Cold. Space is always cold. Unimaginable in its intensity and beyond human comprehension. So when the ship crashed on Zebes so long ago, it brought a little bit of the cold with it. And its been home to the dark horror of space ever since...

Nothingness.

Cold. Black. Absolute.

Stretching to infinity back and as insufferably lonely as the ocean floor, a whispered thread of sorrow before slipping silently through the cracks. Everything was dead. Dead walls, dead floor, dead machinery. Littering the derelict vessel like steel and glass plants, thick pipes worming into the mechanical ground, looking for their electric fuel. But, nothing. Ever since the last organic creature had died countless aeons ago, the lifeforce had gone with it, leaving the ship as cold as the space through whence it came and its hull as battered and ancient as the deadly debris it had travelled through.

The Hunter was silent, not even the faintest of sighs escaped her pursed lips. She never did like it here. For even though the gloomy underwater ocean of Maridia was sad, the wrecked ship was sadder, and where the roaring voice of Norfair screamed in rage, the wrecked ship was infinitely angrier. The only place surpassing it in terms of emotion was Brinstar, but only because it held the last remnants of what made the once grand ship remarkable: life. And it was envious. Envious of Zebes and all the life it held, mocking it. Laughing at its all encompassing steel walls and the trapped spirits writhing, always begging for escape, only for their calls to fall on deaf ears, for no one in all the vastness of the universe cared.

The distinct sound of shattering glass, ringing through the dead air on diseased currents. Nerves pumping the Hunter jumped to action, her cannon raised and charging. But the ship was quiet, once again dead. Just as quickly as the sudden noise tore through the silence then did the silence swallow her once again, laying ethereal hands over her amour and holding her close, as though afraid she would leave.

Which was, of course, exactly what she planned on doing.

Anxious fear flooded her mind, a sickly sheen of sweat tainted yellow by the light breaking out on her forehead. A sudden shadow off to her right, a spot of darkness darker than its surrounding shadow and a quick flit of unnatural movement. Contrary to what her scans had told her, of the inhospitable nature of this wrecked vessel, there was life even here. And knowing how the universe functioned there was no doubt that it was malevolent. But the darkness and gloom showed her nothing, and a thin shiver going up her spine she activated her thermal visor.

The wrecked ship was lit up in saturated blues and greens, the colours of cold and murk saved for places of death and decay. Nothing stood out of the ordinary, no flashes of organic heat or unnatural cold. The ship was as dead as the moment she set foot inside its scarred hull and finally, with the faintest of sighs, the Hunter berated herself. Fear was not allowed here. Fear only made the demons and monsters hiding in the shadows worse.

Fear would not rule her.

And oh, what was this? A tiny blip, a soundless blink in the corner of her HUD. Something, deep deep down in the bowels of the wrecked ship. Something alive and evil and ancient. Jaw set, but still afraid, the Hunter changed her course. She had a sinking sensation she'd never feel the safety of reassurance here. The place was simply too old and dead and the haunting echoes of entities long gone always made her cringe.

But she had a mission to fulfill, and pushing her very human fear away set towards the blip on her radar.

Maybe it held answers, maybe not.

But it would be more informative than the darkness, that much was certain. Give her more answers than the bitter gloom that tried to grab at her every moment she walked here, every second she brought her armoured feet down on aeons old mould and spores.

And even though she ignored it, she was still afraid.

For the darkness continued to close in, so cold and dead...