The Monsters Inside Us (An Among Us Story)

Clearing the Air

Black held Red's arm, leaning on her slightly, clearly shaken. The sight deeply disturbed Pink in a hopeless sort of way. When the coolest, most collected of them could barely stand on her own, disaster would never be far off. Of course, Pink was the disaster in question.

Everyone but Yellow stood around a single Cafeteria table. There was a long, heavy silence as Black searched for words. Yellow had been put on a ventilator. Scans had shown that her skull had fractured badly and pieces of it had been lodged in her brain. The prognosis was that it was just a matter of time before her body gave up. Likely from internal bleeding. Pink kept hearing the sound of her skull smashing against the pristine metal floor of Medbay play over and over in his head as the silence prevailed.

Cyan still wore his helmet, which garnered some strange stares, but no one dared say a word.

"Pink has been closely involved with nearly every death," Orange said finally, wresting the meeting's power from Black. "And he has had nothing to say for himself." Her eyes were fiery when he met them. The rage behind them was the product of every frustration and failure she had blamed on Pink: the end of her relationship with Blue, her reputation for having a hot head, her overall distaste for life on the ship. At least she was right about one thing. Maybe the reckoning had arrived and Pink would be tossed out of the airlock in a matter of minutes, with Blue's distraught face watching out the glass as he drifted away, lost to space forever.

Blue tugged on him, urging him to speak, to defend himself. He didn't want to. The thought of Yellow was tearing him apart and when Cyan-or, in the worst case, he-finally came for Blue...he didn't think he could handle that. Better to get thrown out before that could happen.

His left hand twitched and, though he tried to resist, the parasite decided that it needed to take matters into its own hands. "I came into Medbay and found Yellow facedown on the floor. I heard the vent near the back slam shut as I entered. She was hardly breathing..." Blue dropped her hand from his. She was the only one who could tell that it wasn't really him talking. Even the way the parasite made him choke up near the end of his statement was off, but no one but Blue questioned it.

Orange pressed, "and what were you doing before that?" breaking out of the circle to get into Pink's face.

Pink felt Blue tense beside him. He had been chasing her. In fact, he had almost killed her. If it weren't for her fast thinking it would have been both her and Yellow. "I had just fixed Communications," the parasite said. "Yellow had mentioned she had the results of my blood work earlier so I went to go follow up and...yeah."

"I saw him fixing Comms," Blue piped up, her voice strained. "And he went up to Medbay afterwards." Orange gritted her teeth and returned to her spot in the circle.

There was more bickering, accusations were thrown at Cyan, who deflected to Red, then Black was questioned when she stepped in to defend her. "We have no evidence of anyone!" Black cried finally in exasperation. She leaned over onto the table, resting her head on her forearms. From this position she said, "We've ejected two likely innocent crewmates. Two more murdered and, let's be honest, Yellow will likely follow." At this, Blue let out a faint whimper.

"We need to eject the offender before they do more harm," Cyan said, stepping forward.

Black shot up, glaring daggers at him. "You do not have the authority to say that. You're no more than a glorified lunch lady. And what the hell is up with you wearing your helmet?"

"You know I'm right. Maybe you're just hiding your girlfriend's murderous tendencies," Cyan retorted, crossing his arms and avoiding the question. He still carried his cocky air, but the lunch lady comment had clearly struck up something within him, based on his change of posture.