Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S5 Ep286: Episode 286: Arctic Military Horror

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Use the promo code SUPERBAD for 10% off all T-shirts! https://dr-creepens-vault.creator-spring.com/listing/the-devil-is-in-the-detail Today’s phenomenal podcast epsode is all three parts of ‘The Svalbard Bunker Experiment’, an original work by Margot Holloway; shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and read here with the author’s express permission: https://www.reddit.com/user/EquipmentTricky7729/

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's dungeon. Navy SEALs and SAS stories captivate us because they offer a glimpse into the extreme physical and mental toughness required to perform daring, high-stakes missions in hostile environments. These elite warriors embody courage, discipline, and resilience, often facing impossible odds with precision and skill. The intensity of their operations, combined with the secrecy surrounding their missions, taps into our fascination with danger, survival, and the idea of ordinary. people achieving extraordinary feats under immense pressure.

Their stories thrill us by showcasing the limits of human insurance and the thrilling unpredictability of covert warfare, as we shall see in tonight's two tales of terror. Now, as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's stories may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Part 1. The Svalbard Archipelago. In the bitter chill of January 1962,

as Cold War tensions were firmly gripping the entire globe. A remote Scandinavian research facility, very deep beneath the ice of Svalbard, stirred to life. Located over 1,000 kilometres from the northernmost coast of Norway, the Svalbard archipelago had long been an isolated, icy wilderness, a distant outpost of human civilization, far removed from the eyes of the world. Nestled beneath one of its ancient glaciers,

the facility was so remote that even the few scientific outposts scattered across the region were completely unaware of its existence. The sun had vanished from the sky in late November, and wouldn't return until spring, leaving the land in unrelenting darkness. This was not a place meant for human life. In the heart of the Arctic winter, temperatures frequently plunged to a bone-chilling minus 40 degrees Celsius, and the wind howled through the desolate landscape, carrying the bitter sting, of snow and ice.

The air was so cold that any exposed skin would freeze within minutes, and the icy winds cut through even the thickest layers of protective gear. Outside the facility, the only sounds with the cracking of the glacier and the persistent, ever-present wind, which howled like a mournful ghost across the frozen wasteland. Snowstorms often engulfed the entire region, creating whiteouts that made it impossible to see even a few feet ahead. Beneath this glacier, concealed by ice that had been frozen for millennia,

the covert research facility remained hidden. These metal walls were thick and reinforced, yet even here the cold seeped in. Every surface within the bunker was frigid to the touch, and condensation formed on the walls only to freeze moments later, creating a seemingly ever-growing layer of frost. The facility was equipped with cutting-edge Cold War technology, but even this advanced equipment struggled to function in the uncompromising cold.

Heating systems fought a constant losing battle, barely able to keep the interior livable. The air was heavy, uncomfortable, and every breath felt laboured, as if the cold itself was weighing down on the very chests of all those within the base. The bunker, officially non-existent, was a secret collaboration between Sweden and Norway, hidden not only from their Cold War rivals, but also from their own people. To ensure secrecy, the site of being built far from any inhabited area, specifically chosen for its extreme isolation and inhospitable conditions. The nearest human settlement was Long Yir Bien, the world's northernmost town,

but even that lay over 150 kilometres away, unreachable in the winter without specialised equipment. But the six volunteers trapped within the facility, there could be no possibility of escape or rescue. The Arctic ice surrounded them on all sides, and the dark, unyielding winter kept them prisoners beneath the earth. No natural light penetrated the bunker. The only illumination came from the sterile artificial glow over the facility's fluorescent lights, which flickered ominously as the cold strained the electrical systems. It was in this frozen purgatory that the experiments began.

The beginning. Project Northern Watch was designed to push the boundaries of human endurance, to test how far isolation and deprivation could be stretched before the human mind began to break. The facility, they were equipped with all the necessities, food, water, air-filtration systems, was in essence a prison. There were no clocks, no sun, no way to measure the passing of time. Days blended seamlessly into nights, and the endless darkness weighed heavy on the minds of the volunteers, each of them trapped in this cold, desolate world.

The six participants were warned, and would quickly learn that the cold was not just an external force, but something that crept into their very bones. The isolation would gnaw at them, amplified by the brutal Arctic conditions. Outside the glacier would groan and shift, its ancient ice slowly moving and cracking, filling the bunker with low reverberating sounds that felt almost alive. These noises, combined with the darkness, would generate an inescapable sense of unease. Indeed, they'd also been warned in advance that it would feel as if the glacier itself was watching them, waiting. Project Northern Watch had been conceived in secret, a response to both Soviet and American advances in space exploration.

Sweden and Norway, nations with small but ambitious space programs, feared being left behind. To give their astronauts the edge in the coming race to the stars, they needed to push the human body and mind further than ever before. The mission? To study the effects of prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation on the human psyche, under conditions designed to mimic the cold, sterile void of space. It was an experiment with one simple yet terrifying goal,

push at the limits of human endurance, and see what emerged on the other side. As one might expect, the Arctic Circle provided the perfect setting for such an experiment. Its remoteness offered isolation so profound it bordered on madness, while the unyielding cold mirrored the desolation of space. The bunker itself was a claustrophobic maze of steel corridors, sterile and unwelcoming, buried beneath tons of ice. Inside, the temperature hovered just above freezing,

maintained by a life-support system designed to replicate the chilling conditions astronauts would face in the vacuum of space. Six individuals have been chosen to participate in the experiment. Three scientists, two soldiers and one journalist. The volunteers were carefully selected for their resilience, brilliant minds and hardened bodies prepared to endure the physical and psychological extremes of isolation. There was Dr. Alva Lindstrom, a Swedish neuroscientist specialising in sleep disorders, Captain Henrik Rask, a Norwegian military officer who had spent years in Arctic survival training,

and Dr. Karin Eck, a biochemist with expertise in human metabolism. The soldiers, Eric Berg and Lars Nielsen, were elite Norwegian commandos trained to withstand extreme environments, while the lone journalist Johann Janssen had been sent under the guise of documenting the experiment for future generations, though in truth his role was to provide an outsider's perspective, untouched by military protocol or scientific detachment. Let's ask was a simple yet brutal one. For 90 days they would live and work inside the bunker, cut off from natural light, time and all contact with the outside world, save for a series of transmissions from their superiors. There would be no clocks, nowhere to measure the passing of days.

The only food they would consume was synthetic. process rations designed to sustain them but offering very little in the way of comfort or flavor. Their every move, however, will be monitored by a vast array of cameras and sensors, though no direct communication or rescue was planned unless the situation became catastrophic. At the heart of the experiment was a serum. Developed in secret, it was an experimental drug designed to eliminate the body's need for sleep. Theoretically, it would allow the volunteers to remain alert and functional for the full, 90 days, enhancing cognitive performance and physical endurance beyond normal human capacity.

Sleep after all was considered the greatest weakness in long-term space missions. If the body could be freed from its need for rest, the possibilities for deep space exploration were limitless. As such, the serum was their key to the future, but its effects were untested on humans. On their arrival, the volunteers were immediately introduced to the regiment. The bunker sterile, softly lit chambers hummed with the low vibration of the machines designed to keep them alive. There was no warmth in this place, only cold steel, and the ever-present sensation of weight pressing down from the ice above. Upon arrival they were immediately stripped of personal belongings, dressed in identical grey jumpsuits and given their first doses of the serum. The participants have been chosen well.

Each one of them swallowed it without hesitation, their eyes betraying only a flicker of cute, curiosity and uncertainty. Week one, the first week passed uneventfully. The volunteers quickly adapted to their routine, performing cognitive tasks, maintaining the equipment, and conversing in the sparse recreation room. The serum seemed to work as intended. None of them felt tired. In fact, they felt sharper, their thoughts clearer than ever before. Indeed, Dr. Lindstrom marveled at the effects on her own mind, already considering the potential for groundbreaking advancements in human biology. Captain Rask, however, maintained a watchful eye on his team, noting that morale remained high despite the claustrophobic conditions.

Yet even in those early days, there were signs, small, almost imperceptible hints that something was off. There was the lingering coldness in the air that the heating system couldn't quite dispel. Then there was a faint echo in the corridors, like whispers carried by the wind, so no wind could penetrate the bunker's icy shell. But these were all dismissed, chalked up to the mind-playing tricks in the absence of sleep. The experiment was progressing as planned.

Or so they thought. As the day stretched into weeks, the serum did more than just suppress their need for sleep, truly sharpened their senses to a degree they'd never experienced before, heightening awareness but also amplifying every sound, every flicker of shadow. The sterile halls of the bunker began to feel less like a laboratory and more like a prison. Conversations became tense, and small disagreements exploded, taking on the weight of existential crises.

And still, above all, the whispers persisted. Week three. By the third week, subtle cracks had begun to appear in the carefully crafted structure of Project Northern Watch. The volunteers, once eager and alert, now carried an unmistakable sense of unease, though none were willing to admit it out loud. At first glance, everything seemed to be progressing as planned. Their cognitive tests remained sharp, and physically they showed no signs of fatigue. The serum was working, but beneath the surface something darker was stirring, and it started with the whispers.

At the outset, they were easily. easy to ignore, and was a faint sound, barely audible, like the distant hum of machinery buried deep within the Glaciers' core. The volunteers all rode it off as the product of stress and the constant maddening silence of the bunker. Dr. Lindstrom, always the pragmatist, suggested that the brain was probably filling the void left by the absence of external stimuli. This was an auditory hallucination caused by prolonged isolation and the absence of sleep. But as the days passed, the whispers grew louder, more distinct, more insistent. They seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, echoing down the steel corridors,

slipping through the walls and seeping into their thoughts. Johann Janssen, the journalist, was the first to mention it out loud. I hear them at night, he confessed. one morning over breakfast, his eyes bloodshot despite the fact that none of them had slept in weeks. Voices? My people talking in the next room. But when I check, there's no one there. The others exchanged uneasy glances, although no one responded.

They'd all heard the whispers. It was just easier to pretend they hadn't. As time wore on, the whispers took on a more sinister tone. What had once been a vague murmur, Marma now seemed almost like speech. There were fragments of words, half-form sentences. In the dead of night, when the only sound should have been the soft hum of the ventilation system, some of the volunteers swore they could hear their names being called.

Captain Rask dismissed the idea immediately, attributing it to frayed nerves. We're isolated. Our minds are playing tricks on us, he assured them, though his tone noticeably lacked its usual authority. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something more to it, some of the defied logic. The behavioural shifts soon followed. It began with Lars Nielsen, one of the soldiers. A normally quiet and composed man, Lars had been a model of discipline for the first few weeks, maintaining order and routine despite the surreal nature of their surroundings. But now, his demeanour had slowly but surely begun to change.

He became irritable, snapping at the others for the slightest infractions. His eyes, once calm and watchful, were now wild, darting around the room as if constantly searching for something just out of sight. One evening he confided in Dr. Lindstrom. There's something in the shadows, he muttered. His voice barely above a whisper. I've seen it moving, watching us. Dr. Lindstrom tried to reassure him, offering a,

clinical explanation. It's a trick of the mind, Lars. The lack of sleep, the isolation. It's making you see things that aren't there. Well, Lars wasn't convinced. He began patrolling the corridors at night, armed with a makeshift weapon he'd fashioned from a piece of equipment. His footsteps echoed loudly in the otherwise silent bunker,

constant reminder to the others of his growing paranoia. And then came the first real incident. Something none of them could dismiss. Lars burst into the common area one night, eyes wide with fear and anger. You're all in on it, he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the others. I've seen the way you look at me. You're conspiring against me, trying to drive me mad. The outburst was shocking, but not entirely unexpected.

The atmosphere in the bunker had been steadily shifting from one of quiet camaraderie to one of overwhelming tension for some time. Every conversation felt charged, every glance waited with suspicion. They were all on edge, and their minds were fraying at the seams. Captain Rask attempted to calm him, speaking in a measured tone. No one is conspiring against you, Lars. We're all in this together. You need to get a hold of yourself.

But Lars wouldn't listen. He retreated to his room, quickly, like, shocking himself inside. From that moment on, he refused to interact with the others, was convinced they were plotting against him. His paranoia was unfortunately contagious, seeping into the minds of the remaining volunteers. Every whispered conversation was now suspect,

every shared glance of potential betrayal. The once sterile environment of the bunker had now become claustrophobic, its narrow corridors feeling like they were closing in on them. Part two. Day 30 It was on day 30 that communication from the outside world finally broke down. Until that point the transmissions from their superiors have been brief but regular, coded messages checking on their progress,

offering vague reassurances that everything was proceeding according to plan. But on the 30th day, the daily transmission arrived garbled, the static nearly drowning out the words. What little they could make out was disturbing. An anomaly detected. Threat escalating. Terminate if necessary. The message was fragmented, and no matter how hard they tried to decode it,

the full meaning remained elusive. But the tone was unmistakable. Something had gone wrong. And whatever it was, it was dangerous. They sent a reply, requesting clarification, but there was no response. Hours passed, and the silence from the outside world stretched on, deepening their sense of isolation. They were alone, truly and completely.

This realization sank in like a stone. What did they mean by threat? Dr. Eck asked, a voice trembling slightly, breaking the uneasy silence that had settled over them. No one had an answer, but the fear in the room was evident, thickening the already stifling air.

Captain Rask attempted to regain control, ordering everyone to focus on their tasks, but it was clear that the breakdown in communication had shaken them all. Without the anchor of the incoming daily transmissions, their sense of time, indeed of reality itself, began to slip. The whispers grew louder at night, louder than they'd ever been before. Some of the volunteers swore they could hear them speaking directly into their ears,

their breath cold against their skin, though the bunker's vents were far away. Lars Nielsen was the first to completely snap. Day 40 By day 40, the Arctic isolation protocol was unraveling at the seams. What had begun as a controlled scientific experiment to test the limits of human endurance was now teetering on the edge of disaster. The serum, once heralded as a breakthrough,

had begun to backfire in ways no one could have anticipated. The initial clarity it provided had turned into a nightmare of relentless hyper-awareness. leaving the volunteer's minds raw and exposed to the horrors that lurked in the depths of their subconscious. Hallucinations, which had previously been mere whispers or fleeting shadows, now became impossible to dismiss. Dr. Lindstrom, a neuroscientist, was the first to report seeing the grotesque figures. She tried to explain it her way as a symptom of overstimulation, but the rational part of her mind was losing ground.

They're just visual distortions. she told herself, though each time she saw them, the creatures seemed more real, more solid. They were humanoid, but wrong, twisted in unnatural ways, with two long limbs and faces contorted in expressions of frozen, sinister glee.

At the corners of her vision, they would loom, retreating into the dark corners of the bunker as soon as she turned her head. Johan Janssen, the journalist, was no better off. He paced the haws in a constant state of agitation, mumbling to himself, his hand shaking as though he were perpetually cold. They're coming for us, he muttered over and over.

They're here, watching, waiting. He refused to go into certain rooms, claiming that the figures lingered there longer, the grins widening with every passing day. The rest of the team tried to maintain a veneer of calm, but it was clear that the experiment was spiraling out of control. Everyone heard the murmurs now, voices that seemed to seep through the walls like the cold itself. Sometimes they whispered incomprehensible phrases. Other times they caught out the volunteer's names in mocking sing-song tones.

The hallucinations fared off the isolation, growing more intense with every passing hour. There was no escape, no reprieve, and no way to rest. Their bodies no longer needed sleep, but their minds craved it. the relentless wakefulness warping their perceptions and sense of reality. Then, without warning, the temperature inside the bunker began to plummet. The life support systems were designed to maintain a steady, habitable climate, but now frost crept along the steel walls, thickening with each passing hour. The cold was biting, far beyond anything the equipment should have allowed.

The volunteers bundled themselves in every scrap of clothing they had, but the chills seemed to sink into their bones, the freezing air more oppressive than ever before. "'It's the glacier,' Dr. Egg muttered one evening "'as the group huddled in the common area, "'their breath visible in the cold air. "'Her eyes had taken on a wild, almost fevered look. "'It's the ice. There's something in the ice.

"'The others stared at her, "'half expecting some scientific rationale, "'but none came. "'It's ancient,' she whispered, barely able to keep her thoughts in check. Something buried beneath the glacier. It's been here long before us, long before this facility. We've disturbed it.

Captain Rask tried to rain her in. You're losing it, Eck. We all are. It's just the serum messing with our heads. She was insistent, pacing the room with a manic energy. No, you don't understand. It's not the serum. This place is not just a bum.

bunker, it's a tomb, we're not alone here. The word sent a shiver down the spine of every volunteer. The truth was, they all felt it, a growing presence in the bunker, something far older than the experiment, something that defied explanation. The lights flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows on the walls. The power systems, once reliable, were now erratic, failing for minutes at a time before sputtering back to life. It was as if the very fabric of the facility was decaying along with their sanity. It was around this time that Eric Berg, one of the soldiers, snapped. Always the quiet one.

Eric could remain composed for as long as he could, but the pressure had finally broken him. Convinced that the others had been taken over by the grotesque figures they saw lurking in the shadows, he barricaded himself inside the storage room, dragging supplies and equipment to block the door. or the others tried to reason with him, shouting through the thick metal door, but he refused to listen. His voice soon became hoarse from screaming accusations at them, raving about possession and betrayal. "'They're not human anymore,' he yelled through the door. "'You can't trust them. I've seen it, seen the eyes, the way they look at me when they think I'm not watching. They're changing.'

Dr. Lindstrom tried to coax him out, but they're not. was no reasoning with him. He'd crossed a line in his mind had been shattered by the serum, the isolation and the fear. Days passed, and Eric refused to emerge. The bunker's halls were eerily quiet without the constant sound of his pacing footsteps. No one dared speak of the growing sense that something was terribly wrong, not just with Eric, but with all of them. The cold deepened further, the frost growing thicker on the walls, and the whispers never ceased. When they finally broke down the door to the storage room, what they found inside was worse than they could have imagined.

Eric Berg was dead. His body lay crumbled in the corner of the room, twisted in a grotesque pose. The temperature inside the bunker should have been cold, but not that cold. His skin was frozen solid, rhymed with frost as though he'd been left outside in the Arctic night. His face was contorted into a maniacal, grin, his eyes were wide, staring, reflecting the madness that had consumed him in his final

moments. Worse still were the marks on his body. Deep gashes as if he'd been attacked, that there was no sign of a struggle. The door had been locked from the inside. The volunteers stood in horrified silence, the sight of Eric's mutilated corpse sending a fresh wave of terror through them. No one spoke, but the unspoken question hung heavy in the air. Was it suicide? murder, or something else entirely. Captain Rask was the first to speak, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fear. We need to leave, he said,

looking each of them in the eye. This is no longer an experiment. We're not safe here. But even as he spoke, they all knew the truth. There was nowhere to go. The bunker was buried beneath tons of ice, miles away from civilization, and the exits had long been sealed shut. They were trapped, surrounded by the freezing dark and something, someone was hunting them.

The air grew colder still, and the whispers now seemed almost gleeful, echoing from the very walls of the bunker. The grotesque figures were no longer content to remain in the shadows. They were coming closer. The turning point. The bunker had become a tomb. Eric's frozen corpse had been a breaking point, the first undeniable proof that something far worse than isolation was plaguing them. After his death, all of the survivors struggled to hold onto the thin threads of sanity that remained. The cold deepened, frost creeping like tendrils across the steel walls, and the figures in the shadows no longer retreated. They watched, waited.

The whispers echo through the halls with gleeful malice, gnawing at the edges of their edges of their minds. Dr. Lindstrom, the neuroscientist, was the first to fully realize what was happening. Days, or had it been weeks after Eric's death, she retreated into her quarters, frantically sifting through the data they collected since the experiment began. What she found sent her into a spiral of dread. No, it wasn't just the serum. The serum had been designed to eliminate the need for sleep, but had accidentally altered their brain's. chemistry, pushing their minds into a state of perpetual alertness. But that wasn't all.

The combination of sleeplessness, extreme isolation, and the unyielding cold of the glacier had done something far worse. Something ancient was buried beneath the ice. Something that had been disturbed by their presence, by their unrelenting wakefulness. Something that was confined to penetrating the dreams of the occasional human presence in this remote wilderness, but was denied the chance to do so with this group. The serum had cracked open a door in their minds, allowing this presence to slip through. It had been waiting, dormant for centuries. Now it was awake, feeding off their fear, their madness,

and their growing isolation. She spread the papers across her desk, her breath visible in the frigid air as she muttered to herself. It's not an hallucination, she whispered, we're seeing it because it's real. Dr. Lindstrom pieced together the fragmented transmissions from the outside world, the garbled warnings they'd received on day 30. The project's overseers had known something was wrong, but by then it was too late. The serum had opened them up to whatever lay beneath the glacier, an ancient malevolence that thrived on the very conditions that they'd engineered,

the cold, the isolation, the endless wakefulness. She gathered the remaining survivors in the common area, her eyes wild with the weight of her discovery. We're not imagining it, she said, her voice trembling. This thing, whatever it is, it's real. It's been here for millennia, buried in the ice, and we've woken it up. The serum, it's made us vulnerable. We've opened our minds to it, and it's hunting us. Captain Rask and Dr. Eck exchanged uneasped.

easy glances, the horror of her words sinking in. They'd all seen the figures. They'd all felt the presence. None of them could deny the truth any longer. This wasn't just madness brought on by isolation. They were being hunted by something ancient, something that thrived on their terror. But the realization came too late.

The root splintered almost immediately after Dr. Lindstrom's revelation. Fear and paranoia gripped them in its icy claws, turning their already frayed nerves into jagged shards of madness. The journalist, Johann Janssen, retreated to one of the bunker's storage rooms, barricading himself inside with what little rations he could carry. His paranoia had now evolved into full-blown delusion. You can't trust them, he screamed through the door

when Rask tried to coax him out. They're already gone, they've let it in. He believed the others have been taken over by the ancient presence beneath the ice, convinced that the figures he saw lurking in the shadows had already claimed his fellow survivors. His voice grew quieter with each passing day, his muffled rants growing less coherent

as he slipped further into madness. Captain Rask, on the other hand, held on to a desperate hope of escape. He began planning, scavenging supplies and mapping out possible routes to the surface, though the reality of the situation made it clear that any such attempt was suicidal. The entrances had been sealed, the communication systems had gone dead, and the extreme cold outside would kill them long before they reached civilization.

But rask cloned to the plan, driven more by fear than logic. You knew staying in the bunker meant certain death, or worse. Dr. Eck, the biologist, took a different path. She became fixated on the idea of communicating with the presence in the glacier. It called to her in her dreams, even though none of her. of them was supposed to be dreaming anymore. She believed that if she could understand it, she might be able to control it, to bargain with it somehow. She spent hours staring into the frost-covered walls, listening to the whispers, trying to decipher their meaning. She scrawed

strange symbols in the frost, repeating phrases she'd heard in the murmurs, her mind slipping further and further into obsession. Dr. Lindstrom, the only one still grasping at sanity, watched in horror as the others descended into chaos. Time had lost all meaning. The days blurred together and, without clocks, they could no longer tell how long they'd been trapped. Weeks felt like months. Or maybe it had only been hours.

The cold seemed to stretch time itself, warping their perception of reality. The lights flickered constantly now, plunging them into moments of utter darkness, where the figures in the shadows seem to creep closer, their twisted grins becoming more and more pronounced. The equipment malfunctioned at random. The air growing thinner as the life support system struggled to keep pace.

Frost rimmed every surface and the cold had become unbearable. Even the synthetic food rations had begun to freeze. One night while Captain Rask was plotting his escape, the power failed completely. The bunker was plunged into darkness. What felt like hours the survivors sat in the black void, listening to the whispers, feeling the cold seep into their bones. Then a scream pierced the silence. It was Dr. Eck.

They found her in one of the deeper corridors, staring into the darkness. Her hands pressed against the icy wall. Her body was rigid, her breath coming in ragged gasps. I've seen it, she whispered. her voice trembling. It's beneath us, watching, waking, I spoke to it. Rask grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. What are you talking about?

What did you see? But she was too far gone. Eyes were wide, unblinking, her mind shattered. We're already dead, she muttered. It's already claimed us. Rask stumbled back, his face pale. Dr. Lindstrom could feel. the walls closing in. The presence was no longer just in the shadows. It was everywhere,

filling the air, the walls, the very ice beneath their feet. The whispers grew louder and more insistent. Part three. Day 50. By day 50, if it even was day 50, all hope had died. The Bunga's walls felt like they were closing in. The air was thick with the oppressive cold and the ever-present whispers. The reigning survivors had splintered into shadows of themselves, paranoia and dread eating away at their sanity. Johan Yohanson, now fully delirious, refused to leave his room. Dr. Eck wandered the walls muttering to the unseen presence in the ice. Captain Rask, the last of the group with any semblance of reason, had finally reached his

breaking point. The realization that they were completely trapped, with no way out and no one coming to save them, had eroded the last vestiges of his. restraint. Rask's plan to escape in futile from the start. He knew it, but the desire to fight, to take control of their fate, had been the only thing keeping him alive. So when the whispers grew louder, the figures in the shadows more brazen, he made a desperate decision. We have to shut it all down, Rask muttered to Dr. Lindstrom, his breath visible in the freezing air. If we kill the power, we can break whatever's happening. Maybe the doors will unseal. Maybe we can get out.

Dr. Lindstrom stared at him. Her eyes sunken and hollow. We don't even know if that'll work. We could freeze to death in minutes without power. The system's the only thing keeping us alive. Alive, Rasked bitterly. Look around you, Lindstrom. We're already dead.

The only question is how we die. Well, I'd rather take my chances. Lindstrom hesitated. She'd seen the things lurking just out of sight. felt the unnatural cold creeping into her bones. She knew Rask was right. This wasn't life, not anymore. The serum had done more than rob them of sleep. It had opened their minds to something far worse. And now whatever was buried beneath the glacier was clawing its way into their reality, feeding off their fear, their despair. Fine, she said at last, her voice hoarse. Do it.

Rask didn't wait. He made his way to the power of it. grid, the bunker's ancient humming heart. The walls were slick with frost, the lights flickering ominously overhead. As he approached the controls, the whispers surged, louder and more chaotic than ever. They spoke in a language he couldn't understand, possibly alien in origin, he thought, but the meaning was clear. Do not resist. His hands trembled as he reached for the controls. The bunker had been designed with multiple fail-safes, but Rask bypassed them all. He yanked the main power lever down, and the entire system screeched as the lights flick at once, twice, and then died. Darkness swallowed the bunker hole. The moment the power died, the temperature plummeted.

The survivors could feel it immediately. The cold gnawing at their exposed skin, creeping up their limbs like icy fingers. Frost bloomed across the walls and floors. moving impossibly fast, as if the glacial itself were invading the bunker. Rast could barely see his hand in front of his face, but he could hear them, the whispers. They were everywhere now surrounding him, filling the air with a low, mocking chant. And then in the pitch black tunnel, he saw them. The figures, no longer hiding in the corners of his vision, no longer just shadows.

They were real. Grotesque and half-formed, they crawled out of the dark. Twisted limbs contorted faces With frozen maniacal grins Some of them had eyes wide with terror Their skin blackened with frostbite Their bodies misshapen and unnatural They were the stuff of nightmares

Reflections of the darkest corners of Rask's mind His deepest fears his worst regrets And they were coming for him Rask stumbled backward His breath ragged his heart hammering in his chest Lindstrom He called though his voice was swallowed by the cold and the whispers.

Lindstrom! But Lindstrom had her own nightmare to face. Alone in the common area, the dark pressing in on all sides, she saw the creatures too. Horrors dredged up from the depths of her guilt. They were utterly inhuman. Surely creatures not from this earth, but in her deranged state they appeared as people she'd failed.

Experiments gone wrong, lives lost because of her hubris. They reached for her with skeletal hands, their eyes pleading accusing. I'm sorry, she whispered, backing away, but there was nowhere to go. The bunker had become a labyrinth of terror, the walls twisting in ways that made no sense, the darkness consuming everything.

Somewhere deeper in the facility, Dr. Eck was laughing, not the laugh of a person who'd found humor in the situation, but the hysterical, broken laugh of someone who'd fully given in to madness. She wandered through the frozen halls, speaking to the unseen force in the ice as though it were an old friend. I've seen it, she screamed into the void. I've spoken to it.

The thing in the ice had promised her something, though she no longer understood what. Whispered to her in a language older than time, promising freedom or perhaps oblivion. She followed its call blindly, her mind shattered. Rask, still in the tunnel, felt the cold crawling up his legs. He could barely move now, his body numb from the freezing temperature. The figures were closer, their grins impossibly wide, their hands outstretched. He could hear the others, Johann screaming in the storage room, Lindstrom, pleading for forgiveness. But it was all drowned out by the whispers.

In the end, it wasn't the cold that killed him. It was the creatures. They descended upon him, with a fury he couldn't comprehend, their frozen hands pulling at him, tearing him apart piece by piece. His final moments were a blur of agony and terror as the last of his sanity slipped away. In the common area, Lindstrom could hear the same thing happening,

the screams, the violence, but her mind was far too gone to process it. She clasped to her knees, the frost creeping up her limbs, her eyes wide and unseeing. She could hear the whispers too, louder than ever now, filling her head until there was no room left for anything else.

And then the darkness took her. Dr. Eck was the last one standing, although her mind was now fully consumed by the force she believed she communed with. She stood before the ice wall, her breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. The whispers were no longer external. They were inside her now, guiding her, pulling her deeper into the madness. She reached out and touched the ice. In an instant the whispers stopped.

The temperature in the bunker dropped to a deadly low, the frost overtaking everything, sealing the facility in a tomb of ice. Weeks after. Weeks after the last transmission from Project Northern Watch, a retrieval team arrived at the forgotten Arctic facility. The air was brutally cold, even for the inhospitable Arctic Circle, and the howling wind only amplified the sense of dread that had settled over the region. As the team descended into the underground bunker, the third was a third. thick layer of frost covering the entrance was a first ominous sign. No one expected the bunker to be in pristine condition, but the unnatural cold that seemed to radiate from the facility was unlike anything they'd anticipated. Their flashlights cut through

the thick darkness, illuminating twisted hallways now entirely frozen over. The walls, once smooth metal, were covered in a thick layer of ice, shimmering with frost. Everywhere they turned, strange symbols and cryptic messages were scrawled in what appeared be a mix of blood and frost, an eerie testament to the madness that had consumed the volunteers. Their words were etched haphazardly in jagged lines, sentences that made no sense. It watches from the ice. The glacier whispers, and we are not alone. These markings covered every surface, including the floors and ceilings, as if the very walls of the bunker had been turned into a canvas for the last deranged thoughts

of the participants. The retrieval team moved cautiously through the halls, their breath visible in the frigid air, their radio was crackling with static. As they ventured deeper, the temperature dropped even further well below what their equipment had been designed to handle. The bunker's heating system was completely offline,

as if it had been deliberately shut down for some strange reason, and every step they took sent shudders of cold through their suits. Despite the heavy gear they wore, they felt as though the chill was seeping into their very bones. Inside the living quarters they found the bodies of the volunteers, frozen solid and grotesque positions. One scientist sat hunched over a table, his hand outstretched toward a note that had long since been covered in frost.

His eyes were open, wide with terror, as if he died mid-scream. Another lake curled up in a corner, a face contorted into a frozen grimace. One of the soldiers, Captain Rusk, was sprawled in the middle of a corridor, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles, his hands clawed and rigid with frostbite. His expression, too, was one of pure horror, a final frozen scream etched in his features. There was no sign of a struggle, at least not a conventional one. The retrieval team's senses picked up no indication of an external threat, no breaches, no physical attacks. It was as though the group had simply succumbed to the cold and madness, but the bodies were the least unsettling aspect of what they found.

Faint whispers echoed through the frozen halls, soft but insistent, as if the glacier itself was alive. At first the team thought it was the wind howling through the cracks in the facility structure, but the sound seemed to follow them, growing louder the deeper they ventured. Some of the team members swore they could hear strange, inhuman voices distorted, indescipherable murmurs that sent shivers down their spines. The whispers came from everywhere and nowhere, and no amount of rational explanation could dispel the deep-rooted fear that they induced. As the team pushed further into the

facility, they located the control room, where all attempts to contact the outside world had ceased. Here the writing on the walls became more frenzied, the symbols more disturbing. Some of the messages were written in languages the retrieval team couldn't identify, while some were in cryptic mathematical formulas that defied logic. The walls bore deep scratches as if someone or something had crawled, tried to crawl their way out. The centre console was shattered, frozen solid as though it had been abandoned mid-use. There was no sign of Dr. Eck, the last scientist to be accounted for, nor of Johann Janssen, the journalist.

Their rooms were empty, save with the same chaotic scribblings and frozen remnants of their belongings. It was as if they'd vanished, swallowed by the glacier itself. With no survivors, the team gathered what little data remained, but they knew there was no salvaging in the truth of what had happened here.

The official cause of death was quickly written off as psychological collapse due to extreme conditions. The sleep deprivation serum, they concluded, had driven the volunteers to insanity, causing them to turn on one another and ultimately succumbed to the severe cold of the Arctic. But this explanation was only for the official report. Behind closed doors, the classified findings painted a much darker picture. Assyram had certainly played a role,

but the inexplicable events, the whispers, the frost, the cryptic messages were all too disturbing to ignore. Some whispered of ancient alien, malevolent forces buried deep in the world. the ice, forces that have been disturbed by the experiment, forces that preyed on the weakened minds of the participants. The bunker, sealed from the outside world, had become a tomb for those who dared to unlock the secrets of the glacier. The retrieval team, who were extremely unnerved and unshaken by what they had witnessed, completed their mission and left the facility to its frozen grave.

The authorities made the decision to abandon the site entirely. Project Northern Watch was quietly buried in its classified archives, its existence known only to a handful of individuals. The bunker, now entombed beneath layers of ice and snow, was left to be consumed by the Arctic's relentless cold. As the retrieval team gathered last of their equipment, eager to leave the nightmare behind, a sudden burst of static crackled over the comms.

The team froze in place, exchanging nervous glances. They'd just shut down. the remaining systems in the bunker. There was no reason for any signal to come through. Yet the static persisted, crackling louder before fading into a series of faint scrambled words. At first, it was incomprehensible, a garbled mess of distorted sounds.

But then through the hiss and hum of interference, a voice emerged. Weak, distorted, but unmistakably human. It keeps us awake. The voice sent a chill throughout the room, even colder than the icy air. It was the voice of Johann Janssen, the journalist who disappeared, believed to be either dead or lost in the madness that had overtaken the others. His voice sounded distant as though it was coming from deep within the glacier itself. The team members stared at one another, wide-eyed with disbelieve.

They'd found no trace of Janssen's body. He'd vanished without a sign. The transmission crackled again. stronger this time. The words were clearer, as if he were standing right behind them, yet warped and distant at the same time. The glacier keeps us awake.

It keeps us forever. And the radio went silent. The team leader frantically checked the equipment, looking for the source of the transmission. But nothing made sense. The bunker was dead, its systems cold and shut down. Janssen had been gone for weeks.

His fate sealed beneath the ice. and yet his voice had come through as if he were still there, still alive, or something worse. Panic rippled through the team. They scrambled to leave the facility, their breaths quickening in the frigid air. There was no time to investigate the transmission or question what they'd heard. They had to get out, before they too became trapped beneath the ice, forever frozen with the horrors that lurked in the dark. As they ascended to the surface, the transmission echoed in their minds,

leaving them with an unsettling truth they could never shake. What if you were still down there? What if the others were, too? Weeks after the retrieval team returned to civilization, the site was officially declared off-limits by Scandinavian authorities. It was erased from maps, sealed off by a perimeter of unmanned guardposts, and shrouded in silence. No one was to speak of Project Northern Watch again.

But despite the lockdown, rumours began to spread. among the local Sami people and Arctic researchers. Strange lights had been spotted near the frozen wasteland where the facility lay buried. Aurora-like streaks of color flared across the horizon, flickering unnaturally fast, as if beckoning to something deep below. Explorers claim to have heard voices on the wind, faint ghostly murmurs that seem to come from the glacier itself. Then came the sightings.

Faint outlines beneath the ice, human-shaped figures frozen in perfect stillness, their forms twisted, contorted, their faces, well, what little could be seen through the thick ice, or expressions of grotesque frozen grins. Some swore they could see the figure's eyes moving beneath the ice, as if they were still conscious, still watching, still awake. Reports of these sightings were dismissed by authorities as fanciful tales of optical illusions caused by the harsh Arctic conditions.

But those who lived near the Arctic Circle knew better. The whispers persisted, carried on the wind, growing louder the closer one ventured to the old bunker site. The retrieval team, meanwhile, tried to forget what they'd experienced. Most of them retired from their posts, played by nightmares of the frozen figures, of walls covered in cryptic messages, and of that final transmission,

the voice that had spoken from beyond the grave, warning them of the unearthly force that acclaimed the minds and bodies of those in the bunker. But the nightmares never truly left them. And every so often late at night, when the world was quiet and the Arctic wind howed through the darkness, they would hear it again. Jonson's voice, faint but unmistakable, echoing from the depths of the glacier. The glacial keeps us awake. It keeps us forever. And deep beneath the ice, the figures remain frozen, locked in eternal stasis, their faces twisted in a unnatural grin.

waiting Epilogue The present day The helicopter's blades were slicing through the cold arctic air As it descended toward the glacier Beneath them a barren white landscape stretched as far as the eye could see

Interrupted only by jagged ridges of ice And the faint outline of the long abandoned facility The mission was classified at the highest levels So secret in fact that most of the team knew little beyond their immediate orders recon and retrieval. Only one man, their commanding officer, had any real understanding of the true nature of their objective.

Colonel Anderson gazed out at the frost-covered window, watching as the endless expanse of why it drew nearer. He'd read the old declassified reports. What little information had survived from the 1962 experiment? What had happened here over half a century ago had been buried beneath layers of bureaucracy and misinformation, sealed away as nothing more than a tragic Cold Warred experiment gone wrong. But that was a lie.

A dangerous, deliberate lie. Once the helicopter touched down, the team disembarked, their faces obscured by heavy weatherproof gear. The cold hit them like a physical force, though each of them had been trained to endure far worse conditions. They moved quickly, establishing a perimeter and securing the old entrance to the facility, now half buried under snow and ice.

Colonel Anderson gathered the team inside, their boots crunching against the frost-covered floor of what had once been a hidden research bunker. The air inside was stale, filled with the echo of long-forgotten horrors. They knew this place had been a grave for those before them, but none of them truly understood the depth of what they were walking into. As they set up temporary lighting, Anderson called his unit to attention. His voice was calm, measured, but there was a weight to it that suggested far more. more than the usual military briefing. Listen carefully, he began, his gaze scanning each of the faces before him. He've all been briefed on this mission, retrieve what we can, assess the situation,

and, if necessary, neutralize any threats. But there's more, much more. What happened here in 1962 wasn't a simple experiment in isolation. It wasn't just humans breaking under pressure. It was something else entirely. The team exchanged wary glances. Sergeant Lindstrom, one of the unit's top specialists, spoke up. What are we dealing with, sir?

Anderson hesitated for a moment, weighing his words. What you've been told, and what I know, only scratches the surface. In 1962, they were experimenting with a serum designed to eliminate sleep. But what they didn't know was that their isolation and that serum awoke something buried beneath the ice, something not of this world. He let that sink in. The room was silent save for the hum of their equipment. It wasn't the glacier.

Anderson continued. His voice low, almost conspiratorial. It was something much older. An alien life form. Frozen here for millennia long before humans ever set foot in this region. It didn't wake up because of the cold. It woke up because of us. human consciousness specifically.

It feeds on it, manipulates it. The presence the volunteers reported, it was real. It started with their minds, but it wants more than just control. It wants to use us. The revelation hung in the air like the frost that clung to the walls. Why weren't we told this before? Asked Private Erickson, his voice tense. Because even our governments don't fully understand what they're dealing with.

Anderson replied, But here's the truth. That life-form is still here, frozen beneath the glacier, and it's still active, waiting for the right conditions to wake fully. We've been sent to determine whether there's any technological knowledge we can extract. But if it becomes hostile, we're authorized to destroy it. Completely. The gravity of their mission began to sink in,

and Anderson could see the unease creeping into their eyes. But there was no time for doubt. They had to move forward. Suit up, we're heading deeper into the facility. The team obeyed, preparing their gear and activating the mapping equipment that would guide them through the decaying tunnels. As they ventured further into the cold, forgotten corridors, the oppressive silence began to weigh on them, in the sense of being watched returned, just like it had for those here in 1962. Suddenly the comms crackles.

faint voice distorted was filtering through the static it was impossible but anderson knew exactly what he was hearing it keeps us awake it keeps us forever the voice echoed through the corridor unmistakable yet distant the same eerie transmission from the long dead journalist johan yonsen the team froze in place sergeant linstrom raised his hand to his earpiece, eyes wide with disbelief. Sir, is that... Before he could finish, the ground beneath them trembled. The ice groaned, a low rumble that shook the walls. Lights flickered, plunging the team into intermittent darkness. The air grew colder, unnaturally cold even for this desolate place.

Stay together, Anderson barked, but as the tremor subsided, a new sound filled the void. A soft rhythmic tapping, like footsteps on ice. It came from the depths of the glacier, growing louder. In the far distance, through the flickering light, something moved. A shape, shadowed and indistinct, but unmistakably humanoid. He stood motionless for a heartbeat before disappearing into the shadows. "'They're awake,' Anderson whispered. His breath visible in the freezing air.

"'They've been waiting.' The team raised their weapons, eyes scanning the darkness ahead. Somewhere beneath them, something ancient and malevolent had stirred. They were no longer alone, and whatever was down here wasn't just an alien presence, something far more dangerous. Right, mission parameters have changed. Anderson said, his voice tight with tension. Stay sharp.

We're not leaving until we end this one way or another. And as they press forward into the unresolved. unknown, the whispers grew louder. Far beneath the ice, the alien intelligence stirred once more, ready to awaken fully. The soldier's footsteps echoed through the frozen corridors, unknowingly heralding the start of something far worse than any of them had ever imagined. To be continued. Part one. The return. In the bitter, frozen wasteland of the Arctic Circle, the facility stood like a relic of a long forgotten terror.

Beneath the weight of ice and snow, it had been buried in silence, the only evidence of his existence being the chilling whispers of rumours passed among the highest ranks of governments. To the world, it was nothing more than a failed Cold War experiment, the official report citing psychological collapse

as the cause of the previous mission's catastrophic end. But those who knew the truth were not so quick to dismiss what had happened, Death beneath the glacier. Now in the early winter of 2004, the facility stirred to life once again. A secret international task force, made up of elite military operatives and leading scientists, had been dispatched under the guise of scientific research. Their mission, however, was not to investigate the collapse.

They'd come to retrieve something far more valuable, alien technology. According to classified Intel, buried beneath the ice, frozen for millennia, lay a life-form far beyond human comprehension. Mentally dormant, or so they hoped, his presence was believed to hold the key to unimaginable advancements in military and technological power. At the helm of the operation was Colonel Eric Stryker, a man whose steely temperament had been forged in the fires

of countless covert missions. His face was a mask of stoic control, but beneath the surface he harboured a gnawing fear, a fear rooted in the secrets he carried. Unlike the rest of his team, Striker had been given a grim briefing, one that delved into the horrors that lay beneath the Arctic ice. In shadowy meetings, far away from official record,

Stryker had learned about the alien presence, an ancient, malevolent force capable of bending human consciousness to its will. It wasn't just the hallucinations or paranoia that concerned him. It was the knowledge that this entity could distort reality itself, turning the minds of those it touched into a chaotic battlefield. There was more to this mission than the team knew. Striker had been assigned an unspoken task to uncover the fate of Colonel Anderson's unit.

Officially Anderson's team had vanished in the frozen wilderness, the last known mission at the facility long buried under layers of Cold War secrecy. But Striker knew better. Anderson's team had been sent to the facility for the same reason and they had never returned. The cover story was airtight. No one survived to challenge the lie, and the true events were wiped clean from any record.

But Stryker had seen fragments of the classified reports. Triptic transmissions garbled pleas for help and references to things that no sane mind could comprehend. He hadn't told his team about Anderson. He couldn't. If they knew the full truth, that another highly trained task force had fanny, without a trace, he would shatter their morale.

Oh, his orders were clear. Find out what happened to Anderson's men, if possible, but under no circumstances was he to alert the others to the catastrophic failure of the previous mission. The striker, the weight of these secrets, was a heavy burden, one that gnawed at him even as they descended into the icy abyss. He couldn't shake the feeling that, just like Anderson's team, they were walking into something they weren't prepared for,

something far beyond their understanding. The team's transport hummed through the Arctic storm, descending towards the facility now little more than a dark smudge against the icy landscape. From the outside, the building appeared as nothing more than a bunker, harshly reclaimed by nature. Ice had encased much of its exterior, giving it the appearance of a tomb long abandoned by the living. The entrance door, twisted and frozen, was sealed shut as if the facility

itself was resisting their return. Once inside, the team was greeted by silence so complete it seemed to press against their ears. Their breath misted in the frigid air, and the sound of their boots crunching against the frosted ground echoed through the narrow hallways. The facility had become a graveyard of steel and shadow. Lights flickered dimly as emergency power failed to properly illuminate the deeper sections. Cold winds funneled through the darkened halls, carrying with them the

a faint smell of rot and decay. Cryptic symbols and incoherent writings were scrawed across the walls in blood and frost. Messages left by the previous team. Warnings, perhaps, or the last remnants of their crumbling minds. Dr. Ingrid Halverson, the lead scientist on the mission, rushed her gloved hand against the etched words, her breath catching as she traced the jagged lines. They were trying to communicate something, she whispered, but no one dared to respond. The air felt heavy with a presence, although nothing moved.

Colonel Stryker motion for the team to press deeper past the ruins of the previous experiment, toward the heart of the facility where the real prize awaited. The alien entity, presumably still trapped beneath the ice, its mind powerful enough to control the thoughts of those around it, even in its frozen state. It as they descended into the lower levels, there was a growth, sense of unease. The walls were unmoving, solid steel, but they now seemed to close in on them. The temperature dropped further as they moved deeper, a bone-chilling cold that no amount of protective

gear could keep at bay. The team's radios crackled with static, and occasional whispers drifted through the silence, just beyond the edge of hearing. Whether it was the wind or something else, no one in the group could tell. It wasn't long before the first. It wasn't long before the first at the team began to feel it. A strange sensation as if eyes were watching them from the darkness, lurking just out of sight. Tensions mounted. One of the soldiers, Corporal Elias Kovitch, muttered under his breath, with his fingers twitching on the trigger of his rifle. We shouldn't be here, he whispered, his voice trembling with something unspoken. This place, it's not dead. It's waiting.

Colonel Stryker gave him a sharp look, and he couldn't deny the unease gnawing at the back of his own mind. They all felt it. The glass here above them groaned under the strain of shifting ice, but it was the silence that weighed heaviest on them all, a silence that felt alive. As they approached the central chamber, the source of the alien presence, the tension in the air thickened, the cold deepened, and the writings on the walls became more frenzied. it was as if the facility itself was trying to scream a warning they couldn't understand. Awakening, as the team pushed deeper into the frozen heart of the facility, the sterile decaying corridors gave way to something far more alien. They had stumbled upon a chamber that none of the original blueprints had mentioned.

A hidden section buried even further beneath the glacier. It was unlike anything that had been seen before. The walls were smooth, almost organic, made of a strange metastard. metallic substance that pulsed faintly with an eerie bluish light. The air hummed with energy, as if the room itself were alive, waiting for them. Dr. Halverson led the charge into the chamber, her scientific curiosity overriding the growing sense of dread. In the centre of the room lay a massive cylindrical structure encased in a web of frost. The object was clearly not of human origin, its surface etched with a complex pattern

that seemed to shift under the dim light. She approached it with wide eyes, gesturing for her team to begin extracting samples and data. This is it, she whispered. This is what we came for. Alien technology, millennia old. Colonel Stryker did not share her sense of awe and wonder. Standing back with the other soldiers,

he felt a knot tightened in his stomach. His instincts screamed at him to stop them, to pull everyone out of that. that chamber and back into the cold, desolate corridors above. But his orders were clear, gather as much intelligence as possible, before destroying the alien presence. He glanced his jaw and watched as Dr. Halvison's team set to work. As they extracted pieces of the ancient technology,

uploading data into their portable systems, and prying frozen fragments from the strange machinery, the atmosphere in the room shifted. What had once been cold became something altogether different, An unnatural, biting frost that sank deep into their bones. The lights flickered, and the hum in the walls grew louder, more ominous. The ground beneath them vibrated, almost imperceptibly at first, but enough to make the team pause. What the hell is that? Sergeant Nolan muttered, glancing at the pulsating walls.

The faint glow now flickered erratically, like a heartbeat skipping in panic. Before anyone could answer, a deep, resonant groan echoed through the chamber, a sound that reverberated off the walls and drilled into their skulls. It was as if the glacier itself had come to life, shifting, stretching after centuries of dormancy. The lights again flickered violently, and the temperature plummeted. Frost crept up the walls, spiraling out from the alien machinery like cold fingers reaching toward them. Colonel Stryker's radio crackled to life with garbled static. Voices from the outside world briefly cutting through before disappearing entirely.

Base to Omega 1 come in. Base to Omigal... The signal was lost. Communication had been severed. Then came the first scream. Corporal Elias Kovic, standing closest to the chamber's exit, dropped to his knees, his hands clutching his head. His rifle clattered to the ground as his body convulsed.

His eyes, wide and wild, darted around the room, seeing something that wasn't there. His mouth moved, but his words were garbled, as if speaking a language none of them understood. The other soldiers rushed toward him, but before they could reach him, Kovic led out an inhuman scream. "'Stay away!' he shrieked. his voice now deeper, guttural, as though something else was speaking through him. You should have stayed away. His eyes were no longer his own. They glowed with the same eerie blue light that pulsed from the alien technology.

The team froze in place, horror etched on their faces. Strike a rush to Kovitch, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him, trying to snap him out of whatever trance he'd fallen into. But Kovitch's eyes locked onto his eyes locked onto. the colonels, a malicious grin curling his lips. You woke it, he hissed. His voice barely above a whisper, but it echoed in Stryker's mind as though spoken by a hundred voices at once.

Now it will take you all. Before anyone could react, Kovic lunged at Sergeant Nolan. His movements are naturally fast and violent. He tackled the sergeant to the ground, his hands tightening. around Nolan's throat. It took two other soldiers to pry him off, his strength unnervingly powerful for someone of his size. When they finally pulled him back, Kovic's face was twisted in a snarl, his eyes still glowing

with that unnatural light. He thrashed against their grip, muttering in that same guttural language, something dark and ancient. Dr. Halverson backed away. Her eyes were wide with terror. It's the alien person. presence, she whispered. It's controlling him.

Striker barked orders, his voice steady despite the chaos. Sidadium, now. The team scrambled, injecting Kovic with enough tranquilizers to knock out a full-grown bear. His body slumped to the ground, but even as his eyes fluttered shut, he muttered something low and chilling. It sees you. It knows you. the alien presence had awakened. It was no longer content to stay dormant.

As they dragged Kovic's unconscious body from the chamber, the coal continued to intensify, and the machinery at the room's centre began to hum louder, the vibrations growing more violent. The facility, once silent, was now alive with something ancient and malevolent. Stryker stood at the chamber's entrance, watching as frost crawled up the walls

and the alien machinery pulsed with newfound energy. He had known this mission would be dangerous, but, well, not like this. They had awoken something far more powerful than they could have imagined. But now, it was only a matter of time before it consumed them all. With Kovitch's words echoing in his mind, You should have stayed away. Stryker realized the real horror had just begun. Day three, the frigid corridors of the facility seemed.

to close in around them as the days wore on. What had begun as a carefully coordinated mission to retrieve alien technology had spiraled into a waking nightmare. The air grew colder, unnaturally so even for the Arctic. Frost now spread across every surface, climbing the walls,

creeping up the steel beams and dusting the equipment. The temperature gauges seemed useless, reading lower and lower each hour. Worse than the cold was a silence, broken only by the occasional flicker of the lights and the distant sound of voices, voices that shouldn't be there. By the third day the team had fractured into two distinct factions.

Colonel Stryker, tried desperately to maintain order, but gathered those still loyal to their mission objectives. Extract the alien technology, and, if necessary, destroy the alien presence. But a second group, led by the increasingly unhinged corporal Jonas, had other ideas. Jonas, who had spent more time than anyone studying the alien technology in the hidden chamber, now believed he could communicate with the aliens. He claimed they were offering something, an alliance, a form of negotiation. They've been here for millennia, he said, his eyes wide and feverish.

They can teach us. We just need to listen. Stryker had tried to reason with him, but it was no use. Jonas was too far gone, and the worst part was others were beginning to believe. him. Dr. Halverson, her rationality crumbling under the pressure, was among the first aside with Jonas. She believed that the strange symbols scrawled across the facility's walls were a form of communication, a way for the aliens to reach out. This is their language, she insisted, tracing a line of frost-covered writing with trembling fingers. They're not trying to hurt us. They want to teach us. But Stryker knew better. Whatever was happening here,

It wasn't benign. It was hostile, predatory. The alien presence was spreading, seeping into their minds and twisting their thoughts. And the hallucinations, those were becoming impossible to ignore. First, it had been small things, flickers of movement in the corner of their vision, shadows that darted just out of sight. But soon the entire facility became a nightmare of distorted realities. Soldiers would catch glimpses of comrades who died in the previous mission, their frozen bodies walking the halls as though they'd never left. Twisted faces appeared in the frost, watching them through the icy walls. The hum of the alien machinery was always there, lurking beneath the surface, like a heartbeat, only audible when everything else went silent.

Private Harris was the first to snap. He'd been on the edge for days. He'd been on the edge for days. muttering to himself about voices in the walls, about figures he saw moving just beyond the reach of the dim lights. When Sergeant Nolan found him standing in one of the lower corridors, Harris was staring into the ice, his breath fogging the frozen surface as he whispered to something or someone on the other side. "'They're in there,' he said, his voice hollow, watching us, waiting. Nolan barely had time to react before Harris turned the rifle on him,

himself, his blood freezing almost instantly on the cold metal floor. After that, the paranoia only worsened. Striker knew they were running out of time. The temperature continued to drop, and now even the strongest willed soldiers were beginning to show signs of mental breakdown. Frost crawled up their skin, turning their fingers blue and their breath ragged. After Halverson's hands tremble constantly, and her eyes had a distant, glassy look, as though she was seeing something the others couldn't.

The facility itself seemed to pulse with life. The cold had a presence now, a sentience that wrapped around them like a vice, constricting tighter with each passing hour. And the alien influence, it was growing. At first it had been confined to strange electrical anomalies, flickering lights, malfunctioning radios. But now it felt like the glacier was coming alive, reaching out for them, drawing them deeper into its frozen depths.

The worst of it came when Corporal Jonas made his move. In the dead of night, he and his followers attempted to sabotage the mission's only means of escape, trying to disable the team's transport and cutting off their communication lines to the outside world. They believed, truly believed, that they could commune with the alien presence and unlock something greater, power beyond human comprehension. Jonas stood in front of the group, eyes wide with fervor as he preached about the alien's gifts. We're on the brink of something incredible, he shouted. Don't you see?

This is what we were sent here for, to make contact, to learn from them. But his words fell on deaf ears. The tension snapped like a taut wire and a firefighter rut. Those still loyal to Stryker fought back against Jonas and his followers, but it was chaos. wild, desperate and bloody. In the confusion, someone, a soldier whose mind had been overtaken by the alien presence, set off a chain of explosions in the lower chambers. The blasts tore through the facility, ripping apart steel walls

and sending waves of frost and debris through the halls. In the aftermath, as the dust settled and the fires began to die down, Stryker realized the full extent of what had happened. The facility was in ruins, And the alien presence, it was no longer contained. The cold had seeped into everything. The walls were covered in a layer of thick frost, creeping outward, consuming the facility inch by inch. And the people, his soldiers, the scientists, had been taken.

Some stood like statues, their skin encased in ice, their eyes staring blankly ahead, as though they'd frozen where they stood. Others wandered the halls, their mind shattered, mumbling in the alien language, their bodies twisting and contorting in unnatural ways. The alien influence was everywhere now, feeding off their fear,

their madness. It spread from the glacier into the facility, and soon it would spread beyond that. Stracker knew what was coming next. The outside world was watching, waiting for the signal. They couldn't destroy the aliens soon. The nucleus strikes would be launched,

obliterating the facility and everyone inside it. But even as he prepared for the final stand, a sickening realization dawned on him. The aliens weren't trapped anymore. They were free. And they weren't just after the facility. They were after their minds, their very souls. The cold, the whispers, the hallucinations.

These were just the beginning. The real horror was still to come. Part two. Conduits. The walls of the facility continued to pulse with an icy, malevolent energy, as if the glacier itself had become aware of the intruders. What had once been a mission of opportunity had now devolved into a battle for survival. And worse, the realization that the true threat was not just physical but mental,

weighed heavily on the team's dwindling numbers. Striker, now visibly pale with exhaustion, stood with his remaining soldiers and scientists in the dank, dark control room. The atmosphere was tenser than ever, and the air seemed even colder. But now it was clearer than ever that this was not from the Arctic chill outside. This was something deeper, more invasive, as if the very oxygen they breathed was tainted with the presence of the alien life-form that now permeated the facility. Dr. Halverson, who'd remained surprisingly composed up until now, was the one who broke the silence. Her voice was strained, as if she was speaking against a heavy pressure. It's using us, the aliens.

Our consciousness is feeding them. Every interaction with their technology, every moment we stay here, they are growing stronger. She shuddered, clutching the edges of the console for support. "'They've been dormant for millennia,' she continued. "'Her voice trembling as the truth sank in, "'frozen in that glacier and trapped. "'But now we've given them a way out. "'Not through physical means, but through our minds.

"'They're using us as conduits, "'and if we don't stop them soon, "'they'll take complete control.' "'The team stood in stunned silence. "'It was as if the puzzle pieces had finally clicked into place, "'but instead of clarity, they now felt only dread. Every strange anomaly, every flicker of the lights, every eerie whisper in the wind, it all pointed to one terrible reality.

The alien presence had been growing, feeding off their very thoughts and emotions. Their presence in the facility was giving the alien's life again, a twisted resurrection that was happening not through blood and flesh, but through their consciousness. Every time we touch their technology, every time we look at the symbols, they are in our heads. Halverson whispered, her face pale as she rubbed her temples. It's not just hallucinations anymore. They are rewriting us, turning us into them.

Before the full weight of the situation could be processed, a sharp garbled crackle erupted from the nearby radio. Striker rushed to the console, adjusting the dials, trying to clear the static. Through the interference, a voice emerged, cold and mechanical, but unmistakable. This is command. The situation has been deemed irrecoverable.

Striker's heart sank. He exchanged a grim look with his second in command, who muttered, This can't be good. The voice continued, emotionless and final. In 48 hours, a series of nuclear warheads will be deployed. That destination, Svalbard. This facility will be annihilated to prevent the alien presence from escaping.

You have two options. Eliminate the threat or evacuate immediately. Time is running out. The radio transmission then faded into static, leaving the room in heavy silence. The implications were staggering. Stryker's team now had a cruel deadline hanging over their heads. 48 hours before the ice, the facility, the aliens and themselves, were obliterated by the raw force of nuclear fire.

The team erupted into chaos. Some of the soldiers shouted angrily, accusing command of abandoning them to a nightmare they had never been prepared for. Others fell into a stunned, numb silence, their minds grappling with the countdown to their potential demise. But Stryker, as always, maintained his steely resolve. Listen up, he barked, silence in the room. We have two choices.

Either we destroy that alien presence, or we get out of here before those bombs drop. But I can tell you one thing. We are not dying here, not like this. His words were strong, but in the back of his mind, Striker couldn't shake the gnawing doubt. Could they really destroy an enemy that had existed long before humanity had even crawled from the caves? One that now had the power to bend their minds to its will. Halverson stepped forward, shaking her head. Escape isn't an option.

You've seen what they can do. They'll follow us into our minds, into the world. There's no running from this. She swallowed hard. The only way we can stop them is if we sever their connection to us, destroy their technology, or die trying. Desperation flickered in the eyes of every team member. It wasn't just the aliens they had to worry about.

It was each other. The more the alien present spread, the more fractured their minds became. Harris had already fallen under its influence, and others were showing signs of the same fate. Paranoia, strange behaviours and violent outbursts were becoming common, and it was only a matter of time before the team splintered completely. Corporal Jonas, standing in the shadows, suddenly spoke. His voice was calm. Too calm. You're all fools, he said.

His eyes gleaming with something unnatural. They don't want to destroy us. They want to elevate us. We should be embracing them, not fighting them. Stryker turned to face him, his hand instinctively moving toward his side-harm. Jonas, you're not thinking clearly. That's the alien influence talking.

Jonas smiled, an unsettling almost serene expression that sent a chill throughout the room. Maybe you're right, or maybe you're just too afraid to see the truth. We were meant to be here, to find them. This is destiny. In a flash, Jonas lunged at one of the control panels, his hands moving with purpose, inputting a series of commands that none of them recognized. Before anyone could stop him, the entire facility shook violently, as if the glacier itself was groaning in protest.

Lights flickered, systems wered to life, and the hum of the alien technology grew louder, more pronounced, filling the air with a deep, resonant pulse. Oh, the alien presence was no longer dormant. Jonas had awakened something far worse than they had ever imagined. As the facility trembled under the weight of its full reawakening, Stryker and the remaining survivors realized they'd crossed. a threshold. There was no turning back. The countdown had begun, both for the alien invasion

and for the nuclear strikes that would soon rain fire and death upon them all. With 48 hours left, the question now wasn't whether they could destroy the alien presence, it's whether they could survive their own minds long enough to do it. Confrontation. The Arctic facility had become a maze of horrors. Flickering lights barely illuminated the jagged tunnels as ice. I icy winds howled through cracks in the walls. The deep cold, once a mere physical discomfort, now felt alive, grasping, tightening around the team as if the glacier itself was conspiring against them. Their breaths came out in ragged gasps, the freezing air tearing at their lungs, but none dared stop. They were too close to the end, yet so far from salvation.

Striker led the remaining survivors deeper into the bowels of the facility. Behind him were only a handful of soldiers and scientists, faces hollowed with exhaustion and terror. The alien presence was everywhere now, a constant overwhelming force pressing against their minds. The once crumbling walls now pulsated with an eerie glow, the alien technology embedded within them humming in unison with their own thoughts. It was as if the very structure of the facility had found. Fused with the alien consciousness, feeding off their fear and despair.

They're close, whispered Halverson, a voice trembling. We need to keep moving before... A low guttural sound echoed through the tunnels, cutting her off. It was followed by a scraping noise, like something enormous dragging itself across the ice. Then from the shadows, the figures appeared.

At first they seemed like familiar faces, fallen comrades. Harris, Jonas, and others who had been lost along the way. But their movements were wrong, too fluid, too coordinated. Their eyes gleaned with a cold, unnatural light. They were puppets now, their bodies commandeered by the alien presence, twisted into mockeries of their former selves. They're using them, muttered Stryker,

the realization dawning with a sickening weight. They're using their bodies. As if responding to his words, the figures move faster, advancing toward the group in a grotesque procession. Their mouths were open, and in voices not their own, they spoke. You should never have come here. They rasped. Their voices layered with something inhuman. This place is ours.

Panic gripped the team. Gunfire erupted. The sharp cracks echoing through the tunnels as the soldiers tried in vain to fend off the approaching hall. but bullets barely slowed them. The alien-controlled bodies moved with an unholy resilience, staggering forward even as they were torn apart by gunfire. We can't stop them, one of the soldiers yelled, his voice laced with desperation. And Stryker knew he was right. They were fighting the aliens on their own terms now, in their domain, and they were losing fast.

Fall back, Striker barked, his voice cutting through the, the chaos. We head for the core. That's the only way to end this. They retreated deeper into the labyrinth of ice and metal, the alien-controlled bodies following relentlessly. The team numbers were dwindling with every step. Soldiers fell, dragged into the dark, their screams echoing briefly before being cut off. And every time one of them died, another figure appeared among the alien thralls. Their body reanimated, twisted, and controlled. The core of the alien presence lay in the deepest chamber of the facility, a vast cavern filled with an unnatural blue light.

Strange spindly structures extended from the walls and ceiling, pulsing with energy. At the centre was the heart of the alien force, an enormous crystalline structure, half buried in the ice, radiating a cold so intense it made the very air shimmer. Stryker and the few remaining survivors stood at the entrance of the chamber, staring at the alien core in horrified awe. That's it, Halverson whispered, a voice barely audible. That's where the control is coming from.

We blow it, striker said, his voice grim. He reached for the detonator charges in his pack. We end this now. But as he began to plant the charges around the core, the alien presence struck. It wasn't a physical attack. There were no more bodies shambling, out of the shadows. Instead it came as a wave of psychic force, crashing into the minds of every remaining team member. Striker stumbled, clutching his head as his vision blurred and twisted.

The walls of the chambers seemed to shift and distort, melting into each other. Shadows writhed at the edges of his sight, and disembodied voices whispered in his ears. You're too late, the voice hissed. You can't stop us. Stryker's grip on reality faltered. He saw Halverson standing across from him, but then her face changed, twisting into something grotesque, her eyes black and soulless. He blinked, and she was back to normal, but the image was burned into his mind. Around him the rest of the team was succumbing to the same mental assault.

One of the soldiers, unable to distinguish reality from the hallucinations, turned on his comrades, firing wildly into the chamber. Another dropped to his knees, clutching his head and screaming, his mind overwhelmed by the alien whispers. Ah, damn, we're losing them, Stryker shouted, but his voice felt distant, as if the words were coming from someone else. He struggled to plant the last at the charges, his hands trembling as the alien presence clawed at his thoughts.

Then Halverson's voice cut through the madness. "'Straker, you have to finish this.' He looked up to see her standing by the core, her face pale and streaked with tears, but her eyes burning with determination. "'Do it!' she screamed, her voice trembling with desperation, before it's too late.

Stryker forced his mind to focus, and with one final agonizing effort he set the last charge around the crystalline core. His thumb hovered over the detonator, He could feel the alien presence pushing against him, trying to pull him into its grasp, but he wouldn't let it win. We're not yours. He growled through clenched teeth.

Not yet. He pressed the button. The charges exploded in a deafening roar, the shockwave tearing through the chamber. Ice and metal shattered, collapsing in on the core. For a moment everything was chaos, a whirlwind of debris, light and sound, and then, silence. Striker lay on the ground, barely conscious. His vision was a blur, his body numb from the cold and the impact of the blast.

Around him the remaining team members were still, either dead or too weak to move. The alien corps was destroyed, but at what cost? The facility was collapsing, and the countdown to the nuclear strikes was still ticking. Striker knew they had only a few hours left to escape, if escape was even possible. As he pulled himself to his feet, a cold voice echoed through the chamber, sending a chill down his spine. You think this is over? The voice whispered, we are far from done. Striker turned, his heart pounding.

The alien presence had not been fully destroyed. It had merely retreated, waiting for another chance to strike. and time was running out. Part 3. Race against time. As the dust settled from the explosion, Stryker's ears rang with the aftermath of the blast. The alien corps was gone, reduced to shards of glowing crystal beneath the ice, but there was no time for relief.

He dragged himself to his feet, fighting through the dizzying haze in his head. His body ached, his lungs burned with each cold breath, but survival instincts took over. We need to move, Stryker rasped, scanning the chamber for the remaining survivors. Harvison staggered to his side, blood smeared across her cheek,

but her eyes were still sharp. She was one of the few left standing. Around them the facility groaned ominously, metal creaking and ice-cracking, threatening to cave in at any moment. The explosion had destabilized everything. The cold, once a biting chill, now felt like a living entity. Frost was creeping up the walls, spreading faster than before,

and the glacier itself was reclaiming the facility now. The ground shook under their feet. Stryker! Alveson shouted over the noise, pointing to a distant door half buried under ice. That's our only way out. The countdown to the nuclear detonation was ticking relentlessly in the back of their minds, two hours maybe less before everything in Svalbard would be vaporized. There was no time for second-guessing.

They had to run. They gathered what little strength they had left, dragging the remaining survivors. Three soldiers, all barely conscious, set off through the labyrinthine tunnels of the facility. The air was thick with dust and debris, and the lights overhead flickered weakly. Every step they took felt heavier,

every breath more laboured, as though the facility itself was resisting their escape. They pushed onward into the frozen maze, the walls closing in around them. Ice began to collapse from the ceiling, shattering on the ground like glass. One of the soldiers, barely able to stand, was crushed under a massive chunk of falling debris. There was no time to mourn. The facility itself was tearing apart. The striker could feel it. The alien presence wasn't gone.

It lingered, subtle at first, like a distant hum in his mind, but growing stronger with each passing moment. He glanced at Harvison, seeing the strain on her face, the same haunted look that had overtaken their comrades during the first experiment. She was hearing it too. The cause destroyed, right? One of the soldiers, Samuels, gasped as he struggled to keep up. We blew her to hell, Amos.

Why? Why do I still hear them? Stryker didn't answer. It didn't have to. The whispers were faint at first, but unmistakable, threading through their thoughts like a persistent, invasive force. Words, indistinct and foreign, echoing in their minds. They weren't hallucinations.

This was real. The alien consciousness hadn't been obliterated. It had infiltrated them. "'Keep moving,' Stryker barked, "'but his voice cracked, the weight of the realization bearing down on him. "'The whispers grew louder. "'You think you've won,' the voice hissed inside his head. "'You've only made us stronger.'

Stryker shook his head trying to block it out, but he could feel all the cold seeping into his bones, not just from the ice but from within. It was the same creeping unearthly frost that had overtake, and the others, the same chill that preceded the alien takeover. As they reached the final stretch, the exit in sight, Halvison stumbled. She fell to her knees clutching her head as if trying to hold something back. Stryker, they're in my mind. I can't.

Get up. Stryker grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. Come on, we're almost there. But even as they broke through the last door, emerging into the... the blinding white wasteland of the Arctic surface. The truth was undeniable. They hadn't escaped the alien presence. It had escaped with them. The cold wind bit at their faces as they staggered through the snow, but the chin inside their minds was far worse. The whispers were louder now, clearer, as if the aliens were speaking directly to their consciousness.

"'You're hours now,' Carverson stopped, her eyes wide with horror. "'Striker, what if we didn't destroy them? What if—' He didn't want to hear it, didn't want to believe it, but it was there, eating away at the back of his mind. They'd destroyed the physical core, but the alien consciousness had already infected them.

It was inside them, embedded in their thoughts, waiting to take full control. The facility behind them rumbled ominously, on the verge of collapse, but it no longer mattered. Even with the nuclear countdown ticking away, the real threat wasn't buried beneath the glacier anymore. It was walking in the snow, inside their heads, and there was no escaping it.

Strike a glance at the horizon where the sun was beginning to set. The darkness was coming, and with it the realization that their battle was far from over. The aliens had won a greater victory than they'd ever imagined. And now, they had all the time in the world. Escape. The striker, Halverson, and the remaining survivors stumbled out onto the frozen expanse. The biting Arctic wind tore at their faces, but they barely felt it. The adrenaline, the panic, the overwhelming dread. They were numb to everything but the pounding in their heads.

The horizon was a desolate white blur, and in the distance a low rumble signalled the imminent nuclear explosions that would obliterate the facility and everything within it. Thankfully, Corporal Jonas' attempts to sabotage the team's transport had been unsuccessful. The survivors could at least put as much distance between themselves and the coming nuclear explosions as possible. For a brief moment, there was silence, a cold, empty quiet that stretched over the snow-covered wasteland. It felt like the calm before the storm, a heartbeat before everything would be gone. But then a faint crackle cut through the static of their comms. Strikeer froze. His breath caught in his throat as a voice, chilling and unmistakable, echoed from the facility far below.

You cannot destroy what's already inside, it whispered, slow and deliberate, as if savoring every word. We are beyond the ice now. The team sat paralysed inside the transport, their eyes wide with disbelief. Halverson's face turned pale as the voice, so cold, so alien, wrapped itself around their thoughts. It was coming from the facility, but somehow it was also coming from within them. No, it can't be, Halverson whispered, a breath visible in the freezing air. We destroyed the core. We... Striker shook his head.

already knowing the terrible truth. He felt it deep inside, a presence that was no longer bound to the frozen glacier. The alien consciousness had spread beyond its icy prison. It had infiltrated their minds. The realization hit him like a blow to the chest. The aliens had never needed their bodies or their technology. They'd been waiting for something far more valuable.

Their consciousness. They've been inside us. the whole time, Stryker muttered, his voice barely audible over the wind. As if to confirm his worst fears, the ground beneath their vehicle trembled. In the distance, flashes of light lit up the sky, brilliant, violent explosions ripping through the ice as the nuclear strikes hit their targets. The bombs were detonating, just as planned, erasing the facility in everything it held. But it was too late.

The real threat had already escaped. A sharp pain lanced through striker's skull. He clutched his head, gritting his teeth against the sudden onslaught of whispers. Voices, alien and incomprehensible, poured into his mind, speaking in a language he didn't understand but somehow felt. He glanced at Harvison and the others. Their faces twisted in the same agony, their eyes wide with terror. They could all hear it.

The whispers were growing louder, more insistent, twisting their thoughts, warping their sense of reality. The voice from the calm was now inside their heads, entwined with their very consciousness. We are with you now. We are everywhere. Stryker's heart raced. They weren't alone anymore. None of them were. Halverson stumbled in her seat. Her eyes glazed as if she were looking through him, past him, into something far beyond the physical world. It's in us, she whispered, her voice shaking. We brought them out.

Stryker's mind reeled. The facility, the glacier, the mission. It was all a diversion. The aliens had used them to escape, to break free from their frozen tomb. And now with their consciousness embedded in the survivors, they were no longer confined by the ice. They could spread. They could evolve.

They were far more dangerous than anyone had imagined. The nuclear blasts that were supposed to save them were nothing more than fireworks now. The real battle hadn't been fought in the tunnels or the laboratories. It had been fought inside their minds. And they had lost. We're compromised, striker said. His voice low, almost defeated. We didn't stop them.

They're inside us. Alvison nodded, tears welling in her eyes. Her hands trembling as she gripped her weapon. What do we do? she asked. Her voice barely above a whisper. But Stryker didn't have an answer. The sky lit up again as another distant explosion rocked the ground. The countdown was almost over,

and in minutes the entire area would be leveled. And yet, even as the world around them prepared to burn, he could feel the alien presence growing stronger, spreading deeper into his mind, twisting his thoughts, making him question his own reality. There was no escape, not from this. As the final bomb detonated, casting a fiery glow across the Arctic landscape, a striker and his team drove on through the snow, silent and horrified.

The alien presence had won. They had taken root inside them. Now, with nothing to hold it back, it would spread far beyond the ice, far beyond the Arctic, far beyond anything they could imagine. The battle wasn't over. It had only just begun. In the distance, the last transmission echoed once more,

fading into the static of the comms. We are with you. Always. Striker's eyes narrowed, his pulse quickening as the terrible realization washed over him. They weren't survivors anymore. They were carriers. And whatever came next,

whatever horrors the aliens had planned, they would be a part of it, to be concluded. Part one, inside the outpost. The wind howled across the frozen landscape, carrying with it the remnants of the nuclear blasts that had ravished this region of the Arctic. Pale sunlight flickered through the sky,

casting shadows over the desolate terrain. In the midst of this icy wasteland, somewhere in the Spitzbergen region of Svalbard, a small outpost stood like a solitary tomb, buried under layers of snow and frost. Inside the outpost, Stryker and Halverson sat among the few remaining survivors of their doomed mission. The transport that had carried them away from the blasts had brought them here, alone, on the fringes of the known world. The atmosphere in the outpost was thick with silence, broken only by the occasional crackle of the dying generator that barely kept the bitter cold at bay. Outside, the world was a wasteland, a stark frozen graveyard for anyone who ventured too far.

The bombs had done their job, leaving behind nothing but shattered ice in the faint smell of ash on the wind. Strike a pace the length of the dingy room, his breath misting in the frigid air. He glanced at the others. Halverson, his de facto second in command, was quiet, her eyes distant as though seeing something no one else could. The remaining soldiers, a mere handful in total, sat huddled together, their faces drawn and pale, trying to block out the creeping unease. They all knew it, though none of them spoke it out loud. Despite their isolation from the civilized world, they most certainly were not alone. Alien presence within them, silent at first, was once again starting to make itself known.

Stryker had felt it for the first time aboard the transport, It had been subtle, like a whisper at the edge of his hearing, a flicker of movement just outside his line of sight. At first they'd all hope that distancing themselves from the bunker would save them from the mental infestation of the alien presence. He dismissed it as exhaustion, a symptom of the unrelenting strain they'd been under since their arrival in this barren wasteland. But as the transport sped further away from the devastation, the whispers only grew louder, more distinct. And he wasn't the only one.

Halverson had mentioned it too, a voice in the back of her mind, soft, persuasive, pulling her towards something she couldn't quite place. The others still in shock from their narrow escape hadn't voiced their concerns yet. But Stryker could see it in their eyes. They too were hearing the calls.

Their plan hadn't worked. The alien consciousness was still with them, even after they'd left the facility in ruins. It had survived the explosions and had escaped with them. And now it was growing stronger. Finding the outpost itself had been a fluke, an old abandoned research station from decades ago. The transport had guided them here in the rush to escape the looming nuclear fallout.

They'd been able to send out distress signals, hoping to receive promises to send help. But deep down strike anew, no help was coming. The outside world had no idea what they were dealing with. Only Stryker had been fully briefed on the true nature of the threat. And now they were completely cut off from the rest of the world. Communication equipment crackled to life once or twice a day. But all they heard was static.

No rescue, no instructions, just silence. It seemed that the isolation was only amplifying the alien's reach. Well, how long do we wait here? one of the soldiers Peters asked, his voice trembling. He'd been the most affected by the whispers, and his hands now constantly shook, his eyes darted constantly to the shadows. Stryker stopped pacing and looked at him.

We weighed as long as it takes for reinforcements. Reinforcements! Harveston scoffed quietly, shaking her head. We both know they're not sending anyone. Stryker remained silent. He knew Halverson was right. They weren't getting out of here, not alive at least.

But they couldn't give in to despair, not yet. There had to be a way to fight this, to resist the alien force before it completely consumed them. As long as they kept their wits about them, it might still stand a chance. However, deep down, Stryker knew what they all feared. They weren't alone anymore, not really. The alien consciousness was inside them,

moving like a shadow beneath their skin, waiting for the right moment to take control. The symptoms are getting worse, Harvison said, lowering her voice as she approached Stryker. The hallucinations, the voices, it's like it's learning from us. Stryker nodded grimly.

He'd seen it too. Each of them was being pulled apart at the seams. We need a plan, he said. This voice still quite firm. despite the growing tension. We can't just sit here and wait to be taken over. We'll head to the Southern Research Facility tomorrow. And maybe something there, or anything that can help us.

And if there's nothing? Halverson asked quietly, though they both already knew the answer. Stryker's gaze hardened. And we'll make sure this doesn't spread beyond us. The others hadn't realized it yet, but deep down, they were all being hardened. hunted. Not by any physical force, but by the alien presence inside their own minds. It was subtle, insidious, and weaving through their thoughts like a parasite. The further they ran, the closer it came, the stronger it became. The small flickers of hope were rapidly dying in the cold Arctic air.

But for now, they had to hold on to the belief that there was a way to stop this, or to sever the link between themselves and the alien force before it fully took them over, before they became something else entirely. But as Stryker stared out into the endless white expanse beyond the outpost's frosted windows, he couldn't shake the growing sense of dread. The whispers were growing louder, and he feared soon they wouldn't just be whispers anymore. The small group of survivors sat huddled around a table in the outpost's common room. The air was tense, thick with the unspoken fear that had gripped them since their escape.

They'd spent the last few hours discussing their options, trying to form a plan, though each of them knew the truth. There was no real plan. The outpost, buried in ice and snow, was a fragile sanctuary, and it wouldn't hold forever. Stryker stood at the head of the table, his eyes scanning the faces of the remaining soldiers. Beaters, the youngest of them, was shaking, his fingers drumming nervously on the table. He'd been hearing the whispers louder than anyone else. Andrews, a former demolitions expert, stared blankly ahead, his face drawn and pale, deep bags under his eyes from sleepless nights.

Then there was Halverson, who met Stryker's gaze with a grim understanding. The two of them knew the truth better than the others. They were infected. all of them. It was only a matter of time before the alien presence took full control. We need to move south,

Stryker said, breaking the uneasy silence. There's a research facility not far from here. You might find something useful, medical supplies, communications equipment, anything.

And then what? Peter's asked, his voice cracking. We get there, what? We're not going home. You know that as well as I do. Striker hesitated for a moment, his jaw clenching.

One step at a time. First, we get to the facility. The silence that followed was filled with the low hum of the generator sputtering in the background, the only sound in the otherwise deathly quiet room. But beneath that hum, there was something else, something far more unsettling. The whispers. Faint at first but growing louder,

weaving through the edges of their minds like dark threads pulling tighter and tighter. Each of them could feel it, though no one dared to speak it openly. They were already too far gone. Peter suddenly stood up, knocking over his chair. His face was pale, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead despite the freezing cold. I can't, he stammered, gripping his head with trembling hands. I can't hear myself think. They're into my head.

Strike a step forward. Peter's sit down. No, you don't understand. Peter's backed away, his voice rising to a frantic pitch. They're telling me things, horrible things. I can see them in the walls, in the shadows. His eyes darted wildly around the room as if expecting something to leap out at him. His hand hovered over his sidearm, fingers twitching nervously.

I can't, I can't make them stop. Stryker exchanged a quick glance with Halverson, who slowly rose from her seat, trying to approach Peters without alarming him further. But before either of them could act, Peters let out a strangle scream and drew his gun, pointing it wildly at the group. Stay away from me, all of you.

Peters, listen to me. Stryker said in a calm, authoritative voice, It's not real. You're still in control. You can fight this. But Peter's eyes were wide, his face twisted in terror. I can't, I can't fight it anymore. In one swift, violent motion, Peters turned the gun on Andrews and fired.

The crack of the gunshot echoed through the outpost, and Andrews fell backward, blood-staining the snow-covered floor. Chaos erupted as the other scrambled for cover. Halverson lunged at Peters, tackling him to the ground, but it was too late. The damage was done. Peters thrashed beneath Halverson's grip, his eyes rolling back into his head, his body convulsing. It was as if something had taken over completely, something not human. With a final inhuman shriek, Peter's body went limp.

Halverson stood up, breathing heavily, her eyes locked on Stryker, who knelt next to her. to Andrews' body. It was over in seconds, but the implications were devastating. He's gone, Halvison muttered, still catching her breath. Andrews is dead. Stryker stood, wiping the blood from his hands, his expression grim. And Peters. Alveson shook her head.

It's worse than we thought. The alien is not just whispering anymore. He's taking control. The room was deathly still as the remaining survivors gathered around, staring down at Peter's lifeless form. The alien presence, previously in an abstract distant threat, was now a horrifying reality. Right, this confirms it, Stryker said quietly,

but his voice carried a weight that hung in the air like a Latin cloud. It's inside us and is growing stronger. Peter's sudden outburst wasn't just a symptom, of fear or stress, it was proof. The alien consciousness wasn't just whispering in their minds anymore. It was taking over one piece at a time, manipulating their thoughts and twisting their actions. They could no longer trust themselves or each other. There's no way out, is there? One of the remaining soldiers, Mallory whispered. She'd been quiet for most of the conversation, but now her voice trembled with the same fear that gripped them all. Even if we get to the southern

facility. What then? We can't... We can't go back. We'll just be bringing this thing with us, and we'll spread it. Striker's jaw clenched once more. She was right. Even if they somehow found a way to survive, found help, it wouldn't matter. They were infected. And if they returned to civilization, they would be bringing the alien presence with them, like a plague ready to consume everything it touched. The hope of quarantine, of being saved, was nothing but a fantasy. The cold-heart truth was that they couldn't go back. The alien presence was already too powerful, too deeply embedded within them. It wasn't just a matter of survival anymore.

It was a matter of containment. We can't let this thing spread, Halverson said, a voice low but resolute. We owe it to the rest of the world to make sure it ends here. Stryker's eyes darkened as he stared out of the desolate landscape beyond the outpost's windows. The nuclear blasts had destroyed the facility, but the real threat had survived. It was inside them now, festering, growing stronger with every passing minute. No matter what they did, they were running out of time. Part two.

Searching. The outpost was silent, save for the howling wind that battered its walls. Stryker Halverson and the few remaining soldiers had taken refuge in one of the lower chambers of the facility, far from the surface. They hulled around a flickering lantern, their breaths visible in the freezing air. Despite the cold, beads of sweat formed on Stryker's brow. The alien whispers had intensified, clawing at his thoughts, twisting his perception of reality. But there was no time to dwell on it. They needed a solution and fast.

"'There's got to be something here,' "'Striker said, breaking in the silence. "'He scanned the shadowy room, "'his eyes landing on a stack of old research logs, "'maps and documents strewn across the floor. "'The facility had been abandoned for decades, "'but the scientists who once worked here "'had known more about the alien presence than anyone.

"'Somewhere in these remains lay a clue, "'something that could help them stop the spread "'of the alien consciousness. "'We'll have to split up,' Halverson suggested. Her voice tired but firm. She knew, like the rest of them, that their time was running out. "'We need to cover more ground. They might be other labs deeper in the facility.

They were experimenting on this thing. They must have left records or something. Or they didn't survive long enough to leave anything useful,' Mallory muttered, rubbing her temples as though trying to ease the incessant drumming in her head. Maybe we should face facts. There's no escaping this. We've lost. Stryker glared at her. We haven't lost yet, but we will if we sit here waiting to die. Mallory fell silent then, retreating into our own thoughts. The whispers, the hallucinations every second the alien's influence was growing stronger. Even now, Stryker could feel it, lurking at the

edge of his mind. He pushed it down. down, bearing it deep beneath the weight of his training and his discipline. There had to be some way to fight this. As it began their search, the group fanned out through the lower levels of the facility. It wasn't long before Stryker and Halvison stumbled upon one of the old labs. The cavernous room filled with shattered equipment, half-melted computer consoles, and the skeletal remains of the scientists who once lived here. The stench of decay was faint but present, a reminder of the lives of the lives of.

had been lost here. Halverson approached the control panel, wiping the frost from the cracked screen. "'It is something here,' she said. Her fingers traced the faded but all too familiar symbols and strange language etched into the walls, alien writing, interspersed with human notations. The deeper they searched, the more disturbing the discoveries became. This isn't just an infection. Stryker muttered, flipping through an old research log.

Well, the notes were erratic, scribbled in frantic handwriting. The consciousness, it's a hive mind. The core we destroyed was just one part of it. There's more out there, maybe everywhere. Well, the implications hit them like a sledgehammer. Destroying the core hadn't ended the threat. The alien consciousness wasn't isolated to the facility, or even the frozen glacier. It extended beyond, much further than the most.

they'd realized. The scientists were trying to study it. They were trying to communicate, Halverson said. Her voice low as she skimmed through one of the final entries in the log. But they underestimated it. It was already inside their heads. They thought they could control it. They were wrong.

Just then a loud crash echoed from down the hallway, followed by a strangled scream. Stryker and Halverson rushed out of the lab. weapons drawn and found Mallory standing over one of the other soldiers, Rodriguez, who lay sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath him. He tried to attack me, Mallory stammered, her hand shaking. I didn't mean to, but he wasn't himself. The whispers, they were telling him to, oh, he was going to kill me. Striker's eyes darkened as he crouched beside Rodriguez's body. The alien presence had claimed him. just as it had Peters before him. But this time the infection had progressed faster.

Rodriguez's face was contorted in a twisted, unnatural expression, his eyes wide and unblinking. Whatever part of him had been human was long gone. We can't keep doing this, Mallory sobbed, sinking to her knees. It's only a matter of time before it's one of us. What if, God, what if we can't fight it? Maybe we should stop resisting. Maybe there's a way to coexist with it, like the others were saying.

That's not an option, Halverson said coldly. You saw what it did to Rodriguez, to Peters. Coexistence means surrender. It means losing everything that makes us human. Stryker remains silent in all this, but his mind continued to race. The alien force wasn't just infecting their bodies, it was turning them against each other. Fear and paranoia were spreading faster than the infection. itself, breaking down the bonds of trust that held the team together.

We have to keep moving, Stryker said, standing up. If we stop, we die. If we let this thing win, the rest of the world dies with us. But his words rang hollow, even to his own ears. The truth was they were running out of time and options. Rodriguez's death had shattered what little morale they had left. The whispers were growing louder, more insistent. and the alien presence was learning, adapting.

Soon it wouldn't just be whispers. Soon it would take full control. As the group pressed deeper into the heart of the facility, tensions continued to rise. The survivors were fracturing. Some, like Mallory, were already halfway to surrender, believing that they could somehow coexist with the alien force. Others clung to the hope of stopping it,

but even they were losing fate. It was Stryker who held them together, though barely. He and Halverson exchanged wary glances, knowing that the group's unity was fragile at best. If they were to survive, they had to stay focused, stay strong. But that strength was slowly slipping away, eroded by the alien presence gnawing at the edges of their minds. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.

Stryker whipped round, his weapon raised, just in time to see another soldier, Reese. collapsing to the ground. Mallory stood over him, her eyes wide and unblinking. The smoking gun still clutched in her hands. Had to! She whispered, her voice hollow. I had to stop him before he...

Before he... But Striker knew the truth. Reese had never been a threat. Mallory was the one who'd snapped. Her mind pushed to the breaking point by the alien presence. With a heavy heart, striker raised his weapon and took aim i'm sorry mallory her expression softened for a moment she looked almost peaceful then striker pulled the trigger as her body fell to the ground the group stood in stunned silence the alien consciousness had claimed another one of them this time without even lifting a finger they were fighting a losing battle and now their numbers were dwindling Striker lowered his weapon, his hands trembling.

The survivors were falling apart one by one. If they didn't find a solution soon, there'd been no one left to save. Stryker and Halverson, along with the remaining survivors, had been holed up in the depths of the Arctic outpost for days. The ice-crusted walls now felt as though they were closing in on them, and the unrelenting wind outside howled like a predator circling its prey. For days they'd endured the man. strain of the alien consciousness, the constant whispers and the distorted memories that played over

and over in their minds like a broken record. As it continued their desperate search through the remains of the facility, Stryker and Halverson began to experience an overwhelming surge of alien visions. They were no longer just brief flashes of confusion, but fully formed scenes from a life not their own. Alien landscapes, vast structures buried under ice, twisted forms moving silently through ancient halls. First they struggled to comprehend what they were seeing, and then the horrifying truth settled in. Through the manipulation of the alien consciousness within them, the two realized that these weren't just memories. They were glimpses of the future. The alien presence was waking up, and it was preparing to send a signal, a call to its dormant

kin still buried beneath the Arctic. Striker's blood ran cold as he pieced together the fragments of information. If the signal was sent, every alien entity buried in the ice would awaken. It would be the beginning of an invasion. The infection they now carried would spread far beyond this outpost, far beyond the Arctic. It would consume the world. Worse still, the connection to the alien hive mind was growing stronger. Halverson, more susceptible to the influence than the others now, could feel the alien

presence tightening its grip on her thoughts, pushing her towards madness. It wasn't just a takeover. It was an expansion. The alien force wanted to become one with all living things on earth. Part 3. A plan of desperation. For the aftermath of this revelation, the survivors were left reeling. Anick began to bubble under the surface as they realized the full scope of the alien agenda. They gathered in the makeshift command room, the globe. The globe. of a single dim lamp casting shadows on their faces. Striker, trying to keep his own crumbling sanity in check, outlined their only course of action.

We have one shot at stopping this, Stryker said. His voice low but commanding. You need to destroy the remaining alien technology, whatever is facilitating the signal. But I'm not going to lie. Doing this will mean there's no coming back. The room fell into a thick silence as the weight of his word settled over the group.

They all knew what he meant. The Arctic was now a true wasteland. The nuclear blasts had rendered the surrounding environment inhospitable, cutting them off from any potential rescue. Destroying the alien technology meant severing the alien's ability to communicate, but it also meant sealing their own fate. Halverson was the first to speak up. We can't let it spread.

if it means dying here to stop it, that's what we have to do. A fear of the others hesitated, fear etched on their faces, but no one disagreed. Deep down they knew they could not return to civilization, not like this. They had become infected, tainted, their minds no longer entirely their own. To walk among others was to risk spreading the alien's influence. There was no safe haven for them anymore. Harveston continued. The only good thing to come from having the aliens inside my head is that I know more than they should have given away.

If I am interpreting this correctly, the central core of their network is here in this very facility. Find it, and we can end them right here. Striker mapped out their plan. They split into groups, want to locate the central alien core where the signal was being prepared, and the other to plant explosives at strategic points throughout the facility, ensuring the complete destruction of the alien technology. It was a suicide mission, but they had no choice. Every moment wasted brought them closer to the alien's endgame.

As they moved out, the survivors felt the cold grip of inevitability tighten around them. The alien presence was stronger than ever now, and it knew what they were planning. Strange sounds echoed through the halls, disembodied voids. voices calling their names, mocking them, daring them to try to stop the unstoppable. The clock was ticking. Either they destroyed the alien threat now, or the world as they knew it would be lost. Stryker and Halverson led what was left of their fractured team through the frozen labyrinth of the alien facility. Their breath crystallized in the freezing air, the walls now shifting with eerie light as they neared the central core.

It is buried deep beneath the Arctic ice, from the outside world for millennia, waiting for its moment to strike. The facility was a tomb, cold, silent, and full of the lingering presence of the alien intelligence. The closer they got to the core, the more their minds were bombarded with visions, distorted memories, and maddening voices. Each step felt like a fight against gravity, their bodies slowing as the alien force tightened his grip on their minds. In the distance, the central core pulsed faintly. It was not some monstrous structure, but a sleek, unassuming sphere of alien technology, dormant but alive. Around it wires and conduits stretched out like veins, connecting it to the facility systems

and to the infected survivors themselves. Strike a look to Halverson. Her eyes, once sharp and determined, flickered now with uncertainty. the alien presence gnawing at the edges of her mind. They had precious little time. He nodded, and she set to work planting the explosives. But the alien force wasn't going to let them go quietly. One of the team members, Matthews, once a quiet but reliable soldier,

turned on them without warning. His eyes were glazed over, fully under the alien's control at this point. He lunged at Halverson, his hands outstretched, fingers clawing for her throat. Striker reacted instinctively, firing a single shot. Matthews clasped to the floor, a strange inhuman cry echoing from his lips as he died. More of the infected soldiers followed,

their bodies moving with unnatural speed and strength, no longer their own. Stryker and Halvison fought back with everything they had, gunfire ringing through the cold hauls as they desperately tried to finish planting the charges. Well, every death weighed on Stryker, but there was no time to grieve. You could feel the alien presence pulling at his thoughts, tugging at the corners of his sanity, whispering promises of survival if you would just stop fighting. Then, without warning, it hit them both, like a tidal wave crashing through their minds.

The alien consciousness surged forward, overwhelming Stryker and Halverson with a sudden brutal force. Their vision blurred, the icy facility warped. into a nightmarish landscape of flickering lights and shadowy forms. The voices in their heads grew louder, no longer whispers but a deafening chorus of commands. Submit! The alien voice boomed in Stryker's mind. And you will live, you will thrive. Striker dropped to his knees, gripping his head, trying to drown out the relentless assault on his thoughts.

Oh, it showed him a future, one where he wasn't. a doomed man in a frozen wasteland, but a ruler in a world reshaped by the alien presence. He showed in peace, order. Power. Calveson screamed as the visions flooded her mind too. Her hands shook as she struggled to plant the last explosive, the alien consciousness offering her the same promises of survival. But beneath the lies, she could feel the truth, an all-consuming force that would not stop until it had taken everything. strike a fought back forcing himself to his feet his mind straining to hold onto reality he stumbled toward halverson grabbing her arm pulling her from the brink of submission don't listen he shouted his voice barely cutting through the chaos in their minds this is what it wants fight it together they clung on to what little remained of their sanity pushing through the alien's mental barrage refusing to yield. But time was running out. The alien presence wasn't giving up. It was growing more desperate,

more dangerous. They'd almost finished planting the charges, but there was one left, one final one, that would destroy the core. As they prepared to set it, Harvison stopped. The face was pale, her body shaking. "'I can't do it,' she whispered. The alien force bearing down on her. it's just too strong. Stryker, seeing the pain in her eyes, knew what had to be done. He couldn't plant the final charge and hold off the alien-controlled soldiers at the same time. And Halverson, she wouldn't make it. You go, Stryker said, his voice breaking, I'll cover you.

Halvison shook her head. No, we do this together. But Stryker had already made up his mind. He stepped toward the soldiers, his weapon raised. Get the final charge in place, Halverson. This is the only way. Tears filled her eyes as she nodded, understanding the weight of his sacrifice.

With a final glance, strike a charge at the oncoming soldiers, firing relentlessly, buying Halverson the time she needed. He fought like a man possessed, a battle cry echoing through the facility as he threw himself into the fray. Halverson sprinted to the core, setting the final charge.

She could hear striker screams, his last stand against the alien forces, as she pressed the detonator. The explosion rocked the entire facility, fire and ice mingled in a blinding, deafening eruption. Halverson hit the ground hard, a body thrown by the blast. The alien core, the facility, everything was consumed in the fireball. And with it, the alien consciousness. The voices in her head went silent. But, Stryker was gone. In the aftermath, Halverson lay there,

staring up at the ice-covered ceiling, tears freezing on her face. She was alone now, but the mission was complete. The alien threat was extinguished. The price had been high, but they'd saved the world from an unimaginable, fates. In the distance, the whirring blades of a military helicopter were moving in. The threat had been extinguished just in time, and Halverson might yet live to tell the tale. And so once again,

we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. wherever you get your podcast wrong, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place,

and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.