“WARNING: BIOHAZARD DETECTED IN MEGA-VENT 35 THRU 47… ALL STATIONS EVACUATE. LOCKDOWN IMMINENT.”

Transport Engineer Jacob Kelster ran through the halls of the Megavent Complex, a mixture of fear and confusion melding with the intense adrenaline spike he received fifteen minutes ago. He was not the running type, but cardio was infinitely better than what was happening far down the hall. His crewmates were right ahead of him, running up the corridor and following their boss, Shift Lead Carl Winslow, as he led them to a security booth around the corner. There, they had a chance to catch their breath and take stock of their situation.

“Hell… helluva first day, eh Rook?” Grav Controller Kevin Felcher said between breaths, looking at Jacob through his plated CEC helm.

Jacob was so out of breath; all he could muster was a wheeze from his lungs in response, a laugh that quit halfway through. As shocking as the past few events had been—Kevin wasn’t exactly wrong.

Today was Jacob’s first time on shift with this crew. Winslow and the others had just finished showing him around and setting to their daily tasks when the screaming started. Jacob was checking up on filtration diagnostics for the megavent transports when he heard shouts and screams from the hub. He rushed to the area, and found a scene out of a horror movie:

Disgusting creatures were crawling out of the vents and attacking engineers and technicians on sight, ripping them to pieces with a variety of gross, fleshy appendages and bone-like protrusions that they used as blades. Disturbingly, some of these monsters were wearing CEC uniforms, Jacob noted as one of the Engineers in the hub got stabbed to death by a creature wearing a similar Engineering RIG. He was frozen, unsure what to do—or what to believe—as the same creature that killed the engineer approached him menacingly, flexing its arm-blades and letting out a horrific gurgled shriek. Before it could close the distance, his crew had showed up to save him, Winslow cleaving the thing in two at the shoulder with a fire-axe. He didn’t have time to process what was going on, and the team just told him to follow them, leading him to now; catching his breath after witnessing some of the most disturbing things ever witnessed by human eyes.

“So…what’s the plan, boss?” Engine Tech Maya Summers piped up. She’d been checking down the hall for any sign of trouble while the others stopped. She continued, “We can’t stay here, that’s for sure…”

“We need to head to the muster station up ahead. First, we call security and figure out what’s going on…” Winslow stated, reaching for the Security Kiosk and dialing up the keypad. As they waited, another alarm blared overhead.

“WARNING: QUARANTINE LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. PLEASE EVACUATE THE AREA. SHUTTERS CLOSING IN 10 MINUTES.”

“Shit. We don’t have a lot of time, chief. We need to go.” Amber Gauthier said, quickly standing tall and looking towards the empty hall ahead of them. She stood out amongst them in her Engineering RIG, covered in white and red, a large shoulder plate on her right with the insignia of the Cygnus Medical Corps. She was a field medic, with a specialty in engineering. Being a colonial engineer wasn’t a safe job, and she was trained to take care of wounds in high-stress situations; but even this seemed far beyond her expertise. Her green visor was pointed to Winslow, who returned the look.

“We can’t just run yet. We can get directions from Security, they can pinpoint our location using the kiosk and direct us from there.”  Almost on cue, the kiosk opened an audio call on Winslow’s RIG, a P-Sec officer answering.

“Planetside Security, what is your emergency?”

“P-Sec, this is Engineering Shift Lead Carl Winslow. I’m here with my team, we were attacked by some kind of creature, or creatures—there’s a quarantine being issued, and we need directions to an evac point.”

Jacob marveled at how cool and collected the boss was under pressure. Even in something as crazy as this, whatever fear Carl felt was being managed with unbelievable finesse. The P-Sec officer responded a few seconds later.

“I apologize, we have our own situation here as well. Security forces are mobilizing and the EarthGov garrison on-colony has been alerted. I’ve sent the evac point to your locator. Follow that but be quick—I’m reading that the Megavent complex is entering full site lockdown in 10 minutes. If you miss this window… you won’t be able to get out. Good luck, Winslow.” With that, the call ended, and Winslow turned to his teammates.

“You heard her. We’ve got to double time it to the evac. Kevin, I want that plasma cutter fully charged. Jacob, Maya, we’ll find you guys weapons if we can along the way, but we need to move fast.” Winslow tapped on his RIG’s interface quickly, closing it just as fast as he’d opened it before turning to the hall and moving forward. “I’ve sent you all the location for your RIGs, now let’s MOVE.”

Once again, the five began their rush down the corridor with renewed speed and haste, ignoring the alarm blaring and distant screaming to the best of their ability. They had roughly 8 minutes to get to the evac point, and hopefully to safety. All things considered; their run was going well. Jacob noted that they were passing through a filtration area—the walls around them covered in vent openings. Jacob glanced at one of the vents as he passed by; he could’ve sworn he saw something…moving.

Then, the vent burst open.

In a flash, a tailed creature leapt out from the vent and onto Jacob, pinning him to the ground. Its arms held him in place as it tried to bite at his head—its jagged, monstrous teeth clipping his helmet as he tried to wrench the thing away from him.

“JACOB!” Kevin called out. Jacob could hear them approaching him, but he was far too focused on making sure this thing didn’t bite his head off. A sudden force shoved the creature away, and a strong hand reached down and pulled Jacob away from the monster. Jacob looked up to see Amber checking him for wounds while pulling him back to relative safety. He could see Kevin and Winslow fighting the creature—Winslow taking swings at it with his axe, while Kevin tried to get a clean shot with his plasma cutter.

The thing was fast—dodging Winslow’s strikes on its forelimbs, its tail whipping about violently. Suddenly, Winslow screamed and fell to the ground. Jacob saw as his right hand came free from his body; the thing had swung its tail and sliced it clean off. Winslow, in an unexpected move, used his remaining hand to bring down the axe onto the thing’s tail—briefly immobilizing it as it screeched and clawed at the metal floor beneath it.

“KEVIN, NOW!” Winslow barked. Kevin took aim with his plasma cutter, and fired four blasts into it, the third and fourth seemingly killing the beast as it severed an arm and part of its head.

With the intensity of the situation having died down significantly, Amber rushed to take care of Winslow, who was—much to Jacob’s continued shock—managing the pain well.

“I’ll worry about getting this seen to properly when we’re out. Kevin, take my axe, I’ll take the cutter since it’s easier to use. Let’s keep moving.” Amber cauterized the wound with a portable cauterizer unit, and bandaged his arm as best as she could.

Jacob and the others moved rapidly through the hallways of the megavent complex and were making decent time as far as he could tell. Their little scuffle with the creature had shaved off a minute or two, meaning there was still time to get out of here. Things were far more quiet in this section—maybe the creatures hadn’t reached here yet? Jacob shuddered to think of the alternatives, but all this quiet had given his mind time to process a few things: what were these things? Aliens? Aliens don’t wear Cygnus uniforms… He was deep in thought when Maya called out to the group.

“Guys.” She whispered, everyone stopping dead in their tracks: “Look there… are those P-Sec guards?” Maya was pointing towards two corpses on the ground ahead of them.

The group approached slow, not wanting to stir up anything potentially hostile waiting in the rafters for them. On closer inspection, the scene was horrific; the two guards had been torn limb from limb—the first officer missing his head entirely, multiple cuts and stab wounds across his body. The other was slumped against the wall, bisected from the waist down, his entrails spilling out from beneath him as his legs lay about a foot away from him. The officer against the wall was still clutching his pulse rifle.

Winslow piped up: “We don’t have time. Maya, you grab the pulse rifle and check for any ammo. Jacob, take the divets and give one to yourself and Amber.”

The team set to work, looting the mangled bodies of the officers and securing their newfound weapons. Maya checked the rounds on the current magazine for the pulse rifle and grabbed a few extra canisters, while Jacob removed magazines and divets from their respective holsters and distributed them between himself and Amber. As they worked, an announcement was made over the PA system:

“WARNING: MEGAVENT COMPLEX EXPERIENCING TOTAL BIOHAZARD COMPROMISE. 5 MINUTES TO TOTAL LOCKDOWN.”

The announcement was so loud that they didn’t hear Kevin screaming at first… but they soon became well aware once the creatures began pouring out of the nearby vents and ducts. Kevin was holding the bloody stump of his leg, desperately dragging himself away from the bladed whirlwind of arms and bony spikes that were quickly advancing on them.

Winslow took a firing stance and began defending Kevin. Everyone opened fire with their weapons, their combined arms pushing the tide of flesh back as Kevin made a feeble attempt at retreat. Once the creatures had been thinned, Amber holstered her sidearm in her belt and ran towards Kevin, dragging him away as the others provided covering fire. More of the things were entering the hall, some of the creatures looking very similar. Jacob saw the same engineer that he witnessed the horrific death of lumbering towards him, gurgling an inhuman noise as its bladed arms rose up to strike. Jacob screamed, firing the pistol into the thing with reckless abandon. He had never fired a gun in his life, and his technique was living proof of that—most of his shots hitting other creatures behind or inconsequentially grazing limbs. Those rounds that did manage to hit center mass, however, didn’t seem to do a thing—punching holes through the creature only slowed it down.

Winslow, seeing Jacob in trouble, pushed him away from the thing and fired off a few rounds from the plasma cutter, the energy cutting through the thing and finally putting it to rest. Maya was firing into the crowd with the pulse rifle; its barrels unleashing a volley of sustained brutality into the flailing freaks before her—but it wasn’t enough. Flanked from either side, the creatures rushed Maya, sending her toppling over and firing wildly into the air as she screamed and struggled to get free. Jacob watched in horror as blood and viscera sprayed out from the crowd of monstrosities—Maya’s cries quickly turning into choked and muffled gurgles. Some of her blood spattered onto him, making him back away and fall backwards next to Kevin and Amber. Amber was desperately trying to stop the bleeding, but Kevin was losing too much too fast—his RIG dropping from blue, to orange, to red… and then nothing. As Kevin’s body went limp, Amber began to sob, lost to hysterics as Winslow desperately fought back the monsters. Jacob got to his feet and fired at the advancing horde, but to little effect.  He looked down the hall to their right, and his eyes widened.

Overhead, a sign pointed down the hall. Its electronic readout blinked: EVACUATION ROUTE AHEAD. PLEASE REMAIN CALM. Jacob felt a tinge of hope; a feeling that felt out of place in his current predicament, as he shouted to Amber and Winslow.

“Guys, GUYS! Follow me, we’re almost—” the gunshot rang in Jacob’s helmet like a deafening explosion; his ears ringing as he turned to its source.

Amber swayed slightly, the Divet dropping from her hand as the fresh exit wound made her helmet splinter and open up towards the top of her head—a bouquet of blood, bone, brain, and metal; flowering out and splattering onto the adjacent wall. She had shot herself while he wasn’t looking—the stress too much for her. Winslow, hearing this, also looked towards the noise—a fatal mistake—as the hordes took their chance and jumped on him. Winslow savagely beat at the creatures, despite having little to no effect, and screamed as they tore into him.

Jacob ran forward to help but was met with Winslow’s held up hand, him screaming out his final wishes to Jacob as the monsters ripped him apart:
“RUN JACOB!! GET OUT!! FUCKING RUN!—” The hordes dragged whatever remained of him into their pile of carnage, as Winslow’s screams went suddenly silent with a sickening crack.

Jacob wasted no time. He would get out of here, even if he had to crawl. Every fiber in his body was screaming for rest, but he couldn’t—not when escape was so close. He ran down the corridor to his right, seeing light up ahead. Seeing…people. He called out to them, and they shouted back. “This way!! Hurry! The shutters are going down any minute now!” Jacob ran forward with all the power he could, the world drowning out has he reached the opening.

The Industrial Sector Hub was full of panicked people, the injured… but Jacob was never happier to see such a sight. With an exhale, he stepped forward into the light and—

CRUNCH.

Jacob choked out a gasp, feeling hot blood pooling and leaking from his mouth. He looked down to see the blade of one of those creatures plunged through his stomach. The last thing he saw was terrified people screaming at him, as the shutter closed in front of him—Jacob weakly reaching out a hand before being submerged in total darkness.

“WARNING: SHUTTERS ARE NOW CLOSING. QUARANTINE OF MEGAVENT COMPLEX COMPLETE.”