Kit Bodega: “WAIT! PLEASE! WE COULD DISCUS-“

Context:

The world had no name on any surviving map.

Whatever it used to be called had long since been erased from Farcade records after the collapse began. Now the crews simply referred to it as Site-0.

The dead world.

The place where signals stopped returning.

The place where the infection came from.

The remains of the Syntax ship were still burning across the horizon when Kit climbed out of the wreckage. Pieces of blackened metal rained from the sky like ash, embedding themselves into the frozen ground around her. Far behind the crash site, the remains of the Farcade carrier had already gone dark.

No lights.

No movement.

No survivors responding on comms.

Only static.

The thing that destroyed the ships had vanished immediately afterward.

Nobody got a clear look at it.

Only fragments.

Something massive moving beneath the storm clouds above the atmosphere. A shape so large it blocked out stars while passing overhead. Crew members described seeing enormous limbs dragging themselves across the hull before the power failed.

Others claimed they heard breathing inside the ventilation systems moments before impact.

Most of the witnesses were dead now.

Or infected.

The surviving Farcade and Syntax teams regrouped inside the wreckage of an abandoned research facility buried beneath the snowfields. Half the structure was collapsed inward, forcing everyone into the lower containment sectors where the lights barely functioned.

Nobody trusted the silence.

Not anymore.

The infection had changed since reaching Site-0.

Back on the outer systems, infected victims behaved violently but unpredictably. Here, they moved with purpose. Entire groups stalked the frozen wastelands surrounding the facility at night without making a sound. Sometimes they simply stood outside the floodlights watching the building for hours.

Waiting.

The survivors started calling them “Stillborns.”

Because they barely moved until they attacked.

And when they did move—

they moved wrong.

Limbs bent too far. Heads snapped sideways in sharp unnatural jerks. Some sprinted on all fours despite their spines visibly breaking during movement. Others dragged themselves across the snow with missing legs while whispering through shattered teeth.

The worst part was the voices.

The infected still remembered people.

Still remembered names.

Every night the survivors heard familiar voices calling from outside the facility walls.

Friends.

Crewmates.

People confirmed dead after the crash.

The voices always sounded injured.

Cold.

Afraid.

“Please open the door.”

“They left me outside.”

“Kit... please...”

The first team that responded to the voices never came back.

The security cameras later recovered footage of them standing beyond the outer gate completely motionless while dozens of infected slowly emerged from the snow behind them.

Nobody screamed in the footage.

Nobody fought back.

They simply stood there as the infected surrounded them in silence.

Then the cameras died.

Now all exterior doors remained welded shut after nightfall.

Nobody was allowed outside alone anymore.

Especially after the disappearances started.

People vanished constantly inside the facility.

One moment they would be standing beside the group.

The next—

gone.

No sounds.

No struggle.

Just empty hallways and blood trails disappearing into darkness.

Kit barely slept anymore.

None of them did.

The lower sectors of the facility produced noises constantly after midnight:

• heavy footsteps in sealed hallways,

• metal scraping deep inside ventilation shafts,

• distant knocking from abandoned containment rooms,

• and something enormous moving far below the foundations.

Something alive.

Every few nights the entire facility trembled violently as if massive weight shifted underneath the ice beneath them.

That was usually followed by the screams.

The infected became more aggressive during those tremors.

Like they knew it was awake.

One of the surviving Syntax Floaties claimed he saw the creature during an expedition beyond the western ruins.

He returned alone.

blood covered most of his body. His robotic body was sparking. He refused medical treatment and locked himself inside an equipment room for nearly six hours before finally speaking.

According to him, the infected were not acting independently.

They were following something.

Something buried beneath Site-0.

He described seeing shapes moving underneath the snow larger than entire carriers. Not walking.

Crawling.

He kept repeating the same sentence over and over during debriefing:

“The infected aren’t spreading it... they’re feeding it.”

Three hours later he disappeared from the medical wing.

Only wires were found.

And footprints leading into an area already sealed off by containment teams.

Nobody volunteered to search for him.

Not after the scratching started.

Every night now, something scratches against the walls beneath the facility.

Slow.

Patient.

Like fingernails dragging across metal.

The sounds always stop outside the sleeping quarters.

And sometimes—

very late at night—

the survivors hear breathing directly outside the doors.

Not infected breathing.

Something deeper.

Heavier.

Like whatever destroyed the ships finally found them again.

Once they did...It was too late.

Infecteds (the darker the color is, the more dangerous they are. White means....They are completely dangerous...If you see a entity classified as a, “sdt” either..You don’t come out alive..Or by a miracle..You survive.

(example):

STAGE 1 — “THE HOLLOWED”
The first stage barely looks infected.

That is what makes it terrifying.

The Hollowed still speak normally. Still laugh. Still walk beside the others like nothing is wrong. But small things begin to feel deeply unnatural.

They stop blinking as often.

Their smiles linger too long after conversations end.

Sometimes they quietly stare at people while believing nobody notices.

Most infected in this stage complain about hearing movement at night inside walls or ceilings. They often wake up standing beside their beds without remembering getting there.

People assigned to sleep near Hollowed subjects report the same thing repeatedly:

They wake up during the night and find the infected standing over them in complete darkness.

Just watching.

Not moving.

Not speaking.

By morning, the infected claims they never left their bed.

STAGE 2 — “THE CROOKED”
The body begins changing.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

The spine bends incorrectly during movement. Limbs twitch sharply between motions. Fingers curl backward farther than joints should allow. Necks tilt at impossible angles while the infected continues speaking normally.

Crooked infected move strangely fast when unobserved.

Security footage repeatedly shows them appearing in places impossible to reach within the recorded timeframe.

Sometimes cameras lose several frames when they move.

Sometimes entire minutes vanish.

Their voices also begin changing.

You still recognize the person underneath.

But something else speaks with them.

Like two mouths are trying to use the same throat.

At night, Crooked infected often stand facing walls for hours without moving.

If approached from behind—

they already know you’re there.

STAGE 3 — “THE SMILING”
This is usually where mass killings begin.

The Smiling infected experience complete emotional collapse. Fear disappears entirely. Pain barely affects them anymore.

But the smile remains.

Always.

Their facial muscles lock into distorted grins so wide the skin sometimes tears near the cheeks. Teeth remain visible even while speaking. Some victims break their own jaws trying to force their mouths closed.

They attack silently.

No screaming.

No growling.

Just smiling while sprinting directly at people with limbs jerking violently out of sync.

The worst part is their eye contact.

Smiling infected never look away.

Ever.

Survivors of attacks often describe the infected continuing to smile even while being dismembered or burned alive.

One containment officer emptied an entire magazine into a Smiling infected at point-blank range.

It collapsed.

Then started laughing while choking on blood.

STAGE 4 — “THE MIMICS”
This stage no longer hunts physically first.

It hunts psychologically.

Mimics remember voices perfectly.

They hide in dark areas and imitate people the survivors trust:

• friends,

• siblings,

• teammates,

• dead crew members,

• even children.

Sometimes perfectly.

Other times almost perfectly.

That tiny mistake is what terrifies people most.

The wrong tone.

The delayed breathing.

The way they say your name slightly too slowly.

Mimics rarely attack immediately.

Instead they lure victims away from groups by pretending to be injured or trapped somewhere nearby.

Containment footage recovered from one facility showed a Mimic spending nearly eight hours outside a barricaded room speaking in the voice of a survivor’s missing brother.

The victim eventually opened the door crying.

The footage cuts out after the Mimic smiles.

STAGE 5 — “THE CRAWLERS”
The body begins failing completely.

Bones snap constantly under their own weight. Limbs twist in directions impossible for normal anatomy. Most Crawlers can no longer walk upright.

So they drag themselves instead.

Fast.

Far too fast.

Their bodies leave trails of blood, skin, and black fluid behind them as they move through vents, ceilings, and narrow spaces humans cannot fit through.

You never hear them approaching normally.

Only scratching.

Slow scratching nearby.

Then suddenly—

they are already beside you.

Crawlers prefer dark spaces and attack sleeping victims first. Survivors report hearing wet breathing directly underneath beds moments before attacks.

Many victims are found missing their faces.

Some are found still alive afterward.

STAGE 6 — “THE STILLBORN”
This stage barely moves at all.

Stillborn infected stand motionless for days at a time in abandoned rooms, hallways, or outside buildings.

They do not react to sound.

They do not react to pain.

They simply stand there staring.

Most people believe they are dead at first.

Until they blink.

Stillborns only attack when eye contact is maintained too long.

Nobody understands why.

Security recordings show victims freezing in place shortly before attacks, unable to look away from the infected even while visibly panicking.

Then the footage distorts.

When visual clarity returns—

the victim is gone.

And the Stillborn has moved closer.

Stage 7 — SDT. “THE WATCHERS”

Nobody knows what the Watchers truly are.

Some Farcade teams believe they were once infected humans. Others think they are something created after the infection completely hollows a person out.

Whatever they are—

they should not exist.

Watchers remain completely motionless whenever directly observed.

No breathing.
No blinking.
No movement at all.

Like statues left standing in impossible places.

Most sightings begin the same way:

• a figure standing at the end of a hallway,

• something motionless outside a window during snowfall,

• or a silhouette appearing where nobody was moments earlier.

The instant eye contact breaks—

they move.

Not by running.

Not by walking.

They simply appear closer.

One blink can move them several meters.

A flickering light can bring them directly behind someone.

Security footage never captures the movement itself. Reviewers only see the Watchers changing position between frames while remaining perfectly still in every image.

And the closer they get—

the more distorted reality becomes around them.

Lights dim.

Audio cuts out.

People forget what they were saying mid-sentence.

Some survivors describe hearing their own heartbeat echoing through nearby rooms moments before an attack.

The Watchers do not chase loudly.

They do not scream.

They wait patiently for human error.

A blink.

A glance away.

A moment of panic.

That is all they need.

Because when a Watcher reaches someone—

it touches them.

Just once.

No wounds appear immediately.

Victims usually freeze in place for several seconds afterward, unable to speak or move. Witnesses report hearing a loud cracking sound from inside the body, “like ice splitting beneath heavy weight.”

Then the body separates.

Not cut.

Separated.

From the center downward.

The torso slowly splits apart vertically while the victim remains alive for several seconds, organs and bone pulling apart in unnatural silence. The two halves collapse outward onto the floor while blood spreads beneath them in impossible amounts.

Most horrifying of all—

the faces remain conscious briefly after separation.

Some continue blinking.

Some try to scream despite missing lungs.

Containment teams exposed to these deaths frequently suffer immediate psychological collapse.

One officer clawed his own eyes out afterward while screaming:

“IT OPENED HIM LIKE A DOOR.”

Recovered footage from Sector-19 captured a Watcher attack during a corridor blackout.

The recording shows four personnel maintaining visual contact with a Watcher standing approximately thirty meters away.

At 01:43 AM, the lights flicker once.

The Watcher appears closer.

At 01:43:07, one team member begins crying uncontrollably.

At 01:43:09, another briefly turns toward him.

The Watcher disappears from the far end of the corridor.

Three seconds later, the camera captures blood spraying across the wall.

One of the personnel collapses in two separate halves.

The Watcher is visible standing behind the remains completely motionless.

Still staring at the others.

The remaining team attempted to maintain eye contact while retreating.

Only one survivor made it back.

When questioned afterward, he could not stop blinking.

Medical staff later reviewed the bodycam footage frame by frame.

In one frame—

less than a second before the attack—

the Watcher appears to be all black with one, big eye in the middle of his chest, and face. It has no smile, only an eye in the middle, it shows no emotion.

STAGE 8 AND IT’S VARIATION:

Stage 8 is known as the Cocooning Phase — the final stage before replacement.
By this point, the infected no longer behaves like a person in decline. It behaves with purpose.

The host isolates itself in dark, enclosed spaces for several days while its body undergoes a complete metamorphosis inside a hardened organic cocoon. During this process, muscle density increases, damaged tissue is rebuilt, and the parasite reconstructs the host down to the smallest neurological detail.

When the transformation is complete, the cocoon splits open.

What emerges leaves behind a brittle black husk — a scalelike layer of discarded flesh resembling the shed skin of a reptile. The smell is chemical and rotten, and the inside of the cocoon is always unnaturally warm.

The creature that emerges is called an IDEAL.

An IDEAL is not merely an imitation. It is a perfected continuation of the original host.

Every memory remains intact. Every habit. Every speech pattern, insecurity, joke, preference, and mannerism survives the process flawlessly. Friends, spouses, even family members often cannot distinguish an IDEAL from the person they replaced. Psychological scans show no obvious abnormalities. Some IDEALS genuinely appear to believe they are the original person.

At first, they are not openly violent.

That is what makes them dangerous.

IDEALS infiltrate survivor shelters and communities by pretending to be rescued survivors. They eat, sleep, converse, laugh, and mourn alongside everyone else. They build trust. Some live among humans for weeks before acting.

Then people begin disappearing.

Usually at night.

The missing are taken alive and restrained inside newly formed cocoons hidden in basements, ventilation systems, tunnels, or abandoned rooms. The transformation can take days. During that time, victims are often still conscious.

When they emerge, another IDEAL joins the shelter unnoticed.

Unlike earlier infected, IDEALS possess enhanced physical capabilities. Their bodies are refined versions of the original host — stronger musculature, faster reflexes, heightened endurance, and an almost unnatural resistance to pain. Even damaged IDEALS continue functioning long after a normal human would collapse.

But their greatest weapon is not strength.

It is familiarity.

Because the person you trust most may already be gone — replaced by something that remembers exactly how to pretend.

Stage 8 Variant — “MIRAGE”

A..Transformation that had failed...

Unlike other infected, a MIRAGE does not hunt.

It waits.

The transformation begins similarly to cocooning, but something goes wrong during the final metamorphosis. Instead of producing a mobile organism, the infected becomes permanently rooted where it stands — frozen in the final moments of overwhelming emotional need.

Most are found posed as if reaching for someone.
Arms open.
Head tilted slightly forward.
Waiting for an embrace.

Over several hours, the body calcifies into a darkened, leathery mass. The skin tightens and cracks into charcoal-colored folds, preserving only a distorted silhouette of the original person beneath. The face eventually smooths into a featureless shape, though witnesses often insist they can still recognize expressions on it.

A MIRAGE no longer needs to move.

It spreads through spores.

The surrounding air becomes contaminated first, followed by nearby water, soil, fabrics, and enclosed ventilation systems. The spores are microscopic and nearly impossible to detect before symptoms begin.

Those exposed experience mild euphoria, emotional numbness, and eventually vivid perceptual distortion.

They do not see the MIRAGE as it truly is.

Instead, the brain interprets it as someone safe.

A friend.
A spouse.
A missing child.
Sometimes a dead loved one.

The MIRAGE appears untouched by infection — calm, smiling, relieved to see them. Victims report hearing familiar voices inviting them closer, even though MIRAGES possess no vocal cords and produce no measurable sound.

The hallucination is tailored to the victim’s subconscious desires. The lonelier the person, the stronger the effect.

As exposure worsens, victims develop an overwhelming compulsion to approach and embrace the MIRAGE. Resistance causes panic attacks, trembling, and extreme emotional distress, often described as “abandoning someone who needs help.”

The moment physical contact is made, survival becomes almost impossible.

The MIRAGE’s outer flesh secretes an adhesive biological resin stronger than industrial bonding agents. Skin adheres instantly. Struggling only worsens the attachment as strands of connective tissue pierce clothing and flesh alike.

Then assimilation begins.

The victim remains alive for much of the process.

The MIRAGE slowly absorbs organic material through invasive fungal filaments and parasitic tissue growths that spread beneath the skin, through the lungs, and around the skeleton. Muscles soften. Internal organs are consumed and repurposed. The body hollows from the inside until little remains except a porous, sponge-like carapace capable of producing additional spores.

Eventually, individuality disappears completely.

From a distance, older MIRAGES resemble masses of intertwined human figures locked in desperate embraces — dozens of bodies fused together into towering growths of blackened flesh and hardened resin. Limbs protrude at impossible angles. Faces are half-formed and partially submerged in the structure, many frozen with expressions of relief rather than pain.

The largest colonies continue expanding long after all original biomass should have died.

Some researchers believe MIRAGES are not consuming people.

They are preserving them in the only way the infection understands:

By ensuring nobody is ever alone again.

STAGE 8 RECOMMENDATIONS?