Kyle ran with the woman in his grip running passed rooms which contained supplies of food and materials. While the two soldiers were a little behind as they tried to keep up with Kyle and the woman. Behind them, more of the humanoid creatures were stumbling and running oddly towards them all. The creature that Kyle shot managed to recover and begin chasing as well. Only, the thing Kyle was wanting to escape was the voices he was hearing. Desperate cries for death or to be set free bombarded his mind and ears. He finally managed to cut a corner that Paul and Ryan managed to see before they lost sight of the woman and Kyle.
The woman pleaded to stop and rest, to find some place to hide but he just couldn't hear her. That was until the voices stopped and the sound of the station now occupied his senses. Turning around to see the woman panting heavily that sweat and tears dropped from her chin. Looking around Kyle saw a room that had a level 3 access requirement. Returning his gaze to the woman he saw that her badge had that access.
"Open the door so we can hide, I'll wait for the others." He pointed, while the woman scrambled over still breathing heavy. Walking to the corner he peeked around it to see Paul and Ryan coming their direction. He gestured for them to come over but then heard a scream behind him. Whipping his whole body around he saw that the woman fallen to the ground and covered her mouth. He rushed over and found that the room had some bodies inside it. But that didn't stop Kyle, looked around, saw nothing inside, and helped the woman up.
"We are dead... there is no place to go!" The woman cried out, but Kyle needed her to be functional. Having picked her up, Kyle told her to go inside and that the soldier would be there shortly. She resisted, but gave up knowing it was better to have protection than anything else. With that, the group closed the door as the soldiers came into the room. They all quickly started to pile boxes, crates, and shelves that could cover the door as Ryan locked the door by giving it a different command key to open. No longer would it respond to just a simple card swipe, but a code to enter on the pad on the screen.
Waiting around as the sounds of the creatures had gone passed, Paul turned to the woman and approached her, "Ma'am, mind telling us your name and your position here on this station?" He had knelt down next to the woman who was curled up and sitting on the ground. Quietly whispering to herself about her friends and the Othoke that roamed the station.
When Paul repeated himself the woman blinked and looked up at him, "Betty Barns, I... I am part of the cultivation team of... plant and a-animal sp-specimens." She stuttered over her words as she spoke Paul nodded keeping her engaged. He then asked Betty what had happened to the station, her response wasn't a good one. "They... broke out... I don't know how, the... it caused itself to act as if it was dying... and... it got loose."
Paul was now curious, "When did this happen? What did it do when it broke out?" Betty just kept repeating the same thing over and over again.
"She broke out... She broke out..." Her mind was breaking, Paul came to that conclusion as she was now rocking back and forth. He stood up and turned around to face Ryan and Kyle. He checked his available ammunition and checked for wounds. Ryan did the same and they both had little left which wasn't ideal so Paul made a suggestion.
"We need to find the weapons supply lockers that are scattered on the station. Find any ammunition and protection from these things that we can." Kyle thought he was crazy that going out after just watching as the creatures kept coming. But Paul was adamant about his decision, "We won't survive an attack if they corner us in here or out there. What we need is some way to defend ourselves if we ever get attacked by them again. We are running low on ammo and supplies we don't have time to argue about this." But Kyle didn't want to argue or go out there, he didn't want to keep hearing the voices in his head.
That is when Ryan cleared his throat, "I may have a plan to help us locate the nearest supply lockers." Paul looked at his comrade and nodded which Ryan continued, "We are currently in a supply room full of items of food and safety supplies. If we check inside the crates we didn't pile up, we could find something to potentially slow them down or disorient them." Pulling out his PDA he described that the creatures use sound as their primary way of locating prey. Their gunfire was painting a large target on them but it was quick to kill the creatures if aimed in the right spot.
"I don't think that will work," Kyle said from his corner of the room, "the creatures don't just use sound to locate their food. They have many eyes and highly improved senses. Whatever they are, they were made to kill and having easy weaknesses aren't just going to be exploited by their food." He was bringing up a viable point but Ryan countered quickly on his stance.
"A flash bomb with the right materials could mean life or death. For it blinds them and deafens them." Paul stepped in to stop the bickering as he knew both were valid in this situation.
"We just don't know enough about these things as we would like, again, if we can get our hands on some of the tech here we could better our chances." He looked to Ryan, "Scrounge up whatever you can find here and remain connected to our coms while Kyle and I head out to find the supplies we need." Kyle looked to Paul asking why he needed to be dragged in, "Because, I ordered it, you are as much of a suspect here. You may have your name and rank but you lack the respect or ability to follow instructions. You don't have the iron will to fire your gun at a target to save your life." Paul walked over to Kyle and stood eye to eye with him, "I don't know if you are who you say you are, but right now, we need every bit of help we can get. So I am making the shots here as you are a handicap to us in your current state."
Kyle frowned trying his best to look intimidating, but Paul's presences was stronger than his own. He knew he wasn't going to win this fight, nor the fact that he had told the truth. Paul was right, he was nothing but a hindrance if he couldn't pull his own weight. Defeated, Kyle sighed and knew he had to follow what Paul was demanding of him.
'Just until I can recover my memories and find out what they did to me,' Kyle thought, watching Paul head for the door. 'I still wonder though, why am I hearing these voices? Should I ask Paul if he has heard anything?' He shook his head, he didn't need to add the possibility of him sounding like a schizophrenic. Ryan gave Paul the location of the closest supply locker and unlocked the door from his PDA. Walking up and pulling down boxes and removing shelves, Kyle and Paul cleared the barricade. Doing their best to remain quiet as to not alert any possible creatures. The left the room and headed down the hall the creature's went, following the route that Ryan provided.
Kyle turned to Betty and asked for her help. They started opening boxes and digging through them looking for chemicals and substitute casings for makeshift flash bombs. Pulling out food rations, replacement parts, and sealing foam canisters. Ryan smiled as he saw it but that smile dropped as he felt something hurt his gut. Clenching his stomach as his first reaction, but the pain soon went away.
"Ryan you okay?" Betty asked, concern on her face, as well as fear. But Ryan just nodded and told her he was fine. She looked at him curiously, nodded and got back to work. Removing his hand from his stomach he could see that he was bleeding, but made him nervous was the fact he thought he felt something move under his skin.
*****
Kyle followed Paul closely, holding onto the pistol he gave him tightly. His instincts of survival was to remain hidden and avoid confrontations as best he could. While Paul seemed to be itching to fight these creatures. That's when Ryan posed the question, "What are the Othoke called as a code name or something?" Paul sighed and tried to remember the name given to them as part of his debriefing.
"I believe they called them the Nox," he said, keeping his voice low. "These creatures were from Terra before we got there in full mass. We managed to fight them back to capture their queen and brought her off planet. Allowing us to terraform the planet for our liking and survival." He paused, "but the Nox happened to arrive before we did and dug in deep. But something stirred them as we didn't discover their existence until we found a corpse of their kind before it evaporated. Which we don't know what had the strength to take one of them down." Kyle now had more questions than before, but he knew getting the answers now wasn't going to help his situation.
Paul stopped at a corner as they started to hear sounds coming from down a hall. Slowly peaking around the corner, he caught the glimpse of a Humanoid Nox feeding on a corpse. A long tongue from the center of its chest cavity extended out and was bleeding it dry. Turning to face Kyle he placed a finger to his lips and gestured that it's busy. Somehow he understood, like it was a language he could understand thanks to his subconscious brain recognizing it.
They crept by the creature as quietly as they could. The creature luckily was too busy to notice them right now. But for how long they had wasn't known. Paul managed to clear the hallway and gesture for Kyle to hurry up. He was nervous as he took each step. The swallowing sound of the Humanoid Nox was loud and unmistakeable. But the sound of crunching was heard as the Nox slurped its long tongue back into its body. Kyle was only half way through the hallway. He froze as he watched the creature.
It slowly turned and the six eyes on its chest were looking right at Kyle. Sweat began to drip down his face as it was now just staring at him. The large mandibles of teeth and its extended chest and elongated arms twitched. It didn't move, just subtle movements of it twitching and clicking its teeth. That's when he could hear a voice in his head.
"One... the... one... return... she... will find... you..." That's when it reached down and grabbed the body and dragged it to a vent nearby and yanked it off. Both it and the body of what Kyle could clearly see as a soldier. It's ammunition vest was tossed aside as they vanished into the vent. Kyle let out a strained breath as both he and Paul sighed in relief.
"What in the hell was that? Why didn't it attack?" Paul walked over and shook Kyle's shoulder. "It was looking right at you and just scurried off like nothing happened." The problem was, Kyle was the only one that heard it. It didn't utter words like another human, but instead only he could hear the creature. He didn't know why, what it meant, or if he was infected as well.
"Paul, let's just keep moving before something worse comes." Kyle said turning to the hallway they needed to go after grabbing the vest from the ground. But Paul wasn't going to let it go.
"Kyle Raymus, you will answer my questions! We have never seen any of the Nox ever act in such a manner before. Never once have they retreated from a potential meal or to spread. Why did it leave you alone?" He was trying to push the subject, trying to figure out what made Kyle not get attacked.
But Kyle just turned around and shouted, "I don't know! You're asking me things I just don't know! I don't know why I was left alive, not attacked, or why the hell I can hear voices in my head!" Kyle blinked as he said the last part as he turned back around. "Let's just keep going..." He continued on his way as they had approached the supply locker.
Paul had kept quiet for most of the time. Pondering over the fact that Kyle mentioned he was hearing voices. It made him wonder why Kyle had no memory of his past or of what the creatures were. It bothered him a little as someone who has worked on the station long enough has seen his fair share of nightmarish things. He had a guess of what Kyle was, but discussing it now wasn't a good idea.
Kyle approached the door and placed his wrist communicator over the ID scanner. A beep went off and the door opened. Kyle caught the smell of something horrible, immediately his stomach started to wretch. Paul didn't have as big of an issue as his mask blocked the smell, mostly. What they saw when looking inside was a horrible sight as tendrils of fleshy membranes and dead bodies. As well as weird spider like Nox that seemed to be tending to the membrane and the corpses. When one passed by the door it saw both Paul and Kyle.
"Here... alert... Queen!" It shrieked as they retreated into a hole in the wall. They all vanished and hissing down the tunnel. Paul looked at the membrane and touched it, finding that it was sticky and covered in some kind of mucus. He took out a knife and cut the membrane, though he was struggling to do so each time he cut one. As he cut through, he saw that the corpses were all drained dry, darkened skin and sunken features. Though the chest area seemed to be slightly swollen a bit.
Kyle had a bad feeling if they disturbed them, "Let's hurry and get what we came for." They both checked a few lockers that were unopened and found some spare ammunition and a ammo box. This was for the bigger rifle that Paul carried while Kyle only managed to find another cylinder mag. Kyle even managed to find a credit drive, it contained a sum of money able to purchase things if he needed to in the future. Including an odd device as he didn't know what it did yet but he pocketed as it may have some use.
Paul opened the door again and gestured for Kyle to follow. As he left the room, Kyle would start to hear the whispers in his head again. But this time it was much louder, not in the sense of volume, but the in the sense of presence.
"Come... to me..." He gripped his head as he heard rumbling from beneath his feet. Then the floor ruptured, throwing him back against the lockers and sliding to the ground. A massive tendril of flesh had breached the floor. It hissed menacingly as it looked in his direction. Kyle shook his head and looked up to see it's "head" slowly get closer. As it did, parts of the top of the tendril opened to reveal rows to teeth as it split open in four directions.
Then he heard the voice again, "Come to... me..." as the voice seemed to move with tendril's mouth movements. Like it was talking but not able to produce words. Before he could react the tendril opened its mouth wide and latched itself onto his arm and pulled him down the hole. There was no escape, no chance in resisting, just the pain that shot through his arm as he was dragged down the tunnel, scraped up, and badly cut up by the broken pieces of metal. All that was heard was a scream he let out before that too vanished. Paul had no idea what had happened until it was too late.