Chapter Text
[NAME: 8-Titan
POPULATION: Abandoned.
CONDITIONS: Frozen, rocky. This moon was mined for resources.
HISTORY: It's easy to get lost within the giant industrial complex. There are many entrances to it littered about the landscape.
FAUNA: Dangerous entities have been rumoured to take residence in the vast network of tunnels.]
Kiera had been working for the company for about a month and knew by now that reading up on a moon before landing could mean the difference between life and death. Metaphorically, of course. No one on her team had died. Not to her knowledge, at least.
“You gonna get some sleep, or what?”
Looking away from the computer terminal, Kiera made eye contact with Mike, one of her three crewmates and roommates) for the foreseeable future. Mike was lying down on the top bunk and visibly annoyed that he couldn’t turn the lights off yet.
“Yeah, yeah. Gimme a sec.” Kiera replied. She never liked how blunt Mike could be, yet he had been working for the Company longer than anyone can remember, so whether they wanted to or not, the entire team relied on his knowledge to reach their quotas on time.
Kiera eventually set the ancient terminal into sleep mode before crawling into her bed. But as the others began to snore, Kiera found herself staring at the bunk above her. Ever since she started working for the Company, the fear of getting hurt, or worse, when on the job weighed on her like an overstuffed backpack. She knew that the company could easily replace them if something went wrong, but it’s not like they had anywhere else to go. Not while their contracts were still in effect.
Eventually, the sound of the company-mandated alarm woke Kiera. It seemed that she was able to get some sleep after all. But it wasn’t much, as she struggled to get out from under the thin covers.
Nearly falling out of her bunk bed, the brunette stumbled over to the ship’s company-issued metal cabinet, which the group had split into four sections when they first met each other. They were labelled ‘Mike’, ‘Nathan’, ‘Kiera’, and ‘Eloise’. As Kiera unlocked it, her work partners groggily joined her.
Everyone took out their helmets and some ‘sustenance bars’. (Also company-supplied.) Kiera stared at the dubious food like it was a foreign object. “Gonna eat your sticks of wood?” Teased Eloise, noticing the funny way Kiera was looking at the ‘food’.
“Eh. Not really hungry.” Kiera half said, half groaned. Her suit came with a little bit of pocket space, so she stashed the bars in there.
“…We drawing straws again to see who gets camera duty?” Asked Nathan. Mike looked like he was going to protest, but was interrupted by Eloise.
“Why not?”
Reaching back into the cabinet, she grabbed a small jar of sticks that had been collected from a previous mission and brought them back over to the group. As they all drew ‘straws’, Mike got the longest one. Nathan muttered something about Mike always getting to stay on the ship.
By now, the ship’s autopilot had finally finished bringing them to their destination. As the door opened, a blast of frigid air rushed through the opening. Huge plumes of snow raced across the mostly barren landscape, heavily reducing everyone’s visibility.
“Welp. Let’s get this over with.”
“I swear, if I see another one of those giant spid-“
As Nathan, Kiera, and Eloise stepped out of the ship, their words were swept away with the snow. Luckily for them, the ship’s autopilot had dropped them off directly in front of a winding staircase that led to the building’s entrance.
Wanting to get out of the cold as soon as possible (the company suits did little to protect her from the cold), Kiera entered the facility first. The inside of Titan’s building was much warmer than the outside, which was a relief. A few seconds later, the others joined her.
Out of pure habit, Kiera started walking down the hallway to her right. The only sounds around her were the thumping of her footsteps and the faint whispers of wind that trickled through the front door.
“Hey! You forgot your walkie-talkie!”
Eloise’s voice caused Kiera to flinch and inhale loudly. Turning around, she saw her teammate trying to hold back laughter.
“Har, har. Very funny.” Said Kiera in an unenthusiastic tone.
“Just give me the dang thing.”
“Sorry, sorry-“
As Eloise handed Kiera the walkie-talkie, she didn’t sound very apologetic. But that didn’t matter now. They had a quota to fill.
Continuing down the hallway, they were greeted with a fork in the road; the path continued straight ahead, but it passed by a staircase.
Looking back over at her friend, Kiera watched Eloise shrug.
“I’ll go down, you go straight?”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
After wishing each other good luck, Kiera was on her own once more. She found a hairdryer and a rubber duckie before dropping them off outside the entrance. Going back the way she came, a clicking sound caught her attention. It didn’t take her very long to spot a hoarding bug carrying a flashlight.
“A flashlight would be useful…but I’m not taking the risk. Not without a weapon.” She muttered to herself. Kiera would be alone for hours at a time and found herself narrating her thoughts from time to time.
Kiera left the bug alone and went deeper into Titan’s facility. She had just grabbed a metal sheet when Mike’s voice called out from the walkie-talkie in her other hand.
“Kiera, freeze! There’s a-“
An inhuman shriek told Kiera that she had to move. She backed up just in time as a large, pale insect dropped down from the ceiling before scuttling towards her. Her heart started to race as she ran back the way she came, with the snare flea in hot pursuit.
“Could have warned me a bit earlier, Mike!” She shouted into her walkie-talkie, nearly dropping it in the process.
“I was watching Nathan! I think he’s stalling one of those creepy mannequins.”
Without another word, Kiera shoved the walkie-talkie in her pocket. She had arrived at the front door. Now all she had to do was open it. Right as she was about to do so, a muffled shout caught her attention.
In Kiera’s moment of hesitation, the snare flea crawled up her back, heading towards her face and neck. As Kiera desperately tried to shake the insect off, it wrapped around her head before beginning to squeeze.
‘Deep breaths, Kiera. Deep breaths.’ She thought to herself. The origins of the shout were nothing more than an afterthought now. The snare flea’s body obscured most of her vision, but she could still faintly see the door. Perhaps she could knock the bug off using it?
Quickly feeling around for the doorknob, Kiera found it and promptly swung the door open. As snow-filtered sunlight covered the pair, the flea let out a panicked shriek before falling off of her face.
Thinking on her feet, Kiera punted the dazed insect outside and watched it writhe and squirm. It didn’t take long before the snare flea curled up, now as still as a statue.
“Hey, Mike? I don’t think fleas like the sun. Or the cold. One of those two.”
“I’ll make a note of that when we leave. Are you injured?”
“I think my helmet has a new crack. But besides that, I’m fine.”
“Alright. I’ll leave you to it.”
With a quiet sigh, Kiera dropped off the metal sheet outside before closing the door. Today was going to be a long day. But it could only go uphill from here, right?
After bidding Kiera farewell, Eloise came across a large room with a pit at the bottom, and a guardrail separating her from an even bigger pit. After travelling down the rusty staircase, a lone hoarding bug caught her eye. It appeared to be trying (and failing) to attach a big bolt to the wall using a few scraps of cobweb.
As soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the bug whipped around to face her, its antenna twitching.
“Uh…hey there, buddy. Care to make a trade?”
She gestured to the bolt, before pulling a flashlight out of her pocket. The bug looked back and forth between the bolt and the flashlight before slowly approaching her.
“Here. You take this.”
Holding out the flashlight, the hoarding bug happily took it and began fiddling with the device. Meanwhile, Eloise took slow steps towards the big bolt. Mike always said that hoarding bugs were annoying pests, but Eloise begged to differ. She just gave one her cheap flashlight, and now could safely leave with—
“Kkkkgrr?!”
The hoarding bug turned around just as Eloise grabbed the bolt. Letting out a loud clicking noise, it began to rapidly fly towards her.
Running back up the stairs, she zigzagged down the facility’s maze-like hallways in an attempt to lose the furious hoarding bug.
One particular path had a steam leak, but Eloise could tell that it was a straight hallway. Despite the angry clicks and loud wing beats, she could barely make out the sound of heavy footsteps at the end of the hallway. She figured that it must be one of her friends.
“Hey! I got a lootbug on my tail!” Eloise called out. She couldn’t quite make them out through the fog, but they were humanoid in shape and were holding something. Hopefully a stop sign.
By the time she made it through the steam, the hoarding bug had given up and scurried back to its lair, still holding the flashlight from earlier. But Eloise didn’t know this and continued running after the figure.
“Nathan? That you?”
Still, no response. They just stomped away. Getting fed up with the silent treatment, Eloise followed them around a corner. But as soon as they stepped into the light, she froze in her tracks.
This wasn’t Nathan.
They were tall and slender, with the illusion of a red coat and blue pants painted onto their wooden body with a matching black hat sitting upon their spherical head. Eloise had never seen anything like this before, so against her better judgment, curiosity kept her in place.
After a moment, the creature’s head lifted upwards, revealing a more organic-looking one underneath the wooden facade. With an odd clicking sound, its torso started to rotate. Eloise only noticed the shotgun in its arms once it was already facing her.
Letting out a surprised gasp, the employee started moving backwards. The movement, although slight, caught the alien’s gaze. Its singular eye widened as it hastily loaded its shotgun. The shotgun! She had to get out of here!
Running as fast as her legs would carry her. Eloise prayed that she could get around the corner in time. The hallway seemed to stretch for miles as her heart pounded in her head. Or maybe that was the marching tune that the ‘Nutcracker’ had started playing. She was almost there. Just a few more steps, and-
BANG!
Pain exploded in Eloise’s right leg. It quickly buckled, and the ground rushed up to greet her. Quickly pushing herself up, she could see a small pool of crimson liquid pooling around her injured leg. To make matters worse, her helmet’s glass was now cracked. The nutcracker continued marching down the hallway after her, the sound of drums growing louder as the terrified employee crawled around the corner.
Her walkie-talkie! Had she dropped it? Eloise quickly rummaged through her pocket. To her relief, it was still there. Without checking if it was damaged at all, she practically punched the on button.
“Mike! Nathan? Anybody?!”
“…”
“Eloise?” Responded Nathan. “Did something happen?”
“An alien with a fucking shotgun happened. That’s what.” She said through gritted teeth. “It blew a hole in my leg. I can’t walk.”
“Hold on, El. I think I hear yo-“
Nathan’s last word was cut off as Eloise quickly switched the walkie-talkie off. The nutcracker was now just on the other side of her terrible hiding spot and was still approaching.
Once it was standing in the middle of the hallway intersection, it began rotating its upper body like it had done earlier. Eloise sat there in terrified silence as it finished looking around, before marching past her hallway. Only then did she realize that she had been holding her breath, and promptly let out a loud exhale.
“El?”
“Nathan!”
Rushing to her side, Nathan helped his teammate to her feet. Eloise put an arm over his shoulder, and the pair slowly started making their way to the exit.
“…So. You say you saw an alien with a shotgun?”
Eloise looked over her shoulder for a moment. She didn’t see, nor hear the nutcracker anymore.
“Y-Yeah. It looked like one of those nutcracker toys.”
Nathan grew quiet, but eventually, his muffled giggles became audible.
“Seriously? A nutcracker?”
Eloise tried to slap him but nearly fell over in the process.
“It sounds stupid, but I swear- that’s what attacked me.”
Eloise’s walkie-talkie might have been turned off, but Nathan’s wasn’t.
“Eloise? Nathan? Is the situation under control now?” Asked Mike, a twinge of anger flaring up in Eloise’s mind. While they were getting scrap and trying not to be killed by hostile aliens, Mike was safe and sound in the ship, barely lifting a finger.
“Mhm. I’m taking Eloise back to the entrance now. Do you think you could meet us at the entrance? I dropped what I was carrying and don’t want those bugs taking it.”
“…Fine. I’ll see you there.”
As Mike pocketed his walkie-talkie, he looked back over at Eloise.
“I had a bad feeling about this place the moment we landed. But the day’s almost over, then we can get off this god-forsaken rock-“
Mike had abruptly grown quiet, and Eloise knew why.
Her heart sank into her stomach as the sound of drums echoed down the hallway.
BANG!
Like the gunshot at the beginning of a race, the pair moved as fast as Eloise’s leg would allow them as soon as the nutcracker fired. It had missed the first shot, but the odds of that happening again decreased as the armed alien quickly closed the distance.
“I can see the exit door, Nathan! Come on!”
As Eloise continued, she felt her arm slip away from Nathan. Turning around, she saw him standing in place.
“What are you doing?!”
Nathan looked at his feet, and Eloise followed his gaze. He was standing on a small, disk-shaped device with a blinking light.
A mine.
“I-I’ll put my walkie-talkie on it or something. Can you make it to the door?”
Eloise looked over at the door, before looking back at Nathan.
“Nathan. I’m not leaving you.”
“Answer the question. Can you make it to the door?” Eloise could hear the fear rising in Nathan’s voice. That, and the nutcracker’s booming footsteps.
“I’ll be right behind you! Just get out of here!"
“But-“
“GO!!”
Limping over to the door, Eloise over her shoulder and gave a thumbs up. Nathan gave her one in return as she exited the facility, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Nathan watched the door close with a solemn expression. He hated lying to her, especially at a time like this, but knew that she wouldn’t leave otherwise.
Carefully spinning around without stepping off of the mine, Nathan watched the nutcracker come into view. The barrel of its shotgun came first, followed by its wooden body. Its singular eye looked down at the mine, then back up at Nathan. Too late did it realize what was about to happen.
“I hope you burn, asshole.”
Nathan stepped off of the mine.