Chapter Text
The scent of blood filled the Skeld’s air.
...
A crewmate in a blue suit named Aero marched along his ship’s halls, mumbling with annoyance.
Crew #1425 of Skeld #42 was a fairly peaceful group, barring one small exception. They had never recieved markups for unruly behavior or rule breaking. Their job was simple, and they often completed it with varying success. Go to planets, explore space, get materials for scientific use, rinse and repeat until the company decides to send them back home.
Easy.
... Until it wasn’t.
Earlier that day, Phoenix had reported a strange occurance in Electrical. The doors were jammed shut and hadn’t been functional since this morning. Sounds of moaning could be heard behind them. The scent of rot filled the air around the room labled as a “death zone” by many-a crewmate.
All clear-cut signs of an impostor parasite among their ranks.
No one had seen Indigo either. It took a while for them to realize since he often strayed from the group and wasn’t seen often, but the first tell-tale sign was him never showing up to any of the meetings. Strange, because it wasn’t often he refused to show up.
Now, Aero treated this all skeptically. There were a number of more optimistic outcomes that could be taken from this incident. Perhaps Indigo had accidentally locked himself inside Electrical with his lunch that he had never bothered to keep fresh. Plus, Phoenix was always known to be a little bit of a paranoiac.
Unfortunately, no matter what the reason was, as Captain, it was Aero’s job to check out the reports no matter how outlandish they seemed. And he didn’t like it one bit.
He took out his master keycard and opened the Electrical doors by force. Inside was nothing much, besides the putrid smell increasing. Everything seemed in order.
... Except for a suspicious red stain located near the wall of electronics that seperated the back of the room from the front.
Maybe he packed tomatoes for lunch?
Nah, he couldn’t lie that his optimism was quickly fading.
He slowly and cautiously made his way into the back of the room, wishing he had brought a gas mask.
What he saw shocked him more than any grisly impostor murder ever could.
Two bodies lined the floor, not moving or showing any signs of life.
One, of course, being Indigo’s body, with multiple cuts and a stab wound in his shoulder. His arm was bent in an impossible angle. He seemed to have lost a lot of blood. His masked face looked like it had been deprived of oxygen as well.
Poor guy.
That wasn’t the surprising part though.
Beside the crewmate’s body was the unmistakable body of a tan impostor, one that didn’t resemble any known crewmember on the ship. Some fanged teeth were missing. Their body lined with wounds and stabs, with a large gash in their neck. It wasn’t often that you’d see a crewmate successfully fight back and kill an impostor. Still, it seemed that it ultimately costed his own life.
Despite it being against protocol, Aero kicked the impostor’s corpse in cold, bitter frustration.
He was about to leave the room to report the incident to Ginger, who would surely intiate a full room cleanup, when he heard the recognizable sound of air flow behind him.
He turned around and saw a truly remarkble sight.
Indigo was breathing.
...
Aero quickly had the crewmate rushed to Medbay for care and repair. He had showed no signs of conciousness besides the gasping for breath.
A light-red crewmate, Coraline, helped get him into a bed and quickly started to formulate a plan to wrap his wounds without ultimately harming him more.
“Coral, you think you can help him?” Aero leaned against the wall, visibly shaken. Strange for him. Nothing ever seemed to spook him.
She quickly started to grab some tools. “Of course I can. I’ll just... Need to be quick about this. The poor kid lost a lot of blood, though it’s hard to tell due to all the green stuff he’s smudged with.”
“Impostor blood. Seems he successfully warded off his predator.”
Coraline stopped in her tracks, stunned.
“... He WHAT?”
“Shocking, I know. Maybe the guy’s got some guts after all.”
She started to breath heavily, unbelieving of what she was hearing. “Is he an idiot!? Fighting against an impostor just like that?!”
Aero shot a glare in her direction. “Be quiet, or you’ll wake him. Just be glad that he survived his encounter.”
“W-What is all that noise...?”
The captain and the medic forwarded a glance to the victim, who was busy rubbing his shoulder in pain.
Coraline quickly ran over to him. “DDDDDON’T TOUCH THAT, YOU’RE GONNA GET IT INFECTED!”
Indigo quickly retracted his hand, frightened into compliance by the worried nurse.
Aero leaned next to his bed, his concern clear in his eyes of water. “You doing alright, kiddo? You were out for quite a while...”
Indigo nodded to the best of his ability, though he himself didn’t quite believe it. “W-What did I do...?”
“Nothing that wasn’t deserved.” Aero chuckled, “Good job defending yourself.”
“Your tormentor is likely dead, judging by their lack of heartbeat,” Coraline shouted to him while reaching for more supplies.
Indigo’s eyes widened, as he tucked himself further into the sheets, shivering.
The medic walked up to him, gently running a hand through his hair for comfort. “You’re lucky he found you when he did. You could’ve ended up much worse.” She shot a glance at Aero, who shot back a sutble smile in response.
The younger crewmate tilted his head towards them with curiosity and intrigue, but also a little bit of awe.
“Now, we have to help you clean up before we can bandage your body up, so would you mind taking off that mask of yours? Just makes things easier for us.”
Indigo froze with the question, clearly uncomfortable with the request. “C-Cannot...”
“Ah, facial dysphoria?” Aero immediately understood.
“Y-Yes, let us go with that.”
“Well, if it helps,” Coraline pointed out, “We can have only one of us in the room during it to make you feel more protected. After all, then only one of us has to see under the mask.”
The crewmate clearly was unsure about that preposition, but after a while of thinking, he sadly sighed and pointed at Aero with his unbroken arm.
She nodded. “Of course, I understand.” She started to walk out of the room, briefly turning to the captain. “You know what to do...?”
“Of course, I’m not a fool. After all, I take showers every... I take showers.”
As she exited and closed the doors behind her, Aero turned back to Indigo. “Well, let’s get this done with...” He reached for the mask, but Indigo gently slapped his hand away, still nervous about letting him see.
“... Do you want to take it off yourself instead?”
Indigo nodded.
“Alright, then. As long as it gets done.”
The crewmate grabbed the edge of the bandana, but stopped just before pulling it down.
“... Y-You do promise not to get angry...?”
“Hey, I’m sure I’ve seen worse than whatever you have under there.”
Indigo breathed out as he pulled the mask down, revealing...
... A set of fanged teeth.
Indigo didn’t say anything about it, instantly looking away from the captain out of shame. Though, Aero didn’t seem too frightened. Just shocked.
“... You... You’re an impostor?”
“A-Are you happy? A-Are you goings to ejectings me out now...?” Now that the facade was off, Indigo seemed to speak in a much more strange and alien accent.
Aero quickly snapped out of his shock. “No, no no, I just... Wasn’t expecting it.”
The crewmate seemed confused. “But... I am an impostor. I... I am a killering, correct?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that all impostors are like that. Plus, you only acted in self-defense. If you wanted to hurt me, you probably would’ve done it already.”
Indigo got up from his bed and started to walk to the nurse’s desk with shaky legs. “I am embarrassings to the rest of my peoples...”
Aero tried to gently walk to him. “H-Hey, maybe it’s not a good idea to walk just yet. You still are pretty injured.”
“Maybe I should...”
Indigo picked up a medical knife, looking at it in his unbroken hand silently, breathing heavily.
The captain saw this, and stopped where he was, not wanting to accidentally aggravate him further into irrational decision.
“Put the knife down. Nobody has to get hurt, promise.”
Something seemed to stop the impostor from listening to the crewmate. He shakily wrapped his fingers around the knife, gripping it tightly.
Aero took a few smaller steps forward. “Come on, we don’t have to-”
Indigo instintively jabbed the knife in Aero’s direction, who was far enough to where it didn’t make any contact, though he did flinch a bit.
“You do not knowings what I am requireds to do. I havings failed my assigntments, and thus...”
With a quick breath, he pointed the knife towards his stomach, sucking his gut in, legs shaky. He closed his eyes, not wanting to give the captain the satisfaction of seeing his sorrowed expression.
“... I haves to... Say goodbyes.”
In a sudden burst of panic, Aero used Indigo’s loss of sight to tackle him to the ground before he could drive the knife into his own body. The knife flew out of his hands, cutting Aero's cheek and sliding against the cold floor of Medbay, far from either of their reach.
Aero tried his best to keep a steady knee on Indigo to avoid letting him escape. The impostor was flailing around, desperately kicking and reaching towards the ground to get the knife back to him.
“CALM DOWN, alright!? You don’t have to do anything!”
“LET ME DYINGS IN PEACE, CREWMATE.”
Still keeping Indigo trapped and realizing that he was not helping his panic, he quickly searched through Coraline’s desk to find anything that could knock him out easily.
He reached for a syringe labled “anesthesia” and grabbed Indigo’s arm, driving the needle into his skin and injecting him with it.
The impostor hissed in pain, pulling his hand away and panting. “What did you-?!”
He tried to stand up, but he quickly collapsed again.
“No...”
He started to feel himself shivering harder, losing conciousness.
“No, no, no, NO...”
Aero stood back up, grabbing the knife from the floor, so that Indigo couldn’t take it back. He crawled towards the captain, grabbing onto his leg.
“PLEASE...!”
And with that, he slumped over onto the ground, his body lifeless, like a marionette with her strings removed. A hushed, shaken breath could be silently heard from him.
Aero gently picked him up and tucked him back into bed. He was shockingly light. He ran his fingers through his matted and messy hair, which seemed to make his breathing calmer.
The captain sighed, and turned on his walkie-talkie. “Coral, you can come back in now.”
She would undoubtably chew him out later for unprofessional conduct trying to subdue Indigo, but that didn’t matter to him.
He was just happy to have saved his life.