U.S.S.A Umbra

Chapter 6 Shadows consume

 After many hours on his patrol, Damien reached the last stop of his route which was in the mess hall of deck 13. This part of the deck was cleaner than the rest, which really wasn't saying much. Damien went over to the cafeteria to get what could just pass for food. Of the 6 days he's served on the Umbra, three of them he spent patrolling deck 13. He was getting sick of it, sick of this food that looked and tasted worse every day. Now the protein paste was a moldy black instead of the usual white. The dehydrated potatoes were the only appetizing thing on his plate.

Damien sat by some maintenance technicians who also looked like they couldn't stomach their food, they all looked kinda sickly and more than a few shades paler. "How do you guys eat this stuff?" Damien asked the technician next to him. "Don't really have much of a choice, unless you want to go up or down a few decks and get the food everyone else is eating."- "Good luck getting back in time for your shift if you do that." The other technician chimed in. Damien checked the time on his wrist com and saw that it was 18:00 hours. Right then the lights in the mess hall started flickering on and off and a loud violent rumbling could be heard and felt all around the ship. "What the hell was that?" The younger technician across from Damien said. Damien sat up slowly and put his helmet back on and unslung his rifle. "Alright I'm gonna check out what that was, everyone stay put in here while I go check out what's going on." He said. "What if the ship is damaged? Wherever that was they could use some help with repairs, you gotta let us go with you."-"Just the two of you?"-"Yes, we won't get in the way." The older technician said. Damien sighed. "Fine, just stay behind me, we don't know if we're being boarded or not, that reminds me." Damien tried calling security over the radio but all he could hear was garbled speech. "This is Cpl. Damien Kurosawa, do you read me?" There was only static but he swore he thought he heard a faint voice. "Dammit, it's just static, something's wrong, very wrong."-"Well? Let's get going." The younger technician said.

Damien then walked outside into the hallway; it was even darker than it usually was with only the occasional light flickering, Damien turned on the flashlight on his rifle and aimed it forward. As Damien and the two technicians walked a few meters down the hall they could hear the faint sound of squelching and cracking, as they approached the source of the sickening noise; they turned around the corner to find a dark figure that appeared to be clinging onto another person. "Hey, you! Turn around!" Damien ordered the dark figure to do, Damien raised his flashlight to meet the back of their head, and as it reared its head in a slow jerky fashion, it revealed its slick black disfigured face with its bright white gnarled teeth. It gave out a wet crackled groan and leaped on Damien before he could even react, its strength surprised Damien as he struggled to shake it off as it was clawing at him with its bone-taloned fingers "Get the fuck off me!"  Damien yelled as he broke both the creatures' wrists and threw it against the wall. In one quick motion, Damien drove his fist into the creature's face. As its head hit the face of the wall, the creature's head splattered against the wall making a sickly crunching sound.

"Holy shit!" what the hell was that thing?" The younger technician said, terrified of what he had witnessed. "You think I know pal," Damien said angrily. He looked down to see the body of the person the creature was holding onto, their whole chest was chewed away and their ribcage split open revealing what was left of their organs that weren't on the floor. Damien showed his light at the visceral scene. "I think I'm going to be sick." The older technician said, gagging his words. "Alright let's go check back on everyone at the cafeteria.-"When they got back, everything was as they had left it. "Is everyone alright here?" Everyone nodded their heads in confusion, they all had no idea what had happened. "Alright, I need you all to lock this place down until everything is back to normal." -"Why what's happening?" A woman from the group asked.-"It seems there's a pathogen or something on board, so I need you all to stay put here."  Damien said trying to keep his composure "Alright well you two should also stay here...where's the other guy?"-"Huh? Oh shit Frank, he was behind me a couple minutes ago."-"Oh for fuck sakes, is he still throwing up?" Damien said in disbelief, that he and the younger technician went out to go look for Frank. The halls were quieter than usual, almost dead silent, except for the heavy thud of Damien's metal boots.

They continued down the hall until they could hear quiet breathing, Damien quickly aimed his rifle around the corner. "Whoa hey, it's me don't shoot." Frank raised both his hands slightly. Damien lowered his rifle and shook his head. "Don't wander off like that, we need to stay together...ok?" Frank nodded his head. "That goes for you too..." Damien paused, using his IFF reader. "Simon." "Yeah, I guess I shoulda told you my name earlier, well now you know," Simon said with an awkward smile. -Creeeak - They could hear the metallic sound of the floor panels moving then wet snapping sounds, as they looked down the corridor they could see two dark figures moving erratically towards them. Damien Aimed his rifle showing his light on them. These two were just twisted versions of what they once were like the first one, Damien fired several rounds at both their chests, black liquid splattered out of them but they seemed unharmed. "What the hell why didn't they go down!?" Simon yelled. Damien aimed for their heads firing a burst at both of them, the one on the rights head blew apart and dropped to the floor but the other one kept going even as it was missing half of its head. Damien walked up to the twisted thing and blasted away what was left of its head, its ragged corpse fell to the floor, making crunching sounds as it hit the ground. "Damn these things don't die easily." He said frustrated.- "We're gonna need to find security guards to help clean these things up." Frank said. - "That's the plan; now let's head to the deck 13 security checkpoint."

As the three were making their way to the checkpoint, Simon said. "Why's it so quiet? Deck 13s never really been highly staffed but where the hell is everyone?"-Shhh. Damien shushed him, there was the sound of footsteps coming their way, lots of them. "Are those people?" Simon asked.- "Maybe but who knows." They walked towards the loud sound of thudding and shuffling, as they opened the door they saw a large group of twisted people ripping apart corpses and consuming parts of them. "What the fuck!" both Frank and Simon said, that had gotten their attention as they all started slowly turning around, their bodies twisting and contorting. The creatures started snapping their arms, fashioning blades from their arm bones, the one closest to the three let out a shrill, gurgling shriek. Damien aimed his rifle and fired upon the shrieking creature, blasting its head apart, leaving only its large vocal cords exposed; now making even more of a gurgling sound. It lurched towards Damien wildly slashing its arm blades. He kicked the creature down and crushed its torso in one heavy stomp, his foot destroying its rib cage and internals. "Disgusting," Damien said with black fluid splattering him, the rest of them started lurching towards Damien. He aimed down his sight on their heads, beheading them and severing their legs rendering them immobile.

Simon used his wrench to bludgeon two of the creatures to death, as he stood there breathing heavily he noticed the name tag of one of them. Mallory. "Oh god, no Mallory," Simon said as he began sobbing.-" I'm guessing you knew her?" Damien asked. -"Yes, she was a coworker of ours." Simon looked at all the other name tags. "These were good people, I don't even recognize them anymore. They were all fine just a few hours ago, how could this have happened?" he said sitting on his knees. -"I don't know, I don't understand what's happening either, all I know is something's turning people into freaks and we have to do something about it, now let's get to the checkpoint." Damien said helping Simon up. "Oh and Frank, take this." Damien handed Frank his handgun and they made their way to the security checkpoint. They hadn't encountered any more creatures but they had come across several dead workers and a few audio logs that they had left behind, as they came across the deck 13 checkpoint, they could see several security guards along with some workers. "Hold it right there!" A soldier yelled at them. "Stay right where you are!"-"We're friendlies!" Damien yelled back with his hands up. The soldier paused for a moment. "There's only three of you right!?" He yelled back. -"Yes!" "Alright men lower your weapons, let them in." Another voice said. As the three walked up to the checkpoint which was made up of a small building and an inactive force field, they were greeted by the sergeant who was in charge of it. "Oh good another security guard, we could use more help securing the area." He said with a sigh of relief. As he said that one of the guards was panicking about something. "What's going on marine? As he said that, a growing shadow was consuming the hallway on the other side of the checkpoint. Those twisted things began emerging from the thick shadow in large numbers and they were coming for everyone there. "Quit your crying and fight marine!" The sergeant said to the marine who was trying to hide. "We're gonna need your help here, take what ammo and weapons you need." Damien nodded, he looked around and found a security shotgun on a weapons rack and picked it up. He reloaded the shotgun and cocked it, he let out a pleased grunt and got into position right next to the sergeant. This was going to be a hell of a fight. How will they stand against the abyssal horde?