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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Random_User_499 on 2024-11-27 20:50:18+00:00.

I had been stationed at Outpost Polaris for six months when it all began. My research team was sent to this desolate corner of the Arctic to study permafrost samples and their implications for climate change. The isolation wasn’t new to me; as a geophysicist, I had spent weeks at a time in remote environments. But Polaris was different.

The station itself was a labyrinth of connected modules, built to withstand temperatures that would freeze your breath midair. There were twelve of us on base: six scientists, four engineers, a medic, and our station chief, Dr. Markham. We were the last rotation before winter lockdown—a fact we all tried not to dwell on.

Day 1: The Anomaly

It started with the drilling. I was examining permafrost cores in Lab 2 when Dr. Ayers, one of the climatologists, burst in with a printout.

“Check this out,” he said, shoving the paper into my hands. It was seismic data—wild, erratic patterns.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, squinting at the lines.

“Activity,” he replied, a little breathless. “Deep below the ice. Too deep for any geological explanation.”

I frowned. The Arctic isn’t exactly tectonically active, and the readings were bizarre. It almost looked like something was moving beneath the ice.

That night, we gathered in the common room to discuss the findings. Ayers suggested increasing drilling depth to investigate, but Dr. Markham was hesitant. The ice was ancient, fragile. Any disruption could have catastrophic effects.

“We’ll table it for now,” Markham decided. “Let’s focus on the current mission.”

We went to bed uneasy.

Day 2: The Signal

The next morning, our communications went haywire. Radio frequencies crackled with static, cutting us off from the outside world. Satellite phones were useless. Even our short-range intercoms began to glitch.

“Probably solar activity,” one of the engineers, Reece, muttered. But his voice wavered.

By midday, the power started flickering. The emergency generators kicked in, but it was clear something was wrong. We worked in teams to diagnose the problem. As I was inspecting the wiring in the main module, I heard a sound that stopped me cold.

A low, resonant hum, like a distant engine. It vibrated through the walls, faint but insistent.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Reece, who was tightening a bolt nearby.

“Hear what?” he replied, not looking up.

I didn’t press it. But the sound stayed with me, even after I left the room.

Day 3: The First Disappearance

When we did roll call that morning, Dr. Vasquez was missing. She had been working late in the lab the night before, analyzing ice samples. Her room was undisturbed, her bed untouched.

We searched the station, calling her name, but there was no sign of her. The security cameras—our last line of defense—had inexplicably stopped recording during the night.

“She wouldn’t just leave,” Ayers said, pacing. “She knows how dangerous it is out there.”

Dangerous was an understatement. The Arctic would kill you in minutes if you weren’t prepared. But Vasquez was meticulous. She wouldn’t have wandered outside.

Still, Reece and two others suited up and ventured out to look for her. They returned an hour later, shaken.

“There’s nothing,” Reece said, voice trembling. “No tracks, no…nothing.”

Day 4: The Shadows

By the fourth day, we were all on edge. The hum I’d heard earlier grew louder, resonating through the station at irregular intervals. It seemed to come from the ice itself.

Then the sightings began.

Dr. Patel, the station biologist, swore she saw Vasquez in the observation deck. But when we checked, it was empty.

“Her face,” Patel whispered. “It looked… wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?” Markham pressed.

“I don’t know. Like…it wasn’t hers. Like her face didn’t belong to her.”

Patel refused to elaborate further, and the rest of us exchanged uneasy glances. That night, none of us slept.

Day 5: The Blackout

The lights went out at 2:47 a.m. plunging Polaris into an abyssal darkness. I was in my quarters, staring at the ceiling, too afraid to sleep. The hum that had plagued us for days had become deafening. reverberating through the walls like an ancient, angry heartbeat. When the power failed, I heard the station shudder, almost as if it were alive.

The emergency floodlights kicked in a few seconds later, casting everything in a sickly red glow. My intercom crackled, and Markham’s voice came through, calm but tense.

"Everyone, stay in your quarters. Lock the doors. We’re investigating the issue.”

I obeyed, but my gut told me the situation had spiraled beyond control. Something was inside with us.

The first scream came about twenty minutes later.

It was Reece. I’d recognize his voice anywhere, even distorted by agony. His cries echoed through the corridors, then abruptly stopped.

I cracked my door open, adrenaline overriding fear. The hallway was empty, the crimson emergency lights making the shadows seem deeper. Patel emerged from her room across the hall, wide-eyed and shaking.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Stay close.”

We crept toward the source of the scream, each step feeling heavier than the last. When we reached the maintenance bay, we found blood smeared across the walls and floor, but there was no sign of Reece. Just his boot, lying in the middle of the carnage

Then we heard it.

A wet, slithering sound, like something dragging itself through the vents. I aimed my flashlight at the ceiling, but the beam wavered, catching only fleeting glimpses of movement. Whatever it was, it was fast.

Day 6: The Culling

By the morning of the sixth day- though “morning” was meaningless in the Arctic night–we were down to five. Reece was gone. So were Dr. Patel and two engineers. We found Patel’s body crumpled in the research lab, her limbs twisted at impossible angles. Her eyes were open, but her face was stretched in a way that didn’t seem human, like her skin was being pulled from the inside.

The remaining survivors gathered in the common room. Markham was trying to keep us calm, but the panic was palpable.

“We can’t stay here,” Ayers said, his voice breaking. "We have to make a run for the snowmobiles.

“And go where?” Markham snapped."The nearest outpost is 150 kilometers away, and we don’t even know if this thing stays outside.

"Or if it’s already out there,” I added quietly.

The room fell silent.

That’s when the banging started

It came from the walls at first, rhythmic and deliberate, as though something was testing the integrity of the station. Then the floor beneath us vibrated, the metallic clangs growing louder. Whatever it was, it was moving toward us:

The first breach came in Module C. The lights flickered as a deafening crash shook the station. We scrambled to seal the doors, but it was already inside.

Ayers was the first to fall. He was standing closest to the corridor when it appeared. One moment, it was just shadows, flickering in the weak emergency lighting. The next, it lunged into view, a grotesque amalgamation of limbs and sinew. Its “face” was a shifting, featureless mass, but its eyes-black voids endless and cruel-locked onto him.

Ayers didn’t even scream. The thing’s arm–or what passed for an arm-pierced his chest like a spear, lifting him off the ground. Blood poured onto the floor as it pulled him into the darkness. The sound of his body breaking was worse than any scream

We ran.

The Chase

The next two days were a blur of terror. The thing hunted us through the station, picking us off one by one. It moved impossibly fast for something so grotesque, its limbs bending and stretching as it slithered through the narrow corridors. It didn’t make sense - nothing about it did.

It didn’t eat its victims or take them whole. It left behind remnants: a hand here, a piece of clothing there. Almost as if it were toying with us, enjoying the hunt.

By the end of the seventh day, it was just me and Markham. We had barricaded ourselves in the observation deck, a room with reinforced glass that overlooked the endless white expanse outside

Markham was pacing, muttering to himself. “This isn’t real. It can’t be real. It doesn’t make sense.”

“None of this makes sense,” I replied, leaning against the wall, gripping a wrench like it would somehow protect me.

“We triggered something,” Markham said, stopping suddenly. "When we drilled deeper, we woke it up. God,I should’ve stopped the project. I should’ve-”

The sound of scraping metal interrupted him. It was coming from above.

Markham barely had time to react before the ceiling caved in. The creature dropped into the room, its malformed body filling the space Markham screamed, swinging a fire extinguisher at it. It didn’t matter. The thing grabbed him, dragging him into its mass. His screams became gurgles, then silence.

I didn’t think. I just ran.

I sprinted through the corridors, my breath fogging in the icy air, the sound of the creature behind me like wet thunder. Every turn felt like the wrong one. My muscles burned, my lungs screamed, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

Finally, I reached the airlock. My hands fumbled with the controls as the roaring grew louder. The lock hissed open, and I stumbled into the blizzard, the cold hitting me like a wall.

I don’t remember collapsing. The next thing I knew, I was lying in the snow, the sound of rotors filling the air. A helicopter descended, its searchlights cutting through the storm. F…

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