Lack of Oxygen.

Malfunction detected.

With advancements in the field of hyper sleep. PSYcoma technologies has introduced the next generation in long distance sleep pods.

Individuals can stay asleep indefinitely with minimal muscle atrophy and disorientation upon awakening due automated electrical pulses timed for maximum muscle retention.

The maiden voyage of these top of the line hypersleep pods will be on board The VoidWalker, our first settlement ship bound for another system and a new home.

Rest easy that your crew, your leaders and you will be safe and sound within these pods

He awoke to the flashing red lights, filling every corner of the sleeping pod with the same intrusive hue. With a hiss of the seals the top of the cylindrical pod raised up from its resting place letting steam form where the frigid and artificially warmed environment met.

His mind was a haze. Leaning up slowly from his resting place and pulling the feeding mask free from his mouth, dragging with it a long black tube from his stomach. Spilling spit and bile across the inside of the pod and over his skin tight black compression suit. It was all he could do to catch his breath, the air felt foreign, as it always did after extended hypersleep. Cold air poured into his lungs, stung like the first frigid day of winter. With slow movement he pulled himself from the bed and onto his feet. The synthetic suit he called his “P.Js” helped give him a sense of stability in the face of sluggish muscles. It was covered with inputs, small holes that dug into the muscle tissue with cables running from them to the pod to transmit the shock required to keep the muscles active and healthy. The tiny l.e.d lights around each port across his body were flashing red like the pod.

It was normally a steady blue pulse, he felt dizzy. So maybe something had gone wrong with the processes.

He reached across his body to start pulling each cable out of the ports, all making a wet hiss of pressure as it came loose, Leaking a vicious clear liquid from each indentation the cables left behind in his body.

There was something always so satisfying of feeling the heated metal floor on bare, chilled feet, fresh from the chilled coffins. It always felt amazing to him. Better than any cup of coffee, or any other stimulant you could get, especially drifting through the cosmos.

He moved across the floor to the doorway out of the “Wake-up” room, stopping at the threshold and turning back. The room was the staging area for the shift's crew to be woken up together. No more than six people per module. Every other time he had woken up, they had woken up together, this being his fourth shift in the trip. Each shift was about a year and a sleep cycle is around a decade. Those lengths of time felt foreign after the first cycle. It became as natural as waking up, albeit with a hangover from hell. What made him stop and think was the lack of other pods. Just five empty docks. His head was throbbing and his eyes felt milliseconds behind their own movement, just enough to turn his stomach like being in freefall. It felt impossible to correlate the information, maybe he was just early in the shift, or the others late.

He pulled the lever to unseal the door.

As it split, light spilt into the room, drowning the low ambience and fading red pulses with the direct, harsh lights from the hallway. They pulled his vision and brought more sick up, dark yellow liquid splattered across the dark grey metal. Like a gunshot that carried a migraine straight into his head. He gave to his shaking knees, letting them meet the metal, lying prostrate; breathing in deep long breaths. Telling himself again and again the nausea will pass, to keep breathing. His forehead covered in a thick layer of chilled sweat, the metal floor's warmth was a curse. He wished it was cold as ice, always helping him through these feelings. He remembered being ill as a child, the cold bathroom floor was always such a relief from the throes of whatever ailment had him at the time. That bathroom, that home might well have not existed at this point. Before he got on the Voidwalker he spent time with everyone of his family and friends. Knowing well they would be long dead before he even stepped foot on a new planet.

After a few moments he stood back up, wobbling, steadying himself against the smooth white walls before crossing the hallway to the porthole, one of many that lined the outer walls of each module. Only tiny little viewpoints but just enough to look out into the void before them. He never got tired of that view. Each miniscule light when he was on earth was the idea of possibility, a “What if”. Now as he stood there, he reminded himself that these stars were new. Not a single one would be the same as the stars he looked at as a child. So impossibly far from earth as to be a faded myth. He wondered if earth would even look the same, if its age showed in the mountains and canyons across its surface. If the oceans had overtaken more and more land to make it look like an entirely new planet. The wonder and amazement gave way to the understanding that earth was no more than a memory to him, just like everyone he said his goodbyes to. Something he would never again see, feel. Homesick wrenching his guts like wringing a towel. Each shift he felt this way. Having to come to terms with it all over again. Times like these he was happy to have therapists on every shift.

His sight shifted and his balance left.

He was forced to close his eyes and try to regain some composure, in fear of losing any more of himself across the floor. He leaned away slowly from the view port as he heard a low pitched, echoing sound originating down the long hallway towards the crew's mess hall. It wasn't the normal moans and groans of the Abysswalker. It was a sound he couldn't rationalize, like a parent does to a scared child in a creaky old house. He was the child and nothing in his mind could be the parent. It was one of those fears that sinks in, it's primal, Your body knows it's far worse than your mind can comprehend. His body froze in place, staring down the sixty or so meter hallway, waiting for either himself to calm, or the noise to happen again. Whichever came first. It was only seconds that passed as he stood there waiting for some sign of what to do. Each deep breath came like fire swirling into his lungs. No longer was the warm air comforting knowing he shared it with whatever made that noise that billowed through the ship like the distant call of a whale. As his eyes fixated down the corridor he could see something move into view. Though the initial shape was familiar the longer his vision tunneled on the being his synapses would start to fire more and more warnings. A new wave of cold sweat beaded up at his neck, just above the edge of the suit. His knees swayed like a newborn deer, as if they would give if he tried to move.

The being took a step towards him, did it notice him? Everything in his stomach said it did. That he should run.

Each step of bare flesh on metal betrayed its form. Human only in parts, plural in many others. Its contorted fleshy body heaved into the hallway on a swarm of misshapen legs and arms, still retaining their human origin but not their placement. It was no bigger than an average man, just shaped in all the wrong ways, almost cylindrical with a quivering, teeth lined orifice that stretched the length of it. Tendrils bloomed from the yawning trap, swaying and reaching around it methodically like a blind man's cane. If God existed in this desolate expanse of space, this thing surely wouldn't. The crewmans stomach turned again as the beasts nearing proximity showed the sunken eyes that chaotically adorned the creature, like the receptacle of a lotus flower. its eyes, all different sizes and colors, all focused perfectly on him.

He turned and ran, as if not controlled by his impulses anymore. A primal signal that took over and left his frozen state in less than a heartbeat. He ran down the hall, he could hear the creature pushing its weight in waves like some massive flesh covered millipede. He passed through a sliding door into the medical wing of the module. Quickly turning to pull the locking mechanism. The creature was already within grabbing distance, he fell back as it pushed through the door. He could only scream, his lungs burning from the blaze of terror that swelled within him. It pushed down on his shoulders with appendages he could not identify, keeping him firm against the ground. This close he could see that the skin it bore was translucent pale, with something writhing underneath like veins under skin, Fish behind drowned cloth. He could have sworn he saw impossible space within. Entire human body parts within a space that would not fit them. The air around it felt thick and glowed as if something in the air was giving off a bioluminescence. Swirling like ink in water, spreading like light in fog.

He thrashed against it as hard as he could, he felt weak. Struggling to fight past not only the nausea that this persistent migrain brought but against his own muscles that had never had to fight this hard before. Slipping a hand past the mass of tendrils that flowered across his chest he pushed his thumb against what he assumed the head of the creature was. It felt not unlike a man's head, Not in shape but in composition, skin and bone. He gripped and pushed his thumb against anything and everything he thought was soft enough to injure the creature. Nothing seemed to phase it, make it recoil. Until with a decisive push he heard an audible pop as his thumb found a soft doorway to push into, spilling crimson red across his hand and face like a burst tomato. The creature let go, falling backwards, squirming on the ground violently. A sound emanating from just under its skin like a pure pressure wave of low frequency rumbling escaped it, the same distant underwater whale call he had heard before. He took his chance to turn and run deeper into the medical ward.

He flew into the nearest room, and immediately turned to lock the door. It fell and hissed shut, just for a moment drowning out the droning cries of the creature in the other room.

Though he felt safe for this moment he knew there was no other conventional way out of this room, besides the door he had just locked. He had worked on the electrical within the walls of this room though and knew that he may be able to get between the room walls and the outer hull.

He searched for anything he could use, wiping the blood of the creature across his suit, it disappeared in the black, though its faded red smears remained on what skin shone.

The crewmen looked for anything he could use to defend himself, but all supplies where kept locked away, only medical staff could access. He ran over to one of the digital panels to unlock the crawlspaces into the electrical compartment, one of few things he had clearance to do. He knew the code, but his mind wouldn't slow, his head was pounding and his stomach turning like high tide. Trying to breathe through it as much as he could, the peace of each breath only lasted a moment before the lights flickered and fell dark, replaced by a familiar strobing red light. A static scratch and that same throbbing pressure wave came over the P.A system with a static hiss. Boring into his ears like a drill. He couldn't hold it back anymore and he let more bile pour from him. He started pressing codes in a frantic attempt to run through all the ones he had to remember for this ship's maintenance. Over and over it buzzed angrily back at him. Until one finally chimed and the panel slid open slowly pushing its way away from its flush resting place revealing a small dark crawlspace, barely enough room to squeeze in with all the wiring running through it like roots of an ancient tree. There were emergency releases inside the compartments in case the power ever dropped while things were being worked on or a panel closed behind workers. Knowing this he pulled his entrance shut behind him. Darkness. Only able to see through the intermittent pulsing red lights. The droning noise struggled to reach past the soundproof walls of the inner compartment. But it persisted.

As he crawled through the enclosed tomb layer of the ship he tried desperately to figure out what he was seeing, what attacked him, or what he was hearing. His mind struggled to correlate any of it. He was in a new system. The odds of some creatures finding them had to be near impossible, but he knew it wasn’t a zero percent chance. It had to be that, they found the ship, maybe when we entered the system? Flew near a planet of theirs? There wasn't any use in figuring this out. He just knew he had to save the other sleeping colonists on board the other modules, hoping they didn't suffer the same interloper as this one. He knew he could get right near the electrical junction to attempt to open the door to the Helm but that meant coming out of the safety of the inner space. As cramped and uncomfortable as it was, everything in his mind and body feared leaving it.

As he progressed in this twisted area of wires, pushing past hard right angles of the compartments of the ship he could feel footsteps. They were rapid and had to be in multiples. It couldn't be the other crew that were supposed to be awake? He felt rising panic thinking of what could have become of them. In what manner of gore where they left In by this monstrosity that accosted him now? Getting to the Helm was the only option to figure out what to do. Each module controlled from separate helms, and those helms controlled from a master module in the center of the ship.

Each inch he made of progress he could hear the footsteps between the resonating sounds that felt as if they vibrated the walls. Was it following his path? Was it just going to be waiting for him when he found the hatch he was looking for? It felt like hours within the tomb layer of the ship. The entire time he was plagued by the migrain the noise brought on, sweat pouring down his face, each breath a chore. The hatch he needed was just in front of him. He held his hand on the emergency release lever, listening as close as he could to any movement outside.

Nothing.

It was either stay within this compartment and die or possibly die trying to rid the module of this thing. He let the weight of his arm drag the lever down. The panel slid open with a satisfying mechanical whirl. The helm was drowning in the same red lights pulsing as the rest of the ship. But there was no one inside the small space. It only holds a handful of consoles, lockers and a weapon rack. The crewman rushed to each door, closing and latching each one with its large hydraulic powered lock.

He sat down booting up each console. He was never the big man in the seat, but in an effort to streamline, each system was near foolproof, and as intuitive as they could possibly make it. He flicked through programs until he came to the camera feeds. His eyes locked onto them in disbelief. near every cabin had one of these things shuffling around, probing across the floors and ceilings. The rest of the ship looked pristine besides these abhorrent stains. Four of them, five including the one that attacked him. He looked at the weapons locker, it hadn't been touched. Was it a virus so quick they couldn't respond? Was he already infected? He thought through the migraine and horrid nausea that accompanied it. This is why they had separate modules incase of some unknown issue, infection, psychotic colonist on one too many consecutive shifts. Each one was already permanently segregated from the others. But if left his way, when they land. This module would be a dormant bomb waiting to be released to our new home. He reached over to the console, flicking through flashing lights he found the activation procedure for “separation.” He could detach the entire module. It was death either way. For him and the other ten thousand or so colonists asleep in this module.

Initiate.

The button flashes green as he pressed it, a list of instructions he would have to follow to the letter. He worked through each thing, signing the proper forms and inputting the required information. It got to the final step.

Release the anchor.

The anchor was a massive claw that kept each module secured to the engine core. It wasn't far, but with those things around it may have been across the galaxy. He pulled open the weapon locker and pulled a handgun, low velocity rounds were used for a long while now in space security, no chance to puncture the hull. Just enough to still puncture flesh. He dropped the magazine into his hand, fifteen rounds. Slamming it back in and pulling the slide cemented what he was going to do.

Each hallway was desolate, even more so than his usual shifts. He could only hear the distant wails of those things bouncing through the halls and over the intercoms at indiscriminate times. Every step he had wished he stayed in the confines of the Helm or even more succumbed to selfishness, and a bullet. However he was trained for this and he couldn't doom the rest of this population over his own cowardice. He had plotted the path to the anchor, seeing where each creature was when he left helped him avoid them, if they stayed where they were. As he neared the anchor he could see one, this one looking more like a man bent backwards. its head dangled like some vestigial appendage atop that unholy mass of limbs that once belonged to someone the Crewmen might have known, might have laughed with. It didn't see him approach, he was able to grip and pull the lever without it noticing, but the massive mechanical claw on the outside crunched as if began to prime for release. The creature turned towards The crewman, those same flesh tendrils pouring out of where the man's chest might have been and a banshee's wail like that of a scared woman. It took nearly the entire magazine to get it to stop the noises. It was far too late though he could hear all the rest moving towards him, with hurried slamming footsteps. He ran as fast as his legs would allow. Hearing them pursuing. He turned quickly to fire off his last handful of shots. He must have hit one because the wails dampened to nearly a whimper. He could see the Helm no more than fifty meters away. It was decided for him that another step was not part of the plan as a tendril wrapped around his ankle as the force of what felt like a two hundred and fifty pound athlete slammed into him sending him smashing into the hull wall. He shuffled backwards trying to get away from the atrocity that lurched towards him like a rabid, wounded animal. Its mass of appendages clambering over one another, gripping at the Crewmans ankles. He slammed the pistol against the creature over and over until it relinquished its grip. Hissing, sputtering from its massive orifice across its body.

The crewman flung himself into the Helm, turning to shut the door. He could see two of the creatures hovering over the one he smashed the pistol into repeatedly; it almost appeared as if they were rendering aid. He pulled the lever and the door slid shut.

The console was blinking with a confirmation order. The Crewman sat down in front of the console. staring at it. It was the right thing to do, he knew it. But that right thing still condemned a quarter of this new population to death and not the quick kind. He and the rest of the crew might as well have already been dead. Everyone else he knew was, that he knew. He placed the bloody pistol on top of the console, clicking the button as he pulled his hand away. As he did he felt the leviathan jaws of the anchor resonate through the hull as it released.

Disconnected.

The screen was flashing yellow, showing the distance the module drifted from the ship. The creatures outside banging on the door, screaming to be let in. The Crewman closed his eyes, the migraine was ebbing away.

PSYcoma industries warns of the risks of hypersleep. A lapse in power or other malfunctions outside of our control can lead to permanent brain damage to the occupant. To avoid this, please have all occupants examined before each and every new cycle of sleep. Any errors will be reported on monthly transmission.

Thank you for choosing PSYcoma for your intergalactic journeys.