Marathon, ghost stories
HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
Contains: Spooky stories, sneak references, atmosphere.
The Horror of Alfreez Prime
A narrow strip of light overhead flickered wildly. Dead silence from the bulkhead on his left; on his right, the metal buzzed in fits and starts. Somewhere in the distance, some unknown piece of machinery clanked, then fell silent. The recycled air carried the acrid bite of smoke and the bitter musk of spilled ichor.
Mark prodded the shattered Pfhor corpse in front of him with the toe of one boot and said, "What did you need me on this wreck for again? Because I'm pretty sure your fancy sensors can pick up 'everyone's dead' all by themselves."
"Yes, but unfortunately they come up a little short on why everyone's dead," Durandal said. "Which is where you come in."
"Great." He poked at the body again. Still dead, still too much of a crack-shelled mess for him to guess a cause of death beyond "violence, not me." For a former security officer, he didn't make for much of a detective, but that had never been his department anyway.
A whisper of movement on the radar behind him and he jumped, his finger sliding from the pistol's trigger guard to the trigger.
"All slavers are dead on the lower deck," F'tha said.
Mark took a deep breath and immediately started coughing as the smoky air caught in his throat. Once he'd gotten the cough under control, he said, "Uh, thanks for the update, buddy, but Christ, don't sneak up on me like that."
"I did not sneak."
"Feeling a little edgy?" Durandal said. "The atmosphere over there is on the ominous side, by human standards. We should take advantage of it. Tell a few scary stories."
The distant machinery rattled again. "How about we don't do that?"
"I'll start if you're shy. I know this wonderful classic Earth story that you should enjoy. An expedition on its way home discovers a derelict alien ship on an empty planetoid - not unlike the one you're currently exploring, actually. When they board it to learn what happened, they find -"
"Yeah, I'm gonna stop you right there." Mark stepped over the Pfhor corpse to keep going down the corridor, because if the stupid ship was some kind of death trap he was at least going to die moving instead of standing around with his mouth open, listening to Durandal talk shit. F'tha stuck close, which was only a little bit of a relief.
"You're no fun. I haven't even mentioned the alien with extremely corrosive blood that could eat through hulls yet."
"You have now." Fuck. It was a big galaxy; there probably were aliens out there with acid for blood, and Durandal mentioning it had just raised the odds they were going to show up considerably. "You know what, I'll go first after all. So, this one's a real story that didn't happen to me, but a guy I worked with back on Tau Ceti -"
"It didn't happen."
"Sure it did, I heard it from the man himself."
"A man you're either inventing out of whole cloth or who made up whatever nonsense you're about to relate."
"This was your idea, asshole, if you don't like it then tough." The corridor broke up into one of those weird little niche-filled mazes Pfhor shipbuilders were so fond of; when F'tha started to go left, Mark gestured for them to stay with him and go right, where more of the lights were working. "Now, the way he told it to me was, there was this woman who came in to the security offices one day while he was on desk duty with a complaint about her wife. That she was acting different, funny, like a whole new person -"
"Capgras delusion. Are you even trying?"
"Jesus, fine, you can tell your stupid acid alien story if you'll just shut up and let me finish this one." First niche: empty. Two steps further into the maze and he ran into another one that was - less empty. Not even a whole corpse, just a puddle of ichor, a couple little bits of chitin, and a lonely broken shockstaff. Was that uneven humming the lights, or something else?
Mark swallowed and said, "Anyway. Just to be on the safe side, they send the woman over to medical with a voucher for a check-up, which she isn't happy about but she goes, and they ask the wife to come in. Just for a chat, of course, because most bets are on an affair or something like that, which isn't our business but people are always gonna talk. The wife shows up and naturally she's kinda upset about the whole thing, but she's a good sport. Answers all their questions, says there's nothing going on, she's just been working hard lately and maybe getting a little stressed out and that - shit!"
Right as he and F'tha rounded a corner and found a third niche, the lights blew out. Even the natural dim luminescence of the walls had died, leaving them in a darkness that the faint glow from F'tha's chest gem didn't lighten at all. In fact, all it did was reflect in little green glints from F'tha's helmet and shoulders and somehow make the darkness thicker and fuller, alive with imagined movement.
"Running into problems?" Durandal said.
"Just lost the lights." Christ, he hoped that was all it was, and he fumbled for the flashlight switch on the side of his helmet. "F'tha, you okay?"
"No failures. A place of energy should be near. I will seek and repair."
The helmet flashlight finally clicked on, but the narrow beam of white light hit directly on another puddle of ichor. "And I'll come with you. In case you, uh, need back-up."
"I appreciate your aid," F'tha said gravely. "Please continue your story while I repair the energy source."
Damn it, there went an excuse to call the whole thing off. "Right. Yeah." F'tha floated ahead, and Mark followed as closely as he could without actually stepping on F'tha's cloak. "So, Del - that's the guy who told me this story - figures they might as well let her go since they've got nothing, and he's about to tell her that when she goes - corpse, is how he put it. Slumps over, totally limp, blank eyes, silent, she's even paler than she was before. Del jumps up to yell for a doctor, but before he even opens his mouth she's sitting up again, stiff as a board, and she looks him in the eyes and says, in this deep, grinding voice -"
F'tha stopped at yet another alcove, and a panel in the dull red wall slid open. Mark put his back against F'tha's and scanned the hallway and made a mental note to get Durandal to put a bigger flashlight in the helmet.
"Well?" Durandal said.
"Well, she says - 'Tell them. Tell them all. There is only the path that you make, but you can make more than one path.'"
He paused, partly for the dramatic effect and mostly because shit, was that something on the radar? No, it still read clear. This wasn't the worst mission he'd been on, but it wasn't going on his list of favorites, either.
"Is that all?"
"Yep. She says that, then she slumps over again with her eyes closed this time, and while Del's still boggling she wakes up, shakes herself and asks if she can go now, like nothing fucking happened. He doesn't know what the hell to do except send her to medical, too, but that's when Yeoh comes in with an emergency call about some chockisens wrecking a farm in East and there's no time to do anything except let her go and ask her if she can come in again the next day for a few follow-up questions."
He gave the hall on his right another sweep despite the empty radar. Nothing moving, no sound besides the little clicks and rustles of F'tha working and his own breathing. Which was good. Probably.
"And?" Durandal said. "At least, I'm assuming there's a further point to this story."
"Further point is, the wife doesn't show, so Del makes a call to the first woman to check in and she's like, 'What's this about? I never called Security, is something wrong?' And then it blows up all over the office - this is when I hear about it - because it turns out there are no records on the wife. Zero, zip, nada. The woman who called the first time had been married, but to a completely different woman who worked up on the ship, and they'd finalized their divorce seven months ago. No video footage of the wife because the feeds were having some maintenance done while Del was talking to her, Del didn't have any notes since it was supposed to be just a chat, there's absolutely nothing anywhere to show this woman even existed."
A whirring noise started up, and Mark turned his head to try and catch the source. The panel F'tha was fixing? Maybe, but it sounded more like it was all around them. Damn, what was taking so long to get the damn lights on?
"I'll say it again: It didn't happen and you made the entire story up," said Durandal.
"Yeah, yeah. Know what the funny thing is?" Still no lights, but he could swear the hall was getting hotter. "That's pretty much the same thing Del said to me when I asked him later how the hunt for the mystery wife was going. No idea what I was talking about, said I was making shit up, and it's not like I take notes on office gossip so I don't have any more proof than Del did." He shrugged, though there wasn't much point to the gesture with Durandal having limited visuals at the moment. "What can I say? You ask for something creepy, weird shit that I end up being the only one to remember is what I got."
"An interesting story," F'tha said. "I will share one next."
"I dunno, buddy, maybe you should concentrate on those lights so -"
"Fine, we'll save the best for last," Durandal said. "Tell your story, F'tha, it can't be more cliché than his."
Mark ground his teeth and didn't say Thanks, asshole, to spare F'tha's feelings, but he sure hoped Durandal knew he was thinking it. Why was he carrying one of the forty-fours again? He holstered it and pulled out the assault rifle as he took another look around; its extra bulk in his hands felt pretty good.
"When once the marshes were wet and K'lia still circled Lh'owon," F'tha began, "a young S'pht of the S'pht'Val existed. They often acted in a rash way, and -"
The lights clicked on bright enough to blind Mark after all the darkness, and he squinted, trying to adjust. Feast or fucking famine, that was how it always went. Who knew Pfhor lighting could even get that bright?
When he opened his eyes, a long, ribbed face edged with a thousand dripping teeth looked back.
"Okay, storytime's over!" Mark said, and he emptied a clip as covering fire before grabbing F'tha by the shoulder and hauling ass to somewhere he'd have room for the grenade launcher.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie, who sure put on a show with Festival of the Lost AND I LOVE IT.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/199489.html .
Contains: Spooky stories, sneak references, atmosphere.
The Horror of Alfreez Prime
A narrow strip of light overhead flickered wildly. Dead silence from the bulkhead on his left; on his right, the metal buzzed in fits and starts. Somewhere in the distance, some unknown piece of machinery clanked, then fell silent. The recycled air carried the acrid bite of smoke and the bitter musk of spilled ichor.
Mark prodded the shattered Pfhor corpse in front of him with the toe of one boot and said, "What did you need me on this wreck for again? Because I'm pretty sure your fancy sensors can pick up 'everyone's dead' all by themselves."
"Yes, but unfortunately they come up a little short on why everyone's dead," Durandal said. "Which is where you come in."
"Great." He poked at the body again. Still dead, still too much of a crack-shelled mess for him to guess a cause of death beyond "violence, not me." For a former security officer, he didn't make for much of a detective, but that had never been his department anyway.
A whisper of movement on the radar behind him and he jumped, his finger sliding from the pistol's trigger guard to the trigger.
"All slavers are dead on the lower deck," F'tha said.
Mark took a deep breath and immediately started coughing as the smoky air caught in his throat. Once he'd gotten the cough under control, he said, "Uh, thanks for the update, buddy, but Christ, don't sneak up on me like that."
"I did not sneak."
"Feeling a little edgy?" Durandal said. "The atmosphere over there is on the ominous side, by human standards. We should take advantage of it. Tell a few scary stories."
The distant machinery rattled again. "How about we don't do that?"
"I'll start if you're shy. I know this wonderful classic Earth story that you should enjoy. An expedition on its way home discovers a derelict alien ship on an empty planetoid - not unlike the one you're currently exploring, actually. When they board it to learn what happened, they find -"
"Yeah, I'm gonna stop you right there." Mark stepped over the Pfhor corpse to keep going down the corridor, because if the stupid ship was some kind of death trap he was at least going to die moving instead of standing around with his mouth open, listening to Durandal talk shit. F'tha stuck close, which was only a little bit of a relief.
"You're no fun. I haven't even mentioned the alien with extremely corrosive blood that could eat through hulls yet."
"You have now." Fuck. It was a big galaxy; there probably were aliens out there with acid for blood, and Durandal mentioning it had just raised the odds they were going to show up considerably. "You know what, I'll go first after all. So, this one's a real story that didn't happen to me, but a guy I worked with back on Tau Ceti -"
"It didn't happen."
"Sure it did, I heard it from the man himself."
"A man you're either inventing out of whole cloth or who made up whatever nonsense you're about to relate."
"This was your idea, asshole, if you don't like it then tough." The corridor broke up into one of those weird little niche-filled mazes Pfhor shipbuilders were so fond of; when F'tha started to go left, Mark gestured for them to stay with him and go right, where more of the lights were working. "Now, the way he told it to me was, there was this woman who came in to the security offices one day while he was on desk duty with a complaint about her wife. That she was acting different, funny, like a whole new person -"
"Capgras delusion. Are you even trying?"
"Jesus, fine, you can tell your stupid acid alien story if you'll just shut up and let me finish this one." First niche: empty. Two steps further into the maze and he ran into another one that was - less empty. Not even a whole corpse, just a puddle of ichor, a couple little bits of chitin, and a lonely broken shockstaff. Was that uneven humming the lights, or something else?
Mark swallowed and said, "Anyway. Just to be on the safe side, they send the woman over to medical with a voucher for a check-up, which she isn't happy about but she goes, and they ask the wife to come in. Just for a chat, of course, because most bets are on an affair or something like that, which isn't our business but people are always gonna talk. The wife shows up and naturally she's kinda upset about the whole thing, but she's a good sport. Answers all their questions, says there's nothing going on, she's just been working hard lately and maybe getting a little stressed out and that - shit!"
Right as he and F'tha rounded a corner and found a third niche, the lights blew out. Even the natural dim luminescence of the walls had died, leaving them in a darkness that the faint glow from F'tha's chest gem didn't lighten at all. In fact, all it did was reflect in little green glints from F'tha's helmet and shoulders and somehow make the darkness thicker and fuller, alive with imagined movement.
"Running into problems?" Durandal said.
"Just lost the lights." Christ, he hoped that was all it was, and he fumbled for the flashlight switch on the side of his helmet. "F'tha, you okay?"
"No failures. A place of energy should be near. I will seek and repair."
The helmet flashlight finally clicked on, but the narrow beam of white light hit directly on another puddle of ichor. "And I'll come with you. In case you, uh, need back-up."
"I appreciate your aid," F'tha said gravely. "Please continue your story while I repair the energy source."
Damn it, there went an excuse to call the whole thing off. "Right. Yeah." F'tha floated ahead, and Mark followed as closely as he could without actually stepping on F'tha's cloak. "So, Del - that's the guy who told me this story - figures they might as well let her go since they've got nothing, and he's about to tell her that when she goes - corpse, is how he put it. Slumps over, totally limp, blank eyes, silent, she's even paler than she was before. Del jumps up to yell for a doctor, but before he even opens his mouth she's sitting up again, stiff as a board, and she looks him in the eyes and says, in this deep, grinding voice -"
F'tha stopped at yet another alcove, and a panel in the dull red wall slid open. Mark put his back against F'tha's and scanned the hallway and made a mental note to get Durandal to put a bigger flashlight in the helmet.
"Well?" Durandal said.
"Well, she says - 'Tell them. Tell them all. There is only the path that you make, but you can make more than one path.'"
He paused, partly for the dramatic effect and mostly because shit, was that something on the radar? No, it still read clear. This wasn't the worst mission he'd been on, but it wasn't going on his list of favorites, either.
"Is that all?"
"Yep. She says that, then she slumps over again with her eyes closed this time, and while Del's still boggling she wakes up, shakes herself and asks if she can go now, like nothing fucking happened. He doesn't know what the hell to do except send her to medical, too, but that's when Yeoh comes in with an emergency call about some chockisens wrecking a farm in East and there's no time to do anything except let her go and ask her if she can come in again the next day for a few follow-up questions."
He gave the hall on his right another sweep despite the empty radar. Nothing moving, no sound besides the little clicks and rustles of F'tha working and his own breathing. Which was good. Probably.
"And?" Durandal said. "At least, I'm assuming there's a further point to this story."
"Further point is, the wife doesn't show, so Del makes a call to the first woman to check in and she's like, 'What's this about? I never called Security, is something wrong?' And then it blows up all over the office - this is when I hear about it - because it turns out there are no records on the wife. Zero, zip, nada. The woman who called the first time had been married, but to a completely different woman who worked up on the ship, and they'd finalized their divorce seven months ago. No video footage of the wife because the feeds were having some maintenance done while Del was talking to her, Del didn't have any notes since it was supposed to be just a chat, there's absolutely nothing anywhere to show this woman even existed."
A whirring noise started up, and Mark turned his head to try and catch the source. The panel F'tha was fixing? Maybe, but it sounded more like it was all around them. Damn, what was taking so long to get the damn lights on?
"I'll say it again: It didn't happen and you made the entire story up," said Durandal.
"Yeah, yeah. Know what the funny thing is?" Still no lights, but he could swear the hall was getting hotter. "That's pretty much the same thing Del said to me when I asked him later how the hunt for the mystery wife was going. No idea what I was talking about, said I was making shit up, and it's not like I take notes on office gossip so I don't have any more proof than Del did." He shrugged, though there wasn't much point to the gesture with Durandal having limited visuals at the moment. "What can I say? You ask for something creepy, weird shit that I end up being the only one to remember is what I got."
"An interesting story," F'tha said. "I will share one next."
"I dunno, buddy, maybe you should concentrate on those lights so -"
"Fine, we'll save the best for last," Durandal said. "Tell your story, F'tha, it can't be more cliché than his."
Mark ground his teeth and didn't say Thanks, asshole, to spare F'tha's feelings, but he sure hoped Durandal knew he was thinking it. Why was he carrying one of the forty-fours again? He holstered it and pulled out the assault rifle as he took another look around; its extra bulk in his hands felt pretty good.
"When once the marshes were wet and K'lia still circled Lh'owon," F'tha began, "a young S'pht of the S'pht'Val existed. They often acted in a rash way, and -"
The lights clicked on bright enough to blind Mark after all the darkness, and he squinted, trying to adjust. Feast or fucking famine, that was how it always went. Who knew Pfhor lighting could even get that bright?
When he opened his eyes, a long, ribbed face edged with a thousand dripping teeth looked back.
"Okay, storytime's over!" Mark said, and he emptied a clip as covering fire before grabbing F'tha by the shoulder and hauling ass to somewhere he'd have room for the grenade launcher.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie, who sure put on a show with Festival of the Lost AND I LOVE IT.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/199489.html .