Among Us: Hosts

Ch. 17

The crewmate waited, and waited. Perhaps the other two had sense enough to scatter and keep running from the imposter. Perhaps they knew that the lights were a trap.

But someone has to fix them nonetheless. Letting the lights stay off would only make it easy to kill the rest of the crew.

Someone had to be brave for the team. The crewmate waiting in the cafeteria took a couple gulps of air to calm down and gather up the courage before moving a hand away from the button.

With a cautious step and ears perked to listen for the slightest disturbance that could set off suspicions, the crewmate walked down through the hallway past admin, through the storage room, and to the hallway to electrical. Tiptoeing along, the crewmate had a hand on the wall by them for guidance. The crewmate was grateful for whatever little light the windows gave the hallway to help see the door.

As the crewmate rounded the corner and ran towards the lights panel, they bumped into someone and jumped back a few feet. The crewmate looked down to see blood on their own suit, and panicked for a second before realizing that it wasn't theirs.

As time seemed to slow to a crawling pace, the crewmate looked up ever so slightly to see a figure ahead, with its back turned to them, standing very still. A knife was clutched in its hand, and blood was dripping down their suit and knife. The figure, in a familiar suit and guise, turned to look at the crewmate, with anger contorting its face unnaturally. With bloodshot eyes and a strangely malformed jaw, there was no doubt that this was the imposter.

The crewmate looked down past the imposter to see, lying by the lights panel, the dead body of a friend, a fellow crewmate, with guts splattered across the electrical panels by the body, and stab marks everywhere that was still intact. Oh.

Overcoming the initial reaction to gag at the sight and smell, the crewmate fell to their knees. No tears could sting in their eyes anymore; all had been spent already. The imposter also stood frozen, but as soon as it took a step to go the slightest bit closer to them, the crewmate screamed, "Code 1 emergency!" and jumped to grab onto the remaining corpse of the unfortunate crewmate.

The ship activated a code 1 emergency right away, and even in the dark, the red lights still flashed and illuminated the hallways. The crewmate hugged what was left of their friend, while the imposter watched with a poker face and cold eyes. It knew that it would be impossible to kill in the middle of an emergency; every vital and movement was tracked by the AI in these emergency periods.

The imposter dropped the bloody butcher knife in its hand and threw one glance at the living crewmate before walking away. How inconvenient.

The crewmate waited for the imposter to leave the room before getting up. The ship started its maintenance and blared the alarm loudly in their face until they left the room. The door to the electrical room closed, and the crewmate jogged ahead through the steam cleaners to the cafeteria, to see the imposter and the remaining crewmate. Now, there was hope still; the imposter had been caught in the act. With heavy hearts and sunken eyes, the meeting began.

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"Code 1 Emergency: A dead body has been found on the ship. Warning: Foreign organic matter has been detected on the ship. Please address this immediately."

Three somber faces sat around the center cafeteria table, as it hit them that someone was missing from the group: Jessica. The lights were still off, and a dull red light illuminated the cafeteria for the emergency.

"Chantelle!" Assisi exclaimed, her face strained with desperation, "Kandor... killed Jessica. In front of my eyes. I saw the knife in his hand, the blood on the walls."

Chantelle gasped and covered her mouth, while Kandor fumbled with his words briefly.

"What? No, no. It was Assisi! She's the one who killed Jessica!"

"What? Me?! Kill Jessica, my closest friend here? Are you demented?"
"Chantelle! You have to believe me! It wasn't me! She's trying to pin it on me! I saw her do it!"
"How can you— he did it! And he's trying to do this just because he got caught."

Chantelle looked between them with confusion, "Where was the body?"

"Electrical," the two said together.

Kandor slammed his hand on the table, "Chantelle! She's been lying to us. This whole time! She never cared about you, or Jessica, or S— or about Simi!"

"Green. Chantelle please. You need to be serious here. This man has been sabotaging this journey at every turn. He got my husband kicked off. He thinks we're easy targets!"

"I didn't want to get Simi kicked! But you sure put on quite a show when he did, didn't you Assisi? You're a sick, twisted creature," Kandor spat at her, making her wince.

Assisi pressed her fingers to her temple and sat down weakly.
"I think... I think I trust you to make the right decision, Chantelle. I can only advocate for what I saw, directly in front of my eyes in there."

Kandor stood awkwardly farther away, but he refused to budge, "I have nothing to offer but the truth. You have to do this. For the sake of Earth. Our mission."

"...That won't matter... that's not important right now, Kandor," Chantelle gulped.

"What do you mean?!" Kandor asked.
"The imposter will never make it to Earth's surface. I can ensure that."

Assisi and Kandor glanced at each other testily. Both had nothing but loathing in their gazes.
"We were so stupid to not have noticed how and Matias divided us. We just... believed in you. And for what?" Assisi put her head in her hands.

"You monster... you're not even Assisi. You haven't been this whole time. So poor Assisi got picked off... on that planet. Simi... oh, god." Kandor trembled and his legs gave way; he sat down on the floor. Chantelle stood a little further away: her face grim, her gaze barely calculating anymore.

The three sat in silence as they waited for time to run out. The AI finally spoke again.

"The voting period has begun."

Screens popped up on all their wrist monitors, and two of them voted immediately; Chantelle held back.

"Please, Chantelle," Assisi implored.
"I wouldn't lie, believe me," Kandor added.

Chantelle took a deep breath, "An ejection is not always... a death sentence. If you are the imposter, this is for justice. If you're not, you may still have the resources to send a message to earth. Tell them we found intelligent life, parasitic, imitative, and hostile."

Kandor laughed incredulously, and Assisi shook her head firmly.

"Vote, Chantelle. Do it for our fallen comrades," Assisi said with determination.

"Do it for everything we've been through," Kandor nodded slowly, his throat dry.

"Do it for Tina. My whole world," Assisi said, her voice cracking.

Chantelle put her hands to her wrist monitor and she clicked.