“Oh heck… I really don’t feel well…”
Teekay clutched his head in one hand and his stomach in the other as Relkir tried to gently sit him down on the bed. Most of the medical bay had been unused so far, so Relkir wasn’t quite sure where everything was located.
“How so?” Relkir asked, somewhat unhelpfully. “Do you need some water? Painkillers? What?”
“I… I don’t know…” Teekay seemed genuinely ill and disorientated. What seemed to have been an almost non-event was really causing him grief. With a frown, Relkir gently pushed Teekay back, making sure he was lying down. But Teekay immediately sat up again.
“Describe how you are feeling.”
“Headache. Nausea. Dizziness. That sound is still ringing around my skull…”
“The loud screech?”
“Yeah.”
Relkir grunted, not really sure what to do, apart from turning on the automatic scanners. The little, clicking machines would at least tell Relkir what he needed to do. Seven little scanners floated into the air and surrounded Teekay, humming somewhat ominously, before spewing beams of light over the patient.
As Teekay was being scanned though, it became more and more clear that something was wrong.
“Can you give me a bucket please?”
“Uh… Why?”
“Just… ugh…”
Relkir blinked, then did as he was told, rummaging around for the first bucket-like item he could find, then thrusting it into Teekay’s arms. Teekay coughed several times, then wretched and stuck his head into the bucket, making some rather hideous vomiting sounds.
Briefly though, the spluttering noises stopped. Teekay gagged, then coughed and started spluttering again, as if he was forcing something solid from his mouth. In a panic, Teekay let go of the bucket, dropping it and its contents on the floor, the plastic shattering from the impact.
“Teekay, what the-”
“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?” Teekay screamed, pushing himself away and falling backwards off the bed, scrambling across the floor away from the bucket. “WHAT IS THAT WHAT WHAT AHHHHH!”
In the pile of vomit, phlegm and broken plastic, something moved. At first, Relkir wasn’t sure whether it was because of the bucket being dropped, or something else. The little medical scanners started beeping and clicking, no longer scanning Teekay, instead hovering towards the mess.
Teekay’s screams lessened slightly, as he tried to catch his breath. He still wanted to scream, but a brief moment of clarity had calmed him down. His headache was gone, as was the nausea and the stomach cramps.
“What the actual fuck is… what… what did I just vomit up? I haven’t even fucking eaten…”
The clarity faded and Teekay began rambling again, panic once again taking over. Relkir however stepped back, away from the mess that Teekay had made. The movement he had seen wasn’t from the act of the bucket falling. There was definitely something moving underneath the half a bucket. Something squirming unnaturally.
Teekay realised what Relkir was looking at, and stopped rambling, unsure what to do. Whatever the thing was, it was moving more and more, shuddering and uncoiling itself, as it began to grow.
“Should we… get a mop or something?”
“No…” Relkir hissed, edging his way towards a button by the door, and reaching for the nearest weapon. “I’m putting the ship on lock down…”