621 AS
The sand was blindingly white, the water was a brilliant shade of turquoise, and the sky was an inky dark blue. Though the distant sun was up, the stars were out and watching him, the surf and sand casting back the sun and star light back. The castaway thought this world strange, with its reversed shadows and vast azure oceans dotted with low islands. Vegetation huddled and bunched together on the landlets like survivors on a raft at sea, the tall palms and low brush providing cool relief from the omnipresent glare of the planet.
Light rippled around him as he hauled the chartreuse and black striped shark-like thing from the water's edge to his camp, spear still embedded in the head of the many finned beast. His body ached from the hunt and he was anxious to carve the thing up and roast it. Food was the first priority here, since the water was drinkable. At least, that's what the kit in the escape pod told him about the water. And that the plants were edible, and the animals should be edible too.
No, what the castaway worried about was if anyone would come looking for him on this out of the way planet. He was fairly certain none of the other crew had survived the crash. Not after what happened. The castaway checked his knife for sharpness, and took the whetstone to it, the sharkreuse's skin being tough and sandpapery to cut through. The dressing of the carcass was routine after two weeks here, putting him in a contemplative trance. His light aegis armor sat nearby, keeping a silent vigil over the camp and the ruins of the egg-like escape pod. Some distance away were the graves of the other two survivors who had died, the solemnly folded and placed pressure suits becoming memorials.
He really should be dead, he thought. He was an Imperial Marine, and was supposed to die defending the crew from enemies. But, how does one defend against something like that? It had been like madness walking through the ship; a riot of shapes, noises and colors. There was that face too, that mask permanently grinning in a hideous parody of a person...
---
The emergency lights came on and the alarms sounded on the swift dolphin-shaped voidship. The prisoner had escaped and had somehow killed the summoner who had bound him. Death stalked the corridors, wearing a crimson-stained mask of porcelain with a mirthful expression frozen in place. Reality went crazy around it as it hunted, barrages of impossible sensory noise confusing victims before the light of life dimmed in their eyes, their vital spark consumed by the terrifying thing that had gotten loose.
There were screams too, until the laughing man had decided that screams were boring. The alarms were replaced by howling shrieks of wind as the ship vented atmosphere. The marines on board attempted to combat it with their lightning spears and white-hot diamond blades, the din of thunder felt through the feet and armor of the defenders. But without the summoner's magic to bind and contain the outsider's own magical power, arcs of searing lightning splashed off it like water and the luminescent swords stuck fast in the fabricated mass of the outsider.
In the end, three made it to the escape pod. They didn't need the now absent air to hear the ringing echo of laughter as the outsider approached, a vision of blood stains and primordial fears of the dark rolling off of the unreal being. It moved forward, crossing the gap between it and the escape pod hatch in the flickers of darkness from the failing emergency lights.
Though the marine had closed the hatch and it was being frantically sealed, the laughing man's hooded mask pressed against it, the black pits of its eyes flicking back and forth as it considered. The outsider tasted the fear of the three people inside the pod, and laughed. The pod lurched, and pulled away from the emptied ship, carrying four passengers.
The squeal of metal grated suddenly on the senses of the lone marine and two crew members. It was slow going, peeling open the hatch, but the laughing man had time; the people inside didn't. Moments later, the hatch burst open, stunning the masked outsider. The glow of the planet below was looming, growing closer as the marine and outsider fought, armored fist grappling against the hideous strength. The crew didn't stand idly by; they were holding on to the marine for dear life, trying to keep him from being pulled out of the escape pod by the creature.
Sound returned as the pod descended into the atmosphere and the world began to become a midnight blue. Wind whipped and buffeted the craft and its four passengers, tearing the marine from the crew's hands as it shuddered and rolled. They tumbled, crashing into each other and the interior before the craft auto-corrected its vicious roll. They were stunned as an armor-clad arm gripped the edge of the hatchway, and they crawled over to help the marine back in. Of the outsider, there was no sign, and they counted their blessings just as the ship crashed through the treetops and underbrush, skidding and tumbling through the wet sandy earth.
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