It gets darker as you progress deeper into the ship, so you turn on your twin headlamps that you have on the outer edges of your visor. They allow you get your first good look around at the hallway. The place is a wreck.
Along with spots of blood, the floor panels have dents and scratches in them. They're probably where a few of the Rakghouls' claws hit when they were running. The walls look relatively untouched, for the most part. There were a few nicks and scratches in places, but nothing too extreme. That changes though. As you continue onward, your foot bumps against something soft and you look down.
"Oh damn..." It's an arm. A discarded, bloody, human arm laying in a pool of blood.
Applejack gasps behind you. "Oh my goodness.."
You crouch down to take a closer look at it for a while before glancing ahead to find who it belonged to. Laying face down in a puddle of gore and guts is a man. Or, what remains of him, anyway. He looks like an engineer of some kind. His head is nearly hanging off of his shoulders at the neck and parts of his back have been ripped open. You can see parts of his spine.
Sunset whispers behind you. "You okay, Applejack?"
You turn around to Applejack, who has her head in one of her hands and is bent over, taking a few deep breaths while Big Mac rubs her shoulder. "No... No I ain't..." She's about to be sick.
You shine your lights back onto the mutilated body and inspect it further. "Turn around while I take a better look at this. We don't need you throwing up or passing out on us."
She takes another breath. "How can you look at somethin' like that?"
"I've seen worse." You reply. "You know what a Nexu can do to a person? This is like a flesh wound in comparison."
It doesn't matter how pretty the forests are or who the target is that's hiding out there, you never want to go to Cholganna ever again.
Sunset crouches beside you to look around at the various splotches of blood and guts on and around the body as well. The floor around his body is absolutely covered in blood, except for his feet. There's hardly any blood there or anywhere behind him. The blood on the floor just in front of the head looks like it splashed out and ahead. He hit the ground running.
The little bit of his neck that remained looks like it was chewed through. What wasn't ingested was flung all over the place.
Sunset points to a pair of deep gashes on both his shoulders. "He was tackled from behind. See the claw marks?"
You nod. "There might've been two of them chasing him. The one that didn't tackle him bit his arm as he was doubtlessly flailing around."
A growl from somewhere ahead gets your attention and you and Sunset sit up with your blasters at the ready. You both pan your lights down the abandoned hallway, holding your breath as you wait for a Rakghoul to come charging around the corner, but nothing happens. After a few seconds of waiting, you exhale and slowly get to your feet. Your eyes never leave the area ahead.
"Let's keep going." You whisper. "I don't want to end up like this guy."
You take one last look at the body before you continue down the corridor with your party. As you reach a fork in the hallway to your left, you notice a few scratches and dents on the wall to your right that go down to the floor and head back toward the hangar behind you. It looks like whoever that man was that the Rakghoul was chasing tried to shake it by pulling a quick right and hoping that it would hit the wall and black out. Clearly, it didn't work.
You peer around the corner to check if the coast is clear. This hallway looks pretty similar to the one you're currently in, but it's a bit bigger and it has a couple of lights on toward the middle, giving the entire hallway a yellowish tone.
"How we lookin'?" Applejack asks.
You squint your eyes as you carefully scan the entire area ahead for a moment before ushering your party to follow. "We're good. Applejack, walk beside me. Sunset, watch our six with Big Mac."
"Got it." Sunset says.
You continue down the hallway, swiftly and silently. You occasionally look behind you to see if Sunset is still okay.
You activate your HUD and select the intercom closest to Twilight's last location. "Applejack, try contacting Twilight again."
She looks at her comlink. "Is it good to go?"
You nod. "Yeah, it's connected to the intercom she was closest to."
She clears her throat and activates the comlink. "Twilight? It's Applejack. Can ya hear me?" She turns it off and waits for a response for a moment, but all you hear is static. "Twilight, please. Please come in." Again, nothing but static.
You exhale. "We'll try again later."
You deselect the intercom on your HUD and creep down the hallway, staying silent the entire time. You pass by a few rooms as you walk. Most of the doors are open, with one or two of those rooms containing a body, or at least their remains. According to your map, you should be heading in the right direction. This is the way to the bow of the ship.
As you continue, you hear a sound and you stop.
"Shh. Listen..." You command.
Everyone behind you stops and you concentrate on the sound. It's a low, gruff panting coming from somewhere just ahead of you. It's obviously a Rakghoul, but you can't see it anywhere.
You raise your weapon higher and slowly continue onward, sweeping the area ahead of you intently as you approach the sound of the breathing. After a few feet, you discover that the sound is coming from a locked door on your left. There is a Rakghoul just on the other side of it.
Applejack is barely audible as she whispers and holds her pistols. "We gonna kill it?"
"I don't think we'll be able to." You examine the door more closely. "This door locks from the inside. See? I don't think it's connected to the ship's system either."
Sunset moves in front of you and inspects the door as well. "I'd guess that whoever is in there knew they were infected, and they locked themselves in there to protect everyone else."
"Wow." Applejack breathes. "What a guy."
You hear the monster on the other side rub up against the door and give a groan as you stand there for another moment.
"Come on." You usher your hand to everyone and you continue down the hallway.
You pass a few more doors, hallway forks and wreckage until the end of the hallway is in sight. As you approach, however, you hear a loud snarl directly in front of you and you all freeze. Immediately following the snarl, you see a Rakghoul dart down the upcoming fork from right to left. It's gone in a second.
You raise your rifle at the hallway ahead and wait for it to come back around the corner. Applejack charges up her blasters beside you as she holds them out in front of her. You crouch and run stealthily to the corner and whip around it with your rifle poised and ready.
You see just another dark and empty long hallway ahead of you. The Rakghoul is nowhere to be seen.
"Do ya see 'im?" Applejack asks.
"No..." You continue to stare down the hallway just in case he comes back into view.
After a few moments of silence, nothing has happened. You turn around and face the other direction to see if anything is there, but like the left side, the right is dark and empty. It's much shorter and you see a flickering light that is hanging by a wire from the ceiling. It's still silent though.
"I think he's gone..." You breathe.
"You sure?" Applejack asks.
No, you're not.
"Wherever he is, he's not around here anymore..." You reply. "Let's keep going. Quickly."
You turn back around toward the left side of the hallway. Not a second passes by when you hear the deafening roar from the Rakghoul that is currently in the process of lunging directly toward you...