Among Them (Among Us AU/Fanfiction)

Chapter Eight - Purple

"Remain calm, everybody!" Hyacinth called.

"Not easy!" Adam called out through gritted teeth.

Devin, Head of SKELD Engines, scowled. "Out of all places for me to die, I have to die in Storage?"

Hyacinth frowned at the black-suited man. "What's wrong with Storage?" he asked the prickly crewmate. He grinned at the piles of boxes he'd so carefully sorted and stacked with genuine affection. "You can find anything in Storage." He patted one of the boxes. "Everything in every single one of these boxes is an extremely important product to be shipped over to Ortus. In fact, Storage is the most important room, in my humble opinion -"

"Yeah? Well your humble opinion isn't powering the very ship taking you to Ortus," Devin snapped.

"What, the engines?" Hyacinth snorted. Those dusty old things? "Well you wouldn't be going to Ortus in the first place without all the cargo in Storage -"

"Ohh, okay, Mr I-Love-Storage, let me give you a piece of my mind -"

"Guys! Enough!" Adam spoke up. "You're giving me a headache."

Hyacinth sighed. Devin started it in the first place, he thought bitterly, but said nothing. There was a time and a place to talk, he'd learned from his exclusive training in MIRA Headquarters, the most prestigious training and research headquarters GSEO had to offer. Hyacinth had been working for GSEO for almost as long as Verdell, and he'd definitely learned a lot. He, Sapphire, Cerulean and Verdell were the only ones trained at MIRA HQ, meaning they'd been supplied with the most important jobs: Admin controlled many things on the ship and it required a trained professional to work with Chips and the Admin panel, Reactor was SKELD's main source of power and the nuclear energy it released was dangerous, Verdell charted the journey and steered SKELD single-handedly, and Hyacinth had to look after everything in Storage. It was a harder job than one might assume and he dedicated all his time to examining and tracking the progress of every single thing being shipped to Ortus. They weren't shipping just random objects: this was an experiment, seeing how everyday Earth products fared with the strange atmosphere and climate of Ortus. It was a gruelling process, opening every box and carefully examining every product, recording his acute observations, and being careful not to damage anything when he returned them.

"So, how do we get out of here?" Devin asked, significantly calmer than before.

Hyacinth shrugged. "We don't." At Devin's scowl, he added hastily: "But don't worry! You're perfectly safe here. There are no vents in Storage so no way for anyone to get in here, and there are plenty of weapons here for self-defense! You can find anything in St '"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Devin wandered away and Hyacinth was left with the quiet Adam, who was looking around curiously. Hyacinth watched as the blood drained from the young crewmate's face. Without hesitation, Adam jumped onto a box, beginning to scale the tower of storage containers.

"Hey - wait! Stop! Don't -!" Hyacinth ran forwards, trying to stop Adam from damaging anything (or himself) but Adam was already climbing down. Hyacinth noticed something in the red crewmate's hand and recognised it immediately. There was no mistaking those colourful orange stickers.

Adam sat down on a small box, staring at the tablet, his eyes glazed over, like he wasn't really looking at the tablet at all. He bit his lip and wiped his eyes with his gloved hand. Hyacinth sat down beside him and patted the younger crewmate on the shoulder. It must be hard to lose someone, Hyacinth thought. He'd never lost anyone - he'd never had anyone before MIRA took him in. He still shivered as he remembered the earliest years of his life: abandoned in the streets, wandering around lost.