Chapter 4: The Awakening

Before Lyra could respond, the station's emergency lights flickered to life, casting elongated shadows against the walls. A distorted voice crackled through the intercom system, a whisper of something that should not be.

"Why… did you come?"

The words sent a chill through them all.

Eron cursed. "We're not alone."

Lyra drew her weapon, her pulse steady despite the dread creeping through her veins. "We were never alone."

A sudden sound—a metallic screech, deep within the station.

Kaelen readied his blade. "We need to move. Now."

Rhea's bioluminescence pulsed in warning. "Something is waking up."

Lyra swallowed hard and gave the only order she could.

"Stay together. And whatever happens—don't stop moving."

The air inside the station was stale, carrying the scent of rust, old machinery, and something faintly acrid—like burned circuitry. Lyra led the way down the corridor, each step measured, her weapon raised. The walls were lined with inactive consoles, flickering holo-displays looping fragmented error messages.

Eron kept his cybernetic hand close to his sidearm, scanning for power sources. "The station's systems are barely functional. We should be walking through a blackout, but something's still drawing energy."

"Something—or someone," Kaelen muttered, his grip tightening around his blade's hilt.

Rhea, moving fluidly beside them, stretched her senses outward through the Mindstream. Her glow flickered erratically. "I hear thoughts," she whispered. "But they're fractured, like echoes of something that was once whole."

Lyra glanced at her. "Are they human?"

Rhea hesitated. "They were."

A soft clang echoed from a corridor ahead. The team froze. Eron swiftly accessed a nearby panel, overriding the station's basic schematics. A flickering layout appeared on his wrist display, showing their immediate surroundings.

"There's a cargo bay ahead," he said. "Its doors are partially open."

Lyra nodded. "Let's check it out."

They moved swiftly, reaching the large reinforced doors. The metal had deep gashes carved into it, as though something had tried to force its way through. Kaelen ran a hand over the damage. "This wasn't done with weapons."

Lyra motioned for Eron to override the lock. With a few sharp commands into his interface, the doors groaned open, revealing the cargo bay beyond.

What they saw made Rhea recoil instinctively, her form shifting in alarm.

Bodies—or what was left of them—hung suspended in the air, entangled in strands of something dark and sinewy. The material pulsed faintly, weaving through the remains of station workers, their faces frozen in silent screams. The tendrils extended upward, disappearing into the station's infrastructure, as if they were feeding off the ship itself.

Kaelen stepped forward, gripping his blade. "What the hell is this?"

Rhea trembled. "It's alive."

Before Lyra could respond, the intercom crackled again, the distorted voice returning—closer now, more insistent.

"You… should not be here."

Eron's eyes darted across the room. "We need to leave. Now."

Then the bodies twitched.

One by one, their heads jerked toward the team, mouths stretching open in soundless agony.

And then they screamed.

Lyra barely had time to react before the cargo bay exploded into chaos.

The suspended bodies convulsed, their forms jerking violently as if pulled by invisible strings. The sinewy strands binding them to the station's infrastructure pulsed with eerie luminescence, writhing as if sentient. Then, with sickening cracks, the bodies twisted toward the team, their empty eyes locking onto them.

The screams tore through the cargo bay, distorted and inhuman, a chorus of agony that sent ice lancing through Lyra's spine. Her instincts kicked in—she fired, the plasma bolt searing through the nearest corpse, only for the energy to dissipate harmlessly against the dark tendrils.

"Fall back!" she shouted, yanking Rhea by the arm as the creatures lurched forward.

Kaelen was already in motion, his blade flashing as he slashed through the appendages reaching toward them. The severed strands recoiled, but the damage was meaningless—they regrew almost instantly, surging forward like hungry roots seeking new prey.

Eron fired a concussive blast from his cybernetic arm, the force sending several of the figures staggering back. "We need a way out! Now!"

Rhea's form flickered erratically, her connection to the Mindstream chaotic. "I—I can't read them. They're fragmented, pieces of something else!"

Another shriek rang out as one of the corpses lunged at Kaelen, its movements impossibly fast. He barely dodged in time, rolling beneath a rusted storage rack as the creature's claw-like fingers raked the metal where he had stood moments before.

Lyra's mind raced. Plasma rounds were useless. Blades only delayed them. They needed to sever whatever was controlling these things at the source. Her gaze snapped to the pulsating tendrils stretching into the station's infrastructure.

"The tendrils! They're feeding off the station!" she shouted. "Cut them off!"

Eron didn't hesitate. Raising his mechanical arm, he unleashed a high-energy burst directly into the ceiling where the strands merged with the structure. The impact sent a shockwave through the room, causing the tendrils to shriek—a sound that wasn't mechanical, wasn't organic, but something in between.

The creatures spasmed violently, their twisted forms shuddering before collapsing to the ground, lifeless once more.

Silence followed, broken only by the team's ragged breaths.

Kaelen wiped blood—his or something else's—off his cheek. "What the hell was that?"

Lyra's grip on her weapon was ironclad. "Not natural. Not human. And definitely not supposed to be here."

Rhea steadied herself, her bioluminescence returning to a steadier glow. "It was… tethered. Something is using this station as a conduit."

Eron knelt by the nearest body, scanning it with his cybernetic interface. The readout flickered with error codes before stabilizing. "No life signs. Not even post-mortem electrical activity. Whatever animated them—it's gone now."

Kaelen exhaled sharply. "That voice. It wasn't just a warning. It was a statement. It knows we're here."

Lyra steadied her breathing. "Then we don't have much time. Whatever this is, it's watching us. And if it can take control of the dead, it won't stop there."

The ship's intercom crackled once more, the distorted voice now clearer, more focused.

"You… do not belong."

Lights flickered violently across the station as something deep within its core activated.

Rhea's expression darkened. "It's waking up."

Lyra took a step back, her gut screaming at her to run.

"Then we need to leave before it does."