Vincent’s scream didn’t echo — it collapsed, swallowed by something vast enough to eat sound itself.

For one suspended second, the entire team on the platform froze.

Aria’s breath hitched first. “Vincent—? Vincent, respond!”

Static hissed. A low, rumbling undertone vibrated behind it… almost like breathing. But deeper. Wet. Slow.

Soren’s eyes widened. “That’s not interference.”

Jonah jolted into action. “Lower the line! Now!” He clipped another tether to his harness. “I’m going down.”

Mira’s hand clamped onto his shoulder before his foot touched the edge. “No. Not blind. We do this by protocol.”

“Protocol doesn’t cover that,” Jonah snapped, pointing toward the dark widening abyss. “He’s down there alone!”

Mira didn’t flinch. “Exactly why we won’t lose a second person.”

The cavern below glowed faintly, the biothermal vents casting shifting amber halos that flickered across the massive walls. Ice wasn’t just ice down there — it pulsed faintly, as if laced with veins of warm luminescence.

Aria swallowed hard. “Captain… something is moving down there. Multiple.”
She pressed two fingers to her headset. “Vincent? Knock once if you hear me.”

Silence.
Static.
Then—

tap… tap… tap.

Three knocks.

Jonah exhaled shakily. “He’s alive.”
But something about the taps felt… wrong.

Aria slowly shook her head. “The pattern… that wasn’t him.”

Vincent wasn’t dead.

He lay half-conscious, chest heaving, ribs aching as if a vice had squeezed the life out of him. When he tried to sit up, pain shot down his left side.

His helmet light flickered weakly.

The cavern around him stretched impossibly far, like the hollow interior of a frozen lung. Warm mist drifted upward in slow spirals. The ice walls throbbed faintly, like they were alive.

Or listening.

“Hello?” Vincent whispered hoarsely.

Something shifted behind him.

He froze.
Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.

He rotated his helmet light.
The beam landed on—

Nothing.

Then—

A pale, translucent surface slid behind a distant pillar. Too smooth. Too large.

Vincent swallowed. “Guys… I’m not alone down here.”

Static answered.
Then a voice that sounded like Mira:

“Hold your position, Lieutenant.”

Vincent exhaled in relief. “Captain… thank god. Something’s down here with me—”

But the voice repeated, same tone, same cadence… identical.

“Hold your position, Lieutenant.”

A perfect mimic.

Vincent’s blood ran cold.
“That wasn’t Mira…”

Something whispered his name behind him — in his own voice.

“Vincent…”

His breathing quickened. His fingers inched toward his flare.

A shadow peeled itself from the ice wall — tall, jointed in the wrong places, its surface shimmering like gel under frost. As Vincent’s flare ignited in a burst of red light—

The creature recoiled instantly, collapsing backward into the ice like liquid folding into itself.

The echo of Vincent’s own breath whispered from inside the wall.

He threw the flare as far as he could.

The creature fled from the heat.

He pushed his comm again desperately. “I’m alive—listen, it mimics voices, it mimics breathing—don’t come down—”

The static roared louder, drowning his final words.

Aria recoiled from her pad. “His vitals just spiked—heart rate is off the charts!”

“Lower me down,” Jonah barked.

“I said no.” Mira stepped between him and the rope. “We secure a multi-line descent with a heated halo rig. If these things fear heat, we use it.”

Soren added, voice trembling, “If they mimic sound, they might mimic cries for help.”

Jonah’s face drained of color. “You’re saying… that scream—?”

“We don’t know,” Soren said quickly. “But we cannot trust audio.”

Aria stared into the chasm. “I can still track him. He’s moving.”

Mira snapped into command mode. “Soren, prep thermal flares. Jonah, reinforce descent harnesses. Aria, stay on heartbeat tracking—if he flatlines, we go in anyway.”

Jonah paused. “Captain… permission to speak freely?”

“We don’t have time.”

“I’m speaking anyway.” Jonah’s voice dropped. “I’ve worked seismic fields for eleven years. This is the first time the earth feels like it’s paying attention.”

Mira didn’t respond.

Because she felt it too.

Every few seconds… a faint tremor.
Not random.
Not tectonic.

Patterned.

Almost like something huge was shifting beneath them, repositioning.

The halo rig—a circular frame of heated rods designed to keep frost off equipment—lit up in a ring of dull red glow. The ropes were attached carefully. Every movement had weight now, fear behind it.

“Aria,” Mira called, tightening her harness, “any change?”

“Yes,” Aria whispered.

“Good or bad?”

“…neither.”

Mira turned. Aria wasn’t looking at her screen anymore.
She was staring at the ice below the platform.

Mira followed her gaze.

A dark shape glided just beneath the surface — massive, slow, aware.

Jonah felt his stomach twist. “That’s the thing Vincent saw.”

The shape paused beneath the platform, as if listening.

Aria’s voice trembled. “Captain… it’s mirroring our movements again.”

As Mira stepped closer to the edge…
The shadow beneath shifted with her.
As Jonah backed up…
The shadow retreated the exact amount.

“Oh hell,” Jonah breathed. “It’s studying us.”

“No,” Soren whispered, pale. “It’s learning us.”

Vincent limped toward the far wall. The cavern sloped downward into glowing tunnels. He kept the flare close, brandishing it like a weapon even though every muscle screamed.

The mimic noises faded.

Then—

A new sound emerged.

A pulse.

Slow. Heavy. Rhythmic.

A heartbeat.

He crept closer. The ice wall in front of him wasn’t solid — it was semi-organic, like pressed layers of cartilage and transparent skin. Inside the translucent layers…

Something moved.

A vein?
A tendon?
Or a creature’s limb embedded in the ice?

Then he saw it.

A massive eye — lids fused in frost — shifting beneath the surface.

Vincent stumbled back, breath catching.
“No… no no no…”

He raised the flare — but before he could thrust it—

A voice whispered behind him, soft as a sigh:

“Vincent…”

He spun—

Nothing.

Then again, closer:

“Vincent…”

His own voice.

He ran.

Mira secured the last tether. Jonah and Soren locked into their lines. Aria remained at the console, fingers shaking, tracking Vincent’s biometrics.

“Captain,” she said, “I’m detecting movement all around him. More than one entity.”

Jonah cursed under his breath. “Of course there’s more than one.”

But Mira’s response was steady. “We go down, retrieve Vincent, ascend fast. No exploration.”

Soren’s voice cracked. “And if the creatures approach—?”

“We use flares. Heat works.”

Jonah muttered, “Until it doesn’t.”

The three stepped onto the reinforced descent platform.

“Aria,” Mira said, “lower us.”

As the winch engaged and the three of them descended into the glowing cavern below, Aria’s eyes widened at her screen.

“Captain—stop! Something’s rising toward you!”

Mira looked down.

Something enormous surged upward beneath the ice walls — fast.

Too fast.

“Aria—pull us up—”

Before she could finish, the comms filled with a soft, eerie mimic of her own voice:

“Hold your position, Lieutenant.”

Jonah froze. “Captain… that wasn’t Aria.”

Then the ice wall beside them bulged outward—

And a huge, translucent limb pressed just inches from their heads, following their descent.

Mirror-perfect.

Like a ghost behind glass.

Mira whispered, “Do not make sudden movements.”

The limb slowly dragged downward, matching their descent rope by rope, inch by inch—
like it was escorting them.

Learning them.

Choosing whether to let them pass.

He reached a ledge overlooking a deeper pit. His flare sputtered.

“Not now, not now—!”

The flame flickered—

Then died.

Darkness swallowed everything.

The next sound that echoed up the tunnel wasn’t a mimic.

It was a roar.

Low. Slow. Trembling the bones of the cavern.

Vincent screamed—

And this time, topside heard it.

Clear.
Raw.
Real.

Aria leapt from her seat.
“CAPTAIN — VINCENT’S SCREAMING AGAIN!”

Mira’s blood ran cold.

Jonah yelled, “Drop us faster!”

Soren held onto the rope with white knuckles as the winch sped up, lowering them rapidly.

But the shadow beneath the ice rose with them—

Faster.

And before they even reached the cavern floor—

A second translucent limb shot upward, slamming into the platform above.

Aria screamed and dove aside as the ice shattered.

The whole structure lurched.

The winch jammed.

The rope snapped.

Mira, Jonah, and Soren plunged into the glowing depths—

And as they fell,
the creature beneath the ice rose to meet them.