Beneath the Ice: An Among Us Fanfiction

Chapter Eight: Exposure

Clasher was still breathing heavily as he let that statement sink in. Petri looked shocked and maybe a bit scared. That was probably what the rest of the crew was like, too. In any case, he hadn't had anything to lose by blurting that out, since no one seemed to have trusted him deeply in the first place.

"Oh, Clasher," Luna's voice whispered in his ear. He ignored it, too anger-driven to care. She needed justice for what happened to her and Clasher wanted to get it.

"My dad used to be a regular Medical Officer. Not too prominent, but not invisible either. Until he got the short straw that the universe offered him and got infected by a parasite. He tried to treat himself and when that failed, he tried to end it all. My mom apparently walked in MedBay at the exact right time and stopped him."

He scowled and made sure all eyes were on him. This part in particular infuriated him, and they needed to know about it. "When MIRA got word of this, they took him off of active squads and cooped him up in a lab to create things for them. Weapons, mostly, but sometimes they did experiments on him. Not anything crazy, but enough that they slowly drove him over the edge trying to see the extent of what he could do. The voices, the constant pressure from the higher-ups, even if he had control over the parasite, he could never escape the prison of which we work for."

Clasher was pacing back and forth, hands behind his back to avoid knocking over anything that was on the counter. "You might ask why is it that I work for them, if that's the case. Well, it's simple. My mom's best friend killed her, then when she realized what she did, killed herself with the same blade that took the life of my mother. And that made me realize what most Impostors have to deal with. The guilt, the shame, the constant fear that the next time you blank out, it could be your friend who pays the price.

"So, now that you know what kind of freak that I am, I want to know what is going on with you, Petri Newton Galeforce."

Clasher stopped, leaned back, and crossed his arms almost dramatically. He realized that what he had said might have been very disturbing to everyone, but if they wanted secrets, he decided that he shouldn't let fear control him. Every single minute of his life was spent either talking with ghosts or letting those who were alive die. Not anymore. Not anymore...

"A cure," Petri finally said. Clasher felt slightly guilty for upheaving this all onto him (and in only the, what, eighth chapter of his life), but pushed it down. All of his cards were on the table, and now he wanted to see what Petri had. "Fifty years ago, when the parasites were first detected, we started working on a way to cure those who were infected. Unfortunately, those efforts were in vain, since everyone who we tried to help either died before we could successfully extract or killed everyone who came near them."

Petri re-adjusted his analytic glasses. "Since the parasite first affects the immune system, we thought that creating antibodies and making some sort of general vaccine would work. However, upon further examination, we realized that the syndrome was from a parasite and not actually a virus and cannot have a vaccine created for it—our predecessors thought that the symptom of the immune system was the actual cause. Therefore, we decided to break apart and investigate the different stages of Impostor Syndrome and find apt responses to those stages.

"My assignment was to find a cure for the fifth stage, or the stage where the patient is on the cusp of losing touch with reality and going on a murderous rampage."

Petri made a face and furrowed his brow, starting to twiddle his thumbs. "However, since not a lot of Impostors get to this stage, we cannot easily investigate cures or a way to stop the parasite in its tracks. But we have cases recorded of people who have gotten past that stage and into stage six, which we believe is the final phase that those who have been infected go through. Theoretically, if we manage to take a scan of someone who is in that stage, we might be able to find out how to prevent stage five."