The door to my quarters slid open with a hiss, and the sight that greeted them stopped both Captain Zhang and Joseph in their tracks...
I was sitting on the edge of my bed, hunched over. My head was tilted downward. Blood dripped continuously from my ears and the cracks that now lined my face. It looked as if like my skin had been fractured like cracked glass. The blood drops hit the floor with an unnerving plop... plop... plop…. The blood pooled around my bare feet.
"Shin?" Joseph whispered; his voice barely audible. He took a hesitant step forward but froze again when I looked up at him...
My eyes were bloodshot and wide. I looked around the room as though I was searching for something invisible. My face was pale, streaked with blood, and the cracks on my skin pulsed faintly with a dim, otherworldly light…
For a moment, Joseph couldn't breathe. "What... what the hell...?"
Captain Zhang, usually so composed, felt her chest tighten with unease. Something was wrong…. deeply wrong…
Her hands instinctively turned into fists, her fingers trembling slightly despite her effort to stay calm…
"Shin…" she said cautiously, her voice steady despite the fear curling in her stomach. "What happened?"
I didn't respond at first. My lips moved soundlessly; my head twitched slightly as if I were hearing voices that weren't there. Then, suddenly, I spoke, my voice hoarse and fractured…
"It's... calling..."
Joseph and Zhang exchanged a look of confusion.
"What's calling?" Zhang asked while taking a slow step forward.
"The box…." I whispered, my eyes darted wildly as if I were still in my nightmare. "It's... it's there... it's... inside me…"
My words grew more erratic, my hands gripping the edge of the bed. My knuckles turned white as bone. "The black... it's pulling... pulling me. The stars... they're screaming. Do you hear it?! Do you hear them!!!"
Joseph stumbled backward, his face pale. "Shin, you're not making any sense man!!!"
"The box..." I muttered again, my voice dropping to a low growl. Then, louder: "IT'S COMING!!!"
Captain Zhang crouched slightly. Her instincts suddenly kicked in as though she were facing a predator. At that moment I didn't look human…. I looked like something... other…
"Shin…" she said firmly, her tone sharp. "Focus. What box? What are you talking about?! Explain it a bit…"
My head snapped toward her, and for a moment, my gaze locked onto hers. There was a flicker of recognition, but it was quickly swallowed by an expression of raw fear and madness.
"It's watching…" I hissed, my cracked lips curled into a grimace. "It's waiting. The fire... it's in the hell…."
Joseph turned to Zhang, his voice trembling. "What's wrong with him? This... this isn't normal!!"
"No, it's not..." Zhang muttered while moving quickly to my side despite her unease.
Zhang grabbed the portable medical scanner from the wall and pressed it to my wrist, her brow furrowing as the device began to read my vitals.
The screen flickered and beeped, displaying the results in glowing blue text…
Her eyes suddenly widened in surprise. My heart was racing at over 200 beats per minute, while my blood pressure was spiking to dangerous hights. Brain activity readings were erratic as if a storm of electrical impulses raged through my mind…
"His vitals are skyrocketing," she muttered, her voice tight.
"What does that mean?" Joseph asked, his panic rising.
"It means he's in critical condition…" she snapped. Her hands moved quickly to stabilize me. "If this keeps up, he could go into cardiac arrest… or worse..."
Joseph's face went pale. "Worse?! How is there a worse?"
Zhang ignored him, pressing the comms button on her earpiece. "Medical team to crew quarters immediately. We need a stretcher and stabilization equipment. Prepare the medical bay."
As they waited for the medical team, Zhang turned her attention back to me, her sharp gaze softening slightly...
"Shin…" she said, her voice quieter now. "You're going to be okay. Just hold on."
I didn't respond. My gaze drifted back to the ceiling; the cracked skin on my face was still streaked with blood. My lips moved again and formed barely audible words:
"The stars... they're breaking…"
Zhang's stomach twisted, but she kept her composure. Whatever was happening, it was beyond her understanding… But she knew one thing for certain: this was no ordinary medical emergency…
The medical team arrived, rushing down the corridor with a stretcher and medical equipment in tow. The loud, urgent clatter of boots against the metal floor only heightened the tension that gripped The Odyssey…
Inside my quarters, Captain Zhang and Joseph remained frozen. Their eyes were glued to me. My bloodied, cracked face and the nonsensical, ominous words I mumbled sent chills down their spines…
"Captain…" one of the medics called out as they entered the room, quickly analyzing the situation. "What happened?"
"No time for explanations," Zhang replied and stepped aside to give them space. "His vitals are dangerously unstable. We need to get him to the medical bay immediately..."
The medics moved swiftly, attaching monitors to my arms to track my vitals. The devices beeped erratically, confirming that my condition was critical…
"We've got massive neural activity spikes…" one medic said, their tone tinged with disbelief. "His brain's firing off signals like it's in overdrive…"
"Stabilize him!" Zhang ordered.
Before they could lift me onto the stretcher, the ship suddenly shuddered violently, as if it was struck by an unseen force. The lights flickered once, then went completely dark, plunging the room… and the entire ship… into pitch-black silence.
"What the hell was that?!" Joseph yelled and gripped the edge of the bed to steady himself.
Captain Zhang instinctively reached for her comms unit, but it was dead. "Power loss…" she muttered. Her voice was filled with tension. "And why the backup systems aren't kicking in!!…"
For one instant, there was no sound at all… pin drop silence. The only thing that eventually broke the heavy, dead silence was the faraway hum of the ship's core fighting its way back to stability. Then, a low, vibrating hum filled the air, growing louder and deeper until it resonated through the walls like a distant roar…
The medics froze and glanced around nervously. "That... that wasn't normal…" one of them whispered.
Suddenly the comms became functional again and a crew member's voice crackled over the emergency comms. "Captain…. we've been hit by an energy wave. It wasn't debris or anything physical…just pure energy. The ship's systems are rebooting now…"
Zhang frowned, her eyes narrowing. "Where did it come from?"
"We don't know," the voice replied. "It wasn't on our sensors until it hit us. Whatever it was, it knocked out everything for a few seconds..."
As the hum grew louder, all eyes turned to me. My body began to convulse, small tremors running through me as if something was waking up inside. Then, without warning, my head snapped upward, and my eyes burst into a vivid, glowing red light…
The glow was intense and cast an eerie illumination over the blood streaks on my face and the cracks that lined my skin. For those few seconds, I looked less like myself and more like... something else…
"Shin?!" Joseph gasped, stumbling back against the wall. His face became pale.
Captain Zhang, for the first time in her career, found herself frozen. The sight of my glowing eyes sent a chill through her that no battlefield or crisis had ever managed to evoke.
The medics stepped back instinctively, their expressions ranging from shock to outright fear.
"What... what's happening to him?" Joseph stammered, his voice trembling.
As suddenly as it started, the glow faded. My eyes returned to their bloodshot, human state. The eerie light was gone as if it had never existed. But the air in the room still remained heavy. It was filled with an unexplainable tension…
The lights in the ship flickered back to life, and the familiar hum of the systems returned to normal. The medics were still shaken. They moved cautiously back to me.
Captain Zhang and Joseph exchanged a tense glance.
"Did you see that?" Joseph asked in a hushed tone.
Zhang nodded slowly. "I saw it too..."
"What the hell was that?" he pressed, his voice rising slightly. "His eyes... they were…"
"I know…" Zhang interrupted; her voice steady but low. "But now is not the time for questions. We need to stabilize him first…."
Joseph looked like he wanted to argue but held his tongue. His hands clenching into fists at his sides….
I opened my mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, my body slackened, and I collapsed onto the floor, my legs giving out beneath me. The medics rushed forward, carefully laid me onto the stretcher, and secured the monitors…
"He's unconscious…" one of them confirmed, their hands steady despite the tremor in their voice.
"Vitals?!" Zhang demanded.
"Still spiking erratically, but stable for now…" the medic replied.
As the medics wheeled me out of the room, Captain Zhang lingered, her gaze drifting to the viewport. The vast expanse of space stretched before her, calm and unbroken, but the hum of the ship's systems seemed... different… Off…
"What are you thinking?" Joseph asked, his voice hesitant.
Zhang didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stared at the stars, her jaw tightening. "I don't know…." she admitted finally. "But that wave of energy... it wasn't natural. And whatever just happened to Shin…."
"It's connected…" Joseph finished for her.
She turned to him, her eyes sharp. "If it is, we'll figure it out. But for now, let's focus on keeping him alive…."
The two of them left the room and followed the medics toward the medical bay. Though the unsettling image of my glowing red eyes lingered in their minds. Neither of them said it aloud, but they both felt it: this was only the beginning….
The first thing I felt after waking up was the dull ache that seemed to echo through every part of my body. My limbs were heavy, my head pounded like I had been struck by a heavy hammer, and my throat burned as though I had been screaming for days.
I groaned and I slowly opened my eyes to blinding lights. The white ceiling of the medical bay came into focus….
"Shin?"
I turned my head slowly, my neck stiff, to see Joseph sitting beside me, his usually smug expression was replaced by one of genuine concern. His blonde hair was a mess, and dark circles rimmed his eyes.
"About time you woke up, buddy…" he said, forcing a weak grin. "We were starting to think you were gonna hibernate through the rest of the mission…..."
The medical bay was unusually quiet, except for the steady beep of the monitors that tracked my vitals. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, and several machines hummed softly as they worked to stabilize me.
Captain Zhang stood near the doorway, her arms crossed and her face as unreadable as ever. But even she couldn't hide the flicker of relief that passed over her features when she saw my eyes open.
"How long was I out?" I rasped, my voice hoarse and barely audible.
"Two days…" Zhang said while stepping closer. Her sharp eyes scanned me, her tone clinical but tinged with something softer. "You've been unconscious since the incident. Your vitals were unstable, but they've normalized—for now…."
"You scared the hell out of everyone…" Joseph chimed in while leaning back in his chair. "That scream of yours? Freakiest thing I've ever heard. Thought the ship was about to collapse..."
I frowned and the memory of the scream flashed in my mind like a distant echo. "What... what happened?"
Joseph and Zhang exchanged a glance…
"You don't remember?" Joseph asked cautiously.
"I... I remember the dream…" I said slowly, trying to piece together the fragments in my mind. "The black box. The... That hell... It was calling to me…."
Joseph visibly shuddered. "Yeah, well, whatever called you must've hitched a ride. Your eyes... Shin, they were glowing. Like, full-on creepy red laser mode. That scared the crap out of everyone. Even the captain…"
"I wasn't scared…" Zhang said coolly, though the slight crease in her brow told otherwise. "Concerned. There's a difference…"
Zhang stepped closer; her arms still crossed. "Shin, do you have any idea what caused this? your... condition?"
I shook my head weakly. "No. It's like... something's in my head, but I can't make sense of it. That box….it felt alive like it was trying to tell me something…"
Joseph tilted his head. "You sure you didn't just eat some bad freeze-dried lasagna?"
Zhang shot him a glare. "This isn't a joke, Joseph. Whatever happened to Shin affected the ship—and possibly our surroundings. We need answers…"
I struggled to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced me back down. "What do you mean it affected the ship?"
Zhang hesitated for a moment before answering. "When you screamed, we were hit by an energy wave. It wasn't on any of our sensors. It knocked out the ship's power and systems for a few seconds, but the damage was minimal…"
Joseph leaned forward, lowering his voice. "But here's the weird part: right when it hit, your eyes started glowing. Like, freaky glowing..."
I stared at him, my heart pounding as fragmented memories of the box resurfaced. "I don't know what's happening to me," I admitted, my voice trembling. "But it's not just a dream. That box... it's real. I can feel it..."
Zhang's eyes narrowed; her expression thoughtful. "Shin, we've already encountered anomalies during this mission… unexplained energy patterns, now this. If there's a connection, we need to figure it out before it becomes a threat to the mission or the crew…"
I nodded weakly, though my mind was spinning. What did the box want? And why did it feel like it was inside me?
"Rest for now…" Zhang continued, her tone softening slightly. "We'll monitor your condition and look for answers. But Shin…"
Her voice turned sharp. "If you experience anything else… anything at all… you report it immediately. Understood?"
"Yes, Captain…" I said, though the weight of her words only added an extra knot in my chest.
After Zhang left, Joseph stayed by my side, his usual humor creeping back into his voice…
"So…" he said while leaning closer, "what's it like being the creepiest dude on the ship? You've got glowing eyes, a scream that makes people want to jump into space, and now the captain's watching you like a hawk. You're basically in a sci-fi horror movie…"
"Thanks, Joseph," I said dryly. "That's really comforting to know…"
"Anytime, buddy…" he replied with a wink.
Despite his teasing, I could see the worry in his eyes. For all his jokes, Joseph cared… he just showed it in his own chaotic way….
As Joseph left to grab food, I lay back in the medical bed, staring at the ceiling. The images of the box, the fire, and the volcanic landscape replayed in my mind like a broken reel...
I didn't know what was happening to me, but one thing was clear: the box wasn't just a dream. It was something more… something powerful and dangerous. And it wasn't finished with me yet…
TO BE CONTINUED