Among Us: Hosts

Ch. 14

Chiedza walked towards the Oxygen room after going right from navigation. She worked on a task that was taking her some time. As she kept working on it, she turned around to see Matias walk in. He leaned against the main O2 tank and stared at her.

"Why are you watching me? Didn't Kandor clear my name yet? Or is he still suspicious?"
"Oh. Kandor doesn't know I'm here," He responded.
She raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. "Then why are you here?"

"Checking up on you. You were almost voted out last time. If you get picked off, they'll think it's Kandor."

Chiedza smiled ruefully, "So you're here to protect me?"
"Well, what's wrong with voting off Kandor?" Matias smiled.

Chiedza stopped working and stared at him, unamused.

Matias' smile just grew wider and he snapped his fingers. "I don't get it, by the way, the whole thing with those patches. It's not special. It's just... a patch. A title. There's no real leader either. Why are Assisi and Kandor... so obsessed?"

Chiedza squatted up from her sitting position, and tilted her head.
"You're not that inexperienced with missions. You should know what role we play."

"I mean... if anyone really wants to get in, they'd get in, you know?"
Chiedza narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean?"

"Oh. Just that it's way too easy to trigger a specific system failure. You'd think they'd make it a little harder to break things. Now there's an imposter out there triggering nuclear meltdowns."

Chiedza nodded and got up slowly. Matias looked down, not paying attention to her.
"You know Matias... I think Chantelle's waiting for me in Weapons. You should finish your tasks."

Matias twiddled with the strap on his suit and shrugged, "Go ahead. I just got here from Weapons, though. She's not there."

Chiedza gave a half smile and walked out of the room.
She started moving faster once she was out of Matias' sight, and ran towards the cafeteria.

At the last split second before she got out of the Weapons room, two metal doors shut with a loud slam right in front of her face, barely a hair in front of her nose. She ran into it, and winced from the pain. As she was reeling back and rubbing her forehead, she turned to see Matias standing at the other door in Weapons. He glanced at her nonchalantly.

She froze and stared at him, her stress apparent on her face. Matias clicked his tongue. "That was close. But I told you, right? Sabotage is just far too easy. I wonder where Chantelle is, though."

Chiedza didn't break eye contact, and watched as Matias' eyes glossed over and became bloodshot red. His hands suddenly grew larger and grotesque, and he smiled far too wide, showing off sharp canines and a sharp tongue, far too long to be normal.

Chiedza sucked in a sharp breath and felt every hair in her body raise at the sight.

So this is how it ends.

Despite the situation, Matias stepped aside a bit and gestured to the door. "Come now. Don't make it easy. Don't just freeze like Raha."

Taking the cue, Chiedza wasted no time in sprinting past him to the hallway. The creature let out a weird gurgle laughter and followed after a couple of seconds.

Chiedza wondered if she should just keep running, or try to kill it.

Well, she knew how either would end... so she ran past navigation and stopped for a split second to open a panel to grab an emergency knife. As she turned to thrust the knife into the creature, it stood still. The knife plunged into the brown suit.

But within moments, the suit crawled up the knife as the creature absorbed the knife, forcing Chiedza to let of it. In the split second she realized stabbing it wouldn't work, the creature clasped its large hands around Chiedza's head. A couple of fingers stretched into her mouth, preventing her from speaking, and she felt the hold around her head tighten as it raised her off the ground.

Fuck.

Chiedza's neck snapped clean off with a swift motion, and the brown creature dove in to gore her corpse with ease. In just a few moments, her torso was torn to shreds and plastered on the walls. Satisfied, Matias slunk away and into a vent that was only a few feet away. The doors released and Matias heard the patter of footsteps overhead.

Chantelle's voice screaming was heard before the alarm could have sounded. She had arrived from the north of the hallway just as Kandor had arrived from the south. Chantelle pulled her eyes from the carnage and threw up to the side. Both of them put on their helmets immediately to block out the smell.

Kandor yelled at the AI, "Code 1! Dead body!" while Chantelle bent down to tentatively hold her Captain's dismembered legs. She held it and cried raw at the top of her lungs. Kandor ran past Chantelle to go check the Navigation room to see if anyone was there, but it was empty. The Code 1 cleared the vents and forced everyone out of the rooms and hallways. With much reluctance, Chantelle got up to walk away from the body.

The steam cleaners took the blood stains off her hands and knees, and she heard it begin to clean up the hallway behind her already. She and Kandor entered the cafeteria together, where the others were staring at them with intensity.

When they saw who made it and who didn't, Jessica fell to the floor, and Matias rubbed his eyes. Assisi sat numbly, staring at the floor for a while.

Jessica looked haggard as she asked, "Where was the body?"

Chantelle responded weakly, "East Corridor. Past Navigation."
Kandor breathed erratically, "Chantelle... you were the only one standing over the body when I got there."

"M-Matias... Matias was unaccounted for," Jessica squeaked.
Matias looked over at her incredulously, "What are you saying? I was on the other side of the ship. Where were you?"

"We were going to enter security, but the doors shut on us in the reactor," Assisi said. "Chantelle? Kandor?"

"Cafeteria," Chantelle said.
"Comms," Kandor responded.

"Matias, where were you?" Jessica asked again, her courage rising.

"Me? I was just on my way to Kandor. I'd just headed out of electrical towards Comms."

Chantelle declared faintly, "I'm not voting."
"Pardon?" Assisi asked.

"I'm not voting! This is stupid! And now our captain is dead."

Kandor smacked his forehead, "I'm going to have to vote for you, Chantelle. You're the only one I saw there."
Matias nodded, "I'll vote for Chantelle too, then. Jessica?"

Jessica was still crumpled on the floor, but she had some renewed energy behind her eyes. After a few moments of breathing deeply to calm herself, she stood up.

"I'm voting for Matias."
Assisi stared between the two, and then took a long, hard look at Kandor, before clicking her tongue. "I don't think it could be Chantelle. I'm with Jessica. I'm voting Matias."

Jessica got up and walked to Chantelle, "It's going to be a stalemate again. Please," she glanced at Matias, her fear of him bubbling up again, "please vote!"

Chantelle looked up to look at her in the eyes. She shook her head.
"I won't."

Jessica let Chantelle's hand drop, and retreated to sit down on the cafeteria table.

"The voting period has begun."