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Ryan Cunning

"No no no no no." Ryan yelled at himself as he sprinted down endless corridor after endless corridor. "How can everything go so wrong so fast?" Tears were streaking down his face, blurring his vision and nearly causing him to miss the turn off that would hopefully save his life.

It had been days since everyone else had died, leaving all alone on the massive ship. He had not seen anyone alive in days, only those beasts with the soulless eyes and the endless bloodlust. Those who grouped together died first since the animals were attracted to all of the noise and the smell of so many bodies. Some people managed to escape in smaller groups and survive for a while, but the animals got to them eventually like they always did. Now they were after him as well.

It was the howls first. They never tried to sneak up on you, they would bark and howl and come barreling down half the ship if they had to once they were on the hunt. It was madness, how they became so focused on hunting down their prey. Ryan recalled seeing one of those things go right past him without noticing. He should have died that day, but he didn't, he wasn't its prey at the time.

Ryan came up to a door that he knew would save him. The power had gone out long ago and that meant all of the doors were sealed shut with no way to open them. At least that is what people thought and many died because of their ignorance. But, Ryan knew better, years of working on ship gave him an intimate knowledge of all safety features, big and small. Inside of the control panel would be a small switch that would disengage the locks that held the door shut tight. If he could get to them, he would be safe, that is, if they didn't get him first.

"Come on you fuck." Ryan went over to the dark controls of the door and began to pry off the cover. He didn't dare look over his shoulder, he knew he was still being followed. Their barking may have died off, but that just meant that they were searching him out. It wouldn't take long before they caught his scent again and they would let him know when they did.

With a good tug, the cover came off and slipped out of his grip. It flew a few feet and hit the floor. The clattering of the metal cover caused Ryan to stand still, as id that would stop the noise from giving his position away. He stood there, frozen solid in fear and listened. His heart was pounding in his ears forcing him to concentrate harder to hear anything in the deafening darkness that enveloped the ship the moment the lights went out. It made it too easy for the animals, people blundering about blindly with no way to defend themselves, the bow of the ship was just a mess of gore now because of it. The bow was where all of the passengers were, people with no experience in how to survive any kind of emergency. They were the most numerous and the stupidest and they died for it.

Ryan was a survivor though. He had grown up poor and in the gang infested mega city of Haven on Venus, a once sprawling city built upon industry, now a ruin when the ore mines closed down. He was forced to steal for a living and fight to survive every day until he was fortunate enough to be hired by Captain Newman who took pity on him. It was a shame that he was dead. Ryan had heard their screams when the animal got into the bridge. He was lucky enough to actually be locked out of the bridge when the power went off. Unlike all of the other doors around, the bridge was sealed permanently for some kind of absurd security reasons. Maybe it was smart against pirates who would be unable to take control of the ship, but in this instance it just locked them in with the animals.

Convinced that by some miracle, the animals didn't hear the racket, Ryan went back to working on the control panel. He stuck his hand in and felt around for the small switch. It would be near the bottom left corner and relatively easy to get at, but days of being on the run didn't make anything easier.

"Come one... Come on..." Ryan bit his lower lip which tasted salty from all of the sweat. He frantically searched for the switch. Every second that he took here was another second they had to find him. IT was a horribly twisted game of cat and mouse. His finger graced the switch that had for the entire time he was searching was just a few inches away from where he was previously digging for it.

*ahooooo*

It was a single long and bone chilling howl. It was close, very close.

"Please God, no." Ryan pleaded to a deity that he had never believed in. He got his index finger on the switch and desperately pulled at it. His finger slipped off of the switch the first time and he cursed after a quick sob of disbelief. He could hear more howls now, his tired and disillusioned mind made it sound as if there were hundreds coming after him and that made him try again instead of breaking down. He didn't want to die like this, he saw what happened to the people who were caught.

"Go you stupid switch, go." He yelled, not caring about the noise now that they were coming. He got his finger on the switch again and pulled. This time there was an audible click and the door shifted down with a slight thump. It was the most beautiful thing Ryan had ever heard.

He pulled his hand out of the control panel and clawed at the door. It was solid metal and heavy, but he managed to get some grip with his sweaty palms and the door slowly began to open. It was slow going, but he only needed to get it open enough for him to squeeze through. Inch by inch the door opened until there was a one and a half foot gap. He gave one last look at the hallway that he had come down and saw it.

The animal stood looking at him, drool dripping from it maw and eyes staring back. It was barely visible in the darkness, but it was there and getting closer. It wasn't charging ahead Ryan expected it too, instead it slowly moved forward with its head hunched down and hands nearly touching the floor. The fear that had been controlling Ryan was temporarily replaced with confusion at the animal's behavior, he had never seen one move so slowly. They were always running and he never stopped to try and get a look. Now for some reason, his tired brain wanted to observe it.

Ryan watched it as it slowly moved closer until it was no more than 20 feet away. He noted that it was extremely dog like, this one in particular look like a black lab. Under normal circumstances, if such a thing would ever exist, it wouldn't have appeared threatening at all, just strange. It stopped and slowly began to lower itself onto all fours, its ears were back and it got down to the point where its rear end was higher than its head.

Ryan had seen something like this before, he had watched a documentary about predators in the wild. How the predator would stalk its prey silently and then get into a readied position to pounce. Pounce... It was going to pounce any second and he had spent the last 10 staring. The next second wasn't wasted so fruitlessly.

"Fuck." Ryan screamed and dove for the small opening in the door. The animal jumped back at first, unsure of what had just happened, but it quickly went on the attack. It ran forward on both legs with its paws stretched out, ready to tear into Ryan.

Never letting his eyes leave the animal, Ryan got to the opening and managed began to squirm through it. It was barely too small and the terror and panic were taking over. He put his hands on the door and with a push, it opened a bit more and he fell through just before a claw would have disemboweled him. He fell to the floor knocking his head against it. The pain acted as a wakeup call and instead of passing out, he was suddenly filled with a sense of clarity.

The animal was trying to get through as well, but it couldn't due to its larger size. Ryan watched it from the ground as it clawed at the air at him. It was too stupid to try and push the door the right way, it would have been easy for it to do and get to Ryan, but it didn't.

The realization that he was safe swept over him and despite his shaken state, he began to laugh. It was a wonderful feeling for him to know that he had survived against all odds with death struggling to rip his throat out.

He got up slowly onto his shaky legs that had been used nonstop for so long. He would just need them for a bit longer to find a quiet place to relax. Giving the animal that continued to bark at him a one finger salute, Ryan walked down the hall. It was the one place he absolutely knew was safe, the maintenance shafts that ran along the entire length of the ship. No one was supposed to be here during transit and that meant no animals.

He wandered down the dark halls for what seemed like hours. The halls were monotonous, no sign that told him if he was really going anywhere. He didn't know what to do now that he was here and safe. Would he wait and hope that rescue would come, would he try to get to another part of the ship? He didn't know, he had expected to die on the way here and now that he was here, he had no plan. He was alone, without food and in the dark with nothing to do but walk, so walk he did.

He eventually came upon a sign of others, but not what he wanted. On the wall was scribbled in blood, a message. ""They killed everyone. They're all gone." It was a sign that someone had come here and had given up hope.

"No hope." Ryan mumbled to himself. "No fucking hope." A wave of agony hit him and he fell to the floor in tears. "No hope." Me muttered over and over again as he convinced himself that he was going to die on the ship.

He moved himself so he was facing the message with his back against the opposite wall and reached into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out, there was a small razor which he frequently used to cut wires when he couldn't get a proper tool into the tight confines he sometimes found himself in. One of his duties was to routinely check the wiring of the ship and some of it was in small crawl space where he couldn't bring a proper tool with him to replace bad wires, so he had the razor.

"At least I die at my own hands." Ryan said, trying to justify what was going through his head. He had always thought of suicide as being something only crazy people did, but now it seemed like an escape from a worse death. He raised up the blade to his wrists and slowly began to cut. It stung and he stopped, nearly dropping the razor. He would have to slice fast and hard to ensure it was clean.

Again he brought the razor to his wrist and with a deep breath to calm himself he swiped his other arm quickly, pressing down hard. He didn't feel pain, but a numbness from the epiphany that struck him. He was going to die and it didn't scare him anymore. He let his bleeding wrist slump to his side and he dropped the razor. He looked up at the message at the wall.

"They killed everyone." He read it weakly, the strength slowly ebbing from his body. "Well." He chuckeld. "They didn't kill me."