Horror Story 2955 – The Shadows Beneath Pyro IV

Horror Story 2955 – The Shadows Beneath Pyro IV

We thought the caves of Pyro IV were empty.

The scanners said no heat signatures, no movement, just iron, sulfur, and silence.

I was part of a six-person survey team, sent to map the crystal veins beneath the northern ridge. The air outside was toxic, so we set camp deep inside a volcanic tunnel, walls glowing faintly red from residual heat. It felt safe. It wasn’t.

Torres was the first to hear it: a clicking, like pebbles snapping in sequence. We joked about tectonic shifts, until he stopped replying. His suit beacon flickered out thirty meters ahead, right where the tunnel split.

When we found his helmet, the glass wasn’t broken, it was melted.

We retreated toward the surface, but the cave had changed. Passages we’d mapped were gone, sealed by walls that hadn’t been there minutes before. Something was moving inside the rock, shaping it. The clicks grew louder, now joined by wet, scraping sounds.

Holt’s shoulder cam caught the first clear image: a shape like an insect, but wrong, translucent skin stretched over shifting bones, too many legs, too many eyes. It shimmered like liquid glass, blending with the cavern.

We opened fire. The flashes lit up dozens of them. They didn’t scream. They sang, a chorus of echoing chittering that shook the stone around us.

By the time I reached the surface, I was alone. The ridge had collapsed, sealing the tunnel. I thought I was safe, until I saw movement under the sand. Small, rhythmic clicks, circling my boots.

I looked up at the horizon. Pyro’s dying sun burned crimson through the dust, and I realized the truth:

The creatures weren’t defending the cave. They were spreading.

If this log reaches Stanton, burn Pyro IV. Don’t send anyone else.

Lt. Keira Valen Survey Division, UEE Vara Science Corps