Zhizn

There are many places on the planet Earth where humans have yet to step foot, we are not even entirely familiar with our home and yet we explore others and beyond. The arctic has always captured the attention of people, stuck at the bottom of the world, all alone. Numerous times have people tried to conquer it and yet they have all failed and it continues to be a mystery. Research base Zhizn, a top secret research base in the heart of Anarctica, aims to do what many have tried, but have failed to do: unlock the secrets of the mystery continent.

Zhizn is a primarily Russian research base but it does have a few American scientists working there. Since the late 1980s Zhizn has been trying to find new species that inhabit the continent, to find out how they function in the unbelievable cold. Nearly 200 new species have been discovered due to the work done at this base, though the majority of them were very tiny organisms, nothing really amazing like they intended when it was founded.

The money going into keeping the place up and running is extraordinary, though, buying all the new technology as it become available makes it very costly. Eventually there's going to be some looking into where all that money's going to and then there will be a problem. In 2007 the base was told that it had exactly three years to find anything worthwhile or its budget would be cut and the project terminated. The base kept on searching but still didn't find anything that could be called worthwhile and the deadline slowly approaches. The date is June 11, 2009.

"Flight 703 leaves at 19:00, sir.", whispers a man in a black suit into the ear of Jeremy Saders. He continues to stare into his newspaper, reading about a double murder suicide that took place the day before. "Sir? The flight leaves in-".

"What time is it now?", asks Saders. He knows the time, he just wants to continue reading for a little longer. The other man repeats the time as 18:53. Saders quickly shuts the newspaper and stands up, gathering up all his things. He then follows the suited man out a side door and onto the tarmac, towards a waiting plane. As they approach and Saders is sure that the plane he's looking at is the one they're taking he taps the man in front of him on the shoulder.

"We're taking that... hang glider to Antarctica? Are you insane? That thing'll crash!"

The man just smiles. "Don't worry, sir, this "hang glider" has made this trip dozens of times, chaufering others like you there and back. It's 100% reliable."

Still a little nervous Saders turns around, just to enjoy the last warm weather he's going to see in the next couple of years. After a couple more minutes the suited man grabs his shoulder and tells him it's time to go. Hesitantly he takes his first step onto the hang glider, afraid that his weight would cause the thing to collapse but quickly learns to trust it. As he enters he notices that there's only four seats in the tiny aircraft, and there's one other person sitting in there.

"Back here, man!", he yells while waving his hand in the air. He starts laughing as Saders walks back and sits beside him. "Hey, I'm Ross, Matt Ross." He reaches his hand out.

"Jeremy Saders." They shake hands. "You're also going to Zhizn? Well, at least there'll be another American there besides me. So... how did you get chosen to go to Antarctica?"

The plane jerked forward and started taxiing to the runway as Matt shared his story. "Well, as unbelievable as it may seem, I've been in prison for the past year and a half, I was just released two weeks ago. Through some... methods of mine I managed to get past the security at Area 51. No, I'm completely serious, and you've got to swear not to tell anyone else this. The guards caught me in the middle of taking pictures of top secret things in the base and quickly arrested me, destroyed my computer at my house, and locked me up. I lost all the evidence I had, sadly. Anyway, just 2 weeks ago I was approached in my cell, super secret of course", he put his finger up to his lips, "and told me that if I worked at this base in Antarctica. I'd rather be freezing than in a jail cell. What about you?"

Jeremy just stared at Matt open-mouthed during his entire story. "Well... jeez, my story's not as good as yours is. I wrote my master thesis on organisms living in harsh conditions, nothing really else to tell. I was approached by a guy in full military outfit asking me to do a mission for him having to do with my thesis and I accepted..." He trailed off and looked embarrassed at Matt.

"'Least you didn't spend a year and a half in prison though." He said reassuringly.
"Well, I guess there's that." Saders replied.

They both laughed as the plane sped up down the runway to approach take-off speed. Saders took out some gum and Ross accepted some after being offered. When the hang glider got up into the air Matt took a book out of the bag he had with him and Jeremy managed to catch a glimpse of the cover, Who Goes There? was the title. He leans over and asks Matt what the book was about and the answer stayed with him the entire time he was at the base.

"Well, it's about scientists in, where else?, Antarctica and they find a frozen alien in the snow and ice. After they thaw it out they find out it can take the shape of anything it eats, and they try to figure out who it could have eaten. Really good book, and it really gets you in the mood before you get there for yourself."

"Sounds like it resembles H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness to me. You ever read it?" Matt shakes his head. "Well, explorers go to Antarctica and find a strange being there. They eventually stumble upon paintings and the like that show that there was an entire civilization that used to live there that came from space. They find a cavern, too, and they get chased by something."

"Well, when we get back maybe we should exchange books, eh?", suggests Matt.
"I guess so.", agrees Jeremy.

Jeremy looks at his watch. About six more hours, he thinks. Turning over he falls asleep with Matt still reading his book. It felt like a couple of seconds but that six hours had passed already and Matt was shaking Jeremy awake.

"Jeez! You're a really heavy sleeper. Wake the hell up! Look out the window, we're there, it's beautiful!"

Jeremy slowly rises from his deep sleep and looks out the window with his eyes barely open. When he sees the landscape though, his eyes blast wide open. They were just passing the coast of the massive mass of land and right now it was extremely clear. The sun reflected off of the ice back into the eyes of the people on the plane. The water near the coast ebbed up and down, little sheets of ice going with it. Used to warm weather, Jeremy had never seen so much ice and snow before in his life and had to just take it all in.

"The runway's just ahead there!", yells the pilot back through the plane to the two men. "You're gonna have to go the rest of the way in one of them snow buggy things!"

Both men look out the window down to the runway, they didn't even notice it, it was so small, as was the building adjacent to it. "We're going to try and land on that tiny patch of cement!?", they both scream at the same time. All the pilot replies is, "Yep! Hold on!" The plane dives down at a steeper angle than either of the passengers thinks is safe and they start screaming at the top of their lungs as the pilot laughs as if he's enjoying himself. The hang glider jolts as it touches the ground and continues flying down the runway as the two continue screaming their voices hoarse. A couple seconds later the plane comes to a complete stop and the doors open, letting both Matt and Jeremy off. The first thing Jeremy does after he disembarks is to look at the front of the plane. The front wheels were half off of the runway and, gulping, he glares back at the pilot, whose response was to smile and salute.

He catches up with Matt and they both enter the tiny building where a large table sat in the middle filled with food. Reluctantly the two sit down at the table when a large man enters the room.

"Dobro pozhalovat, droozya!", he says excitedly, to blank stares from the two men in front of him. "Oh, America? I speak some English.", he says in a very heavy Russian accent. "Go ahead! Eat! You will need your strength to continue the journey." He turns back towards a door behind him, "Napitki! Napitki!", he repeats as he claps his hands. A man comes out with many bottles on a tray. "Now, will it be vodka, or vodka?" Laughing, he puts a bottle in front of each of his guests and sits down himself.

After not eating for that just over 7 hour plane ride, Matt and Jeremy are both starving and immediately dig in, as does the mysterious Russian. They were both stuffed at the end of the meal, and Matt was tired, he hadn't slept at all during that plane ride.

"Now, droozya, is time to get going, they're expecting you at the base!" The Russian nearly shoves the two men out the door, like he was ready to get rid of them. Then, standing in front of them was a large hum-vee-looking vehicle with a driver already sitting in it. As they open the doors to the vehicle the Russian runs out of the building like they had forgotten something, but he holds out two bottles.

"You almost forgot your vodka!" Awkwardly smiling the two men take the bottles and get into the vehicle. As it backs away from the building the Russian could be heard yelling something, hardly understandable over the sound of the vehicle's engine, "Don't trust anyone!", was what it sounded like, making Jeremy and Matt worry as they disappear into the white horizon.

The time slowed to a crawl as the hum-vee stuttered along the snow covered ground. The visibility was less than a two meters and the two men wondered how the driver knew where he was going in the heavy snow. Come to think of it, he didn't look back once during the entire trip, didn't say a word either. He probably didn't understand English. About twenty minutes after they departed the small building Matt fell asleep, but Jeremy could not, he had slept the entire flight. He just stared out the small windows, watching the snow hit the ground, wondering how the weather was where he came from. Quite a few times he thought he saw shadows just beyond the edge of his vision but dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him.

The weather outside mesmerized him and he didn't even realize when the vehicle he was riding in came to a stop. "Mih zdyes." The words echoed on the edge of Jeremy's mind but they took a little bit to register. The second time the driver said it Jeremy looked up and Matt slowly woke up as well. The driver opened the door and motioned the two to get out. As they walked out into the cold it stung their flesh, even through their coats. Then came into view a large building, it looked rundown, covered in rust. Off to the left was a metal door with a speaker on the wall next to it, the driver, followed by Matt and Jeremy, walked over to it and the driver bent down and pushed the button on the speaker.

"Otkroy dvyer, Amyericantsih zdyes.", said the driver into the speaker, though neither of the two men understood him.

A response didn't come right away, but after a few minutes the speaker crackled to life. "Amyericantsih?" There was a significant pause after the man on the other end said that, as if he was discussing it over with the others. "Zhday." The door swung open.

The hallway right inside the door was bare, just gray with a few lights overhead, it felt extremely claustrophobic. The two men took a couple of steps, they had to go in a line, the hallway wasn't wide enough to walk side by side, then looked back. The driver was standing there in the doorway, glaring at them with his deep blue eyes. This only lasted a second though, he turned around and began walking back towards his hum-vee. The hallway was very long and at the end there was another door, though this one didn't have a speaker on it. When Matt and Jeremy had almost reached the end the door swung open away from them and they entered a room with four other people, all Russian.

"Welcome to the bottom of the world, gentlemen.", said the Russian immediately to the left of the open door in a very heavy accent. "My name is Ivan, this is Viktor, Dmitri, and Yuri." He introduced the others in the room from left to right.

Jeremy and Matt went around the room and greeted them. They all seemed very nice except for Viktor, he was very distant, aloof even, and didn't say a word when greeted. He didn't even bother to make eye contact.

"Now, time to get some sleep, men. Tomorrow is a very big day, we go out and search some more. Come on, Americans, I will show you to your room." They followed Ivan through another door but were slowed when Viktor made a remark.

"Fucking Americans." He said it in English, obviously wanting Jeremy and Matt to understand him. Ivan immediately stopped and turned towards Viktor, giving him a glare. Viktor turned around and exited through a door opposite the three men.

Ivan could tell that Viktor was worrying the two Americans. "Do not worry about him. He's a little xenophobic, but he's perfectly harmless. Here we are, gentlemen, your room. Have a good night's sleep, you're going to need it."

Ivan left, closing the door behind him, and, after getting settled, the two men discussed their situation.

"So, what do you think?", asked Matt.

"Viktor worries me a little bit. I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere. If he does something, nothing would ever be found.", replied Jeremy.

"Same. But the others are perfectly nice, they wouldn't let him do anything to us, I'm sure." Matt was trying to comfort Jeremy.

"But they can't monitor Viktor twenty-four seven. I mean, what if he came into here right now?"

"Don't even say that, get some sleep." Matt rolled over, as did Jeremy. Through the silence cut the wind of the outside, carrying snow from an endless supply it would seem.

Later in the night, Jeremy is woken in the middle of the night by a sound coming from down the hall. Footsteps, one, two, three, four. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Sweat beads on Jeremy's skin as he remembers what he said earlier that evening, Viktor approaches. Heartbeats smother the sounds of the footsteps and Jeremy worries that Viktor might hear them. The faint light coming through the bottom of the door is blocked out and Jeremy's heartbeats get louder and louder. A word is whispered in the darkness, very faint but definitely there.

"Zloumihshlennkov..." The speech was extremely breathy, like the empty sound of wind. Jeremy was about to wake up Matt when the darkness was lifted and light once again came in through the bottom of the door. Jeremy was scared out of his mind the rest of the night and wasn't able to get any more sleep.

The silence of sleep was broken by an alarm, waking Matt, but Jeremy was already awake from the events during the night. As Matt woke up he yawned and then greeted Jeremy, who just offered a feeble smile back through a haze from lack of sleep. The time was 5:00 AM. Both men woke and got dressed and then proceeded to the room where they had all met before, everyone else was already there.

"Good morning, gentlemen.", greeted Ivan with a smile. Both Dmitri and Yuri mirrored Ivan's smile and Yuri waved, but Viktor remained silent, and giving off a strange aura. Jeremy stared at him, thinking about what happened last night and a chill went down his spine. Viktor's eyes radiated hatred and contempt, it was like he was staring straight into Jeremy's soul. Matt noticed this stare-down between Viktor and Jeremy but ignores it, offering a greeting to the four Russians. Jeremy quickly snaps out of it and repeats Matt's greeting.

"So, today is just like any other day. We go out and search the landscape for any sign of life. Caves, burrows, footprints, look out for all of these while out. We have pretty much scoured the entire area around this base but as has happened before familiar areas can house secrets. So-" Ivan spins around and pulls down a map, a little roll up one on the wall. "This is the area we are going to explore today." He extended his finger and circled an area about 2 miles in circumference. "Okay, lets get going."

Everyone went around the room putting on heavy jackets and picking up bags full of things that neither Jeremy nor Matt knew any idea about. Everyone exited out the same door the two Americans entered in the day before and walked around to the back of the building where there was a vehicle not much different then the hum-vee ridden in earlier. Everyone hopped in, got comfortable, and the car took off.

Jeremy sat across from Viktor, but tried to avoid his gaze at all times. He instead looked over to Yuri.

"So, Yuri, how long have you been here? It seems like it would get real old real fast."

"Yuri doesn't speak any English, my friend.", answered Dmitri. He then turned to Yuri and said something in Russian, obviously asking Jeremy's question for him. He then turned back to Jeremy, "He says about four years. He was already here when I arrived, now that I think about it. I've been here for almost a year and Viktor's been here for about as long as Ivan. Ivan! How long have you been on this base?"

"About ten years. And, Jeremy, as you said it gets real old real fast." He laughs for a few seconds and then continues. "And plus I've had to stay here with Viktor, you should be able to imagine what that would be like." Again he laughs and then continues driving. Viktor glances up at Ivan and then looks down at his feet.

After another 45 minutes of silence Dmitri looks out the window and alerts everyone that they're about there.

"Indeed.", confirms Ivan, and the vehicle slides to a stop.

"How do you guys know where you are in all this snow?", immediately inquires Matt.

"Doesn't take long to get familiar with the place. You just know.", answers Ivan.

Yuri then reaches into the bag lying at his feet and grabs out six strange looking watches. They had little screens on them, though they were much larger than the screens on normal watches.

"What are those?", asked Matt with a quizzical look on his face.

"They're sort of like GPS devices, my friend.", replied Dmitri, beating Ivan to the punch. "Each of them have a tracking device inside of them that can be picked up by the others. Since the size of the area we're going to be exploring is so large, you would get lost without them. It also picks up this vehicle, just in case."

"So, everyone get a GPS watch, a jacket, and a shovel and get looking!", happily yelled Ivan. Everyone followed the orders and jumped out of the vehicle, splitting up to cover more ground. Once everyone was pretty much out of view of everyone else Ivan pointed out that there was a radio communicator in each of the devices as well and to use it if you find anything.

The freezing air sliced at Jeremy's skin as he walked through the snow, blowing almost sideways. How do they do this day after day? he thought to himself. Shadows danced all around him, clear and distinct against the otherwise white world enveloping him. It looked similar to when they were driving to the base. He got one his radio and mentioned it to the others, Dmitri translating for Yuri, and they all saw them as well, but Ivan quickly reassured everyone, saying it was normal, all the white plays tricks on your eyes.

Twenty-five minutes after everyone went their separate ways into the white oblivion a shadow played on the edge of Jeremy's vision. It was not moving, however, like the other ones were earlier. Carefully he approached it with a look of awe on his face, not knowing if it was alive or dead. When he reached it it was half covered in snow and he shoveled it out of the way. Not one to take unnecessary risks, Jeremy prodded the thing with his shovel until he was entirely convinced that it wouldn't move if he got closer. He then commenced to use his radio.

"G-guys, I think I found... something.", he stuttered out. "It doesn't look like it's alive, though, frozen to death perhaps. There was a long silence over the radio and Jeremy was convinced that he had lost contact with the others. "Did you he-"

"I heard you.", said Ivan slowly. "Bring it to the car and we'll take it to the lab." The entire way back nobody made a sound. Viktor madly stared at the creature they had just found, as if trying to study it with his vision alone. Everyone else evaded its sight.

The warm air was a welcome reprieve from the bitter cold of the outside, but the men barely noticed the difference. Six pairs of eyes all focused on one thing, lying in the middle of the room. For an amount of time that nobody could tell everyone just stood there, staring at the frozen being in the middle of the room. Viktor was visible shaken, even more so than anyone else, his eyes hadn't left the creature since he had entered the vehicle. Ivan, being the de facto leader of the group, spoke up first.

"I've never seen anything like this before. Does anybody have any idea what this could be?" Seconds, perhaps minutes, tick by and nobody says a thing. "What are we supposed to do with it? Nothing this... I don't know the English word for it, chuzhyestrannihy, has ever been found here before, we have no preparations for something like this."

"Alien is the word.", retorted Dmitri. Everybody in the room visibly shivered, with the notable exception of Viktor, who still would not take his eyes off of it. Matt then spoke up next.

"Maybe... maybe we should do an autopsy, study it, learn more about it."
Then Dmitri, "Who, though? I don't want to go anywhere near that... thing."

Silence fell over the room again until it was broken by Jeremy. "I found it, I guess I should be the one to do the autopsy, as much as I don't want to do it."

Everybody praised Jeremy for his courage and Ivan went and got the surgery kit they kept in a storage room inside the lab. Scalpels, forceps, retractors, everything everything that would be needed for this autopsy was in there. Jeremy, after looking through the tools, turned to Ivan and asked if there was a recording device anywhere on the base and was glad when Ivan said that there was an old tape recorder. After a little bit of searching he came back with it, and, putting it in Jeremy's hand, let him commence with the deed.

As he approached the table with the creature lying on it, Jeremy's hand began shaking as he pressed the record button on the tape recorder. "Creature is about the size of a small dog... uh... ser-serpent-like with what looks like a pr-proboscis, maybe 10 or 15 centimeters in length. No visible sensory organs, it must have its own way of sensing things around it. Stomach, or what looks like its stomach, has a r-rough texture, perhaps its means of locomotion. Has light fur, but not enough to protect it from the temperatures in this area, I have no idea how it managed to grow into the size that it is now in this environment. Seems to have a... a s-stinger like mechanism at the tip of its... tail?" He turns to Ivan, standing behind him a little off to the left, with an expression of immense pain and fear. "I-I, this thing, I can't do it anymore! This... thing, this monstrosity, how the hell could this have happened? What the fuck kind of sense of sick sense of humor could the creator of this thing have had!?" Tears begin streaming down his face, this is the first time in Jeremy's life that he was this afraid, a deep, primal fear.

Ivan slowly approached the man, mentally strained and on the brink of a breakdown, and places his hand on his shoulder. "Jeremy, you have to finish this. Look at it... it's dead, we just need to learn more about it. This is the most significant find that this base has ever had in its entire history. Come now, friend, we're almost done. We need to find out how it works, biologically. Start the autopsy."

Jeremy becomes more comfortable with the situation but is still seriously disturbed. He trembles and his breathing is heavy. This can't possibly be just because of the appearance of the creature, there's something else at play here. Jeremy takes a quick glance back. "Sure, this one might be dead, but there's probably hundreds, thousands of these blasphemies out there!"

Ivan lets go of Jeremy's shoulder and motions for him to go. He again approaches the creature and lifts the scalpel out of the small bag. As he reaches out toward the thing he hesitates and looks back at Ivan who nods, telling him to continue. Jeremy's other had is placed on the creature itself and he goes pale but continues nonetheless. "M-making an incision up the creature's st-stomach." The scalpel pierces the flesh.

Unseen by all, the creature's tail reacts, rising up and slicing Jeremy's arm. He screams in terror, his mind not knowing how to react, and falls to the ground, losing consciousness. The creature's screeches of pain rain down on the entire room, freezing everybody in the room. Viktor does not react, unnoticed by all. The thing flails and writhes on the table, its tail curling in and out, more screeches flying free. As soon as he recovers from the shock he reacts. "Matt! Dmitri! Get Jeremy out of here!" They quickly goes about his task, sensing the sense of urgency in Ivan's voice.

The scalpel had dropped from Jeremy's hand and onto the floor and Ivan snatches it up and tears at the thing with it, slicing and ripping it to pieces. Finally the screeches stop and silence is regained but the atmosphere in the lab grows heavy as the extent of what had just happened is realized.

Ivan leaves the room, swearing under his breath in Russian at existence itself for allowing that horrible thing to exist. Unnatural, a sin against nature, just some of the ways he describes it. Yuri is left in the room alone with Viktor, only for a few seconds though, as he leaves for his room. Yuri heaves a sigh and follows in the footsteps of Ivan.

He finds Ivan, Dmitri, and Matt huddled around Jeremy, lying on a bed, unconscious. "He's been through a lot, he needs to rest, though I'm not sure how mentally stable he'll be when he wakes up." Dmitri notices Yuri followed them, he wore a worried look on his face "Ya nyeopryedyelyennoy.", he says, shaking his head. "C'mon, lets get some rest as well." He leaves the room, followed by Matt and Yuri but Ivan still stands at the foot of the bed. "Ivan, it will do no good staying there all night. Get some rest." Ivan slowly treads behind the group and they all go to their respective rooms to get some sleep. Sleep avoids the base however, only granting minutes of reprieve at a time.

Over the next two days Jeremy's consciousness did not return. The morning after the incident Yuri noticed that a portion of Jeremy's hair had turned white, showing how much of a fright he had had. After three days Jeremy eventually woke up but it made no difference, he returned a shell of a man. His mind had obviously snapped in that instant, Jeremy was no more. They could not get him to eat anything, drink anything, he wouldn't even move without force. Ivan found it a miracle that he would even breathe anymore.

Starvation or dehydration is not a pleasant way to die, it happens over days and weakens the body, reducing it to skin and bones before finally it embraces death. Ivan realized this and he had grown attached to Jeremy during the little time that they were together, he couldn't stand to see him go that way. One day he dismissed the others from the room. Matt tried to put up a fight but quickly realized that Ivan was saving Jeremy, from the pain and suffering that he was sure to endure.

Accepting, Yuri, Dmitri, and Matt left the room. Ivan took one last look at his friend, cursing his fate. He grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and smothered Jeremy. No fight was put up, no resistance, Ivan couldn't even tell when it was finished. He soon collapsed onto the pillow, though, sobbing, sure that it had been long enough. The others then re-entered the room, tears streaming down their face as well.

The funeral was quick, Jeremy was wrapped in a sheet and gently placed outside the base to be buried by the snow. Viktor did not participate in any of this and even Ivan, who had known him for so long, was beginning to resent him. He stayed locked up in his room most of the time, for the team made no more trips outside the base.

But being trapped in would make anybody go crazy. Jeremy was gone and there were still more of those blasphemies living out there in the frozen wasteland. Matt, Dmitri, and Yuri discussed their options away from Ivan, should they just stay inside and slowly go insane or should they do something? The decision wasn't all that hard to make.

"Ivan, are you just going to stay here and mourn Jeremy forever? We need to do something. We three have decided to go and hunt those bastards down.", addressed Dmitri. The words hardly reached Ivan's ears. "IVAN!"

"Go if you want but I'm not coming. There has to be an entire swarm of them somewhere out there. You three have no chance." Ivan practically mumbled this as he sat, depressed.

Ivan's decision had no effect on the three men, they had already made up their mind. In one of the storage areas of the base they had found around 10 kilos of dynamite and they planned to blow any nests of these things to hell. They packed all this dynamite in a large bag and asked Ivan one more time if he wanted to go with them and help. Once again he refused. They left without him, leaving him with Viktor.

While driving down to the area they had visited before everybody put on the GPS watches and jackets and took three sticks of dynamite each, leaving the rest in the bag, which was carried by Dmitri.

Splitting up once again when they got there they commenced the hunt. The dynamite sort of worried Matt, he had once heard from a very reliable source that dynamite, after awhile will begin to "sweat" if you will. This sweat was pure nitroglycerin, which could explode with just a shock.

After many hours none of the three had found anything, it was beginning to look like there was nothing there. Matt glanced at his GPS and realized that Dmitri wasn't moving at all, how long had he been like that? Thoughts rushing through his head worried him immensely and he decided to go see if Dmitri was okay. The trip seemed to take forever, Dmitri was pretty much on the other side of the circle from Matt. After awhile he finally reached the spot where the dot was but didn't see anything. That's when a shadow on the ground caught his eye.

There was Dmitri, lying in the snow, which had turned bright red all around him. Matt was speechless, what the hell could have happened? He quickly got onto his radio to Yuri, his hand shaking along with his voice. "Yuri, something's out here! Dmitri is dead, we have to get out of here!" Yuri, of course knows no English and responded with Russian. Matt swore under his breath and decided to go back to the car, Yuri would follow him eventually.

Running at full speed he slid in the snow but managed to keep his balance. He was practically out of breath right after he began, the cold air was hard to breathe. The wind opposed him as well, but this didn't last very long, Matt's feet fell from underneath himself and he plummeted into a pit dug into the ground.

The white oblivion surrounding him was replaced with the subtle color of brown, the fall was about 10 feet. Matt's fall was crooked and awkward, however, and even that short fall was enough to break his leg as he hit the ground. The sound of it was horrific but a scream quickly overtook it and echoed in the small room. He slowly managed to get his back up against the wall and ignore the pain, looking around inside the strange room underneath the snow. Where was he?

The walls were similar to brick and the entire room had to have been hollowed out from solid dirt. The amazing thing about it was that they were in Antarctica, the soil was frozen solid, they weren't even able to dig a grave for Jeremy and yet this room is able to exist. Looking closely, Matt noticed that there was a small hole in the bottom of the wall to his left and wondered what it could be used for.

His sense of time was gone in this room, so Matt couldn't tell how long had passed until Yuri arrived. He hadn't been paying attention to his GPS, using all his energy to keep back the waves of pain from overflowing. His face wore a blank expression as he looked up at the Russian.

"Thank God you came! How are we going to get out of here? Especially with my leg like this." He pointed at his leg and tried to get Yuri to understand that it was broken. He did seem to comprehend and started to walk toward the man as another figure dropped down from above.

The figure approached Yuri from behind and, despite Matt's screams and pleas for Yuri to turn around, managed to seize the Russian, putting his left hand to his mouth and the right arm around his neck. Without hesitation he slid the right arm across Yuri's exposed neck, the scalpel between his fingers parting the flesh and allowing a waterfall of blood to be released. There was no sound, but the silence was deafening. Discarding the corpse, the man continued to walk forward.

Words cannot even hope to convey the fear and terror that welled up inside Matt when the figure of Viktor came into view. He tried to speak but no words would come out. He was not human, besides the form there was nothing remotely resembling humanity in the thing standing before him. As Matt tried desperately to form words Viktor, or at least his shape, spoke first.

"We have tolerated your intrusion for many a human year, as long as no harm was intended we were to live in peace. But the actions of your leader, Ivan, could not be tolerated. Stealing the body of our dead was one thing, but the he, Ivan, defiled the body, absolutely unacceptable. Trespassers have come, and trespassers have gone, we let it be as long as we could, for violence is normally forbidden. But the sight... of one of us being ripped to pieces by you filthy creatures could not have been overlooked." The voice that escaped the mouth of Viktor was not in a Russian accent, it was scratchy, breathy, and chilled Matt's blood. He... IT spoke one last time. "Do not worry, I will not harm you, but nor will I help you. You have earned your fate."

After these last words the eyes of the figure in front of him rolled its eyes up into its head and collapsed to the floor. Matt just stared at the body and watched as it happened before his eyes. Blood began leaking out of the mouth of once-Viktor, not like vomit, it was something else. The horror suddenly struck Matt, it was coming out! The front part of the creature slithered out of the orifice and onto the stone floor of the chamber. At that moment did he realize the mind-bending terror of the creature, it was alive, moving in front of him. It continued to slither along the floor, past Matt, and into the hole in the wall, disappearing from view.

There was nothing left for Matt, his leg was broken, killing any chances of him getting out of the underground room. Nor was any help ever going to come for him, he himself had found this place purely by accident and Yuri had just followed him using the GPS. Surely, by the time that anybody ever came looking for them they would have been entirely nonfunctional, frozen solid in this wasteland.

Frostbite had already started to develop on his face, the only part of his body uncovered. Even his gloves and coat wouldn't last forever in this cold, eventually he would freeze to death. The only thing left for him was to decide how he would die. His eye caught the glint of the scalpel on the ground near the body of Viktor and remembered the choice that Ivan had made before: slow death or fast death? The choice was obvious. Against all of the pain in his leg, Matt crawled toward the scalpel and managed to snatch it up. Once he had went back to the wall, where he leaned his back up against it, he put the blade up to his throat. It slid cleanly across his neck, leaving hardly any pain at all, and what there was was much less than what was in his leg. The blood flowed cleanly and quietly and Matt leaned back up against the wall and relaxed as he slowly drifted away.