Chapter Text
There was hardly any noise as he moved through the vents, only the slight rustle of his shape dragging through the metal walls. He stopped right below one of the vent openings, the lab’s bright lights shining through the slits, allowing him to see the mess of fossils and crystals that had been left on a box on the floor. He couldn’t immediately see anyone in the room.
Huffing in frustration, he was about to drag himself off to another vent, when he heard footsteps approaching. He stopped, waited, until he saw bright yellow legs come inside the room. He held his breath as the crewmate started sorting the fossils, seemingly too focused to notice anything.
The vent flapped open and the impostor oozed himself out of it, his pliant shape shifting until he was back into his human looking form. He approached the Yellow crewmate slowly, pulling a knife from inside his suit. The Yellow crewmate only looked up when he was already standing right behind him.
“Hey G-man! didn’t see you there.” Yellow said, looking surprised, but he smiled, always friendly despite the circumstances.
Grian grinned, teeth sharp, eyes glowing red. “No, nobody did.” The yellow crewmate’s eyes widened and he tried to back away, but he didn’t get two steps before Grian attacked. He stabbed the knife into his neck, the crewmate tried to scream, but only managed a weak, wet gasp as his throat filled with blood. Grian pulled the knife again and stabbed him once, twice more. Blood splattered on top of the fossils and on Grian’s maroon suit.
Yellow fell on the floor, grasping Grian’s ankle with a surprising amount of strength for someone dying. He struggled to breathe, struggled to talk, but was unwilling to go without a fight “You-..” Came the rasping word, and Grian stayed long enough to see if he was going to say something interesting, expression empty and detached. “Skizz… It was-” He choked and coughed, specks of blood came out of his mouth, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he finally went completely still.
To think yellow’s last moments were thinking of the blue crewmate that had been killed first. Humans were so attached to each other, it was so strange. A lot of times they almost seemed to care more for other humans than themselves. With a shake of his head, Grian shook off the hold Yellow still had on his leg, it took a lot more persistence than he would have thought. He was a fighter, apparently.
It didn’t matter, he was dead. Grian left the corpse where it fell and slipped into the vent once again.
The vent system in the building was extensive. In less than a minute Grian had made his way out of the lab and went all the way to the cafeteria while people were none the wiser. The bloodstains on his suit disappeared as his form shifted and cleaned itself up. He climbed off the vent and went to the nearby vending machine, looking at the products like any other crewmate who couldn’t decide what to eat.
Someone arrived, footsteps rushed until the person tripped on the edge of the door, Grian smiled at who it was, waving at the orange figure who was trying to make it look like he hadn’t just tripped on the way in “Hey Scar” he called.
“Hi Grian! You should get the gummy chocolate, those are the best”
Grian opened his mouth to reply but the emergency alarm covered his words
“EMERGENCY MEETING! EVERYONE TO CAFETERIA RIGHT NOW!!” A shrill voice said. Grian and Scar looked at each other with twin looks of confusion. They were there already, so they simply took their seats to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive.
The cafeteria filled in with people soon enough, each person taking a seat around the long table in the middle of the room. The crew showed varied levels of nervousness, some shifting uncomfortably, others looking at each other suspiciously. Grian kept his eyes low, fiddling with his own fingers like a scared crewmate. He wasn’t too worried though, nobody could have seen he was the one who got Yellow.
The last one to arrive was the crewmate in white, his expression stormy, like he was ready to burst in anger at any second. Bdubs climbed on top of the chair to stand taller than everyone else before he spoke, loud and frantic. “I found Impulse! He’s dead in lab! It’s a slaughterhouse over there. Someone stabbed him while he was sorting the new fossils we were sent this morning.”
“No. No, no, no! We should’ve done something when Skizz died! Now Impulse is gone too!” That was Red, who got to his feet before he slammed his hands on the table “We’re being slaughtered and we’re doing NOTHING about it.”
“I thought you were with him, Tango. Didn’t you say you were going to be his partner?” Bdubs countered, leaning half of his body over the table to stare Tango down better.
“It was Scar who didn’t want to do wires!” Tango yelled. “He gave me 75 hundred wire panels to look after, I couldn’t even scratch my butt today!”
“What?!.” Scar said from Grian’s right, surprised he was being dragged into the argument ”I asked if you wanted to do it! We traded, Tango, don’t blame that on me!”
“I’m not blaming you! I’m just saying I was busy all day! I’m not Impulse’s keeper!”
“Well he’s dead! Because he was alone!” Bdubs yelled even louder, raising his arms and almost hitting Etho’s head to his left.
At this rate, White and Red would kill each other without Grian even needing to lift a finger. He met Etho’s eyes from across the table and saw the cyan crewmate tilt his head. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he smiled, so quick you might miss it.
The crewmates kept arguing around them, some saying what they had been doing, while others were near panic as they couldn’t figure out who was killing them one by one. Not once did anyone accuse Grian. In fact, Scar had vouched for him since they had been in the cafeteria when the body was found.
It was the perfect crime.
The meeting ended with nothing resolved, Bdubs and Tango had to be dragged away from each other to avoid having them start an actual fight. Everyone else seemed frightened and confused. Grian left the meeting as soon as he could, playing up the act of the scared crewmate by saying he had tasks to finish and to please leave him alone.
And He thought he was alone at first. He certainly didn’t see anyone following him when he came out of the cafeteria, and yet, as Grian was going up the Y corridor towards oxygen, he heard footsteps behind him, closer than expected. At first he thought it might be Etho wanting to talk, but when he looked behind him, he saw no one.
Grian tilted his head in confusion “Hello?” Nobody answered, but the air around him felt colder, he felt his biomass shrink in response. With a shake of his head, Grian kept going.
Once he was in oxygen, he crouched down by the plants, checking if they needed watering and tending. They seemed…. Fine? The mulch seemed watered and the leaves were decently green. Honestly, Grian wasn’t sure how to take care of human plants, it was one of those tasks where he just stared at it and hummed to himself for a little bit before leaving it for someone else to deal with. Human plants were a little too alien for him to understand.
He could waste a good while there though, so he simply sat by the greenery and waited.
Are you going to stare at those until someone comes in and you can stab them?
The question floated around Grian, echo-y and distant while still sounding like the voice was right on his ear. Grian jumped to his feet, eyes wide as he looked for whoever had said that. But the room was empty. The only noise was from the oxygen pumps and other machinery working to keep the crew alive.
Nobody here for you to kill nah nah nah. How does it feel, murderer? You won’t get away with it. They’ll find out. They’ll toss you through the window.
The voice again, now coming from another direction, still far too close for comfort. Grian turned around and met empty air. He scratched the back of his head, confused at what he was hearing. He checked his comm, checked the speakers in the room, but both were turned off.
The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place who it was. One of the crewmates, he was sure, but… how would anyone know?
Did someone know?
And how were they talking to Grian without being there?
You can hear me? You can hear me! I can see it. Oh you can hear me! Grian!!! YOU KILLED ME!
The lights flickered, Grian pressed his lips as he finally placed who the voice belonged to. Yellow. Impulse. He was dead though, He made sure of it. Bdubs confirmed it. He wasn’t really here, couldn’t be.... Grian shook his head. He didn’t know what was happening so he did what any reasonable person would: Decided to ignore it. He headed out of oxygen, stepped out just as someone else was coming in, a dark gray crewmate that almost ran into him.
“Grian! oh hai!” She greeted cheerfully, but the way she looked sideways and behind her betrayed a sense of nervousness. “I didn’t know you were here.”
PEARL! Get out! Run! Leave! He’s dangerous. He’s one of the impostors! RUN!
“Oh. Yeah. I was checking on the plants.” Grian responded, ignoring the voice. Pearl seemed like she didn’t hear anything. There was no reaction.
“Oh. I was going to check the plants too” She lifted a blue watering can. “But if you’ve done it already, I guess I don’t have to”
PEARL RUUUUUN!!!
“I did. They are alive” Grian smiled, his eyes flickered sideways at where he heard the voice coming from. There was nothing to see though, Impulse wasn’t there, he was dead. Grian considered dragging Pearl into the room and offing her then and there, just to see what would happen, but it was too soon and far too risky, and some of the crew had seen him come this way after the meeting.
Instead he nodded at her, still smiling, seemingly oblivious to the awkward silence that had lingered between them. “Well, anyway. I have wire panels to fix, you have fun with your plants. See you Pearl!”
Her shoulders relaxed, just slightly, Grian noticed, and her smile seemed more genuine when she waved him goodbye “See ya, Gri.”
You didn’t kill her! Good on you. Why do you do this? We never did anything to you. We don’t deserve this! I didn’t.. Skizz didn’t. Do you feel regret, Grian? Do you even feel anything? What did you feel when you stabbed me on the back? DO you care at all?
The voice prattled on and on as Grian went about keeping himself busy with the many tasks Mira HQ had. He did his best to ignore it, but it was hard, Impulse just wouldn’t shut up. Going on and on and on asking questions Grian refused to answer, making comments, noise, noise and more noise.
It got tiring really fast. Even as night fell and Grian retired to his quarters, the voice was still around. Impulse (was it really Impulse?) seemed incapable of growing tired.
Was this a… human thing? That sometimes their consciousness stayed after they died? Grian didn’t remember hearing anything like this before. And why was it that only he could hear Impulse? Was it because he was the one who killed him?
Or maybe Grian just went a little mad in the head and was hearing things.
Regardless of what was causing it, the voice speaking in his ear wherever he went was incredibly distracting, and two days later it was clear that it wouldn’t simply go away. Everytime Grian saw a crewmate, Impulse would start yelling, talking or ranting, so loud that he could barely hear what people were telling him.
And then he started singing.
🎵 Come and knock on my door~ i’ll be waiting for yooou...
Non stop, over and over. Impulse wasn’t even a good singer, nor he knew the lyrics in full, so he just kept repeating the same verse again and again. If Impulse wanted to break Grian’s and stop him from killing, well, it was working.
“Shut it.” Grian groaned, not for the first time. He was sitting in the cafeteria by himself, his head hidden under his arms as he tried to drown out the off-key singing. It had been three days since he last slept, and although his biology allowed him to stay awake longer than the average human, he was starting to feel the effects of lack of rest.
The only moments of peace was when Grian hid away in the vents, and Mira’s vents were extensive enough that he could lose Impulse’s voice fairly easily, but unfortunately he couldn’t spend his entire time hiding in vents. The rest of the crew would notice his absence sooner or later, not to mention the fact that he had a mission to finish.
And by the void, Grian was going to finish it, even if it was the last thing he did.
The days passed, Impulse kept talking, and Grian wanted to throw himself off of the station. Currently he was babbling about some long winded story that Grian was vaguely aware of it being about how killers end up dead in the end. He wasn’t really paying attention, he just wanted the noise to stop.
Oh! That reminds me! I have a song I wanted to sing just for you!
Grian groaned again and gently started hitting his forehead on the table.
“Grian?” Someone called, but Grian didn’t react. There was a pause before he felt someone grab his shoulder and shake him.
Grian looked up in surprise, his eyes wide as he saw Etho standing there, looking at him with a vaguely concerned look.
The singing stopped, but only because Impulse was now trying to warn Etho away from him.
GO AWAY! Why does nobody that matters hear me!!! He’s dangerous, Etho! He’s an Impostor!
Etho blinked, his eyes flickered to Grian’s right and he seemed vaguely surprised, and it was not because of Grian, who still hadn’t said anything.
“You heard that!” Grain said in a hopeful tone. “You heard him, didn’t you?”
Did you?? ETHO Listen to me! Grian. Is. an. Impostor!
“Yeeeah. You have a parasite problem uh? Is that why you’ve been off lately?”
“It’s been non stop. Talking and more talking. Not to mention the singing. Void, the singing. He’s dead, Etho!.” Grian ran his hands through his hair.
And you’ll be too! If you don’t listen! Grian is a bad guy!!
Etho hummed, still looking around them as if he was trying to find Impulse. There was nothing to find though, they could hear him but they could not see him. “He must’ve been really angry when you got him”
“What?” Grian looked at Etho curiously. He noticed Impulse had gone quiet all of sudden. “What does that mean?”
Etho pulled a chair and sat beside Grian. “It happens sometimes. I don’t know exactly why, but when humans die really angry or with other intense emotions, it’s like their… consciousness stays, they linger around. They are called ghosts. Humans can’t hear them. But we can. I hear sometimes they can even influence places, never seen that though. I wouldn’t worry. They are mostly harmless.”
Oh my- He’s one of you! Etho is an impostor too! We’re doomed!! Two of them!!! Which one of you killed Skizz! Who killed my best friend?? Tell me! Was it you, Etho? Was it Grian! WHO DID IT!
The lights dimmed, flickered and then went back to normal.
“Mostly harmless, but really, really annoying.” Grian groaned, putting his head in his hands again. He looked up at Etho with a pout “Have you ever been hounded by one of these ghost things?”
“Yes. It happens fairly often. I’m surprised you never saw it before.” He sounded amused by it too “The most fun part is that they are so angry but there’s virtually nothing they can do about us. ”
You two are the worst. The. Worst.
“But how do we make it stop?” Grian asked. He was at the point that he’d start imploring. Etho might say they did nothing, but Grian quickly learned that talking nonstop was actually a really good way of driving a person mad. He could not imagine the torture it would be if he had to deal with it for void knows how long..
Etho shrugged “I don’t know. I don’t think we can. I do know they can’t follow us out. I think they are stuck where they died. In this guy’s case, here in this HQ.”
“So what you’re saying is that we should finish this quickly. So I can get rid of him.”
Or you could throw yourself out of the window and die. That’d be cool.
“If you think it’s that bad, sure.” Etho sounded amused still, and Grian was under the impression he wasn’t taking this as seriously as he should.
The conversation spurred Grian into wasting as little time as he could between kills. He ignored most of his tasks in favor of stalking the rest of the crew looking for opportunities to strike. It was harder than expected, with everyone spooked by the knowledge that they had at least one impostor in their midst, most people tended to walk in groups. Not to mention, his ghostly companion did make sneaking around hard, since although the other crewmates could not hear him, his constant babbling meant Grian had a harder time listening for other people who might walk into him.
As such, even with him determined to not waste time, Grian still took a few more days before he found the perfect opportunity. He had been skulking around the vent that led inside the reactor when the compression door hissed open and two people walked in.
“I’m telling you, dude. I’ll take a while to recalibrate the systems. You know this task takes a long time. You can go ahead and do your download in Lab” Grian heard the black crewmate say. Ren sounded unpreoccupied as he pushed his companion out the door.
“I’m not scared, Ren. I’m just saying, it’s safer if we stay together, isn’t it?” He heard Scar's voice and a flash of orange passed right over his head.
“I’m down the corridor. If something happens we can just yell.” Ren reassured and a few moments later he heard a set of footsteps walking away from the room.
That left Ren alone and Grian watched from his position as he hunched over the panels and plugged his tablet on the computer. He grinned, teeth sharp and eyes glowing red in anticipation. He just had be quiet. Download always took a while to complete.
And the best part, he seemed to have lost his ghostly friend for now. Impulse had a hard time following him when he used the vents, so Grian took every opportunity he could to hide in one.
The vent flap opened with a small squeak, Grian paused, waiting to see if Ren heard anything, but there was no reaction from the black crewmate. He slipped out of the vent, his form stretching and squeezing into a vaguely human shape. He needed to be fast, he could not let Ren call for help.
In a swift decision, Grian opened up one of his secondary mouths and slipped his speared tongue out. It was an appendage meant for killing, faster than any knife, he only needed to be precise. Grian walked three steps and wrapped his arms around Ren, who tried shouting, but Grian was quick to put his hand over his mouth.
A second later he struck, his tongue pierced through Ren’s black suit and then through skin, bones and soft tissue, coming out bloodied on the other side of Ren’s chest. He felt him gasp in pain and try a muffled cry for help, pushing himself away from Grian with little success. Grian might be short and look weak, but Impostors were stronger than any human, he could easily hold Ren as he struggled, growing weaker and weaker each passing second until he grew still.
“Ren?” Scar called and Grian heard footsteps approaching.
He’s with him! Run Scar! He’s right there! Help Ren!!!
And Impulse was back as well. “Shoot” Grian whispered. He dropped Ren’s body unceremoniously on the floor, his tongue ripping the gaping wound even more as he tugged it out of the body before he dashed to the vent, his shape turned less solid as he slipped into it. The flap had just snapped closed when Scar got in the room. The last thing he heard was a shocked gasp before he left through the vent system as fast as he could, trying to find an empty room he could slip out.
The alarms blared as Scar called for an emergency meeting, Grian rushed into the vent under the communications office and saw through the opening there was only one person there. It was only Etho, standing by the computer casually.
With a relieved sigh Grian slipped out.
“Ah, there he is. You’ve been busy today.” Etho said in greeting. He seemed in no hurry to go to the emergency meeting.
“If anyone asks, I was uploading with you in the last 15 minutes.” Grian said with a sharp grin
“Aham. ” Etho nodded “You might wanna clean the blood in your suit before we meet the others.”
Grian made himself presentable before he and Etho went together to the cafeteria where most everyone was already waiting. Surprisingly, they were not the last ones to arrive, Scar seemed like he took his sweet time and when he arrived, everyone was taken back by how his orange suit was covered in blood.
“Scar! What happened to you?” Grian asked in a tone of shock.
You’re such a hypocrite. Came the hiss right on Grian’s ear. He tried not to react.
“I-I-I was downloading! I was gathering vital information to send to the stations! I- Ren was with me. I was in Lab and he was in the Engine room. We said we were going to yell if something happened but he didn’t yell!” Scar spoke fast and his hands were tremblings. If Grian cared a little bit more, he’d feel sorry for the man.
Alas, Scar was just one more crewmate of many that stood between Grian and his mission.
It was Grian! How can you not see he’s guilty. He sneaks around like a snake and nobody notices! It’s Grian! And Etho!
The shouting voice of Impulse made it difficult for Grian to pay attention to the meeting, but he suspected that it didn’t really matter, the argument didn’t seem like it was going anywhere. Crewmate accused crewmate, people spoke over each other and the room descended into chaos.
On top of everyone, Grian also had to hear Impulse shouting about how he and Etho were guilty. It was a small consolation to see Etho also kept glancing at empty air with a look of annoyance.
I’M IN A BUILDING FULL OF IDIOTS. THE KILLERS ARE RIGHT THERE!
The usually distant, echoey voice suddenly sounded crystal clear in the midst of everyone and the lights right above their table exploded, showering the table in small glass pieces. The crew stopped dead silent, Etho and Grian exchanged twin looks of shock, wondering if everyone else heard that particular outburst.
“As if we didn’t have enough problems, the station is also trying to kill us by malfunctioning” Tango broke the silence, brushing his hand on his hair to dust the glass pieces off of him.
“Did you hear that?” Bdubs asked, looking around him with his eyes wide.
”What?” Pearl asked.
“Imp-...A voice” Bdubs stumbled on the words, looking around him with his eyes wide. Grian shot him an expectant look, while the other crewmates stared at him in confusion.
“A voice?” Tango said slowly. “What kind of voice?. I heard the comm system malfunctioning again, if that’s what you mean?.”
“That must be it then...” Budbs said, sounding uncertain. Grian glanced at Etho briefly, he was staring at Bdubs intensely
“We should probably check on those systems.” Etho suggested, already getting up from the table. “Before something important stops working and we suffocate or something.”
As if on cue, the alarm started blaring, red lights flashed all over the building. Grian noticed Etho’s hand was hidden under the table, out of view from everyone.
“That’s the oxygen” Tango said urgently “Someone go down the hallway and restart it over there. I’ll check the greenhouse.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he was running off, Etho went after him and after a moment, so did Bdubs.
“I can check the hallway.” Grian offered, already getting up from the meeting table. He watched as Scar and Pearl did the same
“Let’s all go” Pearl said, and together they ran off to reset the oxygen systems.
Numbers were pressed, the crisis was averted, nobody suffocated. Grian didn’t think it was Etho’s intention to kill the crew with that sabotage, however. It was a distraction.
That night, the crew decided it best if everyone was allowed an earlier night after they made sure the HQ would not blow up. Everyone was jumpy, stressed, scared. Another crewmate was dead.
Even Grian was thankful for some rest, he felt drained from the stressful day, and for a moment he imagined he understood what was like to be a human.
But rest didn’t come immediately, not with Etho deciding to visit him after hours. Grian found his fellow Impostor in his quarters, rifling through his belongings and looking inside his drawers. Etho didn’t even bother to look ashamed at being caught.
“Why are you going through my stuff, Etho?” Grian asked with his arms crossed. He sounded vaguely amused.
“Just looking” He smiled with his eyes “What’s more important is that Bdubs heard him.” He looked pointedly at the ceiling, even though neither of them could be certain Impulse was there. The room was silent though, so it was likely the ghost was somewhere else for once.
“...He did, didn’t he? What does this mean, you think? That he knows it’s us?” Grian narrowed his eyes. If that was the case, Bdubs had to go. He wanted to let things calm down for a moment, let a cooldown period pass, but if Bdubs knew, they could not afford that.
“Actually, no. I don’t think he does. It was just at the meeting table, I think. I talked to him after. I said I heard something too. I’ve never seen him so shook, and he mentioned he thought the voice was Impulse. But he couldn’t tell me what was said. I don’t think he caught Impulse’s message.”
“That’s… good, I guess?.” Grian furrowed his brow “I think we should get him next though. Whoever gets the first opportunity. Before he hears that stupid ghost properly and finds out it’s us.”
“And what if he does? He’ll tell the others he heard a dead crewmate speak? From what I’ve seen, most humans think ghosts don’t exist. I don’t think we have to worry too much.”
“Still, he could find proof. He could get in the way. I don’t know.” Grian Argued. “Bdubs is a liability. We can’t let him be the reason our mission fails, Etho.”.
Etho nodded “Alright. I don’t mind going after him next. I’ll keep my eye out for an opportunity and If I get the chance…” He gestured his thumb across his own neck.
“Not if I get to him first.” Grian grinned.
And he could hardly wait. He was itching to kill again, itching to smell the fear and blood, to see life leave the prey’s eyes as they realized who the killer was.
This was a mission, yeah. But it didn’t mean Grian didn’t enjoy doing it.