Chapter 17: When the Ice Cracks
Ten Years Later
The Arctic was no longer silent.
Massive machines rumbled across the ice, carving deep scars into the frozen earth. A new research expedition — bigger, better funded, and heavily guarded — had returned to the place once abandoned in fear.
Technology had advanced.Drones hovered in the air. Tents with heated floors dotted the landscape.Scientists bustled around in thick thermal suits, eager to uncover the secrets hidden deep beneath the permafrost.
And at the center of it all stood Dr. Neil Arora, head of the International Polar Research Division.
Unlike those before him, Neil was not afraid of the myths — the vague reports about "hallucinations," "creatures," and "station failures."He believed in science, in facts, in data.
"Superstitions," Neil scoffed to his assistant as they reviewed the old files."Ghost stories told by exhausted, half-frozen survivors. We'll find something real this time."
He was wrong.
Beneath their boots, deep under the ice, something ancient stirred.
Day 12 of Excavation
The team uncovered the first anomaly — a black vein running through the ice. Unlike anything they had seen before, it pulsed faintly under the UV lights.
Samples were taken. Scans were ordered.
But the readings made no sense.
The black ice emitted radio signals. Patterns. Whispers.
At first, the scientists thought it was equipment interference.
Then the nightmares began.
Technicians reported hearing voices in their sleep — soft, familiar voices, calling to them from the frozen darkness. Some said they saw faces outside their tents at night. Others found their memories twisting — remembering things that had never happened.
One man went missing.
They found him two days later, wandering far from camp, frostbitten and babbling about "the singing ice."
Dr. Neil dismissed it all.
"Mass psychosis," he declared. "Caused by isolation and stress. Keep working."
And so they dug deeper.
And deeper.
Until the first deaths occurred.
Day 19
A night technician, Elena, was found frozen solid inside the generator room.Not hypothermia — but something else. Her body was flash-frozen, her skin turned black and glassy like obsidian. Her face was frozen in an expression of pure terror.
Worse, security footage showed something impossible.
Elena had not been alone.A second figure stood beside her — a perfect copy of herself — smiling cruelly as Elena screamed.
The footage cut to static seconds later.
Neil reviewed the tape himself, hands trembling.
Still, he refused to halt the operation.
"We're close," he muttered. "Closer than anyone's ever been."
He was right.
That night, the ice cracked.
A massive fissure tore open the ground near the main drilling site, swallowing one of the research trucks whole. Out of that gaping wound, a mist rose — shimmering, shifting, almost alive.
Within it, dark shapes moved.
Not snow creatures.
Not hallucinations.
Memories.
The team's greatest fears, their most painful regrets, took form in the mist.Lost loved ones. Forgotten mistakes. Dead friends.
One by one, the researchers fell, lured into the mist by the sweet lies of the past.
Day 21
The camp was in chaos.
Neil ran from tent to tent, shouting orders, but most of his team was already gone — either dead or vanished into the ice.
His assistant, Raj, clung to him, eyes wide with terror.
"It's the same thing that happened before!" Raj cried. "I read the old reports! You said they were fake!"
Neil shook him violently."This is science! There's no such thing as cursed ice! No such thing as—"
A soft voice interrupted him.
"Neil..."
He froze.
It was his mother's voice. Gentle. Loving.
But his mother had been dead for fifteen years.
"Come home," the voice whispered. "We miss you."
Slowly, against all reason, Neil turned toward the mist.
There she stood — smiling, warm, waiting.
Tears filled Neil's eyes.
He took a step forward.
Raj grabbed his arm desperately. "NO! It's not real! It's not her!"
Neil wrenched free, stumbling into the mist.
For a brief moment, Raj saw Neil embrace the figure.
Then Neil's body stiffened.
His flesh turned black.
His mouth opened in a silent scream.
And then he collapsed, shattering into a thousand shards of ice.
The mist swallowed him whole.
Raj ran.
Day 22
Only a handful of survivors reached the extraction point.
Military helicopters, alerted by an emergency signal, arrived too late to save most of the team.
When the soldiers entered the abandoned camp, they found it eerily untouched — no bodies, no signs of struggle. Only the deep fissure remained, a black wound yawning in the middle of the white snow.
From within that fissure, faint whispers drifted up — voices pleading, singing, laughing.
The soldiers backed away nervously.
They were ordered to seal the site immediately.
Heavy concrete slabs were lowered into the crack. Motion detectors, seismic alarms, and electromagnetic fields were installed to contain whatever lay beneath.
The site was officially marked as "Hazardous: No Entry."
The government buried the truth once again.
Somewhere Far Away
In a quiet museum in Europe, an ancient piece of black ice sat in a glass case.
Recovered secretly by one of the early scavengers from the Arctic ruins.
A new exhibit.
Unlabeled.
Unstudied.
Forgotten by most.
But late at night, when the museum was empty, if you stood very still and listened closely, you could hear it.
A faint tapping on the glass.
Like fingers.
And a soft voice whispering in the dark:
"Remember me."