Chapter 9
Rumble Pack
Red lighting pulsed in time with the klaxon, washing every surface in a color that made the ship look like the inside of something bleeding. Levi’s hand was in Asher’s, his boots too loud on the metal floor, and they were moving.
His body objected to the very concept of movement, but his mind felt sharp for the first time since he had first died in the forest. He noticed the air recyclers cycling harder than usual.
The smell of something electrical underneath a metallic taste.
Crew members passed them in the corridor, some in uniform, some dragged from their bunks by the alarm, faces tight with confusion.
They passed damage. A corridor with scorch marks along both walls — a purge that had already run, the metal still ticking as it cooled.
A sealed bulkhead with heat distortion visible through the viewport, the air on the other side shimmering like summer asphalt.
And then something else: gouges in the wall.
Deep, parallel, the width and spacing wrong for any tool Levi could name.
More gouges in the next corridor. Different depth. Different angle.
More in the one after that.
That’s not one creature.
Levi’s sternum caught the vibration before his ears caught the sound. Low, almost a pressure — the same frequency he’d felt in the lower corridor before they’d seen the first one. The same hum that hadn’t changed while it pulled out Zoe’s spine.
It was closer than the lower corridor had been. And getting closer.
His hand tightened on Asher’s and he pulled — sideways, with no explanation, through a doorway he’d clocked two steps back to a supply closet.
It had shelving on three walls, industrial cleaning supplies that stank of ammonia, a mop handle digging into Levi’s shoulder blade, and barely enough room for both of them standing.
The door had a narrow viewport at head height, but it was the best they had, so he pulled it shut, leaving a gap at the hinge where the red alarm light bled through.
Asher’s weight settled against him immediately. The shelving pressed into Levi’s shoulder blades and Asher pressed into everything else, one knee between Levi’s legs. In the dark, with the red light cutting a line across Asher’s jaw.
The vibration climbed. Not louder — deeper. Like it was settling into a lower register, finding the resonant frequency of Levi’s ribs.
Asher’s mouth found his ear. “You pulled me into a dark closet.”
“Shut up.” Levi’s whisper came out thin. “One of the creatures is nearby.”
“Kill the monsters, take me on a date, pull me into a closet.” His hands found Levi’s waist through the jumpsuit, settling there with the warmth of someone who had been given access and intended to use it at every opportunity. “I’m starting to see a pattern, baby.”
Levi’s face flushed in the dark. The vibration in his sternum was worse now — a sustained hum that made his molars ache.
“Asher. It is getting closer.”
“And I’m right here. So you’re safe.” His hands slid from Levi’s waist to his hips, then lower — one palm pressing flat against the front of Levi’s jumpsuit. Levi’s teeth clenched against the sound that tried to come out. “You’re shaking,” Asher said.
“I really don’t want to get my spine ripped out because you can’t keep your hands to yourself for two minutes,” Levi whispered.
“I can help you stay quiet. You can always just moan into my mouth.” His palm pressed harder and his mouth moved from Levi’s ear to his jaw. “I like when you do that.”
“Asher—” Levi grabbed Asher’s wrist, trying to still his movements, but he just ended up holding it in place. “We’re hiding. This is hiding.”
“You’re holding my hand where it is.” Asher muttered. “If you wanted me to stop, you’d move it.”
The vibration dropped another register. Levi felt it in the backs of his eyes.
The red light from the hinge gap flickered — something passing between the alarm strip and the door and Asher’s hand went from Levi’s jumpsuit to his sidearm in one motion, his weight shifting, his shoulder dropping to angle himself between the viewport and Levi. His free hand found Levi’s and held it.
Through the viewport, Levi clocked the movement.
The height of it filled the corridor. Levi could see only a section — the middle third, shoulder to hip, or what would have been shoulder and hip on something built the way things were supposed to be built.
Metal fingertips trailed the wall and the sound of them on the bulkhead was a thin, continuous scraping that Levi felt in his back teeth.
Tck..tck…tck…
The scraping stopped. The footsteps stopped.
The vibration in Levi’s sternum peaked so hard his ribs ached and his vision blurred at the edges, and through the viewport the creature’s midsection rotated and bent— the whole torso turning, orienting, until the dish filled the glass.
Levi glanced only once at the tiny dark openings, cycling in sequence, each one clicking at a different speed.
Tck-tck-tck-tck-tck-tck.
Asher’s hand crushed his. The bones in Levi’s fingers ground together and he didn’t pull away. He didn’t breathe. His jaw locked so tight the muscles in his neck spasmed.
It’s right there. It’s looking right at us.
The apertures slowed.
Tck... tck... tck.
The dish swept left, then right — tck tck tck.
Different speeds for different directions.
It chose left. The legs carried it down the corridor, metal fingertips resuming their scrape along the wall, and the vibration in Levi’s sternum faded steadily, the pressure in his ribs easing degree by degree the further away it went.
Levi exhaled, though it was closer to a sob than a breath. His hands shook and Asher didn’t let go of the one he was holding. It looked right at us…why didn’t it attack?
Why?
Asher leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Levi, hey, let’s move…we’re alive—”
Levi placed his hands on Asher’s chest. “Next time we hide, don’t try to reveal our location like that. Do you understand me? It will lead to a bad time for both of us.”
“Baby, we’re alive and I got you half-hard with that thing out there. I’m having a great time,” Asher said as he pulled the door open wider to peek outside. “Clear. Come on. Monsters to kill. Dates to earn.”
They emerged into the corridor and Levi’s legs wobbled beneath him, his pulse still running high, and the jumpsuit still warm where Asher’s palm pressed against him.
He could think more clearly than in any other loop before, and he had a sinking feeling he would never not be afraid, but at least it felt more manageable.
For now.
They kept moving.
Crew members crowded the mess— maybe fifteen, some in uniform, some in sleepwear, most with weapons drawn and none of them looking like they knew what to do with them.
The red alarm light pulsed across every surface, voices overlapping, and the room was at the density where fear started feeding on itself.
Levi still held Asher’s hand. He was aware of it — of the visibility of it, the fact that every person in this room was about to see the rocks guy and the security chief linked together like kids afraid of losing each other in an amusement park.
The crew would draw conclusions. Elliot would draw worse ones, once he saw.
It’s too late to worry about it. Just keep Asher focused.
Jasper was the first to reach them in disheveled engineering coveralls, a datapad already in hand, the screen casting blue light on his face. The grin was there, same as always, and his eyes dropped to their linked hands and the grin didn’t change. He nodded once. “Hey man. Hell of a wake-up call.”
“How bad is it?” Asher asked.
The ease dropped a full degree. “You know those seventeen samples in the cargo hold?”
Levi’s chest tightened. “Yeah.”
“They’re not in the cargo hold anymore, dude.”
Owen arrived behind Jasper already talking, data pads clutched like life preservers.
“Seventeen containment pods breached from the inside — simultaneously, Levi, all at once — the structural integrity was rated for—” He caught himself and looked at Levi, at their hands, then back to his data pads. “Hi. This is very bad.”
“I gathered.” Levi nodded.
Tyler paced near the porthole. “We should be out there hunting them down, not sitting here—”
Elliot came through the far door and a hush fell over the room, everyone turning to him even as his eyes only found Levi, then seemed to snap to the sea of worried faces trained on him.
He positioned himself near the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back as he scanned the room.
“Has anyone seen Chief Officer Zoe Ardell?” he called out.
A murmur ran through the room as Levi glanced around. Of course she isn’t here. She always seems to die early in these games.
Reynolds came through the main door like a storm and the room reorganized around her.
“Listen up!” Her voice was crisp and carried without effort.
“We have confirmed sightings on Decks Two, Three, Four, and Six. Direct physical contact with these things is fatal — they access the spinal column and central nervous system and the process is not survivable. Our weapons are having minimal effect, and they only really seem to be affected by high heat, so seal and purge protocols are authorized.”
Maddie’s head snapped up from a crew member. “What if crew is in the vicinity?”
“We do not know the long term effects of what contact with them means. Follow the purge protocol,” Reynolds said to the room, almost as if she was deliberately not looking at Maddie. “We need to split into groups of two or three, cover maximum area, report sightings to central—”
That’s fucking stupid. No.
“Splitting up is how people die!” Levi snapped, stepping forward. His chest felt strange again, the echoes of the vibrations humming in his chest.
Reynolds looked at him like something stuck to her shoe. “Dr. Mercer, I’ve run containment operations before. We need coverage across—”
“You’ve never run containment against seventeen hostiles that move through ventilation shafts and can’t be stopped by the weapons we have.
” His voice was steady. He didn’t know where the steadiness was coming from, but he knew games, and he knew what this game would do if they separated.
“If we split into pairs, they pick us off in corridors. We lose communication, we lose numbers, and people die alone.”
“Excuse me? Dr. Mercer, you’re not even wearing your comms badge, and you want to talk about communication?
” Reynolds shifted her torso in his direction.
She had a withering stare, the kind that made Levi immediately feel small.
“You do not give orders. I do. This crew knows this ship and we need to—”
The ventilation shaft above her buckled inward.
The sound was enormous. Metal screaming.
Bolts shearing. The ceiling deforming around the impact point, panels caving, and the creature was through before the debris had finished falling — dropping into the room between Reynolds and the nearest table, its head sweeping back and forth before it reached its full height.
The room erupted into panicked shouts. Asher yanked Levi against him and drew his weapon as the hum in Levi’s bones became deafening.
Metal fingertips grabbed Reynolds before she got her side arm out and she swung at the creature.
Her fist connected with its dish-like face and she let out a shout, and Levi just watched in horror as it began to turn her, the apertures cycling.
Look away Levi. Look away. You don’t have to watch again.
Asher fired. The bolt hit the creature’s torso, its gray, translucent skin flashing where the impact landed in a ripple of something that wasn’t pain, and the creature didn’t react. It didn’t flinch or turn, its attention stayed on Reynolds and its fingers kept working.
“Get out of here!” Tyler yelled, shoving Maddie and Owen towards the door before he charged at the creature. The creature’s free arm swept sideways and caught him across the chest and Tyler hit the wall and went down. The metal finger tips then grabbed the back of Reynolds’ uniform.
Levi lunged and grabbed Jasper’s arm with one hand and Asher’s with the other, forcing himself to turn away when she started screaming. “STICK TOGETHER. RUN. NOW.”
The room broke. People running — not organized, a panicked mass flowing toward the far exit. Levi pulled Jasper, Maddie grabbed Owen’s collar, Elliot had Tyler yanked to his feet and kept shoving crew members toward the door and out into the corridor, the alarm still pulsing.
The door sealed behind them.
The vibration in Levi’s sternum lessened and Asher kept pulling him, further away from the door, further from the chaos, and Levi didn’t let go of Jasper as his mind spun.
He had felt it when it was through metal plating and above them.
He could track it. But what did they want?
What were they looking for? What did the game want him to do with them to make the game end?
It wasn’t hunting her. It was looking for something, and when it doesn’t find what it’s looking for, it moves on. When it does find it...
“Okay. We regroup. We need to—” Elliot began as they moved down the corridor.
“We need to stay together!” Levi shouted above the alarm and the panicked voices. “Nobody goes anywhere alone.”
The corridor was quiet except for the alarm.
Reynolds had stopped screaming. Seventeen creatures were loose on a ship Levi barely understood, and the captain was gone, and every eye in the corridor was turning toward the specialist who wasn’t really a specialist. Asher squeezed his hand and whispered, “You got this.”
“So what do we do?” Jasper gasped, stopping for a moment to place his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
Levi didn’t have an answer yet. The ventilation shafts were not safe, the weapons they had didn’t work, the creature looked at them hiding in a closet and chose not to come in, the vibration, the specific way they killed…
it was all pointing to something, but Levi didn’t know enough about the scenario to figure it out.
“Dude, you have to make a decision eventually, otherwise you’ll never get to the fun parts,“ Ethan once said to him. Levi had been frozen with indecision over what to do while playing Disco Elysium and Ethan wouldn’t even give him a hint.
Eventually he did make a decision—he tried to turn on the lights and his character died of a heart attack at the beginning of the game.
Ethan laughed so hard he cried that night.
“It’s okay. Just start over, and now you know one thing you shouldn’t do. ”
I know what not to do. Let’s find out what else I shouldn’t do.
“We move,” Levi said. “Together. Toward Engineering. I need to see how this ship works.”