//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Dead Space: Friendship is Decayed // by Edmar Fecler //------------------------------// The elevator came to a grinding halt. Isaac nervously peeked out his head before shuffling back inside with Twilight. He gazed down towards the unicorn; the poor thing was still trembling in the corner, having temporarily discarded her helmet to let the tears flow free. He felt sorry for her; being attacked by the creature and losing two friends to it had pained his heart immensely. He hadn't known Johnston or Chen well, but they had seemed like good men. And now they were dead, brutally slaughtered by whatever that abomination had been. Death was not unknown to him. Isaac had already witnessed several colleagues die accidentally in a deep-space operation when a gravity tether failed and crushed them between their ship and an asteroid. He had been left in a state of depression for two months before finally getting over it thanks to Nicole's support. But Twilight... Isaac guessed she had never experienced something as traumatic as this. She looked absolutely mortified. When Twilight had described her homeworld, Isaac had found that it sounded absolutely happy and peaceful. She didn't deserve to witness this. He crouched to her level again before putting a hand on her head gingerly. "Hey," he said gently. "I know you're scared. Believe me, I'm terrified too, but we need to find Hammond and Kendra, okay? We-... we'll get out of here, okay?" The unicorn didn't respond immediately but simply nodded, sniffling and wiping away a few tears with her hoof before resetting her helmet. They both exited the elevator, eyes and ears peeled. The maintenance level was almost pitch black; only a damaged ceiling light and their helmets lit up the room. There was a smell of dust in the air, along with the metallic taste of blood and something rotten. The sound of scuffling and growling could be heard from inside the walls, making a shaky Twilight shift closer to the engineer. Isaac noticed nervously that a lot of blood was smeared across the rusty walls, everything from large splashes to red handprints. Something doesn't feel right, Isaac gulped. Where are the bodies? A lone door was in the center of the opposite wall. Isaac approached it slowly, the unicorn still in tow. He pressed the button and took a few steps back, not really wanting to discover what would appear in the next room. The door's lock rotated a few times before finally releasing with a loud hiss, letting the door slide open with a metallic creak. They both stepped inside tentatively. Isaac immediately wished they hadn't. Inside the sickly green storage room were several violently mangled bodies, all of which had missing limbs or huge chunks of flesh torn from them. A pair of victims were decapitated, their heads having rolled off in different directions. Some were even stripped of their skin, their flesh and muscles bared and sliced, their tendons torn through. The overwhelming smell of bodily fluids hit them, assailing their noses and making them gag. Isaac could feel the bile rise up his throat, but quickly swallowed to counter it. Twilight was not so lucky. She hurriedly discarded her helmet again before thoroughly emptying her stomach's contents. She erupted into a hacking fit before clearing her throat. Isaac noticed she was shaking even more now; her face was paling and her pupils dilating at the sight of the carnage, beads of sweat were rolling down her body. He regretted that he could do nothing towards her condition now. "Oh gosh..." she whispered. Her gaze was transfixed upon the pile of dead people, unable to avert it out of fascination and horror. The engineer made his way across the room, staying well away from the corpses. The trail of blood continued across the ground towards another body, as if it had been dragged to that point. The dead man had his legs severed and several deep cuts all over his remaining body, his hand clawing against the wall in a desperate attempt to get out of this nightmare. Isaac's stomach heaved when he noticed the message scribbled across the wall in the man's own blood. CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS The S was unfinished, the trail of blood dragging down towards the deceased crew member's hand. As much as the message was ominous and sickly, a glimmer of hope surged through Isaac; these monsters were not invincible. He approached the dead body and turned him gently, his tag revealing the name "T. Benson, Tram Engineering." Isaac silently offered a thanks to the man. He looked around the workbench close to him for something noteworthy before finding it. A recently repaired, but currently inactive tool lay on the working space, its slightly used surface gleaming in the only light of the room. He picked up the weapon and inspected it thoroughly. Isaac recognized the pistol-shaped device as a high-powered mineral plasma cutter. He flipped the switch to activate it, the cutter emitting a small whine before the targeting lasers and the ammo counter lit up. Her curiosity taking over momentarily, Twilight got up on her hooves and observed the improvised weapon in Isaac's hands as he fiddled around with it. She prodded his leg gently to catch his attention, and pointed at the device, at which point Isaac declared with slight relief, "I think I've found a way to defend ourselves." ________________________________________ "Twilight?" Spike paced around the house anxiously. Twilight hadn't been at home when he had woken up to prepare breakfast. He had first dismissed it, thinking that she was probably reading downstairs or at one of her friends preparing for the picnic today, but as the clock kept ticking and ticking, Spike was beginning to get worried. He knew by experience that Twilight was never late, especially not by half an hour. He decided to look around the library again. No signs of her were found anywhere; her bed was untouched, the kitchen was clean, and all the books were in order. All except for two of them that were lying on the floor near the fireplace next to a broken teacup. Spike picked the books up; the first one was written by Star Swirl the Bearded, and seemed to be a detailed description of some advanced race of primates (How can monkeys even be intelligent? spike snorted), while the other was a long and complicated book about dimensions and... the multiverse-something. The dragon looked through a couple of pages before growing bored of the overly-complex language and closing it. He looked towards the wall clock again. Twilight was now thirty-five minutes late, and the dragon was growing worried; his adoptive big sister never left like that without leaving a note. With no time to lose, he left the books and broken cup on the floor and hurried out of the library towards the park to tell Rarity and the others. ________________________________________ Isaac and Twilight left the locker room and continued down the gloomy corridor. They moved in a slow, deliberate pace and in silence, still nervously shifting from the scuttling in the vents above and in fear that something could be waiting for them up ahead. Still, Isaac felt slightly more confident with his plasma cutter in hand. He was also thankful for the flashlight on the tool to illuminate the darkened pathways and hopefully warn them of anything approaching. Twilight was holding up a little better now, the initial shock and horror of seeing so much death having settled down. The experience had rattled the unicorn violently. While death from woodland predators sadly did happen now and then in Equestria, they were normally extremely rare and were over in a matter of seconds, the unfortunate pony often killed quickly. But this... That thing had hacked the crew members to pieces, for Celestia's sake! What kind of thing could relish in that? Nopony should die like that, Twilight sobbed. There was something undeniably, plainly wrong with it too. The body structure had resembled a human way too much for her liking. And those eyes... those plain, glossy black, dead eyes that had observed them with feral hunger and had continued to do so even as the head had rolled off. She swore that thing was piercing her soul at that moment. She shuddered. If the doors hadn't closed in time... Don't think like that, Twilight! she scolded herself. They approached the end of the tunnel. Isaac motioned for her to wait while he activated the door panel. She could see the engineer trembling when he reached out his arm, obvious signs that he was terrified too behind his emotionless helmet. The mare felt a pang of sympathy for the man. This whole experience must have been grueling for him too, if not worse, to see his fellow kin die. His grip on the cutter tightened as the door opened. Isaac went in first, sweeping the area with his weapon before Twilight followed him cautiously into the spacious room. A few windows were facing what looked like a train terminal. How odd to have trains inside a spaceship, Twilight mused. Their only source of light came from a pair of floodlights on the other side of the glass panes. Twilight jumped with joy and relief when she discovered Kendra and Hammond very much alive on the opposite platform. The humans seemed to have noticed them too, and waved them over. A holoboard sprung into existence in front of Isaac. Hammond's visage appeared on screen, looking mildly exhausted from recent events. Kendra seemed to pant out in relief while the security officer regained his composure before turning to them. "Isaac! Twi! God, I can't believe they made it!" she exclaimed. "Isaac, Miss Sparkle," Hammond wheezed. "We ran into more of them on the way. Are you okay?" "More what?" A frantic Kendra stopped her pacing for a while before confronting Hammond. "What are those things? Is- is that the crew?!" "Keep your voice down! Whatever they are, they sure aren't friendly!" he shot back before turning back to the others, clear frustration in his voice. "And half the doors on this ship are locked because of the quarantine. Now, we have to get to the bridge, but first we've got to repair the tram system." Kendra sighed audibly, still pacing around while shooting glares at Hammond. Clearly she wasn't enjoying being bossed around in this situation. "You're crazy, Hammond. You're going to get us all killed." "If you listen to me, I will get you out of here alive," he growled in response. "Now what's wrong with the tram?" Kendra skimmed rapidly through a few commands on a console, sighing in exasperation. "The data board is fried but there should be a spare in the Maintenance Bay. There's also a broken tram blocking the tunnel that needs to be repaired. Damn it, everything is on the other side of the quarantine! We can't reach it from here!" "No we can't..." Hammond said before turning his attention to the screen again. "But you can. Isaac if I can get to the bridge, I should be able to access the personnel files. You fix the tram and I'll help you find Nicole." Isaac tensed at that statement before smacking his helmet. Damn it, how could he have forgotten about Nicole? He struggled to calm down. What Hammond proposed was probably near suicidal when he had no idea how many creatures were still onboard, but then again his friend was right. If he did this right they could fix the tram, make their way to the bridge, find Nicole and any other survivors, and then get the hell out of this nightmare. First things first though, he thought grimly. Let's go fix this. "Wait, Hammond... Don't turn it off yet." Kendra appeared on screen this time, a concerned frown upon her face. She decided to speak gently to the unicorn, like a mother would to a crying child. "Twilight, listen. You're back where you wanted now, right? I'm begging you, just... get out of here. You have a chance to escape this crap, you can go home, there's no reason to stay here. I'm... I'm sorry you had to go through this, okay? Just get home now, to safety." Twilight felt tears well up again and removed her helmet to confront her friend. Kendra's eyes were pleading her to leave, but the mare knew full well she couldn't just abandon them to their fate on this damned ship. She wasn't the Element of loyalty, but what kind of friend decided to leave them to the mercy of these monsters? "Miss Sparkle... Kendra is right. I don't believe this is the right place for you." "Twilight please listen to me. I promise we will be alright, okay? You have a chance to get out of here. Leave now, while you can. Live another day, Twilight." She averted her gaze towards Isaac. While his expression was hidden behind the helmet, she could guess he had the same pleading look in his eyes. The decision hung heavily above her head. She had only known her human companions for a week now, but they had been such wonderful friends for the trip. Just like Johnston and Chen, she knew there was a possibility none of them would survive this ordeal. She felt closer to them than many of Ponyville's citizens and she knew that she wanted to help them. But how? Twilight knew she would probably not be able to help Isaac or the others in any way. She would just be a burden to them all along. The encounter from earlier was still fresh in her mind. Could she really bring herself to kill one of these things, or to watch another one of the crew get murdered in such a fashion before her eyes? Would she be able to keep her sanity in this living nightmare? And what about her friends? Hadn't she been anxious to get back to them just a few days ago? Who had taken care of Spike until now? The difficulty of the choice overwhelmed her. Everything in her life had been carefully planned so far; her studies, her meetings with her friends, the letters to the princess, everything could be scribbled onto a handy checklist and planned meticulously with the help from her dragon assistant. There were no such things here. A difficult decision was hanging above her, and there was no clear answer in sight. For the first time in her life, Twilight felt truly lost. ________________________________________ Seven days had passed since Twilight Sparkle's disappearance, and everyone was starting to grow extremely worried by now. Ever since Spike had relayed the news to rest of the Elements of Harmony, the search for the princess's protégé had grown to encompass the entire town. News traveled quickly across Ponyville of the librarian's disappearance. Even Celestia and Twilight's brother Shining Armor had been notified, the former leaving Canterlot under Luna's care until she came back, and the latter leaving his post temporarily to help find his missing sister. Many had been heartbroken to hear the news, especially those who stood near Twilight. The Elements, princess Celestia, and Shining Armor had made their way to the library, searching attentively around the house after clues. Their search was fruitless though, as they all met together in the common room to discuss their findings. When Celestia asked Spike if Twilight had left anything unusual behind her before disappearing, the dragon scratched his chin, claiming that he had indeed found two books lying on the floor when she was gone. Hurriedly, the princess of the sun ordered him to show them to her, to which he quickly compiled. A hurried skimming through the pages had indeed confirmed Celestia's worst fears, the rest of the group shifting worriedly as her expression grew to one of exasperation. "Oh Twilight," she whispered. "What have you done?"