All things truly wicked start from an innocence. ~Ernest Hemingway

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At first he heard screams of pure agony, their pain ripping through his very soul. But the longer he ran down the long, metallic corridor, the more it got quiet. The silence was the worst. His mind already ripping itself apart. He could feel its influence creeping through his head like a damn parasite. It whispered to him, told him to do things. If only he had known what would have happened, if only he hadn't brought that damn rock aboard the ship. All he could do now was run for his life, trying to calm down enough so he wouldn't have a heart attack and drop on the spot. If he died, he'd only end up hurting more people. He couldn't be responsible for more deaths, he just couldn't.

Make us whole...

That same damn phrase over and over. It reverberated through his skull, taking the form of a million whispers. It sounded disturbingly like his dead daughter, whom he had mistaken for one of those things. He had beat her skull in with one of the legs on a metal chair. That damn rock made him do it... it made him kill his little girl. The voices in his head grew exponentially, the whispers turning into screaming. He brought his hands up to his head, "Shut up, shut up, shut UP!"

He rounded a corner too fast, slipping on a puddle of blood. He fell down, slamming his head on the metal floor. His eyes blurred up, his headache much worse than before. The pain shot through his skull when he tried to get up. But he had to, he had to get to the communications center. He had to send out a distress signal. The voices kept telling him to do it. Anything to make them stop, anything...

He got up slowly, crying softly to himself. Blood dripped off of his head, which alarmed him. He used the walls to help him walk along the corridor. He felt so dizzy that he suspected a concussion. After a few minutes of walking, he came upon a large door, sealed away due to the emergency lockdown that was currently shipwide. Lucky for him, he had access to all parts of the ship. He pressed his hand into the holographic scanner, the door immediately recognizing him. It opened, allowing him access to the communications center.

He stumbled in and closed the door behind him, locking it with a level ten security code. One of the advantages of being the chief security officer. He walked weakly to the large console, falling into the chair. He rested his head back, trying to ignore the pain in his head and the one in his arm. One of those things took a damn chunk out of his arm back at the bridge. The bridge was crawling with those monsters. There had been so much red, so much death... he knew he wasn't going to make it out of here alive.

He accessed the communications array, typing in security codes left and right. He wiped his forehead, smearing blood everywhere. He felt so weak, so vulnerable. If he got into a fight, there's no way he'd come out of it. He needed to stay put and wait for rescue.

He opened up a distress signal and said into the video recorder, "T-this is Harvey Duncan, chief security officer aboard the USG Odyssey. We have been attacked by an unknown alien intruder. The bridge has been wiped out. I...I can't hear anyone screaming anymore... I think they're all dead. Please, send help."

He put his head into his hands, sobbing quietly, his body shaking violently. He looked up, his face indicating that he had completely lost his mind, "I-I... I can hear them. They speak to me. They tell me to do things... to hurt people. I don't want to, but..."

He shook his head, tears streaming out of his eyes, the clear liquid making clean streaks amongst the fresh blood, "Make... us... whole."

He leaned into the camera, his crying ceased. His eyes were void of any emotion, "I can hear them... they whisper to me."

He lifted a plasma cutter he had taken from a dead engineer's body and rested the barrel against the bottom of his chin, pointing at his brain. He set the video to end in ten seconds, whispering, "And soon... you will, too."

With a bright flash of light, his head exploded, littering the screen with blood and brain matter. His body went limp, his arm falling to his side. The plasma cutter fell to the ground with a metallic clatter. One side of his skull was intact, his lifeless eye staring back at the screen.

The video ended, the once brave and honorable man now but a corpse amongst the already thousands who had lost their lives to one act of stupidity. One mistake that opened the abysmal horrors of hell itself. The ship remained relatively quiet after that, save for the inhuman screeches that littered the hallways.

Make us whole...

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Another ship recieved the distress call that bounced across space. It changed course, heading for the Odyssey. The crew of this large cruiser were different from the ones aboard the Odyssey. They were an entirely different species, walking along four legs instead of two.

The admiral of this ship brought a hoof, yes, a hoof, to his chin, trying to understand why there would be a distress signal this far out into space, "Helm, bring us, but don't get too close. I want to know exactly what we're dealing with."

After hours of waiting, they had gotten close enough to hear the distress signal. It was in the form of a video, that much was obvious. But the coding to it was entirely different than their own. It took some tweaking before they could watch said video. What they saw would forever haunt their dreams for years to come.

"T-this is Harvey Duncan, chief security officer aboard the USG Odyssey. We have been attacked by an unknown alien intruder. The bridge has been wiped out. I...I can't hear anyone screaming anymore... I think they're all dead. Please, send help."

The rest of the video was disturbing to say the least. This creature was different than they were, but it seemed to speak their language. The admiral went into a thinking pose yet again. After a few minutes, he sighed, "Okay, helm, bring us in. Send a team down there to investigate. Alien or not, they clearly need help."

He rewatched the entire video, his muzzle scrunching up in confusion. The ponies around him worked tirelessly, trying to figure out how to avoid the astroids that floated around the planet that the mysterious ship was next to, "What happened to you...?"

Author's Note

I hope you enjoy the story. If you did, be sure to leave a like and a favorite. And to the people anal about me asking that, it's a click of a button. I mean, if you enjoyed it. If you didn't, I'd really like to know why, so I can improve in the future.

I'll be working on this story only. When I get done with this, I'll move on, but I'm not going to allow myself to be overwhelmed as I was with my last account. Only one thing at a time.