I turned

The low, wet clicking wasn’t coming from the night outside. It was coming from inside the wrecked transport, right behind the stasis pod.

A shape unfolded from the shadows between the seats like it had been folded there the whole time, waiting. Tall—taller than any of us—thin as if extended unnaturally. Grey skin stretched tight over sharp bones, a glowing red-orange core pulsing faintly behind its ribs like a second, alien heart. Its head was too big, elongated, the mouth a jagged slit full of needle teeth that parted with that same wet clack-clack-clack as it breathed. No eyes I could see, just deep black sockets that seemed to drink in the moonlight. One slender arm ended in a wrist-mounted blaster; the other held a long, wicked syringe the size of a combat knife, its needle already glistening with something thick and luminous.

The smell hit me next—ozone and burnt meat, like lightning had struck a slaughterhouse.

My skull screamed.

It wasn’t pain exactly. It was pressure, like someone had jammed an ice-pick between my eyes and started twisting. My vision strobed. I heard Reyes gasp behind me, then Jax curse under his breath. I heard something metallic clatter to the floor.

The thing stepped forward on long, backwards-jointed legs, joints popping wetly. Its head tilted, and the pressure in my brain sharpened into words that weren’t words—cold, otherworldly intent sliding straight into my thoughts like oil:

Purge the static. Secure the Vessel. Accelerate the Ascension.

It wasn’t talking to us, more... about us.

Reyes recovered first. “Contact!” she barked, rifle already up. She squeezed off three quick rounds, but they were off the mark. The Sectoid barely flinched as lethal rounds ricocheted around it. A plasma bolt hissed almost inaudibly from its wrist-blaster—bright green and impossibly fast. It caught Reyes in the shoulder and spun her like a rag doll. She hit the dirt hard, screaming.

Then the real horror started.

The creature didn’t even look at her. It glided straight past, needle raised as it moved towards the frosted cylinder. The pod’s occupant—whatever the hell Central thought was worth dying for—floated motionless inside. The Sectoid’s free hand brushed the access port. The syringe hovered, needle tip inches from the seal.

Jax’s voice cracked, unable to line up a shot with me between him and the Sectoid. “Rhea—move!”

I tried to raise my rifle, but my hands were empty. I had dropped it somewhere uselessly on the floor. I wasn't thinking clearly, the pain omnipresent, but I was already moving on instinct. I threw my entire weight into the creature, trying to knock it away from the pod. Its body felt wrong—too light, too cold, like wet stone wrapped in parchment. It hissed, that clicking mouth opening wider, and the psychic pressure exploded.

Reyes was on her knees now, clutching her ruined shoulder. Blood poured between her fingers. Her eyes were wide, pupils blown. “I—I can’t—get out of my head—” Her rifle clattered to the ground. She clawed at her own face like something was crawling under her skin.

Psi-Disorientation. I’d heard the briefings, but seeing it on Reyes was worse. Missing the Sectoid at point-blank, flailing around uselessly...

The Sectoid ignored her completely. It turned towards the pod, the needle gleaming in one hand.

I lunged again, grabbing its wrist with both hands. The blaster arm whipped around and cracked me across the ribs. I felt something pop, but I didn’t let go. “Jax—get it!”

Jax hesitated half a second—long enough for the creature to flick its wrist. The syringe flashed. I saw the needle arc toward the pod’s access port, toward the man (or thing) floating inside.

I acted on instinct, throwing myself between them.

The needle punched through my tactical vest like it was paper and sank into the meat of my chest, just below the shoulder. Cold fire flooded my veins. I screamed—raw, animal, nothing like the controlled shouts I usually made in a fight.

The Sectoid’s head snapped toward me. For the first time it actually looked at me, black sockets flaring with something that might have been surprise.

I could feel its intent more sharply than before; it was no longer merely annoyed. It was the shivering, clinical revulsion of a surgeon whose scalpel had just been grabbed by a lab rat. The oily coldness in my brain didn't just heat up—it shattered. It turned into a jagged, blinding dissonance, a psychic shriek that felt like rusted needles being driven into my grey matter.

It tried to yank the syringe free. I held on, teeth bared, the cold fire spreading down my arm and into my chest. My heart hammered so hard I thought it would burst. The world sharpened—every leaf, every distant gunshot, every panicked breath from Jax suddenly crystal clear.

Reyes made a sound I will never forget. A wet, gurgling shriek. The Sectoid’s blaster fired again with a hiss, not even looking at its target. The shot took her in the back of the head. The screaming stopped, and she dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, face-down in the dirt, brown hair mixing with blood and pine needles.

Jax broke.

“Rhea—RUN!” he screamed, already sprinting for the tree line. No bravado, no covering fire. Just raw terror.

The cold fire in my arm turned molten. Strength surged through me—unnatural, terrifying strength. I ripped the syringe out of my flesh and swung it like a knife, smashing the needle across the Sectoid’s glowing chest. It staggered, hissing. I didn’t wait to see if I’d hurt it. I turned and ran.

The roar of Lira’s high-velocity rifle didn’t just hit my ears; it punched straight through the fog in my brain. It was a physical blow of sound that snapped the Sectoid’s hold on me like a dry twig. From somewhere deep in the treeline, Lira had found her mark; I didn't see where the slug hit, but the creature’s warbling hiss was cut short by a wet, heavy impact that sent it reeling back into the shadows of the transport. The pressure in my skull vanished, replaced by a sudden, crystalline surge of adrenaline that made every nerve ending electric.

My legs felt like they belonged to someone else—faster, surer, eating up the distance to the ravine. Jax was already halfway down the slope, crashing through brush. Behind us, the Sectoid let out a long, warbling click that drilled straight into my skull, but it didn’t follow. Maybe it was wounded. Maybe it had orders. Maybe it was going back to secure the pod. I didn’t care at that moment.

We reached the truck. The smuggler had the engine running. The two survivors from Reyes’ team were already inside, along with Lira, one of them pressing a tourniquet on the wounded man’s leg. They hauled Jax and me in without a word. The truck lurched forward before the doors were even shut.

I slumped against the seat, breathing hard. My chest burned where the needle had gone in, but the pain was already fading into something else—something warm and liquid that pooled low in my belly. My thighs pressed together instinctively. The same frustrated heat from the bunker and the checkpoint was back, but deeper now. Hungrier. Like my body had been waiting for this exact moment to wake up.

I pressed a gloved hand over the injection site. The skin there felt hot. Almost glowing.

Jax stared at me across the bouncing cargo bed, eyes wide and his voiced laced with panic. “What the fuck was that thing? And what the fuck did it do to you?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My pulse was throbbing between my legs again, stronger than before, and every bump in the ruined road sent a fresh, traitorous spark through me.

We’d lost Reyes. We’d lost the asset. But we were alive.

For now.

The truck bounced hard over a root. I bit back a groan that had nothing to do with pain.