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“...Red. I vote Red.”
Oh. It was happening.
“HA!” Yellow reacted with the spiteful enthusiasm Purple wished they could muster up in the moment. “Looks like your own obedience to MIRA will be the death of you.”
The shift in Red’s tone to anxious was instant, the sweat already starting to pour. “Now, hold on, I know that I said-”
“NOPE!” Yellow interjected, “Those are the rules. You have the most votes. You’re out.”
“But- But I’m the captain!”
“Not anymore!”
No. Not anymore. Purple had voted for Red. Because they were clearly the impostor. That was obvious.
Red, in their attempt to wiggle out of this situation with mere whining, was futilely being singlehandedly dragged across the room towards the trash chute by Yellow. The other four crewmates stood back. Both Green and Brown were still simply watching, the latter looking as though they wanted to say something but choosing not to. Black broke the group’s silence.
“And why exactly is Yellow so enthusiastic about this, huh? Are we sure we’re making the right choice?”
“I don’t know,” Brown stated plainly, “I chose not to vote, I… I don’t know.”
Red held onto the sides of the entrance to the chute with an iron grip as Yellow attempted repeatedly to shove them inside. “Come on, guys, you don’t actually think I’m the impostor! Right?!” Then Red looked directly at Purple. “Purps, come on! You’ve known me the longest! You know me! You’re not… actually going to do this to me, are you?”
With this statement their vigor lessened enough to be successfully kicked down the chute by Yellow. This was happening too fast. This wasn’t right.
“Wait!” Purple blurted before they could stop themself.
Yellow slowly turned. “...What?”
Why did they do that? What were they going to say?
“Red’s right. I’ve known them the longest, so…” It was too late to go back. “I should be the one to do it.”
The reactions from their fellow crewmates were silent expressions of perplexity. But no one objected. Red’s disembodied voice carried up out of the chute.
“You- You can’t be serious!”
Purple shouldn’t have looked in before pulling the lever. But they did. Red sat there at the bottom of the pit, still feebly attempting to take control of the situation with a commanding tone. I’m the captain this. You have to listen to me that. It took less than a minute of Purple’s impassive silence to break them down into a pathetic pleading mess. “Please, we don’t have to do this! I haven’t been the greatest captain, I know that! I can do better! We can talk about this, can’t we? Please… don’t do this to me.”
Red tried to search for signs of emotion, of sympathy. Purple’s own tone was uncomfortably placid. “You should have gotten in that vent.”
That’s why they were doing this. They pulled the lever.
The crewmates gathered at the window to watch the body of their former captain float away into the infinite void of space. They waited for the impostor’s true alien form to burst from its guise and likely send its guts flying toward their faces for the second time. And they waited. And they waited. And they… waited.
The panic first made its presence known as a cold chill that ran up Purple’s back. Green provided not so helpful commentary about how long the transformation was taking as each word caused Purple’s breath to hitch just a little more. No, it didn’t take this long last time. They knew that. They all knew that. All they could do was continue to wait.
Red’s body was nearly completely out of view before someone other than Green spoke. It was Black. “Did we just… kill an innocent person?”
But Purple could barely hear them. A conversation was being initiated but they couldn’t register the words. They couldn’t respond. No. No. No no nono no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
no
nono no
no
no
no
no
It took the bewildered faces of their fellow crewmates for Purple to realize they’d been saying that out loud. “No, no, no, no, no, no, oh no, ohh no, no oh no, oh no no no no no-”
An argument was breaking out. The sounds of heated fighting arose around them. They were getting dizzy. It was so hard to breathe. Green reached out to touch them. “Hey, are you alright?”
But Purple slapped their hand away instantly. “No, I’m- I’m, uh… I just, I…” They couldn’t focus on their own words either. They held their hands up to their face. “I, I didn’t… Why did I…”
They choked up before they could continue. And then they ran.
-
Wow. This really was too easy.
Green knew that once it was revealed Red wasn’t the impostor, all fingers would point back to Yellow. Black was absolutely ironclad in their resolve this time, allowing for no argument that Yellow should be kept aboard. Yellow, of course, was not going to take this lying down, and Brown too was hesitantly jumping to their defense despite also feeling conflicted. No longer willing to operate by MIRA rules, hell, the remaining crew would likely just end up killing each other before another vote could be taken. Well, all except for one.
The one who had just foolishly isolated themself after becoming overwhelmed, in which Green was able to use the same excuse and pretend to go sulk in a corner. They couldn’t actually leave the room, of course, lest they lose their alibi. But they didn’t have to.
Leaving their hollow vessel sitting atop the vent, the impostor travelled to the one place they expected Purple to be - the same place they let loose some emotional story about the now dead captain that Green hadn’t actually stuck around to hear. Pausing just below the vent that leads directly into the oxygen room, the sounds of soft whimpering interrupted by the occasional cough or sniffle could be heard. “I’m sorry… I wish that… I wanted…”
Peering through the grates revealed the form of Purple, hunched up beside what had become the grave of their pet mate Green never cared to learn the name of. If Green played their cards right they could very nearly frame what was coming as a suicide, but they didn’t have the time or the patience in the first place to be that clean and precise about it. Wiping the morbidly amusing thought from their mind they began to emerge from the vent, making a dramatic show of their growing and pulsating form, bulging limbs and teeth slowly rising above the puny crewmate that looked up in what should have been horror. But it wasn’t, really. It was more like… resignation. Perhaps acceptance.
If any part of the original Green was still in there, they definitely felt bad. It was a sorry sight. But the impostor did not feel sorrow. If the pitiable crewmate had chosen submission, so be it. The alien lunged forward.
Purple made no attempt to fight back.