The head in the lab weirded out Dr Ruchi Saxena, the ship's chief science officer. In a way, she was glad that she didn't have to dissect the darn thing. That's what she told herself anyway, when confronted by the news that her authority to perform scientific investigations on the artefact was revoked.
A bottle of Vodka later, a mixture of disappointment and relief still lingered. It was not the first time she had seen a severed head. Certainly not the first time she dissected a human body. But the familiar, but alien nature of the artefact made her skin crawl.
And an unfamiliar feeling had a taken root in her soul - cowardice mixed with dread.
She stumbled into her room, drank a bottle of water and plopped herself down on the bed.
She was expecting a motherfucker of a hangover the next day.
Every time she felt like slipping into a dreamless sleep, the memory of the creature's face would draw her back into a state of half wakefulness.
Tiredness hit her in waves. The frustration of not to being able to doze made her want to take a baseball bat to the mirror.
She tried masturbating at one point, because that always relaxed her.
And it seemed to work for a while.
Ruchi drifted off. Weightless, in a black ocean of stars, just like the INSO Dwaraka floating through space.
A shuffling sound brought her to her senses.
For a while she thought she was dreaming, but then she could feel the visceral presence of the person, their movement causing the air in the room to pulse with malevolence.
"There is a someone in the room with you Ruchi and you are not fantasizing," said the part of her brain that was about to induce in her, a sense of paralysis, and the need to escape the confines of her cabin at the same time.
Someone. In the room.
Someone, unsteady on their feet, like they had returned from a night of getting wasted at a nightclub, and wasstruggling to find the way back to their room.
<heavy breathing>
<heart beat>
She partially opened her eyes and saw a dark form in motion. Surely, she had left the door to her room open and one of the drunks from the party had wandered in, mistaking her abode for theirs.
She slowly turned to the right. In the faint glow of the LED strips that serve as night lights, she saw the silhouette of a very tall, headless, humanoid creature. Its arms and legs were enormous. It would not have fit in the room heightwise, if its head was screwed on.
It seemed frustrated - knocking down objects on her dressing table with angry back-hand swipes.
Ruchi willed her legs to move.
The thing in her room, now turned its attention to the cabinet. Next would be her bed.
"Come on come on come on," she said to herself. "Come on!"
It started pulling the clothes out of her cabinet. Flinging her t-shirts, tank tops, khakhi pants and underwear onto the floor.
This is it. Make a run for the door <heavy breathing>
3,2,1, she counted.
She leapt off the bed, just as the creature turned its attention to where she was seated a second ago.
She reached the door and pressed the release button repeatedly, but there was no response.
Ruchi looked over her shoulder.
YOU ARE READING
Meru
Horror(Complete) Indian mythology inspired horror story set in space featuring a toxic love triangle. INSO Dwaraka, the Indian National Space Organisation's most advanced mining spaceship has had its share of tragedies, but when they retrieve a mysterious...
