Bright Eyes in the Dark

He felt something prodding his ribs. Then he felt cold. And pain. Lots of pain. The floor was cold. His face was on the floor. There was a sound, very weak, as if it came from far away. The pain was waning. The sound became clearer, it didn't seem so far anymore, it was a voice. "Are you alive? Are you ...are you one of them?" it asked.

He opened his eyes. Closed them again. They hurt. He tried to open them a few more times, until he managed to. He was in darkness. No, he was in dim light, his eyes were getting used to the light. There was another man near him, wearing shirt made of cheap pli-nex, coloured pink with some green flowers. The man was a rather ugly and old, and gazed at him with his very light blue eyes. The man was holding a gun. A 687-EC electrical current discharger. He was not sure how he knew that. Because he knew little more.

"Wh-what happened? Who're you? What happened to the lights? ...where are we?" the questions came, one after the other, slow at first. But increasingly faster. The other man shook his head, slowly. He sat on the ground, his face buried in his hands. After a moment of silence, he started talking.

"You too? It seems they got us all. Dammit, I thought that the security guards would be immune somehow. I haven't seen many of them...I thought they were fighting it! Dammit! You remember something? Anything? Where is the exit, maybe?" during his speech, the man's face went from hopelessness to anger, then to curiosity, and then to hope.

"I-I...I think remember my name, it's... Galgreen. And...and I know that this is a 687-EC electrical current discharger... Where are we?" Galgreen managed to get up and sat beside the old man. He noticed that he was wearing a brown jacket over a black T-shirt, 08 was written in white, big lettering on his jacket. And below it, it was written "Security".

The man offered his hand for Galgreen to shake, it was accepted eagerly, but its grip was a little stronger than Galgreen anticipated. The man breathed, and said "I am Julius. We are in some kind of secret military base orbiting a planet. Something happened, I'm not sure, I don't remember, but some aliens have entered the base, they cut off the power and made us forget somehow. They're hunting us. One by one and they...get inside! Quickly!" the last bit was said in a whisper, as Julius dragged Galgreen inside a nearby door that, Galgreen quickly realized, was the source of the dim light.

There was a window on the room's wall, and Julius was looking through it. Galgreen went there and tried to follow the old man's gaze. There was a cluster of small green globes, high above the floor. Very high. After several seconds, the...eyes went around another corner.

"These are one-way mirrors, they can't see us. Their eyes are the only thing I've ever managed to see, since it's pitch black out there. Only the rooms have some emergency power left. But Klauser told me he saw their bodies as they entered a room he tried to hide in. Big and deformed. Their arms were almost two meters in length with claws. They are huge, and Klauser told me the one she saw was covered in blood. We are lucky their eyes are so bright. It is the only way we know they are coming around the corner."