With a mechanical groan, the ship’s main ramp began to lower. Hydraulic arms hissed as the seal broke, revealing a wall of Martian wind and red dust that slammed into us like a freight train. The air outside was a churning storm of rust-colored sand—visibility maybe ten feet at best.

A chorus of system alerts pinged softly inside my helmet as environmental sensors adjusted.

I stepped forward.

The boots of my suit sank slightly into the gritty surface, the crunch of iron-rich soil barely audible under the roar of the storm. The sky above was a dull pink haze, barely distinguishable from the storm itself. Everything outside the ramp looked… alien. Like stepping into a half-forgotten dream you’d never had.

I glanced over my systems. Suit integrity: optimal. Filters: stable. Seals: secure.

Still, I checked again.

My dark silver armor glinted dully beneath the storm-muted light, dust already collecting in the grooves and vents. But it was built to handle this, so I wasn’t worried.

“Everyone good?” I asked, my voice clear over the comms.

Henry gave a thumbs-up. “All set here. Let’s get moving,” he replied, voice laced with a nervous eagerness.

A soft burst of static crackled before Amelia’s voice came through. “Alright, team. Follow the nav map on your wrist consoles. Stay close, and keep your comms open. No wandering off.”

I tapped the display on my wrist. A thin blue line stretched out from our position, overlaid across the dusty, low-res terrain data. The route to Colony Alpha blinked ahead like a distant promise.

We moved out, boots rising and falling in rhythm as the line of us trudged into the storm. Our suits absorbed the worst of the impact, but the wind was relentless, sand striking the armor in rapid bursts like thousands of tiny needles.

Visibility shrank with every step, but we didn’t slow down.

“Can you believe this storm?” Henry’s voice crackled through the comms, half-laugh, half-groan. “It’s like Mars is giving us a proper welcome.”

“Not exactly the red carpet treatment,” I replied, my eyes locked on the ground ahead. The terrain shifted constantly beneath us, with each step a contest of traction and balance.

The storm hadn’t let up. If anything, it was worse, wind like a living thing, screaming around us with no intention of stopping. Visibility barely stretched beyond a few feet; everything else was swallowed by rust-colored static. I had to check the nav path every few steps just to be sure we were still on track.

But then, through the swirling haze… we saw it.

Colony Alpha.

The dome emerged like a monolith from the storm, towering and silent. It absorbed the wind around it, casting a strange buffer of stillness in its immediate shadow. The structure itself was massive, with thick, reinforced panels caked with layers of Martian dust. It didn’t look welcoming in the slightest. It seemed completely dead.

The kind of dead that made your gut twist.

“Hey, anyone else feel like we’re walking into a horror movie?” Ella’s voice broke through, just enough levity to remind us we weren’t alone in this.

Henry chuckled. “If something jumps out at us, I’m blaming you for jinxing it.”

The joke earned a few soft laughs across the comms, but no one really disagreed. The silence ahead of us—the void inside that dome—was the kind of quiet that didn’t sit right.

The wind roared louder as we reached the entrance. A massive airlock built into the dome’s eastern wall loomed in front of us. Amelia approached first, tablet in hand. Her fingers moved quickly, copying the password from the mission file and tapping it into the keypad beside the hatch.

A sharp beep.

Then a mechanical hiss.

The door slid open with slow precision, revealing a dim corridor lined with flickering emergency lights.

“Alright,” Amelia said, her voice echoing inside the chamber. “Everyone in.”

We stepped through quickly. The moment the door shut behind us, the silence hit like a punch to the gut. All around us, the wind had ceased, leaving behind the hollow stillness of the airlock.

The suit felt heavier now that the adrenaline was fading.

Amelia moved to a control panel mounted beside the door and pulled a lever. “This will seal the outer door and start the decontamination process,” she explained.

With a hum, the sequence began.

Tiny nozzles embedded in the walls rotated, hissing out a fine mist that coated our armor. The sound of the low hisses, and the soft mechanical rhythm, was strangely comforting. It meant that the system still worked.

A green light flickered on above the inner door.

And with a step, Amelia moved to the second lever and pulled it down.

Another door slid open, revealing a narrow passage… and yet another sealed entrance. These systems were designed for redundancy. Safety protocols layered like armor.

We passed through the second set and waited. The final door opened with a sluggish groan.

And then, we were inside the colony.

All around us, buildings rose from the dusty ground—low and utilitarian, built for efficiency rather than comfort. The air was heavy with the scent of metal and sand. Dim red emergency lights pulsed along the walls, casting long, shifting shadows across the steel corridors and worn walkways.

There was no movement. Only the silence that surrounded us until

Amelia’s voice broke the spell. “Alright, everyone. Regroup. Check your gear. And we'll move as soon as we’re secure.”

“Got it,” I breathed “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

The biosphere was massive. Once designed to mimic a safe, livable environment for long-term habitation. Now… it just felt like a grave. The wind still screamed outside, muffled by layers of steel and reinforced glass. In here, the silence was worse. Too clean, almost like something was maintaining it. The only sounds came from our suits' soft servos as they adjusted with every step, and the occasional crackle of comms like static in a dead sea.

We moved through the streets, thats if you could call them that. Lanes of packed dust and smooth alloy lined by structures that hadn’t seen life in weeks. Stores, housing units, service buildings. All untouched and abandoned.

Every footstep felt too loud.

“Do you think anyone made it out?” I asked quietly. Not really expecting an answer.

Henry glanced at me “I honestly don’t know,” he sighed. “But we should keep looking. Someone might’ve survived, right?”

A pause. Then, almost to himself, he added, “I just can’t imagine how this even happened. There was no distress signal. No malfunction reports. They just… vanished.”

I let the silence hang for a second before I answered. “Let's just hope that whatever happened to them won't happen again.”

He nodded without much else to say.

We continued our sweep in a slow and methodical manner. Boots crunching over thin layers of dust. Buildings loomed around us like sentinels, all hollow eyes and locked doors. It wasn’t hard to imagine we were being watched, even though every scan said otherwise.

The tablet on my forearm pinged softly. I checked the screen.

“Atmospheric Control Center’s just ahead,” I said, motioning toward a circular structure partially obscured by support beams and overhead pipes. It looked intact. There was no structural damage or signs of breach that I could see.

Henry stepped forward and tried the door. It gave with a low groan and swung open into darkness.

We entered cautiously.

Lights blinked on overhead in response to our motion, slow, flickering strips that lit the room in a pale, white glow. Machinery lined the walls, consoles, and readouts glowed softly. Nothing was out of place. No damage nor blood. Just… empty space. I was expecting something to be broken, but nothing was. If this wasn't damaged, what happened?

“Looks like it’s still running,” I said, eyeing the stable readouts across the control panel. Oxygen levels, circulation, filtration—everythings in the green.

“Yeah,” Henry agreed, stepping up beside me. “Still, I’ll double-check. It's Better to be safe than dead.”

His fingers moved with practiced precision as he began the inspection. I followed his lead, checking the valve integrity and pressure seals as he rattled off system names and expected readings. The hum of the machines filled the room, steady and calm, a heartbeat in the silence.

If the colony had a soul, this was it.

“Looks like everything’s in order,” Henry finally said, exhaling with just a touch of relief.

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” I replied, reaching up to unlatch my helmet. The seal hissed as I removed it and took my first breath of filtered Martian air.

It was clean and dry, while also being a bit Cold. But overall breathable.

I toggled the comms. “Life support is functional. Everything checks out.”

A pause.

Then Amelia’s voice came through, slightly muffled by the storm static: “Copy that. Start heading to the center.”

“Alright, let's go.” Back outside, the inner dome’s ambient lights cast long shadows across the colony’s core. The buildings seemed to press in tighter here, clustered like they were hiding something between them. The deeper we went, the heavier it felt, like the silence was watching.

Each step forward sank a little deeper into tension.

We crossed into one of the outer structures, a residential block shaped like a cluster of domes, each linked by narrow extendable corridors. The layout felt almost cozy in design, but what we found inside stripped that illusion bare.

Scattered toys.

A teddy bear, worn but well-loved, lay abandoned near the entrance.

I stopped, kneeling to pick it up. My gloves brushed against the faded fabric.

“I don’t know what people were thinking,” I muttered. “Bringing kids here.”

Henry glanced over, his helmet tilted toward the bear. His eyes lingered for some time. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It doesn’t sit right.”

We didn’t dwell on it. There wasn’t time for sentiment.

“Let’s split up,” he suggested. “We’ll cover more ground.”

I nodded and moved down one of the corridors, alone.

The rooms were in disarray with tables lay overturned, lights flickering overhead, drawers emptied. It wasn’t just abandoned. It looked panicked. Rushed. Like someone had torn through these rooms trying to grab whatever they could before fleeing.

But it was the footprints that caught my attention.

Scuffed boot marks in the dust. Running. Some small, some large. All headed in different directions. No order, just chaos.

And then they stopped.

 They hadn't left the house, no… they just vanished. No sign of a struggle. Just… gone.