Fiction
Red Silence
Then, the emergency shutters slammed shut. The sound returned in a violent, concussive boom that rattled his teeth. A secondary seal—designed for exactly this kind of catastrophic failure—had triggered, cutting off the breach and trapping Max in a pocket of dead, freezing silence. The sudden return of pressure was like being hit by a tidal wave; his ears popped painfully, and he collapsed onto the grating, gasping for a breath that wasn't there. He fumbled for the oxygen canister at his hip, jamming the mask onto his face just as his vision began to fray into grey static.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
With a guttural roar, Max planted his boot on the creature’s thorax and heaved, ripping the blade outward. A viscous, silver fluid sprayed across the floor, sizzling against the metal grating. The creature collapsed into a heap of twitching geometry, its movements slowing as the silver ichor pooled around it. Max didn't celebrate; he immediately turned back to the relay. The sparking pillar was now humming a dangerous, low-frequency tone that signaled an imminent blowout.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
"Go," Max commanded. "Now. I can't fix the relay if I'm worried about you getting snatched by a ventilation shaft." Ralph hesitated for a heartbeat, his eyes darting from the tablet to the yawning blackness of the sub-level hatch. He nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, and retreated toward the residential wing without another word. The silence that followed his departure was heavy, broken only by the distant, rhythmic thrum of the colony’s failing heart.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
Max’s gaze flickered from the progress bar to the ceiling. The violet light pulsing through the frost wasn't just ambient anymore; it was synchronizing with the throb of the relay. He realized then that the "data cache" wasn't just a record of the breach—it was a beacon. The relay hadn't just been failing; it had been hijacked, turning the colony’s power grid into a dinner bell for whatever lived in the Martian crust.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
"You're still in one piece," Ralph breathed, his eyes darting to the blood-soaked fabric of Max's sleeve. He didn't ask how he’d survived; he simply reached out and gripped Max’s shoulder, a grounding gesture that felt fragile against the super soldier's bulk.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
"Thirty seconds, Max! The bypass is almost locked!" Bell’s voice was a frantic blur of static. Max didn't answer. He didn't have a breath. He lunged forward, not to flee, but to drive his weight into the remaining fiber-optic coupling. As he reached for the final switch, a creature launched itself from the floor, its obsidian body unfurling in mid-air. Max caught it with his forearm—the tactical plating on his sleeve shrieking as the creature's needles scraped across the surface—and used the momentum to pivot, slamming the entity head-first into the humming pillar. There was a loud, electric crack, and the creature convulsed, its iridescent shell fracturing under a surge of redirected current.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
He didn't hesitate. Max lunged toward the emergency manual override—a heavy iron wheel designed specifically for the failure of electronic systems. He lumbered across the debris-strewn floor, his muscles straining against the sudden drop in pressure that threatened to pull the oxygen right out of his lungs. He reached the wheel and heaved, his entire body shaking with the effort of forcing the massive steel shutter to slide shut across the breach. For a moment, the mechanism jammed, a grinding sound echoing through the hall, before it finally gave way with a bone-jarring thud that sealed the void.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
Red Silence
"Pass me that wrench, the one with the chipped handle," Ralph said, his voice muffled by the thick fabric of his helmet. They were currently obsessed with a 1974 vintage espresso machine that had somehow survived the trip across the void. It was a temperamental piece of Italian engineering, out of place among the sleek, white-plastic surfaces of the habitat, and it leaked steam whenever the pressure spiked. For the crew, the machine was less about the caffeine and more about the ritual; the rhythmic clinking of the metal portafilter and the smell of roasting beans were the only things that felt like home.
By Forest Greenabout a month ago in Chapters
❤️ Love 🌕 Moon music 🎵 A novel by Rikki La Rouge
After the collapse of her metal career, Tionne experienced a crisis in her professional and personal life. She began abusing drugs and alcohol. But nothing could stop the crisis. It only made things worse.
By Revista Miko:XCI about a month ago in Chapters
