Chapter Text
You woke up on the floor of a spaceship, face down and neck twisted at a strange angle. You were wearing a helmet that you didn’t remember putting on when you went to bed last night.
You got up as quickly as you could, scrambling to get your feet under you. When you fully straightened up you realized that you were surrounded by bodies, sprawled out across a gray floor.
At first you thought you were dead, but you when you bent besides one of them you noticed that their chest was rising and falling. You looked down at your own hands, you were wearing a red space suit, and were surrounded by seven others in identical suits of different colors.
You recognized the layout of the room you were in. Five tables, three halls, a full kitchen behind a metal bar. You were in a game.
A game about murdering people.
And there was a clock on the wall counting down from two hours toward zero.
Was some sick fuck trying to recreate their favorite game?
Were the others victims like you? Would they be as confused and scared when they woke?
How could you protect them? If they were dragged into it like you then they didn’t deserve to die.
Luckily, you didn’t have to play by the limits of the game.
You raised your hands to your helmet, twisted, and pulled. It popped off.
You know how you feel when you’re underwater? That's not how you felt when you took your helmet off.
When you’re underwater you’re holding your breath, it’s a completely different sensation when you try to take a breath and there is nothing there at all. That's what happened without your helmet, you tried to breathe and there was nothing to go into your lungs, You felt your chest inflate, but nothing filled it.
You jammed the helmet back on, the pressure equalizing slow enough that your vision went fuzzy before you could get a full lung full of air. You gasped for it.
Okay, helmets stayed on.
Time for plan b.
You walked around every hallway of the ship, and it was a ship. You had initially thought (read: hoped) it was an elaborate set, but after checking the airlocks and setting a chair off into space you realized that it was as real as could be.
Fuck.
You would panic later, you didn’t have time for panic right now, with the others stirring in the cafeteria and possible deaths in the future.
You got back just as the figure in the black suit was twitching awake.
As expected, they jolted when they woke. They saw you standing over them and backpedaled, in a defensive stance, scrambling to their feet with their back to the wall.
You put your hands up in the universal sign of surrender. There was a moment where neither of you moved.
They began gesturing at you, and you slowly realized they were trying to speak with you.
They reached for their helmet, and presumably would have pulled it off if you hadn’t grasped their hands in yours and held them away from their head. You couldn’t see anything through the one-way mirror of the glass panel, anything could be under that helmet.
When you released them you mimed choking, wrapping your hands around your neck. You knew a tiny bit of sign language, but there was no guarantee that they did. They nodded, understanding your impromptu message.
You knelt besides another of the figures on the floor, this one blue. They were twitching awake, and you soothed them when they fully came to awareness, giving them the same instructions not to move their helmets.
The only person who ignored your warning was the person in yellow. He pulled off his helmet against your instructions, revealing a young, borderline gaunt looking man with black hair, and brown eyes ringed by dark circles. His skin wasn’t pale, but it looked almost sickly.
He cast the helmet away from himself the moment he pulled it off his head. It skittered across the room and landed against the wall, completely silent.
You lunged for it immediately, knowing that behind you he was realizing that there was no atmosphere to breath. You moved faster than you ever had, tearing his hands away from his face to re-secure the helmet. He went frighteningly still for a moment, and you thought back to how you almost passed out with only a momentary removal of your own helmet.
You cursed in relief when he moved, unheard behind the protection of your helmet. His hands gripped onto your arms, so tight you felt like they would bruise. You gave his shoulders a gentle shake, releasing him only after you were sure he got the message to keep the helmet attached.
The others all followed your instruction after that.
Luckily for you a few of the others seemed to recognize the game like you had. It would make things easier.
You explained the original game by writing it onto a piece of paper, and then drew a layout of the ship from when you had walked it. When someone had a question they jotted it down, and you did your best to answer them. You explained that you planned to block the vents with the tool cabinets you noticed during your walk-through. They were heavy, and nothing would be getting through the vents with those metal monstrosities on top of them. The tools inside of them would be inaccessible, but you wouldn’t need those tools to complete your tasks if they were accurate to the game.
You walked the entire group into the lower tunnel, pointing to the heavy crates and then toward the storage room passage that connected to the electrical room. Orange, blue, and black rushed to help you push them into place.
With the passage blocked the ship was cleanly divided into two, you took the team into each half and blocked the vents. You noted that Blue seemed to be the strongest member of the team (despite being one of the smaller members) but even they were not able to move the tool cabinets that you dragged over the vents on their own.
Even if the imposter could move the cabinets, they would be loud, warning everyone of its presence.
The purpose of dividing the map into two was for the sake of establishing where everyone was.
Half of you would be on one side of the ship and would complete all of the tasks that you had there, then, you would switch. If someone was where they weren't supposed to be then they were the imposter, and if someone was killed...at least you would know what side they were on.
It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was the best you could do in such a short amount of time.
You sorted the others into two groups. You were in group one with White, orange, and yellow. Black, Green, Blue, and Purple made up group two. It made it easier to remember which color should be on each side. You shook everyone's hand as they separated into their groups. If you could, you would have wished them luck.
You watched the timer countdown to zero.