Racks View: New Horizons #14a Tasty Morsel

Khia sauntered down the corridor back to her cabin, humming and nibbling at chips of bacon off her late-night burger.  Idly she sniffed at the meat.  For reconstituted protein they actually were able to simulate fresh meat pretty well.  The bacon, though was real and it had cost to get it, but so worth the luxury.  Nothing better.

Passing a powered-down corridor, Khia thought she heard something.  A soft scrape.  The young woman stopped looking down the shadowed hall.  Access ways branched off on the sides of the passage, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary and the sound didn't repeat.

"Hello?" she said with a smile, not really expecting an answer.  Her crew mates weren't as much of a night owl as she was.  Just a random ship sound she supposed.  Just for good measure she stepped back into the main corridor looking back the way she came.  Perhaps she had left something on back in the kitchen?  Khia took a few steps towards the galley when suddenly something clamped powerfully over her face.  Her snack tray tumbled and clattered to the floor and the surprised girl let out a piercing scream as the huge clawed hand jerked her back in an instant by the head into the darkness.  Almost immediately after the ebony beauty disappeared from sight her peeling cry was cut off mid-scream... a faint, dying echo and the spilled tray of food the only evidence that Khia had been there at all....