As the invasion began on Earth, things were heating up on the surface of Mars, and as Conor made his way through the strange Martian facility, he would occasionally stumble upon shattered glass tubes that had torn flesh still clinging to the sharp edges.
"What the hell happened here?" He thought as he weaved between the glass tubes, followed closely by the other astronauts sent with him.
THUD!
THUD!
THUD!
The sound of flesh slapping against a solid metal surface was heard echoing in the room further ahead, and Conor raised his hand into a fist to order the two astronauts behind him to pause their steps.
Conor stealthily moved forward while the two astronauts watched his back in case more of those things showed up.
Turning a corner, he sees a Martian with a pink, squirming mass of tentacles attached to his face, slamming his fists that at this point were mere bloody stubs into a sealed metal door.
Seeing that he had made a sufficient distance from the others, Conor's shadow seemed to come to life, forming a long blade that looked like a sword wielded by a certain god slayer, which fell into his hand dutifully.
Conor walked forward, his steps muffled by the shadows around him, allowing him to pull right up behind the creature before it finally noticed him.
SHNK!
Before the strange zombified Martian could turn around, the shadowy blade passed through his left shoulder to his right shoulder and effectively beheaded the alien.
Even as the head slid off the torso, it never stopped gnashing its teeth, and the single visible eye looked at him like he was some kind of delicacy.
"This thing is some sort of parasite that makes people cannibalistic, or am I missing something?" His thoughts returned to the glass containers he had seen on the way in: "What were the Martians doing here exactly?" He signaled the two astronauts to regroup
Using a welding kit to forcibly open the door, they were met with a room filled with Martian men, women, and children huddled in a corner as far as they could from the door.
A few of them who were armed stood in front of the rest, holding some kind of rifle towards the door as it opened.
Looks of fear and anxiety were evident on their faces as Conor slowly stepped forward with his hands raised to make himself seem less threatening than he truly was.
Conor took a step forward, and one of the Martians holding a rifle fired at the floor in front of him as a warning, forcing him to a stop.
"Don't worry, we are here to help!" Conor said, unsure if the Martians could even understand him; however, despite not understanding his words, his body language did enough to ease their tension.
An elderly Martian cautiously stepped forward, a small group of children trailing behind her like baby geese.
Activating a small device on the collar of her uniform, she began to speak in her native tongue, only for the device to translate it into a prominent Earth language known as English.
"Welcome, travelers, we have been awaiting your arrival!"
As Conor was discussing things with the matronly Martian elder Marie was in a world of trouble.
She, being a near invulnerable Viltrumite, was far less cautious when moving through the halls, and every astronaut that had gone with her had been torn to shreds and turned by one of those strange zombie-like Martians.
SPLAT!
Marie delivered a flat palm to the head of one of the zombified Martians, causing its head to erupt in a spray of blood and brain matter, painting the walls of the facility like some kind of Jackson Pollock painting.
"NO, NO, Stay back, you zombie bastards!" She initially had a look of confidence on her face, but the continuous stream of zombies caused even her, as an inexperienced Viltrumite, to pause in place and plan her actions.
Not taking the chance to allow them to get close enough for a potential infection, she hovered off the ground and out of the reach of the Martian zombies.
Above her, the flickering red lights painted everything a haunting crimson, and for a moment, Marie was reminded of a nightmare she'd had as a child, one where shadows had teeth.
She blasted forward, fists clenched, smashing through walls rather than risk opening doors. The longer she stayed still, the more they came.
"How the hell did this happen to them?"
She came to a room marked in Martian glyphs, but one Earth word was stenciled above it in stark white: GENESIS.
Marie hesitated only a moment before bursting through. Inside, massive vats of bubbling green fluid lined the room. Suspended inside them were half-formed Martians, some humanoid, others bloated and twisted.
Then came the whispering.
Soft. Hissing. Like hundreds of tiny voices worming their way into her ears.
"We are the cure. We are the future."
Marie turned, scanning for a speaker, but there was none. Instead, from the center of the room, a large egg-shaped pod cracked open.
Out slithered a mass of tendrils, each ending in barbed hooks and black, gleaming eyes. The creature's body shimmered, as though it were cloaked in a liquid veil of stars.
"You are immune," it said, its voice vibrating directly in her bones. "Perfect carrier."
Marie launched herself forward, striking the creature in the core, but her fist passed through it like it was made of smoke.
Behind her, the shadows peeled off the walls.
Dozens of Martian corpses began to rise again, but this time they didn't move like zombies. They were faster. Coordinated.
It was learning.
Back with Conor, the elder Martian led him through a network of tunnels, showing them sealed vaults filled with dead scientists, some of whom had clearly died fighting each other.
"What happened here?" Conor asked.
"They awakened it," the elder said, voice trembling. "A thought-form. A viral consciousness from the void between planets. It came on a meteor... we thought it was a god."
"A god?"
"Yes. It granted insights. Technologies. But then... it wanted bodies."
Conor exchanged looks with the astronauts. "You gave it bodies?"
"We didn't have a choice. The minds of our leaders were already gone. It speaks in dreams, in ideas. You don't know you're serving it until it's too late."
Suddenly, the lights overhead cut out.
Screams echoed down the hallway. One of the Martian children was gone.
"Conor," one astronaut whispered. "They're in the vents."
SHHHHKKKKK!
Something burst from the ceiling, dragging another Martian into the dark.
The corridor erupted in chaos. Conor raised his blade and cast a wide arc of shadow across the ceiling, cleaving a tendril in half.
"Fall back! Fall back to the chamber!" he barked.
Back in the Genesis chamber, Marie crashed through the wall, half limping, her eyes wide.
"Marie?!"
"It talks. It learns. And I think it tagged me."
Conor didn't hesitate. He raised his blade, eyeing her ankle.
"Relax," she growled. "I'm not infected. Yet. But we need to torch this place."
One of the astronauts pulled out a satchel of thermite charges. "On it. But we only brought enough for the main lab."
Conor's eyes glowed briefly as his shadow coiled and split, forming clones of himself, each grabbing a charge.
"Then we place them smart. We end this. We cannot let that thing reach Earth."
Behind them, the wall began to melt. Not from heat. From decay.
The viral thought-form was coming.
Its whisper touched them all again.
"Why do you resist evolution?"
"Because I've seen what you make of people," Conor thought back, raising his blade.
They divided quickly. Conor and one of the astronauts, Liz, moved toward the comms relay, hoping to send a final warning to Earth. Marie and the others went deeper into the facility, toward the creature's pulsating heart.
The further Conor and Liz went, the more warped the architecture became, not from damage, but from something far worse. Walls bled a dark, syrupy ichor. Lightbulbs pulsed in time with a heartbeat neither of them owned.
"This place is sick," Liz said. "It's... breathing."
Conor didn't answer. He knew she was right.
In the central relay room, they found the last communications officer, still alive, but barely. His eyes had been plucked out and replaced with thin, writhing roots.
"Kill me," he whispered.
"We can help..." Conor attempted to dissuade the officer, but he was interrupted.
"Kill me! It's listening!"
Conor didn't hesitate. A clean strike. A quick end.
He plugged into the terminal. Static. Then Earth. A thin signal.
"Mayday, Mayday, this is Second in command, Connor Iscariot, is anyone there?"
Marie stumbled through a buckling corridor, the steel groaning under something unseen. Her breathing was ragged, shallow despite her Viltrumite physiology. The air here was wrong. Heavy. Like each breath carried memories not her own.
The hall twisted.
No, she realized, it twisted. The metal warped like a living artery, spiraling where it should have gone straight. She blinked and, for a moment, saw the corridor as it had been before, clean, sterile, clinical. Then the vision snapped back to a nightmare.
Focus.
She powered through a sealed bulkhead, fists glowing with residual kinetic energy. The door screamed as it folded, revealing a vast, domed chamber bathed in violet light. Dozens of Martian children stood silently at the center, surrounded by hovering black stones etched in fractal script.
As Marie approached, they all turned their heads in perfect unison.
No one spoke.
She reached out a hand toward the nearest child.
"Marie." The voice was her own.
She spun.
Standing across the chamber was... her. A duplicate. Not exact,this Marie's eyes were full black, her suit stitched with tendrils instead of fabric. But the resemblance was unmistakable.
"What the hell are you?"
The doppelgänger smiled, and when she spoke, her voice echoed like a broken recording. "We are your potential. Your growth. Your evolution."
Marie narrowed her eyes. "You're a parasite in a Halloween costume."
"You still cling to individuality. A Viltrumite trait. Sad. Limiting."
The false Marie stepped forward, arms stretched in welcome. "You've seen our power. You've tasted the whispers. Soon, Earth will hear them too."
Marie didn't wait.
She was a blur, punching through the doppelgänger's chest, only to phase through.
Illusion.
Behind her, the children began chanting in Martian, their voices overlapping into a chorus that gnawed at her sanity.
She screamed and flew skyward, bursting through the dome ceiling and into the Martian atmosphere.
As she rose above the facility, she looked down at the sprawling complex, which from this height, no longer looked like a base, but a symbol. The entire structure had reshaped itself into the shape of an eye.
Watching.
Always watching.
Meanwhile, back in the comms relay...
The console sparked under Conor's hands, and the weak Earth signal flickered again.
"Mayday, this is Second-in-Command Conor Iscariot. The Mars facility has been compromised. We are facing an entity capable of viral telepathy and body hijacking. Repeat, hostile is non-terrestrial. Do not respond with rescue until—"
The feed cut.
A voice replaced the static.
"You broadcast fear like it's a language," it hissed.
Conor ripped the plug.
Too late.
Behind him, Liz convulsed.
He turned just in time to see her eyes roll white, her shadow moving before her body.
"No," he growled, summoning his blade.
Liz screamed, then turned toward him. Her arms split into dozens of whip-like strands.
"I don't want to hurt you," he warned.
"You already did," she replied in a voice that wasn't hers. "You let us walk into this place. We died because of you."
Her face melted, revealing something beneath, raw, wet, eyeless.
The battle was fast.
Conor dashed in, his blade carving symbols into the air. Every strike was met with a blur of counterattacks from the tendrils. They were stronger now. Smarter.
He dodged one whip, rolled beneath another, and drove his blade through her core. Her body froze, convulsed, and fell lifelessly with a look on her face, a mixture of terror and joy
He fell to one knee, breath ragged.
How much more could they take?
Deep beneath the facility.
A roiling mass of flesh and vital fluids shook, and suddenly a massive eye opened in the center of the mound.
RUMBLE!