"If I open those food reserves, I am handing every single one of your soldiers a fast pass to their own execution."Ethan didn't even look up from the reinforced glass cage on his laboratory workbench. He kept his single eye locked onto the twitching rodent inside, its tiny hind legs already calcified into translucent, violet-veined glass."They are starving, Ethan!" Sarah slammed her left hand onto the doorframe of his private office, her voice raw with exhaustion. Her right arm, now solid obsidian glass up to the elbow, hung stiffly at her side like a heavy, frozen weight. "They've been locked in that quarantine bay for twelve hours without a single ration card! They are scared, they are cold, and they need to eat!""They don't need food, Sarah," Ethan rasped, pulling a sterile syringe full of dark fluid from a steel tray. "Their digestive systems are already mutating. Caloric intake speeds up metabolic processing. Metabolic processing fuels cell

 "He’s going to explode, get away from him!"Ethan shoved past the plastic partition, his boots skidding across the frost-slicked concrete floor of Barracks Three.In the corner of the crowded room, a young soldier named Marcus thrashing on a cot was no longer recognizable as human. His entire chest had turned into a brilliant, translucent dome of dark obsidian glass, bulging outward as intense violet light flared beneath his sternum. High-pitched, crystalline shrieks echoed from his throat as the pressurized frost within his lungs reached critical mass."Marcus!" a woman screamed, throwing herself toward the bed. "No! Don't touch him!"It was his sister, Elena, her eyes wild with terror as she reached out to grab her brother’s stiff, calcified shoulder."Get back, you fool!" Ethan roared, lunging forward.He didn't hesitate. He felt no doubt, no moral tremor, no lingering thread of empathy. His mind had hardened int

 "Shut up, shut up, shut up, I can still hear you bleeding in my brain!"Ethan rocked back and forth on the edge of his steel cot, his fingers clawing so hard into his scalp that fresh blood mixed with dark spatial fluid, running down his neck in hot, sticky streams."Ethan?"Sarah shoved the heavy iron door of his quarters open, holding a digital clipboard against her vest. She froze in the doorway, her jaw dropping as she saw him.He was kneeling on the floor, slamming the side of his head against the concrete wall with rhythmic, sickening thuds. His single open eye was wild, bloodshot, and wide with pure, unadulterated madness."Ethan, stop!" Sarah screamed, dropping the clipboard and rushing across the narrow room. She threw her good arm around his chest, dragging his head away from the blood-stained stone. "What are you doing? Stop!""They won't stop talking, Sarah!" Ethan gasped, his chest heaving as he buried his face aga

 "If I sleep for even one second, twenty-two frozen corpses will tear their way out of my skull and shatter this entire room."Ethan collapsed against the base of the central command console, his fingers digging into the cold iron floorboards. Dark, spatial fluid didn't just drip from his nose anymore; it leaked continuously from the corner of his single open eye, running down his pale, drawn cheek like liquid night."Ethan, look at yourself!" Sarah dropped to her knees in front of him, holding a clear plastic syringe filled with a deep amber sedative. "Your heart is beating at almost two hundred beats a minute! Your brain is cooking itself alive!""Get that needle away from me!" Ethan rasped, swinging his left hand wildly to slap her arm away."You are going to die right here on this floor if I don't stabilize your neural network!" Sarah yelled back, her left hand coming up to grab his shoulder, holding the syringe tight in her grip. "Let me

 "If anyone fires a single round into that glass, I will drop your weapons into the abyss before you can pull the triggers!"Ethan leaned heavily on Sarah’s uninjured shoulder as they dragged themselves across the frosted metal floor toward the central console. The main monitor wall bathed the darkened room in a sharp, pulsing amber glow, cutting through the swirling white condensation of their breath."It’s a hack!" Davis screamed, his face twisted in raw panic as he unholstered his sidearm and pointed it straight at the main diagnostic display. "Surface Command is bypassing our lockdown! They're using the frequency to ping our exact structural weak points!""Put the gun down, Davis!" Sarah yelled, her voice hoarse, her left arm wrapped tightly around her blood-soaked shoulder bandage."They're going to burn us out from the inside!" another officer yelled, thumbing back the hammer on his rifle. "Smash the screens! Destroy the pri