"Back! Now!" Chen shouted, already turning.
The figure jerked forward—not running, but moving in a horrible stuttering motion, like stop-motion animation. Each movement was too fast, then too slow, joints bending at angles that shouldn't work.
Marcus fired a warning shot over its head. The sound was deafening in the narrow corridor, Chen's ears ringing. The figure stopped again, that tilted head straightening with a sound like cracking ice.
"GO!" Marcus roared, backing up while keeping his rifle trained on the shape.
They ran. All of them, scrambling back up the metal staircase, their boots slipping on the steps. Behind them, Chen heard it following—not the slap of footsteps but something else. A wet, sliding sound. Like something dragging itself.
Sergei reached the top first and hauled Nora up. Chen was next, and Marcus came last, taking the stairs three at a time. He slammed the maintenance sector door shut and Sergei immediately threw the manual lock, a heavy bolt that slid home with a solid clang.
For a moment, there was only their ragged breathing and the hammering of Chen's heart.
Then something hit the door from the other side. Hard. The metal buckled slightly.
Another impact. The bolt held, but the door frame groaned.
"Main hub!" Marcus snapped. "Move!"
They sprinted through the corridor, emergency lights streaking past. Behind them, Chen heard the maintenance door explode open with a shriek of tortured metal. Whatever it was, it was strong.
The four of them burst into the main hub and Marcus immediately started grabbing furniture—desks, chairs, anything heavy. "Barricade! That corridor, now!"
They were all moving on pure adrenaline, hauling equipment to block the maintenance corridor entrance. Sergei tipped over a heavy filing cabinet. Nora dragged a storage locker. Chen added a workstation, and Marcus positioned himself behind the makeshift barrier, rifle aimed at the dark corridor beyond.
Silence.
No more footsteps. No more sounds.
Everyone was breathing hard, listening. The station's intercom crackled with static, making them all flinch, but nothing came through.
"What the hell was that?" Nora whispered, her hand clutching her mother's cross necklace.
"Not human," Sergei said flatly. "Not anymore."
Marcus kept his rifle trained on the barricade. "Could be one of the original crew. Hypothermia, psychological break, exposure—"
"Did you see those hands?" Chen cut him off. "That wasn't hypothermia."
"Infection, then," Marcus continued, but even he didn't sound convinced. "Some kind of biological agent that affects motor control, cognition—"
A sound made them all freeze.
It was coming from the residential corridor—the one with the wet footprints. Not footsteps. Something else. A voice, maybe. Singing? No—humming. A melody Chen almost recognized, distorted and wrong.
Then it stopped.
In the sudden silence, Chen became aware of something: the wet footprints they'd seen earlier, leading from residential quarters, were gone. The floor was dry, as if they were never there.
"Did anyone else see those prints before?" Chen asked quietly.
"Da," Sergei confirmed. "I saw them."
"So did I," Nora added.
The four of them stared at the empty floor.
Chen's communications relay was still on their back. The engineering control room—and main power—was blocked behind that barricade and whatever that thing was. The residential quarters were behind them, where something was humming. The research laboratory was still accessible through the third corridor.
Marcus checked his ammunition. "We need a plan, Doc. And we need it now. That thing knows we're here."
Chen looked at the three corridors branching from the main hub. The barricade they'd built looked solid, but they'd all heard how easily the thing had torn through the maintenance door. The humming from residential had stopped, leaving an oppressive silence. And the research lab waited, potentially holding answers—logs, samples, anything that might explain what they were dealing with.
The emergency lights continued their automated pattern. Three short, three long, three short. SOS. A cry for help that no one had answered.
Until now.