My head spins, and my vision is all blurry. I can’t seem to focus my eyes, and the lights just seem way too bright. I try to sit up off the floor, but I feel so weak. My arms shake then collapse from under me, leaving my face once again pressed to the cold floor. I groan in pain and try to focus my eyes again. This time they comply.

I’m in some kind of cylindrical container made of glass in a large white room that I don’t think I’ve ever been in before. Past the glass, I see Ezra, leaning over a table. He’s holding his head in his hands in deep thought with a sorrowful expression as if he’s experienced some great loss.

I sit up off the floor and put my hand on the glass, trying to reach out to him. He’s out there, sulking like it’s his fault, but if he truly believes that, why am I in here, sealed away from the rest of the world like an animal—like a monster?

I’m not, right? I’m not a monster. I’m just different. I just need different things to survive. Blood, tears, screams... I thrive off them just as you thrive from basic human necessities such as food and water. That can hardly be considered a crime, right? I was just fighting for my life, so why are you so distant?

I think about that for a minute. In his eyes, I killed our crewmates in cold blood and let down his every hope of us being together. He’s mourning the loss of our relationship, but he’s still ignoring me. He misses us but not me. He doesn’t even notice my devastation.

As much as he would like to think he was the only one who was hurt, he was not. The way he looked at me with such disappointment, it broke me. I knew that our relationship was unconventional and that it would one day go up in flames, but failing him still didn’t hurt any less.

Am I a monster?

Do I deserve to be locked away like this so I can’t hurt anyone else? I never wanted to hurt you, but you need to understand. I love you. I need you, but if I’m a monster, I’m unlovable, even to you. Despite everything we had, you could never love me, but you have to. You just have to because if you don’t, then no one does, and I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want to be alone, so please love me.

Please, I don’t want to be a monster.

I bang my fist against the glass, but Ezra doesn’t even acknowledge me. I call out to him, “Ezra!”

His chest rises as he takes in a deep breath, but he still doesn’t look towards me. He won’t even look at me. He won’t even look at me.

“Ezra, please. Please let me out, so we can talk about this,” I beg him.

Finally, I elicit a response. Ezra shakes his head and stands up slowly. He looks to me with those soul-stirring gray eyes, filled with pain, and I feel like I’m melting in his misery.

“You know I can’t do that, blue,” he whispers.

Blue. So alienating. It’s not even my name. He can’t bear to even utter my name. Am I a monster?

I slide my hand down the glass, leaving a streak of moisture behind. I know asking for mercy would be futile, but I can’t help but beg for his sympathy. I pull my eyebrows together and give him my best lost-puppy look, but he doesn’t buy it for a second. He glares at me, silently telling me to fuck right off.

“You killed yellow right in front of me,” Ezra argues. Then, he pauses before he laughs dryly in exasperation. “I mean, I saw you vent and kept making excuses for you. I literally saw you vent. I should’ve reported you sooner. Who doesn’t know how to fucking wire?

“I’m the reason she’s dead. I’m the reason why anyone is dead. It’s all because I thought the stumbling mess of a crewmate was cute. I was too drunk on a good taste to admit what I knew all along. You are—”

I interrupt him, “A monster?”

“Beautiful and addicting,” he spits venomously. Then he adds, “And a monster.”

I cringe and shrink away from him. “I didn’t mean to,” I whimper.

Ezra growls, “Mean to what? Kill them or lie to me?”

I cry out and put my hands back on the glass, sitting up straight to look at him again. “No! That’s not what I meant! I didn’t want to hurt you,” I yell back, my voice cracking as the tears begin to fall down my face.

He doesn’t respond. He just stares at me with a look of pity.

“Ezra.” His name slips from my tongue under my breath.

“Blue,” he returns, minus the emotion.

“I love you,” I confess with a sob, but he doesn’t say anything. We just fall into silence.

“Ezra, please!” I scream, hitting my fist against the glass again. Tears stream down my face, and my lungs spasm with each rising sob that I suppress. The stress builds in my chest, and I can feel my form start to shift. My distress has put too much strain on my human form.

My body starts to split open in a snarling mass of tentacles and bone, but I try desperately to hold it back. I don’t want him to see me like that. He may think I’m a monster, but he doesn’t need to see it. I’m trying so hard to not let it show, but...

“You’re not well,” he says tenderly, placing his hand over mine on the glass. Then, I can’t hold it back any longer, and the monster rips from my body, filling the small space around me with the thick, fleshy mess of darkness. My appendages covered in teeth don’t have anywhere to go in the confines of my prison, so they surround me and push my larger body against the side of the tube. Shards of bone cut through my skin, creating deep incisions across my body. Rich, viscous blood seeps from my wounds and pools around me, soaking through my jumpsuit.

My sobs grow more violent as I realize my case has been lost. “Ezra...” I mumble, the guilt breaking me inside.

“I’m sorry, blue,” Ezra replies delicately, his hand slipping from the divide between us, and I don’t blame him. I just accept it as the floor falls from below me, and I’m sucked out by an all-consuming vacuum into the vast and eternal emptiness of space that is only broken by the small white specks of great balls of fire and gas.

I reach out my hand to Ezra, but he turns from the windows and walks away without even giving me a second glance.

The ship shrinks smaller and smaller in my field of vision until it vanishes completely, leaving me to myself in the growing nothingness both surrounding me and in my heart.

So, I am alone with only seven hours left to live. There will be nothing to keep me company aside from the deafening silence of my being. I have to die because I was foolish enough to fall in love with a crewmate. I have to die because I am me.

Because I was the Imposter...