101 Ways to Skin a Hoodie

Chapter 9

The tips of my fingers slide along the smooth metallic sheen of the metal object that was just recently in the distance. It is, decidedly, a spaceship. About the size of a football field, the aerodynamic chunk of metal fills my vision.

I dig my wooden fingers into the metal to carry me around the ship, searching for a simple entrance. There's nothing. The oblong silver craft is seemingly devoid of outside features, aside from what I assume to be thrusters on the far end of where I first approached from, although they are now dormant.

I circle around the ship a couple of times, giving the Author a chance to work on fixing up my body slightly now that we're not in a high intensity situation. I keep at least one hand on the ship at all times, but I only ever feel very slight vibrations from within, and they're constant, not like footsteps, but more like a plumbing pipe.

I reach what I assume to be the front of the ship again, and decide along with the Author that we might as well head in. I pull my wooden arm back, and I jam my pointed fingers into the metal hull. I open up a hole with relative ease, and the change in pressure sucks me into the ship.

I push the hole back together as best I can before I step back and survey the room.

It does seem like I'm on the bridge of the ship, but it's not like any sort of human bridge that I've seen. The room is lined with monitors, some of which are on and displaying information that I cannot read. In the center of the room is a single chair, although as it doesn't have a back it seems more like a command stool than anything.

The Author and I pass through the only exit from the bridge that we can find, and our sense of unease grows. This ship is truly deserted. None of the soul-sniffing creatures prowl the halls, nor are there any feral tentacle monsters chained up inside special holding cells.

Just...

Nothing.

The slight vibration that I had felt outside of the ship translates into a dim hum that carries itself throughout the air in the ship. As we make our way deeper and deeper into the sharp hallways and empty... living quarters? The hum gets louder, and our discomfort grows.

Each time there's a fork in the road we take the one that makes the humming get louder, and so it feels as though we're making progress, although so far we've discovered a whole lot of nothing. Not that I necessarily want to discover anything, it's just... something to distract me from this perpetual drone might be nice.

Finally, after what must have only been around ten minutes, but what felt like an hour of walking, we reach our destination. By now the whole place is rattling, In front of us stands a door, and it's a proper door this time, not something that I have to punch a hole through in order to get in.

"Shall we end this?"

Oh, let's.

I step forward, and the door slides open on before us. It opens onto a massive room, not unlike the food court area of the prison where I briefly resided. However instead of tables or an arena all that occupies this room is a single black box in the middle, about three meters on all of its sides, and tubes running out from it. These tubes go in every direction, some of them self contained in the room, others disappearing into walls.

Oh, and in front of the box stands the alien that I just vanquished into outer space, or rather, three of them that look identical. The middle one stands taller on its tentacled limbs to address me.

"You know, I will say that I underestimated your breed of human. No one has ever managed to make it this far, nor even know about this place. However that will all end here. You've gotten too close to the truth."