Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1696 Fear from the Universe

He slumped his head, his heavy brain feeling like a lead weight dangling precariously from his body. Dr. Will didn't know what he was thinking. He realized he wasn't thinking at all; his former wisdom and rationality had been squeezed out of his cerebral cortex. Every step he took was cautious, as if there was a thick, wet, soft layer between his shoes and the deck, and even though his eyes and brain told him that layer didn't exist, he remained hopelessly immersed in this comfortable environment where he didn't need to think.

He stared at his palms, oblivious to the noise around him. His hands, once etched only with wrinkles from years of manual labor and soft calluses from holding a pen for hours, now looked white and swollen, as if soaked in liquid for too long, reeking of shower gel and blood.

"Doctor," Captain Miller raised his voice. He glanced at Dr. Will's raised hand, which bore only the bloodstains from when he helped transport Justin. Dr. Peters, Major DJ, and First Officer Stark all had Justin's blood on them. "You really didn't know?"

"I don't know." Dr. Will looked up as if waking from a dream. "You know Wendy Lawson? You never told me."

"Yes, I know Dr. Wendy Lawson. It was a tragedy." Captain Miller glanced at the physics PhD again, seemingly unwilling to bring up the accident in Project Pegasus again. He had signed a confidentiality agreement, vowing never to reveal the true cause of the accident—a requirement of S.H.I.E.L.D. "She's dead, and you're alive. Now you're the only person in the world who knows about this ship. This ship didn't go to Proxima Centauri b. Where did it go?"

"I told you, I don't know," Dr. Will suddenly became somewhat agitated. He tried to quicken his pace, as if that would shake off Captain Miller. "If I knew, I wouldn't have needed to come here, would I?"

Captain Miller stormed off, knowing he wouldn't get any answers from Dr. Will. A few minutes later, as he made his way back to the bridge through the deserted corridor, a sound caught his attention. It came from behind the thick bulkheads, weaving through pipes and cables. He squinted warily, peering towards the source of the sound.

"Captain! Don't leave me here!"

The voice was right in front of him, but then it appeared behind him, as if it came from around a corner at the end of another passage. Accompanied by the terrifying thunder of a violent storm erupting beneath the tracks, he vaguely heard the pained voice pleading. Miller whirled around, staring intently in the direction from which the other voice had come.

"For God's sake, save me!"

"It's just a hallucination, just a hallucination." He leaned against the bulkhead, hoping the cold steel would cool his mind again. Then he heard the sound of the ship warping and twisting due to the sudden depressurization, followed by a scream too loud for a human to make. The horrific sound slithered through the ship's interior like a cold, slippery snake—he could hear the voice describing in a panicked tone how flames slowly licked his eyes, liquid flames seeping into his mouth and lungs. Finally, the voice, tinged with a chuckle, writhed through the pipes with chilling fear—he shrank back from the bulkhead in terror, his eyes fixed on the source of the sound until it disappeared. When he reached the bridge, he found everyone else already there.

He decided to speak out what he had heard, openly and honestly, without any concealment.

“Someone was calling me. It was a young crew member named Eddie Corrick, who served with me on the Colossus. It was a top-secret project called Project Pegasus, known only to S.H.I.E.L.D., NASA, and the Pentagon. Then we encountered…” Captain Miller sat dejectedly in his seat. He didn’t want to relive that tragedy. “Then we had an accident…an alien ship came near Earth, and the Colossus was forced to take off…the aliens were eventually repelled, but it wasn’t a good thing. The Colossus was riddled with wreckage, oxygen tanks exploded, and the ship was on fire. I and three others escaped to the reentry capsule, but Corrick was too late. Have you ever seen flames in zero gravity?”

Captain Miller never forgot the image of that rainbow-like figure soaring through space and piercing the alien fleet.

DJ Major shrugged.

"The flames were beautiful, like mercury, flowing everywhere, crashing against the hull like waves, never ceasing," Captain Miller said to himself. "He screamed for help, and I did the only thing I could. I closed the hatch of the lifeboat and left him there. From that moment on, I swore I would never abandon anyone again."

"I've known you for a long time, Miller," Major DJ said. "You never told me."

“That’s the strange thing. I’ve never told anyone. But this ship knows. It knows my fears, my secrets. It’s showing them to me from inside my brain. It’s flaunting them, like a cat before it devours its prey.” Captain Miller’s gaze swept over Dr. Peters, who was working. Dr. Peters saw his child, and Dr. Will refused to admit he was hallucinating. “This ship knows the secrets we hide in our brains, DJ.” Captain Miller pressed the intercom button on the center console, accepting the call request. “Whatever it is, Cooper, I hope it’s good news.”

"Yes, sir, the Lewis and Clark can be pressurized now."

"I'm coming right now." Captain Miller immediately abandoned his earlier emotional outburst and regained the decisiveness befitting a captain. He nodded to Lieutenant DJ. "Prepare your spacesuits. If all goes well, we'll start the ship and have it take us back to Earth. As long as the pressurization experiment is successful, we'll all stay on the Lewis and Clark, including Justin. Peters, Stark, we need the ship's logbook."

"I need to go to the infirmary to get something," Major DJ said.

"We're still working on repairs." First Officer Stark handed Dr. Peters a small cup filled with ice-cold coffee. This was their best supply right now, and it came from the Lewis and Clark; without it, they couldn't have accomplished so much. "Almost done, Miller."

Although Lieutenant Cooper was excited, the pressurization test of the Lewis and Clark did not go smoothly. Wearing his spacesuit, Lieutenant Cooper helplessly watched as cold white air rose from beside the repaired skin. Hours of tireless work had not completely repaired the torn parts of the Lewis and Clark, but even so, the optimistic Lieutenant Cooper blinked and decided to continue working.

"Twenty minutes, sir," Lieutenant Cooper said over the comms. "It'll be fixed in twenty minutes."

"very good."

Captain Miller nodded and climbed back onto the connecting arm between the Lewis and Clark and the Event Horizon. At that moment, First Officer Stark and Dr. Peters cried out in alarm over the communications channel, frantically demanding that Captain Miller return to the bridge. "We've recovered a thirty-minute video," First Officer Stark stammered, "You absolutely must see it."

"calm."

"I can't calm down, Miller," Dr. Peters' voice was hoarse, as if her throat had been corroded by some acid. She couldn't control herself; anyone who watched that video would feel nauseous, the fear and nausea spreading to the depths of their souls made her tremble. Even now, she still felt a headache and dizziness, and First Officer Stark wasn't in much better shape, as if the stench of rotting flesh still lingered in their nostrils. "You have to see it."

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The frenzied crowd danced wildly, reveling in their ecstasy, letting out maniacal roars, and irrationally unleashing their ecstasy and violence. They were cheering for blood and pain, cheering for death.

Here, stars are merely cold, pale spheres of light. The sunlight that awakens civilization cannot illuminate this dark land. The brilliance of reason and civilization retreats in this place where humanity has never set foot. No campfire has ever been lit here. The malice that was once banished in the darkness has returned. All the wisdom and reason that humanity has built up over thousands of years, unprepared, has been swept away by the malevolent, invisible forces of deep space.

Perhaps they had resisted, but humanity's weak reason was utterly powerless against the incomprehensible forces deep in space. Like withered branches floating on water, the terror from antiquity instantly crushed their reason, urging them to join the torrent of violence and debauchery that humanity's limited reason could dictate.

The sticky, bloody flesh on the bridge walls told those who came after them their fate. First Officer Stark was still vomiting as she watched the video again with Captain Miller. The passionate crew members in the earlier footage displayed unbelievable, beast-like brutality here. Captain Miller didn't vomit; his face was grim, because the video reaffirmed his point. This ship carried endless malice; it would gnaw into people's minds, filling them with their fears and hopes.

"Change the mission. Everyone evacuate this ship immediately. We can't expect its autopilot to take us back." Captain Miller swallowed hard, looking at the blood and gore on the bridge bulkhead—likely something a crew member had chewed, digested, and then plastered onto the wall by others. After watching the video, every crew member on the Lewis and Clark instinctively moved away from the still-uncleaned debris. "Lieutenant Cooper, I need you to speed things up. Dr. Peters, I need you and Lieutenant Smith to carry as many carbon dioxide converters as possible; the Lewis and Clark needs enough oxygen. Stark…"

"I will get the Lewis and Clark ready for sailing." The first mate nodded.

"Take this hard drive with you. Earth needs to know what's going on here." Captain Miller gave the terrifying bridge one last look. From the bronze spikes of the hyperspace engine bay to the bulkheads on either side of the corridor resembling ancient Egyptian pharaohs' coffins, the ship made him feel increasingly nauseous. He turned and left the bridge. "Everyone, get off this ship. I don't want anyone left here."

"Captain, Captain." Dr. Will caught up with Captain Miller, seemingly because the other crew members weren't nearby. He said in a gentle tone, "Don't do that."

"It's all over," he said curtly as he strode toward the connecting bridge.

"What about this ship? Are you planning to abandon it?"

"I don't want to abandon it, Doctor. Once the Lewis and Clark are at a safe distance, I will launch missiles to destroy this damned ship."

Dr. Will grabbed Captain Miller by the collar, and the latter immediately threw a punch at him. Before the conflict could escalate, most of the lights inside the bridge went out one by one.

"Captain Miller, there's a problem with the bio-reading scan," First Officer Stark reported. "It looks like the hyperspace engines are absorbing all of the ship's power." After repeatedly confirming that the hyperspace engines couldn't be stopped, Captain Miller issued the order, "Download the files and evacuate immediately. I want to get out of this hellhole."

"You can't leave." Dr. Will, seemingly smiling from the shadows, said, "She won't let you leave."

"You must return to the Lewis and Clark immediately, or you'll have to walk home, Dr. Will."

"I'm already home." Dr. Will took a step back and disappeared into the darkness.

Meanwhile, pilot Smith and Dr. Peters had arrived at the compartment containing the hyperspace engine. The carbon dioxide converter was located in the corridor leading to the hyperspace engine, and they needed to find enough, not-yet-fully-used converter filters to replenish the Lewis and Clark.

"Bad, bad, still bad." Smith frowned, tossing the empty filter into the hyperspace engine's cooling pool. He looked terrified, especially by the presence of the hyperspace engine, which sent chills down his spine. Justin was in his current state because of that thing, and if it weren't for the mission, he would never want to go near it. "Peters, can we leave now? This place is too scary!"

"We'll need oxygen on the way home, won't we?" Dr. Peters bent down and pulled out more converter filters, tossing them to Lieutenant Smith. "Twenty-five. We need at least twenty-five filters."

"I don't need oxygen! Let's go!"

"We need twenty-five!"

"Hurry up!"

Under Lieutenant Smith's constant urging, Dr. Peters finally put on the still-usable filter.

She glanced one last time at the hyperspace engine, the massive, rusty bronze machine slowly rotating without a sound. But when she reached the interference-resistant corridor, which resembled a meat grinder, she involuntarily stopped. Fear, or perhaps instinct, urged Lieutenant Smith to run without looking back. When she came to her senses, Lieutenant Smith was gone, replaced by the slowly rotating hyperspace engine. A force deep within her compelled her to stop and look back, as if everything she had longed for was behind her. She did so, and then she saw a small figure run past the hyperspace engine, just as she had always hoped.

At that moment, the irresistible triumphed.

It was banned because it was too graphic; now only the all-ages version is available.

(End of this chapter)