Interlude: Space

Written: 10/9/2020
Posted To Ao3: 11/5/2020
Posted To Wattpad: 11/14/2020

Being ejected wasn't as bad as everyone made it sound. They'd all lineup, every member of the crew, in these tubes that would either eject them if the vote wasn't in their favor or release them back into the ship. Most times, the voting was fair. They were all equals, after all. The only reason this system existed was to curb the "Imposter" threat in every ship. One, two, or three Crewmates who were not like the others had only one goal; kill everyone on board.

So HQ devised the voting system to keep Imposters in check. The system was imperfect, sadly. Imposters could imitate Crewmates with startling accuracy, and there were many Crewmates who couldn't defend themselves properly, leading to countless innocent lives being banished to the cold, unforgiving void of space.

It wasn't the same in every place with the voting system present. For example, on some planets, the Imposters were thrown into a pit of lava, or if the base was in the sky, they plunged through the atmosphere to meet their demise. With those places, the end was certain. Once ejected, death met you swiftly without fail.

Voting systems had been present in space for much longer.

Another system of sorts had formed over time alongside the voting. With the spacesuits standard on every Crewmate, those ejected could survive for long periods of time floating aimlessly in space without dying. Therefore, if another ship happened to pass by while the one ejected was still alive, the crew already aboard the ship could welcome them inside, either saving an innocent life... Or bringing an Imposter on board.

That's how it was.

On a different topic, people could own pets/children called mini-Crewmates. Small carbon copies of their owner/parent that would loyally follow them to the ends of the universe no matter what. Not everybody had one, but it wasn't uncommon to see one or two in every crew. Nobody knew how or why Imposters could also own them... And nobody cared to ask.

Usually, when someone was killed by an Imposter, their mini-Crewmate would sit at the place of their death, unmoving, even if the ship was ready to explode. Loyal till the end. Always. With Imposters' mini-Crewmates, though, they disappeared into thin air. Never to be seen again.

Why did I mention all this, hm? Well, I think one could infer what happened to me based on what I'd already said. Hell, one could probably guess by just the first sentence.

One would probably wonder whether I was an Imposter or a Crewmate. Well, that didn't really matter. On second thought, it did, but the answer was a lot more complicated than you'd think.

I was neither. I could be both or none of them. I thought about it some more and I decided it didn't matter. Not anymore.

If it wasn't guessed already, I was ejected from my ship. My first crew. We were family. I knew who both Imposters were, yet I didn't rat them out. I tried to include them in the family. I prevented them from killing anybody. Nobody died, nobody was ejected. The peace lasted for what felt like years.

Peace reigned... Until my true self slipped. I thought I could trust them with the parts of me I knew they wouldn't like, but it didn't play out like I'd hoped it would. In reality, I should've expected it. Why would they accept the real me when they were already paranoid of real Imposters? Of course, the actual Imposters did nothing to stop it. Why would they? Imposters never cared. All that effort to befriend them... Worthless in the end.

So I did what I thought was right. I told them the true identities of the Imposters. I scooped up my mini-Crewmate and stepped into the tube, expression blank. I stared them straight in the eye just before the embrace of space enveloped me. "... Guess trust can never truly exist when one side never puts the effort forth," it was a fact. I should've known. But I chose to ignore it like a hopeless, desperate moron. At least I always had my mini by my side.