"I hate this!"

Twilight broke into a sprint as fast as her legs allowed her, the scorpion barely missing its lunge at the unicorn.

Of course we get ambushed in Zero Gravity of all things!

She turned around and unleashed a freezing spell towards the Necromorph. Her shot was lucky, hitting the thing dead in flight towards her. Twilight then proceeded to grab an errant gas canister and threw it at her victim. The explosion shredded the undead being apart.

Isaac was on the other hand preoccupied with two lurkers, jumping upwards to avoid the mutants' razor sharp projectiles. The engineer fumbled around briefly upon his rather ungraceful landing before pulling out his plasma cutter and slicing off the appendages of one of the Necromorphs. The creature squealed and died, the body floating away into the Zero-G chamber.

The other baby growled and lunged at Isaac. However, he was prepared for it; as soon as the creature closed up on him, he dodged the tentacles and grabbed them in midair, giving them a sharp tug. The abomination was helpless to twist its way out of Isaac's grip thanks to the nonexistent g-forces and was flung hard towards the floor before receiving Issac's boot in the face, ultimately killing it.

The duo exhaled in relief when no more Necromorphs were present. The creatures had attacked them as soon as they had left the storage room, forcing them to fight in accordance the difficult and dizzying art of Zero-G combat. While Isaac's time among the Merchant Marines had granted him a good understanding of how to battle in the lack of gravity, Twilight had mostly ran around the therapy chamber in a panicked state, completely forgoing the fact that she could jump between surfaces as she tried to get her bearings, find the hostiles and fight them at the same time with no experience whatsoever.

She blushed under her helmet. I pretty much achieved nothing but make myself dizzy, Twilight thought as she suppressed another wave of nausea. The unicorn's fighting pattern had basically boiled down to fire a magical blast (and missing) before running halfway across the entire room in a loop. In the end, she had sprinted six laps in a circular fashion while trying to flee from her hunters. It would have been comical if not for the fact that the Necromorphs had been rather insistent on killing her. In short, it didn't do wonders to her pride.

She panted one final time and tried to work out her bearings before carefully following Isaac out of the chamber and into the vacuum again.

"Exiting zero gravity."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Isaac?"

"Trust me, I'm an engineer."

The unicorn observed as the human sprayed the contents of the thermal flask onto the barricade, being careful not to accidentally let the flammable material drip onto his suit. After having emptied the can, he motioned to Twilight to give him the shock pad. He gazed a bit at his handiwork before clearing his throat and activating the defibrillators, preparing himself to ignite the barrier.

"Well, here goes nothing..."

He brought up the pads and squeezed the triggers.

The startling bright flash was gone almost as soon as it began. The duo observed the results: the entire barricade had indeed burned to cinders, giving them free access to the body of Captain Matthius.

"Okay, you're through," Hammond chimed in on their communicators. "Should be clear from there to the morgue. Remember, the codes are on the Captain's body."

Isaac and Twilight immediately readied themselves. The time for pleasantries was over: now they would have to witness more of the Ishimura's casualties... And potentially start carving their way through the undead flesh monsters again. As if to reinforce the point, the hallway in front of them was badly lit, the lights flickering at irregular intervals.

They advanced through the corridor and entered the Emergency wing of the ship. Isaac knew something was wrong immediately: all personnel working on the Planet Crackers were more or less under risk of suffering from equipment related accidents, so he had expected the room to be filled with casualties. Only the bodies of one nurse and a badly mangled patient were left in the room. He shivered; all the blood trails led into the vents again...

Something caught Isaac's gaze and his heart skipped a beat. The visage of his beloved Nicole adorned the screen of a still functioning computer. He examined the display but was disappointed to see that it was only a recording, with no identification on how old it was. He pressed play.

"This is Senior Medical Officer Nicole Brennan, transmitting ship wide. We need more help! We don't have the resources to deal with this many cases. Nobody will tell us what's happening! These wounds...we're not equipped to deal with this many..." There were screams off-screen, and the sound of banging on metal. "God... Get him to the table! Hold him! Nurse, you hold him down! Christ! End recording!"

Isaac buried his head in his hands and sighed while Twilight put a comforting hoof on his arm.

"That was Nicole, right?" Hammond asked. "I can't tell from here when that log was made. I'm sure she's around here somewhere."

Isaac nodded wordlessly as a thanks towards Twilight.

The rest of the facility was in a similar state to the rest of the Medical Deck. Blood splatters, tortured bodies, trashed equipment, and moans from the next room.

Wait, moans?

Twilight advanced slowly towards the door to Intensive Care and opened it. She immediately regretted it.

A broken woman, more resembling a corpse than a living being, was occupied with slicing up a still living, but limbless, man laying onto an operating table with a rusty saw. The nurse cackled cruelly as her victim was powerless to stop her, hacking up his guts and ripping apart his flesh. His incessant but weak cries of pain echoed into the operation room, making fear seep into the bones of unicorn who was forced to watch the macabre spectacle.

The patient gurgled one final time before succumbing to his grievous wounds. Twilight was frozen in fear when the ghoulish woman continued her cackling and turned towards her; glazed, milky eyes piercing Twilight's soul with her maddened glare. The nurse giggled again and raised her saw clearly in front of a horrified Twilight before slicing her own neck off, her limp body falling limp into a growing pool of her own blood.

Twilight's eye twitched and backed away slowly, but stopped shortly after.

She felt the comforting pressure of Isaac's hand on her shoulder. The human let out weary, saddened sound of disgust at the sight of his fallen peers before turning to Twilight. Even tough he bore his helmet she could practically guess the expression hidden behind the glowing cyan lines adorning it.

Be strong, Twi.

Twilight tore her gaze away from the bodies. She had already promised herself not to disappoint Isaac: she had to keep on fighting for both her own good, the survivors onboard the Ishimura and everypony back home, even if that meant clearing out the entire ship of Necromorphs and the... And the whispers...

Twilight...

Twilight...

The unsettling feeling of being observed like prey made her involuntarily shudder. The ghostly murmurs that had called her name when she had tried to teleport home forced their way through her memories. She knew there was something on this ship that was disrupting her magic... And it sure in hay didn't feel natural.

Once they left this damned ship though, Twilight knew she would have to speak to the princess about her experiences. She doubted a regular shrink would accept her story (they would probably just label her crazy and ship her off to the asylum directly), and it always felt right to vent her feelings to Celestia. Plus the alicorn was remarkably patient and caring...

Her throat became dry. Unless she dismisses me as delusional too...

She shook her head and tried to dismiss it. Hearing voices in her head was worrying, but they had bigger issues at hoof.

It came as no surprise when they discovered the morgue resembled a slaughterhouse. If the corridors of the Intensive Care wing had been filled with bodies, then this must have counted as a mountain; the dead had been ripped out of their caskets and desecrated by the Necromorphs, or simply dragged away. Isaac felt strangely relieved when he saw the corpse of the Captain lying on an operating table behind a thick plexiglas window. Apart from a missing eye, the body of Benjamin Matthius was relatively well preserved.

The now telltale sound of Necromorphs moving through the ventilation reached their ears. Isaac raised his cutter, noting sourly that he had only one functioning plasma battery left. He would have to make it count.

There was one blunder, however, that blew Isaac an Twilight out off the water. When they heard the monsters coming, they were convinced that they would burst out into the morgue room.

They never anticipated a bat-like creature landing in the Captain's room.

The new abomination spread it's leathery wings and pulled up Matthius' body and, much to the survivors' shock, impaled it through the head with a large, sharp tendril. The body convulsed violently as blood and brain matter erupted from the wound like a gruesome fountain. The epileptic movements of the Captain increased, the corpse's hands and arms deforming into wickedly sharp blades, the muscles deforming and rupturing; the flesh underneath blackened and solidified while the previously empty eyes of the Captain were now glowing red.

And worst of all, the body actually moved now.

The former Benjamin Matthius bellowed at the survivors and smashed through the plexiglas window, the infector that was responsible for the man's transformation following close behind. Isaac and Twilight wasted no time in engaging the most immediate threat.

Isaac struck first. The black slasher swung one of its appendages towards the human's head, who ducked in time and instead used the creature's momentum against itself, leaving him a wide opening to cut off the limb with a single cutter blast and stagger the creature. A magic beam sliced through the air and smashed the Necromorph apart.

Their victory was short lived, however. More flesh tearing and bone snapping could be heard, and the duo looked upon in horror as the bat-like Necromorph had turned two more bodies into slashers. As they were properly dispatched by Isaac and Twilight, more shrieks erupted from all around them. Gasping, Isaac realized the gravity of the situation before them.

"Twi, we're in a fucking morgue! The bat-thingy is having early Christmas celebrations in here!"

Twilight released a magical pulse into one of the creatures and nodded, having understood largely what Isaac had said. "I'll try to stop it!"

The engineer returned to his part of the fight. Four of the slashers pounced him. He unloaded a few bursts and managed to kill one before being forced to reload. As he frantically searched for a battery, Isaac suddenly remembered he had no ammo left, and that three Necromorphs were approaching him.

"Oh fuck me!"

As Isaac fought the slashers, Twilight had put her trust in him to hold them back while she tried to find the infector. She caught it bringing down it's tentacle upon another corpse, ready to transform it into another monster. Twilight acted quickly, sending a freezing blast towards the infector.

To her dismay however, the Necromorph dropped the body and dodged the blast while the corpse was encased in ice. It turned its attention to Twilight and pounced, bowling her over in the process. The terrified unicorn tried to stand up but the infector was too fast, pinning her down again with a swipe of its tentacle before raising it. Twilight moved her head to the side barely in time as it struck down. The infector tried to remove it, but in vain; the appendage remained stuck in the floor.

Twilight let her body work solely on instinct, adrenaline coursing through her veins. The Necromorph reared its head back in an attempt to remove the tentacle again, giving her time to roll away. She climbed up on her hooves again and charged the creature, knocking it over with its tentacle still stuck in the ground. The infector still writhed around on the floor, but the unicorn pinned it down, firmly grabbing the appendage with her front hooves and pulling as hard as she could. She paid the creature's screams no heed as she tugged.

"Raaah!"

With a final yank, the limb came off with a sickening crunch. The Necromorph roared in pain again and tried to limp away, but was firmly bucked by Twilight, sending it crashing into an operating table: it did not get back up. The exhausted unicorn observed her handiwork with great shock as the adrenaline wore off, her heart pounding like a hammer in her chest.

Sweet Celestia, did I just do that?

Meanwhile, Isaac was not so lucky. He had been forced into vicious hand to hand combat with the remaining Necromorphs, and knew that Twilight was still occupied with the infector. Isaac swung his arm with the cutter in a long arc: one of them jumped back but the other two were hit by Isaac's punch, sending the first one reeling back and making the other one lose his head with a dull splat, much to his surprise.

He retreated back as the now decapitated slasher swung its arms around in the room, trying to hurt the offending engineer. One of its fellow Necromorphs was caught in the attack, slicing the body in two pieces.

Only one abomination remained. This one seemed furious at Isaac and lunged at him, blades held up high. Isaac was sent crashing to the floor, following up with kicking the Necromorph back before it could make another move at him. He quickly scrambled up to his feet and swung his cutter again, making the slasher hit the wall. This was followed up with a fist to the slasher's head.

The creature bellowed and grabbed Isaac, who desperately tried to pry it away while it attempted to stab him with it's claws. The creature surged forward, carrying Isaac with and sending him reeling onto an operating table.

The Necromorph barely had time to try and impale the human before a blast hit it in the chest and killed it. Isaac exhaled in relief and retrieved his plasma cutter again.

"Phew! Thanks Twi, I owe you one."

"Not true," she scolded him. "You dragged me into the elevator, then you killed the first one..."

"You saved me shortly afterwards," he defended, raising his arms.

"...Then you dragged me back to reality twice, both after the Kellion... Exploded..." She added with some difficulty. "...And in the prosthetics labs..."

She gulped before continuing. "Meaning that I owe you, twice. And don't you try to deny it," she added in a smug voice.

They shared a small laugh. Even with a dozen bodies surrounding them in a nightmarish morgue, and with an entire ship filled with Necromorphs determined to kill them, they still tried to lighten the mood up.

Yep, we really are crazy, Twilight chuckled inwardly.

Speaking of bodies, Isaac observed his surroundings and all the corpses lying on the floor in a pile.

"So... Where's the RIG?"