Jones and me (the security guard) we exploring the rest of the station as quickly as possible, we talked on the short radio with minimal power settings so others wouldn’t pick up on the frequency. We had come across all sorts of stuff, spare oxygen and power cells, airtight rations, ammunition, spare parts. However, one thing we both noticed is that there are still no bodies, there are shell casings, weapons floating, we’ve bagged a couple of laser-based weapons but no bodies.

“Got a datapad here.”

Then my suit responded in an automated voice “Playing recording…”

Someone was trapped in this room, crying. A woman, by the looks of her maybe quartermaster for the ships. “Danny and Ray are dead.” She sobbed,

“It ate them, I-I’m going to die.” Her voice breaks, “If someone finds this, tell Arthur I love him, tell him that I didn’t want to leave. Oh God.” She cries more, the video keeps recording as a large explosion happens and the camera hits the floor breaking.

Now I’m no stranger to horror movies and games, but Jesus Christ this thing sounds terrifying. I hope it’s dead. Just to be sure however.

“All callsigns this is Sierra, stay alert we might not be alone here, Base and Echo copy?”

“Good copy.” Base replied.

“Copy.” Martin acknowledged.

Jones and I started going slower and more carefully, we don’t make noise in space but we tightened up our formation and became less relaxed. We continued searching but not finding much more than miscellaneous equipment.

“Jones, I’m thinking about calling it, most of this we don’t need and won’t get much for by selling.”

“I was just about to say the same thing.”

“Last one?” Jones gave a nod in reply.

I pulled the door open and Jones had a firing point from the corridor to shoot into it. As soon as the door was open enough he went in and I covered him from the doorframe with the survival pistol that I reloaded.

“There’s something on the floor.” He describes.

“What is it?” I shine a light across the room and it lands on what looks like a plant, made of muscles. It looks dead but clearly not friendly. I’ve been running a recording for a while, Jones had told me how to do that as he needed it for the job. Accountability and all that as a security guard.

“Shit! We need to get out of here!” Jones sprinted out the room and I had to quickly move out of the way. From behind him, I could see the tendrils of the flesh plant stirring.

“What is it?!”

“Just fucking run!” He threw a grenade in there and already began running down the hall without me. I took cover in the hallway and it detonated and I looked back in. All the tendrils were now moving and rushing towards the door.

“Shit!” I activated my EVA and shot down the hall. “Base get ready to lift off, Echo status?”

“Echo, we’ve loaded all the pods on and most of the kit. We’re just moving extra rations on.”

“Dump that shit and get on the ship, we’re leaving now!”

It wasn’t long before I caught up with Jones. He had deactivated his magnetic boots and was pushing himself to go faster by pushing off the walls. I grabbed him by his suit rigging straps and shot down the corridors because of the new mass that wasn’t up to the same speed as me it felt like my arm was being torn off. I looked back and seen the tendrils slowly closing the distance. Jones was already shooting at it and throwing whatever grenades he had left on him but it wasn’t slowing down at all.

“Base lift off! Get off the station!” We were a good five minutes from the hanger and I doubt we’ll get there in time. I look back once more, the tendrils look to be ten meters behind by now when suddenly one of the shoots forward and speared Jones through his body. I let go of him and hear his screaming through the radio which gets cut short. The sudden grab screwed with my EVA balance and I shot towards the ceiling hitting it with the visor of my helmet.

“Fuck…” I groaned dazed, my visor cracked like a spider web but hadn’t shattered lucky for me, I could see the mesh that kept it all together though. The tendrils had shot over me, it seemed like those ones were faster than the rest. I flick my vision up to see what it is and my helmet light gives me a good view of it.

It looks like it’s made out of muscle, sinewy, pulsating, and gross. The tendril itself seemed to be budding like a tree branch and as I observed more, smaller tendrils grew from it, growing in my direction. In front of me is a door, I don’t know where it leads but it’s better than here. Activating my EVA I quickly get in and close it behind me. No time to stop moving and see what’s inside, I have to get off the station.

“Sierra, Jones is dead. You better be off the station Base.” I scanned the room for an obvious way out but I couldn’t see one.

“We’re clear, what happened?” The pilot replied with the tone of worry clear in his voice.

“Some kind of space monster horror shit, sending vid.” I got the data package to send to the pilot and looked for less obvious roots like air vents. Seeing one I got close to it, but it’s far too small to fit me with the EVA.

“What is that!?”

“Less panic, more unfucking the situation.” I unclicked the harness keeping the EVA attached and began part crawling part pushing myself through the air vent.

“I-I don’t know, where are you?”

“In an air vent, I’m looking for a way out. Don’t get close to the station.” I passed a few air panels that went into a hallway or a room, I skipped over those. “I’ll patch you into my suit camera.”

“Got it.”

“Echo?”

“We’re here, what do you need?” Martin seemed to be waiting for me.

“Are the air vents connected in a ring?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to try and get to the oxygen generator room.”

“Ah don’t go there. There should be a way to the CO2 overboard venting system.”

“Will it fit me?”

“It should because it’s not accessible from the outside, so we would need to do repairs from the inside.”

I began following Echo’s directions, the station shuddered a few times but it never found me in the vents, if it did I would’ve died. Unfortunately, the CO2 venting system was too small for me to fit through, so I had to go back into the corridors of the station and escape without an EVA jetpack.

“Please tell me that you can find me when I get out of the station.” I sighed and prepared to exit the ventilation system. I have no idea what’s in the corridor, just the general direction I have to go to follow the vent system.

“We can track your general direction using the signal strength boss.”

“Okay, entering the corridor now.”

I opened the vent cover and pushed my head through into the corridor slowly. Inky black darkness encroached from every direction until I shined my light in that direction. A good start, no horrible man skewering flesh-eating space monsters. Let’s continue that for the duration of my escape. I move my head a few millimeters in each direction to try and see around the cracked cobwebs in my helmet glass.

I’m so ditching the glass style of helmets and getting a few of the pure metal ones with the cameras on the outside instead.

I float out slowly and put my feet onto the floor, reactivating my magnetic boots I head in the direction I think the exit is. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Immediately comes over the radio.

“Power is on three percent, I’m turning off non-vital systems. I’ll contact you when I get out.”

“Good luck boss.”

I turn off my radio, set the temperature lower, turn off my wrist gadget thing, and begin running. I don’t know where I am, I went up a couple of flights of stairs past a dead quarantine hydroponics farm and no closer to where I started. I check my power.

1.5%

It’s got to the point it’s counting the decimal places. Fuck you Jarvis. I count how much of everything else I have.

The digital map I had to start with is still fucked. I can’t run back the way I came without losing the rest of my power and dying. Sure I could still breathe but I won’t be able to see in the station and I'll slowly freeze to death.

My body is showing up a mix of green and amber. I must have hurt myself when I cracked my helmet.

My O2 meter is sitting around 66%. Which is the only thing that is doing me favours right now.

I take a quick look around, the reason I stopped is that I seem to be in some sort of flight control centre and also because I’m so fucking tired of running and listening to my wheezing. I shiver in a cold sweat from the lowered temperature from the suit and realise.

I have an awfully bad feeling.

I see a vertical storage locker and jump into it, it was being used to store a few jackets but now it’s used to hold me. I peer out of some holes, having to look through my helmet and an angle to see without the cracks.

Then I see it.

It followed me to where I am, the monster. I turn off everything in a rush all systems. The light goes out and there’s just darkness. I’m trapped in a locker and there is a monster outside it. I can’t see it or myself, the air I’m breathing starts to go real cold. Moisture around my mouth and nose begins to slowly freeze. The sweat I had worked up running has turned ice cold. It’s becoming difficult to breathe properly.

I close my eyes, it means nothing in this darkness other than to allow me to focus. I try and come up with a plan. How had it followed me? It doesn’t have eyes, maybe it was just bad luck. No, it must have followed me. There’s no sound to make in a void because there’s no air, maybe it had sensed vibrations from me when I had been running. I’ll work as if that’s correct.

In my rush to get into the locker, I had also closed the door, I’m not very bright. Yes, the monster, as far as I know, doesn’t have eyes and I just tried to hid from its sight.

Laugh it up Jarvis you fuck, I know you’re a smug little shit.

So in order to escape, I have to open the footlocker, opening the door would cause a vibration. So I have to be very, very quick and have a plan for what I do. The traffic control must sit above or below the hanger where I fought the raiders. It is also a wide-open room with four points of entry, it has a window to observe the traffic for aesthetics, I’d say I’m a very practical person.

You say window, I say unexpected escape route.

But how? Well, I have the pistol with so I can damage the window. I also have to be fast, without my EVA the tendrils will catch me the moment I leave.

I have an idea.

I turn on the systems I need, my mag boots are off and my radio is on. I take my pistol into my left hand and point it at my body.

I take a few deep breaths.

“Boss?” The pilot asks over the radio seeing that I’ve dropped onto the comm network.

I leap out of the cabinet, flashlight on. I get my bearings quickly and pull the trigger. I feel the recoil through my weaker arm and grasp my O2 canister. I shot the top off and now it’s starting to propel me towards the window. I quickly try and shoot the window to help smash through it but I barely get my arm up in time to protect my head. I feel my left arm crunch against the glass but the glass gives way. Mainly because I pulled the trigger as I hit it creating a weak point. Only a small hole is created where I barely fit through and I still get cut up by jagged pieces.

I did scream a little too.

“I’m out!” I yell or try to, I exhaled most of my breath going through the glass. I try holding my breath but it isn’t long before I feel a burning sensation in my lungs. I try to breathe but I can’t, I'm trying to suck up air that isn’t there. The O2 canister long since shot into the void alone. I grab and claw at my helmet until I feel a different sort of weightlessness.

You have passed out, please wait until your character regains consciousness or dies.

Well, that was a decent run. I think this game has got me hooked.