A surprise awaits Arden and he finally finds the crew.
- 📖 The remains, if you could call them that, of several rows of bunk beds waited for Arden in the next room. They all had been overgrown by the plant and, as he saw previous times, in it people entangled in them, probably surprised in their sleep. But what he saw at the end of this room, surprised him more.
- 📖 Shards of glass on the floor suggested a glas enclosure once stood upon the small piece of furniture. It had been shattered by the plant growing from it. Maybe brought back as a souvenir, it turned out more that they could handle.
- 📖 The organism was more complicated than Arden thought. It must have looked inconspicuous, maybe even beautiful so that it got picked up and transported here. There it waited until the time was right to spread, using the dead bodies as energy source to grow even more and spread via the ventilation system in the whole ship.
- 📖 Arden followed a side door to a hallway to another closed door. The plants had completely envelopped this one. If he could hear, he would have heard a slight creak as the plants were continuosly pushing against it. According to his scan, the remaining life signs were behind that door, a fact the plants seemed to know instinctively.
- 📖 Arden transmitted a message directly on all channels. He was close so the signals should be able to penetrate the door.
"Are you in there? Can you hear me?"
There was no response.
"I want to help, but you have to tell me what is going on. Silence will not help you."
After a few seconds the response came. - 📖 An so Arden listened to their story.
- 🐦 New Sector!
