In front of me is the mummified body of a crew member, slumped against the containers, dressed in what’s left of their uniform.

  “At least I didn’t hit any of the tanks…”

  A chain explosion here would’ve been a very bad joke. Now calmer, I approach the body to examine it.

  Yeah… imperial. And very old. Nothing used in the st five hundred years, at least. The medals and decorations are typical of imperial suits. Possibly even pre-imperial.

  “What were you doing here, hiding among the tanks? You nearly scared me to death…”

  I search the area. Around him there’s an old ser weapon, a recording device, and a… remote?

  I pick up the remote. It’s a simple design; rectangur, fits in the palm. A couple of buttons and an antenna, nothing remarkable. I pocket it to examine ter.

  Then I check the weapon. Archaic, but it seems functional. Though it’s completely drained.

  I consider whether to take it… but I already have one. Carrying extra weight for a useless weapon doesn’t sound like a good idea.

  I’ll load it onto the beetle if I have time.

  Lastly, there’s the recording device. It doesn’t seem broken, just out of power. The beetle has a universal charger, but curiosity wins out, so I remove the memory unit.

  “Knew it was worth buying the premium portable device with added features.” I pce the memory before my device. It starts scanning it and recovering the data.

  A few seconds ter, the loading bar completes.

  “All right. There’s only one projection… I guess his final moments. Let’s see it.” I gnce at the body. “With all due respect…”

  And I py it.

  A figure appears before me: a uniformed man, about thirty. Agitated. Injured. Blood on his face. His voice firm, though fatigue is clear.

  “This is Second Lieutenant Casvek Toris, serial number 1337-GK, Imperial Purge Force, assigned to the vessel Scorching Punishment, Seventh Extermination Fleet.”

  I freeze.

  Imperial Purge Force.

  His words hit my mind like bombs. Clear, simple words… but they unleash a storm inside me. I know what they mean.

  But I don’t want to know. I don’t want to accept it.

  But I do.

  So… this is what it feels like to long for ignorance. Because if I didn’t know, if I didn’t understand…

  I wouldn’t have to face the kind of floating coffin I just walked into.

  “The pgue has entered the ship. Tainting everything in its path with its filthy touch.”

  The recording continues, relentless. Uncaring that I don’t want to listen.

  “We diverted our course to avoid bringing the evil toward the Purge Force. The few still pure among us fought to destroy the ship… along with its now-cursed occupants.” The man winces in pain. He’s bleeding more than I had noticed before, but he presses on. “We failed. The bomb barely managed to open a hole in one of the sides. The Scorching Punishment… is more resilient than we thought.” A faint smile, perhaps pride in his ship, appears on his lips. “As a final effort, we gathered all the fuel cells on the main deck. They were going to detonate together. To purify these horrors with holy fire.” He pauses. His eyes look gssy. Then his voice cracks.

  I look around, uneasy.

  “I am the st one left. But I cannot complete the mission.”

  I watch him closely. Bck lines, like thick tar, begin climbing up his neck. As if darkness were marking him from within.

  “The evil… has touched me with its filthy finger. It won’t allow me to activate the detonator.” He lifts his hand. It’s deformed. Bck, like a charred branch. It twists as he tries to destroy the remote lying at his feet. “I failed. Forgive me, captain. Forgive me, boys. Forgive me, humanity… because I allowed the filth to win. Because this… is all I can do.” He pauses one st time. “Humanity will not lose.” And without another word, he grabs his weapon, presses it to his temple… and fires.

  The recording cuts with a dry sound.

  Something falls.

  And in the distance, far, far away…

  Footsteps are heard. Several. Too many. Slowly approaching.

  …No.

  No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO. I grab my head. I get it now.

  It’s not that I was more cowardly than usual. It’s not that I cked guts.

  It was the ship.

  Ever since I came aboard… I felt it.

  Something was watching me. Something was hiding in the corridors. A deep, rancid, ancient evil…

  Something that gnawed at the edges of my mind.

  “Second Nightmare… Insatiable Rot.”

  An ancient evil that once terrorized the man's rim; a tireless, unstoppable, insatiable enemy that pushed humanity to the brink of extinction on countless occasions. A nightmare we fought for centuries, finally wiped out by the second standard-bearer, the Saint of Purifying Fme.

  “And I had to stumble upon a remnant,” I mutter.

  Suddenly, sharp pain fills my head, as if trying to crack open my skull, and I begin to hear numerous sounds drawing near.

  “Damn it!” I say as I grasp my head. “It knows I found it out.” I quickly grab my weapon and start running back to the beetle, while my mind is overwhelmed by visions of teeth and cws tearing flesh and devouring everything in their path. “The mental corruption is already very advanced. I must hurry and get back to the Seeker, quickly!”

  I see a bck, rotted hand trying to reach me from the right. Another vision meant to drive me insane… or so I thought, until I felt it trying to tear through my suit.

  Instinctively, I smash it with the butt of my rifle to push it away. The limb, already thin and dry like a mummy left out in a desert, snaps like a branch. But that doesn’t stop the thing trying to reach me.

  I see it emerge from the hallway: a half-mummified corpse wearing what once must have been a soldier’s uniform. Its skin looks like wrinkled, tanned leather; its teeth and nails, sharpened; its head, nearly bald. Its body, rigid and twisted with deformities, creaks with every movement. The only spark of life it retains is a sick, rotten green light flickering in its otherwise dead eyes.

  A consumed one.

  Without hesitation, I raise my weapon and open fire. The ser pierces its brittle flesh, which crumbles like a dry leaf under a boot. Its head bursts like a nut when hit, releasing the green light that burned inside it.

  Without wasting even a second to look at the result, I keep running. I know its only purpose is to slow me down.

  I can hear the howls, the scratching of the walls. It’s been locked in here for centuries, starving, barely a shadow of what it once was. Otherwise, the consumed one wouldn’t have fallen so easily. It won’t let the only fresh bite it has seen in who knows how long escape.

  I run through corridors, avoiding their cws as much as possible. But I can’t dodge them forever. Ahead, a multitude of bodies blocks my path. I fire at full power, knocking some down, but they’re so tightly packed that the fallen ones merely serve as shields for those behind them, while the back rows push forward relentlessly.

  “Overwhelming me with numbers… Old habits die hard, huh, monster?”

  Retreating is not an option; I can hear more commotion approaching from behind.

  “As my master used to say: if you can’t back up, push forward.”

  I run straight at them. The moment they see it, they rush toward me in frenzy, stretching their deformed limbs, already savoring what they consider a guaranteed meal.

  Right before we collide, I fire a shot that passes over their heads and hits the gravity module of the hallway, shutting gravity off. I jump, reach the ceiling, and reactivate the suit’s magnetic gravity, continuing my run above their heads without losing momentum.

  “There’s no up or down in space, you dimwits!” I shout as their hands stretch upward, failing to reach me.

  I run and run without looking back. I can feel it: it’s angry. I won’t be able to outrun this starving horde; if it were that easy, it wouldn’t be tireless or insatiable. I need to finish them here or they’ll chase me to the ends of space. How do I burn them to ashes?

  Suddenly, I remember the body in the center and its many ether tanks. Looks like going back is the only option.

  I gnce back: a furious pack is tearing everything apart to catch me.

  “Nope!”

  I’m suicidal, but not that suicidal. There has to be a way. I check all my gear, but aside from my rifle, my pockets are full of engineering tools. None of this is useful… unless they want me to patch a hole in a ship’s hull using my seant cans.

  I get a little desperate until my hands brush against a rectangur object. I pull it out to check.

  “I’m so gd I asked for divine help! You really outdid yourself this time,” I say, smiling for the first time since I set foot on this ship.

  In my hands is the projection’s remote… no, detonator. Right, I put it in my pocket to check it ter. I try to activate it… nothing. Looks like a few centuries left it without a battery.

  “I need to get to the beetle; I can recharge it there.”

  But I don’t think these things will let me. I look at them as I watch them try to reach me.

  Remember: as long as you’re alive and your mission isn’t complete, you must find a way.

  A way… easier said than done. What is the way?

  I start throwing everything I have in my pockets at them, except the detonator, of course; I’m not that stupid. My tools fly through the air and hit the horde, which doesn’t even notice they’ve been struck. I can feel how they smile with their twisted teeth, watching the desperate attempts of cornered prey.

  Even so, I don’t stop; even so, I continue. Humanity will never stop fighting.

  I throw the st thing I have. I watch it sail through the air; time seems to stop. Everything becomes clear: I can see the filthy, rotting mouths of the consumed ones; I can see the ravenous hunger burning in the green of their eyes; and I can see the can of hull seant flying toward them.

  Before I even finish the thought, my fingers move, searching for the trigger of my weapon.

  Only one shot, I think. The good thing is, I had a very demanding instructor.

  The beam leaves the barrel and hits the can squarely, right in front of those creatures’ eyes. It explodes, covering the entire hallway behind me with a gray substance that hardens instantly.

  Some creatures are trapped mid-stride. One even has its arms outstretched, frozen like a grotesque statue.

  “As firm as steel, and the longest-sting deal!” I shout the seant’s slogan in triumph.

  I keep running, cross a door, and there’s my beetle. I practically leap onto it and plug the detonator in to charge; without waiting for anything else, I take off.

  Once outside the ship, I grab the device, now powered on. Things used to st longer.

  “I hope your range is as good as your quality.” I pce my hand on the button. I feel a howl of frenzied fury trying to split my skull, trying to stop me. “This time I win, bitch!” I say as I press the button.

  In an instant, the entire ship erupts in a sea of purifying fire. I can hear a screech, like some disgusting insect being burned alive. My victory doesn’t st long, because that final agonized cry echoes through the void, striking my mind with devastating force.

  The pain is unbearable. I start bleeding from my eyes. Damn it! I forgot why it was so hard to kill: the consciousness exists in every contaminated body. When they’re destroyed, it simply jumps to the next one, and since I burned all its vessels, the only one avaible is me. So it concentrates all its psyche in my mind, accelerating the mental corruption.

  My consciousness can barely withstand an entity like this. If it were at full strength, my head would’ve exploded instantly, but in its current state—weak, starving—I barely hold out. But not for long.

  “Aaahhhh!” I scream as the nightmares try to devour my psyche. “Beetle, take me home!”

  The beetle immediately begins its return to the Seeker. The minutes feel endless. All I can do is writhe in pain inside the cabin as my condition worsens; I start bleeding from my ears and nose too.

  I hear whispers urging me to give up, to stop fighting, to accept the inevitable.

  “Not a chance, you bastard… aaahhh!” I barely manage to articute. “Soon you’ll be the one begging!”

  I keep screaming inside the cabin until, after what feels like hours—though it’s only been minutes—I finally see the Seeker. The beetle nds in the small maintenance hangar.

  I get down—more like colpse onto—the hangar floor, and try to move forward dragging my feet. I reach the wall as best I can and enter the contaminant-isotion protocol into the panel.

  Arms immediately go off and every access point seals shut, except for the ones leading to the infirmary. I crawl until I see the white door with the green symbol. I stumble inside.

  Alright… now what? The infection has already reached my cells; the skin on my limbs is turning gray.

  The regeneration capsule? No, regenerating over the contamination would be pointless.

  The decontamination tank? Maybe, but I don’t think I have enough time.

  I can hear the putrid ughter in my mind, mocking my pathetic attempts while the pain intensifies. I start spitting blood, thick and bckish.

  “Fine, that’s it. You asked for it: either you die, or we go together,” I shout as I head for my st option: the radiation chamber.

  Medical equipment not meant for humans. It’s mostly a regeneration chamber for high-energy species, or so I’ve heard. It’s not used often, but it’s kept around just in case; you can’t be xenophobic… or at least you have to pretend you’re not.

  I step into the chamber.

  “Let’s see how you like this; might burn a little.”

  I turn the chamber on to half power. Instantly I hear two screams: the corruption’s and mine.

  “Ahhhhh, that hurts, damn it! It burns, it burns, it burns! I’m burning!”

  But at least I’m not the only one. I can feel the radiation penetrating every cell in my body, tearing it apart… and annihiting any uninvited resident. The screams intensify; the disease fights to take control. My hand begins to move on its own, trying to stop the machine, just like what happened to Second Lieutenant Casvek Toris when he couldn’t reach the detonator.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I say as I use my other hand to crank the levels even higher. “Ahaaaaaa!” My screams mix with bestial shrieks. “Buuuuurn!”

  I’m on fire. Blisters rapidly form on my exposed skin; the heat is unbearable. It isn’t even fmes, just radiation. The struggle becomes a battle of wills: whoever holds out longer wins. Or we both die here; either way, the rot loses.

  My hand keeps pushing the levels until it reaches maximum. I can’t go on; my throat can’t even scream anymore. I can feel pain in every cell. I think this is the end.

  Suddenly, a wave of nausea hits me and I vomit a bck, putrid slime that begins crawling toward the chamber door.

  “Looks like you can’t take it anymore, bastard,” I say, as if I were in better shape.

  I stomp on it to keep it from escaping. I can hear its screeches, but no longer in my mind, now with my own ears. I feel it begging.

  Look at the miserable state you’ve been reduced to… you who were once humanity’s great enemy.

  After a few moments, it can’t resist anymore. It lets out one st pathetic shriek and then contracts into a pile of dried scum, which ignites in fmes.

  With no time to celebrate, I immediately shut the machine off, because my condition isn’t any better: I’m burned, dying, and surely destroyed at the cellur level.

  I crawl as best I can to the regeneration capsule and let my battered body fall into the regenerative fluid.

  My st thought, as I see the chamber closing, is:

  And that was only the first ship I checked.