Snow dust drifted through the collapsing cavern like slow-moving ash, swirling in the beam of Aria’s headlamp as she peered over the jagged opening. The pit below no longer glowed with the faint blue luminescence they had seen moments earlier. Now it was a yawning black void — a wound in the ice, swallowing all light, all warmth.

Vincent had fallen into that darkness.

The sound of his body slicing through air still echoed inside Aria’s skull.

Mira crouched at the rim, gripping the edge with white-knuckled gloves, her voice low and trembling despite her discipline.
“Vincent! Respond. Do you copy?”

Static spat back.

Soren tried the medical channel.
“Vincent, are you conscious? Blink your beacon if you can hear me.”

A faint ping blinked on the HUD overlay.

One weak pulse.
Then another.

Aria exhaled shakily. “He’s alive.”

But the relief lasted only a moment… because the next thing that appeared was movement.

Jonah’s tablet flickered, struggling to stabilize Vincent’s helmet cam feed. Color bars glitched across the screen before resolving into a mess of shadows — a tunnel, uneven walls shimmering with frost.

And something… shifting.

Jonah frowned. “Is that… his cam moving?”

“No,” Elias whispered. “He’s unconscious.”

Aria swallowed hard. “Then what’s walking around him?”

The shapes were vague — long, slow-moving silhouettes that stayed just outside Vincent’s frame of vision. They never came close enough to reveal detail. They merely circled him, drifting in the periphery like predators that didn’t need to look directly at their prey to know he was there.

Instinctively, Aria rested her hand on her weapon.

“That’s not hunting behavior,” Elias murmured quietly. “It’s observing.”

“Scanning,” Soren added. “Watching for reactions.”

Mira didn’t move. “Someone talk to him. Now.”

Jonah toggled the channel.
“Vincent, if you can hear this, remain still. Do not speak. Don’t make noise.”

They waited.

A faint shift of audio came through — shallow, ragged breathing.

Soren leaned close. “He’s in shock.”

But then—

On the feed, one of the shapes moved again. A fast blur. Too fast for anything trapped under kilometers of ice.

Aria’s pulse spiked. “That wasn’t circling. That was positioning.”

“For what?” Jonah whispered.

No one answered.

Because none of them wanted to think about it.

Mira stood abruptly, voice steady again — forced, but steady.

“We’re going down after him.”

The others stared at her like she’d gone mad.

“Mira—” Soren began.

“Captain,” Elias cut in more firmly, “we don’t know what’s moving down there. We don’t know if the floor is stable. We don’t know—”

“We know he’s alive,” Mira snapped. “That’s enough.”

Jonah exchanged a nervous glance with Kade.
“So… descent protocol again?”

“Modified,” Mira said. “We go in two at a time. Silent mode only. Jonah, cut the winch motors’ audio signature by half.”

“That’ll weaken the haul strength.”

“Do it anyway.”

Aria checked her harness. “I’m going.”

Soren shook his head. “No. Your vitals are spiking. You’re unstable and—”

“I’m the only one who can track concentrated heat sources faster than the scanners can,” she shot back. “You want to lose another recon? Send someone else.”

Mira looked at her for a long moment.

“…Aria goes first. Jonah, you’re her tether partner.”

Jonah’s shoulders slumped. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

Kade helped unfold the narrow descent ladder while locking in the new anchors. The cavern moaned faintly beneath them, shifting like the breath of a sleeping colossus. Every few seconds, a soft tremor shivered through the surface.

“Time limit?” Jonah asked.

“Ten minutes,” Mira said. “If the cavern destabilizes again, we pull everyone up whether we have Vincent or not.”

Nobody argued.

Static crackled through their comms.

Then Vincent’s voice — thin, strained, barely audible:

“…Cap…tain…”

Mira froze. “Vincent? Vincent! Are you injured? Answer me!”

Silence.

Then a whisper, moving in and out of audio range:

“…it’s…dark…”

Soren leaned into the comm. “Vincent, listen carefully. You need to stay calm. Tell us your location if you—”

Something brushed the mic on Vincent’s end.
A faint scrape.

A shift of air.

Vincent’s breath hitched.

Mira’s eyes narrowed. “Vincent… what’s near you?”

No answer.

Vincent inhaled shakily.

And on the feed — something slid behind him.
Something tall.
Something that moved in a gentle arc, as though studying his body shape… or listening to his panicked breathing.

Jonah whispered, “Captain… we need to hurry.”

Then suddenly—

Vincent spoke again.

Not in fear.

Not in pain.

But in a strange, distant whisper:

“…I’m… not alone…”

While the others scrambled, securing the final lock points, Aria paused.

Her body stilled.

Her head tilted slightly.

“Aria?” Mira asked. “What is it?”

Aria didn’t answer.

She lowered herself onto one knee and pressed her hand flat against the ice.

Everyone watched her.

She closed her eyes.

Her breathing slowed.

Then—

Her eyes snapped open.

She stood abruptly, breath frosting sharply inside her visor.

“It’s Vincent.”

Jonah frowned. “He’s on comms. We know that.”

Aria shook her head violently. “Not from the comms.”

She tapped her boot against the ground.

“The ice. It’s vibrating.”

Mira’s expression hardened. “What kind of vibration?”

Aria’s throat tightened.

“It’s… breathing.”

Silence rolled through the group.

Elias felt his stomach twist. “Breathing patterns?”

“Exactly like Vincent’s,” Aria whispered. “Same rhythm. Same panic spikes. Same pauses. Perfect imitation.”

Soren swallowed. “The creature is… copying him.”

“Not just copying.” Aria’s voice trembled.
“It’s learning him.”

Every muscle in the team went still.

Jonah’s tablet jolted suddenly — Vincent’s feed distorted, fractals of pixelated ice tearing across the display. His HUD vitals dipped, then stabilized, then dipped again.

“Guys… something isn’t right,” Jonah murmured.

Vincent’s breathing grew heavier.

Then—

Another sound emerged behind it.

A slow inhale.

A slow exhale.

Perfectly synchronized.

“Captain,” Elias whispered, blood draining from his face, “that’s not echo.”

On the feed, something shifted in the shadows behind Vincent — close enough now that they could see a faint shimmer of translucent tissue, webbed with bioluminescent veins, like pale cooling lava.

A shape leaned closer to Vincent’s helmet.

His breath hitched into a shaky gasp—

And the creature inhaled that same shaky gasp right back.

Copying him.
Mirroring him.
Understanding him.

Aria stepped away from the pit, her voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s… listening to him.”

Then she added something worse:

“And it knows we’re listening too.”

Mira snapped back into command mode.

“Aria, Jonah — descend now! Vincent’s in active distress!”

Jonah swallowed. “Aria, please tell me you didn’t hear crying or something.”

“No,” she said, attaching her harness.
“…worse than crying.”

Jonah stared at her. “What’s worse?”

Aria looked over the edge of the cavern, her face pale beneath her visor.

“It laughed.”

Jonah’s blood ran cold. “Vincent laughed?”

“No,” she said quietly.
“Something else laughed.”

It echoed faintly through Vincent’s mic — a distorted mimicry of human sound, like something trying to learn what laughter was supposed to be.

Mira’s heartbeat hammered. “We’re out of time. Go. Now.”

Aria took one last breath, anchored herself, and stepped off the edge.

The line tightened.

Jonah followed.

The cavern swallowed them both.

The deeper they dropped, the colder the air became.

Air that shouldn’t exist.

Frost formed inside their visors despite the heating.

The walls around them pulsed faintly with dim blue veins — like the heartbeat of the planet itself.

Aria whispered into comms:
“Descending… ten meters… fifteen…”

Jonah scanned the walls as he passed. “Captain, the ice down here is… thinner. Almost like—”

Something slid across the wall beside him.

He jerked but said nothing.

Aria’s voice trembled.

“I see the floor.”

She angled her headlamp.

And froze.

“Mira… he’s not alone.”

Jonah finally caught up beside her — and his breath caught.

Vincent lay collapsed on the ice.

And three enormous shapes encircled him.

Tall. Translucent. Limbs like elongated crystal spines. Veins glowing faintly with cold blue light. No eyes. No mouth. No recognizable anatomy.

But all three turned when Aria’s light touched them.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Unified.

Jonah whispered, voice cracking:

“Captain… they were waiting for us.”