There's an Imposter running about on board the Skeld. But he's not leaving any bodies behind, I wonder why...? (He's eating everyone.)

Thumbnail art done by @OpalScrumptious on Twitter - https://twitter.com/opalscrumptious/status/1575723950318833664/photo/1

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The Skeld rocked gently as it rolled through the unfathomable emptiness of space. Each crewmate had been assigned their daily tasks, and were running about fixing wires, studying samples, and failing to get the card reader to work. Everything appeared normal, but everyone could tell something was wrong. There was less activity aboard the ship than there should’ve been, fewer tasks being completed than normal. It wasn’t until lunchtime that Blue realized what was wrong, and his heart rate spiked as he rushed to the Emergency Meeting button, and smacked it, head looking over his shoulders.

“Orange is missing,” Blue said, pointing to the empty space at the table where the aforementioned missing crewmate should’ve been sitting. “Please tell me someone knows where they are?”

A wave of shrugs, denials, and general nervous shuffling worked its way around the table. Blue’s visor shone in the light as he looked over his crewmates one-by-one, sizing them up, trying to see anything that was out of place.

“E-Excuse me, guys? I know this is a rude question to ask,” Purple said as he raised a hand, “but doesn’t Red look a little, uh, larger than usual?”

A dozen visors all turned in the same direction. Red, who was seated at the top of the table, stood up in a frenzy and slammed his hands on the metal in front of him. “And what is THAT supposed to mean?”

“Well, I don’t want to say anything for sure,” Purple said, shuffling nervously as the eyes shifted back to him. “But I’ve heard stories about those monstrous Imposters, how they devour unsuspecting Crewmates and-”

“What is this slander!” Red said, mustering up all of his righteous indignation. “Is putting on a few pounds all it takes to be accused of murder?”

Blue put up his hands, trying to mediate the conversation before things melted down further. He took a lot over the table, meeting eyes with the many-colored Crewmates. There were fourteen of them, well, only thirteen now that Orange had disappeared. He looked at Red suspiciously. He had put on quite a bit of weight since he’d seen them last night, like they’d hit the pantry and emptied it all out. But Red was also right in that, if you were going to accuse someone of being a dreaded Imposter, you had to have more to your accusation than someone just being fatter than normal.

“Alright you two,” Blue said after the silence had marinated. “Everyone is going to go get back to work here, you hear me? I don’t believe there is an Imposter on board, but if there is, the last thing we should be doing is throwing accusations and getting all paranoid. Stick together, and we’ll make it through this.”

The table dispersed, and everyone went back to their daily duties. Blue, however, decided to put his tasks on the backburner for now. He trailed Red, peeking around corners and stalking the cameras to make sure no foul play was afoot. Blue let out a sigh of relief after a few minutes had passed. He took one more look at the computer monitors before putting his suspicions to bed. There were no bodies anywhere - and if there was an active Imposter on the ship, they’d surely be leaving bodies behind in their wake.

Blue was just settling down when a scream rang out across the Skeld, followed by the calling of another Emergency Meeting.

His jaw dropped when he took his spot at the table in the cafeteria to find that nearly half of the Skeld’s crew had disappeared. Purple had sunk utterly back in his chair, horrified that he was going to be next, especially as Red, who’d grown too fat for just a single chair to hold, sat down beside him by using two separate chairs to hold his weight. Whoever had screamed wasn’t speaking up, and the mischievous grin of Red and the muffled churning of his belly made it clear what had happened to them.

Red had grown significantly. He was roughly twice as tall now as the average Crewmate, and he’d grown wide enough that it was a shock he was still able to fit through the Skeld’s doors. His gut was big as a couple of Crewmates put together, and it squished up against the table in front of him. Red pulled Purple in closer, squishing his frightened face up against his fat belly, which gurgled and churned ominously. His rear seemed almost about to bust out of his suit, and the chairs he sat on creaked and groaned under its immense fat.

“Oh come on,” Blue said. “Are you even trying? Aren’t Imposters supposed to be cunning and guile?”

“What? Are you on about me being an Imposter again?” Red said, shoving and kneading Purple’s face into his stomach, muffling the poor Crewmate’s desperate, frightened squeaks and pleas. “I didn’t know it was illegal to be overweight on the Skeld.”

“Don’t you play dumb with me!” Blue said, pointing a finger accusingly. “Half our crew vanishes, and you show up to the next meeting looking like you just cleared out several entire kitchens?”

Several nervous Crewmates nodded around the table. White, however, the resident Village Idiot of the Skeld, wasn’t convinced. “Uhhh, yeah, I think I agree with Red on this one? Plus, where were you while everyone was vanishing? I didn’t see you doing any tasks. Kinda sus.”

“S-SUS?” Blue said, slamming the table. “RED SHOWS UP HERE HAVING GAINED HUNDREDS OF POUNDS WHILE OUR COMPATRIOTS VANISH ONE-BY-ONE, AND I’M THE SUS ONE?”

“You’re getting pretty heated,” Red said, shifting his seat over onto Purple’s so that he was now crushing the poor Crewmate with his rear, muffling his objections. “That’s kinda sus too, why so defensive?”

“I’m getting DEFENSIVE because you’re trying to trick our crew into a horrible mistake!” Blue said, but the battle was already lost. The remaining members of the crew look around nervously, as if this was somehow a complicated question and not an obvious farce. “Oh good grief. You’re not all seriously buying this, are you?”

“I’m just not sure,” Yellow said as she rubbed her temples. “There’s just like, a lot to consider, y’know?”

“Yeah,” White added. “I think you’re pretty sus, Blue. But I say we skip for now.”

Black, who’d been silent throughout everything else, raised her head up for a moment to mumble “Yeah guys, skip,” before burying her head back in her tablet.”

“You gotta be ******* kidding me,” Blue said, his irritation only rising as the comms link bleeped out his profanity.

In the end, while Blue and Purple voted to kick Red out, the other survivors all either voted to skip, or to kick out Blue. Another meeting had passed without the obvious Imposter being ejected.

Blue, determined to not die this day, set up shop in the camera room, and moved some shelving to block off the vent. He turned his eyes to the screens, and watched them like a hawk, ears alert for the sound of anyone coming down the hall. Every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of Red entering one room and then emerging out of another, but that wasn’t good enough. He needed something concrete to convince everyone to kick the Imposter off the ship.

Finally, however, he could not wait any longer. Just sitting back and watching was driving him crazy, knowing that Red was in all likelihood devouring his Crewmates the second he walked off camera. Fed up, he stormed to the cafeteria to call a final Emergency Meeting. When he got there, Red discovered he was already too late.

Red was laying on the table, just on top of the Emergency Meeting button. The shield on top of the button had been laid down, so as to avoid all of his fat from pressing it. He’d grown again, becoming so wide and weighty he took up all the space on the table. Purple was pressed under him, his desperate, pleading visor peering out from beneath Red’s large, struggling belly.

Purple let out a groan and reached out a hand. “Please… help…. I can hear all our crew, they’re melting away…”

Red shut him up by re-adjusting his body, and completely smothering Purple under his fat. He kicked his stubby-yet-thick legs girlishly as Blue approached. “What’s wrong? Did you find anything out about the Imposter?”

Even from here, Blue could hear the churnings and gurglings of his belly. Poor Purple was trapped under there, his body pressed into that fat gut. Forced to hear the gurgles and glorps of Red’s gut, the muffled cries and pleadings of his Crewmates, made to feel as they melted away and turned into soft weight on Red’s belly and body. Red reached a hand under his stomach, and smooshed Purple’s face all into his stomach, using it to knead up the remaining Crewmates inside.

“I knew it! I should’ve pushed harder to have you voted off!” Blue said, approaching cautiously.

Red grinned at him, opening his maw and bearing his teeth and lethal tongue. “It’s too late to think about that now, right? Now get over here - don’t you want to help your friend?” To accentuate, he raised his belly a bit, showing how he was kneading Purple into his stomach, making him feel all of his friends and coworkers digest. He dropped his belly again after a moment, again surrounding Purple with the horror.

Blue mustered up all of his heroic willpower, hoping that if he could press the Emergency Meeting button somehow, it’d allow him to command the Skeld’s computer to boot Red off the ship. He focused intently, leapt forward, and made it no more than several steps before Red’s monstrous tongue shot out and caught him. He flicked his tongue back and swallowed Blue before he had a single chance to actually resist.

Red, finally having gathered all of the crewmates, let out a large belch. He felt satisfied with how well this operation had gone. As he felt Blue sink into his stomach, his struggles already being overtaken by the sloshing of his stomach, Red felt that all there was left to do was to have some fun with Purple before finding another ship, and starting this all over again.
He continued kneading Purple’s face into his belly, making sure he got to feel what was happening to Blue, while he used his other hand to feel up his still-growing body. The belly that was as large as one of the cafeteria tables, the hips wider than any door the Skeld had to offer, the ass so large it had busted one of the benches when he’d tried to sit on it. All of those Crewmates reduced to just fat on his body.

By this point, Red had devoured so many Crewmates that his stomach had grown adept at digesting them. It didn’t take long for Blue to start melting completely, his cries for help and desperate struggles being replaced by the churning of Red’s stomach. Purple felt firsthand as he was kneaded and glorped and digested into nothing more than thick, sloshing gutsludge in Red’s stomach. Red’s guts pumped noisily, already working hard on turning every Crewmate he’d eaten into more weight.

“Well, seems like you’re the only one left,” Red mocked. “You should say goodbye while you’re under there, while there’s still something left of them!”

Purple cried out, but whatever he said was muffled by Red’s stomach. Red grinded his belly onto Purple, smooshing him down against the table, making him feel all of his friends and coworkers melt away, making him feel them be turned into something much better. Every part of Red was growing rapidly, it’d only be a few minutes before nothing was left of the dozen or so Crewmates he’d devoured except for fat.

Red continued to torment purple. Smothering him with his belly as the last of the Crewmates were digested, their gutsludge pumping away from his stomach and onto his body, crushing Purple with his ass, making him feel the assfat that so many of his friends were being turned into. Squishing Purple with his weight whenever and however he could. He continued with this, on and on, until there was nothing left of the digested Crewmates except curves on Red’s body.

He only got up because, at a point, it felt like his new weight was going to break the table under him. Red sighed as he got to his feet, picking Purple’s terrified body up with a hand. “Alright, I’ve had my fun here,” Red said. “Now I gotta go find a new crew to terrorize.” Without waiting for Purple to say anything, he swallowed the terrified Crewmate. He was easier to digest than his friends were, and was notably lighter than them too. It only took a couple minutes for his body to be turned into just a few dozen pounds for Red.

With great satisfaction, Red let out a final belch, and headed for Navigation. He was going to find some other poor crew, and devour them too. And perhaps a few others after that - if they were all going to be this easy. He couldn’t help but giggle as he set the controls, and pulling out a clipboard, he marked another win down for the Imposters.

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