I wake up to the taste of steel in my mouth and a heaviness in my chest, as if someone laid a slab on me and piled dirt on top. The remnants of a dream slip away like rusty water through my fingers. My head buzzes, my breathing a creaking bellows, every attempt to inhale igniting a burning in my lungs. The antidote helped… but it didn't cure me. It bought me time, not salvation. I'm still dying. Just slower.
I open my eyes. The hull of the walls hasn't changed—same rotten metal, same stains, same stench in the air. Perhaps the only thing that's shifted is me, inching closer to death. I drink the last dregs from the second can—one gulp, two. That's it. Empty. No more water.
Hunger gnaws at my insides, but for now, it's not the priority. The priority is thirst. And the poison. And the absence of purpose.
I gather my belongings: backpack, cutter, mask, knife, flares, empty can, cloak. Each item isn't a burden but the only argument for why I'm not a corpse yet. I stand with difficulty, limping, stifling a cough that feels like it's expelling all the filth festering in my chest. But I know it's not enough. It's deeper. It's still eating me from the inside.
I have to move.
Just… move.
Not because I know where to go. But because if I stay, I'll rot in this room. I need a landmark. Something. Someone. A goal. A scrawl on the wall. An abandoned map. Any trace I can latch onto. Because in this place, death doesn't come with a scream. It comes with silence.
I step into the corridor. The metal groans underfoot. The world still presses down on my shoulders, but I take a step. And another. Forward.
Where to—I don't even know.
And more and more, I wonder: what if the others made it to paradise? That stupid storybook kind—with systems, interfaces, "Hello, hero, here's your starter sword." Maybe someone's out there fighting monsters in clean air, healthy, strong, brimming with energy. And me? I'm dying on a spaceship junkyard, breathing poison, scavenging trash like a rat in a rusted coffin.
For what? What did I do wrong? Why am I here while they're there? Who decides? Who chooses? Or is it just chance, and I drew the ticket with no way out? I'm shaking. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw cracks.
And then I hear it—footsteps. Behind me. Quick. Foreign. I turn—nothing. Just dust dancing in the flashlight's beam. My heart pounds, fingers gripping the cutter. Then again—something breathing down my neck. I spin around, swing my arm—no one.
Laughter. Light, almost childlike. But it's… familiar. Too familiar. I know that laugh. I heard it in class when they shoved me from behind. When they tore up my sketches. When they whispered at my back.
"Look, Perkons is in his little corner again," a voice says. I don't just hear it—I see it. Felicia. Unbearably real. Her hair, her voice, the curve of her lips—like at graduation. Next to her stand Alexander and May.
"He's good with computers but not so much with people," Alexander chimes in, eyes glinting, that smug smirk on his face. He stands beside her, sword in hand, like he was always the hero. May giggles, adjusting an imaginary strand of hair. Beside them, my entire survival group—everyone I went through fire and water with, everyone I thought were friends.
"We're doing great, Adam. Really great," Felicia continues, sipping from a glass that isn't there. Her eyes don't hold sympathy—they brim with spite. "Clean air. Tasty food. Everything's perfect. Even fun." She clinks her nonexistent glass with Leon's.
"And you? You'll croak in some pipe down there. Alone. Because you've always been alone. And no one needs you," Alexander says, stepping closer. His sword morphs into a rusty pipe, and he begins to rot alive. His confidence twists into a grimace of pain, flesh peeling from bone.
"You should just lie down and stay down. Seriously. No one'll notice anyway," adds Ellis, appearing out of nowhere, her face melting into a toothless sneer. Her voice is honey over glass, but cold to the point of pain. She pats Gabriel's shoulder—my best friend who betrayed me, stealing my research.
I stumble back, tripping over a cable that coils around my leg and pulls me down. My vision blurs, my ears ring. I blink—and they're gone. Nothing. Just the rusted passage. Just decay. Just me. I try to convince myself it's impossible. That Felicia would never say that. That Alexander couldn't betray me. That Gabriel… but the voices won't stop.
The visions don't fade. I see shadows, silhouettes, fragments of memories.
There's Iris, standing aside, watching me with pity and disgust. Her eyes glow with malice, a contemptuous smirk on her lips. Her form flickers, dissolving into pixels like a glitch in an old hologram.
There's Logan, laughing with the others, tossing my torn sketches into the air. His face twists with glee, his voice dripping with scorn. But his laughter echoes with a monstrous growl, and I see his hands morph into claws.
There's Gabriel, who I always thought was my friend, whispering behind my back, weaving schemes, spreading filthy rumors about me. His words are poisoned arrows piercing my heart. He turns to me, and instead of a face, I see a gaping void, a chilling whisper seeping from it.
I start walking faster, then nearly running, stumbling, falling, getting up. Silence again. Just my breathing and heartbeat. Just pain. Just me. But the voices don't relent. They chase me, whispering insults, accusing me of betrayal, mocking my fears and failures.
"Why did you even try?" says my mother's voice, thick with disappointment. "You were always a failure, Adam." But her tone is unnatural, mechanical, like a broken speaker.
"You'll never be good enough," adds my father's voice, cold and detached. "Just accept it." But his figure blurs, turning into a shapeless shadow reaching for me from the dark.
"Look at yourself," Blake hisses, voice dripping with contempt. "You're pathetic." But his eyes burn with an inhuman fire, and I see his teeth sharpen into fangs.
Is it hunger? Thirst? Poison? Or something else? Something stirring inside me, watching through my eyes, waiting for me to break completely. Something that remembers more about me than I do. Something slipping memories into me like blades into flesh. I feel it moving in my head, trying to break free, to seize my mind.
I can't take it anymore. I stop, turn to face the hallucinations, and scream at the top of my lungs:
"You're not here! You're not real! It's all in my head!"
The voices fall silent for a moment, as if stunned by my outburst. I gather every ounce of will, ignoring the pain and weakness, and slam my head into the nearest wall.
Pain explodes through my skull, sparks flare before my eyes, and for a moment, I black out. But when I open my eyes again, the visions are gone. The corridor is empty and quiet once more. Just me, the rotten metal, and the oppressive silence.
I breathe heavily, leaning against the wall, feeling blood trickle down my face. But for the first time in a while, a glimmer of clarity pierces my mind. The hallucinations have retreated. I'm alone again. And that… that's almost a victory.
I take a few shaky steps, looking around. The corridor stretches on, dimly lit by flickering lamps. Ahead, there's a branching path. I head toward it, careful not to trip over scattered debris.
Up ahead—a passage with a sign (damaged text), but I can make out something like "STORAGE G-…". It's blocked by rubble, chunks of bulkheads and beams barring the way, but I hear a faint draft.
I stop, assessing the pile. I'm nearly out of strength, my body trembling with weakness, but the draft… it could mean an exit, or something else. Something useful.
I make a decision. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I start clearing the debris. I use a piece of pipe as a lever, prying at metal chunks, dragging them aside. With the cutter, I melt the fused spots connecting the wreckage, careful not to bring it all crashing down on myself.
It takes forever and nearly all my energy. I'm drenched in sweat, nearly collapsing several times. But slowly, the passage widens.
Finally, I squeeze through.
Inside is a vast storage room. Shelves and containers, many torn open or decayed, some melted or collapsed. The air hits me with a foul stench of char, mold, and chemicals. It's darker here; my flashlight picks out crates, stains on the walls, heaps of junk.
I look around, avoiding anything slick or sharp underfoot. The warehouse is massive, most of it a dump now. But I don't give up. I start opening crates.
Ninety percent are useless: rotted, melted, filled with dust, rust, plastic scraps, unidentifiable bits. I'm losing hope when I find one crate in the far corner. It looks slightly less damaged than the rest.
Heart pounding, I open it. Inside… a toolkit: screwdrivers, pliers, maybe a "field multitool" (beat-up but usable).
I exhale in relief. This is what I've been missing—tools to fix things properly, not just bash them with a cutter. With these, I might repair surviving gear, maybe even find a way to contact other survivors.
A faint spark of hope flickers inside me. I don't know what's ahead, but now I have something to fight with.
Venturing deeper into the warehouse, I stumble on a door—or what's left of it. It's been ripped off its hinges by some monstrous force, twisted metal scraps scattered nearby. Beyond it—a room.
The flashlight barely illuminates the chaos. Shelves toppled, containers gutted, and everywhere… bodies. Lots of them.
I freeze at the threshold, nausea rising in my throat. The signs suggest people—and maybe not just people—were devoured alive here.
Corpses with bite marks. Severed limbs in unnatural poses. Dried blood on the walls, dark smears like nightmare patterns. Bones litter the floor, mingled with mangled armor fragments, some clearly not human.
Shock hits first. The revulsion twists my stomach. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to vomit. The stench of rot, blood, and something sickly sweet makes it worse.
But I force myself to take another step. And another. I have to look around. I make myself cold-blooded. There might be something crucial here. Clues, hints about what happened. Anything to help me survive.
In one corner, near a body—or what's left of it—judging by the clothing and gear remnants, it might've been an officer or technician. Next to it, I find something like a pouch. Inside—a mechanical device.
It's a plastic-metal box, dim indicators, lots of buttons. It feels solid, surprisingly sturdy. Built to last.
I pick it up carefully, examining it. Trying to figure it out, I accidentally press a button.
The device springs to life. Indicators flash, a hiss sounds, and then… a voice.
To my shock, it's in my native language. Pure, good old Russian.
Static at first, broken phrases. Then the voice sharpens. Synthetic, but with hints of emotion. It's the voice of whoever left this recording.
"This is Lieutenant… name garbled… last message… We did all we could. God… if anyone can hear me… know this… we didn't give up…"
The voice trembles, cracks. In the background, something crashes, explodes.
"Our fight in space… it was a slaughter. They came at us wave after wave, too many. Too… We took down their ships by the hundreds, but they kept coming, like locusts. Ships fell, broke apart… Our pilots rammed them just to buy a second… Even when the 30-kilometer flagship, *Eternal Wrath*, crashed onto this cursed planet… it kept fighting. Fell a hundred kilometers from here, scattering everything with the blast, but its guns still fire, downing enemy ships, I don't know for how long…"
"And down here, on the surface… it wasn't even a battle, it was a massacre. They hit us with everything: chemical weapons, that vile organic shit that eats flesh in seconds… And those creatures… They rip armor from bodies, snap bones like twigs. But even under that hail of filth, our guys held on to the last. Bayonets, rifle butts, tearing out throats with their teeth… Our medics dragged the wounded under fire, our comms relayed coordinates to their last breath, our engineers fixed broken weapons while bleeding out…"
The recording crackles, static cutting in. The lieutenant's voice rises to a scream.
"We were sold out! Those damn bureaucrats! They made deals with those creatures, signed non-aggression pacts, traded our bases for promises of peace! Peace that turned into this bloodbath! They said it was for the greater good, the only way to avoid war… Then it was too late. The xenos united. Against us! Burned our colonies to ash, slaughtered billions! And here we are, on this godforsaken planet, dying so they can sip their cursed cocktails and tell each other fairy tales about peace!"
The voice breaks, dropping to a whisper thick with pain and fury.
"If you hear this… if any of ours hear this, or anyone at all… don't seek revenge. Don't waste your lives on it. Just… remember us. Remember how we fought. And if you can… pray. For us, for yourselves. Because they're already here. They're breaking in… And I… I don't want…"
Fragments follow—shouts, muffled gunfire, metal screeching, death rattles. Then… silence.
The recording ends.
I stand, stunned. Though I've seen horrors, though this world has shown me its rotten face, hearing voices of people—or those like them—their last words, their despair, their rage against unimaginable monsters… and knowing they lost… And that they spoke Russian… it's unreal.
It casts everything in a grim, final light. I'm not just on a "trash planet." I'm on the battlefield of an ancient, long-dead civilization. And they lost. To all these monsters. All these xenos. And they spoke my language.
Their voices echo in my head, blending with the drip of liquid and the howl of wind through rotting bulkheads. The world shrinks around me, feeling like a tomb. Every rustle, every shadow now seems not random but ominous. I can't shake the thought that I'm next.
I scan the room, and terror grips me afresh. The scattered corpses aren't just victims—they're warnings. Their mutilated forms scream of the fate awaiting me. In the flashlight's dim glow, bones gleam, crusted blood forms black scars on the walls, and nausea rises as I grasp what happened here.
I try to imagine their final moments. Fear, pain, despair… They fought, they died, and no one came. Their sacrifice meant nothing. Their voices are just echoes in an empty crypt. And I'm alone here, among these remains, with a ghost of hope for rescue.
But hope fades by the second. I stare at the device in my hands, its blinking lights and buttons, and realize it's not just a recording. It's a message from the past, a cry for help no one answered. And it's in my native tongue, reminding me of home, a world I've lost, people I may never see again.
Fear turns to icy despair. I no longer believe I'll escape. I'm doomed to share these corpses' fate, to rot in this cursed place, forgotten and unneeded.
Then rage surges. Powerless, animal fury at my fate, at this damned world, at everything that brought me here. I don't want to just give up. I don't want to lie down and wait for death. I have to do something.
In a fit of desperation, I hurl the cursed recording to the floor. The device hits the rusted metal with a dull thud, pieces flying off. I choke on rage and disappointment.
But then my eyes catch something odd. Behind the broken cover, a power cell. And it looks… familiar. It seems compatible with that mysterious rectangular device I found near the cloaked officer's body.
A faint ray of hope pierces me. Maybe this isn't the end? Maybe I can do something.
I pull out the rectangular device, remove its cover, and slot in the power cell. It hums to life, a bright light scanning me, and words appear on the screen.
"Initializing Portable Navigation-Command Node (PNCN)"
A voice speaks. Not male, not female. Proper. The voice of a machine built to give orders. To speak for the dead.
"Subject scan complete. Attempting global network connection: failed. Switching to local network: successful."
"Atomic clock timestamp comparison: 563 years since last activation."
"Tissue signature authentication: match with human genome. Race: Homo sapiens. Cyber-synthesis level: none. Biomodifications: none. Condition: pre-lethal."
My breath catches. Then, like a blade to the heart:
"Subject survival probability in current conditions: 4.2%"
A pause. Then a clarification:
"Given available variables and environmental conditions, continued independent activity without external navigation and directives will result in lethal outcome with 96.7% probability."
I grip the panel's edges, as if it could keep me from falling. The voice continues. Cold. Ruthless. But… logical.
"Per A.C.I.D.E.N.T protocol (Aware Contextual Interface for Deployment and Emergency Tactical Networks), this subject is urgently recommended to: immediately adopt active command directive compliance mode. In current circumstances, this is the optimal, verified survival strategy."
Not a plea. Not a suggestion. A statement. If I want to live, I must obey. I must go where this machine tells me.
The projection expands. A hologram pierces the space. Map. Status. Objectives.
"Command beacon: lost.
Flagship *Eternal Wrath*: damage—36%.
Core signal: active."
A route flashes on the screen.
"Distance to target: 121.9 km. Surface activity: extremely hazardous."
And then, as if to seal it, as if to deliver the final blow:
"Objective 1: Reach command control point."
"Objective 2: Activate 'Factor K' protocol per instruction 0736-HAVOC."
I stare at the lines, not understanding what "Factor K" is. But I feel it—this isn't just a plan. It's a sentence.
The voice, quieter now, sums up:
"Subject psycho-emotional state: critical. Supervisor intervention impossible. All commands executed in autonomous mode. You are the only registered protocol carrier within range."
I stand there for minutes, silent, breathing heavily. I stare at the hologram—the thin route line stretching into the wasteland's core. 121.9 kilometers. Hell upon hell, poisons upon poisons, monsters amid wreckage… One step, and I'm back in that stinking meat grinder. But something shifts.
I finally have a path, a goal.
I don't care where it's from. I don't care why.
It's there.
I take the device. Shut off the interface. The screen dims, but a navigation marker glows faintly in the corner. That's enough.
I return to the warehouse center, where I left my backpack. Sit. For a second, I let myself just sit. Just breathe. Just… be.
But only a second.
Because I'm still on this planet.
Because I'm still breaking.
Because if I don't pull myself together now, there won't be a later.
I pull out the tools and lay them before me. My hands shake, but I force focus. I start with the plasma cutter. Though it's a tool of the future, it's simple: a strong power source, three emitters, and a concentrator. One mode—three parallel beams. Another—a simultaneous discharge forming a thin cutting line. Not a laser anymore. Closer to plasma, judging by how it melts the air.
It's nearly burned out: overheated, undercooled, the casing partly fused. But it works. I take a risk: grab a heavy chunk of beam and bash one emitter. Metal rings. The lens warps. I pry off the protective shroud, angle the emitter. The beam scatters now, a tight, unstable heat stream. It doesn't cut anymore. It melts.
A crude welding module. But mine. Made. From a dying cutter that can still do its original job.
Next, the mask. I have two respirators. One's basic, mouth-only: filters sort of work, but the rest is shot. The other's a full-face mask with reinforced glass. It's cracked, filters long rotted, just shells left. But the frame's intact, and the connectors match. I cut the filters from the first, fit them into the second's slots. I solder the air channel by hand with a heated pin, seal it with leftover polymer gel. The glass crack gets patched with an armor shard—cut rough from a warped plate, but it holds. I bind it with aluminum hoops from a broken crate and wire, sealing inside with fabric and some sticky goo I found. When I put it on, my lungs burn a little less. Only now do I realize how bad it was before.
Next—my leg. I sift through debris and find drone remains and bits of smashed service bots. I take a thick aluminum-composite support tube from one—fits my thigh. Another, a sturdy rod with servo remnants, goes under my shin.
From the scrap, I salvage tactical armor pieces: bent guides, broken struts, fasteners. I use a hinge from a wrecked cargo loader—an industrial spring coupling. It bends. I secure it with fabric straps from a combat vest and rigging scraps. Wire and plastic clips finish it.
A crude unloading exoskeleton, purely mechanical, but it takes some weight. The first step doesn't feel like a shock. Progress.
Now armor. I sift through tactical vests, plating, drone husks, bent shells. I strip a dead soldier's rig—straps, pockets, mounts. I weld it into my cloak's lining. The welding module fixes an outer armor plate—ugly but solid. I add polymer armor scraps, charred emblem bits, even a servitor arm chunk—bulky but tough.
Special attention to my ribs. I pull a flexible reinforced drone plate—it bends but takes a hit. I fit it along my left chest, adding a damping layer from a suit's guts. Over it, a rigid brace: a notched pipe and a tension clamp over my shoulder. Manual adjustment—a simple seatbelt latch and a lock from some automation scrap. Overtighten, it'll break bone. Undertighten, it won't hold shape.
Every move hurts, like my body's screaming, but I tune it out. I see only the goal: survive. Rebuild myself from scraps, literally and figuratively.
Finally, I stand.
On me—a mask, bolstered with old helmet bits. Over the base, drone shielding and armored panels. I reinforce the brow and sides with armored segments, doubling the glass with a titanium mesh. Extra layers of broken riot shields, strapped with plastic ties and metal loops, absorb blows. It's a hybrid of a combat pod and an executioner's mask: wide visor, patched inside with film and tinted plastic, capped with a heavy drone-shield chunk I filed down. Side filters jut out, tubed to the mask. Bulky, but they work. For now. From the side, I look like a grim mix of Darth Vader and a scorched machine-golem.
My armor—lightest, toughest scraps I could find. Reactive plating chunks, Kevlar bits, titanium mesh, bent robot hull plates. Inside, foam and fabric pads dampen hits and noise. Outside, sewn-on rig pouches, tool mounts, battery slots, scavenger finds. On my back, a mounting bar: hooks for the backpack, rolled cloak, or spare gear. Asymmetrical, unorthodox. But it works. It holds.
New mask.
New armor—cobbled from wreckage, reflecting pain like a mirrored shell.
New gait—supported, with a creaking rust-exo that holds me up.
Still broken. Still coughing. Still alien here.
But now—with a route.
With a map.
With an order.
I'm no soldier.
But today—I'll follow that order.
I'll follow this path.