A warm wind flowed through the cavern. In return the cold air crawled on the ground, a creeping mist slowly churned across the cracking ice. Tufts of mist drifted down from the walls alongside the glistening trickle of warm water. And throughout all this , the tremors rumbled below. Deep underneath the ice cracked apart. The thunderous collapse travelled up above ground where the muffled roars only added to the foreboding atmosphere.
As they delved deeper, past the sweating stalagmites and dodging falling chunks of ice, the cavern narrowed into a tunnel. Some time later, it narrowed to the point that they needed to walk single file, backs hunched over. The temptation to get on the floor and just crawl through was indomitable, the only thing keeping them up was the shared belief that everyone else would make sure to point it out.
Their heavy suits grew heavier with water, adding a few kilos to their weight and making it even more difficult to trudge through the melting tundra. Water obscured their view no matter how often they wiped their visors. Condensation built up inside their suits, interfering with holographic displays. Nearly blind, they kept walking, hoping to climb out of the watery malaise.
A blast of hot air pushed them back. As they attempted to brace themselves , another blast nearly knocked them back. The gusts were in rhythm, separated by three seconds of fogged visors before another burst of air rocked them.
Struggling against the columns of air bearing down on them, a nearly inaudible sound passed through their helmets. A whoosh and then a pop. It was low enough to ignore easily but the sound reverberated through their eardrums, adding it to the background noise but overcoming it with its muffled rhythm. At first the whoosh seemed to meld into the sound of their breathing. The pop that followed it sounded a bit like a balloon bursting. Some confused it for the hardened armor on their suits slamming into the ice walls.
Subconsciously , the sounds were familiar. That familiarity soon turned into a conscious discomfort. A lull in the blasts of air allowed them to concentrate on their surroundings. While their hands grasped the walls to support their slipping feet, their ears focused on the background noise that pierced their suits. Soon enough they heard it, the rhythmic beat.
It continued growing louder as the approached the tunnel exit. The tunnel now led them deep into icey crust, with little natural light to be seen. Their suit lamps were nearly useless in the cramped space, making it more difficult to see what was ahead. But they all knew they were coming closer to something. The whooshing pop overcame the constant crackling of snow and ice and became prominent.
What was it, why was it so familiar and why did he feel threatened by it, Ryuki thought. It was incessant , insanely incessant. There was no way to block it out , no barriers to keep it out. Their suit radios were inoperable in the cramped tunnel and with no way to communicate it seemed that the bodies infront of them were just lifeless husks marching to some otherworldy , unnatural and uncaring plane of existance, the tunnel leading them through to the otherside to witness some sort of unspeakable horror. The beating growing louder, now beating like a heart would with a lub and a dub, but the whoosh and the pop stayed.
"Sounds like someone doing an ultrasound" Barry said to himself. He knew it sounded familar for a reason. The military doctor in charge of health discharges scanned his body with one, to check his heart. It was a ploy , trying to get discharged so that he didn't have to follow the rest of the squad into obscurity. It didn't work but they let him keep the recording. The whooshing and the popping. That was the blood flowing through the heart.
He shivered at the thought. His legs trembled. His mind cast visions of blood slopped masses quivering. He could see it , the gory heart pumping , its disjointed form floating above him, pumping his mind full of fear and anxiety. An alien heart, feeding into an alien body, giving it strength to extend its sinewy arms, to protract its claws, to unhinge its jaws, for the pounce. No, it was too big to be something so menial. It was pumping into a mass of blue and pink flesh. Its ridges and folds divided into hemispheres. The alien brain ,controlling all the horrors awaiting them, sitting inside its throne of bone and muscle.
He thought he could feel it, in his mind, suggesting him run. Run away from the madness that awaited him, the transcendental pain that was about to be bestowed on his crew. More images of insanity, the ground now flexing as if alive. Stalks growing out with singular red eyes peering from atop them. Then the mottled husks growing out of the stalks, forming bodies of warped limbs and sprouting like mushrooms from the ground.
No no no, stop thinking that. You're scaring yourself for no reason. This isn't a movie, come on. This isn't the maw into an unimaginably alien world. Its a melting tunnel into the side of a wrecked ship or something. Those things that squirmed underground, they were just ice dolphins or something. The missing researchers were idiots who got themselves killed. Those mechs that smelled like burning flesh were just...
A crack in the facade. He tapped Karin in front of him. A hard swat to her shoulder. Nothing. The armor was too thick, the thermal padding making it difficult to feel anything. He punched her now. She thought he was playing stupid games and decided to ignore him. He told himself that something was wrong.
Maybe running was a good idea. Maybe its not too late. The others, they could be gone already and all he saw were their bodies being carried on by the powered exoskeletons. There was time for an escape he'll go out and get away. He'll get away and then he'll find a place to hide. And wait. Wait for rescue. Or just wait to die.
Karin turned around , saw Barry freaking out. She pulled out her direct line and connected to Reaper in front of her. "Tell Cap that Barry's going through claustrophobia. Tell him that we'll meet up with him once I smack some sense into him" she told him.
Barry shook, a shiver tracing his spine and emerging in the center of his brain. The flashes of visions , the closeness of the walls, it seemed overwhelming. What was real, what was merely an overactive imagination. But it was the sound that was real. "Do you hear that" he asked, his voice cracking from his parched throat. "Yeah, some weird thumping sound. Is that what's getting to you? I'd give you some ear plugs but if we can hear it through our helmets then those wouldn't do much either. I got some anti-anxiety pills, take one", she said as she handed him a package from her harness-pack. He opened up his helmet, letting the biting cold instantly freeze the accumulated sweat on his brow. With one gulp it went down. He drank from the water pouch Karin had gave him. Every last drop went to soothe his throat. For a while after, he felt the fear kept at bay.
The tunnel opened up to a solid wall of metal. It seemed to be the side of a massive structure. The wall seemed to span hundreds of meters but every indication pointed to it extending even further. A thin layer of ice frosted its surface , making the details blurred. Here too the ice melted fast.
A moment of respite from the long harrowing tunnel. They unpacked , setting up a few electric hot plates to warm up food. As they ate, Ryuki inspected the strangely familiar wall. His mind was still fixated on the beating,thumping sound they heard. It seemed to emanate deep underground. And now this wall shows up.
More ice outcroppings spewed heat up into the ceiling, producing a steady drip and drizzle around them. There wasn't a chance to take their suits off, as most of the floor was wet, making any kind of comfort difficult to attain. All they could do was lift their visors up to open their faces to the brutal cold.
The ice sitting on the wall had provided a difficult lens to see through. Behind it he could see faint details and, surprisingly, some color. Against the pale white metal backdrop he spotted what seemed to be red triangles and black bars arranged in a similar fashion as the ships of the Sol Republic.
No, no , that didn't make any sense. What was worrying to Ryuki though was the need to assure himself of that. If this were any place else, he would have disregarded without a single thought. But here, in the depths of an icy graveyard, here it stood out apart from everything else. Here it stood alongside possesed combat mechs, missing researchers and sweltering heat from rushing up from places unknown.
Not now, he couldn't dwell on that. He needed to find a way through. This wall had to have something behind it. There were scientists here, they had to go somewhere. No where else were there even a hint of someone treading the ground. Just here, with the still running spotlights and lamps and a tunnel carved a bit to perfectly.
Wracking his mind, he couldn't figure the puzzle out. Where was this place supposed to lead to? The tunnel seemed to be deliberate, leading them in a single direction with no chance of getting lost. So what was it here that they were supposed to find. Let alone the strange thumping that seemed to reverberate through everything. It was getting to him, driving him to anger, placing a burden on his already tense grip on formality.
He wiped the surface of the wall, the heat from his body jumping out looking for a cold place to infect. The touch broke the ice sheet into large plates. His curiosity took control of his hands, leading him to pull off the pieces.
His mind could barely understand what he saw. The symbols were familiar because they were the same as the ones on the Republic cruisers. The red triangles pointed to armor plate joints, hooks and ports. A nozzle pushed up from the flat surface, waiting for who knows how long for a drop of anti-rad fluid.
Nothing made sense. And further clawing at the ice revealed even fewer answers. The black bars he spotted had long worn away the letters they contained. Not enough remained for any kind of guess. Still the one thing he kept his mind on was the hatch . There had to be one, this room was built around it , he was sure of it.
His behavior spooked the others as they sat around a hot plate eating reconstituted beef soup.
"What the frak is he doing? Its like his scratching an itch or something , but its on that wall" Wasp whispered. They kept eating, the warmth of the food too alluring to let it go to waste. They watched, out of the corner of their eyes, so to not attract the captains attention at their gawking. One by one, they stopped eating and slowly turned to see in full view what seemed to be the first person to descend into madness. None spoke a single word as Ryuki tore at the frosted wall.
The only sound that remained in the chamber was the incessant thumping and Ryuki's scratching. He had pulled his knife out, cutting and scraping at the ice feverishly, like in some kind of delusional state, looking for something that couldn't possibly be there but his mind asserted that there was.
And then he stopped. He looked at the wall and then back to his team. He saw in their eyes a terror that he suppressed in himself. And that reflection stabbed straight into him with a shard of inexplicable fear.