Welcome to the 2025 + 2026 Vampentine's Month mashup! Since I fell off the earth during @syrips's challenge last year, I've decided to combine the two lists and see what happens.✨
While 2024 was all about Alek, Strahd, and cursed Barovia, this year I'm going off the rails and attempting some more or less original drabble (though there might still be some Stralek that crops up from time to time, because I love them dearly).
As per the first time I did this, my goal is to write approximately 500 words each day.
Since I got a head start on this one, though, enjoy roughly... three times that. :3c Oh yeah, we're cookin'.
Day 1 = Intruder + inevitable fate
"It's Mosley," said Jana, glancing over her shoulder at the stalwart steel door. She half expected it to slide open at the mention of the lieutenant's name, the piston-whisper of its automatic glide giving way to his silhouette in the hall. The captain followed her gaze without comment. No such thing occurred; the door remained firmly shut. Jana tugged at the standing collar of her jacket, a plain wool layer issued in "ultra-massive" to match her standard uniform, and drew it closer around her neck. Finally, she settled back into her chair.
With a gentle nod, the captain invited her to continue.
"I just can't take it anymore. It gives me chills."
"Has Mosley done anything to indicate that he might be a threat to you or any of your crewmates?"
"I don't like the way he looks at me. His eyes, they're—"
"They are unusual," the captain interjected. This complaint was not. "We are a diverse crew. There are many who—"
"They are uncanny," Jana insisted.
"They rather match the uniform, don't they?"
"Captain! Please."
The captain held up a placating hand. "I apologize. But, if this is about Mosley's appearance, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. His duty is to protect our crew, and he has done a commendable job thus far. If you have an incident to report—"
"Captain, you know what he drinks!" Jana hissed. "Is that not incident enough?"
"What he consumes comes from the same stock of raw elements used to generate your morning coffee. Think carefully, Jana. Are you here to report Mosley for harassment, or yourself for prejudice?"
Jana stood, clutching the front of her jacket more fiercely. She hesitated. Leaned somewhat over the desk. "Something isn't right," she implored quietly. "Maybe it isn't Mosley's doing, but I fear something will happen, and it will involve him. I feel that I am in danger from it. I can't explain why, Captain. I have no evidence. I only know the feeling has gotten worse as time passes."
The captain's brow hardened as she spoke. "Thank you for your honesty. Jana... Does your family have any history of clairvoyance?"
Jana shook her head. "Not that I'm aware. But if it will ensure our safety, you may take my heritage as evidence enough to believe in the possibility." Her file, on review, would list her birthplace as a set of coordinates on Earth's northeastern quadrant, within the Carpathian basin.
. . . . .
Lieutenant Mosley rather enjoyed the dark vacuum of space. Leaving his home solar system had been a terrifying endeavor, locked inside his quarters to phase in and out of consciousness sickeningly fast as his accursed body attempted to acclimate to the gravitational orientations and sun-shadows of new moons and planets whizzing by outside the U.S.S. Demeter's hull. Others before him had made the journey and survived, he knew, but as his head pounded and stomach roiled in the midst of fluttering blackouts, he wondered how they managed. Once they'd sped beyond the reach of Sol, he was not only bone-sick but brutally hungry.
In the months since, though, Mosley found himself in a pleasantly constant state of health and wakefulness—apart from one mishap when he had not been alerted to the ship's proximity to another yellow dwarf and he passed out cold on the hallway floor between stations. A yeoman had found him lying there and, thinking him human, presumed him dead. Thankfully, the ship's doctor managed to "resuscitate" him, and he was granted a detailed schedule of the voyage's intended course.
A lightly freckled hand reached for a fresh cup generated in the mess hall. Those generators sure worked wonders. Granted, it wasn't quite the same experience as the real deal, but the taste was right, it filled the void, and that perfect kiss of artificial warmth was scientific genius.
"INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT."
The crewman next to him jumped at the sudden alarm blaring through the comms, elbowing Mosley in the arm. The thick contents of his cup splashed onto the floor in sharp directional splatters. Lights in the corners of the room splashed red onto everything else.
"Fuck, Mosley, I'm sorry," the crewman cursed, shaking drips of scalding soup-broth from his own hands.
"INTRUDER ALERT."
"What the hell got in? It's open space!"
Mosley downed what remained in his cup with a swift gulp. "I had better find out."
. . . . .
The length of a terran day passed with tense and systematic searching. The alert dropped from red to yellow, casting the crew into an uneasy state of standby. Operations proceeded as usual, except for the increase of security patrols, still searching. Mosley never sat down. His legs carried him through corridor after corridor, deck upon deck. An engineering crew analyzing the ship's hull gave reports at regular intervals. Scientists conducted diagnostic tests on the transporters and environmental scanners. Jana ran a ragged bit of static through every protocol she could think of.
"Could it have been a false alarm?" the captain finally confided, when Mosley stepped onto the bridge again.
Behind them, Jana shrieked. She shot out of her chair, clawing her earpiece free. It hit the floor. Skittered against the low-pile carpet with muted plips.
Darkness.
The lights went out. The Demeter fell out of warp speed with a gut-wrenching lurch. Mosley staggered toward Jana, catching her and dragging her to the floor before she could be tossed halfway across the bridge. Jana clung to him, thankful just to have something solid to hold onto. As the ship steadied into an idle drift, though, she realized that the body shielding her was cold. No breath, no heartbeat.
The dim glow of exit runners flickered on, illuminating a path along the floor. They cast the same scarlet hue as the uniforms they both wore. It was the same visceral color reflected by Mosley's eyes.
With a strangled cry, Jana scrambled out of the lieutenant's grasp.
"Is everyone alright? Report," the captain called from his chair. A collective of groans and acknowledgements rose up around the bridge.
"What was that?" Mosley wondered, picking up Jana's discarded earpiece. He brought it close to his own ear.
Jana grasped his wrist. "Don't," she warned, hushed. Mosley handed it back to her. Jana clutched it in her palm.
"What did you hear?"
Jana felt a cold calm drape over her like snowfall. Her limbs were simultaneously heavy and weightless. "Death," she answered. She had felt it coming. How long, she couldn't pinpoint. From the moment she came aboard. Maybe longer. Everyone knew there were risks inherent in space travel. Until the unease began to concentrate around Mosley, she had dismissed the feeling as usual for any new mission into the unknown. "What are you going to do?" she asked him.
"Whatever I can."
. . . . .
The engineers worked diligently to root out what had happened, be it alien, spirit, or some critical mechanical failure, but they were quickly running dry of ideas. As long hours encroached on the equivalent of days, it became clear that they would need to turn their efforts toward stretching the ship's energy reserves as far as they could muster, juggling food generators, life support systems, and communication signals with greater care. Jana sent out repeated calls for aid through the abyss, with no reply.
The captain, his chief officers, and a small contingent of specialists gathered together in what could, under the worst circumstances, be called a war room.
All eyes were on Lieutenant Mosley.
"It... might be possible. My condition is transferrable through the exchange of blood. I'm not sure how many I could manage. There are other obstacles that fledgelings face in their first nights. I don't know how our remote location will affect the change. A stunt like this could make our situation worse."
"There's one way to find out." Even considering the outcome of such a death, the murder of a crew member at the hands of another was a criminal offense without proper cause or licensure. But the captain could sanction such a deed if necessary.
For once, Mosley looked as nervous as Jana. It shocked Jana herself enough that she interjected, with more authority than she felt, "Then I'll be the first. If something more goes wrong, it will be easy enough for someone else to cover my station." She had grown tired of dispatching cries for help. Restlessly, she grasped for some greater agency.
If it worked, essential crew members would require less life support to operate. The rest of the ship's population could be sedated to a deathlike state, the closest they could come to stasis. The skeleton crew, as it were, would be able to ration themselves on the blood of the living. It would increase their chances of rescue exponentially. The death and subsequent transformation of a few could buy the entire crew more time.
. . . . .
"I don't want to die," Jana murmured. Her earlier determination was besieged by second thoughts.
"I know. Neither did I, when it happened. But death is our inevitable fate. We can let it subdue us, or we can walk alongside it, not as its arbiters, but as ambassadors, through time... and space. Will you carry on this mission with me, Jana? Will you continue to speak for the living and the dead?"
Jana's lip quivered, but she nodded, taking Mosley's hand. "I'll do what I can. Will it hurt?"
Mosley shook his head gently. "Not for long." He pulled Jana closer and pressed her hand against her chest. "Here. Take a deep breath..." He paused for the familiar rise and fall his own lungs no longer demanded. "Another..." Patiently, slowing the relativity of time in their small pocket of the universe. "Count the measures of your heart. Listen to its song... You'll hear its variations in so many others. Remember this."
He waited until Jana's breath steadied. Her pulse quieted. Unbidden, the arc of the mountains in her homeland appeared in her mind. They seemed so tall once. A billion billion suns sparkled beyond them, even in the dark of night. She had come so close to many of them. A serene but mournful smile faintly graced her lips.
