Halloween Pre-Event Story!
A shadowy figure was slithering along the floor of the Jefferies tube, headed straight for them. @Zander_Hawk and @Voleron set their phasers to stun, fully prepared to use the kill setting if needed.
It moaned as it came, winding snake-like down the tube, the hideous moan getting increasingly louder and clearer as it came. It would only be moments before it was upon them.
"Fire on my mark," whispered Voleron, raising his phaser. Zander's quickly followed, and they could barely keep their hands from shaking as the creature crept closer, ever closer.
Then, a beam of light struck it, and Voleron shouted "Hold your fire!"
In the dim light, the pained face of @mstfrancis could barely be discerned on the creature.
"Wine?" It moaned, clearly suffering. "Did someone say "wine?"...
(I tried keeping it to two sentences. I failed. They keep growing in the editing phase.)
From deeper within the ship, a soft chuckle resounded, too low for the rescuers to hear, resonating from something dark that lurked deep inside its lower decks. It sniffed the air and was instantly fully aware of every biological function of the rescuers - their heart beats, the sound of their breathing, the warmth of their bodies - all these things it longed to caress, to pull from them, to rip from their souls, while listening to their screams of agony and dispair, and knowing that the agony would continue for days, weeks, even months, before it allowed them to expire in paroxysms of delicious terror.
The crew lowered their weapons seeing mstfrancis in dire pain. His moans, became silent as he drifted into a fugue state from lack of wine, eventually the only thing that could be heard were the air recyclers softly humming, as the crew recognized there was nothing more terrifying than that of the silence of the station.
The soft echo of footfalls paraded through the room, at first almost unheard, and Zander knew once again that they were not alone. "Wh-what was that?" Zander exclaimed sheepishly as his heart began racing even harder.
He looked around only to realize no one else seemed to hear anything. "Come on guys" Voleron said, "We still need to find Milmar! You know we'll never hear the end of it from the Klingons if any of the bloodwine goes missing."
****
The creature, a wisp of inky darkness, moved in the shadows towards the lighted figures, shifting from shadow to shadow, moving from wall, to ceiling, to conduit, into the ventilation and out again, but always moving, inexorably, towards the figures in the light. It could FEEL their essences as it grew closer, patiently waiting to touch them, to feel them, to absorb them, as its essence yearned to drain all that they are into itself, to consume them, and with a single touch, turn them into its food.
