So something happened last year, in the middle of the pandemic. A game that was released years prior, was suddenly being picked up by streamers, and became a cultural phenomenon. Words like, "You're acting kind of sus," took new meaning.
Among Us is a video game where a team of space fairing people must complete tasks while trying to figure out who the imposter is among their team. The imposter's goal is to kill as much of the crew as possible. One of the signature killing animations was the imposter's body splitting in half, revealing a maw of teeth. A tongue would pierce out and kill one of the crewmen. That animation right there, inspired me to write this.
I've been wanting to write a fanfic in the world of Among us for a while, and it finally all came together. I hope you enjoy.
An Among Us Tale
by Jessica Ungeheuer
“We didn’t know what we found. By the time we understood, it was too late. Now all we can do is survive, and hope we don’t bring this abomination home...”
Pinky didn’t know how long it had been since their last group meeting. The ship was falling apart around her, and it was becoming a fool’s errand to fix. Almost everyone she knew was gone. People she had only just begun to see as family were slowly disappearing. There weren’t many of them left. Worst of all, someone among them was actively working against them. Sabotaging the ship’s critical systems.
She finished unscrewing the panel on the wall of the mess hall and paused. An image caught the corner of her vision. She froze. Was it the monster they found? She held her breath, foolishly hoping if the creature was near that it would not notice her if she didn’t breathe. She turned her head slowly toward where she saw the phantom image, just enough that the helmet of her suit would not turn as well.
The breath she held released in relief. It was just her reflection on the glass window. She gazed at the endless blackness beyond it, lit slightly with small flickering orbs in the distance. Just this morning that vision used to fill her with excitement, but now, only dread. It was an endless void, and would be her tomb if they couldn’t fix everything in time.
The bright pink color of her suit shined back at her, glaring. She hated the color pink. Captain Jameson assigned it to her as a joke. Anais Pinkerton, now dubbed Pinky thanks to this ridiculous garb. Pinky’s vision returned back to the last time she saw Jameson. He wasn’t...himself. Not anymore. Not since he returned from the planet’s surface.
They were a research team, scouting out a new planet for minerals and resources. It was their job to log all life found, and study it to see if it could be used for the greater human population that was slowly spreading out in their galaxy. Once the planet was dubbed safe, colonies of workers would be set up to start harvesting materials for use by the masses. Except this time when the specimens were brought on board, something else got in. Something sentient. With only one mission, to kill. Pinky shook off the thoughts and worked hastily in the panel to repair the wires. They were cut. Just like the last two she investigated. She struggled against the thick gloves of the suit as she re-connected and bound the wires back together. They needed to get the lights back on, and quickly. There was no telling who was left out there with the low vision. She twisted the last set together, just as static began to fill her ear, causing her already nervous muscles to jump.
“Pinky? Pinky do you hear me?” The choppy radio voice of Mason, the first mate and pilot of their vessel, cut through the silence. “Pinky!”
“I’m here. Just finishing up the last panel, and then we should be able to flip the power in the main generator room to kick back up the lights and main systems. What’s your status?”
“I’m almost done cleaning out the oxygen filtration system. Should give us a few more hours of clean air. Have you heard from anyone else?”
“No, but I’m sure once the powers back on our communications system should be working better throughout the ship. We have to get the message out there not to come to this planet. We can’t let this spread.”
Pinky’s mind flashed back to Jameson. When they first realized something was wrong, everyone was ordered by Dr. Wilkins to run a scan in the med bay. When it was Jameson’s turn he refused. Claiming he had more important things to do. However, on every deep space ship, the medical doctor on duty outranked the ship’s officers when it came to a matter of health and public safety. Jameson had to do the test. Trapped, that’s when the creature first revealed itself to us. Pinky remembered as the once warm hazel eyes of the captain became dark and void. The sound...the sound that came next she could never unhear. A wet squelching as blood filled Jameson’s shirt along his waistline, followed by snapping. Almost like heavy rubber bands reaching their limit. Jameson was a tall man, standing at six foot three, but he grew as the sounds became more and worse. His torso flipped backwards, as popping began where his spine broke connections with the vertebrae. Amy...poor poor Amy.
She was standing closest to the captain. We were all frozen in shock and horror at the macabre show unfolding in front of us. By the time our fear responses allowed us to move, it was too late. A long wet tongue pierced through Amy’s chest, and pulled her into the now gaping maw of teeth that used to be Captain Jameson’s diaphragm. Her scream still echoed in Pinky’s ears, as short as it was. They scrambled out of the lab, and Dr. Wilkins slammed the door lock behind us, commanding the computer to quarantine the medical wing. They thought they were safe after that. They were wrong. They didn’t know this thing had already infected another.
In the next several hours the critical systems of the ship began fading one by one. In order to keep themselves alive, they agreed to split into pairs to fix everything. It was a solid plan. Jameson was locked in the med bay. It was a solid plan, until they found Lloyd, his body ripped in half on the floor of the storage room. Logic stated the only culprit could have been Tanya. Her bright orange suit was covered in Lloyd’s blood. We called a group meeting, and we took a vote.
We had to protect ourselves right? We didn’t have a choice. It was us or her.
Tanya cried and pleaded as they all walked to the airlock of the trash compactor and shoved her inside. Ae-Jung flipped the switch, and they all watched as Tanya’s body flew out the airlock. Pinky immediately felt guilt, condemning her like that. They had already witnessed the creature attempt to protect itself. If she had been one of them, wouldn’t she have tried to defend herself in the same manner as the captain?
They separated again to fix the ship as the lights and main power shut down. The buddy system was now gone. Half of the crew was dead, and there was an enemy amongst them. They agreed to work together with short burst radio communications. Pinky didn’t know if she could still trust Mason, but for now they had the same objective. Get the power back on, get the communications back up, warn the galaxy.
“I’m going to head to communications. As soon as the power is back on, I’ll start the download.” Mason sounded like he was running, his voice out of breath.
“Roger. I’m on my way right now to the generator. I’ll meet you there once the power is back on.”
“Sounds good. Be careful.” A soft click, and Pinky was alone again.
She never noticed the cold sound of the metal that comprised the walls of the ship before. It was like a creature moaning in the night. There was no air in space, but the air they used and maintained within the vents caused the metal to groan as it swayed from the slight pressure. Pinky replaced the panel, rotating the screws just enough to hold it in place. She turned and faced the mess hall before her as she tried to think of the fastest way back to the generator. The fastest way would be through the storage room, but potentially it was the most unsafe. Without the lights it would be pitch black. She wouldn’t be able to see her way around the large crates stored there. Besides, there was a chance the monster could be there as well. Somehow, Jameson had escaped the medical bay. Dr. Wilkins either didn’t close it down in time. Or perhaps he was in league with the captain? Pinky didn’t have time to think about that. If they didn’t get the main power back on soon, they wouldn’t be able to keep their oxygen system up and running much longer, and they risked the reactors going into meltdown without the electronic monitoring. She decided. She would go through the halls toward security, and dip down toward the medical bay, looping back to the generator room. The distance was slightly longer, but the halls at least had the emergency lights. They were dim, but with her flashlight, she should be able to make out any surprises in the corners before she neared.
Time was of the essence. She didn’t know who else was still alive, but she had a task she needed to finish. Pinky did a soft jog down the hall, pausing before approaching a corner. The only sound around her was the creaking of the metal walls, and the soft padding of her feet as she made each step. She neared the corner of the medical bay and stopped, frozen. The door was wide open. The red security lights pulsing. Pinky approached slowly, scared if the doctor was wrong, and the creature was still inside, waiting for a curious mouse to scamper close enough to be the next meal. Pinky heard the soft muttering of Sylvie, their crew’s botanist. She walked inside to see her standing, staring at the centrifuge, her bright yellow suit turned red by the lights.
“Sylvie? What are you doing here?” Pinky approached slowly. Sylvie was continuing to mumble, as she turned to Pinky, confused. Her eyes were somewhere else, like they were seeing a different vision than what was around her.
“I’m processing the samples we took today for plant life.” She tilted her head at Pinky, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get the power back on so we can warn people about this place.” Pinky looked at the machine as it still whirred away in front of Sylvie on reserved power, “Why are you doing that? We need to keep this ship running. We need at least two people in the reactor room if they begin overheating to activate the emergency cool down.”
“It’s our job silly. Shouldn’t you be preparing the equipment for the next ground excursion?” Sylvie walked over to the computers, completely ignoring the mixture of blood on the floor from Amy and their former captain.
“Sylvie…” Pinky took a step towards her and hesitated. Either she was infected by that thing and this was a trap, or she had just lost it. Pinky looked down at the dark blood that appeared black in the red light. The trail went to the back of the medbay, closed off by the courtesy curtains around the beds.
Sylvie continued to work like nothing was happening, and Pinky followed the blood. It trailed around the last bed and stopped at the ventilation grate on the floor. Pinky felt her heart beat race as a sinking feeling filled her gut. She tapped on her communication, hoping Mason was near.
“Mason! It’s in the vents!” There was nothing but static. Pinky had to warn someone. “If anyone can hear me, the monster is moving around in the vents. Block them! Don’t let them out!”
Pinky ran to the heavy medical bed near the vent. With great effort, she pulled it from it’s resting place, and toward the vent. The metal of the base of the bed squealed as it scratched the hard metal floor. Pinky kept pushing, until the vent was completely covered. She headed back toward the testing equipment. If Sylvie was the creature, she couldn’t escape now. If she wasn’t...at least she would be safe. When Pinky turned the corner again, she screamed shortly. Quickly stopping herself, to not alert any predators.
Crumpled on the floor with a knife firmly inserted in her back, was Sylvie. Pinky didn’t hear a thing. How was Sylvie dead? They were just speaking to one another. The room was not that large. Yes, pushing the bed was loud, but it was only for a minute. Two at most. Pinky stood frozen.
If I stay, and someone sees me here, they will blame me for killing her. Like we did with Tanya... But if I move now, whoever, or whatever did this could kill me.
Seconds felt like hours of dread as Pinky tried to process her next move. Guilt over Tanya be damned. She did what she thought was right then, and if she was killed now, she probably deserved it. Pinky walked cautiously back to the front of the med bay. She paused in the hall, looking both ways, before continuing to the generator. She got to the power control panel and got to work. She wasn’t an engineer of ships. That was Lloyd. She was just a tech head that knew her way around computers and fixing machinery for their missions. So far everything she had done wasn’t too far out of her knowledge. There were a series of switches in front of her. Some with green lights, some without.
“Okay...I guess everything has to be glowing on?” Pinky bit her lip and began flipping switches, as some lights came to life, and others died. “Who designed this crap?” After a few more attempts, the generator hummed back to life, and the lights came back on.
Pinky’s happiness of success was brief. She heard something. A noise of fabric moving around the corner at the back of the power room. She pressed her body against the wall of equipment. The lights were on now. There was nowhere to hide. There was a small whimper, as the door slammed shut unexpectedly for the power room.
“Shit!” Pinky ran to the door, and swiped her card on the reader. It wouldn’t open. “Shit shit shit shit.” She was trapped, with something, or someone.
“Who’s there?” The panicked voice of Dr. Wilkins echoed in the small metal room.
“Doctor?” Pinky walked behind the generator and found the doctor sitting on the floor...next to a vent. Pinky took a step back.
“Pinky?” The doctor’s usual bright and cheerful expressions were gone. All that was left was a haunted face. “This was supposed to be my last mission. I promised Ava that I would be home after this. No more deep space missions.” He crumpled his head into his hands.
“Dr. Wilkins, you need to come over here. Away from the vent…”
“Why was I so stubborn when she asked me to stay?”
A small ticking in the distance. Small steps on the metal. Before today, Pinky would have thought nothing of it. Just rats that managed to weasel their way into the bowels of the ship.
“Dr. Wilkins, PLEASE...come with me.” Pinky reached her hand out. He wasn’t the creature. He was just a scared man. The doctor looked up, at her confused. He began to stand up as the tapping grew louder. “Hurry!”
Pinky’s warnings were too late. It was an explosion of metal hitting metal, combined with the sound of screams and snapping bones. Pinky turned and ran. She knew the door was locked, but she had to do something. Put some distance between her and the more grotesque former captain. She banged her fist on the door’s panel cover, until the latch finally released. The series of door lock switches were exposed. She desperately began flipping them, trying to override the door lock mechanisms. The sound of wet flesh dragged behind her. The wet large mass struggled against its new form, as it consumed the good doctor. Finally the door opened and Pinky was met with the pale faces of Ae-Jung and Trevor.
“Move!” Ae-Jung commanded as she pulled Pinky out of the way. Trevor had a can of aerosol that he had attached to a lighter with a small flame. He pressed down on the trigger he created, and a billowing flame flew out toward the creature.
A high pitched scream roared through the space, as the creature burned. Trevor continued to bathe it in fire, until the monster shriveled up and crumpled into a lump of burnt flesh on the floor. Pinky collapsed in the hallway, as her adrenaline began to subside. They killed it. They were safe, for now.
“Where’s Mason?” Pinky looked to her saviors as they sealed shut the power room again. They turned to her confused.
“We heard your communication with him. We were on our way to communications when we heard you in here.” Trevor reached out his hand, and helped Pinky back to her feet.
“You really think we can warn others about this place?” Ae-Jung looked at Pinky. She was always hard to read, never one to overly express her emotions. That was probably because she had to keep a sense of distance between her and the rest of the crew as the head of security of their group. This is the first time that Pinky ever saw her scared.
“It has too.” Pinky walked toward communications and observed the empty small room. Mason was not here.
Trevor and Ae-Jung walked cautiously behind her as she walked over to the computer system on the wall. She pulled up the logs and tried to see if Mason had begun the download from the server of their research, and what they found. The plan was to take that research, and upload it into the communication broadcast with a warning. Hopefully whoever received it would know not to come here. Pinky paused when she got to the research data file. It was empty.
“Mason must have already downloaded it. Maybe he went to the bridge to send the message?” Pinky turned to Trevor and Ae-Jung who shrugged their shoulders.
“But this is the main communications. It makes no sense.” Trevor walked over to the master computer for their communication array and gasped. “It’s broken.” He turned the screen over toward Pinky, and the screen was smashed.
“Why would he do that?” Pinky could hear her voice shaking.
“Isn’t it obvious. He’s the other traitor! He was the one that told us to vote Tanya out in the first place. His group was closest to the storage room that Lloyd was killed in.” Ae-Jung’s face began to twist in anger.
“But he was with Sylvie. She didn’t remember seeing him leave, and that creature was going through the vents!” Pinky couldn’t believe it. Of all the people on this ship, she had known Mason the longest. They had flown twenty missions together.
“Well it couldn’t have been us!” Trevor gestured to Ae-Jung as she accessed the ship's main systems.
“He’s at the bridge. We can ask him.” Ae-Jung walked back out into the hall, with Pinky and Trevor following close behind her.
They made their way through storage, toward the front of the ship when the security lights began to blare. The automated voice of the ship’s computer came to life. Announcing the warning that Pinky feared the most.
“Reactor meltdown imminent. Reactor meltdown imminent. Five minutes until total reactor collapse.”
The group froze in place. If the reactor blew, they were all gone. Without a word, Ae-Jung began running toward the reactors. Trevor stopped and pulled one of his prized kitchen knives from his belt and handed it to Pinky.
“Get Mason, we’ll keep the reactor from blowing.” Before Pinky could respond, Trevor was gone, running down the same dark hall as Ae-Jung.
Pinky ran to the front of the ship as fast as she could. It took her less than a minute. Mason was at the back-up server panel with his tablet in hand cursing to himself.
“Mason! What did you do?”
Mason looked up at Pinky, confused. “What are you talking about? I’m doing our plan!”
“The files were deleted from the communication server.” Pinky walked forward holding the knife up between her hands. Mason’s eyes widened as she approached.
“Pinky, it’s me. I didn’t delete the files. When you got the power on, I saw they were already gone. So I came here to access the backups.”
“Four minutes until total reactor collapse.”
Pinky looked up, as the lights began to flash in the room, back to the red emergency lights.
“Did you do this?” Pinky approached Mason with the knife again.
“No. The reactor controls can only be accessed from the main server in communications. I am just downloading.” Mason flipped the screen towards her, and she saw his small blue avatar as it ran between folders on the screen. “Who's at the reactor?”
“Ae-Jung and Trevor.” Pinky lowered the knife.
“They should have fixed it by now…” Mason placed the tablet on the small iron beam near the server port. “Something’s wrong.”
Pinky looked down at the knife in her hand. It was from the same set Trevor always carried with him. The same set that also had one of it’s member’s in Sylvie’s back in the medical bay.
“Trevor! It’s Trevor!” Pinky turned, and began to run back toward the rear engines of the ship. Mason was close behind her.
They ran through the mess hall, and straight down the hall that led directly to the reactor core. There was a small groan as they approached, followed by a pool of blood. Ae-Jung lay on the ground, holding her gut. Mason ran to the core, and Pinky knelt down next to Ae-Jung. Small wheezing escaped her lungs. There wasn’t anything Pinky could do for her right now. They needed to prevent the collapse of the reactor. After, they could take her to the medical bay, and have the ship's AI surgeon fix her up.
Pinky ran to the core room. Trevor was standing at one of the panels, yelling with Mason.
“I had to! She’s not human anymore!” Trevor cried.
“Two minutes until reactor collapse.”
“You’re lying!” Pinky held up the knife that Trevor gave her. “I found this one’s sister in Sylvie’s back!”
Trevor looked confused at Pinky and shook his head.
“No, Ae-Jung had borrowed it this morning. She hadn’t returned it.”
“We don’t have time for this.” Mason pointed to the other panel on the other side of the room. “I’ll watch him, go. If he’s telling the truth we can stop the meltdown.”
Pinky nodded and ran to the other panel, slamming her palm on it. Trevor did the same on his end.
“One minute until reactor collapse.”
Pinky watched as the system loaded and began kicking in the cooldown procedures. She turned to look back at Mason, just as a tentacle came from the hall and pierced his chest.
“No!” Pinky moved to step towards him, but Trevor yelled at her to stop. If she lifted her hand they were all dead.
This is for the better. We can’t let this thing live. If we’re killed and someone finds our ship, this thing will spread.
Pinky lifted her hand from the panel, as Trevor screamed at her.
“What are you doing!?”
“It’s the only way…”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”
Pinky’s thoughts ran back to the beginning of the mission, the first day when everyone came on board. The hope and excitement on all their faces. To be the first ones on a new planet, discovering things together before anyone else. They were so foolish.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
***