Chapter One: Frightmares

He was lost.

And it was dark.

The "he" was a newly stationed technician who had been sent to gather snacks for his Tallest. We'll call him Rig. The "it" was the underbelly of the Massive, a confusing mess of corridors he'd never known existed - hell, probably half the crew above didn't even know existed. It wasn't necessarily dark, insomuch as dimly lit by rather old fluorescent lights, which flashed on and off as he walked through yet another long passageway.

If he knew this would be a fucking maze, he would have just taken the consequences for disobeying his Tallest. Floating through space after being cast out of an airlock by his leaders would have to be better than traversing the underbelly with a huge bag of snacks clutched to his chest.

"Why the hell did they put a concession stand down here, anyway?" He asked aloud. His voice sounded alien to his antennae, echoing in the dark hall. A bizarre feeling was forming in his squeedilyspooch, and he wasn't about to name it, as he had a sneaking suspicion its name would be "fear". Irkens fear nothing. Smeets are taught not to fear anything shortly after beginning life. There was no reason he should be scared now. It wasn't like there were monsters kept in the underbelly of the Massive - they'd probably escape and eat the Tallest, if there were.

Or stupid newbie technicians who couldn't find their way back to the bridge.

At the thought he shuddered despite himself, pulling the snack-bag a little closer to his chest. There are no monsters, he thought fiercely at his squeedlyspooch, which still felt like it was constricting itself in a fearful little knot, there's no reason to be afraid. This eventually became a little mantra circling around in his head, although the knot in his 'spooch remained obstinately wound.

One row of the fluorescent lights flashed off and remained off, leaving the right side completely dark. The shadows looked almost tangible, like they'd reach out and grab him at any moment...the lights on the left shut down then, the hall now a little yellow pathway with those horrible almost-living shadows on either side. Not wanting to be stuck in the hall in the dark, he walked a little faster until he came to a passage that had all three sides dimly lit. Behind him, it went completely dark, and it looked a little like that part of the underbelly had just disappeared, devoured by those thick, hungry shadows...

There he went again. Letting his imagination get the better of him. Irkens weren't supposed to be that imaginative, and he now knew why.

Imaginative or not, he was beginning to detect a soft clanging sound above.. like something crawling noisily in the pipes. But when he stopped to listen to it (maybe define it better, as his mind was calling it "the phantom crawly noise", which made him even more uneasy), it stopped. He started walking again, and it started up again. Experimentally, he stopped once again, and, whaddya know - it stopped too.

There are no monsters, Rig, there's no reason to be afraid.

Clank-clank-clank.

No monsters, no monsters - it's all in your head. Your too-imaginative head. All in your head.

A new sound joined it, and then replaced it: the soft thud-scratching of something's claws on the wall. Something walking on the wall.

"It's all in your head," He whispered to himself, completely unconvincing, eyeing the shadows on the wall, near the ceiling. "All in your head. There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing to fear, just your imagination acting up, that's right--"

He turned a corner and both sounds in tandem returned, loud enough to make him wince.

They sounded close.

CLANK-CLANK-CLANK; THUD-SKIFF-THUD-SKIFF-SCRIIIIIIiiiitch..

His antennae pressed close to his head, and he pulled the bag even closer to his chest, half-crushing the snacks inside. They would probably be furious at him for damaging them - probably send him back for more. The knot in his squeedlyspooch constricted further, almost painfully, at this thought. He couldn't come back here. He wasn't even out of here. He could still hear the whatever-it-was--

CLANK-CLANK-SCRITCH-THUD-THUD-SCRITCH-THUD.

A soft yelp escaped his lips - the sound was so close it felt like it was all in his head, although he doubted his imagination would want to destroy his hearing.

That meant the whatever-it-was actually was following him, did exist, and probably was some kind of monster.

He'd started to think it was a prankster Irken, maybe even one of his Tallest (you never know - they got bored easy), following along and scaring him like this, but after the latest bout of sound the thought evaporated - it didn't sound Irken. Not at all. The scritching could have come from someone's spider legs, but that thudding.. it was too heavy, too--

THUMP.

It wasn't on the wall anymore.

It was on the floor.

And he could hear its footfalls on the tile. A slow, deliberate clicking.

Not running.

Trotting leisurely after its prey.

He himself was half-jogging now, snack-bag crushed to his chest with enough force to have the top fall over his arm and a donut fall to the floor with a squishy thud, his heart trying hard to drown out the phantom clicky noise--

--so close, this noise, too close, and was that breathing he heard as well?--

by pounding in his antennae, a sound even more horrible than the others heard before it, because it meant he was afraid, fucking afraid, paralytically afraid. He shook his head to clear it out, a few droplets of sweat falling out of sight into the surrounding shadows, splattering sightlessly on the wall they concealed.

It doesn't exist, he thought weakly, it's all in my head, and if it's in my head, it can't hurt me, can't rend me limb from limb--

--his labored breathing now joining that horrible pounding of his heart, driving into his antennae, not nearly enough to block out the noise--

All in my head, all in my head, I'm just running from it because I thinkit's something out to get me, but it's just my over-active imagination, an imagination Irkens aren't even supposed to have but I have it anyway, because I'm probably a damn Defective, imagine that--

All thought stopped, though the sounds continued.

There wasn't an open stretch of hallway before him now. Just one wall.

Dead end.

A combination of fear, desolation, and just plain frustration caused him to cry out and kick that damn wall, the single wall impeding him from escaping whatever the hell it was chasing him down. Something in his foot snapped painfully and he bit his lip against the pain, turning around with his back to the wall. He was still gripping the snack-bag like his life depended on it, and he supposed that if push came to shove, he could throw it at the thing.

Before him, nothing but darkness. A fluorescent light overhead cast the only illumination of this part of the area - a spotlight shining down on his head. Stupid lights. Stupid darkness. Stupid shadows.. watching them was curiously hypnotizing, as though they were moving, closing in and pressing down on him. Maybe he was just giving a persona to his fear, which was now so deep it paralyzed him, even as he hated it and attempted to move against it - the last movement it allowed was turning around to face his impending death, for part of his mind was sure this was going to end up in death--

Something in the center of them moved, and he watched it instead.

This was it. That had to be his pursuer.

He found he wasn't mad anymore.

He was scared as hell.

And it wasn't all in his head.

The last light flickered off, and the bag of snacks fell to the floor--

--Sorry, my Tallest, but you're going to have to get your snacks elsewhere--

The entire ship filled with his terrified scream.. and the stifling silence that followed after.

Tallest Red was not accustomed to hearing loud screams during a nap.

In fact, he wasn't accustomed to hearing anyone scream at any time. The Massive just wasn't a place in which one screams one's fool head off.

He'd been shamelessly napping in one of the chairs on the bridge, too lazy to do it in his own room, leaving Purple to contend with any business their advisors might fork at them. Luckily for the co-leader, there hadn't been, and he had ordered a newly stationed technician - Rip or something - to get some snacks for himself and Red. The other had obeyed as overenthusiastically as all newbies do...

But that was an hour ago.

And that scream..

Well, whoever the poor bastard was, he was probably dead by now, and so Red really didn't care. He didn't care if the bastard had lived, actually.

"Took you long enough," Purple muttered darkly.

Red went to protest, but then he heard the other add disappointedly, "And you don't have our snacks."

Whatsisface must have returned, then.

"My apologies, my Tallest," Rig said sheepishly, giving a half-hearted salute. Then he looked up, and Red, now watching through a slightly cracked open eye, noticed he looked rather spooked. "But there's something you ought to see."

"Is it urgent?" Purple said, sounding like he just woke up from a nap.

"Extremely."

"I'll go," The crimson-eyed Tallest offered, startling the two slightly - they'd obviously thought he was still sleeping when Rip approached. Rig. Ritz. Whatever. Can't be expected to remember every single technician's name that passes beneath his line of sight, after all. "Probably's somethin' stupid anyway." The last statement had the tail end of his nap imprinted on it, but they didn't seem to notice.

"Be careful," Purple stated quietly.

Red stared curiously at him, but the other offered no explanation for the warning, just waved him away like he was as insignificant as the technician standing beside him. Damned pompous idiot. They were co-leaders, and maybe even friends; that kind of holier-than-thou treatment was completely uncalled for.

Then said technician scampered out of the room, and he hovered after him.

Eventually whatsisface was leading him through the underbelly of the ship, and a rather unused portion at that - or overused. The lights were dim, the walls that weren't darkened by shadows filthy. He made a mental note to get a cleaner or two down here to get rid of that. There would be no filthy walls on his ship.

He then realized he was hovering in those gross, dark halls alone. Whatsisface had disappeared.

"Damn coward," He growled at the shadows. "Leaving me in this shithole."

Well, perhaps shithole was a bit too harsh a term, but he wanted to resume his nap on the bridge, so anywhere else was a shithole. And if he didn't find anything urgently interesting soon, he'd have to hunt down that stupid lily-livered technician and rip his fool head off - or just pull his squeedilyspooch out through his eyesockets. Throwing him out an airlock was too tame - that was how Purple liked to punish them. This one needed a nice little death for disturbing his Tallest's sleep mode and then leaving him in the dank intestinal tract of the Mass--

Something ahead caught his eye.

It looked suspiciously like a torn-up bag (a snack-bag, go figure). Around it were things that looked like they used to be snacks.

"Half-eaten snacks?" He wondered aloud, blinking. Did whatsisface also eat the snacks he was supposed to get for them? Because that would mean a head-ripping or 'spooch-pulling wouldn't do for this one..

He toed one of the half-eaten things with distaste, then winced as something lukewarm dropped on his head. Instinctively he moved back, and only then noticed that the snack-bag and half-eaten snacks were laying in a pool of a dark crimson liquid, something he rather hoped wasn't blood. If it was blood, something was bleeding, and if something was bleeding, something caused that bleeding, and that something could still be here..

Drip.

A realization occurred to him: why didn't he just assume that someone hurt themselves?

He wasn't the type to believe in bogeymen and monsters in the closet - that was Purple's job. To be the scaredy one. To jump when you whisper "boo". So why did he all of a sudden think it was something - some monster- creeping through these nasty hallways that made that blood?

Drip.

Dammit.

Drip.

That blood better belong to someone's damn paper cut.

Drip.

He finally stopped watching the blood and looked up, looking for the source.

He.. didn't expect what he saw.

It was a body. A honest-to-dead body. It looked like it had been a technician once - except for the bloody, gnarled nub where its head should have been. If he squinted, he could see the vague impression of teeth in the torn flesh, what wasn't eclipsed by blood. The headless corpse was stuck to the ceiling by several thick bands of darkish slimy-looking goo, goo you usually see coming out of a snail's ass.

Drip.

He was still stuck on the fact that he could see teeth-marks. That meant something bit off its fucking head.

It takes a lot of force to sever a spine, and it looked like whatever it was did it with the ease of cutting butter.

And the worse part was that it could still be here somewhere.

"Alright," He said, addressing the darkness once again - he'd completely forgotten about Rig (who, unbeknownst to him, was the body above his head), "Whatever the hell you are, show yourself. While I'm not in the mood to have anything creeping around in my ship period, I'll be even more pissed if I don't even know what hell is doing the creeping."

Something in the darkness chuckled, probably at his overuse of expletives.

But it was progress, at least.

Just not enough.

Something moved to his left. He turned, getting a laser gun from his PAK. Now his order could be arranged as "show yourself and be blasted to pieces, you stupid motherfucker". The whatever-it-was chuckled again, but the sound was different. As though it were laughing at some blind idiocy being displayed.. or it knew something he didn't. Either way, its ass had a date with his gun.

Very nice, something said in his mind, except for the fact that you don't even know what you'd be blasting.

"Don't play mind games with me! Get the fuck out of that darkness or I'll make you come out!"

You're so demanding... too bad such fire will have to go to waste..

There was a rather sensual tone to the first statement, and a regretful yet ominous one to the second. He growled, leveling his gun at the shadows to the left, waiting with bated breath to see what it would be that would have a neat little laser-hole in its forehead.

All he got to see was a pair of white lights that might have been eyes... and then everything went dark.

Red had been gone for far too long, Purple decided; and, as usual, he couldn't help but worry about the bastard.

After all, something - or someone- had screamed earlier, and he had also thought "some poor fucker's dead", but with more concern than his friend. It set him on the track of mind Red had started on when he discovered the blood: that kind of scream is usually illicited by something scaring something else shitless, and the only thing that came to mind that delt such gravity of shitlessness was some kind of large beast, monster, or demon. Or the screamer's worst fear. But he thought monster and that word stuck.

He'd warned Red about it, as vaguely as possible (for the other didn't like to hear Purple's complaints, fears, or other nonsense that seemed weak), but, as usual, he hadn't listened. While part of him did hope Red was suffering for ignoring that warning, the rest just hoped he hadn't gone the way of the screamer.

Which was why he was now hovering back and forth in front of their chairs, nervously wringing his fingers without even noticing he was doing it, muttering things to himself that voiced what he imagined what could have happened to Red. The technicians looked up time to time to see if the violet-eyed Tallest had finally stopped that (it was worrying them, too), but, noticing its being continued, sighed and went back to their work.

One of the advisors approached him.

"It's probably nothing," He said, antennae lowered humbly and a bit nervously. "He'll be back."

"You're right, it's probably something stupid," Purple said distractedly. "He probably just got lost, that's all." Then he laughed at the idea of Red hovering around aimlessly in the bowels of the ship.. but it was an empty laugh, because at the same time his overconcerned mind generated the image of Red being dead down there because he couldn't find his way back and starved to death. He could almost hear the flies landing on his lifeless form. He shuddered, and hovered about a little faster.

The advisor frowned, but left him alone. There was just no getting to him.

Luckily for all of them, Purple's wait was over: Red, sans Rig, came hovering in.

"Soo... what was it?" He asked, genuinely curious.

Red snorted and resumed his original place - his chair. The other was surprised he didn't jump back into sleep mode.

"Somethin' stupid." Came the reply.

Whee - my first IZ epic finally gets its ass on FF, and its first chapter is 9 pages. Not bad, ne?

DS felt sorry for Rig. That's good. Means I have a future in horror/suspense writing.

Don't ask me where the name of the chapter came from.

R&R, bitches.