Into the Unknown Depths

"What the hell are those things?!"

The captain looked on in horror as the giant, insect-like creatures swarmed around the ship. His eyes widened as one of the creatures began opening up its thorax and exposing a group of smaller, human-like creatures inside. The human-like creatures were on all fours, their faces pressed against the glass, their eyes dark and expressionless.

"Oh my God," he muttered, as one of them started staring at him. It was just staring at him. He could feel his heart racing as he tried to take a step back. Was it looking right into his soul? He could feel himself slowly beginning to lose his grip on reality. What was this creature? How did it get there? What did it want with him? Was it evil? Could he defeat it? If so... would it even matter? How much time had he wasted trying to understand these beings when he should have been trying to understand himself? It didn't matter anymore... nothing mattered...

In a flash of white light, the captain's consciousness returned to his body. He found himself being shaken by one of his crew members while another held a wet rag to his forehead. "Captain?" said the crew member holding the rag, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah... fine," replied the captain shakily, regaining his composure as he rose from where he'd been lying on the floor. He looked around at his three crew members who were standing nearby; two men and one woman. "I'm okay now," he said with a sigh after a few moments, leaning over to grab a cup of water from his desk.

"That's good," said the woman behind him, "We need you focused if we're going to make it out of here alive."

"I know," said the captain with a firm nod, "How long have I been out?"

"About ten minutes," replied one of the men behind him, "I thought you might have slipped into cardiac arrest there."

"It was close," replied the captain with another sigh before taking another drink from his cup and settling back down into his chair at his desk. He stared out at their surroundings through the window in front of him as they drifted aimlessly through space. The last thing he remembered was witnessing those strange alien creatures attacking them as they approached some sort of planet; whatever that planet was supposed to be called had escaped him already. He'd seen enough strange creatures on other planets throughout space during his career as an explorer that they no longer interested him; what interested him now was how they got there and why they attacked them in such an aggressive manner. One thing was for certain though: whatever attacked them wasn't from Earth; no creature native to Earth would ever have behaved like that!