Terror From the Deep - Chapter Two
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
CONTENT WARNING: ALL OF IT. HORROR AF.
Terror From the Deep
by Daphne Garrido
Two
“Fuckity fuckity fuck.”
Ruth spat the words as she’d scrambled for purchase with her feet beyond the ledge. This had to be her least favorite thing ever. Never one for great feats of balance or coordination, preferring to keep herself most firmly planted at all times, the very act of faith of coming aboard this ship had been far past her comfort zone in itself.
Aramis was coming for her now.
The man had clearly been out past the barrier line without protection; infected. There was murder in his eyes when she’d seen him stalking the hallway, bloodshot, sweat pouring from his brow. That way he’d screamed when Ruth began to run; it was thoughtless, enraged, an extension of this monster consuming their people piece by piece.
Somehow, he’d stayed locked onto her, as if she was scented, and Ruth trapped herself in the last place she’d want to be.
Finding the end of her road this most vertical environment, as The Loose Cannon’s hangar would always be when afloat — designed for effective use no matter which way happened to be up, separated from both the spun-up inner turbine and outer habitation ring which supported gravity by those simplest means — she was experiencing great levels of anxiety. There were many smaller ships about The Periphery, often reserved to those highest caliber designs, which sported technology bestowing fields of artificial gravity, providing a lack of need for physical makings such as these.
However, The Loose Cannon had been built on a budget, and by a modest people.
Ruth could feel Aramis now; surging presence of his rageful energy a force upon her scalp and chest. Generally, sensations like these were hardest notions to parse, but occasionally — as in this case — she’d find the meaning of these receptions within her empathic intuitiveness quite clear. This asshole wanted her dead.
Breath would be her savior, as always, bringing her back to self and presence.
Mind was the enemy for Ruth, having unlocked such gifts within through trauma undergone, the very presence of these receivings would cause it to thrash about. She’d long ago learned the key to living this way; without control, a divine freefall into trustful surrender, releasing her hold on grasping thoughts.
This step in her path, what she was now called to do, a daring descent of faith, was not one she’d ever prayed for. In truth, if she knew this one was coming, Ruth might’ve reconsidered her whole ethos ahead of time, that same which had led her onto this ship with Cora in the first place. Most of what she’d overcome in her path of courageous trust was far beyond anything her mind would’ve agreed to take part in when it’d assumed itself in control.
She found a foothold. Thank fucking god.
Yet there was nothing to hold onto up top, the hangar floor was devilishly flat and smooth. Ruth had her torso thrown forward as flat as she could, gripping with her outstretched arms and hands as much as they could muster. It was that feeling of chance at her tumble into float — of losing grip and drifting into the ether, living for final stretches of confinement within this god-awful spacesuit as its oxygen depleted — which petrified the spirit of trust within her, causing constant need to fight through walls and triggers that had her mind shouting she stop.
Yet, Ruth knew what was to be done, there was no other path. The passage out was blocked. That fight to be found with Aramis behind it would prove quite terrible regardless of if she might manage to survive, which she’d wager would not be the case.
There was need for this bravery from her, it seemed, and so Ruth had lowered that other foot down in blindest prayer of hope, lessening her grip forward, weight shifting to allow her descent, feeling that dreadful fear of losing balance surge in waves with each skittering slide back, every sight bore in vision of flailing backwards.
A smashing strike echoed through the doorway she’d locked behind her. Ruth’s body reacted with a pulsing jump. There was a mindless and bloodcurdling scream which emanated beyond.
He was here, and that lock wouldn’t slow him down for long.
Aramis was an engineer. If Ruth learned anything in the two days ship-time her people were struggling and dying by the hands of their own people, infected by this invasive menace, it was how their own knowledge would be utilized for evil’s means.
Youths on The Loose Cannon had been known to come here on their own accord, taking controlled floats off this very docking platform in hopes of impressing their friends. For cycles the ship had been slowly populated in orbit of Throxum, citizenry from throughout its system and neighboring regions coming to board and sleep. In that time of preparation there’d been young lives lost, right here, which caused great stir amongst its populace.
Ruth could see their memorial plates fastened to the hull just beside the door.
There was then a series of pitch-escalating clicks, accompanied by a hiss near the entryway which radiated such intense vibrations of hatred; he’d figured something out, and would be upon Ruth shortly.
She found some force of spirit to trust at that moment, and slipped her torso back even further, down past the edge, allowing her bodies weight to hang as vertically as it could under the suit’s gravity-orienting, gimble controlled balancing mechanisms thrown so out-of-whack.
Ruth was far beyond her comfort zone, understanding herself quite lost to the proper management of technology in this situation, and was simply praying she’d gotten this right.
Aramis was screaming again.
There was a howling rush which began to reverberate through the hangar floor, Ruth’s suit-gloves, and into her hands. The door was opening — atmosphere beginning to vent furiously from within.
Ruth was frozen, some smallest part of her realizing quite immediately that she’d not need to make this descent, yet discovering her mind still urging downward in fear of this violence which would never come. So worried of this man and what he’d do, all he was capable, she’d not accepted the writing on the wall.
He was defeated, and he’d made the greatest mistake in following her here. That monster steering him hadn’t paid enough care to utilize the knowledge within this man it stole its way into, and led him to doom.
Ruth’s eyes alone were now peering over the lip of that edge, left leg bent into a gentlest curl from her foothold found, right leg dangling wildly in search of another. It was here she found herself witnessing the final moments of Aramis’ forsaken life.
This man’s face held a look of anger, confusion, unknowing at what was happening. The devil released its hold the very moment it pushed him past all hope to save himself, now ejected beside the oxygen and unsecured junk which had been in that causeway with him. As he’d flung past Ruth, end over end, it seemed to happen in slow motion. Pain would be found in her heart for that man who’d only awoken now, too late, tumbling to a most certain demise.
Throwing her body back atop the ledge in those seconds after he’d blown past, remaining flat in fear some viscera from this depressurized compartment of The Loose Cannon would still been making its way towards her, Ruth was only grateful.
She had no business scaling the outer edge of this hangar’s vertical decking. To be allowed a chance at avoiding that cruelest fate of her own tortured fears, blessed with survival from the wrath of that man who’d have done her such harm, it brought her to tears.
Clinging to this newfound light of hope, allowing herself to be happy for a briefest moment of illusion, Ruth refused to let herself think about it for some time, making a conscious choice to avoid acknowledging the latent fear so ready to spoil her much needed relief.
The Hellrath was still here, its tethers holding The Loose Cannon in their grasp. That Captain she felt so deeply; the devil, would still be coming for her people.
There was no place for Ruth to feel release from tension in reality. With Cora having gone to die like a fool, leaving her alone, there was only one person left on this ship who could save it; herself.
