Chapter Text
Purple thought they were hallucinating at first.
It had happened to them before back in college after nights and nights of sleeplessness.
One minute, they were sitting at their desk in the security office watching Red sleep (zooming in, making sure they were still breathing, being careful careful careful about it because they couldn’t lose another friend), and then they’d nodded off.
When they woke up, movement on the screen startled them. Lime was working on the reactor. And Blue in medbay, Yellow and Brown in the cafeteria making pizza—everyone in their usual places, nothing out of the ordinary.
It took a few moments for reality to register.
“Wh…?”
They squinted at the screens. That… couldn’t be right.
First of all, ghosts weren’t real. Or, if they were real, Purple had never had any kind of paranormal experience this long or intense before, so it’d be weird if they were having a once-in-a-lifetime paranormal event right now.
Surely it was way more likely that it was all just made-up junk that people used to sell charms and wards and spells and séances to people who didn’t know any better; people like—
Cyan??
No, no, no. They rubbed their hands across their visor to see if they were just seeing weird imprints of light from when they were sleeping, or… something. That was a way more reasonable explanation.
Occam’s razor, right? The simplest answer is usually the correct one? They haven’t been getting much sleep at all, between checking every corner of the ship for any possibility of an egg hatching and slipping past their initial destruction of the bunch, and checking all the security cameras as Red tried to handle all the jobs that were left vacant after the rest of their crew…
…And sleep deprivation, mixed with stress, causes hallucinations. Which means they’re obviously just hallucinating.
Yep. The simplest solution had to be that they’d lost it.
But then the door to the security office slid open, and it was Black.
They were standing there, hand raised like they hadn’t expected the door to be unlocked, poised to knock.
“Uh,” they looked around. “Red said that it’s mandatory for everybody onboard to come to this stupid pizza party, so…”
Purple blinked incredulously. “I— uh… am… am I dreaming?”
“Sorry?” Black squinted.
“No, I mean, you’re—”
Thankfully, they caught themself before they blurted out ‘you’re supposed to be dead.’ Even just seeing Black all in one piece felt wrong. As though they hadn’t spent so much time scrubbing Black’s body off the floors and walls.
Maybe this was a flashback. They’d never had one of those before— that had to be it. This was what happened way back that day when…
Yeah. It was a flashback.
…They needed to say something. Black was shuffling awkwardly in the doorway, like they didn’t know how to respond to the half-sentence Purple had left hanging.
“...doing Red’s job for them now…?” They attempted to close the half-sentence instead of making a new one, and they mentally kick themself for trying.
About 5% of the icy fear in their bone dissipated as Black grumbled and shrugged in response. “Hey, if I’m out rounding everyone up, it means I also don’t have to attend this stupid company pizza party bullshit. So?”
“I… what time is it? What day is it?” They adjusted their hat, scrubbing through the camera feeds as though the video might provide some answer as to what was going on.
“Uhh… It’s about 11:30,” Black checked their watch that Purple didn’t know they had. “...Are you, like… okay?”
Were they okay? That’s such a good question.
“I… don’t know. Uhhhhh… yeah. I’m… fine. Everything is fiiiiine. No biggie.”
Purple felt like they were watching themself speak from outside the ship, cold and disoriented.
Black held up a hand like they had something more to say, but… it fell, ceding ground to gravity. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess.”
They turned away without another word, letting the doors close, leaving Purple with nothing more but the light hum of the computer monitors.
…Okay. A plan. They… needed a plan.
Turning back to the cameras, things looked… similar to how they were before. 11:30…? That was a really specific time, sure, but Black never said what day it was. If this was an episode…
Red.
That’s it. The thought ran through their head as soon as the camera flicked automatically back to the captain’s chair, showing the navigation screen, then static before it cut to Red sleeping in the pilot’s seat. Red would be able to snap them out of this. Bring them back to reality, either through actually talking some sense into them, or by pissing them off so completely that they snap out of whatever weird fugue state this is.
Purple stood up and smacked their own cheeks a few times, trying to clear their head as they began the long walk to navigation.
They made a left, heading down past the electrical closet. Strange clanging sounds were coming from deep within. Their first instinct was to flinch away— any sign of life in or around the vents spelled death.
There was a main vent shaft in that room. One that led directly to their own office. Nobody should be in there at all, but—
“Gghk— damn distributors…!”
Oh. It’s just Lime again. Wasn’t Lime just in the reactor room? More proof they’re going nuts. Or maybe the vents ran between those rooms. Whatever.
If they went back there, into the tangle of wires, would Lime be in there? Or would they still be in pieces, wetly strewn on floors and ceilings in the medbay, ripped in half?
Purple tried not to gag. They didn’t want to think about this anymore. They marched down the hall, holding their breath, but the act only reminded them of how it felt when the O2 had been cut, and they immediately began gasping for breath.
This was so bad. They moved so quickly that the automatic door into the storage room didn’t open fast enough, and they walked directly into it, stumbling backwards and landing on their ass.
Five visors turned their way.
“Oh! There’s Purple, our head of security!”
Orange. And White, and Cyan, and Black, and…
“Hello!”
Green.
The blood in their veins froze instantly.
“Security team working faster than the doors. How utilitarian.” Black grumbled, pretending to go back to looking at a piece of Ore+ very carefully.
“Well, I’d rather they be working hard than hardly working! Am I right?” White offered a hand, and… were they supposed to take that? They shouldn’t be able to touch a hallucination, but…
They took it. And it seemed solid enough. They were helped back up to their feet before they knew it.
“That’s right!” Orange chimed in, holding up a singular finger. “Here on the Skeld, we are dedicated to your safety! Which means we’ll have to sign a few dozen different safety waivers at the end of our little tour. But we’ve got more important business to attend to! Like checking out our state-of-the-art medbay!”
“Medbay. Medbay, right,” Purple mumbled, wringing their hands.
The party hadn’t started yet, and all the trust-balls were all stuck covering the gaping hole in the hull.
The incident in the storage room had already happened.
So that meant... Green and Orange had been—
“Purple,” Orange placed a hand (cold cold cold ice cold) on Purple’s head. “Now, you know MIRA insurance doesn’t cover mental health services!”
Purple reeled backwards and smacked Orange’s hand, nearly growling in anger as disgust overwhelmed them. “Don’t touch me!”
Orange hesitated, backing up as well, seeming genuinely shocked at Purple’s outburst.
“I—...” They coughed, hand still outstretched into what was now dead air. “...You’re right, that was my bad! I’m your HR rep, I should know better.” Their voice lost its usual musicality, seeming earnestly embarrassed.
Seeming.
Purple couldn’t trust a ghost, least of all the ghost of a skin-stealing alien impostor.
“...Whatever.”
They sighed and marched onward, towards navigation once again. As they left, they heard Cyan’s voice.
“Weird vibes today, huh…?”
No kidding, Purple thought bitterly.
Thankfully, Purple didn’t encounter anyone or anything else on their way to the ship’s navigation console. It was easy to unlock the door with their ID card, and it opened up with a satisfying hiss.
“Snrk.. huh—wuh!!” Was the sound that came from inside, solidly cementing the fact that yes, Red was indeed still sleeping. At least that didn’t change.
“Red! I need your help here for a second,” they snapped, cutting right to the chase. “I don’t know if it’s the oxygen again, or some kind of PTSD episode, or maybe I’m just going actually crazy, but I’m seeing everybody who’s already dead walking and talking around here, so I need you to kick some sense into me—”
“Woah, woah, Purps, what’s— are you okay?” The skin just above their visor furrowed a little in concern. “What are you talking about…?”
Red wasn’t helping. Of course. Of course Red was useless! Red is always useless! They tugged at their fur in frustration, turning away from Red.
“Okay. Okay. Everyone’s gonna die. What can I do to stop it?”
“...Hey, are you okay?” They repeated. The legitimate apprehension in Red’s voice made Purple’s blood boil. “Is… this some kind of, I don’t know, mean joke about how little you trust me as a captain…? Because if it is, it seriously isn’t funny.”
All Purple could do was wave their hand rapidly in the air in front of Red. “It— that doesn’t matter! Forget I said anything. Just… go back to playing your—”
They were so worked up they didn’t even realize that there was still a fucking video game on the screen Red was asleep in front of. “You aren’t even piloting the ship?!”
“There’s an autopilot for a reason…! I already navigated everything out— and it’s Majora’s Maaask! It’s a classic!” They whine. “If you ever bothered to try it, I think you’d really like it— it’s about a—”
“Yeah, I’ve got actual important stuff to get to. Unlike some people!”
Purple shoved Red away and stormed out of the room. Just their luck, Green was in the hallway outside.
They froze, staring at…
The thing in front of them.
“Um, hi,” they rocked back and forth on their heels. “I don’t think we were properly introduced! I’m Green.”
“...Yeah. We weren’t.” They didn’t hold up a hand to shake. Instead, they took a quick glance around the room to make sure there was at least somebody else present—
But it was just them. The door had closed behind them, and they were alone with Green.
The fur on their back felt like it was standing on end.
“...Um, what’s your name? I don’t think I caught it. Haha.” Green asked, tilting their head slightly to the side, a little too much. It only reminded Purple of the way it creaked and twisted unnaturally when they finally revealed their true self. The way their Crewmate skin flopped around like it was nothing more than a sock puppet attached to that thing’s awful form.
“...Purple,” they replied, trying not to let the dread they were feeling show through in their tone. “Sorry, uh, I’ve got— I’ve actually got a lot of important stuff in— security, to attend to, and— I can’t— you should really be finishing up your tour right now, shouldn’t you?”
“No, not really.” Green tapped the bottom of their visor in an I’m-thinking gesture. “We were supposed to go meet the captain, but then Orange said that there was a bunch of important raffle-winner paperwork that they had to go over with White, so I’m allowed to get the lay of the land by myself! …So to speak.”
This was bad. That was how Green liked to kill, right? Get someone else alone, get an alibi, and leave the scene asap. They needed to stop that. They needed to get someone else in on the scene so they wouldn’t…
“Haaah, yeah, totally! That’s— such a great idea! Actually, you know what, there’s supposed to be a pizza party that’s actually, um, totally required. For everyone to participate. Do they have pizza where you’re from? We should go to the cafeteria. Right now. So we can have pizza.”
“Oh, boy, is that true?” Green asked, putting on that fake-ditzy voice they always did when talking about that damn worm farm, or being an unpaid intern, or about how much they just looooove Mira. “We could never afford pizza back at the worm farm! Sure, we saved up a few beans between harvest seasons, but most of what we earned would just go towards our neighbors during droughts or famine, so we could never have such luxuries like—”
“Yeah, yeah, great, let’s go get you some right now.”
“Oh, joy!”
Purple grabbed Green’s hand, tugging them through the hallway past Oxygen—
Oxygen.
If everyone else was alive, did that mean…?
Heracles.
They screeched to a stop. “...Oh, shooooot! I actually did just forget that I’ve got— routine maintenance I need to perform in oxygen! Whoops, my bad!”
They let go of Green’s hand, taking any excuse to do so, to smack themself upside the visor. “Doy! You’re supposed to be getting your, uh…”
“Lay of the land?” Green offers, perking up at the chance to be oh-so-digilently helpful in finishing sentences.
“Lay of the laaand! Yeah! So, uh, new plan, you find the cafeteria, and I’ll meet you there?”
The next three seconds felt like they took hours. The air between the two was growing stale. Until—
“...Okie dokie! I’ll do my best!” Green cheered, puffing up in a display of… pride? “I’ll make you proud!”
“Yyyyeah, yup! You’ll make me— suuuper proud! Uh-huh!” Right. Green probably wasn’t going to go full murder-mode right away. They liked to bide their time and ensure their target was as alone as they could possibly be before they took the time to strike. “Thaaanks, buddy!”
They didn’t leave Green room for anything but the squeak of a sentence’s beginning before cutting them short by turning into the oxygen room and sprinting inside.