1 The Mysterious Spaceship

In the year 2086

As the astronauts embarked on their journey to deep space, they sat back looking at Earth wondering if they would ever get to see it again.

Soon, they would be wishing they had never left.

They had just passed the planet Mars and were planning on exploring for a year, then, heading back home, but just as the Chief astronaut, John, was considering this, he saw out of the corner of his eye another Spaceship.

They had tried making a call to Earth but the comms were down. John had to make a decision, tell his crew about the ship and go see what it's doing and what happened to it, or the safe decision, wait for comms to get back up and call mission control.

John's curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to go take a look at the mysterious spaceship.

They came closer to the spacecraft and could barely make out a few lines of text on the side of the craft, in a language they couldn't understand, as they got closer to the ship they saw that there was a massive hole in it, and inside of that hole, they saw a red blinking light. Then seeming as it noticed it had been spotted the red dot disappeared into the darkness.

John decided that he and one of his crewmates, Brad, would go onto the craft to inspect it to see if they can find out what had happened.

At first, John thought maybe it was an explosion from the inside of the ship, maybe a faulty thruster, but as they got closer it looked like the ship had been melted! From the outside!

They were inside the ship now, and what they saw was devastating. Dead bodies littered the surrounding area, some floating, some with surprised looks on their faces, but even weirder and more gruesome, was that they didn't look human.

Some of them had tools in their hands, some of them didn't even have hands. They must've been exploded by whatever had melted the outside of the ship. There was only one way to find out what happened and that would be to go deeper inside.

As John started to walk or more so float towards a corridor inside the ship, his crewmate, Brad, grabbed his shoulder to stop him and say "Maybe we should go back to the ship and tell the crew of our findings." John agreed.

After John told everybody what they thought had happened, Wesley suggested they should go inside the ship and check it out completely. They waited a few minutes to see if anyone else had a better idea but alas, their curiosity got the better of them.

They all suited up and walked towards the airlock. The four of them, Brad, Jenny, John, and Wesley, stepped inside the airlock ready to see what had happened to the grim scene that lay before them. Right before Jenny closed the airlock door, a thought struck John out of nowhere. "Jenny, stay back here and watch over the ship. Something doesn't feel right." With a sigh, Jenny stepped back and closed the airlock door.

Jenny was waiting patiently on the ship, reading a book entitled 'The Mysterious Spaceship' She looked at her watch, noticing it had been around 40 minutes since "The Guys" had left. She just now realized how long she had been reading. Forty minutes! She thought "Ugh, I wonder how Brad's doing? I hope they don't get hurt."

She sat back and realized that it was going to be a very uneventful next hour, or at least she hoped it would only be an hour.

[50 Minutes Later]

Jenny still sat patiently thinking about the rest of her crew. "I can't believe its only been 3 months since me and Brad graduated together. We're no longer AsCans (Astronaut Candidates), yet he still just treats me like the rest of the guys." Jenny sighed.

"Okay guys," said John, "detach from the line." Everybody detached from the line holding them to their spaceship, Artemis, at the same time activating their thrusters to push themselves towards the other spaceship.

As they climbed aboard, Wesley, seeing the dead bodies for the first time, jumped and grimaced with disgust.

They pushed past a few limp bodies. They surveyed the surrounding area and found a hallway leading into a larger room. They all walked forward into the room, John in front of Wesley and Brad directly beside Wesley.

Once they were inside the room they noticed a rather large puddle of dried blood on the floor, to the right, "What should we do, John?" asked Wesley.

"We'll follow the bloodstains" John replied.

They had been walking in the dark with only their flashlights and the blood on the ground to guide them when John put up his hand signaling them to stop and proceed quietly.

Brad walked over to John to see what had made them stop. It was another dead body but this one seemed a lot more scared and not surprised by what was happening but scared of whatever he was looking at.

Upon closer inspection, the dead body, which was so frightened-looking, had a gaping hole in his chest without any blood. That was perhaps the most terrifying part of the scene before them.

They continued exploring the mysterious spaceship, until, "Guys come and check this out," said John, "I think this is the captain's quarters." John slowly opened the door with his flashlight peering inside.

"Just hurry up and open it already John," Wesley said. They walked into the room seeing yet another sad scene before them, it looked as if, what had to be the captain of the ship, was frantically trying to send an S.O.S. signal, on a digital panel attached to the wall of the room.

The message never got sent.

Wesley, being young, energetic, carefree, and extremely stupid sometimes, had the amazing idea to press the blinking button on the screen.

"No! Stop don't press that!" Brad's warning had come too late. Wesley had already pressed the button. But nothing seemed to happen.

"Guys! We need to get off the ship we don't know what that did!!!" said John. Wesley wanted to keep exploring but John was in charge.

They started running, running until they got exhausted from running. They walked to maintain their energy and make it easier to navigate. John stopped, "Wait, guys, how are we actually even walking?! We should be floating?" John was extremely confused.

"I don't know but come on, let's get out of here!" said Brad "We need to get off this ship I'm getting the chills."

They started running again, eventually coming to the large room they were in earlier. "This is the room from earlier!" they all said at once.

"Go forward!" Wesley said.

"No, go right!" Brad yelled back.

John looked back at them with an annoyed expression resting on his face "Guys! Just follow me!" John yelled at them as he started to run to the left.

They started to recognize some of the bodies and other things that lay on the floor. They were almost to the exit. As they rounded the last corner they could see light coming from the hole. A blinking blue and white light.