Thick vines strangled the frame, crawling out like veins, writhing with slow purpose. The top half of the door was peeled open—ribbons of metal clawed outward like skeletal fingers, as though the door itself had been mauled by some towering thing.

The jagged edges curled toward them in a frozen scream.

“We have to go in there, don’t we…” Andrea said, her voice hollow and resigned.

No one answered her.

One by one, they stepped through the ruined threshold—into the belly of the thing. Whatever had torn through this place was still ahead of them. Star could feel it in his teeth, like static. Like breath down the back of his neck.

The hallway beyond was darker. Unnatural. The walls weren’t just pulsing now—they were breathing, slow and steady, as if the facility itself had lungs.

“You all can be real rude, you know,” Andrea said loudly, her voice echoing too much in the close, wet space. “Men and their whole stoic thing. I’ve been talking to myself for like ten minutes.”

Star forced a smile over his shoulder, trying to lighten the mood. The corners of his mouth twitched, but it didn’t feel right.

Andrea stared at him. “You look like a serial killer.”

Yasir snorted, startling himself with the sound. The laugh broke the tension just enough to keep walking.

But still—no one said they weren’t scared.

Because they were.

And whatever lay deeper in the dark hadn’t finished with them yet.

The further they went, the more the dark swallowed them. Star’s breath caught in his throat as the air thickened, oppressive and wet like walking through a mouth that hadn’t been opened in years.

He felt the itch before the thought—Andrea shouldn’t be behind him.

He shifted to the side under the guise of courtesy. “Here,” he said. “Let me keep an eye out behind us.”

Andrea smirked, brushing past him. “How chivalrous.”

But really, he didn’t trust her back there. Not with her half-jokes and wandering hands and strange silences when she thought no one was listening.

The order shifted: Glenn in front, then Yasir, Andrea, and Star bringing up the rear. He kept his eyes on the faint silhouette in front of him, his world reduced to the rhythmic squelch of their feet against the warped floor. Each step dipped deeper. The ground had softened, like they were trudging through a body gone to rot. Something thick and sour oozed up over their shoes, soaking into their socks with every step.

“Oh god. Ew, gross…” Yasir’s voice whined through the dark.

“If you say gross one more time I’m going to trip you,” Andrea shot back flatly. There was an edge to her voice, like maybe she meant it.

The joke didn’t land.

They walked in silence after that. Five minutes. Ten. The hallway stretched impossibly, far longer than the dimensions of the facility should allow. Star couldn’t see Andrea anymore. Just vague movement in front of him. A shape that might’ve been her back.

He reached forward instinctively, fingertips brushing fabric. Andrea jumped at the sudden contact, then sighed when she realized it was him.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said, voice low.

Star didn’t reply. It was a hollow flirt. A stress response. He didn’t know how to interpret anything anymore, and frankly, he didn’t have the energy.

The walls were pressing inward.

What was once a hallway was now something more organic. Curved. Constricting. Star ran his hand along the side and felt warmth. Moisture. Movement. It shuddered against his fingers like muscle twitching beneath skin.

It was a throat.

A living, breathing canal.

“Wait—wait, guys…” Glenn’s voice echoed back, warped by the narrow space. “It’s getting tight in here. I think we should head ba—”

A sound cut him off.

A noise like skittering.

Then thudding.

Then thousands of wet feet slapping against the tunnel floor.

Something was running at them.

“Move! Move, we need to move!” Star shouted, shoving Andrea forward into Yasir.

“What the hell are you—” Glenn’s voice snapped back, firm, immovable. “Hold on!”

But then it screamed.

High and broken.

And unmistakably human.

Star froze.

“Miriam.”

Her voice—her voice—came from the tunnel behind them. Raw. Gurgling. Dragged through a mouth not meant for words. A strangled cry of “Star!” that cracked like something trying to remember how to speak.

It was wrong.

It was her.

And then it screamed again, and the illusion shattered into something worse.

Panic detonated.

Yasir let out a cry and began shoving, the three of them compressing against Glenn like water behind a dam.

“Go, go, go!” Star shouted again. “It’s coming!”

The tunnel throbbed around them, growing tighter with every heartbeat. The walls pulsed. Flexed. The ceiling bent downward, slime trailing down onto their heads. Andrea was yelling. Yasir was crying. Star could barely breathe, mouth open, sucking down rot-tainted air that coated his tongue like oil.

Behind them, the scurrying grew louder.

Not a single thing, but many. Legs. Claws. Bodies slick with filth, slapping and dragging toward them at unnatural speed.

Glenn still wasn’t moving. “It’s a trick! It’s another—”

The thing screamed again—and this time, they felt it.

Star’s head whipped back instinctively—he had to see it. He shouldn’t have.

A mass of flesh surged through the tunnel—bloated, skinless, fast. And stretched across the front like a veil of horror was Miriam’s face—no longer connected to a body, but embedded into the creature’s front like a mask worn by a nightmare.

Her eyes bulged, dead and unblinking, pushed nearly out of their sockets. Pressed against her glasses—which still clung crookedly to the sloughing meat of her skull. The lenses were cracked. Fogged. Her mouth—

Her maw—

Was open in a silent howl, a gaping wound where lips had torn back past the cheekbones. Jagged teeth sprouted from the seams like the bones had cracked and bloomed outward.

It wasn’t Miriam.

But it wore her voice like a lure.

Star screamed.

They weren’t walking anymore—they were scrambling, clawing their way through the tunnel as it closed tighter and tighter around them. The floor was sludge, the walls slick. Behind them, that awful thing surged, gaining on them with monstrous, liquid speed.

Star felt hot breath—or gas—hit his neck as the creature screeched again, and just as his legs gave out—

They burst through.