Without wasting a second, Steber ignored the Eye coming right at him and blasted the one off Porter's back. It fell off the weapons expert; a hole burnt in its chest. Still, the thing kept moving until Porter managed to stand up again and finished the creature off. Steber then turned back to the Eye that was approaching him, but was too late. It swept in and knocked him to the floor. The machine rifle slid away and Steber was completely helpless as the monster stood over him, preparing to move in for the kill. All of a sudden, where the Eye's head had been, there was nothing more than a bloody wound. The creature dropped to the floor, yellow blood gushing out of a neck with nothing atop it. Steber gasped and craned his head slightly. Cray stood there, holding a smoking pistol.

"Well, about time you did something," Steber said shakily as he picked his gun up.
"That'll teach you to call me a gutless bastard..." Cray muttered and shot another Eye in the face.
"Ungrateful blunt..."
"All right you two, that's enough," Porter said. "Now, if you'll stand back, maybe we can get out of here." He grabbed his rocket launcher, aimed at the locked door and fired. The reactor room was filled with a deafening explosion as the rocket detonated, but still the door held, although just barely. Porter cursed and loaded another missile. Again, he emptied the heavy weapon at the door, which finally crumpled outwards into the corridor.

"Everyone out, NOW!" Steber shouted over the carnage. Porter and Cray were only too happy to obey. They ran out into the main hallway and raced down it, still hearing the bloodthirsty screams of the Eyes behind them. A single hatchway marked the end of the hall and the three humans raced towards it.

"Cray, can you get it open?" Steber shouted before they even got to the door.
"I'll try," the doctor wheezed, out of breath.
"Don't try, do it!" Steber yelled.

The three arrived at the door and Cray immediately got to work. He began punching buttons on a keypad and frowned a second later when an angry beeping sound informed him that he was refused admittance.

"My code isn't working!" Cray wailed.
"Then think of something else!" Steber yelled. The Eyes were coming for them and Steber guessed that they numbered in the forties now. Steber opened fire with his machine gun, which gunned down several of the ones in the lead. Taking Steber's lead, Porter fired another rocket, turning at least a dozen of the screeching monsters inside out. All this time, Cray continued pounding on the keyboard.

"If I could just remember the override code, it just might work," the doctor mumbled.
"Cray, we're running out of time!" Porter yelled. He and Steber were doing their best to slow the advancing army of creatures, but now the angry swarm was less than five meters away and coming up fast. Cray tried one more code and finally a small display that had previously read ‘locked' flashed green and changed to ‘open'. The three humans wasted no time and threw themselves through the doorway. Steber slammed the hatch for the door to close just in time to block the first of the Eyes from entering. The sliding gate went down about three quarters of the way and then stopped. The team stared in disbelief as the door then began to inch back up. Clawed hands reached from under it, grasping wildly for the intruders. Steber again hit the ‘close' controls. Eventually, the hatch shut. The claws that didn't withdraw were severed off, their owners writhing in pain, as the door came down. Porter pulled a lever to lock it, but by itself, the lever began to rise and it took all of Porter's strength to keep it down. It felt like something was pulling in the opposite direction, with the intent to prevent the marine from locking the door. But there was nothing else on the lever, save for Porter's hands.

"What is this now?" Cray screamed. Finally, whatever force had been working against the marines gave up and the door remained shut and locked. The Eyes immediately began to pound on the other side, but weren't nearly strong enough to make it through. Satisfied that they were safe for the time being, the three humans leaned against the wall to catch their breath.

"I don't get it," Porter said. "It's as if the station itself is working against us."
"Want to know what I think?" Steber said.
"Oh yes, please enlighten us," Cray said sarcastically.
"I think that whatever these things are, there is some sort of mass consciousness behind them that is slowly possessing the base.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Cray said. "Are you suggesting that this research station is alive?"
"Not yet, but it will be," Steber said. "When we first flew over, I noticed that the outside lights were pulsating like a heartbeat."
"That would explain how the reactor came on by itself and teleported all those creatures in," Porter said.
"Yeah, and it could have been a lot of things that activated the reactor," Cray said. "Ion activity in the atmosphere, a result of the damage this station has taken since the invasion began... anything."
"Oh, I see you've started calling it an invasion, doctor," Steber said with a grin.
"Shut up, Sergeant. The only reason I saved you back there was because I'm going to need you to get out of this mess."
"That's what I figured," Steber said. "I doubted that it was out of the goodness of your heart."
"Will you two knock it off?" Porter begged.
"You're right," Steber said. "We'll settle this later, Cray."
"I'll be looking forward to it," the doctor replied.
"Enough! How much ammo do you guys have left?" Porter said, changing the topic.
"Two magazines," Steber said, checking his gun and his pockets.
"I've got one more for my rifle and three for the pistol," Porter said and then tossed all the ammunition he had for the latter gun to Cray.
"Thanks," the scientist said and reloaded his weapon.

The team had only been traveling for a few minutes before the power went out again. One minute, they were standing in a moderately lit corridor and the next; darkness surrounded them as an electric fizzling sound filled the air.

"It's ok," Cray said. "In the event of a power failure, there are emergency lights hooked up to batteries that never fail." As several minutes passed without any kind of auxiliary lighting activating, Steber gave Cray a hard stare.

"Looks like your emergency lights have failed," Steber said.
"Either that, or something is suppressing them," Porter added.
"Will you two give it up?" Cray said. "The station is NOT alive!"
"Ok, so we'll go on in the dark," Steber said. Porter and Cray followed. The only light that existed to guide them was from the pathetically dim LED ammo displays on the guns. Groping the walls around them, the team continued on. Less than a minute later, a dim light in the hallway ahead stopped them.

"Listen to that," Porter whispered. Steber nodded. The corridor was absolutely quiet, but in the distance, the crackling of flames could just barely be heard. Little by little, the sound increased until it reached the volume of a small fire burning in a hearth. Also, the glow around the bend ahead grew until the team was no longer in darkness. Orange light spilled around the corner and continued to intensify with each passing second. There was little doubt in their minds that something was coming.

Spotting a dark alcove next to them, Steber ducked down and motioned for Porter and Cray to do the same. The marine and the scientist also hid in a similar recess on the other side of the corridor. His body fully out of sight, Steber stole one last glance back down the corridor and what he saw took his breath away.

Stunning, in a horrible and twisted kind of way, a floating skull came around the corner. Hovering with the grace and ease of a butterfly, it ever so slowly began drifting down the corridor towards the marines. If it had once been a human skull, then it was a mockery of everything man held holy. Dozens of needle-shaped teeth protruded from its mouth and red cords of muscle wrapped back towards where ears should have been. But the thing had no ears. Instead, metal circles, another bizarre fusion of beast and machine, were part of a miniature propulsion system that the new arrival used to levitate. And most obviously, the entire back of the skull was on fire. Great blossoms of flame were quietly expelled from the rear of the pale floating head. Steber wondered at the flames - they burned cleanly, with little smoke. But once he gazed into the creature's eyes, Steber felt something inside him break. The eyes were a muted blue in color and were completely devoid of any form of emotion except unrelenting hatred. They resembled two burning sockets of demonic possession. Even after everything he had seen so far, this was by far the worst. Without any idea of how he knew, Steber realized that he was staring at tortured manifestation of a Lost Soul.

Steber quickly pulled his head back into the alcove and squeezed his eyes shut, praying that he hadn't been seen. Following the first Soul, four more drifted lazily around the bend. The sergeant stole a glance across the hallway and saw that Porter had squeezed his eyes shut and was pressed as far back against the wall as possible. Cray's eyes however, were wide with fright. Steber could also make out, even in the dim light, that the head scientist had wet himself. By this time, the first Soul was less than two meters away and Steber cocked his rifle as quietly as he could. Seeing that Porter was now at full attention, Steber gave a complicated hand signal that meant not to engage unless attacked. Porter nodded and readied his own weapon. A moment later, the first Soul passed by the alcove. Steber held his breath and prepared to jump up and fight, but the monster just floated by, its dead eyes staring straight ahead. Within moments, the second Soul flew past as well. Still holding his breath, Steber sat and waited for the last three to pass as well, but they seemed to have stopped and were just hovering in place.

Come on, move! Steber prayed silently, gripping his gun until his knuckles turned white. But the last three weren't going anywhere. The first two slowed down and now were coming back to investigate why the rest of their party had stopped. Before Steber could give another order to Porter, he suddenly heard a noise coming from deeper inside his hiding spot. The recess ended with a large ventilation duct, from which cool air had been blowing. Now the air had stopped and Steber could clearly hear breathing and the sound of something large coming from the duct. Faced with the five Lost Souls in the hallway right outside and something new coming up from behind, Steber didn't know what to do. That decision was quickly taken from him as the duct grate was suddenly and forcefully shattered, creating a loud crashing sound that reverberated in the silent corridor. A second later, two pale green arms and a set of teeth were reaching for him. They belonged to a creature that the team hadn't seen yet and in an instant, Steber knew that Porter had been right earlier. The deeper in they went, the stronger the monsters became.

The newest nightmare to come across them was, bluntly put, a massive wall of hardened muscle. Even though the thing was still in the process of pulling itself out from the grate and half of its body was still unexposed, Steber guessed that it was at least three meters tall. It was vaguely human-shaped, but that was where the similarities ended. Its hairless green skin was pulled taut over a body that could only have been designed for one purpose - brutal violence. Its face consisted of stretched muscle and a gaping mouth that revealed dozens of teeth. It had no nose, just an empty socket where one should have been. But above all, Steber found this monster to be absolutely terrifying for the exact opposite reason that the Lost Souls were. It had no eyes whatsoever. Where they should have been was nothing more than additional green flesh stretched from the top of the mouth up to the back of the head. Steber even had a name for this one as well. It was a Horror, pure and simple. Even as the thing continued to pull itself out of the vent with one arm, it reached for Steber with the other. Steber had only an instant do decide whether to...