Among Us: One of Us Is Lying

By Emmanuel Carter

Run! Hide! Complete tasks! Survive!

A team of highly trained astronauts is sent on a space mission as part of a new large operation to explore and colonize the planets outside of the solar system. Join them as they arrive onto the main ship, called The Skeld which is in need of major repairs. To repair them is the first priority before carrying on with the mission. Everything is going well until the first of the bodies are discovered. It was one of the crewmates. And the deaths keep piling up, each corpse left in grizzly shape as if some monster is systematically eliminating every person on the ship. Who could be doing this and why? It's only a matter of time till everyone is dead. They need to figure this out. Fast.

Will the team stay together and make it out alive? Or will something break them first?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emmanuel Carter
• Release date: Jan 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005198961

Emmanuel Carter

Emmanuel Q. Carter was born in Long Beach, New York in 2004. He lived there for 8 years before moving to Singapore with his family. Emmanuel is a very active and energetic young man who enjoys doing an array of things which includes writing books.Emmanuel started writing at a young age and made his first little series at aged 7. Emmanuel was fascinated with drawing knights and made stories about their imaginative adventures. His first book was published on the iTunes store called 'The Ship' in 2012.Emmanuel loves to play basketball (and almost every other sport), is avid adventurer (been to more than 16 countries), from the jungles of Vietnam to the wastelands of the Hawaiian lava fields to the snowcapped mountains of Hokkaido, the Grand Canyon and the great wall of China.He is very involved in school activities and loves programming video games based on the games he plays, using C Sharp in the software Unity to balance out the play time.Emmanuel also owns a small YouTube Channel with his brother, making their childhood toys come to life with stop-motion animations @Emluke.

Book preview

One of Us is Lying

Emmanuel Q. Carter

Published by Emmanuel Q. Carter

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2023 Emmanuel Q. Carter

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. I appreciate your support.

One of Us is Lying

COPYRIGHT @2023 INNERSLOTH LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: Dropship

Chapter 2: The Skeld

Chapter 3: Comms

Chapter 4: Weapons

Chapter 5: Reactor

Chapter 6: Lights

Chapter 7: Shields

Chapter 8: Convicted

Chapter 9: Navigation

Chapter 10: Companion

Chapter 11: Discovered

Chapter 12: Paradise

Acknowledgments

Other Titles by Emmanuel Carter

About Author

Prologue

He ran without looking back. He had to be next. They were coming for him.

Breath heavy, dizzy with fear, the ship’s hallways a blur. He needed to escape, needed to hide, needed to find help. Turning into a new section, he slowed to rest. Relief flooded him. There’s another astronaut in the room, his mind told him. With trembling legs and his heart pounding in his ears, he moved out of sight from the entrance. They can’t kill him with a witness. Can they?

He prayed this was true as he recovered. Slowly, his eyesight regained clarity. He thought he was safe.

That was when it stepped into the room. A knife held tightly in its hand.

Chapter 1: Dropship

Consciousness faded in and out. First darkness, then light—a repeating pattern in time with the heart's rhythmic beating.

Captain Paul Anderson’s physical form materialized in a flash of white. It felt as if he had just been wrenched out of a great chasm that had been pulling him back with unimaginable force. His body had been stretched, torn apart into a million pieces. Somehow, though, he had remained all together. A breath lingered in the air. Paul reached out to catch it as blood began to flow to his brain again, his heart finding its rhythm.

Paul's eyes adjusted as he familiarized himself with the new atmosphere. His training kicked in immediately and made for a smooth transition, allowing him to compose himself quickly. His mind void of thoughts, Paul’s first instinct was to move. Hopping off the seat he had appeared on, his balance unsteady as his muscles strained, Paul instantly felt the weight of a load he was carrying and looked down at himself. A tight yet flexible fabric wrapped around him, and he realized he was attired in a one-piece violet suit. Beneath the strange material, Paul’s skin tingled. The load was a large bag strapped to the suit. Paul peered through the fiberglass visor that shielded his face like a fish in a bowl and squinted to clear his vision as he panted, feeling the oxygen rushing in and out of his lungs. The transition between atmospheres was almost always the hardest part.

The soft humming of a ship’s engines and heavy thumping footsteps combined into a cacophony of muffled sounds. For a second, Paul questioned what he was doing there, his memory a droning static like he had just woken up from a coma that lasted a millennium. Brain fog, he thought and gave his head a shake. He felt a twinge of frustration and racked his recuperating brain for answers. Where am I? Why am I here? His eyes focused on the metal floor beneath his booted feet. Its grooved and lined surface seemed familiar to Paul, a distant image buried deep in his head. As he stared, his head erupted with vivid memories as if he had been enlightened.

Paul now remembered that he was on a mission. A team of skilled engineers like himself was tasked with maintenance on the main ship, often called The Skeld, which required urgent repairs due to the length of time it had been in active service. He was currently in the Dropship which was supposed to transfer them to The Skeld. Once that was completed, The Skeld would land on a recently discovered planet, Polus, and establish a base before resuming exploration. This mission was one of many others with different arrival destinations on Polus’ surface.

Paul’s head throbbed with a dull pain after teleporting from the Airship on Earth to the Dropship as he recollected his thoughts. It was only his third time teleporting, the new way of travel as human technology advanced. He almost felt proud being a human, knowing how far man had come. This mission was a way to show his gratitude for the pioneers who came before him and prove his capability and expertise to HQ. Paul was determined to impress whoever was monitoring the progress of the coming tasks, his passion for space exploration burning inside his chest like a blazing flame.

Teleporting was still experimental and had its flaws. It was limited to short distances of several thousand miles, not to mention the side effects, but it got the job done and wasted no time traveling from place to place. Although it was efficient, the thought of existing only as scattered atoms moving near the speed of light would make anyone uneasy, Paul included. He remembered for a moment the feeling of trepidation mixed with the sheer wonder of the achievement when he had taken that inaugural trip sometime before.

Paul concentrated and took a deep breath, settling into the environment. His eyes fully adjusted from the eternal darkness to the harsh glare of the lights on the ship. He quickly realized he was not alone. Many other brightly colored figures moved about the one room. They wore the same suit as Paul and had the same clunky physical appearance. While they were all wearing similarly shaped space suits, they were of different tints and shades: Cyan, Pink, Black, and White. A plethora of colors which Paul thought was an excellent way to distinguish between each of the astronauts.

Some jogged around the room, most likely keeping fit to be better prepared for the arduous job ahead. Others crowded around the computer, choosing the optimal outfit to meet their needs when carrying out their jobs. The laptop was a fascinating piece of technology. Once a particular selection of apparel or equipment is selected, it teleports the accessory to the user. A greenish light glowed from the screen, casting a glaring reflection onto the visors of each bulky suit. They were transfixed on the computer as they navigated through the options. Paul knew what they were seeing, having done the same task on previous missions.

He counted eight of them. My team, he thought—my crew mates for the duration.

Something picked at the back of these thoughts. There was a problem here.

There were only nine team members, including himself, and if he remembered correctly from the briefing, they were given that there was supposed to be a tenth crewmate. Of course, they could still carry out the mission, but the more, the merrier. As if the Universe was reading his thoughts, a flash of white shaped like an astronaut scintillated across from Paul. Fully formed, this crewmate was dressed in a lime green suit and had a tall, solid build but was otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of them. Like when Paul had first teleported, the newly formed crewmate jumped off the chair instinctively. The new arrival paused for a moment, possibly tranced by the side effects, before appearing to recover fully from the teleport. Dismissing the late arrival, Paul continued his detailed analysis of his surroundings.

Fitted with a specialized computer, precariously placed on top of a greenish box, the Dropship also had two storage containers on either side. Along with these were two long rows of teleportation seats. Paul stood beside one row. Glancing to the left, he noticed that between the seats