Accident

/*\ Orange's POV /*\

He hadn't meant to do it… or, well, he HAD meant to do it, just didn't intend the outcome. Now, sitting around the table, a sense of guilt crept its way up his stomach. He didn't even bother to listen to what Purple was saying, all he could think about was how much trouble he would be in once they found out. Should I just… tell them I did it? Maybe they aren't even talking about that... He sighed quietly, intertwining his fingers together.

|5 minutes earlier|

Orange skipped through the hallways, reading each sign as he waltzed by. He had been on a ship before, but it's structure looked a lot different than The Skeld. He passed by a room labeled 'Security' Boring, there's nothing interesting to see. Continuing his exploration, he proceeded to walk past the opening to security, past the 'Upper Engine' and down a hallway. There was only one door in the hallway, labeled 'Medbay'.

Now, seeing THAT sign made Orange excited. As a kid, he was very interested in medical equipment and wanted to become a surgeon when he grew up. But, alas, his dream never came true. Now he was stuck in space with 11 other people, which wasn't the worst, but it was still pretty bad. He didn't even know what they were doing here, other than just some sort of 'Space Exploration' program. He was only here because they had promised him a fat wad of cash for his time. I mean, who would turn down an offer like that? Not him! He was a GREAT opportunist! Or, at least he thought so.

He walked into the room, there were 4 beds, some sort of scanner, and a vial tester. A large table was tucked into the corner of the room, underneath the table, there was a vent. Still a boring room. He sighed and turned around to walk out. An unexpected 'thud' noise stopped him in his tracks. Slowly turning around, he looked towards the source of the noise. A terrarium was positioned near the middle of the table. He guessed it was about a 20 gallon one. Wanting to inspect the source of the noise, he walked closer to the table. Inside the terrarium, there was a tiny worm-like creature. It had no visible eyes, and it seemed to have a little scrunched up bit of skin for a mouth. Two little antennae were perched upon its head, and it was a deep red in color. (appearance def inspired by The Visitor, aka this lil bud from a video game)

Now, being the genius Orange is, he thought it would be a great idea to TOUCH the thing. I mean, an unknown specimen, could be lethally dangerous.

What could go wrong?

Letting out an 'aww' sound, he slowly lifted up the grate on top of the terrarium. He thought the thing was adorable. "You're the cutest little worm I've ever seen," he said, slowly reaching down further into the cage to nudge it into his gloved hand. It slowly inched its way towards his hand. It moved more like an inchworm than an earthworm. It passed his hand and slowly made its way up his arm. He lifted his arm out of the cage, bringing the little red worm with him. "Aww, do you like me?" He smiled, leaning a bit closer to it.

In about 2 quick seconds, the worm had somehow leaped from his hand to his mask, nearly cracking the glass with the force of the blow. Orange quite literally thought he wet himself when this happened. He fell back and tried to swat the thing away from his face. He managed to catch his finger on its smooth body and he flung it across the room. It landed under the table with hardly a sound. He panted, looking for where it went. He looked under the table, it couldn't have gotten fa-

'Oh you've got to be kidding me- it went into the vent, didn't it?' He looked to the wall to the left of him, then to the doorway to his right. Crap crap crap- He quietly closed the cage and fled the scene. I hope that thing wasn't important…

|Present Time|

"Who was in medbay recently?" Purple asked, looking around the table. Don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me- Orange pleaded within his mind. He didn't want to get fired, he needed the money. He could've sworn he locked eyes with purple. Crap. Nobody spoke up to claim that they were in medbay.

"Alright, since this is technically an emergency, I'm allowed to inform you of what has happened. There was a very…" Purple paused, thinking of the right word. "Important specimen in Medbay. It was in an enclosure, and somebody has let it out." Everybody looked around, they still didn't understand the reason why this 'specimen' was so important. "Now, you may be wondering why a little creature is worth a meeting.

Let me explain a bit, this thing is one of the few left of its species. We have purposefully hunted and killed this species." Why would you kill them? Orange wondered. As if Purple was reading his mind, he proceeded to say "You may be wondering 'Why did you kill them?' This species is extremely dangerous. We have had multiple incidents where one of these things got loose on a ship. Spoiler alert, nobody survives." Oh lord, I really messed up this time, didn't I?' Purple continued speaking. "We need to find this thing before it finds a food source. Now, before you ask what its food source is, I'll answer that." Purple paused, clearly hesitant to say.

"Human flesh. It's diet consists of pure meat, with their favorite 'snack' being a vulnerable person. You may ask how this thing would even kill one of us, considering its size. To that I answer, it doesn't necessarily do it itself. This thing is a parasite, it needs a host. It happens to love stripping humans of their humanity. All I can say is that this thing will kill somebody if we don't stop it. We kept this one alive to study it further on Polus. That is our real objective, safely transport this to Polus.

And we've already failed."