I need to find the second disk.

All of my body cam capture data, every millisecond spent in that hole, every megabyte I scraped from that system - all lost if I can't get it back.  The first disk is useless to me, compared to its twin.  Full of initial checks, video logs, pre-descent vital sign records, a shot of my ingress through a hidden entryway, covered by snow.  A breath of air stings my nose going in.  The smell of rot cuts through the numbness for a second as I inhale, swept away quickly by my next breath, but enough to send my mind back toward a spiral.  My stomach churns, blood running colder than the lashing snow and frigid winter air biting the inches of exposed skin allowed by my balaclava.  I blink.  I'm still not alone.  At least a kilometer between me and that cursed hole, and it’s still following me.  

I have to believe the snow is just as much of a hindrance to that *thing* as it is to me.  What kind of creature could possibly hunt in these conditions?  My vision is a field of white, ground and air barely distinguishable.  Snow falls sideways onto a waiting blanket of whirling grey-white.  It hasn't caught up yet, so I still have time - there's still a chance to make it back alive.  Something in the back of my mind laughs at my shred of hope, tells me that it's toying with me.  Wants to watch me suffer.  Playing with its food, is all.

Smeared blood is frozen to my face.  My chest hurts.

I need to find the second disk.

I close my eyes and rock my head back, resting it on the top of my pack.  Vital signs seep from tired electrodes into the collection unit on my hip.  Location data, latitude and longitude placing me impossibly far away from myself, update in real-time, filling Disk 3 with useless log data.  I don't care.  Location data hadn't been accurate since I descended, hours ago, and DEIMOS only needs the data to be present, not accurate.  Disk 3 log data shows its subject is under extreme duress, miles from land in the South Atlantic.  Possible broken rib.  Disk 1 log data shows its subject has a heightened heart rate, trudging through knee-high snow in the depths of Siberia.  Disk 2, if it survives still, would show its subject near-death at impossible coordinates.  I am not in the South Atlantic.  A warning pings in my earpiece and I slow my pace.  Disk 3 is low on space - 2GB left.  I feel for the crystal cases left in a side pocket on my pack: disks 4 and 5 still empty, ready to be filled with useless fiction about some explorer, lost at sea.  Extraction should be just outside of Мирный [ Mirny ], five kilometers from the mouth of the hole.  Hopelessly, I open my eyes and look down at my compass, as if by staring at it longer I'd be able to get my bearings and move towards relative safety.

*Safety*.  Secondary to retrieving the missing data.  “Fuck,” I exhale heavily.  Pulling layers of clothing closer to myself, ripping and readjusting Velcro straps holding my gear to my body, I try to reorient my mind.  There's too much noise.  I thumb ice from my body cam.

The scent of rot, again.  Stronger.

I need to find the second disk.

Mind and body screaming at me to run - doesn't matter where, just away from the stalking presence, from the accursed hole, from the tunnels beneath - I ignore them and stop, turning back towards where I came.  I need that data.  My footprints, even the ones left moments ago, have been all but erased by the raging snowstorm, but I don't need to retrace my steps to find my way back.  Blood pounding in my ears, wind whipping against layers of cotton and nylon, my ragged breathing playing in my head as it crystallizes in front of me - and underneath all of it, audible in the slivers of space between the overlapping noise: an unbroken hum.  I feel it more than I hear it, and every step closer to that descent, it gets louder.  Vibrates my bones under the skin.  Fills my stomach with roaches.  The sound of dread.  Its fingers on my mind.

I walk for what feels like half an hour before I hear a click, and disk 3 auto-ejects from the unit.  An audio prompt plays in my earpiece for a new one to be inserted.  Disk 3, now resting in the snow, is covered quickly with ice.  Whoever at A-Corp designed the collection unit to auto-eject the disk when it's full: fuck you - you're the reason disk 2 is gone.  The reason I have to go back into that coffin, buried kilometer-deep.  I reach down and pick it up, gently brushing the ice from its delicate underside, placing it into its case, then back into my pack aside disk 1.  Shielding it from the snow the best I can, I remove disk 4 from its case and feed it into the unit's drive, replacing the empty case and zipping the pocket back.  I thumb the ice from my body cam again - which, too, is full of useless white-out footage and undistinguishable noise - and continue to walk.  Another click signals data collection resuming.  Subject under extreme duress, miles from land in the South Atlantic.  Possible broken rib.

Trudging forward, fighting snow, following dread, hoping my path doesn't cross whatever is stalking me, I continue toward what I know is certain death this time.  I escaped the hole once by pure luck ( or because I was allowed to leave - it wasn't done with me yet ), and going back in feels like burying myself alive.  As for the *thing*, whatever it is: I still haven't seen what it looks like, and don't want to find out.  Smells like decomposition, feels like being watched.  I can see dips in the snow where something may have passed minutes before, where the snow still works to fill in the space.  Not my tracks.  They lead in the opposite direction, out into the white.

-+-

*Click.  Click.  Click.  Click.*

I fidget with the radio, pressing and releasing the call button - something that would piss off anyone listening, if there was anyone there to hear the radio’s blips as the transmission starts and ends.  No one left to piss off; anyone still down there is dead, or worse - and DEIMOS doesn’t seem to be listening on the secure channel anymore, so they’re out of the picture too.  All I can hope for now is that I can contact someone in Якутск [ Yakutsk ] once I retrieve the data, and they can complete my extraction.  Otherwise, I’m already dead.

As I draw closer to the exit, dread building in my chest, my thoughts wander to Ender.  To the dozens of researchers sent before us.  To Mara.  Our team was meant to lead the final, defining expedition into Mir, focused on retrieving data collected over the last decade by DEIMOS researchers who never returned.  Warnings came back splintered, fragmented in a series of final transmissions, compiled topside by analysts over the last few years: something is living in the tunnels.  After their decade contract concluded a few months ago, surviving researchers stationed in the tunnels packed their belongings and started the trek toward extraction: a five kilometer march through unmarked tundra toward a helipad just outside of Мирный.

DEIMOS scouts, deployed after no researchers arrived two hours post-extraction time, were unable to account for any of the expected passengers.  Packs, disks, collection units, rations, canteens, cams, lowlights - all scattered roughly along the five kilometer path, half-obscured by snow.  No bodies.  They cleared the snow around the personal affects and gear, and still: nothing.  Stranger - not a drop of blood.  The manner in which the gear was thrown about suggested a struggle of some kind, but most of it was still intact.  The scouts loaded what they could retrieve onto dogsleds and returned to DEIMOS’s headquarters in Якутск via helicopter.

Body cam footage was near-useless from most of the recovered units, and the disks that survived just showed vitals and data from egress.  Normal elevated heart rate from the hike, and excitement from being done in the hell-hole.  All other data was either lost to the elements or remained on servers far below.  Some remaining footage was obscured by ice buildup, and other video feeds look to have been edited somehow.  Something like a sharp movement just off-camera - the subject turning to look where it came from - and a hard cut to white, the cam slowly being buried in snow.  Nothing clear enough to draw conclusions, other than the reality that dozens of men and women are missing.

What I think - what I *know* - is true: they were right.  Something is living down there, and it followed them out.

-+-

Ender disappeared during a routine exploration, not two meters ahead of of Mara and me, about a month into our mission.  Turned a corner and then - nothing.  Disk still spinning in his collection unit, body cam discarded on the rocky ground, electrodes reading dead air.  The tunnel was deathly quiet, the darkness within near-opaque.  

A pre-recorded voice in our earpieces announced, emotionless:

*Warning - vital stream for Subject One interrupted.  Reconnect within one minute to cancel the flatline alarm.*

I’ll never be able to bury the memory of how Mara looked at me as the sound cue in our ears validated the impossible.  Wide eyes, brimming with tears, filled with undiluted horror.  My stomach was turning too, but from how she looked it was like she’d been taken along with Ender, and her body just hadn’t caught up yet.  She didn’t say anything, didn’t dare make a sound in that tunnel, hell forbid the *thing* was still there, waiting.  Soundlessly, we picked up his gear, shut his collection unit off, and maneuvered as quickly and quietly as we could back to base at Level Zero.

Silence, for days.  She didn’t speak to me, could hardly bear to look at me, as if by acknowledging my existence she would doom me to our team leader’s fate.  When I finally reached out to check on her, she broke down, sobbing as quietly as she could.  She knew she was in her grave.

After sleeping for a while, she went out on her exploration alone, leaving before I woke up, and breaking the single rule DEIMOS told us not to break.  When I realized she wasn’t in her bunk, I panicked, rushing to get my gear on before running out of base to look for her.  Location data was useless at this point, so I knew that if I was ever going to find her, it would be by luck - trial and error.  Those tunnels were long and lightless, and our gear was made for silence.  All I could hope to do was wait for her to make a mistake, and make it to her before whatever was down here with us did.  If outrunning it was possible.  I steeled myself, double-checking my cam, vitals, disk space, and strapping my lowlights on.  I opened the door and nearly fell backwards - Mara was standing right outside the door, glowing grey-green in the viewfinder of my lowlights.

“Jesus, Mara,” I whispered, catching my breath.

She didn’t move.  Seconds passed, and I realized she wasn’t wearing her gear.  Just the nylon exploration jumpsuit, full-black save for a reflective DEIMOS wordmark on the back-center.

“Hey,” I started, nervous, “Where is your collection unit?  Your pack?  Did you lose them?”

Nothing.

“We can go get them together.  I’ve just got my gear on so —”

A scream echoed through the tunnel, then was cut short abruptly.  *Was someone else down here with us?*  The second the scream ended, my earpiece blipped.

*Warning - vital stream for Subject Three interrupted.  Reconnect within one minute to cancel the flatline alarm.  Warning - vital stream for —*

My eyes didn’t leave Mara’s back, the DEIMOS wordmark blinding in my lowlights.  As the emotionless warning message finished repeating in my ear, she started to turn.  Her hair was pulled from the tight bun it was always in, and hung roughly around her face.  Once turned to me fully, I could see her tired face, just the same as it was last time I saw her.  She looked exhausted, staring through me.

“Mara?” I whispered, thoroughly terrified, “I —”

Her eyes flicked to mine, and a chill ran through my body, stopping my question cold.  I took a step back, moving my hand to close the door.  She didn’t move to stop me.  She didn’t blink.  Half a minute passed and - amidst the pregnant silence - so did the remainder of the flatline timer.  Alarms erupted from the base computer system and my earpiece at once.

*Subject Three has flatlined.  Data retrieval necessary.  Subject Three has flatlined.  Data retrieval necessary.  Subject Three has flatlined.  Data retrieval necessary.*

I pressed a button on my earpiece to silence the alarm.  Mara’s face split into a grotesque smile, and before I could slam the door on her, she disappeared.

*No shit.  Just - gone.*

I never went back for her gear.  Just silenced the alarms whenever they would restart.

-+-

The sight of the hatch leading back underground and the writhing dread accompanying it shakes me from my memory - though Mara’s face, twisted into that unholy grin, still burns in my mind.  I thumb ice from my body cam.  I *really* don’t want to go back down there.

Check remaining space on disk 4: 899GB left.

Validate video stream integrity: intact.

Check radio: click, silence; click, silence.

Check location data: -58.024670, -61.755451.  ****South Atlantic.

Validate vital stream integrity: intact.  Possible broken rib.

I exhale heavily and brush the snow from the hatch’s handle, hauling it upwards.  Rust crawls over the rungs of the ladder leading down into the black below.  Another deep breath and I begin my second descent, leaving the hatch above open for my return trip, snow drifting lazily from the open sky above me, mixing with the motes of dust swirling in the air.  The roar of the wind fades as I climb, the hatch becoming a pinprick-star above me.  Blood pounding in my ears, I reach the first landing, its steel mesh architecture creaking under my boots.  Three hundred meters, straight down what I assume is an emergency exit from the shaft.  There is half a kilometer of pitch-dark tunnel between myself and the freight elevator down to Level Zero - the last functional elevator in this entire facility.  I pull my lowlights over my eyes and flick on the viewfinder, illuminating the narrow passage with infrared light.  Pipes snake along the top of the wall and, as I make my way through the hall, I step over and around piles of discarded gear among the rubble on the ground.

Reaching the elevator after what feels like an eternity of soundlessly walking through wholly unlit tunnels, I allow myself a small victory - a short celebration cut shorter by the reality that my reward for making it this far is further digestion, deeper into the guts of the facility.  The base of operations at Level Zero is at a depth of 2700m, on the ceiling of hell itself.  The tunnels that furl around the base are rough and incomplete, remnants of the diamond mine which DEIMOS converted into a research facility.

Painfully slow, horribly loud, the elevator screeches, shudders, and bucks down the esophageal shaft.  For thirty excruciating minutes, I descend, crouched in the back-left corner, infrared eyes-above-eyes strapped to my head searching for movement.  As the platform comes to a stop, I wait a moment as the safety gates unlock, then bolt for the short passage between myself and the Level Zero entrance.  I don’t care that I’m not moving quietly anymore; I have one objective: survive long enough to get back to base.  Running through the tunnel towards the distant steel door, I feel like a little kid running to his bed after turning the lights off, convinced that he’s being followed - and whatever is following him will spare his life, if only he gets under the covers fast enough.  The other, more logical, side of that mental chase recognizes what I already know: it’s naïve, at best, to believe that I could possibly outrun it.  A truth hard to ignore, and harder still to act in accordance with.  I couldn’t slow down if I wanted to.  My muscles scream at me to move faster, even as I clatter noisily down the tunnel.

I see the door - labeled at eye level, “Level Zero” - and my RFID key unlocks it automatically as I reach its cold steel.   In one motion I burst through the door and swing it shut, hard, behind me.  The deadbolt re-engages as the door seals against the threshold.  Catching my breath, adrenaline draining slowly, I drop my pack by the empty bunks and fall onto the bare bottom mattress.  Some time passes as I collect myself, idly following motes of dust with my eyes, and sleep begins to pull at my mind.

-- PT 1/?? --