Harding's hand hesitated as it approached the Intercom. Silence reigned, barely interrupted by the buzzing of the decaying systems, which were slowly being devastated by the Firefly Forest. His fingers trembled slightly before pressing the button, and then he turned to see the rest of the dwindling crew. Max and Naomi. Yakiv, Ayna, and Satoshi. All of them haggard, marked by fatigue and fear. But they all had the same question. With a grim expression, Max nodded slightly. —. Harding here. Who is it? — Harding asked as he pressed the button. His voice was barely a whisper. On the other end, static crackled before a familiar voice made itself known. —. Dan? — a woman asked —. Is it really you? My God, I thought I would never hear your voice again! — the group joined in a collective sigh. A sense of joy emerged when they recognized her. Angelina Zhang. The Chief of IT of the Chronos. Harding's lover. The closest thing to a mother on board the ship for Max. Memories that seemed distant and foreign, like in a fever dream, surfaced immediately —. We managed to restore internal communications. They had been down for days. What are you doing locked in the ship's lounge? Who is with you? — —. What’s left of the crew. — Harding replied —. That is, me, Max, and Naomi. That’s all. Plus, three scared colonists. — At this, a silence stretched, filling the room. A silence that spoke louder than words. Then, a weak sob broke through the white noise —. I can’t believe our little ones are alive! — she said. Without a word, Max and Naomi's fingers intertwined tightly, serving as both an anchor and a lifeline. They were not only alive but together, against all odds. When the fireflies boarded and took control, Max had been presumed dead. Now, he was about to throw that miracle overboard. On the other side, Angelina's ragged breathing could be heard, sucking in her own tears with sharp inhations. She was heard cursing and thanking in equal parts before regaining her composure and continuing —. We are in the C-Sec Barracks, under the Control Room. — Hope ignited again, like a campfire. Max and Naomi's hands gripped tighter. Zhang spoke in the plural. It meant there were more survivors. Daimonji was right. There was still something to fight for, there was still hope. However, it seemed that Harding did not see it the same way, and his expression turned as shameful as it was grim and guilty. —. We were drinking this Uncle Raynor I bought on Phobos, that blue-bel special edition. — his voice became a whisper, as if he were hiding something. —. I had saved it for when the "kids" got married, or some other occasion that warranted it. I didn’t think it would be for our st drunken night, you know? But that’s how it is. — silence. Harding knew Angelina well enough to know she was angry but expectant. She wanted to hear him finish —. We would have a cocktail, and then I would put everyone to sleep. — the old man could not contain the tears full of guilt and remorse as he spoke. Angelina didn’t flinch —. It would ensure that the Fireflies wouldn’t come for our bodies, and then, as I told the captain, I would be the one to turn off the lights. — When Max looked down and contempted the pills he was seconds away from taking, his stomach churned. Harding's crying surged in torrents, as if he had pulled a stake from his chest. He had only seen him cry like that once, when he was younger. It was during a conversation with Angelina. He didn’t know what they talked about, but she was stroking his head with an expression of both sorrow and dismay. The silence stretched, but this time it was den with a different emotion. Angelina's sharp breathing gave a hint of indignation. —. Dan. You're not serious, right? You are the head of Security on this ship. Your job is to keep the crew alive and safe, and this is this what you wanted? To commit suicide? — —. We can no longer take control of the ship, Angie. — Harding tried to protest over the sobs —. Your other child is protecting those things. The critical systems have colpsed. My security team is dead. Daimonji and his are too. I’ve seen what those things have done to the crew, and I don’t want that to happen to us. I offer the option of a peaceful death in the face of endless and incomprehensible agony. You should do the same. — —. Hypersleep is affecting you, old man. I hope Max spped you for even thinking about it. — Angelina shot back —. And part of what you say is true. EREBUS, my child, has gone crazy, and I’m looking for a way to fix it. — —. How? — he questioned her. —. A mother knows her children well. That applies even to an AI. — she countered —. I will find a way, sooner or ter. And you’ll be gd to know that your team is not dead, not entirely. Trevor Fundiswa is with me. So are some of Daimonji’s guys; Sawatari, Sarraf, and the chief medical officer Egon Echmann. — —. Echmann is with you? — Naomi couldn’t help but interject as she stood up abruptly. —. That’s right, girl. — Angelina replied —. He is working on a research project he had with Dr. Cortázar, may she rest in peace. It’s about these creatures. The Phasmonates, the clinical name that Echmann coined. We also heard transmissions from the colony and from the Ebisu. This is bigger than it seems, Dan. And our poor ship had to be in the middle of it all. — —. Yes, I managed to scrape together some information. — Harding confessed, trying to regain his composure —. It seems they knew what was about to happen, although that’s impossible. — —. Well, we have some leads. — Angelina added —. What happened in the colony, or what was about to happen, is connected to the Ebisu, the quarantine, and the outbreak of the fireflies. And once you hear it, believe me, it makes perfect sense. — Max was tormented by a feeling of vertigo, like when he walked through Mars for the first time, without a suit and without a dome over his head. He felt like he was about to fall upwards. The fireflies were something alien, but there had to be something more. Those visions, the runes that began to appear, were not mere coincidence. Harding turned to look at the Executive Officer, and they realized they were thinking the same thing.—. Dan, what’s going on? — Angelina asked him —. I bet you’re dying to know. — —. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. — he replied —. Come on, spill it. — then, a ugh was heard from the other side. A sound that seemed so out of pce in the suffocating atmosphere, like a cow in a tree, or Lay without a suit on the Chronos antennas. —. Oh, darling, that’s not how it works. — she mocked —. If you want to know, you’ll have to come. — Harding squeezed the intercom in frustration and looked down in disappointment. —. Zhang. That’s crazy. — he let her know —. The ship is falling apart. That firefly forest is reaching every corner. Walking to OPS from here would be madness. — —. That’s why I’ll call the tram to your position. — she interjected —. It will be there for you in twenty minutes. From that point, you’ll see what you do then. If you don’t want to come, and you intend to martyr yourself and elicit pity with that bottle, you’re within your rights. But if Max and Naomi want to come on their own, just like the colonists with you, you won’t stop them, is that clear? —. Harding sighed. He stared at the group, as if thinking of the right words to respond. Then, a loud crash, followed by a fleshy, slimy thud. It happened at the shelter level. Something had intruded. —. The undry room. — Yakiv said loudly. He turned on his heels and headed down the hallway. He took the Prospecting Spear in his hands and gestured for them not to follow, but it ended up being counterproductive. Like obedient mbs, they all followed in his footsteps. They could hear banging from the lower floor, and Max imagined that a Fairy had crawled through the tube where they threw the trash. After all, it was still a connection to the outside. They should have sealed it when they had the chance. It was like walking into the mouth of a wolf. It was dark, and as they advanced, they couldn’t see a finger ahead, so they turned on their fshlights. Yakiv opened the door, and a putrid stench hit them. No one was prepared to see what they found. They had assumed it would be as they left it. But there was hardly any undry left. Yellowish and brown meat vines spread across all the walls, and a main stem emerged from the tube where they discarded the trash. The corpse of the Fairy that kept growing had found its way to them. Tendrils had wrapped around the machines and ripped them from the ground, squeezing them like beer cans. A rge tentacle passed through them, slithering across the room and then piercing the floor through a rge hole where a faint light entered. To say that the interior looked like the stomach of a whale was an understatement, for it wasn’t just brown vines growing everywhere. They were taking shape. They were transforming into something unsettling and horrific, yet at the same time fascinating, and that was what kept Max from looking away. Clusters of nerves stood like sinister bushes or purple meat corals, and spider-like white creatures crawled through the darkness, producing horrendous shrieks. And in the back, what looked like a gigantic leech. Ayna was the first to see it, and then she stifled a scream. The beast was lethargic and hadn’t noticed their presence, or so they thought. Her own footsteps betrayed her, and then it began to move, very slowly, as if it were a snake stalking a defenseless prey. Max took a step back, and then the worm loomed over them, just a few meters away, as if it were looking down at them. That thing had no eyes, and yet he felt how an incorporeal evil made itself present, sinking deep into his soul. The teeth of that thing were sharp as sabers, and Max had seen enough mangled corpses to know what awaited him if he ended up inside those jaws. The brown, slimy tissue glistened under the ghostly white lights of the fshlights, as if it were covered in oil, and then, a snort, hissing like the breath of a bull. A deep, human-sounding thud resonated from the depths of its being, as if it were a dying sick person. Trying to make his movements subtle, Yakiv attempted to reach for the trigger of the Vdisva, but even he knew how long it had taken him to react. A jet of burning fmes engulfed the worm, and in a fraction of a second, it writhed and retreated howling, like a million tormented souls. In her hands, Naomi held a fmethrower, and the glow of the fire gave her expression a demonic and deranged aura. Without thinking, she bathed every corner of the room in fmes, filling it with smoke and a penetrating smell of charred flesh. As if that weren’t enough, she fired a couple of shots from her pistol, taking out the spiders trying to flee from the fire. Max was left with his heart in his hand, and then they understood what Angelina meant. They had no other option. —. Angelina, can you hear me? — Harding asked over the communicator —. You better wait for us. See you in OPS. —***A feeling of disbelief took hold of them. Just an hour ago, they had barely escaped with their lives from that horde. Now, they were throwing themselves back outside, hoping for more survivors, and to make their forced stay on the ship a little less unpleasant. The tumult was a couple of blocks away, and they could hear it. The cheers and screams of the wandering goblins formed a murmur that resembled a swarm of flies. Naked bodies with cerating and torn sores walked with empty expressions, some without faces or skin at all. Some still looked like normal people, at most drugged to an external observer by their dited pupils. Their transformation had just begun. A goblin shook in a brief and abrupt nervous spasm. The same spasm was reproduced in other goblins not far away, and in others, and then in all. One of them shook his fist, and the others imitated him. They all did it, over and over, shouting like Spartans, but with empty eyes, drooping faces, and lost gazes. The orange light of Lacaille 8760 made it seem like a tumult of people fleeing from a great fire. Oblivious to that chorus of screams, two children chased each other. One was missing half of his face, the other was missing an arm. Both ran naked, ughing, while that yellowish goo oozed from their noses, mouths, and every hole in their bodies. One jumped on the other, and while pying, tore off his ear, amidst muffled ughter, with completely red eyes. Then, an explosion, and a sinuous and hoarse roar like that of a whale, echoed throughout the ship. An amorphous and gigantic mass, a giant stomach and intestines shot out from a boulevard, oozing liters of blood, pus, and vile materials. It crawled like an avanche down the street, taking with it the two "pying" children, along with a good pair of goblins who were walking distractedly. They didn’t care at all. They were becoming one with the fireflies. Some even continued to smile as the vine began to slowly swallow them. That worm crawled slower and slower until it entered an alley. This is how the mass grew. From afar, the Wrecker watched motionless, squatting like a sinister and morbid sphinx. — This was the Holo Theater — Naomi told Max. Harding forced everyone to stop, and no expnation was needed. Distressed, Max recognized the pce, and only by the fallen hanguls at the entrance. The ground had risen and cracked. There was no entrance. Instead, a round burst of flesh, filled with teeth sharp as swords, simir to the mouth of a leech. A putrid smell pierced his nostrils. Buried in what was once one of the Virtual Recreation Rooms, a viscous ball of gel and repugnant orange waste. With a soapy sound, something detached and fell to the ground. Max realized that it had once been a head, now dissolved in an acid bath. Pieces of the crew clung to that translucent mass, their faces contorted in agony as they were digested alive. — God Almighty — Max muttered. In the advance of the tissue, perhaps the fireflies recognized that there were nutrients, and in a couple of days, the Holo Theater of the Chronos transformed into a chewing station. There was a tremor under their feet, and from that grotesque mouth came a burp, more like the roar of a disproportionate abyssal beast.—. We’ll have to turn back. — suggested Harding. It wasn’t just because of the leech from the Holotheater, but because a fleshy stem five meters tall and several meters long crossed the inner garden and blocked the way. Just below, the frames of several Jorogumo drones y crushed as if they were chips. Max took one st look at what had been the recreation facilities, now, organs of the Firefly Forest. Then, a scream. In the distance, Max recognized a figure. A human being standing in the middle of the garden, staring into nothingness. He was murmuring to himself, carrying a bundle in one of his hands. They stopped abruptly, and he turned towards them. Lacaille 8760 filtered in again through the skylights, and then they noticed the macabre spectacle. Something had torn away half of the man’s face and a good part of his nose. His white hair, cut in a buzz cut, had been yanked out in clumps, as if he had scratched his scalp frantically. Blood dripped over his pale skin, spilling onto his chest and leaving droplets on the ground. In his right hand, he held a heavy, bloodied wrench. In his left, he dragged the remains of a woman. —. It can’t be. — Naomi muttered quietly and took a step back —. It’s Frank Coleman. — the former chief surgeon of Chronos. And the corpse he was dragging, the nursing technician Mei Li Kim, cut with a Psma Saw. It didn’t take a second look to know that Coleman was not well. Figures had been carved into his skin, like bleeding sores reminiscent of ancient crop circles. For a fraction of a second, they shone like burning fire in Max’s mind. The runes he had seen in that hallway. Those instructions, whispered by the madness of the fireflies. His bulging eyes met his, and then he drew a horrendous smile from ear to ear. —. You don’t see the light!! — he bellowed in a rough, ragged voice, and then pointed the wrench at them, with blood and pus dripping. With his other hand, he scratched his own shoulder —. You are a threat to the forest!! — and shaking the weapon in his hands, he lunged at them like a madman. They didn’t have time to draw their weapons when some tentacles grabbed him in mid-air. His sickly screams sharpened as he was dragged towards a pulsing mass in the middle of the garden. The tree that had emerged from the fairy’s body had come to life, though it had never been dead. Its guts had transformed into translucent tendrils, thrashing in the air with violent snaps, and as the beast writhed, macabre and hoarse screams erupted from its vestigial head. Before them, Frank Coleman was torn apart by the tentacles, each piece taken to be devoured as he howled in agony, and blood spilled everywhere. The bones cracked like celery stalks, and the torn tissues sounded like scissors cutting through a curtain. Max wanted to stop seeing, but the fireflies showed him what he had to see. Symbols. Over and over, projected like a slide along with scenes of a sughterhouse. Screams. Death. Blood. Runes. The Ruins of the Farmers. They were not just empty structures. They were machines, and they were begging to be activated once more. Someone was shaking him, and the visions slipped away. He had to understand what the fireflies were whispering to him. They had chosen him, like a few others. They were teaching him the formu of life. That way he could bring everyone back. The space was a cold, dark, and empty pce. But it didn’t have to be that way. It could be filled with life, and be a bright pce, like a forest. Then there would be no darkness, because in the Forest everyone shines, for everyone there are fireflies. —. Max, get moving! — Naomi shouted at him. He came to himself as if waking from a start. He didn’t have time to react, and the first thing he saw was Coleman being torn apart with a horrifying explosion. Suckers pulled the pieces of torn flesh with repugnant sucking sounds. The runes kept spinning in his head, and on the other side of that flesh tree, Lay was waiting for him. He had to follow her. In the contradiction, he vomited. The rest of the ship was quick to arrive, like an avanche of brown and yellowish slime, tormented by insatiable hunger. —. Run. — ordered Harding —. For God’s sake, run. — one of the blind ones pointed at them. He was fat and bald, and where his eyes should have been, yellow, viscous tissue sprouts emerged. The movements were forced, as if invisible threads moved their limbs. Others imitated him, and at first, they stumbled as they ran, but soon the stampede charged towards them —. Run! — They were on their heels. Without looking back, they threw themselves down the monorail station stairs, jumping down. Ayna stumbled on the st steps. She twisted her ankle. Yakiv grabbed her without thinking and threw her over his shoulder. Twenty meters away, the monorail car was waiting for them, and so were the monsters. From the corner, a Burster emerged from the shadows. Yakiv managed to shake off a couple of goblins that were running towards them and a hound, which ended up plowing the ground with its snout from the shot he gave it in the head before it could leap. On the way, Max kicked it in the jaw. They got inside the car, their hearts pumping at maximum capacity, and prayed that the doors would close in time. The Burster quickened its pace towards them, crawling like a penguin, faster and swelling more and more. Seeing it so close, Max crouched and covered his head, expecting the explosion, but then the doors closed and the car started moving. The monsters were left behind in the tunnel, and when they left the station, there was a second of total darkness.