Crew-postor (Among Us)

Chapter 3: Impostor

What was that?

The emergency button sounded. I scurried from the bottom of the seat and ran towards the cafeteria. It was a miracle my helmet wasn't broken. But the chaos has ruptured my oxygen tank on the inside somehow. That can't be good.

When I arrived at the cafeteria, everyone else was there. Almost. Impasta and Grass were dead on the cafeteria table. Stabbed multiple times in the back. Everyone else has the same shock on their faces. It was the first time anyone has seen a violent death perhaps. I didn't have the guts to look at it for too long either.

Carrot broke down. I mean, it's understandable. Anyone would be in a state of shock. But it seemed really unprofessional of him to break down like that. After all, we were trained to deal with deaths. Sophie immediately rushed to his side and comforted him.

"Cat, instead of just judging Carrot, how about you find a way to solve this problem?" Sophie snapped at me. "Why do you look surprised? I can tell what you are thinking just by looking at your expressions." I took a mental note that Sophie was good at reading people.

"We should report to the base on Earth and Polus about this." I replied, annoyed that Sophie questioned my abilities.

"The communicators to Polus are destroyed. We can only contact Earth through the radio at the communications room and communicate among us through the communicators built in our helmets when we are near each other. It would take us some time to get the signal to reach there, seeing that we are further from Earth than Polus right now. Not to mention that the Skeld has gone off course."

"Might as well contact them than doing nothing. Cat, shut off the engines. We can't afford to go even more off course." Berry commented. I rushed to the upper and lower engines with the help of the miniature map at the side of my screen.

When I got back to the cafeteria, Kira complained about his oxygen tank being broken internally. That's when I found out everyone had the same problem. Luckily we had a backup oxygen tank at the oxygen room. If that tank was destroyed, it's game over for us.

Sophie escorted Carrot to the medbay to let him calm down. We should be careful now.

Connecting...

The communicators in communications finally lit up. We rushed to the cafeteria, where the television lit up with Daniel. We had pizza for dinner to calm down our nerves. Carrot was still sobbing from the aftermath of his breakdown, but was calmed down enough to speak and eat properly.

Pizza was my favourite food. I'm sure it was everyone's ever since burgers and fries were banned five years ago. But as I sank my teeth into the crunchy pizza crust after removing our helmets, it just didn't taste the same. My mind was reeling from what happened today and the memory of Impasta and Grass' severed bodies can make anyone nauseous. However, something that bugged me more was the fact that Dhee and Meena hadn't spoken much the whole time. It was really unsettling.

"Hello? Hello?" Daniel's voice from the television broke my chain of thoughts. For once, I was glad to hear his voice.

Daniel was informed of the situation. He turned around and discussed with the people at the back for around a minute. Then he turned around.

"Yes, we are tracking your ship's movements. Instead of Polus, you are heading to Mira HQ, which is a planet similar to Polus and our third base, right now. Conserve your fuel for landing, as your fuel supplies seemed to have decreased drastically for unknown reasons. Right now, you should use minimal fuel to travel to Mira HQ..."

"What in the world was the blackout in the ship just now?"

"You should have listened to me earlier, when I was about to explain the Alien parasites. They could take over people. Once a person is taken over, they are dead. The parasite's only purpose is to feed by killing people. Nothing else. The best way to stop the growth of more parasites is to throw the bodies out of the airlock." Upon hearing that, Sophie grabbed the bodies on the middle cafeteria table and threw them out the airlock into the empty vacuum of space. It was saddening to see, and Carrot broke down again.

"How do we identify who is infected?" Sophie questioned aggressively.

"Correction. 'Are'. Not 'is'." Daniel corrected. A lump formed in my throat. My suspicion of Dhee and Meena grew. "We refer to them as impostors. They can kill and vent, since they change the structure of the body they infect. They can also sabotage."

"Sabotage...?"

"The backup oxygen tank and the reactor core. Make sure you fix the sabotages before time runs out, or else you're dead. They may also sabotage the communications, lights, and doors. You can find a blueprint of the vent system in admin." Daniel explained. "If a dead body is discovered, you report it using the megaphone-shaped buttons. You can find them in the storage boxes. Or if you see someone vent, you can call a meeting. However, a meeting cannot be called during an emergency. During a meeting, you vote someone out. The person with the most votes will be thrown out of the airlock. We can only confirm if they are the impostor by then."

"But by then..."

"Yes, if they are innocent they would be dead."

The pizza was harder to swallow now.

"On the bright side, there is one more way to catch the impostors. The security cameras, which provide live feed on certain areas, are present and you can always use the admin table which shows people in each room, but you are unable to see their faces. One last thing. To make sure the Skeld doesn't break down, we are sending you a series of tasks to do to maintain the ship's structure."

"Hey Attention Bee, are you upset at me or something?" I chased after Dhee after the television had shut down. I was desperate to prove to myself that Dhee was an innocent, just like us.

Dhee looked at me "Oh...uhhh...yeah." She turned around and walked away towards the admin room.

Upset that I still haven't proved myself wrong, I trudged to the medbay, where the lights flickered off. The only things I could see were my arms. The surroundings were pitch-black. Those impostors were quick to sabotage.