Skittering

Welcome to Wednesday’s flash fiction wherein I write, as part of a group, a flash fiction based on a prompt. Enjoy the story!

“Kev?” Static buzzed from the speaker in response. “Kev?” I tried again swallowing the lump in my throat. Static again. They had him. I glanced around the room desperate. Nothing was here that could help though. Only if Kev had reached his position. But he hadn’t.

My ears twitched to tiny clacks skittering over the station’s metal decks in my imagination. If only the problem was imagined too.

The Skittering, I thought bitterly. We shouldn’t have drug the survey vessel in when it’d drifted near, powered down and abandoned. They’d had a crew of hundreds. Eos Terminal, a crew of twenty on a good day.

Today wasn’t a good day.

Kev had figured it out first and the Commander had ignored him. I could still hear his screams in my mind. At least Kev’s wouldn’t join his.

My head snapped to the left, and I backed away from the door. Retreat was cut off. If there’d been anywhere to go. Silver specks of metal slid under door’s seal. A trickle at first. Tiny objects just skittering over the ground. But the grew into a flood.

Glinting and spilling over each they grew until it was a seething mass. The attack came from the top of the pile. I swatted at them, but it was like trying to hit gnats. I screamed as the first burrowed into my skin. More followed.

Vision blurring, lines of information flooded my vision before they took me. Huh was my last thought.

Don’t forget to read the other’s takes on the prompt. More stories go up throughout the day. Be sure to check our page on Facebook for updates as everything becomes available: Wednesday Words.