The Eternal Winter - Chapter 2 - Crash Landing (Patreon)

                                                         Alexander North

The first thing I notice as I regain consciousness is a muffled scream.

The second thing I notice is that it’s freezing cold. Although I’d be willing to bet that it would be much worse if it weren’t for the armor I’m currently wearing.

I slowly open my eyes before looking around, hoping to find the source of the scream. But after several seconds of searching, I fail to find it and realize that it probably came from outside of the ship.

After several more seconds of trying to regain my bearings, I realize something.

Why is it so cold during the middle of Summer? On a tropical planet at that?

And where did all of this snow and mist come from?

Actually, I should check on the others fi-

My thoughts are cut off as I hear a groan coming from behind me somewhere. So I quickly undo the seatbelts on my chair and slowly get up from it whilst fighting against the waves of dizziness that assault me in the attempt.

Concussion maybe? Or just a light head wound?

When I feel my head, I don’t really feel much blood. Sure, there’s some, but there isn’t much.

Which is good.

After making sure I have my bearings again, I turn around to find a lot of the inside of the ship as a wrecked mess. Things – both parts of the ship that should otherwise be nailed down or somewhere on the walls or ceilings and other things that weren’t nailed down – are scattered everywhere, with a lot of it being rather badly damaged. But what catches my attention outside of that is the sight of Robert also getting up from his seat and waving at me with a groan.

Hmm, guess he’s not dead.

“You okay?” I ask just in case while slowly making my way over to the middle of the ship’s bridge, only to notice the captain lying face-first all the way down at the other end of the ship. “Uh…”

Robert mutters a confirmation to my question before slowly walking over to me and noticing the captain, just for the man to begin getting up at that very moment, confirming that he’s not dead either.

Although with his symbiont I’d be more surprised if he was even hurt from this. I’m actually more surprised that he woke up at the same time as me despite having it.

But then again, the man wasn’t strapped in like me or Robert. So he probably took more of a beating. What with being sent flying through the ship and all.

“Damn it!” the captain shouts. “Do you know how much this fucking ship costs?!”

I raise an eyebrow at that before putting on my helmet to shield my head from the freezing cold.

“Uh, sir? I think we have bigger problems to deal with right now,” I hear Michelle’s voice state as I enter the room as well, just to find her looking into the prison cell area of the ship.

The captain notices where she is and quickly moves over there, just to swear again at whatever he sees inside. So I walk over there as well to find a large hole in the ship’s prison wall where snow, ice, and mist are leaking in from the outside. Without even a single pirate in the prison.

“Much bigger problem,” I mutter while nodding my head slightly in agreement, just for the captain to glare at me before focusing on the others in the room.

I turn back to do the same, just to hear the captain let out a sigh of relief after seeing that everyone’s still alive. Although Michael seems to still be unconscious.

Gabriel and Victoria both apparently woke up while we were standing at this door though.

“Someone wake Michael up,” the captain says, drawing my attention back to him as he touches the back of his neck and says, “Body Analysis.”

I watch him look at his analysis page for a few seconds before he orders, “Everyone should check your body analysis pages. I don’t know why, but it looks like whatever happened didn’t affect our implants.”

Hmm, really?

Was it the blizzard? But how could a blizzard just disable all technology?

My eyes suddenly widen as I think of something before looking down at my chest and putting my hand there, just to feel my artificial heart running like normal.

I let out a sigh of relief at that before muttering, “Body Analysis,” just like the others, making my body’s current status appear in the form of numbers and some simple words.

Okay, so it looks like I don’t have a concussion at least.

“I’m fine,” I tell the captain once I find him looking at me, followed by various affirmations coming from the others as well. Including the still-slightly-groggy-looking Michael who was woken up by his twin sister.

“Well, at least we’re all fine,” he looks relieved at that thought before turning serious again as he adds, “but we still need to recapture those escaped-”

Before he can finish, a voice calls out from within the prison cell, catching our attention. When I turn to look through the window of the cell door, I surprisingly find one of the escaped pirates staggering back into the cell again.

With some sort of glowing blue shard sticking out of his bleeding shoulder.

“Holy mother of all that is Terran…” I hear Michelle mutter right as I realize that the shard isn’t just sticking out of his shoulder.

It’s slowly entering it.

Robert quickly rushes over to the door to open it, only for the panel to not work. And before he can try anything else, the captain grabs his shoulder and says, “No. Let’s see what happens first. We don’t know what that shard is.”

I glance out at the blizzard through the hole in the prison cell and notice a few blue lights flying through the snow and ice.

“Maybe,” I mutter, catching the captain’s attention before pointing at the hole, “but we know that they seem to have come from the blizzard.”

He and the others follow my finger to look outside of the ship, but all of our gazes are returned to the pirate as he suddenly coughs what looks like a mist of pale blood with tiny fragments of crystalized blood mixed in.

“What the…” captain Andrew mutters.

“Please he-help m-m-me!!!” the pirate barely manages to say to us with a panicked look in his eyes while stumbling over to the door. Once he reaches it, he begins to pound on it with his uninjured arm. But our eyes won’t leave the faint light blue glow slowly spreading from where the shard once was throughout his body.

“Is…” Robert begins to ask, “…is he getting frostbite?”

The pilot’s words make me realize that the man does indeed appear to be getting frostbite. And much faster than he should judging by how cold this blizzard is.

Although it could just be because he’s exposed out there. But I’ve never heard of a blizzard that causes frostbite that quickly. Not to mention that he was in it before now and is only starting to get frostbite now.

Then again, this is obviously not a normal blizzard. After all, what blizzard comes from outer space?

Wait a second…

“Look at his eyes,” I mutter while staring into the man’s eyes. Eyes that were once brown but are now pitch black with a very faintly glowing ring of blue closer to the center of them.

I vaguely notice Robert’s hands begin to shake out of the corner of my eyes, but I continue to stare into the pirate’s eyes as the frostbite keeps spreading through his body, along with the glowing blue light until it eventually envelops his entire body.

“P-Plea-” the pirate begins to plead again, just for him to cough out more crystalized blood at the window while slowly falling into the door and lowering down to the ground.

At this point, I have my gun aimed at the door with the others all doing the same thing.

Well, except for Robert, who seems to be freaking out.

“Get it together,” I hear the captain shout while hitting Robert in the back of the neck.

And considering that Robert isn’t making anywhere near as much noise anymore, it seems to have worked. For the most part.

Several seconds pass in relative silence, with the only noises being that of our breaths, the blizzard outside, and Robert’s occasional whimper. Then, out of nowhere, a scratching sound begins to come from the other side of the door.

I slowly back away from the door while raising my gun up a little in preparation.

What the hell is-

The scratching comes to a sudden stop, making me tense slightly with my grip on my gun, only for a strange creature with a vaguely similar appearance to the pirate to slowly stand up while staring off into the distance in the prison room. It has the same face as the man, except with particularly sharper feature and two pointed ears, but all of its skin seems to be pure white. As white at the snow falling outside.

But what catches my attention the most are the fangs filling its mouth when it slowly opens it and lets out a breath of cold mist.

I glance at Robert, just to find Gabriel covering his mouth with his hand before I turn back to the door right as the creature – one that looks oddly similar to a wendigo from ancient Arcadian mythology – slowly turns to look at the window. Right at us.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord Invite:

https://discord.gg/R7M6QNRm7y

Table of Contents

If you can't view the image:

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \    

Strength: 1.01
Speed: 1.04
Reflexes: 1.03
Constitution: 0.99
Immunity: 1
Senses: 1.05   

Body Malfunctions: N/A
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.

\End of Analysis/