Pony Space: Blackened

Dark. That's what most of the halls were. For being such a huge ship the lighting was substandard and made the place feel all that much eerier.

“Must be a less trafficked area of the ship” I said as I pulled up my RIG interface to see about my objective, and find out where exactly the problem was.

The icon on the map was located in an air duct on the main deck. With it not being that far from where I was I decided to take the engineering back corridors. CEC engineering corridors didn't have reputations for being comfortable places. They were usually cramped, humid, and dimly lit. This one was no exception of course, but with a little doing I managed to get to the vent entrance.

The vent's door chimed, 'ENGINEER, CLASS VII' when I stamped my hoof on the panel and opened. I shimmied inside and crawled my way to the obstruction. Suddenly I smelled something awful, not distant from rotting flesh.

“Dear Celestia, do they ever clean these damn things?” I said to myself. Turning a corner I felt something sticky on my hoof.

-Gunk from the medical deck?- I thought. Looking forward I realized how wrong that assumption was. Some sort of organic mass had gathered in the vent. It almost looked like it was breathing. It didn't phase me that much, I had seen much worse. Un-clipping my plasma cutter from my tool belt to use it for clearing I couldn't help thinking about how something like this could end up in an filtered air duct.

-Maybe somepony's pet got sucked into a filter and got splattered in here- I assumed. This, of course, didn't explain the breathing.

Not paying it any more mind, I took aim with my cutter. I fired and the searing plasma tore straight through the blockage. Unfortunately, it splattered onto EVERYTHING, including me.

I made my way out the duct, taking a different exit straight into a corridor leading to the medical deck.

“Great. That's just perfect. First day on the job and I already have to get decontaminated.” I muttered angrily to myself, climbing down from the vent door.

“Is everything okay?”, a mare's voice behind me asked. Said voice startled me and I fell from the vent entrance, hitting the ground with a loud 'THUD'.

“Oh my! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!”, the voice apologized. I groaned as I got up, I had hit my head especially hard.

I turned and saw the mare who had just spoken to me. I had seen her in the docking wing. Light blue coat, yellow eyes, and a sharp, black mane.

“It's alright, I'm fine. Gonna take a lot more than that to put me down.”, I replied. I got back up on my hooves. “I need to get to the medical wing to have this gunk sprayed off.”

She backed up a little when she fully saw my face. “Okay. Well, um. I've got to get back to relaying and navigation. See you!” She turned around and left the hall.

Her reaction was unsurprising. I got that a lot from ponies who didn't know what a scar looked like. I could have had it fixed a long time ago, but I kept it as a token to never go back to that life.

Abruptly, my head started throbbing. It felt like somepony was jamming a screwdriver deep into my skull. Images flashed through my eyes as I fell to the ground. I saw strange text, and images of her. Her, m-my wife. Mint.

“AAAAH!!!” I was shrieking in agony, the images of her flashing through my eyes, as well as a strange structure.

From what I could make out it looked like two monoliths twisting together in unison. After writhing in torment for several minutes I passed out.