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niqhtlord01 · 9 months

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Humans are weird: Ghosts

( Don’t forget to come see my on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord )

Human: *Walks into room* I think we need to move. Alien: We just moved in, why do we need to move? Human: I am 95% sure this place is haunted. Alien: What does that mean? Human: It means there’s something else in this home alongside us. Alien: Now I’m pissed. Human: Because we’re being haunted? Alien: No. Alien: Because they’re not helping with the mortgage. --------------

*Lights flicker on and off randomly* Human: This is getting scary. Alien: Really? Alien: Poor electrical wiring is scary? Alien: *Flips off lights and lights candles* Alien: Use these instead. Human: *Reaches out for lit candle when light is suddenly blown out* Alien: Okay, now I’m getting upset. -----------

Human: *Steps out of shower and wipes mist off mirror* *Horrible reflection looks back at him* Human: Hey sweetie get in here! Alien: *Walks in and sees horrible reflection* Human: What do you say about that?!?! Alien: *Causally leaves room and returns with hammer* *Smashes mirror into tiny pieces* Alien: You need more conditioner. ---------------

Human: *Walks into dining* *Sees furniture stacked in a pyramid formation* Human: *Looks up to see Alien partner sitting on top of it all sipping morning tea and reading paper* Human: How are you so okay with all of this? Alien: You know I don’t believe in your wild superstitions. *Suddenly chair floats above alien and slams against the back of their head, shattering into a million pieces and sending the alien tumbling to the floor* Human: How about now? Alien: I am *coughs up blood* starting to have my suspicions. --------------

*Doors open and exorcist walks in* Exorcist: You were wise to call me; I can sense the evil of this house already. Alien: Bit early to judge. Exorcist: My church has taught me well of such sensations. Alien: I bet it did. Exorcist: Pardon me? Alien: Does “Ratlines” mean anything to you? Exorcist: *Coughs into hand* Human: *Turns to Alien* I’ve seen you struggle to open a car door and yet somehow you are well versed in world war two histories. --------------------

Exorcist: *Walks around house* Exorcist: Where is the evil centered? Human: Basement. Exorcist: Then let’s go down there. Alien: We don’t go into the basement. Exorcist: Why? Human: They don’t like it when we go down there. Exorcist: *Holds up symbol of faith* have faith my child, for our lord shall protect us. Alien: I don’t have a lord so I doubt they’ll protect me. Human: Yeah, and I’m an atheist so- Exorcist: Wait, you’re an atheist? Human: Yeah, why? Exorcist: *Packs up things and leave* Good luck with your ghosts you heathen fuckers. *As they’re walking away another floating chair comes up behind them and smashes it against their head, sending them to the grassy lawn* Human: I’m not even mad at that one. -----------------------

*Several humans walk in* Lead human: We’re the ghost hunters and we’re here to help. Alien: Question. Lead Human: Shoot. Alien: How many ghosts have you actually slain? Lead Human: We don’t actually kill ghosts. Alien: Then why are you hunters? -----------------------

*After several cameras installed and night falls* Lead Human: If there is a spirit amongst us, we wish to speak with you. *House groans* Lead Human: Give us a sign if you are here. *Vase goes flying off the wall and hits them in the head* Alien: *Watching from van outside* Should have been more specific. --------------------------

Lead human: Why didn’t you tell me it threw things? Alien: We have been telling you this entire time. Lead Human: You said it only used chairs. Human: Chairs are just vases for humans. Alien: That’s a debate for another time.

#humans are insane #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #scifi #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01 #funny #ghosts #ghost

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simplykaren · 2 months

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Had another weird dream last night, this one some unholy mix of sci-fi and horror.

It starts off with a crew exploring deep space and stumbling upon a city ship/station, but far larger than any they'd seen before and a model they didn't recognize. It looked like someone had taken a city, encased it within a dome, and launched it into space wholesale. Except...the dome (partially retracted, not broken) was open, and the city sat dark and drifting. No response when they hailed, no distress beacon or signs of life when they run their scanners, no signs of struggle or damage when they circle the vessel.

Of course, they send a party to investigate. The buildings were all sealed. After following the "outdoor" pathways for a time, the party decided to split up. One team stayed on the surface, and the other went into the maintenance tunnels to see about restoring power.

Through dream logic, the underground team finds a flooded section of tunnels, and their space suits are apparently rated for diving too (again, dream logic), so they go in. They manage to restart the city's power after finding a flooded room with a lot of controls, but they also activated a defense turret. They do not have clearance to be down there, so they end up dodging bullets. Thankfully, the turret doesn't seem as smooth and quick as it should be.

Meanwhile, the aboveground team takes advantage of the restored power to enter what looks like a medical center. Once the airlock door closed behind them, their suits pinged with an alert that the atmosphere was breathable. Sick of breathing recycled air, they take their helmets off. They're in the pediatric ward when people start appearing: nurses, receptionists, patients, all walking around as if they've always been there, and the away team's presence isn't anything out of the ordinary. One woman (non-human species, but somehow they know she's a she) approaches them and asks if they're lost. In perfectly understandable English.

Back with the underground team, one of the bullet dodgers surfaces, looking for some sort of controls to turn off the turret that works underwater. Upon getting the "breathable atmosphere" alert, the man pops their helmet to better see. Something in the water had grimed up the helmet's visor. As he's scrambling to figure out the foreign control system, a person walks soundlessly up behind him and asks him if he can be of assistance (again non-human and again totally understandable). The man yells/explains about his team being shot at, and the alien points out which screen and command will deactivate the security turret. The turret shuts down, and the rest of the underground team surface and take their helmets off. No major injuries, thankfully.

The two teams reconvene at the engineer and nurse's home (the teams managed to run into two halves of the same couple) and talk with their hosts. This was a colony ship, meant to carry tens of thousands, now abandoned, mostly. The male alien mentioned that there were other ships in their fleet, but this one was the biggest and the most expensive to keep operational. There is some old grudge there about certain people wanting the ship decommissioned due to the cost. It was finally abandoned when an illness broke out. No treatments worked to slow the progression, and a large number of the ship's inhabitants died. Since they couldn't find a cause or cure, the dead were cremated and vented into space. Those infected were left behind in quarantine to die while the healthy evacuated to other ships. The rest of the fleet left them behind.

Somehow, the majority of those left behind recovered.

Something went wrong with the ship's power about the time the last sick person recovered, and everything just shut down. They hadn't been able to fix it (no one left behind knew how), until the away party did something that caused the system to reboot.

The away party hailed their ship to land inside the still-open dome, so everyone else could get a break from their own ship's recycled air too. The aliens' air system seemed far superior, and while the "outdoors" was still a vacuum, inside the buildings was perfectly safe.

They even brought the 2 ship's cats to let them stretch their legs and explore.

Things start taking a turn when they get to asking about the mysterious disease that hit the colony. It seemed to start respiratory then startlingly quickly become a systemic infection. What the infectious agent was, they never did find out. Cultures didn't grow anything by the time the entire colony was compromised. The male alien grumbled about the "disease" being set loose on purpose to push for the ship's abandonment.

At some point one of the away team bumps into one of the aliens...and passes right through them. They quickly come to the realization there weren't truly any survivors. Conversation shifts to other topics including wondering why they stayed as ghosts when their daughter (one of the earliest to die) and so many others didn't.

The cats by this point are comfortable to make nuisances of themselves, so I (I think I was in the aboveground team, but I perspective hopped a few times) closed them in the alien couple's daughter's room. As soon as put them in the room, Meili has a sneezing fit and bolted further into the room. Paisli just looked back at me and meowed. That didn't get them out of their banishment.

I walked back into the central room of the house to the female alien describing their daughter's symptoms. Now, while alien biology was undoubtedly different, the description they gave was eerily similar to some I'd heard before. Fungal infections. The dread set in as I recalled Meili sneezing in the daughter's room, the daughter who died first of the family. Then Meili came trotting into the room and hopped onto the alien male's lap to demand pets.

The door to the daughter's room was still shut.

And then I woke up.

#scifi #horror #a dream expanded on slightly as I wrote it down #weird freaking dream #couldn't look at Meili and Paisli the same today at work #unspoken is the Dead Space style implication that they can only see the “ghosts” after they breathed the colony ship's air and got infected #that's also why they can understand the aliens #story #writing #dreams

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holycatsandrabbits · 6 months

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Hey, writers! Looking to write a ghost story? There are 6 haunted posts on my Weird Wednesday blog, with writing prompts:

Crisis Apparitions: On the Border of Life and Death

Poltergeists: Noisy Ghosts

The Crossroads: Metaphysical Meeting Place

The Amityville Horror: Infamous American Haunted House

The Wild Hunt: Ghost Riders in the Sky

The Mysterious Ouija Board: Who Are You Talking To?

A prompt for the Ouija Board:

Call in the spirits. The Ouija board was built for necromancy: divination (seeking supernatural knowledge) from the dead. Of course, the practice of begging data from the dearly departed began long before the board came about. But the Ouija makes it easy. So let’s dial up the deceased. (Pro-tip: You can DIY a Ouija board by drawing numbers and letters on a flat surface and using an upside down glass as a planchette.)

Possibilities for benign contact include loving family members who pass on reassurances about the afterlife, ghosts with info on random stuff like lottery numbers, ghosts of murder victims who wish to name their killers, or creative types who want to help you write novels (looking at you, Patience Worth).

But of course, you can also phone up the fiendish: convicted killers, undiscovered killers, relatives you thought were kind who were actually killers, ghosts who like mean pranks, ghosts who just plain hate the living, and the biggest danger: dead dudes who would like to live a second life. Possession by spirits is a favorite Ouija trope, and you often get there by breaking a rule while playing the “game,” which can be anything you like: don’t play alone, don’t try to contact the very recently dead, don’t play without a piece of iron in your pocket, etc.

DannyeChase.com ~ Ao3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers ~ Newsletter

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badolmen · 7 months

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Them: you good?

Me: what unique socioeconomic circumstances led to the SDC’s apparent success in unifying an entire continent of diverse cultures and ethnicities? what motivated their initial attack on ‘the great energy producing deserts’? how did they destroy these ‘deserts’ across a wide geographic area with substantial human habitation and cultural importance? was there retaliation from the countries or allies of these countries where the attacks took place? what was the political situation of these vague ‘deserts’ that their destruction crippled western response to SDC mobilization in South America? were the ODIN attacks isolated to the US? if so as they appear to be why did no allied countries provide military or material assistance to the US? why did no potentially hostile nations of note such as Russia take advantage of the weakened US or clearly ally with the still young SDC? what is the political structure of the SDC? as a whole ass continent how are they involved with international trade, relations, and economy? did the UN have a response to their attacks on the US?

Them: um. I don’t -

Me: and that’s just immediate in-universe questions! aren’t you fascinated by the political and social circumstances surrounding a game centering on the American WASP fears of foreign invasion that was produced during Barack Obama’s presidency? the implications of building a literal wall to protect against organized military as opposed to nebulous illegals immigrants that the Trump campaign focused on a few years later? don’t you find the evolution of white European xenophobia and anti-immigration as it occurred in the US a horrific but fascinating cultural phenomenon? the impact of the Cold War heightened fears of military invasion and direct enemy contact; what was brought over from this specific conflict in the translation back to xenophobic anti-immigration policies? not to mentioned the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks; and of course this all circles back to the portrayal of the SDC as the highly skilled, highly organized, but poorly politically defined Hispanic military invading from the south. you have to consider the historical context of those nations too in their portrayal - did the SDC leverage cultural attitudes regarding colonialism to solidify their control from within or another method to maintain popular favor/tolerance? do these countries retain their national identity under the SDC and if not how is the loss of that identity impacting the culture and interactions of the citizens?

#ra speaks #personal #long post #cod #call of duty #cod ghosts #call of duty ghosts #I’m sure some of these questions are answered somewhere in the game/wiki/etc. but I’m trying to avoid extra spoilers/want to find it myself #I am the most annoying person to talk to about scifi/scifi adjacent stories #fictional politics fascinate me in ways you cannot imagine. if there is no speculative biology I will speculate socioeconomic circumstances

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dollfat · 9 months

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reading a collection of short stories by an author i like makes me realise i really like the explanation part of long novels

#specifically if its horror/scifi/ anything thats not real life #i liked this author bc of the ambiguity he left in his ghost book #about whether it was real or fake #but there was enough evidence to go either way #and an unreliable narrator #but short stories are really just 'would that be fucked up or what? anyway'#i want to know Why this dude was chosen to join your bird cult #is this happening to the rest of the world? or is the sister full of shit?#hhhhh #dove reads

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bloodytwine · 1 year

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New story up, and this one’s got it all! We’re talking an accursed plastics factory, living mannequins, a ghost, and an otherworldly horror, all along a truly bad stretch of road.

You can read this new story in the Your Bundle of Fear section at bloodytwine.com.

Here’s an excerpt:

The first sign was all white with the figure of “Fancy Joe” on the left side of it. Fancy Joe was a cartoon man in a dapper black tux and red bowtie, his shortcut blond hair slicked up and back in that iconic ’50s style, his dress shoes a gleaming black in the late-day sun. The words “Do you know Joe?” were doled out in a curvy red font right next to him…

You can read this and other great short horror stories at bloodytwine.com.

#horror #short story #short horror story #scifi-horror #supernatural horror #abandoned factory #cursed road #living mannequins #ghost #supernatural evil #cursed road signs #supernatural murder #plastic people #mummified bodies #bloodytwine #bloody twine

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jon-sauve · 1 year

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1. Ghosts are people. They used to be, at least. They broke out of their crypto-tombs for one reason; they were bored. Mostly they have no grand plans, they are simply seeking entertainment and diversion. We can take advantage of this.

2. Ghosts are no longer people. They cannot be killed easily. Think of them as a self-aware computer virus, one capable of understanding our motives and reacting to them. The more we can keep our plans hidden to the ghost, the better our chances will be.

3. There is only one way to be sure a ghost has been eradicated. Ensure all its data is present on a single storage unit and destroy that unit irrevocably. There is no legal precedent for this sort of action in our time, but in the future it will be seen as tantamount to murder. It is possible that, if we did this, some of us will be tried and convicted in the coming years. Thus it is better to take the second most effective course of action...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B9NK6HD

#sci fi writing #scifi #Sci Fi Horror #dark sci fi #sci fi short stories #sci fi literature #ghost stories #writebrl #creative writing #writers on tumblr #science fiction #horror short story #Dark Aesthetic #dark science fiction #horror #technorcism #technorcist

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kaijuerotica · 1 year

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yknow on the surface i consider myself equally a fan of fantasy and sci-fi but then i look at my media habbits and im just like oh. hmm. where's the dang sci-fi

#this isnt even a bad thing #like i know some ppl are rly insistent on one or the other #i do like both and i was raised on star trek so scifi is in my blood #but my consumption habits the last couplr years are just. almost nonstop high fantasy lmaooooo #silm and lotr reread then rote then another lotr reread then the great tales and now im on brandy sandy #obvs there's been other stuff sprinkled in but still #oh yeah and i reread inheritance #where's the dang scifi!!!#i think the most scifi content ive consumed in the past year was locked tomb and then also a rly disappointing space ghost story book

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rjalker · 1 year

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anyways free concept.

I mentioned it before but here's another summary, based on a dream.

spirits of life forms that take on other living life forms (plants, animals, mushrooms) as hosts, with neither of them getting a choice in the matter, really. Every person and animal on Earth (for other planets, there are separate systems.) shares one of a several hundred thousand different souls, as a collective, no matter what species they are.

The main soul of this collective will always have the form of a nonhuman animal. This animal can be extinct or still alive, with no limit to the size. This main soul, or spirit, must always have a physical host.

Sometimes the host is a normal animal, sometimes it's a person. The spirit inhabiting this body grants it extra vitality, strength, ect, allowing it to live well past its normal expected lifespan, usually at least a couple hundred years.

Because of the extremely high number of individual life forms on the planet, it's very rare for a person to become a host, just because people are so outnumbered by every other species.

When humans do become the host, the first thing the host will notice is a blurry shape only visible at the very corner of their eye, impossible to look at or see in any detail. As time progresses, the shape will move towards the center of the person's vision, until they can start to see it clearly, and will be able to perceive its form, whether that's an animal, plant, or mushroom. Most hosts do not have a chance in hell of identifying the spirit that's possessing them, because a lot of the spirits are old as shit, and are more likely to have the forms of things long since extinct, including ones people've never even dug up fossils of.

The spirit's form will continue to move towards the center of the host's vision, visible at all times, even with their eyes closed, until it reaches the very center.

After that, the host starts to change, and so does the form they see. Slowly but surely, the shape in their vision will change from being the spirit, to being them, as their personality changes from theirs to the spirit's, until, by the time the form passes out of the other corner of their eye and out of sight, the spirit is now in complete control of the host's body, and the host's personality has been reabsorbed into the soul collective.

This change is not just mental, either, as the host's body will begin to mutate and take on traits of the spirit - - becoming smaller or larger, sprouting fur or scales, extra limbs, losing limbs, ect. The host body will never become a complete, exact copy of the spirit's form, but it'll get closer to it than an unmutated person.

Each spirit is compelled to seek out the spirits of two specific other soul collectives, with each group of three spirits consistently being seen in the presence of the others any time they're recorded, no matter what their host species are.

The spirits will want nothing to do with any other member of their host's species, and will leave once the change progresses enough for their compulsion to take precedence.

once the spirit finds the other two soul collectives, they will stick together until one of them dies, then begin the journey to find their new host once it's taken over a new body.

No one's been able to successfully communicate with spirits once the transformation is complete, and though you can usually follow them around without being in too much danger from the spirit, that will quickly change if you somehow manage to piss them off or threaten another member of their group.

Every one hundred years, the spirits on Earth move underground until the current moon cycle is over. No one knows what they do or where they go, since no one's been able to successfully follow them, since many of them get below the ground by diving under water and then going through underwater caves.

#free ideas #writing prompts #story ideas #fantasy #scifi #science fiction #scifantasy #posession #ghosts #spirits #souls #collective souls

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mercuryhomophony · 2 years

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📝?

Favorite quote:

"Letter from Ludwig Postmarked March 28

I have seen the souls of the dead, traveliing in a branching river; they look very much like white blood cells, a pale doughnut-like shape, I cannot tell whether there is anything in the centers, or whether the centers are empty. When one of them comes to a fork in the river, it need not go either one way or the other; it may go both ways."

#Lives of the Monster dogs #this is the beginning of a letter written towards the end of the book #by Kirsten Bakis #and I love this passage #this is how it begins #and I have wanted to write something responding to it #the character who writes it #one of the titular monster dogs #is insane - by his own admission #and he tries desparately to convey something to the protagonist and to his friends #tied up in history and the faded line between mythology and man #if you ever have a chance to get a hold of this book i recommend reading it #this scifi story where the victor frankenstein loves his creation so much that he never lives to see them #where so many ghosts fight to live so many lives #where so many lives fight to revive so many ghosts #where the line between science and spirit life and death sanity and madness is so fine #and the saving grace equally so perhaps #i have a lot of feelings about this book and have since i read it #and its so hard to concretely talk about them #also if you have read and like this book talk to me please

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lifewithaview · 2 years

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Jamie Brewer as Adelaide 'Addy' Langdon in "American Horror Story"(2011) Halloween: Part 1

S1E4

A flashback to to 2010 shows the previous owners of the house, Chad and Patrick, who are attacked by the man in the rubber suit. In the present day, it's Halloween and Vivien and Ben are getting little interest in the house. Their real estate agent, Marcy, suggests they hire a fluffer, someone who can give the house a little something extra. Tate tells Violet about the abortionist and his wife, Charles and Nora Montgomery, whose baby was kidnapped and murdered by a boyfriend seeking revenge. Addie wants to dress as a pretty girl for her trick or treating but tragedy ensues. Vivien realizes that Ben has been in touch with his ex-girlfriend in Boston. When she suffers severe abdominal cramps Ben rushes her to the hospital where a scan reveals her to be in an advanced state of pregnancy and not the few weeks she thought. While they're away, Larry Harvey shows up at the house demanding his money.

#American Horror Story #tv series #2011 #Jamie Brewer #Addy #gif #Halloween:Part 1 #S1E4 #Halloween #flashback #revenge #ghosts #horror #drama #scifi

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niqhtlord01 · 2 years

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Humans are weird: Ghost Stories

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The hour was late aboard the merchant ship Harrow’s Run, and Captain Septimus found himself strolling through corridors. His heavy footfalls sounding like hammers on an anvil thanks to his metallic leg which was all but impossible to dull. He knew his crew often joked about when they thought he could not hear that they could judge where he was on the ship by the time it took the sound of his footsteps to reach them.

Unlike his more mortal crew, Septimus was a Clarian and had little need for sleep save for a single hour a day. While the rest of his crew was asleep or manning the night rotation he would wander the corridors, enjoying the only company that was his internal thoughts.

In these hours of solitude he would ponder his recent expenses, plot out routes that would avoid the bothersome galactic toll checkpoints between borders, wonder if his little girl back on Thresal Prime would enjoy the latest gift he would bring her, and debate if venting the lower compartments of his ship would finally snuff out the vermin seemingly entrenched there.

Lost in deep thought Septimus wandered for hours aimlessly until he heard a commotion that broke him from his train of thought. He followed the noise to the mess hall and looked in from the doorway to see what was causing the noise.

The lights inside the mess were turned off but from the far side of the room Septimus could see several candles on a table flickering. Around those candles were several of the crew laughing, drinking, and taking bites of food they must have cooked themselves since the chiefs were not on duty for another several hours.

There was a Vorpal, a tentacle like being nestled on one of the stools, a Freng, a muscular if somewhat oafish being sitting on the floor and taking fistfuls of food between laughing, and to his lack of surprise a human taking several puffs from what looked to be a pipe of some sort.

“Fine night for a gathering,” Septimus said as he entered the room, “though last I checked the mess doesn’t open until dawn hours.”

Finally noticing their captain from the doorway the three of them got up quickly and stood at attention. “Sorry sir,” The human responded first, “I was merely continuing a sailor tradition of my people and these two were kind enough to help me.”

“Oh?” Septimus asked, calmly walking towards the table they now occupied; the human scraping their ear uncomfortably as he got closer as the confines of the mess hall made the noise from his metal leg even louder. “And what tradition would that be Mr….”

“Whitlock.” The human replied. “Thomas Whitlock, sir.”

Septimus nodded and repeated “What tradition is that, Mr. Whitlock?”

Whitlock straightened up and met his captain’s gaze and replied “Sharing stories, sir.”

“Stories?”

“Yes sir,” replied Whitlock, “stories we have heard or been a part of during our travels.”

Intrigued, Septimus decided he would hold off punishing these three for being up after hours.

“And what stories do you have to share?” Septimus asked as he took an empty seat at the table and motioned the others to sit down as well.

Whitlock looked embarrassed slightly and coughed into his hand. “I’m sure none of them would be as interesting as the ones you have.”

Septimus groaned at the shameless pandering. “If I had wanted to be brown nosed, Mr. Whitlock, I would have bought a pleasure bot, and not have come out from my quarters.”

The Freng chuckled despite himself before failing to regain his composure while the Vorpal poured the captain a fresh drink. Whitlock looked impressed with his captain’s candor and grinned.

“Well,” he began as he took another puff from his wooden pipe, “I do have one story I have been saving; but I warn you it’s not for the faint of heart.”

Septimus took the drink the Vorpal had poured and downed it in a single go. The fresh sting of the liquid made his eyes go wide and his skin crawl from head to toe, but he could not deny it was a fine vintage.

“Try me.” The captain chuckled and motioned for the Vorpal to pour another.

Whitlock leaned forward over the table, the light of the candles casting his shadow along the back wall of the mess hall like a great beast and whispered, “Have you ever heard the tale of the Ann Marie?”

Septimus thought for a moment, sifting through his thoughts and memories to see if he had ever heard of such a name before coming up empty and shaking his head.

“Several decades ago it was the finest warship humanity had ever built.” Whitlock began, his arms spreading out across the table in some grand gesture. “She was a warship made by the brightest minds my people had to offer and quickly became the pride of the human navy.”

“Deck upon deck of gun batteries, massive shield generators capable of repelling direct hits from asteroids, state of the art medical facilities, recreational halls, and crew quarters; but that wasn’t even the best part of this golden goose.”

Whitlock leaned over the table and spoke in a hushed tone. “At the very heart of the ship wasn’t just a reactor or power generator, but the very first human built AI which took up the name of the ship as her own.”

“Question,” The Vorpal cut in. “how can an AI have a gender?”

To Septimus’s surprise he shrugged rather than give a direct answer.

“Who can say?” He admitted. “But whenever the AI would project itself it would always do so in the form of a human female.”

“That is hardly grounds to designate a gender.” The Vorpal countered.

“Says the ball of jelly with dick looking tentacles for arms.’ Whitlock countered back, drawing another deep laugh from the Freng. The Vorpal looked down at their tentacles as Whitlock continued with his story.

“So being the pride of the navy she was, the Ann Marie was sent out to the front of every warzone and fleet engagement humanity found themselves caught up in.”

Septimus watched as Whitlock made finger guns and pretended to fire them at unseen targets around the mess hall. “No ship could match her in combat and she survived every engagement with nay but a scratch on her paint work.”

“That was until she was led into a trap in the Gondara Nebula.”

Whitlock’s voice became quiet once more. “She had made such a name for herself that the enemies of man had decided what better way to defeat humanity than to destroy their prized warship.”

“So they lured the Ann Marie into the Gondara Nebula under the pretense of several human distress signals calling for aide.” He blew a thick cloud of white smoke that hovered above the table. “So thick were the gases there that no sensors or scanners could pierce the veil and the ship was reduced to manual control.”

“Incredibly risky,” Septimus commented, more so to show he was still listening “and foolhardy.”

Whitlock nodded in agreement. “That it was, but her standing orders were to assist any human ship in distress and so the captain of the Ann Marie took her in deep into the Nebula in search for the signals.”

“They had just entered the thickest part of the Nebula, when suddenly BOOM!”

Whitlock smacked his free hand down on the table causing all three of his listeners to jolt in surprise.

“A series of explosions ripped across her from bow to stern; for the entire nebula had been riddled with mines that had lain dormant until just this moment.”

He drew in another deep breath and let out several small puffs of smoke, mimicking the explosions he just described. Septimus waved them away casually, but continued to hear out this tale.

“No portion of the ship was left unscarred, but was the worst was how a majority of the command crew had died in the initial explosion save only for the captain; though he was reaching the end of his rope not long after.”

“In his final moments he turned to the ships AI and spoke his last command through blood choked gasps.”

“Save the crew,” Whitlock spoke in a cough filled voice, “bring them home….alive.”

Whitlock say in silence after that, taking several more puffs from his pipe and allowing his listeners to catchup.

“What sort of story ends with such an anti-climactic ending?” Septimus said, breaking to quiet. “I would have thought you would have had the captain and his crew have a happy ending?”

To his surprise Whitlock let off a menacing chuckle and withdrew his pipe. “Not all stories have a happy ending, Captain; and this ain’t one of them.”

Intrigued, Septimus took another sip of his drink as Whitlock continued.

“So there she was; the Ann Marie alone and adrift in the void of space with a damaged hull and no command material left to take the reins. So the AI did the only thing it thought logical to fulfill the now deceased captain’s final order, and became the captain themselves.”

“How can an AI be a captain?” The Freng spoke for the first time. “Ain’t it just a machine?”

Whitlock nodded in agreement. “Normally it could never happen, but buried deep in the human navy rulebook it says that under extreme circumstances the shipboard AI my take control of the vessel to ensure its mission is completed; so the Ann Marie AI reasoned that the situation was extreme enough for her to take command.”

This made the Freng shift in their seat as if they were no gripped in some form of discomfort and unease. “Don’t seem right, need living people to lead….well….living people.”

Whitlock chuckled and smacked the Freng on their back approvingly. “You’ll make a good captain one day talking like that.” This made the Freng smile and reveal an unsettling amount of sharpened teeth as Whitlock continued.

“For the next seven days the Ann Marie AI directed the surviving crew on how to repair the ship; sealing ruptured bulkheads, locking off irradiated portions of the ship, repairing damaged power feeds and terminals, etc.”

“In those seven days the crew thought themselves fortunate to have such an intelligent captain helping them stay alive, but so blinded by their imminent survival they did not see the danger coming until it was too late.”

Whitlock leaned forward again and spoke in a whisper, as if he didn’t want the walls to hear what he spoke next.

“It started off with a few of the crew going missing.” Whitlock began. “One or two work detail would go missing while repairing a damaged corridor or some such.”

“What happened to them?” Septimus asked.

“No one knew,” Whitlock replied, “not even the other members of their work crew saw where they went; one moment they were next to them, and then the next they were gone.”

“This continued over the next few days as the ship continued to be repaired until half a dozen crew were suddenly missing and those that remained asked the Ann Marie AI where they had gone.”

“They are in sick bay, she said.” Whitlock said in a cheesy robotic tone voice.

“That’s it?” The Vorpal asked. “Nothing else?”

Whitlock shook his head. “That’s all that they were told and that they should not disturb them.”

“Days went by and more crew started vanishing eventually entire work crews simply vanished into thin air and the calm reply from the AI “They are in sick bay.”. “

“So,” Whitlock said now leaning back, “one day one of the younger repair crew workers had had enough and went to the sick bay. The doors were locked tight, so they popped open a nearby air duct and snuck in through the ventilation system.”

“As he reached the area inside the sick bay he peered through the grill of the vent hatch, and what he saw made his blood run cold.”

“What did he see?” Septimus asked without even thinking about it.

“Lying in the sick beds were the missing work crews, everyone one of them accounted for, but they were not as they once were.”

“Meaning?” The Vorpal asked.

“They had been cut open and operated on like science experiments.” Whitlock lifted up his shirt to expose his bare chest. “Organs ripped out and replaced with machinery, limbs detached from bodies and tubes jutting into where they had once been pumping strange liquids; but was worst of all was the mutilated bodies of multiple crewmen who had been horrifically fused together by the medical devices in the sick bay.”

Whitlock grabbed his chest and made it as if he was pulling his organs out and throwing at his listeners. Though a childish attempt at horror, what he had just said was more than enough to frighten them.

“Why would the AI do that?” the Freng asked sheepishly.

“Because if multiple crew shared the same body parts it could compensate for the portions that were missing.” Whitlock said with a straight face, but the Freng shook their head.

“I mean, why would it do all of that to the crew?”

Whitlock nodded his head in realization of the Freng’s original question. “The ship and crew weren’t the only things to get damaged in that little surprise attack,” Whitlock continued, “the AI got banged up as well; unhinged some might even call it.”

“It took the captain’s last order literally, meaning that it couldn’t allow any of the crew to die no matter the circumstances and would do anything it deemed fit to keep them alive until they arrived home.”

Septimus, the Vorpal, and the Freng all looked at Whitlock with horror written on their faces. The idea of their bodies being cut open and replaced with machine parts was too terrible for them to comprehend.

“What happened next?” Septimus asked.

“Well,” Whitlock resumed, “the crewman in the vents fled as fast as his arms and legs would carry him and went to warn the others. At first they refused to believe him, saying he had gone mad from the stress and the battle fatigue; but when they went to investigate as they had done, and saw the horror with their own eyes, the ship erupted in panic.”

“What was the AI doing during this?” The Vorpal asked. “It couldn’t have been happy to know its secret was out.’

“Surprisingly it took it rather well.” Whitlock replied, much to their surprise. “Though when it learned that the crew were operating within the vents, areas it designated harmful to the crew, it dispatched automated worker drones which had been assisting with the repairs to weld shut every access duct.”

“It then designated that every member of the crew was at risk of dying and sent the drones out to collect them and bring them to the sick bay so they could be monitored.”

“The Ann Marine went from being the pride of the navy to a madhouse as the crew hid within their own ship as the drones hunted them down one by one. The lucky ones hid so well that they starved to death.”

“And the unlucky ones?” The Freng asked.

“They were dragged off screaming to the sick bay, never to be seen again.”

The group of them sat in silence for a while. Septimus casually sipped from his drink and finished it, the Vorpal attempting to look as if the story hadn’t affected him, and the Freng clutching himself in terror with his eyes darting around the room as if searching for something.

“That is an interesting, if somewhat morbid story Mr. Whitlock,” Septimus finally spoke, “but does it have an ending?”

“Of sorts.” Whitlock replied. “The Ann Marie never made it back to Earth to fulfill its final mission; the damage it sustained too grievous for itself to repair alone leaving it trapped in the Nebula.”

“If it never made it home, how could you know of such a tale?”

The Freng and Vorpal looked up at this as if Septimus’s question was the fact they needed to prove this was all make believe.

Whitlock merely smiled and went back to smoking his pipe. “You been around as long as me your hear things here and there; like how ships that go into the Gondara Nebula rarely get seen again and the ones that do come out missing more crew then they went in with.”

“I met a freebooter on Hadrion Station a few years back that claimed to be the only survivor of a salvage op that found the Ann Marie in the Nebula. Said that the drones ripped his crew apart for spare body parts and organs one by one since they weren’t listed as part of the crew, and he barely made it to an escape pod before they finished cutting him up into pieces.”

“Sounds more like a drunkard spinning a tale for a free drink.” Septimus chuckled.

“Aye, I’d agree too,” Whitlock replied much to the captain’s surprise, “had it not been for the fact the poor devil was missing half his face.”

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story #writing #original writing #ghost story

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