Elohims wrath

The two men stood in silence, their breaths heavy, bodies aching from both the fight and the crushing weight of what had just transpired. Arne's face was streaked with dried tears, while Bjorn's jaw still throbbed from the blow. They exchanged a glance—there were no words left for what had happened between them. Slowly, they gathered themselves, piecing together their shattered composure like broken shards of glass.

Bjorn was the first to speak. "Let's get back. I'll think of what to say to Mikkel on the way."

Arne nodded wordlessly, his mind still stuck on the events of the past hour. His hands trembled as he grabbed Lars's equipment, slinging the dead man's belongings over his back with a stiff, mechanical motion. He tied the straps securely, all the while wrestling with the memories of Lars's final moments. His throat tightened, but he forced it down. There was no room for weakness now.1

Bjorn moved toward the tunnel, his face set with grim determination. He knelt and began crawling into the narrow, claustrophobic passage, gripping a small, flickering lamp between his teeth. The dim light cast eerie shadows across the metal walls, elongating every movement, every breath.

Arne followed closely behind, his own lamp in hand, not even acknowledging his deep-seated phobia of tight spaces. In the past, this crawl would have reduced him to a trembling mess—sweating, panicking, struggling for every breath. But now, after everything, the fear seemed trivial. He had to push through. There was no room for cowardice, no space for fear. The walls pressed in on him from every side, but he kept moving, focused on the faint glimmer of Bjorn's lamp ahead.1

Minutes dragged on like hours as they retraced their path, the tunnel narrowing in places until it felt like they were being swallowed whole by the very spaceship they were trying to escape. The air was thick and oppressive, their breaths shallow as they pressed forward.

Finally, they emerged at the entrance to the unexplored section of the spaceship. The door loomed before them like a gateway to another world, cold and foreboding. And waiting there, his figure still as stone, was Mikkel.

His face was grim, unreadable, and his eyes locked onto Bjorn's the moment he saw him. For a long second, no one moved, the tension thick between them. Then Mikkel broke the silence.

"Lars told you everything, didn't he?"

Bjorn's expression didn't change, but his heart beat faster. He stared back at Mikkel, the words coming out cold, almost devoid of emotion. "Yes. We know. And because of that, he's now dead."

The air in the room seemed to freeze. Arne stood a few steps behind Bjorn, his face pale but composed, his hands steady. His earlier panic, the raw emotional chaos, seemed to have dulled into something more controlled. Mikkel's eyes shifted to him, studying him for a long moment.

"You're holding yourself together surprisingly well, Arne," Mikkel said, his voice low, almost taunting. "I half-expected you to have jumped me by now."

Arne's jaw clenched, but he didn't respond. The rage that had once consumed him felt distant, hollow. "I won't kill anyone anymore," he muttered under his breath, as if convincing himself more than anyone else.

"That's good to hear," Mikkel said, his voice barely above a whisper. He took a step closer, his gaze piercing through Arne's facade. There was something dark in his eyes—something that knew far more than he was letting on.

The silence that followed was suffocating. Bjorn could feel the weight of everything pressing down on him, the gravity of what they'd done, and the knowledge they now shared. His mind raced, searching for something—anything—that could keep them from unraveling further.

"So... what now?" Bjorn asked, breaking the silence. His voice was low, uncertain. "We're both murderers. Maybe some are worse than others," he added, his tone bitter, his eyes flickering to Mikkel. "By that, I mean you're the worst."

But Mikkel didn't seem to hear the last part of Bjorn's words. Or if he did, he didn't react. The weight of the confession seemed to pass unnoticed between them, lost in the dark, heavy air of the room.

Bjorn pressed on. "We both have secrets, Mikkel. So why don't we keep them from the others? From the families? There's no need for anyone else to know about Lars, or what happened here."

Mikkel's face remained impassive. For a long moment, he didn't respond, the silence stretching thin, taut like a wire about to snap. Then, slowly, he nodded. His eyes, however, stayed locked on Bjorn, as if weighing the words, the meaning behind them.1

Mikkel broke eye contact, his expression cold and unreadable. "Okay, let's go back," he said flatly, as if the conversation was over, as if everything they had just confessed was nothing.

Bjorn and Arne stood in stunned silence. That's it? The weight of Mikkel's casual statement hung in the air, and it sent a shiver down their spines. He had been a hunter, just like them, a survivor in the harshest of circumstances. But in that moment, they wondered—was he truly skilled enough to take them on if it came to that? Would he hesitate, or was he already calculating his next move?

Mikkel turned back to them, his voice calm, steady. "You didn't find anything, did you? No food. No supplies." His words cut through the silence like a blade. "Lars may be dead, but I can tell you two, I'm not ready to go with him. And neither are the other families. Hop, hop—let's go."

Arne's face twisted, the tension that had been building inside him suddenly bursting forth. "We're not eating Lars, you psycho!" His voice was sharp, filled with disgust at the implication.

Mikkel's eyes narrowed, but his voice remained eerily composed. "Who said anything about getting his body?" he replied, his tone disturbingly casual. "We're going to the parts of the spaceship even Lars and I never explored.W"

Bjorn and Arne exchanged a look, both shaken by Mikkel's unnerving calmness. The weight of the murder, the secrets between them, and now this—Mikkel's strange detachment—it all felt too much. But they had no choice. They followed him, the silence between them heavy with unspoken thoughts.

As they walked, Mikkel continued speaking, as if the recent events had already faded from his mind. "This vessel is full of narrow tunnels, hidden passages. Some lead to the main bridge. That's the control center—where everything is managed."

Bjorn and Arne struggled to focus, their minds still reeling from everything that had happened. Mikkel's words felt distant, like they were filtering through a fog of confusion. But they tried to catch as much as they could.

"This spaceship was built by a civilization of humans long before us," Mikkel explained, his voice carrying through the narrow corridors. "Do you think there's a chance some of them are still out there, somewhere?"

Arne and Bjorn knew only the barest fragments of the old civilization—the scraps of knowledge they had gathered from Lars's and Mikkel's teachings, from the dusty books they had read in their youth. It was hard to imagine the people who had built such a colossal machine. The very idea of space, of the Altera being something that could leave the ground, was alien to them. But now, with everything they had learned, the thought flickered in their minds: Could there still be more out there?

Bjorn finally spoke, his voice laced with uncertainty. "So… you're saying there's a way to reach that civilization?"

"That's right," Mikkel said, his eyes gleaming with something almost like hope. "And with the equipment from Altera and the food we have in reserve, we might just be able to get to one of them."

This revelation hit Bjorn and Arne like a wave. The possibility—however slim—brought with it a spark of hope. But that hope was quickly tainted by a deeper, darker fear. What if they weren't alone? What if something else had survived out there, something much bigger than them? Something worse?

The thought gnawed at the edges of their minds as they trudged onward. They had faced death today—killed one of their own—but the idea of something greater, something unknown, stirred a primal fear inside them.1

As they reached the intersection that led back to the engine room, Mikkel paused, studying the narrow, dimly lit paths that stretched before them.

"We could try searching for another way," he suggested, his voice distant as his eyes scanned the space. "The engine room's seen too much death already."

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