missive #124:15-june-2204-18:09
I’m not coming home.
I hope you get this message, at least. Leaving you was the stupidest thing I ever did. I see it all so clearly now. You were right. I was scared, and I left for idiotic reasons. You had every right to be mad—I wasn’t ever trying to find myself. But I did, anyway, I guess. So typical of me to finally figure out my shit entirely by mistake, right? But my backbone isn’t all I found.
No—I’ve stumbled across something much, much worse.
There’s an entity on the ship. I can’t explain what it is, but you can probably piece it together, maybe a little, from my stupid messages over the past day. I still haven’t seen it—nor do I want to—but I hear it. I hear it constantly. I can’t let it get to Earth.
I’ve hacked the nav, redirecting us into deep space. Not sure where. Not sure it matters. Never thought I’d die a hero, but hell, I never thought I’d die at all.
The ringing is so intense now and that whispering so loud and insistent… I won’t be able to resist it much longer. I’m not sure why I could in the first place. My head injury? My pathetic stubbornness? It doesn’t matter. There won’t be much left of me by the time you read this.
I’m sorry.
Love, Quaid.
missive #123:15-june-2204-15:38
I don’t know how to say this.
I can’t believe join me brothers what I just saw.
The rest of the crew are all in cargo.
I was creeping around the ghost ship when I heard what sounded like singing and laughing spilling out of the cargo bay. My first thought was they were throwing themselves a going-home party before entering stasis.
But no.
Not a party.
More like an orgy. Eighteen naked sing with me brothers bodies squirming over each other like worms, tearing at each other’s flesh. Each other’s faces. My buddy Reina, covered in blood, grinding on top of that idiot Singh while tearing the skin from his fingers like chicken wings. The captain tugging out the intestines of some guy named Jordan while he chewed holes in her floppy breasts.
All this in front of the huge crate they brought onboard yesterday, the one that wasn’t on the manifest. And the crew weren’t the ones singing, or laughing—the echoing, inhuman voices came from inside that crate.
I stood on the catwalk above the bay, screaming and waving my arms, risking everything to get their attention, but nothing worked. Maybe I should have gone down there, but after Chapman, I knew it wouldn’t help. At least I don’t need to go back into the pipes.
death is only music
missive #122:15-june-2204-12:22
I found Chapman.
Not sure how I missed him on my earlier check.
He was somehow in even worse shape than me, like I really did a number on him yesterday. Sure, I hit him as hard as I could, but I’m not that big a guy (as you love to tell me) and I figured he just has a glass jaw or whatever.
I dropped out of the vent into his cabin and I expected him to freak out, but he acted like he didn’t even see me, crouching naked in his shower stall, rocking back and forth. He’d picked at a spot on his cheek—maybe where I hit him?—so raw it leaked blood all over his jaw. And he was mumbling to himself in a singsong tone.
Death is only music sing with me brothers join me brothers
Over and over. Maybe that’s what I was hearing in the vents last night? Except I wasn’t holed up anywhere near Chapman’s quarters, so I’m not sure how that makes sense.
Anyway, I set aside my hatred for the guy to try to help him—he clearly needed a medic, or to at least get himself into his stasis pod—but he would not budge.
He stopped, looked me dead in the eye, and said You’re already dead. Then started rocking again.
I’m back in the tubes. This is fucked. My head is killing me.
— Q
missive #121:15-june-2204-08:30
Something weird is going on.
I woke up (yeah, finally conked after firing off my last whiny note, sorry about that) and crawled all over the damn ship. I had to confirm everyone initiated stasis before I dropped out of the vents. Except this network of metal tunnels doesn’t connect to the pod room, so I had to check everyone’s cabin manually to make sure they were empty.
Even though that insistent whispering has gotten really loud in this freezing tube, I didn’t find a soul. Good, right? I dropped out and booked it to the pod room. Bringing my chamber online again was trickier than expected—I had to jack into the processing core to set the permissions, which meant a trip to the deck.
But when I got back, I noticed: the other pods were all empty. Not sure how I’d missed that before. Totally screwed with my plan.
So I’m back in the pipes, trying to figure out where everyone is. Since this network of tubes only services the living quarters, I might have to pop back out and sneak around. Meanwhile, the ship’s already lifted off, so I’m locked in.
Warp kicks on in about twenty hours. Everyone—which very much includes me—better be in cryo by then or… well, I don’t want to worry you. But I’ll keep you posted.
— Q
missive #120: 15-june-2204-02:01
I didn’t account for how hard it would be to sleep. No, no, I’ll be fine. Sixteen days of cryo-sleep should fix me up. Or enough, anyway. I might need to see a medic once I’m off the ship… this ear ringing won’t go away. Guess Chapman really rattled my skull.
And aside from the ringing in my head, there’s this sound, like someone’s in the vents with me, whisper-singing. I can’t make out any words. It’s my brain playing tricks, but it’s also really, really annoying.
It’s so cold in here.
I wish I could sleep.
I wonder if you’re even reading my notes. I scrolled back to see how long it had been since you replied to one. Four days ago, when I told you our next stop was Earth.
Sounds good, you said.
You’re all I’ve thought about for weeks. Coming home.
— Q
missive #119: 14-june-2204-23:47
You know I wasn’t going to let a little thing like rules stop me from getting back to you.
Right after I sent the last note—from the shittiest excuse for a coffee shop I’ve ever seen on one of these dust bowl outposts—I skulked back to the ship and saw half the crew outside the cargo bay trying to figure out how to load some massive crate. I know the manifest and this gargantuan artifact wasn’t on any part of it. I wandered over and asked Reina what was going on. It’s your fault, she said, but laughing, trying not to be awkward because of course by then everyone heard about what happened to me.
Turns out that while Killian was occupied with my exit paperwork, she directed everyone else to take this ridiculous monolith on board to make some extra cash.
So what did I do?
I snuck around the side and hacked the door. Yep, I got myself back in. First person I saw was fucking Chapman, but fortunately he’s a dim bulb and didn’t notice me. I shimmied my way into a low vent before anyone spotted me.
The vent is cramped and cold and it sucks. But once everyone goes into stasis in the morning, I can come out. I’ll reactivate my pod—might take some fancy backdoor code to get it online, not sure—and get myself into sleep before the warp drive kicks in.
They’ll be furious when we wake up, but what can they do to me? I’ll already be home.
Okay, sleep time. I miss you.
— Q
missive #118:14-june-2204-18:02
Change of plans. Maybe.
They kicked me off the ship.
Fuck.
Remember that guy Chapman I told you about a couple of weeks ago? The big muscly closet case? Well this afternoon he started sharing his opinions again, and dragged me into it. Like he always does. But when he said your name, I lost it. I know, I know. Good news is, I still know how to throw a punch. One hit to the jaw, and he went down like a condemned building. That shut him up.
If he’d stayed down, it would have blown over, too. But no. I shoulda walked away, but of course I didn’t, and he clambered back to his feet like he was ready to murder someone. Me. I knew what was coming, but I still couldn’t get my guard up in time to block—his fist slammed into my cheek like a runaway train. He’s somehow even stronger than he looks. My ears are still ringing, and a tooth is loose.
Capt. Killian walked into the mess while he was whaling on me. She booted us both.
Except Chapman got reinstated because his mother’s an ambassador to the Inner Colonies or something. So unfair.
Don’t worry, I have a new plan.
— Q
missive #117: 14-june-2204-09:22
I’ll keep this one quick. We’re going into stasis tomorrow—next stop, Earth!—and there’s so much to do. Not so much for me, really, but if I don’t at least pretend to look busy, they’ll drag me into the shipping bay to lug shit around. Manual labor? Yeah, not a fan. So I’m poring through all the stasis subroutines, even though I really don’t need to.
Hope to hear from you before the big sleep, but if not, I just wanted to say how much I miss you. Can’t wait to see you. Everything is going according to plan. Finally coming home!
Love, Quaid.
