"The sky is eating the metal, Ethan!"Ethan stepped off the freight elevator into the upper observation deck, his ears ringing as the frantic yell of the automated system echoed down the stairwell. He gripped the iron railing, his chest heaving, his dark veins throbbing violently against his jawline."Report!" Ethan shouted into the empty control room, his single eye locking onto the flickering red warning lights above the primary surface airlock."Structural integrity of Outer Gate Alpha down to fourteen percent," the mechanical voice chimed, skipping like a scratched vinyl record. "Alloy degradation accelerating."Ethan strode toward the thick observation window overlooking the surface monolith's outer perimeter.Outside, the world was dead. The Black Frost wasn't falling like snow; it was coming down in relentless, oily streams of dark liquid that crystallized the moment it touched the ground. The ambient sound hit the outer hull w

 "Drop the weapons, or I open the outer vent and let the sky drink your blood."Ethan stood behind the reinforced glass observation booth, his voice cutting through the speaker array like a cold blade. Below him, thirty shivering survivors huddled inside the narrow, concrete-walled decontamination airlock, their frozen clothes steaming under the harsh yellow decontamination lights.Sarah Vance stepped to the front of the crowd, her hand resting firmly on the holstered sidearm at her hip. "We just survived a six-mile march through chemical ice. We aren't disarming for a ghost behind a window.""You aren't in a position to negotiate, Captain," Ethan replied, his hand resting on the manual pressure release valve. "You are in my airlock. The air in that room belongs to me. The heat belongs to me. The only reason your heart is still beating is because I haven't turned the exhaust fans on.""We brought you military ammunition!" Sarah shouted back,

 "Lie to me one more time, Sarah, and I will throw Keller through the primary airlock myself."Ethan slammed the steel door of the secondary briefing office shut, the heavy latch ringing out through the quiet room. He stood towering over Sarah, his single eye burning with a dark, suffocating intensity.Sarah didn't back down, though her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "He has an autoimmune condition, Ethan! He’s had severe respiratory issues since we cleared the ruined forward camps two months ago!""Autoimmune conditions do not make a man cough up glowing black ice," Ethan spat, his voice dropping into a lethal, jagged register. "I saw his sleeve. I saw the crystals forming on his coat.""It's extreme frostbite!" Sarah yelled back, her chest heaving as she stepped directly into his space. "He was on the roof of our transport for three hours while we pushed through the storm! His lungs took in sub-zero air!""Stop protect

"You are going to murder him in that cell, and you expect me to stand here and guard the door!"Sarah’s voice shattered the heavy silence of the lower command deck, her hand hovering mere inches from her holstered sidearm."I am containing an extinction-level threat!" Ethan roared back, slamming his palm onto the main security console. "Initiate the bio-lockdown of the lower barracks now! Nobody enters, nobody leaves, and nobody touches the isolation wing!""He is a human being, Ethan!" Sarah yelled, her eyes flashing with a desperate, wild fury. "He served under me for four years! I brought him into this vault, and I am not going to let you execute him like an old dog because his blood got cold!""Look at the monitors, Sarah!" Ethan spat, grabbing her by the shoulder and forcing her face toward the flickering medical displays. "His nervous system isn't human anymore! The pathogen converted his spinal column into a biological relay array! Every second he stays intact, he is broadcasti

 "If you shoot him, the impact will detonate his chest like a frag grenade!"Ethan shoved Sarah behind a support pillar just as a trail of black, shimmering frost crept around the bend of the pitch-black service corridor. The air was so brutally cold that their words hung in thick, frozen clouds before dropping to the floor like dust."We can't just let him roam free!" Sarah yelled back, her tactical light cutting through the swirling mist. "He's heading straight for the main living quarters!""He isn't Keller anymore, Sarah!" Ethan rasped, his hand gripping the cold iron wall to steady his shaking legs. "The pathogen replaced his heart and lungs with crystalline radiation! Lead rounds won't stop him, they'll just shatter his outer shell and release the pressurized pathogen into the air grid!"A heavy, unnatural footstep echoed down the narrow hallway.*CRUNCH.*The sound was sharp, like heavy boot heels crushing sheets of thick