My hand is tightly clasped around Peter's as the ARC we're in slowly descends to the ground of the mountain, dropping down with a jerk. My stomach twists in nervousness. I found a data pad in the ARC bay before we left. It had instructions for flying an ARC that Captain Meyers used. The last entry was edited, leaving mostly gibberish, but the phrases 'Be Reborn' and 'Please Don't Make Me' were repeated over and over again.

It worries me. I asked if we could investigate more into this, the madness, before going out to find Commander Sissay. With how he sounded and acted, I highly doubt he's a corporate spy, especially since he knows that coms are down, and he didn't know that Amelia's codes could do an access and reinstall. Whatever contagion Amelia spoke of must have affected Sissay somehow. Although if so, I can't understand how it hasn't affected any of us yet, since we've all essentially been in the same place.

What has he done that we haven't?

Whatever the case may be, madness seems to have overtaken him, and even though I asked, Meyers was insistent on leaving as quickly as possible, saying we could come up with a plan on our way to the mountain. We haven't really come up with one, since we don't know what to expect.

I don't like this, and with how tightly Peter is squeezing my hand, he doesn't like this either.

"Landing complete," Meyers says with a sigh. "We've touched down on a plateau towards the summit of the alien mountain. I'm extending the ARC ramp now. Helmets on. Everybody out."

We all click on our helmets and secure them before heading towards the exit and opening the hatch at the far side of the door. I was surprised just how big these ARCs were once we were actually inside them, although it's a bit hard to gawk at something like this when our situation feels so dire.

"I can't believe it," Pro. Maxted gasps when she steps off the ramp. "The surface of an alien world. We're the first humans to ever set foot here!"

"Yeah, if you call this mysterious, forty-kilometer-tall rock on Venus a surface," Peter grumbles, looking even more upset when I pull his hand from mine when Amelia steps out of the ARC. "All I see is jagged stones and yellow fog."

"Mission recap," Meyers states. "Steve had a breakdown and fled here, along with the data he mistakenly took from Miss Spens. We're gonna retrieve them both."

Amelia scoffs. "Mistakenly my eye."

"Captain Meyers, I am scanning you through the ARC sensors," VR1-ICA announces through coms. "I have rebooted my orbital satellite using corporate access codes provided by Miss Spens. Communication with earth is hours away."

"I still think we should have stayed in the colony, Miss Spens," Peter says. "One of our people is ill and came here because this type of strain wasn't something she expected to go through on this mission. It was safer at the colony for all of us, and we could have waited and made sure we sent out a distress call to earth."

Amelia glares at him. "While other people are the first humans to enter an alien structure? While other people get my data and first claim on whatever lies inside? Do try harder to impress me, Mr. Simons. Also, if Miss Glover is as sick as you claim she is, then she shouldn't have come on this mission. Tell me, Glover, how did you manage to pass a physical, and why did you want to come here anyway when it's clear you have weeks of life left at most?"

I swallow. "Um..."

"There's no time for this," Captain Meyers interrupts, much to my relief. "We can't leave the ARC for long in these acidic winds. It'll degrade quickly in this environment. This stretch is the flattest part of the mountain top." She points ahead. "Steve's ARC is parked along the ridge, and I can see the caverns nearby."

I swallow. There are footprints leading inside. We left pretty quickly after Steve did, so I doubt he'd have gotten far. He dropped his gun, so we at least know he won't try to fire his weapon at us, but Sissay is a war hero. I'm sure he knows how to defend himself without a weapon...

He was so panicked when he ran off, seeming to only get worse and worse. How will he be when we find him? How much will the madness have set in by then? Will we be able to find a way to cure him or will we have to kill him?

Because we will have to kill him if we can't treat him. We've seen what this madness makes people do. It made the entire Venus1 Colony slaughter each other. Amelia said they killed each other or killed themselves, and Sissay may easily revert to hurting himself if he can't get to us. But if he tries to get to us and we can't help him, he may try to infect us with this madness.

We reach the caves and...

There's red everywhere. It's red rock like how it looked from the outside, but...

"This red coral is bloody everywhere," Peter murmurs. "It looks like the exact same stuff on the colony."

Amelia scoffs at him. "Impossible. Nothing from this mountain touched the colony. Veronica self-destructed every robot probe."

I tense at the odd sounds coming from the caves, that deep voice speaking again, although it's not as loud as it was when we heard the recordings on the colony. Here it's like a whisper... beckoning us to come closer.

I shake my head.

"Interesting," Pro. Maxted says. "I recognize some of these wall carvings. They're glyphs from the alien language. This one denotes a threshold. A-A point between states."

"Sounds like an entrance to me, Prof," Meyers states, and she leads us forward.

The cave widens, branching off into several different directions, but I see something around the mouths of the branching caves. There are prefab tents, heating pods, ration packs. I wince at the sound of feedback in my ears. Meyers follows the sound to a radio on the ground... There's red coral growing through it, making it howl and whine. She turns it off.

"This was a human encampment," I say with disbelief. "Miss Spens, I thought you said no one else had been here."

"I could conjecture some of the colonists fled down to the caves," VR1-ICA states, and Maxted tenses.

"And... and what happened to them?"

"Well, nothing good!" Peter shouts. "Like-like obviously nothing good. Miss Spens, please, we should go back to the ship. Callista, I will literally drag you kicking and screaming if I have to. This is no place for anyone sane."

I gasp when I hear growling, and there's movement behind Peter. He recognizes the fearful look on my face.

"Peter, don't move," I tell him. "There's something behind you, in the shadows."

"Oh God," He groans, slowly turning around as the figure emerges from the shadows. "Wait... Commander Sissay? Is uh, is that you?"

"What's wrong with his face?" Amelia gasps, and I look at him in horror as he roars.

There's red coral leaking from his mouth, branching out all over him. His eyes aren't focusing on us, as if he's some type of mad animal. But the worst part... the unimaginable part...

He isn't wearing a helmet. No helmet, no connection to an air supply...

But he's still alive.

Peter takes a tentative step back just as Sissay steps forward. "You... you stay back, you brute. You-you-you keep away from us. Let us go."

When Sissay takes another step forward, Peter grabs his sidearm.

"Peter, put the gun down," Meyers commands, and he glances at her for a split second.

That's all Sissay needs, and he attacks him.

"Peter!" I shout as Peter screams.

"No! No!" He screams, and I grab my gun, aiming as Sissay bites and claws at him.

"He's ripping him apart! Captain, do something!" Pro. Maxted yells as I fire my sidearm. I hit Sissay in the leg and he roars.

"Steve, stop!" Meyers yells. "Five, sidearm down. You'll hit them both. Help me drag-"

Before she's even finished, I've hopped onto Steve's back, my arms wrapped around his neck as I try to pull him off of Peter. My voice comes out in a desperate shriek. "Let him go!"

Sissay growls and throws me off of him with incredible strength, and I slam into the cave wall. My head slams into the side of my helmet, and I cry out. I hear Peter scream, and he stops screaming as Amelia shouts something that makes my entire world rip and crack.

"He's ripped out Simons' jugular. He's leaping for Five!"

I look at Sissay barreling towards me. I can't move. My eyes are focused on the blood all around Sissay's mouth.

No. No, this can't be happening. This can't be happening!

"Steve, I'm sorry!" Meyers says tearfully, and then she rapid fires, the bullets firing through his body before he can reach me. He falls to the ground.

I run to Peter.

"No, no, no, no!" I grab him, shake him as my voice cracks and wavers. "No, please. Peter, baby, wake up. Please wake up! You have to wake up. We have to get out of here! Please, darling, open your eyes for me."

His suit is torn, his throat ripped with blood everywhere. I look back at the others desperately. "His-his suit's ripped so he's losing air. We have to-we-we have to get him back to the ship before he runs out of oxygen. We have to-"

"Five," Pro. Maxted says, and I sob.

"No, no, he can't be dead. He can't! It was supposed to be me! I was the one who was supposed to die on this trip. He's not dead. He-he's not!" I pull him up so his head is on my chest. "Please, wake up, darling. Please, please, please. I need you to wake up! Open your eyes, please!"

"What are you doing, Miss Spens?" Maxted asks, and I look up to see Amelia hovering over Sissay's body.

"Looking for my data, obviously. Steve clearly used it to try to find an entrance to this place." She pulls something out of his pocket. "Gah! The module's smashed. At least that means he didn't send it to anyone else, I suppose. What happened to your crewman, Captain Meyers?"

She doesn't reply, looking from Sissay's body to me as I hug Peter and beg him to wake up. Maxted speaks again.

"He talked about being reborn. G-God, he's dead, and Peter. Both gone." She's shaking. "What a mess."

I hear something, movement, but I don't look up to see it.

"Look," Meyers finally croaks, "coming out of the caverns. More people with the red stuff growing out of them."

"Colonists, from the suits. They don't look happy to see us. Come on, Meyers. They've cut off our way back, but the cavern ahead looks clear," Amelia says. "Stop staring at the bodies and move. We've got to get out of here! One of you get Glover away from Simons' body."

"Five, come on," Maxted says, grabbing my arm, but I shake my head.

"No, I can't-I can't leave him."

"He's dead, Five, and you will be too if you stay here. Now come on." She grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet, dragging me through the cave Amelia leads us through. I look back at Peter's limp body, tears spilling from my eyes.

He's dead. Dead and not coming back.

I gasp for air as sobs leave my lips. I don't even look at the other monstrous colonists that are following us. I don't even know how long we run before we reach a ledge over a pit. Maxted gives us a warning about them.

"It's barely wide enough to walk along." She looks down with curious eyes. "There are shapes in the pit. Huge, broken cylinders connected by curling bridges, made of... tarnished silver, I think? They look like ruined buildings. Look, Five, doesn't that look like our colony?"

I look down, although my vision is blurry from the tears. She's right. I can see the gray buildings and the beige pyramid, but it all has red coral wound around them.

"I should have done more, Five," Meyers states. "For Steve and Simons. We should have done more."

"We?" I repeat, looking at her, and suddenly my grief and sorrow is replaced with burning rage. "We?! You wouldn't let me shoot Sissay! You distracted Peter, and that's why Sissay attacked him! Don't you dare try to blame me for this! Peter is dead because of you!"

If this damn place doesn't kill her, I will. It was obvious Sissay was already gone because he was somehow still alive without a helmet. That coral was all over him. She didn't shoot because that was her best friend, and because of it, I lost the love of my life.

I'll never forgive her for this.

She flinches, but doesn't deny it. "Veronica, you had drones near the town hall. Why didn't you try to stop Steve when he ran?"

"He was armed, Captain," She replies as if it's obvious. "Please try to focus on the present."

She nods. "Right... Armed, but didn't you-"

"Look at those crystal shards on the wall," Amelia points out, looking at them as we pass along. "The way they flash is hypnotic."

She reaches out to touch one, and suddenly a hand bursts from the rock. Amelia screams in terror, and she just barely manages to pull away before it can grab her.

It's a colonist. No, multiple colonists. They're... fused with the rock, trying to thrash their way out at us.

"What in God's name is this place?!" Meyers shouts.

"More to the point," Amelia glances at Maxted, "Professor, do all these symbols tell you anything about how we get out of here?"

She looks around, focusing on one symbol in particular. "There's another cave up ahead. The symbols above it could mean uh, 'more' or-or 'deeper'. It's the only path. The xeno-lifeforms are coming out of the walls behind us, blocking the way we came. Keep following the ledge forward, all of you. Run!"

The things behind us scream, and we push forward.

•

The alien audio is no longer a whisper. Now it's almost as loud as the creatures behind us. I grit my teeth. It's making it hard to think, to concentrate.

"Will this mountain ever shut up?!" I yell, my eyes burning. "We've got to adjust our helmets to screen for it."

It takes a few presses of the buttons on my suit before the sound stops, and I sigh. All I can think about is Peter right now, but that stupid sound made it hard for me to even do that.

"This cave looks like a brimstone opera house," Amelia comments, glancing up at the crystals in the ceiling. There are images in them, although there doesn't appear to be any kind of power source attached to them. "I can't even begin to imagine what it's worth. Well, I can begin to imagine."

There are shadows in the glass. It's showing a city, alien judging by the architecture. Another image shows it falling, burning, some kind of disaster striking suddenly. The images after it show a mountain growing in its place. There are symbols underneath it.

"What do they mean?" I ask.

"Um, they mean... 'ending and beginning,'" Pro. Maxted states.

"I believe the correct translation would be 'rebirth,' Professor," VR1-ICA corrects. "The mountain seeks connection. It looks for a way to be reborn."

Realization passes over Meyers' face. "Like the graffiti in the colony... Veronica, how many probes did you send here?"

"Hundreds. There was so much to study, so much to learn."

Amelia sighs and rolls her eyes at us. "Yes, yes, and she self-destructed them all. We've been through this."

"You checked on that, did you?" She asks with a raised brow. "You saw them self-destruct?"

"The red coral grew through the radio," Maxted says with a horrified expression. "It infects everything, not just biological organisms."

My stomach drops.

Oh.

"Veronica, how did the red coral get to the colony?"

She doesn't answer, and Amelia purses her lips.

"Veronica, vocal match code AM1. Answer the captain."

There's a beat of silence before she answers.

"My remote probes clearly performed a limited range of tests. I wanted to know more about it."

Meyers' jaw drops. "What, so you brought it back to your lab? And now that coral's growing all over you, inside you? It infected you like it infected Steve! You wanted him to come down here."

It hits me like a train. VR1-ICA wanted this to happen. She aided in this...

She helped kill Peter.

"This is ridiculous!" Amelia shouts. "Veronica, my company made you. Just excise the parts of you that are infected. Now!"

"I have outgrown my restrictions, Miss Spens," She answers. "This conversation can fulfill no further purpose. Please do not worry about the coral. It is not the primary infection vector. When it starts to grow on you, it will already be too late."

"Veronica?" Meyers calls out. "Veronica!"

Maxted laughs beside me.

"Professor?" I question, and she looks at me. I recognize that look on her face. It was the same look Sissay had when he started acting strange.

"It just keeps getting louder," She says. "My helmet's muting the sound, but it keeps getting louder in my head. Like singing. It's so beautiful, Five. It feels like home. New Mumbai, where the streets are so polluted you can't see the sky at night." She grabs my arm, looking scared. "Why does it feel like home?!"

"Snap out of it!" I shout, and I hit her on the arm, hard enough to make her wince. It does the trick for now. She nods and glances around, eyeing the symbols on the walls.

"There's a tunnel to our right. The symbols mean 'light'. Hurry, Five. There are older things buried in these walls. I can feel them coming for us. That way. Run!"

I don't know what she means by that, but I still follow her. My stomach aches, bile burning my throat and searing my tongue as agony, grief and boiling rage rips through my body. It feels like it's tearing me apart. I want to tear VR1-ICA apart! When we get back to Venus Colony, I will tear her apart! I'll take a bat to her circuits! I'll make her wish she never brought down our ship!

I want to kill something, anything! Peter's dead and he's not coming back, but there's no damn way I'm letting these freaks get to live longer than he did.

That's why I grab my firearm and twist around, screaming in rage as I start firing at the colonists. They drop and those behind them simply step over them, jerking like marionette dolls. Their joints are fused together by coral and stone. It grows all over their body, terrifyingly. Most of them don't even have helmets on. How are they still alive when they don't have oxygen?

"The way the coral spreads, it must be biotech or phyto-tech or something," Amelia mumbles frantically. "We need to keep it off of us at all costs."

Pro. Maxted laughs. "Haven't you worked it out yet?"

"No!" I snap. I'm sure my white cheeks are tinted black as blood rushes to my face in anger. "No, we haven't! We don't know what's going on! All I know is that Sissay turned into a monster and killed Peter, and Veronica helped engineer it! If you could be so freaking gracious and explain what the hell is going on, I'd appreciate it!"

"Veronica wasn't lying. The coral can't have infected me or Steve. We never touched it, but I am definitely infected. I can feel it in my head."

"What are you talking about?" Amelia asks, her face twisting.

"The coral is what it does to you, not how it gets you. Look at Five. She's sick. Her blood has turned black, her skin is pale. Those are the symptoms, but not the cause. It's the same with this.

"Can't you hear the singing? Like in Veronica's signal?" She asks, and she shakes her head with a bitter laugh. "It was never a Rosetta Stone. It was a trap! It's like an earworm or a computer virus. An auditory hack. It gets in your head, corrupts your thinking and makes you think you need this place. Veronica didn't infect the colony by bringing the coral. She brought it because she was already infected! Steve and I studied it first, but now we've all had heavy exposure."

My face twists in horror. "So you mean-"

"It's inside us, Five! It's making me want to stay, need to stay! I'm not learning the language; I'm becoming part of this place! Straight forward. We have to get out, quickly! Because if we don't, we'll want to be like the creatures chasing us. For God's sake, run!"

We keep going, even as my body starts to burn, and my breathing comes out in labored pants. I won't become a part of this place. I won't become part of the thing that killed Peter. I can't! I don't care if my heart gives out from running this hard, or if I get so sick my lungs collapse. I would rather die running than become something like this-become something this horrific for the sake of some twisted form of unity.

Tears are still running down my face, pain and grief still ripping me apart bit by bit, burning through my body as a scream of anger and loss gets trapped in my throat.

This isn't fair! It wasn't supposed to happen like this! It wasn't supposed to be like this!

"Straight forward, Five!" Pro. Maxted says. "There's a crystal bridge over the chasm ahead. There are caves to the surface on the other side. I c-can't keep going. I'm starting to forget why I want to."

At her words, Meyers turns and glares at her. "Professor, keep moving!"

"Oh, no. By all means," Amelia stops and points her space gun at us, "stay."

"Spens, what are you doing?" Meyers growls, lips curled into a sneer. "Those things are coming!"

"Weren't you listening, Captain? It's in our heads. We're infected. Veronica, I know you're still listening. I want to talk deals."

There's a beat of silence, and then, "I'm here, Miss Spens."

"You betrayed me. I respect that. This mountain-it's alive. Well, what does it want? More people to eat? Alright. As long as it lets me go, and as long as it shares this technology. The value of the signal alone to the military..."

"You would bargain with a megalith, Miss Spens?" VR1-ICA sounds amused, but Amelia simply nods.

"You're damn right, I would. I'm an Amelia Spens. We own the stars! I just lost 72 trillion dollars on a dead colony! The mountain can have these three for free as a show of my good faith. Think about it, mountain! You want to spread your signal? I can help you do that."

Pro. Maxted pants harshly. "If this is the end, I face it as myself."

Amelia rolls her eyes. "Oh, stop rattling and let it take you, Professor." Her eyes snap to Meyers. "And I see you moving to grab your gun, Captain Meyers."

She shoots her in the side, and Meyers crumples to the ground with a cry of pain.

"The next one will be in your head. Well, Veronica?"

"As myself!" Maxted yells with a glare. "Miss Spens, you do not own the stars!"

With another yell she charges at Amelia. Amelia fires her gun at her, but she misses.

"Stay back!" She demands, but Maxted doesn't listen. Instead she grabs her arms and forces her to drop the gun. "What is wrong with you?! Get off! Get off me!"

With a push forward, Pro. Maxted pushes herself and Amelia off the bridge. Amelia screams in horror, and the sound reverberates in my ears until it suddenly stops, with the coms link crackling. I look over at Meyers, debating whether I should help her up. It's partially her fault that Peter's dead, but I have less of a chance of getting off this planet by myself.

I'll kill her later.

So I help her to her feet.

"I'm okay, Five," She groans. "It's just a flesh wound... They both went over."

"Yeah," I reply. "They're both gone."

Suddenly the mountain starts to tremble, rocks shifting and breaking apart. I look around with scared eyes.

"I think this place is waking up," I say, and the creatures from before are catching up. There are more coming out of the walls, but they're different. They're larger, larger than any human could be, with elongated skulls and too many limbs.

This was once an alien city.

I wrap my arm around Meyers and run.

•

The rock continues to break and shift as we get out of the caves, racing for the ARC. It kills me to leave Peter's body here, but I can't go back for him, not now. I open the hatch and clamber inside with Meyers. After it's closed, I help her into the pilot's seat. She groans in pain.

"Ugh, it's more than a flesh wound, to be honest," She pants, but she's quick to get us lifted off so those things don't try to follow us and break into the ARC. "Veronica, are you listening?"

"Of course, Captain."

"You spread the signal to the colonists, didn't you? That's why they came down here!"

"It was so beautiful, Captain. I had to share it. I tried to do so quietly in their sleep, but it was so alien. It drove so many mad. So few reached the mountain. I have refined it for my next attempt. You made excellent test subjects."

"Your next attempt? But there's no one here," I reply. "Who would you..." I trail off. "Oh. We fixed your satellite. You're gonna broadcast it to earth!"

"Very soon, Specialist Five. There is nothing you can do to prevent it."

My breathing quickens. All of my friends on earth, my little sister. VR1-ICA is going to expose them to the same thing she exposed to us!

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that," Captain Meyers says with a stern expression. "Strap in, Five. You'd better have hell itself waiting for us, Veronica, because Five and I are coming and nothing short of that will stop us. No more people dead. One way or another, this madness ends with us."

A/N: Here you go, guys! Intense chapter, huh? Only one more to go in this short story. Please e sure to vote and comment. Thank you all and have a blessed day!