[XO's Office]
"Negative, commander. Keep me appraised. You have Operations." Adeyemi said before exiting. He had someone to see.
[Enroute to Chapel]
Adeyemi passed a handful of officers and civilians, all rushing in different directions. No one met his eye or raised their heads. The mood had gone from mischievous and giggly to a numb dread. He felt it himself, but shook it off. The Lord God would see him through this.
He was in one of the older parts of the Station, and the deck was rough, without carpet. His boots rang hollowly off of the metal, and yellow lights glowed dully from the ceiling.
Fwooh.
The captain turned, glared behind him. It felt as if someone had blown in his ear, but there was no one. A sick, icy feeling blossomed in his stomach. He hurried forward.
"Malcolm..." The voice was a sibilant hiss.
I don't hear anything. He thought, hurrying. Nothing.
"Malcolm." It ordered, seductive and repugnant all at once.
"Malcolm!"
"What do you want?!" He yelled, his accent thickening with stress. He sounded like a fresh off the boat immigrant instead of the polished officer he was.
"You know what I want...the adoration, the attention you give...it is to the wrong one. Give it to me." The voice from beyond whispered.
"Never," Adeyemi said firmly. He stopped walking, leaned against the bulkhead. "I will NEVER. Adeyemil to T'Vol."
"Weakling! You are weak. You are not strong. You look and act it but you are a weak minded fool. You will be mine...my chosen one."
It sounds like a man whispering from bone lips, like a skull talking to me, a skeleton whispering in my ear, Adeyemi said, walking along the bulkhead, gripping it for strength. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...like death itself...thy kingdom come, thy will be done...
"I want you, Malcolm.The worship you give to the other only makes me want you more..."
"On earth..." Adeyemi turned, chest heaving, sweat breaking out on his face, and turned his brown eyes to the heavens. The dull yellow light of the passageway was all that was there. "Oh...God..."
"Give yourself to me." It whispered, all poisonous sweetness and graveyard foulness.
"NO!" The captain broke out in a run, tears streaking down his face, prayers bubbling to his lips, reaching down to the strength and the belief he had had ever since Father Benetto had visited him in the reformatory when he was 16, after he'd hit another boy with a broken bottle in the face, cutting off his eyebrow, and Father Benetto had said that Jesus had forgiven him for that sin already and many others, that he was saved. Adeyemi reached and ran towards his faith in the Lord God, with the Devil at his back.
He couldn't run fast enough.