“Tread with caution,” Xander says as they approach the room leading to the main controls. “And don’t make any sudden movements.”

Miranda holds her flashlight close to her chest. “What if it’s a trap?” she whispers. “Wouldn’t we be walking right into it?”

“Obviously,” Yuuta scoffs. “But who cares if it is?” he says with a shrug, and a wave of his hand, his own flashlight. “We’ve been trained to walk into traps.”

“I know that!” she snaps, a little too loud in comparison to her mother who has yet to speak a word. “But for survival’s sake, it’s still better not to—”

“Quiet,” Xander says, his voice low as he freezes and holds out a hand to stop them from going forward. “Did anyone else hear that noise?”

The station dips slightly to the right.

Inside the ringing silence, metal screeches and rearranges itself.

Yuuta gulps. “Y-you’re hilarious, Xander. Stop playing, there’s nothing—” A shadow descends from the ceiling and drops down next to Yuuta’s ankle. Yuuta’s eyes widen as his flashlight reveals a maggot the size of a human fist, whose lime-green, almost fluorescent skin is dented with holes and what looks to be blood.

Miranda screeches. She drops her flashlight that goes rolling down the hallway, in the direction of the entrance that leads towards the main control panel.

“Oh, come on,” Yuuta says as he rolls his eyes and nudges the worm, that squirms against the silver floor, with his foot. “You’re not seriously scared of a bug, are you? Look!” He kicks at it again. “It’s harmless!”

“Yuuta,” Miranda blurts as she takes a step back, her eyes widening. “That’s not a normal bug.”

“Miranda’s right, Yuuta,” Xander tells him, his features growing sterner by the minute as a gloss of sweat covers his brow. “You shouldn’t be touching it.”

Diane nods as she pulls Miranda closer to her side. “We should come back with something to capture it. And perhaps, for now at least, consider a tactical retreat. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’d be in trouble if there were more, not to mention they could be poisonous.”

There is another screech coming from within the station as it moves again.

Yuuta’s shoulders drop. “Fine.” He sighs and takes a step forward. “Let’s get going, I don’t—” But before Yuuta can finish his phrase, inscrutable pain—coming from rows of sharp teeth that bite into his ankle’s thin skin—runs up his leg. His eyes widen at the sensation of fire bursting across his veins. It is like he has just jumped into an inferno that slowly burns him alive, he thinks.

“Fuck,” Yuuta gasps the word as his eyes dart from left to right in a fit of panic. “Fuck, what’s—” The pain disappears, yet the throbbing of his heart that travels throughout his wound remains.

When Yuuta glances downward, the worm is dead by Xander’s hand, its three rows of sharp teeth—covered in a purple substance Yuuta cannot identify as anything he knows—glistening from within its gaping mouth.

Xander glances up to him and meets his gaze. He parts his lips. “Yuuta,” he says. “Are you all—”

The floor rumbles. The foul stench of decaying flesh and iron fills the room. “Guys!” Miranda shouts as she fixates on something behind their figures, something now partially lit by her abandoned flashlight. “Guys, we have to go. Now! Get up and—”

Miranda’s breaths are stolen from her by none other than Diane, who grabs her by the arm, and starts running in the direction they came from.

It doesn’t take long until Yuuta and Xander are doing the same, as the tall, dark shadow rises before them and dangles the looming threat of a chase in front of their faces filled with terror and fright.

Yuuta is surprised to find his pain has relatively subsided despite the pressure he puts on his ankle, surprised, yet not dissatisfied. Bile rises up his throat as the horrible stench, that now lurks within every inch of the corridor, travels to his location. He swallows hard, tries to ignore it. And then he thinks he feels something. Something cold and inhumane brushing past his arms. However, it is gone within a matter of seconds, and perhaps, he thinks it again, that it is just his imagination—nothing more.