June 16th, 1983
As the entire facility was swallowed by blackout, every worker inside heard the same question echo inside their mind.
"Do you want to be beautiful?"
It was not spoken through the intercom.
It did not come from the halls.
It was simply there—inside their heads, cold and intimate, like something whispering directly into the folds of their brains.
Some people screamed.
Some froze where they stood.
Others shouted in confusion, desperate to prove they had not imagined it.
But every single person in Erebus heard that same voice.
And with it came a chill so deep it felt like ice had been poured straight into their bones.
Five minutes later, the lights came back on.
The facility flickered back to life in pieces—overhead lamps buzzing weakly, machines sputtering awake, alarms beginning to shriek as frozen systems rebooted all at once.
"What the hell was that?" Arlo muttered.
Wren didn't answer.
She was already moving.
Her chair screeched against the floor as she shoved herself up from the table, panic overtaking thought. She ran from the cafeteria, boots hammering against the metal corridors as she sprinted through the facility with Arlo and Dorothea close behind.
Her breath came fast.
Her pulse pounded in her skull.
By the time she burst into the observation room, her chest was tight with dread.
Nicholas was there.
And for the first time since she had known him, he looked genuinely afraid.
Not amused.
Not relaxed.
Not making some stupid joke to lighten the mood.
Panicked.
Then Wren saw the cocoon.
A jagged crack ran across its surface.
Then another.
Then another.
The fractures spiderwebbed across the entire massive shell, splitting through the pale surface in every direction like a living thing tearing itself apart from the inside.
Wren stood frozen.
The cracking continued.
A sharp, splintering groan filled the room.
And then—
The cocoon shattered.
Chunks of the shell crashed across the containment chamber floor.
Silence followed.
Wren stared through the reinforced glass, her blood turning cold.
It was empty.
Whatever had been inside was gone.
Whatever had been sleeping beneath the Antarctic ice for who knew how long had slipped free during those five minutes of darkness.
How, no one knew.
Why, no one understood.
Only one thing was certain now.
It was out there.
Somewhere inside the facility.
"Nicholas…" Wren's voice came out thinner than she wanted, her hands trembling at her sides. "What happened? Did you hear anything?"
Nicholas swallowed hard, his usual composure still nowhere to be found.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "That voice—it overwhelmed everything in my head. I could barely think. Then… I think I heard something cracking." He glanced toward the shattered remains of the cocoon. "A few minutes later, the lights came back on."
Wren forced herself to breathe, though panic was already tightening around her chest.
"What about the security cameras?" she asked, her voice edging into desperation. "Did they catch anything?"
Nicholas gave a slow shake of his head.
"No, boss. Not a damn thing. They went down too. Cameras, motion sensors, all of it. For those five minutes, this place was blind."
Wren stared through the reinforced glass at the empty containment chamber, her reflection faintly staring back at her.
"This is bad," she muttered. Then louder, with a crack in her voice, "This is so bad. We need to call headquarters."
Her eyes flicked toward Nicholas.
"But what are we even supposed to tell them?"
Nicholas dragged a hand down his face and took a long, steadying breath, forcing himself to think.
"I don't know," he admitted. "For now, we wait. The vents are lined with motion sensors, and the entire facility is covered in cameras. If that thing moves, we'll catch something eventually."
Wren said nothing for a moment.
Her gaze drifted upward, toward the vents.
"Yeah…" she said at last, though the words sounded hollow even to her. "Let's just wait. Despite that cocoon being so enormous. Whatever came out of it has to be small if it's hiding in the ducts."
Had to be.
That was the only comforting thought she had, and even that felt weak.
So they waited.
For two hours, the observation room became a prison of flickering monitors and suffocating silence. Every camera feed was checked, rechecked, and checked again. Every sensor report was scrutinized. Every faint static flicker on the screens made someone tense, only for it to turn into nothing.
No movement.
No sign of intrusion.
No trace of where the thing had gone.
Just the low hum of the restored systems, the glow of security monitors, and the awful, growing realization that something had escaped into the facility without leaving behind a single clue.
It was in Erebus.
They knew that much.
And somehow, that was all they knew.
"Boss, I'll keep watch. You should get some rest," Nicholas said, his voice quieter than usual. "This kind of stress isn't good for your health."
Wren looked like she wanted to argue, but the fight had been drained out of her hours ago.
"Y-you're right…" she murmured. "Thank you. If you find anything—even if it's probably a false alarm—wake me up. Come get me immediately."
Nicholas nodded.
Wren turned and left the observation room, her steps slow and unsteady.
The walk back to her quarters passed in a blur.
The metal corridors.
The fluorescent lights.
The distant hum of the facility.
None of it felt real.
Her thoughts were still tangled around that voice—that thing she had heard during the blackout. That question, sharp and intimate, still echoed inside her skull like a splinter lodged too deep to pull free.
"Do you want to be beautiful?"
By the time she reached her room, her pulse had become a dull, relentless throb behind her eyes.
The door slid open.
And Wren froze.
Arlo was standing.
For a moment, her exhausted mind refused to process what she was seeing.
He stood in the middle of the room with his back to her, motionless, staring down at a small silver locket in his hand. Inside it was the photograph from their wedding day—both of them smiling, younger, untouched by everything that came after.
Wren blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Arlo was standing.
On two legs.
Legs he was not supposed to have. Legs that had been torn from him in the Las Vegas incident.
"H-honey…" Wren whispered, her voice barely working. "Your legs…?"
Arlo's head turned toward her.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Not like a person turning to greet their wife, but like something remembering how humans were supposed to move and getting it slightly wrong.
Then he spoke.
"Do you ever think…" he began, his voice low and distant, almost dreamy, "maybe we should just retire? Settle down somewhere. Have a couple of kids running around?"
A chill slithered down Wren's spine.
It was the same thing he had said earlier.
The same words.
But now they came out wrong—too flat, too measured, stripped of warmth and meaning until they felt less like a memory and more like a line being read by something wearing his voice.
Arlo began walking toward her.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each step made Wren's stomach tighten. She wanted to move, wanted to back away, wanted to speak—but her body had gone rigid with dread.
By the time he reached her, she still hadn't moved.
He took her hand.
His grip was gentle.
Too gentle.
The kind of gentleness that felt practiced rather than natural.
"Am I beautiful?" Arlo asked.
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss against her gloved knuckles.
Wren's breath caught.
"H-honey… what's going on?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he carefully peeled the glove from her hand, exposing the scarred flesh beneath—the burns she had carried ever since Las Vegas. Old damage. Old pain. A part of herself she rarely let anyone see for long.
Arlo studied her hand in silence.
Then he kissed it again, this time against her bare skin.
"Am I beautiful?"
Wren's throat tightened.
"Y-yes," she stammered. "You're beautiful. You've been beautiful since the day we met."
Arlo smiled.
It was almost his smile.
Almost.
Then he lifted her hand higher and slowly slid her ring finger into his mouth.
Wren froze.
At first, the pressure was light.
A teasing bite.
A lover's joke gone strange.
Then the pressure increased.
Wren's eyes widened.
Pain bloomed.
"Arlo—?"
His teeth sank deeper.
A hot sting shot through her hand as blood welled around his mouth.
"Stop it!"
She tried to yank herself free, but his grip didn't budge. It was impossibly strong, crushing and unshakable, nothing like the Arlo she knew.
Panic exploded through her.
"Stop—! Arlo, stop!"
Then he bit down.
Hard.
There was a wet crunch.
Wren screamed.
Her severed finger dropped to the floor with a soft, horrible tap as Arlo finally released her hand.
She stumbled back and collapsed onto the ground, clutching the ruined stump as blood spilled between her trembling fingers.
Arlo stood over her in silence.
Blood coated his lips. More of it dripped from his chin, dark against his skin.
Then he spoke again.
"Am I beautiful?"
Something in his neck shifted.
A sickening series of pops followed.
Wren stared in horror as his head slowly twisted, turning farther and farther until it hung completely upside down atop his shoulders.
His smile never faded.
June 16th, 1983
Confirmed incident report:
The first Erebus Research Facility personnel has been compromised.
Cause: Azathoth.
Victim: Arlo Cromwell.