Chapter Text
You knew better.
There was no other way to put it than you fucking knew better.
You knew that each and every single member of your sad excuse for a crew was there for the same reason you were, and that was to not be killed by the same company that employed you. To maybe make some desperately needed cash for you and your families. If it could even be called employment as it was. You weren’t friends. Just unfortunate souls that found themselves in a shared hell. Companionship was few and far between.
You were essentially a slave, and you knew it. You all knew this. You needed to make quota to get money. You needed money to get to differing moons. You needed to get to differing moons to meet the quota. And so, your day-to-day life was always the same. You roamed the various moons of varying planets and collected abandoned crap no one else wanted (nor needed) trying to meet a company quota that always, always grew with each passing deadline. Essentially all money earned went back into travel, supplies, and food. There was no room for failure or luxury in your cramped ship.
You missed your home. You missed your family. But they were light years away from you and your only solace was knowing that the money you sent home took care of them. That’s the only thing that made this “job” worth it.
At night you’d lie awake and wonder if you’d ever get to see them again.
You knew what failure to meet the quota entailed. If you failed, you had the horrifying decision of choosing to die by your own hand, or by the hand of those in positions of power above you. To be ripped apart, to be devoured, to have your body contorted into a being completely new (a transformation no one survived) or to spin off into the darkness of space to be embraced by an unforgiving cold you would never return from.
Sometimes, the only mercy given was that the families would get a body back to bury.
You knew that none of the people you traveled the universe alongside would bat an eye if they had to leave you behind. Every man for themselves. They had families and lives they weren’t willing to sacrifice for anyone else.
You yourself had left countless souls behind when you had to make the choice of surviving the hell you found yourself in or making the sacrifice. They never lasted long enough for a rescue mission. Every time you did body recovery and witnessed the conditions they were left in; their mangled, orange suits embedded themselves into your brain. Orange against white snow. Orange against red dust. Orange against green grass. Orange in broken tatters against metal grates and concrete flooring. You saw their bodies against the inside of your eyelids when you closed them. You hated yourself for it, and you hated that you would still make the same selfish decision each time.
You didn’t want to die. You weren’t ready yet. Your family still needed you. Just like their’s probably needed them.
Your sins made their home in your soul. If there was an afterlife, you would never make it to heaven. You deserved punishment and you knew it was only a matter of time until you would get it.
You always tried to bring home the members of your crew that had danced too close with the monsters that stalked you on your jobs.
Their families deserved a body to bury.
You weren’t always successful. You felt their blood on your hands even after it was long gone.
Perhaps this was your penance.
The decision was foolhardy. Each moon you had traveled to yielded little scrap for you to give over to the company, and on your last day, you and your crew had made the decision that you would make a last-ditch effort to recoup funds in the hopes of not meeting an untimely end.
You would die by the hands of the hostile inhabitants of the moons, or you would die trying. But maybe, just maybe, you could drag yourself broken and bleeding out of the early grave you had dug yourself. There was no one else to blame.
That was the decision that fueled your choice to reroute the ship to Rend. The titular moon was one of many that drifted on the outskirts of the solar system you were in. It was an expensive decision. It was a decision promising bitter cold and snow. It was one of desperation and panic.
Everything went wrong right from the beginning. You had stayed out far too late on the deserted moon you found yourself on and come up basically empty-handed. The items you found only going so far, but not quite enough. You needed more. In desperation you had kept searching, even as footsteps that weren’t of your own or your crew’s followed you. The wood flooring beneath your feet groaned occasionally.
Something was watching you. Waiting. You swore that sometimes, when you turned to look behind you in your paranoia, you saw glowing white eyes in the darkness. A bracken, most likely. You’d seen firsthand how the powerful plant-based beings could snap a human’s neck like it was nothing. You’d watched and given chase as they’d dragged away your crew one by one on moons in the past.
The most horrific part of those encounters was the knowledge that those had been juveniles. You had yet to see a mature bracken. You made sure to keep your back to the walls near you. You needed to keep an eye on your own back here. Normally by now you would have caught a full glimpse of the bracken juvenile. It would have rushed you before losing its nerve and shaking woody spines at you in warning. Not unlike a rattlesnake. You’d only have to watch for a moment before it would back off.
This one hadn’t done that. That made the eerie feeling of being stalked even worse. It wasn’t acting like you were used to. But you had a job to do.
You turned your thoughts to things other than your potential impending doom. You imagine this mansion was popular prior to Rend’s fall as a colony. Cozy. Warm. It would have been well lit with both light and laughter. There would have been painting on the walls and people filling the halls. You weren’t finding anything substantial to bring back.
It scared you that the fireplaces of this mansion were well fed and burning strongly. They shouldn’t have been.
You had a job to do.
Even as your flashlight died and you found yourself searching for scrap in the dim firelight of the abandoned mansion you found yourself in. Even as you lost track of your crew and could no longer hear their voices. Even as you worried you were lost and the footsteps following you seemed to grow closer. Their owner always just out of sight.
When the ping came to your communication module from your crew that the ship would be departing shortly (at midnight, specifically), and to get your ass back, you had wasted precious moments heaving the weight of an apparatus out of its holding containment despite how the heat of it burned through your suit into your skin. It would be red and raw. It would boil later on. It didn’t matter as long as you were alive.
You ran. Your life depended on it. The glow from the apparatus was the only thing to guide you as you blustered through the dimness surrounding you. Bruises and burns be damned. Your feet were weighed down by your precious cargo that would save your skin and your crew’s. Your suit was suddenly too tight. Your shoes too heavy. It was a living nightmare. No matter how much you pushed your body, you just weren’t fast enough.
You burst from the entrance of the complex and nearly slipped on the ice near the entrance. You plunged calf-deep into fluffy snow. You could barely see 10 feet in front of you. You prayed that nothing would be attracted to the light of the apparatus in your hands. It was only now that it was cool enough to handle, but its remaining heat warmed you from the blizzard you found yourself in. You pushed through the snow nonetheless, breath fogging up the glass of your helmet.
Your panic got worse when you had to slow down, crouch, and pray the sightless predators prowling the area around your ship failed to sense you. You could feel the hands of the clock bearing down on your throat. Every footstep that crushed into the snow and ice sent your heart racing. You heard them growling in the distance. In the nearer silence all you could hear was your heartbeat, beat, beating in your ears. The rush of blood confirming that you were still alive. It guided you through your terror.
But then you watched as the ship powered on, scalding the snow and ground below it with flames as burning red as the star that hung low in the sky on the warmer planets. But there was no sign of the sky nor sun to give you hope as your world was illuminated in a hellish red glow. Just barely enough for you to see through the tinted glass of your helmet. As your ship kicked up dust and debris, you realized that you were going to be left behind.
No.
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No
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No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!
You threw the apparatus into the snow beside you and began running once more. Please don’t leave. You heard nothing. You felt the snow surrounding your feet, slowing you no matter how much you willed your body to go faster. Your heart lived in your throat. Its beat stuttering in your panic. The rapidly cooling air of your suit was harsh on your lungs as you gasped, willing it to please please please make your body lighter so that you might live. You refused to die on this moon, not like this. You were screaming, begging for them to wait, to please not leave you behind, you were still alive.
You were still alive.
They needed you.
Your family needs you.
You watched as the ship closed its doors and began to ascend into the air. You watched the form of your crew mate reaching, reaching, reaching for you. Your grasp just missed the hand of your crew mate that had stood onto the loading platform in the hopes of saving you. You had leapt for them in an attempt to save yourself. Time slowed as you watched your fingers brush theirs without finding purchase. You crashed to the cold world around you.
They left without you. They left. You felt your hands tighten into fists. You deserved this. You felt sick. How could they. Distantly you wondered who was screaming. This is what you get for leaving people behind. Come back. You screamed until you felt as though your throat began to bleed. You pressed your visor-covered-face into the snow.
You were going to die. You were going to die. You were going to die, you were going to die, youweregoingtodieyouweregoingtodieyouwere-
Would your family even get back a body? Would they know how much you loved them.
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You didn’t even get to say goodbye.
Their smiles and laughter rung through your head. Your life flashed before your eyes. Both good things and bad things. You watched the people you love most. Your heart feels like it is less than dust in your chest.
Your screaming cut off into a broken sob and you listened to the snarls and growls grow closer as bodies much larger than yours rushed forwards to where you were losing your mind (and soon your life). The ground shook and you only curled further into a ball, praying to whatever power above that you would be saved.
Apparently, something was there to answer your prayers. But it wasn’t what you had expected.
You only rocked back and forth as the growls near you grew to howls, and snarls, hearing the horrifying amalgamation that were apparently dogs fighting something. Something. You could barely process what was happening around you. It felt as though you couldn’t see even if your vision hadn’t been blocked.
Your breath came in quick bursts. Hyperventilating. You couldn’t see. You felt ice and slush pelt you. You felt movement around you, felt something larger and thinner cage you to the snowy earth beneath you and let out a hiss so terrifying your heart nearly stopped completely in its rhythm.
Its chest vibrated just above your back. You heard the familiar sound of spines raising and clicking into place not unlike raising hackles. Something drew close, and its warm breath pressed against you even through your suit. How was a plant creature so warm? How was it withstanding the bitter cold of the blizzard? The spines continued to move. They seemed to rustle against each other in warning. It sounded like fall leaves. The bracken above you made a sound not unlike a laugh.
A lovely, beautiful laugh. Musical. You felt the thing laughing above you lunge. It didn’t go far from its position above you.
At least with a bracken your family would have your body back. The dogs would have left nothing to bury. You were shutting down. You couldn’t handle this. This was too much.
The clamor increased before a ripping sound traveled through the air towards you. You pressed your eyes shut despite the pitch blackness covering your vision and prayed for your own death to be quick, even if it wouldn’t be painless. You heard something wet hit the snow near you. You felt something warm hit your suit.
You felt long, spindly hands tipped by dagger-like claws gently collect you, and you couldn’t speak let alone scream.
Paralyzed by fear.
You didn’t open your eyes, but whatever it was spoke to you. It wasn’t a language you should have been able to understand. You don’t know how you understood what it said. Its voice bounces off the inside of your skull and weaves itself into your being. It brings with it a piercing headache. You sobbed. You tried to beg for your life. The voice murmured soothingly. You rock back and forth in its grasp. You are not you; you are instinct and fear. You are gone.
The meaning of the first few words it uttered only fully hits you later, when you awake in complete darkness. Your body is swaddled in unknown fabric(?) and your back pressed against something soft. You are somewhere warm. Your helmet is missing. The area you’re in smells of hearth and old wood and books. You are alive. Everything hurts.
It told you only one thing before the madness and fear stole you away from consciousness in that snowy field your ship once stood in. The place you were left behind in.
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“I’ve got you, you’re okay. You’re safe. I took care of them. We need to get you back inside.”
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“It’s not safe here.”