Kael and the others had arrived at Delmakh IV—or at least, within its sprawling network of corridors. The true core of Delmakh still lay ahead, but its presence was already palpable.
The atmosphere gnawed at their skin, empty and cold, reeking of rust and something far more rancid. Every breath felt like inhaling decay, thick and ancient.
Groans echoed among them. Complaints murmured over comms, voices uneasy despite none of them having stepped fully into the corridor's skeletal ribs.
While the others checked instruments or whispered into their communicators, Kael stood still. His eyes were fixed on the hallway ahead. Something shifted.
It wasn't a creature. It was the wall itself, rippling ever so slightly. Not a trick of light. It moved with rhythm. Like breath. No—closer to a heartbeat.
Kael extended a hand, fingers spread in warning. The danger here wasn't abstract. It was immediate, pressing against the skin like pressure underwater.
The corridor stretched on, massive and indifferent, lined with doors along both walls—like pores in some colossal organism.
As attention narrowed on the pulsing wall, the doors responded. They burst open, one after another, with a mechanical scream. A burst of air followed, not loud, but whispering. Whispering in voices none of them wanted to decipher.
No one reacted. Or rather, they pretended not to. They dismissed it. Told themselves it was nothing. Imagination. The mind playing tricks in an alien place.
They didn't understand space. Not really.
Eventually, they had to separate. One by one, each chose a door, each path diverging, bound by a silent agreement to maintain contact.
Kael entered his chosen door. An hour passed. No word from him. No signal, no message.
He was frustrated. The silence wasn't just unsettling—it was wrong. But he couldn't turn back. It was already too late.
He kept walking.
The corridor felt endless, but finally, a door stood out. Its plaque read plainly in fading letters: Infirmary
He hacked its lock with practiced ease. The system fell away with barely a resistance.
The door slid open. Air rushed out. Fetid, dense, carrying that same ghostly whisper.
Kael staggered backward. His body refused to enter, but his eyes were already inside.
The room was filled with corpses.
Not human.
Thin, bent, humanoid forms with twisted spines and hollow, sunken eyes. The smell was unbearable, the silence worse.
And they were all facing the door.
A fraction of a second later, the entire room shifted into a murky shade of red. Walls, doors, even the machines were drenched in it. Kael's vision tinted to match—faded, bloodlike.
Strange symbols covered the walls, a linguistic script he didn't recognize. Alien, shifting. The letters twisted and rearranged themselves in response to his thoughts.
Still on the ground, Kael tried to steady himself, but then he felt it—vibrations pulsing from behind. The corridor he had just passed through trembled with deep, rhythmic quakes. Something was coming.
Something humanoid.
He turned. A figure stood in the hall, watching him with eyes that didn't blink. The trembling grew heavier, like a slow-motion quake aimed only at him.
Panic took root. It crawled up his spine, gripped his lungs. His breath hitched. He shielded his head with both arms, frozen—until adrenaline forced him up.
He broke into a sprint.
He hurled himself through the narrow gaps between the gaunt creatures that filled the corridor. None of them moved to stop him. They only turned their heads, following him with eyes that lacked emotion.
Kael didn't look back.
He kept running, into another corridor, deeper into the maze. The air grew colder. The walls still bled red. The symbols kept changing, evolving with every wild thought that passed through his mind.
Wind swirled through the passageway, as if the station itself exhaled, pushing him away from the infirmary.
Then something struck the back of his head.