Chapter 8: The Rot Begins

Mark’s Team – Walking Into Death

The Alpha Union research facility was a graveyard.

Dark corridors stretched into the unknown, lined with rotting bodies—former scientists, soldiers, and engineers long dead.

The air was thick, heavy, unnatural. The rotten stench was more than just death. It was decay in motion.

Mark, Sophie, and Rhea moved carefully through the ruined halls. Their boots crunched on dried blood and organic debris.

Sophie: “I don’t like this.”

Rhea: “Yeah? I don’t like being abandoned on a dying planet. But here we are.”

Mark stopped at a control panel, dusting off the screen. It flickered, static pulsing.

Then—a video feed activated.

A scientist, her face pale, eyes sunken, stared into the camera.

"If you find this… don’t breathe."

Mark’s stomach sank.

The screen glitched, revealing footage of a dead body convulsing. Then twitching. Then moving.

But not from life.