Chapter Text
The heater outside Generator Room B screamed like something dying.
Valeria Rojas kicked the side panel with the heel of her boot.
The screaming stopped.
“See?” she muttered, crouching beside the half-disassembled machinery. “Violence *does* solve problems.”
The station lights flickered overhead.
Somewhere down the corridor, someone yelled her name.
“Rojas!”
She closed her eyes.
Counted to three.
Pretended, briefly, that hypothermia had finally claimed her and she no longer had to deal with scientists.
“What?” she shouted back.
Dr. Klein appeared around the corner wrapped in enough cold-weather gear to survive an apocalypse. Which, in Valeria’s opinion, was dramatic considering they were already inside.
“The drilling platform lost power again.”
“Yeah, because your team overloaded the system.”
“We are on the verge of a historic discovery.”
“And I’m on the verge of unplugging your entire department.”
Klein ignored that. Scientists at Erebus-9 had developed an impressive immunity to sarcasm.
“The scans detected another chamber beneath the ice.”
Valeria wiped grease across her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Cool. Unless the chamber can repair a generator, I don’t care.”
Klein leaned closer, eyes bright with exhaustion and obsession.
“You don’t understand. This structure shouldn’t exist.”
Every scientist who came to Antarctica eventually started saying things like that.
Valeria stood, grabbing her toolbox.
“Last week you said the same thing about a weird rock.”
“It was an artificial alloy.”
“It was a rock.”
“It was not—”
The lights flickered again.
Then everything went dark.
Silence swallowed the corridor.
A collective groan echoed through the station.
Valeria sighed into the darkness.
“Fantastic.”
Emergency lights blinked on seconds later, flooding the hallway with dim red illumination.
The station suddenly looked less like a research facility and more like the setting of a very low-budget horror movie.
Somewhere far below them, metal groaned.
Not unusual.
Ice shifted constantly around the station.
But then came another sound.
A deep, distant impact.
Like something enormous striking metal beneath the floor.
Everyone in the hallway froze.
Klein frowned. “Did you feel that?”
Valeria did.
The vibration traveled through the soles of her boots.
A second impact followed.
Closer.
Then the station intercom crackled violently.
Static burst through the speakers.
Half a sentence emerged.
“—hello? Can anyone—”
The voice cut off into distorted noise.
Valeria immediately recognized it.
Mason.
One of the drill operators.
“Great,” she muttered. “Now the radios are dying too.”
The intercom crackled again.
This time there was no voice.
Only breathing.
Slow.
Wet.
The sound lasted several seconds before abruptly stopping.
Nobody moved.
One of the younger researchers laughed nervously.
“Probably interference.”
Valeria stared at the ceiling speakers.
“Yeah,” she said quietly.
But her stomach tightened anyway.
---
The drilling site sat nearly half a kilometer from the main station, connected through reinforced tunnels carved directly into the ice.
By the time Valeria arrived with two engineers and a portable battery unit, the storm outside had worsened into white hell.
Wind screamed against the metal walls.
Snow hammered the structure hard enough to shake it.
“Tell me again why humans decided to live here?” one engineer complained.
“We didn’t,” Valeria answered. “We lost a bet with nature.”
Nobody laughed.
The main drilling chamber doors stood partially open.
That was wrong.
Protocol required them sealed during a storm.
Valeria slowed.
The others noticed immediately.
Inside, machinery still hummed softly.
The massive drill platform stood motionless over a dark opening carved deep into the ice.
But there were no workers.
No voices.
No movement.
Just abandoned equipment scattered across the floor.
One overturned helmet.
A trail of blood.
“Jesus,” whispered one of the engineers.
Valeria stepped forward carefully.
“Mason?” she called.
No answer.
Only the distant groaning of ice beneath the platform.
Then—
A metallic clang echoed from somewhere below.
All three of them jumped.
The second engineer shakily laughed.
“Nope. Absolutely not. We should call security.”
Valeria almost agreed.
Then she heard it.
“Mierda…”
Faint.
Weak.
Mason’s voice.
Coming from the hole beneath the drill platform.
“I’m down here…”
Valeria moved before thinking.
“Rojas!” one engineer hissed. “Wait—”
She grabbed a flashlight and approached the edge.
Cold air poured upward from the darkness below.
The beam illuminated ancient walls buried beneath the ice.
Not natural.
Smooth black stone covered in strange carved symbols.
The drill had broken into something massive.
“Mason?” she called again.
Static crackled through her radio.
Then his voice answered.
Closer this time.
“Vale…”
She froze.
Nobody at the station called her Vale except people she actually liked.
And Mason definitely wasn’t one of them.
A horrible feeling crawled up her spine.
The flashlight flickered.
For one second, the beam caught movement below.
Something pale.
Something smiling.
Too many teeth.
Valeria stumbled backward instantly.
At the exact same moment—
A massive shape dropped silently from the darkness above the drilling platform.
One of the engineers screamed.
A blur of black armor slammed into the floor between them.
Towering
Broad-shouldered.
Not human.
The creature straightened slowly to its full height.
Metal clicked.
A bio-mask turned toward the darkness beneath the hole.
Then toward Valeria.
Two glowing yellow eyes locked onto her through the mask.
The station lights died again.
And somewhere below the ice—
something screamed back.