Wooyoung had died in his cell.

Hongjoong read the message from Yunho first thing when he woke up. The man had sent it only a few minutes ago, having checked on Wooyoung after waking up and found him dead. And as before, it could have been any of them.

With a heavy heart, Hongjoong stared at the message until tears clouded his eyes. It was too late to be regretful. Too late to wonder if Wooyoung had deserved more of their attention. Whatever remorse that Hongjoong's heart tried to trap him in, he had no right to indulge in it. Not after they had locked the man up alone.

Hongjoong furiously wiped his eyes and twisted to wake Seonghwa. His clammy hand on the other man's warm skin looked pale and sickly.

"Hwa, wake up," he muttered. His gentle shaking stirred Seonghwa out of his sleep, and he drowsily blinked his eyes at Hongjoong. Before his chapped lips could croak out a question, Hongjoong already lowered his eyes.

"It got Wooyoung."

At last, the two lovers were back together. Their tragedy haunted Hongjoong's mind, as well as his last words. The venom that had dripped from them had etched into his soul.

Wooyoung had known he wouldn't get out of this alive. The moment San had died, all will to live had left him, too.

And Hongjoong couldn't help but notice how not only they might fail at a landing now since their most important crew members were gone, but there were also barely any people left but his family. Soon, one of them would also find their grisly end.

Or one of them was the killer.

Hongjoong didn't know which was worse.

Seonghwa and Hongjoong got dressed with dragging movements. They had no affectionate words to wish each other a good morning left. No sweet kisses to share. They only had the cold and icy dread.

As soon as both of them were dressed, they trudged along. No interest to wash their faces or brush their teeth. The door in front of them opened automatically to reveal gaping, empty hallways.

They didn't hear Wooyoung anymore. Not laughing, not screaming. It was dead silent.

Half of the crew was dead.

Hongjoong trudged down the corridor to the lower area. As they took the elevator together, Seonghwa leaned his head against the wall to send his prayers to whatever entity may listen.

Hongjoong doubted there was one. If any entity watched about them, it fed off their anguish.

Yunho and Jongho lingered near the entrance area to the cells. Both were pale and their shoulders dragged the weight of their bodies down. None of them lit up when the other two approached. Dead, forlorn eyes met each other.

"We didn't touch him," was all that Yunho said as he led them inside.

The sight of Wooyoung was gruesome. Worse than any they had seen so far.

The first thing that Hongjoong took notice of was the man's head. It wasn't connected to his body anymore. It laid on its side, turned towards them with his eyes wide open in horror and pain. The bloody stump just below his jaw coloured the pink goo around, making his skin sticky red.

His body rested on the other end of the cell. Lifeless and covered in eggs and slick, it showed no signs of a struggle. His hand with the ring on it had finally relaxed next to him.

Hongjoong's stomach had nothing to lurch over as he regarded the tiny bumps of the eggs under Wooyoung's skin. Tired, he rested his face against the bars of the stained cell and stared at the body. The pool of embryo substance centred around Wooyoung's crotch. Once more, the alien had relished in its fun. Hongjoong prayed it had allowed Wooyoung a fast death before that.

"What do we have?" Hongjoong whispered roughly. His voice failed him, just like his every other bodily function. Heartbroken, he stared at the man that had fought so hard, lived so hard, and died just as hard.

Seonghwa had to pull him away ultimately. They went back out into the corridor, and Hongjoong looked at nobody of his three remaining friends. His eyes lifelessly stared at a point on the wall.

He wanted this to end, didn't want to wait for death or to remain last with the alien. For the first time in his life, Hongjoong considered going up to San's medicine closet and taking something, anything, that would put him to eternal sleep. If only he didn't cling to the tiny hope that they would make it out alive. If only he didn't desire so desperately that he could save anyone with his piloting skills when they finally arrived.

"I presume that once more, we'll run into a wall questioning alibis," Yunho sighed. "But I have this."

Hongjoong tried to focus, tried to see what the man was showing them, but he only saw the tablet screen.

"What? Did you find something out?" Seonghwa's wrecked voice urged for good news.

"No, but... The cell has a camera inside. We have footage of what happened." The words left Yunho only hesitantly. Most likely, he had already examined it but wanted to control with the rest first if they wanted to investigate it. When no reaction but mute sorrow came, he reached out to play the video.

The hologram that zapped up between them to construct the scene in 3D tightened Hongjoong's guts. Their angle was in a corner of the room as the camera constructed the scene of Wooyoung still resting on his bed and glaring at the wall sharply. Still fine, still alive where they had left him. From time to time, he peered at or played with his ring.

Painfully long, the tranquil minutes stretched. When Wooyoung turned his head to look at the cell bars, all of them held their breaths.

A wry smirk played around Wooyoung's lips as he sat up.

"So it was you all along. Consider me impressed for getting away with it," Wooyoung offered bitterly.

The other person didn't reply, but something changed out of the camera's view. Wooyoung's eyes widened.

"Let's strike a deal. You'll make this quick and in exchange, I won't scream your name through the entire ship. You know I would be able to." Another Wooyoung smirk. Hongjoong swallowed his dishonour. His eyes burned.

"I won't stop you. I have nothing left here to do. But I want them to suffer. For what they did to me, and to San. And I pray they find you out, so you suffer, too."

The alien must have concurred in some way. The next thing they saw was how tentacles slithered through the gaps between the cell bars. Slender and not like those of an octopus at all. They were much longer and didn't change their girth between the tip and outside the screen where they connected to a body. So much more than eight, too.

Before they could reach the bed and the place where Wooyoung cowered in fear, Hongjoong pushed the tablet away.

"I can't watch this."

Helplessly, Yunho glanced at him to study his expression.

"It's not like we could see the predator, but... I thought maybe we find a weakness? I know it's cruel... I can also look into it later alone. Sorry." Yunho put the tablet away shamefully. None of them would stomach watching Wooyoung's last scenes. Being responsible for his death was the worst sentence they could get already.

"Why did it leave the camera? Why, when it positioned itself so very aware of it? Knowing we would find it and watch? How is it so... wicked?" Seonghwa's voice was no more than a mortified squeak. None of them had an answer to that. The moral compass of that alien didn't match that of the human it posed as.

Hongjoong sat on the ground to collect his thoughts. Ever so steady and unbothered by what was going on inside, the Elysium safely carried them to their goal. So close to the machine room, Hongjoong felt her humming under his body.

"The door logs. Did you check them?"

"Not yet." Yunho crouched down next to Hongjoong, still towering over him with how tall he was. When his trembling fingers fumbled with the tablet, unable to hit any buttons right, Seonghwa took it from him. They sat down in a circle, and Seonghwa breathed deeply for a few moments to calm his hands. When they flew over the screen nimbly, their expertise with communication devices shone through.

He opened the application for all of them to see. It ran the timeframe of their sleeping hours by itself, showing a plan of their cabins and any status changes. When one orange light flashed to green and back to orange, nobody commented. They watched until the end, but nothing else happened. Then, with careful fingers, Seonghwa returned to the second the door opened.

"The only one who left his room in that time... Was Jongho."

All of them stared at him. Jongho visibly paled. His eyes flickered between the screen and their eyes as if waiting for either to glitch and reveal more pleasant information. When neither changed, he quickly dug for his own tablet.

"Oh, no, no. I balanced our oxygen supply. You know that after every four hours, we need to replenish it. I'm always out at night." For proof, he showed them the oxygen logs. The update before this morning showed work on it at three in the night.

Yunho reviewed the time the alien had appeared in Wooyoung's cell.

3:27 AM.

None of them commented. All of their expressions remained empty. Hongjoong tried hard to keep his heart from any reaction. He walked a thin thread of absolute detachment and insanity.

"That's... exactly the time frame of the murder," Yunho pointed out carefully. Jongho shook his head again.

"No, it gives me an alibi! At that time, I was at the filters!"

"Jongho, you were the only one outside and the filters don't take long," Hongjoong breathed, barely audible. He denied it. Denied the truth.

"No, but I..." Overwhelmed by the accusations, Jongho sat between them. Looking so young, so innocent.

"I would know that, wouldn't I? I would know if I..."

"Not if you don't know you have it inside of you," Seonghwa helped out. His voice carried pity with the man's terrified eyes. Yet nobody dared to reach out and pat Jongho's back.

It made too much sense. The cruelty on Wooyoung's body, too.

Hongjoong took a shuddering breath. After all, it had come down to this.

"But what if the person never went to their room in the first place? What if they locked the door from outside and stayed far from their room that night and hid to kill?"

It all pointed at him. His fights with Wooyoung, his suspicious silence and avoidance of questions before, his scepticism at the idea of building a camp.

Hongjoong didn't want it to be true. He didn't want it to be Jongho. Not his sweet baby brother, who he had known for years.

After he had come from Mars and an unknown origin family, as Wooyoung would point out.

Hongjoong breathed deeply again to continue his dangerous trail on the thin rope beneath his feet.

"Then it could still be Yunho. Hongjoong and I were together and our door didn't change." Seonghwa sounded how Hongjoong's thoughts felt. Full of denial. Full of disbelief. They had known Jongho for so long, had adored him so much.

He had never told them.

"Please! This is a mistake. Believe me, it can't be me! Hongjoong, you know this!" Helpless, Jongho looked with his cute, round eyes between Hongjoong and Seonghwa.

Hongjoong directed his gaze at Yunho.

"You call the shots. I don't trust myself with the right decision right now."

Yunho looked at Jongho's begging eyes. Then at the tablet in his lap. When he rose his large hand to ruffle Jongho's hair, Jongho froze, insecure.

"I also want to believe you," Yunho mumbled with a gentle smile. "I don't want to suspect any of you. Whether or not you are the alien, consciously or not. I see all of you as my friends. I'm positive we can resolve even the alien's troubles if we reach the Ginda 66VL on time and find the right breeding circumstances for it. I want to believe in that."

Despite his optimistic words, even Yunho's eyes had lost their shine. He could only console himself and them with his comments, but he didn't believe their worth.

"Let's set up a camp on the bridge and watch each other. It's only a few more days. We can get through this together. And put on the spot, I trust the alien not to lash out and keep its anonymity if it wants to leave in peace."

They were foolish hopes, but all they had. The risk of locking up any of them for it to turn out another was too big.

It was the last chance they could give. The last project together.

If it failed, their own stupidity would doom them.