Metroid Interface Ch. 4

Metroid Interface Ch. 4

4. Carnage

There was a large crack in the glass. Maroon liquid escaped from this flaw, ran down the side, and pooled onto the metal grip connected to the floor. Bubbles jumped up from the untouched figure in the fluid, then suddenly as if in one last cry of agony, the glass gave way, and a tsunami of colored water splashed to the floor in a flood. The outline tumbled out with it, many of the cords and tubes embedded in him ripped from his tender, preserved body. It was still a moment.

All was quiet on the Pirate’s demolished cargo ship. Striker lifted his pupil-less eyes and looked around, thoroughly confused and in pain. As he slapped his long clawed hand, strangely more developed and muscular on the wet floor, he tried to lift his upper body, the muscles in his arm floppy and underused. This caused him to fall back to the floor with heavy, noised breaths and clicks. Slowly he began to sense his form as it regained feeling and experienced the muscles twitch in sudden acknowledgement. Striker was able to stand. He stood up with a wobbled movement, feeling his back being jerked back as a tube still stuck in his shoulder. Ripping this out, the pirate took a look at his surroundings, feeling the deep hole in his flesh as he moved his arm.

Everything was destroyed. As the leader scanned with his newfound sight, he saw the destruction, the cracked computers except one, wires and tubes hanging from the ceiling, and tiles scattered on the floor. As Striker’s gaze fell on the many transporters and devices in front of his recently acquired home, he saw the remains of a fellow pirate. He made his way to the body, crouching down to better see the damage. The pirate, having been the scientist he talked to before their escape into space, had been sucked dry of fluids. His organs were gone, and as Striker’s gaze travelled from the head down, he saw that there was no bottom torso. He was only half. Standing up, Striker growled. Turning to the lone computer in the room, the screen of the machine still functional, Striker accessed the last logs stored within.

Log 9.4

FAILURE! Emergency evacuation! Projects and subjects will be abandoned. The Hunter will pay, stranding us on this land with no way to contact the Mother Ship. Local life forms have been detected, perfect feasts for the Projects…

Log 10.8

Subject 56 appears to be untouched. Fusion with Metroid and Pirate DNA almost complete…we will live on…contact with the Mother Ship has been established, yet they do nothing. It has been said that Ridley is complete and on the move for total invasion…

Log 11.2

Projects have escaped!

It was then, as the pirate read, he heard a noise, and jumping, his yellow orbs fell on another male as he dropped to the floor, just around the corner of the room. The other’s eyes stared at Striker, who could hear the monster’s breathing as he convulsed on the ground, half of his body out of sight from the area. Striker took paced steps, unsure of what to think. Standing over the dying pirate, he watched him.
Strangely, he looked down and felt something open up in his stomach, large snapping teeth and a piercing scream emitting from inside him. Striker felt numb and unable to move. He saw as his stomach, void of any organs except one, opened up to reveal a large Metroid.
It wasn’t a normal Metroid, not like the ones that Striker had encountered on SR-388 or even Zebes, before their demolition. No. He didn’t realize it until the monster came out of him, but he saw that a strange leash attached, or fused to its head, the leash that he recognized as his own intestine, because the monster was tugging from inside of him, connected to his being.
Gigantic fangs opened up from the monster, much like the large bone that extended from his arm. These smaller scythes latched down on the dying outline, the membrane inside its transparent head glowing with activity. The other pirate, too weak to even produce a scream, took one last look to Striker before his body turned to mush. The Metroid, done with its meager feast, rose up and turned to him, watching him with eyeless wonder. Striker, still unable to move, could only stare back and listen as the Metroid used his own voice to speak.
Hungry, feed me.
Then, the monster quivered and dove back into his stomach, where his tissue miraculously regenerated and protected the parasite. Striker gasped as he felt a newfound energy course through him, feeling his whole body grow warm. He felt a slight tinge in his muscles and suddenly felt the strength in them develop. The hole in his shoulder disappeared as Striker lifted his hand to feel the flesh rejoin. Standing there a minute, he took time to study his stomach. It seemed normal enough, but Striker shook as he knew what lay within.

The pirate stepped over the dead carcasses of his kind, growing more and more puzzled when he finally found his way out of the ship. The scene outside wasn’t any more appealing. Death had waved his hand over the desert lands, his fellow pirates lying in blobs of organs and blood, covered, even buried in the sand. Some were ripped apart, their limbs thrown about like ribbons. Striker’s feet touched the sands and he looked about, feeling deep rage in his chest. He felt the alien inside him tremble. The crisp, hot winds of the sandstorm ran across his body, pelting him with the small specs of dirt. The pirate clicked in response. He felt as his feet and legs were quickly immersed, and moving to keep from being buried, Striker made his resolution. Making his way slowly away from the destruction, the pirate set off to find his captain.

Cedric sat at the base of the headstone, staring down at his pale hands with complete monotone. He played with the black band on his wrist in boredom, snapping it against his skin.

Being a grave keeper wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. After the death of the last keeper Dampe, Cedric, always fascinated with ghosts and the dead, decided to take on the job. He looked up to stare at the largest tombstone in the darken yard. As a child, he spent so much time in this cemetery he knew each grave by heart. The composer brothers’ grave was his favorite. Once again, the young male thought back on the past.
As a child, the youthful man had found that spirits haunted this cemetery. But now, in this time of peace, all the ghosts had been put to rest – ever since the appearance of him. Everything had changed because of him. Even the disappearance of the Hyrule princess was because of him. Cedric exhaled and looked over to the lantern at his side. Its small flame lit up the small space he inhabited. Mother would worry. She didn’t like him out so late, even if he was only a few feet away. Standing up, the teen groaned.

Rumors had started; strange rumors all over Hyrule. In the sand lands of the Gerudo, it was said a bizarre machine had crashed and terrifying beasts had appeared, annihilating the thieves’ domain, a realm that had once belonged to Ganondorf.
If there had been so many untimely deaths, Cedric would have seen their ghosts. He believed that their spirits, having no cemetery of their own, would haunt that of Kakariko, and as they weren’t, he was blinded by his expectancies. Ever since those rumors, Cedric waited here in the night to catch a ghost, in hopes to sell it to the Potion’s witch in the village.
As Cedric stood up and turned to leave, the lamp in his hand, he heard a movement behind him. Twisting his neck to catch sight of the noise, his eyes wide with the thought of a ghost, he was only met with a large shadowy outline, crouched on the wooden gate that blocked off the Shadow Temple. It was quiet, just as he was, apparently watching him with blinking, glowing, red pools. Cedric, feeling his heart in his throat, attempted to turn around to get a better look at the creature, but was brought down as the figure leapt at him.

“Where is that boy?” muttered Yura to herself, wiping her forehead with her arm and glaring down at her bread dough. Unmistakable worry and annoyance graced her old, gray face, “he should be home by now.” Glancing to the entrance of the house, the large woman hurried and peeked out, spying Victor at his usual spot beneath that old tree. “Victor,” called the mother, “Victor, have you seen Cedric?” Victor, utterly ashen in the vanishing moonlight, aimlessly drooped his head in her direction, staring at her behind black, sunken, empty eyes.
“No.” he responded with a drone.
Yura, not particularly fond of Victor, tenderly shut the crack of her door, leaning on the wood with a frightened countenance. She didn’t understand what her son saw in the depressing man.

Victor had lost his sister tragically eight years ago after the time of the princess’s disappearance. Being terribly allergic to chickens, but, stupidly, a keeper of them out of fondness, the woman had had a rather bad attack and died. Of course, numerous times Victor had brought it to the villagers of her condition, the man being very different back in that day, full of life and feeling, but everyone refused to listen, saying that she would work or be kicked out. You have to have a purpose in Kakariko or be banished.
So now, the emotionless man sat beneath that tree which was a symbol of his lost family. Not only did his sister die, but his little brother, father and mother, all by illness. After his last sibling’s demise, the man found living nothing but sorrow. And so, at night he sat beneath that tree. The village didn’t bother with him and had discussed exile, but not wanting to bother the Town square of Hyrule with his presence; they had voted to keep him in the village and gave him the title of night watch. Yura’s son Cedric was his only contact.
The mother sighed as she rested her forehead against the door. The gray in her hair was evident in the light of her kitchen, and as she closed her eyes, the wrinkles in her expression were obvious. Cracking the wooden barrier again, the woman peered out. Perhaps Victor could find her son.
“Vic—
She stopped when she noticed the man wasn’t there. Her eyes squinted in attempts to see out into the night, but, being old and frail and not the pretty young woman she used to be, she poked her head out of her house to look out into the darkness. The moon was disappearing behind the over-towering walls around their small town. She glanced to the tree again, catching sight of a strange black trail. Following it with slow focus, she stepped out farther from her home. In the last year, after the death of Victor’s sister, Yura and her son had moved near the entrance of the village, right beside the old tree. No one but them dared to live in a house where someone had died.
So, as Yura’s head turned to follow the unusual trace, her eyes stopped on a large outline. Its back was to her, and as she put her hands to her face in terror, she took note of something next to the monster.
There was a black band on the wrist…
It was Cedric’s arm.
Yura noticed the blood and detachment of the arm, and let out a long, ear-shattering scream. The monster, jerking its ugly head at the sudden vibration of noise, turned its head to leer at her with crimson eyes, the flesh of Victor’s face in its mouth. The sunken eyes stared at Yura as she trembled in complete terror. Dropping the tissue in a mass of body parts, ripped flesh, and blood, the monster turned on the mother.

As her agony was heard, the villager’s houses lit up to meet their judgment.