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Selene blinked.

The crew was still gasping, still panicked—but their voices muffled, distant.

She couldn't hear them.

She couldn't breathe.

Her vision blurred, the walls of the ship dissolving around her, twisting into something else.

Something worse.

Cold.

Not the lifeless chill of a dying ship. Something deeper. Sharper. The kind that sinks into your marrow and stays there.

Then—the screaming.

Not like before. Not distant. Not fading.

Right beside her.

Selene snapped her head up.

They were everywhere.

Bodies pressed against the glass walls, their fists pounding raw and bloody, their mouths stretched wide in screams of agony.

The air reeked of blood and sterilized death. The flickering lights above cast long, jerking shadows, twisting the figures into contorted horrors.

Selene was inside.

Inside The Crying Room.

Her lungs seized. Her fingers trembled. She tried to move, to run, to scream—but her body refused to obey.

"Please—please—"

The voice was cracked. Wet. Choking on its own blood.

Selene turned, her stomach lurching.

A woman was pressed against the wall, eyes bloodshot, veins blackened, skin peeling in sick, curling strips.

She reached out—not for help.

For Selene.

Selene staggered back, her hands slamming into the cold metal of the door.

No. No, this wasn't real.

This was years ago. This was done. Over.

Then—

A crack.

A snap.

A gurgling choke.

Selene's gaze whipped toward the sound.

One of the bodies—a man she used to know—wasn't screaming anymore. His neck had twisted too far, his jaw slack. His eyes still wide, still staring, still filled with terror.

And yet—

His mouth was still moving.

Still screaming.

Even with no breath.

Even with no life.

Selene's own scream finally tore loose, her nails scraping against the metal door.

She had to get out.

Had to—

Then—

A whisper.

Not from the dead.

Not from the dying.

Behind her.

So close she could feel the breath against her ear.

A voice that didn't belong.

Didn't belong to anything human.

"We never left."

Selene snapped back to reality.

Her chest heaved. The ship was back—the dim emergency lights, the murmuring crew, the flickering AI screens.

But the cold—the cold still clung to her.

And somewhere, in the dark corners of the ship—

she swore she still heard them screaming.

, you okay? You're pale—white as a ghost," Voss said, his voice steady but laced with concern.

He took a slow step toward her.

Selene flinched.

Her breathing hitched, uneven, panicked.

Then—she screamed.

"Get back! All of you! Leave me the fuck alone!"

Her voice cracked—raw, desperate.

Voss stumbled back, knocking over a tray of equipment. The sharp clang of metal hitting the floor barely registered over Selene's ragged breathing.

"I did the best I could," she choked out. "I tried—I tried to save you. I tried to save all of you!

She clutched at her temples, her fingernails digging into her scalp.

"Why won't you just move on?! The screams—" she gasped, "the screams won't stop!"

Voss's stomach twisted. He had seen men and women break before. He had seen panic, fear, grief.

But the look in Selene's eyes?

She had been through hell and back. And now—she wasn't sure if she ever left.

Voss raised his hands, voice careful. "Selene, it's okay. It's me—Voss. I'm your ship's commander, remember?

"You're not in The Crying Room anymore."

Selene froze.

Her eyes flickered, her body trembling as her mind fought against reality.

Then, violently, she shook her head.

"No! That's impossible!"

Her voice cracked on the last word, her entire body convulsing with terror.

"I was just there. I saw it—I saw the room, the bodies—" her breath hitched, "and the screams—those fucking screams—"

Her legs buckled.

She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face.

"I just stood there... I just watched."

Her sobs wracked her body, her hands clawing at the cold metal floor.

And for the first time, Voss didn't know what to say.

Then—

The AI spoke.

Its voice was flat. Neutral. Too calm.

"Memory log recognized. Restoring data."

The ship grew deathly silent as the monitors flickered to life.

"Video log found. File: Crying Room."

Selene's breath hitched.

Her body refused to move, every muscle locked in place as terror crawled up her spine.

On-screen, the video feed stuttered before stabilizing. The timestamp flickered.

Timestamp: Three decades old.

A heavy silence settled over the crew as their gazes flickered toward one another.

The footage was blurry, grainy with static, but still visible enough.

A small, sterile room appeared—cold, lifeless. Several figures moved in the background, dressed in doctor's uniforms.

But Selene wasn't there.

Not yet.

The video skipped forward—jumping ahead days at a time.

Then—she appeared.

Selene stood in a lab, clad in full hazmat gear. Her posture was rigid, her movements deliberate.

She was doing something.

The footage was too unclear to see what.

But she was experimenting.

The screen glitched.

The feed cut forward again.

Now, the camera was inside a glass-sealed room.

Thirty people.

Still. Silent. Dead.

Their eyes were bloodshot, veins blackened, fingers curled into claws. Their jaws had unhinged, skin stretched too far.

Their mouths were still open.

Still screaming.

But—

The screen cut to static.

Then, a final phrase burned into the monitor:

"WE NEVER LEFT."

A silent echo filled the ship.

Then—

Slowly, everyone turned to Selene.

Tension thickened, unspoken accusations hanging in the air.

Then, one by one, the questions came like bullets.

"What were you doing in that lab?"

"What happened to those people?"

"Why didn't you save them?"

Selene's chest tightened.

"Shut up!" Her voice cracked—raw, desperate. "I get it! You all want answers, but I don't have any!"

She took a sharp breath, steadying herself. "The way I remember it... it's different. Completely different."

A voice from the back cut through the tension.

"If it's so different, then explain yourself."

The speaker was a small, rigid-framed man—pale, black-haired, his expression unreadable.

Then—

"Why is this video dated three decades old?" Rita snapped, crossing her arms. "Aren't you, like, twenty-seven?"

Selene's stomach lurched.

"I don't remember working in a lab!" Her breath came faster. "I swear—I only remember them screaming! In pain! And the date—"

Her voice faltered.

"That... that makes no sense."

She swallowed hard.

"I'm twenty-nine."

Silence.

A silence so deep it felt like the void itself was listening.

Then—

The ship shuddered.

The lights flickered rapidly, but not randomly—there was a pattern. A rhythm.

Like a heartbeat.

Then—a whisper.

It wasn't from the intercom.

It was inside the room.

Then, from the monitor, the AI's voice finally returned.

But it wasn't right.

Its tone was off—too slow, too stretched, as if something was forcing the words out.

"Welcome... back... crew of the... Eliquis-9."

A cold silence settled over them.

The crew wasn't on the Eliquis-9.

Then, the motion sensors activated.

"Movement detected in... Sector Zero."

Sector Zero didn't exist.

A silence swallowed the ship.

Twenty-seven minutes passed.

No words from the crew.

No response from the AI.

Just the cold hum of the failing systems.

Then—

A shadow.

Massive.

A shape so impossibly large that it devoured the light, swallowing the ship in its ever-reaching dark.

The Eidolith was back.

Panic erupted within the corridors.

Selene rushed to the monitors, fingers darting across the controls, frantically swapping between cameras. There had to be a way out.

Voss was already at the ship's control system, hands flying across the navigation panel. They had to move. Now.

"Shit! Oh fuck!" Voss snarled as he yanked the controls, forcing the ship toward the light—anywhere but here.

Then—a crackle through the intercom.

The AI's voice was deadpan, almost amused.

"Solar charging is now offline."

Selene's pulse spiked. She cycled through every camera, her breath coming faster. Every angle—dark.

"We're completely surrounded!" Her voice wavered. She coughed, trying to clear her throat. "Shit—nevermind! Camera six! There's a sliver of light—small, but it's there!"

Voss nodded sharply.

He didn't hesitate. He wrenched the ship's controls, sending them barreling toward the one chance at survival.

"Brace yourselves!" Voss shouted over the blaring alarms. "I have no idea if this thing is gas, solid, or something worse—but we're about to find out!"

The ship lurched forward, its engines screaming as it tore toward the break in the darkness.

As they moved, the ship's lights flickered.

Not an outage.

Not random.

Something was pressing in.

Then—impact.

For one breathless moment, everything went still.

Then—they burst through.

The ship rattled as they broke through the shadow's grip, light spilling back into the cabin.

For a second, no one spoke.

No one moved.

Just the low hum of the ship's failing systems and the distant, guttural roar of the Eidolith fading behind them.

Then—

"What the fuck was that?!"

Rita's voice cut through the silence like a blade.

She whipped toward Voss, eyes blazing, her chest heaving with adrenaline.

"You could've fucking killed us!"

Voss's hands were still locked around the controls, his knuckles white.

"You think I had a better choice?!" He shot back, his voice sharp. "We were dead if we stayed there!"

"We don't know that!" Rita advanced on him, her hands clenched into fists. "You don't even know what that thing is, and you still flew straight through it?!"

"That thing isn't just floating out here for fun, Rita!" Voss's voice rose as he turned to face her. "It moves like it's hunting us. What the hell do you suggest we do? Sit there and wait to be swallowed?"

"Maybe that would've been better!" Rita shoved him, hard, sending him stumbling back against the console.

Voss's eyes darkened. He pushed off the controls, stepping right back into her space.

"Try that again." His voice was low, controlled—but furious.

Then—

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" The rigid-framed crew member from earlier—Soren—stepped forward, his voice dripping with contempt.

"Maybe we should stop wasting time blaming the guy trying to keep us alive—" his glare snapped to Selene, his voice twisting into something cold, accusing.

"—and start talking about why all of this started the moment we found out about her."

The room went dead silent.

Selene's stomach lurched.

"Excuse me?" Her voice barely left her throat.

"You heard me." Soren took a step toward her. "We've been running for our lives ever since we saw those fucking Crying Room logs. And now, suddenly, the Eidolith comes back? The ship's failing? You start acting like you don't even know who you are? Yeah, I don't believe in coincidences, Doctor."

"That's not fucking fair!" Selene's pulse spiked, her hands curling into fists at her sides.

"No?" Soren tilted his head, his sharp glare locking onto her like a predator. "Then explain this."

His arm lashed out.

Before Selene could react—he grabbed her wrist.

A sharp sting shot up her arm as his fingers dug into the raw skin she'd been scratching for hours.

She gasped, trying to jerk away—

Then—BOOM.

The fight exploded.

Voss yanked Soren back with a violent shove, sending him crashing into the nearest console.

"Get your hands off her!"

Soren recovered fast. He lunged, swinging.

Voss ducked, barely missing the hit, then countered—slamming his fist into Soren's stomach.

Soren gagged, staggering back, but he wasn't done.

Rita lunged next.

Selene barely dodged the first swing. She blocked the second—badly. The force of it sent her stumbling against the wall.

The room erupted into chaos.

Shouting. Grunting. The sound of fists hitting bodies.

Then—

The AI spoke.

"Warning: Life support system integrity compromised."

Everything stopped.

Voss, breathing hard, his knuckles bloodied, still had Soren by the collar.

Rita's hand was still clenched, ready to swing again.

Selene gasped for breath, her heartbeat hammering against her ribs.

Then—a sound from the rear of the ship.

A deep, distant rumble.

Not from the engines.

From outside.

The Eidolith wasn't gone.

And now, it knew they were weak.

Everyone rushed to their stations, voices shouting over each other.

Fear was in the air.

Darkness was closing in.

Then—

A static burst over the intercom, distorted and twisted.

"Destination confirmed. Manual controls locked. Time till destination—T-minus five minutes."

The AI's voice was wrong.

Not neutral. Not mechanical. Amused.

Like it was enjoying this.

The ship lurched violently.

Straight toward the Eidolith.

"Oh... shit!" Voss yelled, gripping the controls. He yanked the wheel, slammed every override—nothing.

Panic erupted.

Then—

In the distance, something hummed.

Low. Deep. Endless.

The sound of something watching. Waiting.

"Time till destination—T-minus thirty seconds."

The AI's voice was calm. Too calm.

"Brace yourselves!" Voss shouted.

As they hurtled closer, the ship began to fail.

The lights flickered wildly—longer stretches of blackness between every flash.

The engines sputtered, stalled—restarted—stalled again.

Then—

Nothing.

The void beyond the glass was completely dark.

Then—impact.

The ship slammed into something.

A moment of weightlessness. Silence.

Then—

Light. Blinding. Wrong.

"Fuckkk!" Voss yelled, shielding his eyes.

The brightness burned like a solar flare.

Then—it faded.

"Is everyone okay?!" Rita called out, her voice shaking.

No immediate injuries. No alarms. No fire.

But—the ship wasn't right.

The walls were rusted. Dust hung thick in the air. Consoles were cracked, covered in grime, as if they had been sitting untouched for decades.

Then—they found Jerry.

Seven minutes later.

They found Jerry.

He was dead.

Extremely dead.

Not a fresh corpse. Not a body gone cold.

Just bones.

Selene staggered back, pulse pounding in her ears.

Her brain immediately went into analysis mode.

No signs of decomposition. This wasn't natural decay.

The ship's environmental systems were intact—meaning controlled temperature, humidity. No way for a human body to degrade this fast.

Unless—

"This doesn't make sense." Her voice was hoarse, but her mind was still racing. "The decomposition rate is impossible. He was alive less than ten minutes ago."

She forced herself closer, scanning the skeletal remains, forcing the scientist in her to override the horror.

Clothes intact. No fabric deterioration. His necklace undisturbed.

The body, however—

Selene swallowed hard.

"Bone structure is consistent with at least... three, maybe four decades of decay. But there's no dust accumulation. No environmental wear on his uniform. His body aged, but his surroundings didn't."

Her stomach twisted.

"That's not natural entropy. That's something else."

Her hands trembled, but she needed to say it out loud.

"This isn't death. It's displacement."

A choked breath escaped her lips.

"He didn't die. He was... rewritten."

Then—

The AI spoke.

Its voice was cheerful. Too cheerful.

Like a host welcoming back an old friend.

"Welcome back, returning guests!"

Selene's breath caught in her throat.

Her scientific mind couldn't save her from this.

"What is happening?" she whispered.

The ship hummed, its systems groaning like an old machine waking from a long sleep.

Then—

A soft chime.

The AI spoke.

"Recalibrating manifest... syncing crew database."

A pause.

Then, its voice returned.

"Correction: Eleven active crew members detected."

Selene's breath hitched.

"That's not possible," she murmured.

Rita exhaled sharply. "No, that's wrong. There's only six of us left."

The AI didn't acknowledge her.

Instead—

"Manifest updated. Welcome back, Commander Aelric Voss... Dr. Selene Kael... Rita Varin... Elias Varro... Jerry Lentz... Soren Kalt... and—"

The AI continued.

Four more names.

Names no one recognized.

Names that shouldn't exist.

Then—

A final pause.

And in that same, emotionless tone, the AI finished the list.

"...and Dr. Selene Kael."