crew. “Everyone get out of here! Run as fast as you can and don’t look back! I’ll keep it busy as long as I can!” 

Despite the energy of terror, Avian’s cool demeanor managed to win out and the crew didn’t hesitate one second in rushing for the doors. As the crew spilled out into the hallway, Avian raised the gun again. The crack of gunfire sounded once more through the bridge, the bullet piercing the beast’s flesh. It turned and screamed at the young man, the devilish sound filling his ears. Not wasting any time, Avian fired three more shots, each one finding their mark. The beast crumpled to the floor over its victim, letting out one final whine before dying.

As soon as the ringing of the shrieks and gunfire had faded, a robotic voice chirped over the loudspeaker. “Gunshots detected on the bridge. Locking down relevant areas.” Immediately, the doors to the bridge sealed shut and steel shutters locked into place over the windows with a loud clang. 

The sudden silence after the room was sealed off was almost deafening. With the absence of sound, the adrenaline that had been keeping Avian from panicking began wearing off. He stumbled backward, catching himself on a nearby chair. He sank into the seat and ran his shaky hands through his hair. His chest heaved up and down as he took deep breaths to calm himself down. This was not at all how his morning was supposed to go. Two people, or rather, one man and one monster, dead in such a short period of time. And now he was alone with the corpses.

All the muscles in his body had tensed up. But regardless of how he felt, Avian knew that he had to pull himself together. He shook himself out a bit and stood up. His boots sent echoes bouncing all over the otherwise silent room as he walked to the station where the comms system was set up.

He picked up the microphone. His finger hovered over the button for ship-wide comms. A deep breath managed to steady his breathing, and he pressed the button. “Attention, crew. This is your first mate Frisk speaking. There has been a situation on the bridge, but please stay calm as it has been handled. More information on the nature of the situation will be revealed at a later time.” His finger released the button and the microphone clicked back into its holder. 

A small beeping sound caught Avian’s attention and he looked over to see a light on a nearby workstation flashing. A robotic voice was repeating a message. “Diagnostic available. Awaiting request.”

Remembering the shake that had sent them all to their knees, he headed over and spoke to the station’s voice recognition system. “Alright, run diagnostics.”

The speaker chirps, “Engines 2 and 4 have both been lost, alongside generators 3 through 5. Both engine 2 and 4 had their safety systems manually overridden prior to the incident. Auto-lock systems prevent engines 1 and 3 from powering the ship alone. Require captain authentication to override the auto-lock.”

Avian sighs and runs his hand through his hair again. This much stress was not good for him. He would end up bald by the end of the day if this kept up. But at least this was an excuse to call the captain. It happened now and then when the captain would oversleep. Avian had called him once to wake him up and decided that he would never do that again unless there was an absolute emergency. The captain was most certainly not a morning person.

Hurrying back across the room to the comms system, Avian pushed the button for the comms in the captain’s chamber. He raised the microphone to his lips, ready to speak, but the system beeped twice, indicating that the captain’s comms had been manually disconnected. He slammed the microphone back into its place and cursed. He was virtually powerless when it came to these situations and now he would have to walk all the way to the captain’s chambers and wake him up manually.

Before he could do anything, however, a strange feeling came over him. His stomach dropped and a sudden worry spread throughout his entire body. Intense vertigo overtook him for a few seconds. And then, just as suddenly as the odd sensation had started, it was over. Everything went back to normal. Although, he did feel… different. In an indescribable sort of way.

Another beep from the workstation snapped Avian out of his thoughts. “Multiple distress signals reported across the ship. Request to move Valeydros to emergency procedures.”

Avian nodded absently, still confused about what had just happened to him. “Request granted.” As soon as the words left his lips, the lights shut off for a moment. When they returned, they were tinted red. A single siren blared over the loudspeakers, indicating an emergency situation. The jarring sound seemed to wake him up and he straightened himself. He still needed to get to the captain. He strode towards the doors and spoke in a commanding tone. “System, override bridge lockdown.” Being first mate, while it didn’t give him as much commanding power as the captain, still had its uses. Like overriding lockdowns, so he wasn’t trapped with two corpses anymore.

The door clicked as it unlocked and the steel plates over the windows retracted. “Automatic lock overridden,” said the robotic voice of the system. “Due to Emergency Low Power, automatic doors have reverted to manual doors. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause.”

Avian shrugged and pulled the door open. He hurried into the hallway and in his haste almost ran headlong into Jo. Reeling for a moment, he quickly regained his bearings and straightened his coat. “Sorry about that, Miss Jollimore,” he apologizes, his face turning slightly red.

Her face went from alarm to relief, and a smile broke out on her face. “Mr. Frisk! I was hoping to run into you! There was shaking and alarms blaring and doors not working…” She begins rambling, her hands gesturing wildly as she talks.

Avian threw his hands up to stop Jo from talking. “Slow down, Myra. One thing at a time. I have no idea what the shaking was, but it saved my life.” Avian quickly summed up everything that had just happened to him, the young woman seeming to pick up on at least most of what he said. “Now I just have to get to the captain’s chambers. He turned his comms off. Perfect timing, Kevin.”

“Right right…So do you, uh, need me to do anything?” Before Avian could answer, her expression suddenly changed to a look of surprise. “W-Wait... Did you say there was a monster!?” She leaned to the side, peering past Avian into the bridge.

Avian waved off her question about the monster. He didn’t want to think about its eerie face or its horrible scream. “Nevermind. Now, Jollimore, I don’t need anything from you right this moment. But if you want to tag along while I go to see the captain, you’re welcome to.” With that, he resumed a brisk walk down the hall, and it wasn’t long before he heard Jo’s footsteps following behind him.

Author's Note

I'll probably (no, definitely) be going back and editing, but I thought I'd throw it up anyway.