Part 1
“Who’s a good dog? Who’s a good dog, eh boy? You! Yes, you are!” Rick scratched Ray, his Labrador, behind the ear. Ray jumped up in joy. Rick threw a dog bone to the other side of the room. “Fetch! Fetch boy!” Rick cried. Ray happily ran to it and chewed on the bone. Rick left as it was the start of his shift, but forgot to remove his paperweight from the newspaper on the old bench. “Hey, Rick! I was waiting for you! My shift’s finally over! Yessss!” Taco the AI navigator called to him as it ended its shift and shut down. “Yeah, yeah. Stop being so dramatic.” Rick told Taco. That AI was a drama queen. Rick was one of the last human spacecraft pilots. He might lose his job soon, but it wouldn’t happen in a while, as he was cheaper than most AI pilots, and the. Back in the room where he was relaxing with Ray, the old, worn bench finally gave way and the heavy paperweight fell on a button. Millions of miles away, in the Eye HQ, one line of code was deleted.
It was chaos in the Eye HQ. The code that was meant to make ITES Hale (Rick’s spaceship) explode had fallen apart, the news companies that had been threatened, had published the newspaper with the news of ITES Hale (Rick’s spaceship) had crashed into a planet, HX-8678 in particular, when some agents were about to blow it up. ??? was annoyed, people were screaming at others, people were getting fired for screaming at superiors, and because people who got fired were taken out, there were quite a lot of casualties at Eye HQ.
After hearing the news, Rick was forced to land the spaceship. He had no idea about what was going on, but as soon as almost everybody left the ship, an enter key was pressed millions of miles away, and the Hale went up in a fantastic fireball. The shockwave was enough to knock Rick out.
Rick woke up in a hospital bed. His head was hurting. His ribs were hurting. Everything was hurting. “I advise that you stay in bed a while longer. Your third-degree burns will heal in the next few minutes but I’m afraid your concussion will take longer.” Rick heard a robotic voice say. I must be in a hospital… Rick thought. “The police are investigating the detonation of the spacecraft you used to pilot. Unfortunately, there was one fatality. A person or entity by the name ‘GV 76-890’ was not observed exiting the ITES Hale. We are sorry for your loss.” Rick heard the robot say. What? I don’t know any GV- whatever that was! Was there a stowaway or something? Rick thought.
In the Eye HQ, ************, ************, and ******** were about to get fired. ??? was fuming. GV 76-890 was a one-of-a-kind, genetically engineered creature who was able to detect gold. And it had been stowed away on the ITES Hale, which was the ship ************, ************, and ******** had detonated with an explosive with the strength of 10 tons of trinitro toluene or TNT. ************ said, “We didn’t know that GX 76-890 was inside the Hale! We’re really sorry! And it survived anyway!” “Sorries do not bring back the dead.” ??? replied. The floor fell out from beneath ************, ************, and ********, and they were never seen again.
In a few days, Rick was ready to get out of bed. When he reached home and opened the door, he was greeted by a truly gruesome sight. Roy was mauled to death, with his insides all over the living room. He managed to look up in time to see a shadow leap out of the window.
Rick didn’t know how long he sat there, just looking at the carnage before him. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally got up and called up somebody to clean his house up. He went and sat in his bedroom, and looked out of the window. Suddenly, he got the feeling that something was watching him, and when he looked back, he was face to face with a monster.
GV 76-890 suddenly materialized away. Rick laughed. He laughed a lot. He was obviously going insane. PTSD, perhaps? Or maybe Schizophrenia? What about paranoia, or psychosis? Still laughing, he booked a session with a psychiatrist.
Rick was definitely going insane now. He began seeing things that did not, no, could not exist. He always had the feeling that he was being watched. He saw monsters, huge creatures with eyes. Eyes all over their bodies, covered in a dark mist. Sometimes on sunny days, a dark mist would descend over the sky, blocking the sun. But nobody seemed to notice, nobody seemed to care. He was definitely insane.
It seemed to happen every day now. There was dark fog blocking the sun, unimaginable monsters wandering around the streets, and that smile. He had canceled his psychiatrist session. The hallucinations were getting worse. They were getting more real. At this point, he could not differentiate between hallucinations and reality. Sometimes he would walk forward, and his foot would fall through the street. Sometimes he could not walk forward as there seemed to be something invisible blocking him.
Part 2
I’m Rick. It happened again that day. The fog appeared. The monsters appeared. And as always, something was watching me. It was getting worse. And I had a feeling that this day would be better than most other days when this happened. I’d realize how wrong I was by the end of the day.
“You cannot escape us…” a disembodied voice croaked. That was new. “You will not escape us…” “Come on, Rick…” “Give up…” “You are in a hopeless situation…” I staggered; my thoughts too messed up by all these overlapping voices to even allow me to walk.
Suddenly, the concrete forest of Rigon V, the planet on which I lived was replaced with a real forest. The one thing in common was the fog. Shoot. I thought. Then the laughing started. It was horrible. The type of laugh a maniac might have. I saw something slither out of and back into the fog.
The trees seemed to have eyes now. I was really sure that I was being watched. Something stepped out of the fog. I ran in the other direction and didn’t look back. There was another one there. I hid next to a tree and wished that it wouldn’t see me. I got a chance to see what I was looking at better this time. It seemed to be about 6 feet tall, and unlike the other monsters, seemed to be covered in writhing tentacles.
I desperately wished it would not see me, and it just wandered on in the same direction without even noticing me. I sighed in relief. I heard a roar from someone, no, something somewhere else in the forest. It sent chills down my spine. I walked forward then came to a stop. It’s behind me, isn’t it? I thought to myself. I slowly turned around and saw a dog. Hellhound was the best way to describe it. Its ribs were sticking out of its chest, its fangs were about a foot long and looked as sharp as knives, some smoke seemed to flow out of its back, and its red, glowing eyes seemed to glitter with hatred and malice.
“Good boy…” I whispered, terrified. It growled. “Stay…” I whispered, my voice cracking. I slowly stepped back. Suddenly, something snapped in the distance. The hellhound barked and ran to it. I ran in the other direction without looking back. After running for what seemed like an eternity, I came across a cabin. I knocked on the door, and a big, friendly-looking man stepped out. I sighed in relief. I was saved! “Hello! How can I help you?” he said, with a Russian accent. “Hello, kind sir, may I stay at your cabin for a few nights?” I asked him. “Sure! Just let me get some thi- “he responded, but was interrupted. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell, barely missing me. There were what seemed to be slash marks on his back.
I tried to run away but was stuck in what seemed to be a giant spiderweb. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get loose. And worse, I could hear the spider arriving. I thought quickly and lay down on the web. The spider arrived, thought I was part of the web, and left, seeming displeased.
After I don’t know how long, I managed to free myself, albeit covered in webs. I ran as far as I could from the spiderweb. I heard something step out of the fog again, and I stepped behind a tree, thinking it would ignore me, except this time the tentacle monster continued like before until it reached me. As soon as it was next to me, its head snapped around and it looked at me.
Part 3
Rick froze. The monster’s tentacles snapped forward and grabbed Rick, stuffing him into itself. Nobody could hear Rick scream.