Hongjoong still cowered there, unable to move, when Yunho and Jongho burst down the corridor. When they encountered Hongjoong still like a statue next to their fallen comrade, their worry split between the two of them.

"Hongjoong! What's going on?" Yunho's fingers fluttered over Hongjoong's shoulders. The blood on Hongjoong's face had Yunho's eyes widen with dread, but he was relieved when he found no wound. At the same time, Jongho noticed the missing of any wounds on Mingi, just as befuddled.

"Both of you are fine? Where did all this blood come from?" Jongho grimaced when it tarnished his waterproof uniform and slid off him.

Hongjoong could only move his lips formlessly. When the two looked at him only with confusion, he finally managed to point upwards. On cue, another drop of blood landed on his blond hair.

Simultaneously, the two men directed their searching gazes to the ceiling. Yunho slapped a hand over his mouth in horror. Jongho choked on his breath.

"Yeosang-"

Yunho paused, trying to squint up into the distance to make out the spot where the man had to be. At his feet, Hongjoong still trembled and shook.

"I have a ladder," Jongho brought out. When he got to his feet to rush and get it, he nearly collapsed on his way there. Hongjoong watched him, still dissociated from the revelation.

Yunho tensely lifted Mingi under his arms and hauled him over to lean against the pillar. He tumbled over to the side, still unconscious. When Yunho did the same to Hongjoong, he acknowledged it dimly but was just as unresponsive.

Jongho came back with the ladder. The little device blinked as he placed it on the ground and hit the button to adjust the height. The holographic steps he conjured were solid when stepped on.

At Jongho's hesitation, Yunho took the courage to go. Careful of the slippery pool of blood, he ascended the stairs to the beams that carried the ceiling. Hongjoong stared at the ground, not moving even when Jongho glimpsed at him worriedly. When Yunho finally arrived, he made a noise of discomfort.

It took Hongjoong all his combined strength to raise his eyes. His gaze flickered over the glimmering stairs that led up to the high ceiling and toward Yunho's back as he worked around at the beams.

Yeosang hung backwards over one of the beams. His body was twisted abnormally, allowing him to dangle in a far too bowed shape for his spine still to be fine. His face was a single bloody wound from which the blood dripped without break.

In horror, Hongjoong stared at the way his features appeared so grotesque from the distance. Nothing remained of their humble and gracious navigator.

They had still been talking just earlier.

Hongjoong's stomach churned, but he couldn't look away anymore. The macabre view trapped his eyes to burn itself behind his lids. Yunho cradled Yeosang close, ever so thoughtfully, and took him from the beam.

"I got him!" As soon as he had a relatively safe grip on the man, Yunho turned to hurry back down. Hongjoong wanted him to stay away. To leave Yeosang where he was so they could turn back time and pretend this had never happened.

Yunho didn't pause once he stepped onto the ground. He rushed right off to the med bay, only calling over his shoulder once.

"Take care of Hongjoong! I'll get Mingi in a moment."

Helpless and pale like a ghost, Jongho stared at Hongjoong. The captain peered back until his vision doubled and he grew dizzy. When Jongho reached out for him to stabilise him, some strength returned to Hongjoong.

"Let's get him together. I'm fine. I'm fine," Hongjoong muttered in a mantra as if he had to convince himself. Hesitantly, Jongho removed himself again. Instead, the two of them hauled up Mingi's tall form.

Carrying him while his feet dragged over the ground proved to be difficult, but they managed somehow. Once in the elevator, they pressed him against the wall and both took a deep breath. They smelled of blood and found traces of it all over in the elevator, too.

On their way to the med bay, Yunho met them in the middle. He didn't mind his gruesome appearance full of red stains as he scooped up Mingi in his arms to carry him to the infirmary, too. They had already prepared a second stretcher there to put Mingi on. Seonghwa and Wooyoung were there, cleaning Yeosang off with matching ashen faces.

Hongjoong had to sit down.

Clinging to his shaky brother, Hongjoong watched as more of Yeosang came into sight. One by one, they discovered the grisly mutilation his mangled body had suffered.

Yeosang's eyes had been scooped out of his head, leaving only two bloody holes behind. His jaw was dislocated, leaving his lower face hanging open obscenely to show the insides of his mouth that were covered in a gooey, pinkish slick.

From how he laid, his broken spine looked nearly normal, but in turn, every single one of his fingers pulled back freakishly over the shattered bones. Hongjoong dully noticed that he was naked, and that his fractured penis rested obscenely against his hipbone.

"He hasn't been dead for long," Yunho breathed, remaining as the only person even slightly sane in the room. When he was met with no reaction, he carefully wiped down Yeosang's ribs, meeting blue and black bruising under the skin.

Yeosang's body hasn't stiffened yet, and his core was likely still warm. It must have happened just a few hours ago, after they had parted in the garden.

Feeling sick, Hongjoong curled into himself.

Why? Why another person? Why when they tried so hard to avoid this happening?

"What is that?" Wooyoung asked with a wavering voice. It wasn't hard to guess that the number of wounds and broken bones had killed Yeosang. And yet, all of them came up short when Wooyoung pointed at the mess in Yeosang's throat. The weird colour didn't seem to be any human fluid. Tiny bumps made the slick uneven.

"It's the same here," Yunho muttered. His ginger finger gestured at Yeosang's crotch.

Clueless, they stared at another dead friend. Seonghwa had to take a break soon too, when one of Yeosang's fingers cracked as he cleaned his hand. He clung to the duo that the brothers were, all three of them shell-shocked into silence.

Wooyoung was ultimately the one to move. He winced as he used a dipstick he found on San's trays to carefully insert it in Yeosang's mouth. He scooped up some of the gooey mass and hurried with it to the test station. When his fingers trembled too much to type in the execution order, he used voice recognition.

"Med bay, analyse the applied sample and tell us the findings," he asked in a scratchy voice. As the machine came to life and compared the substance with its input, the group sat there in strained anticipation. Jongho reached over to Mingi to feel for his pulse once more, scared that they had lost two people at once.

With only five of them conscious and exchanging worried glances, the crew suddenly seemed so much smaller. The thought terrified Hongjoong.

"Analysing process finished. Proceed to results. Component A. Human blood. Component B. Human saliva. Component C. Unknown species embryo. Systems unable to confirm, suspecting an alien species. Printing results."

Hongjoong's throat was dry. He could hear his pulse throbbing in his ears, nearly blocking out the droning of the printer.

Seonghwa's mouth dropped open first. Disgust distorted his features as he looked from the printer back to Yeosang's corpse.

"Embryos?!" Jongho whispered under his breath, too.

Yunho had pressed his hand over his mouth again, shielding his fright from sight. Wooyoung tumbled over to the sink and vomited up bile. The acidic stench mixed with the smell of blood.

"What- Eggs? Alien eggs?" As if to confirm what they all had heard, Hongjoong made sure shrilly. The shocked nods he accumulated nearly forced him to pass out.

"What's the difference between an egg and an embryo again?" Jongho whispered into the stuffy air. In the background, Wooyoung still heaved over the sink as if trying to puke his guts out. Hongjoong had to agree that he would have loved to hand over his eyes and ears before all this had happened.

"An egg is an egg only... An embryo is a fertilised egg. Those are- little baby aliens," Yunho choked out.

When Seonghwa wormed out of Hongjoong's grasp to dash out of the room, Hongjoong's hands sunk to his sides weakly. Wooyoung followed suit, both of them too disturbed to stay.

His detachment was the only thing that kept Hongjoong seated. As Mingi came back to life next to them with a little groan, Jongho turned towards him to reassure him. In a panic, Mingi tried to explain what he had found in the machine room, but a glance at the stretcher told him that it was already too late.

"So it was... an alien creature. Just as he suspected." Hongjoong bit out numbly. When Yunho nodded, another wave of fresh guilt ate Hongjoong up from inside out. Yeosang had been right. An alien creature that tried to kill their people and leave its eggs inside their bodies had found its way inside their ship. Those were likely the same traces they had found in San's bloodstream.

Sickening despair dawned upon the room. Nobody could bear to do as much as even look at Yeosang. If the theories were correct, if all of them were true; then an octopus-like organism had killed Yeosang in the process of pumping him full of its eggs.

Hongjoong couldn't spend another minute in the same room.

"Jongho," he choked out his brother's name. "Dial down the heat inside here, and let's move this meeting into the kitchen. We have a lot to discuss."

Jongho nodded, overwhelmed with the sudden task and Mingi clawing at his shoulders.

On his way out, Hongjoong stumbled against the edge of a shelf. His flailing arms ripped down a bunch of documents and records that got sent to the ground. Yunho hastened to help him pick them up. In their hurry, they just shoved everything back in a disarray. Hongjoong's breath flattened at the thought of Yeosang's naked, lifeless feet so near to his head. Black dots danced in front of his eyes.

That was, until Yunho suddenly froze at a piece of paper he had picked up. His eyes scanned it quickly, then he handed it to Hongjoong. Weakly, the man shook his head, unable to read through his blurred view.

"Take it with you into the kitchen. We'll discuss it later."

Hongjoong stumbled outside and over to the kitchen. Seonghwa was there, his head buried in his hands. His body looked slumped and positively sick. Neither of them acknowledged the other as Hongjoong trudged in.

Chilly horror clung to them. It took away all words and the ability to continue. One by one, they collected around the table like a doll cabinet. Once they all had assembled, Yunho carefully took the crumpled paper from Hongjoong and spread it out on the desk.

"Before we talk about what went down with Yeosang, let's listen to this. I'll read it to you. It's San's letter of resignation."

If possible, Hongjoong's body chilled even further. Wooyoung raised his wet eyes to stare at Yunho in disbelief.

"Medical Log: 02:00 PM Friday, 6th December 2262. Medical Officer Choi San on the SS Elysium.

How is it that I just concluded my first check-up with the crew, only to find out we have an alien on board? In what world is it a good idea to allow an unregistered alien in such a crucial intergalactic mission? I have been told both by the officials and himself that it would be entirely harmless, but I will not stand for this absurdity. I will go on this trip and stand to my medical vows but once I return they will get an earful. I firmly believe that several people aboard this ship wouldn't have partaken in the mission if they knew about this and I regard this as a tactless joke on us researchers. I swear, the second he does anything even remarkably suspicious, I will tell the captain. I no way will I endanger the lives of my kin to stand with an unestablished species!"

Completely overrun by the sudden onslaught of information, the crew just blinked surprisedly. Yunho's grim features didn't change.

"It's from the same week we departed. He kept this a secret all along." When Yunho slammed the paper down on the table with more force than necessary, Hongjoong flinched. Fragile, he peered up at the man. His head was too empty to associate any value with it.

With his features dark, Yunho crossed his arms.

"I think the alien ran into reproduction trouble. And it took out San when he wanted to tell us."

Numb, Hongjoong stared at the table.

Oh, how he wished things were just how they had been a week ago. When their largest hassle had been how to divide the teams in their group-building games.

Before he had known that one of his friends was a murderous alien.