text: DSCT-4639X **TIME:** 14:49 PST **DATE:** 12/04/2089 **LOCATION:** \[REDACTED\] INTERVIEWER: The time and date is 2:49 pm, March 12, 2089. Hello, \[REDACTED\]. How are you today? \[REDACTED\]: Eh, same as any other day. Just surviving, you know? INTERVIEWER: Do you mind if we record this conversation? \[REDACTED\]: Doesn’t make a difference to me. Y’all would probably record it anyways even if I said no. Just don’t put my name in it, yeah? INTERVIEWER: Alright then. Let’s get started. Why don’t you tell me about the facility you worked in. \[REDACTED\]: What is there to say? We all know what it was. A research centre where the last smart people on earth could study the asteroid that wiped out Asia. Hell if I know why. In my opinion, they should have just left the damn place alone. INTERVIEWER: If you felt this way, then why did you choose to work there? \[REDACTED\]: Choose? Ha! You think I chose to work there? I guess \[REDACTED\] did a good job at covering up what they were doing there, huh? No, I didn’t choose to work at that godforsaken place. No one did, except for maybe the researchers. Everyone else was there because they had to be. INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by that? \[REDACTED\]: I mean that we were all prisoners. The research facility was just another work assignment. The conditions weren’t great, either. When we weren’t working, we were locked in the housing sector or held in cryo. Depends on how well behaved you were. If you were good, you got to sleep in stasis until your next work detail. If you were bad, you spent that time waiting. I wasn’t that great. Spent a lot of time out of cryo. INTERVIEWER: What about the facility itself? Can you describe it? \[REDACTED\]: Sure, though I’ll tell you, I didn’t see very much. Only the housing and mining sectors. That’s the only places we were allowed to go. The researchers were kept in their own private wing. So. The facility. Well, the housing areas weren’t all that bad. You slept in a room with 5 other people. There was a space to sleep, work out, and eat. The living conditions weren’t terrible either. The walls were made of plastacrete, like everything else in the place, and it was warm enough. The cleanliness of the rooms depended on those living in it. If you wanted a clean room, then you had better convince your roommates of that too, cause there sure as hell wasn’t anyone cleaning up for you. Now the mining tunnels? Those were a different story. They were mainly tunnels back through the rock, with metal beams overhead for support. It was hella scary in there, cause there were no lights and you had to use your own flashlights to see. There were different branches of tunnels everywhere that just lead into darkness. It was better for us, though - me and my squad, I mean - cause at least we were allowed to talk. The miners were restricted to silence, probably to stop them from talking up an escape plan. Man, I felt bad for those guys. Nothing we could do for them though. Poor bastards. INTERVIEWER: How would you describe the relationship between the security teams and the prisoners? \[REDACTED\]: During work details? Pretty much nonexistent. We were really only there to prevent them from trying to revolt. But when we were off duty, everyone mingled together. I mean, none of us wanted to be there. We were all in the same boat. INTERVIEWER: I see. Why don’t we go over the events leading up to the shutdown of the facility? \[REDACTED\]: Goddammit. I knew you were going to ask that eventually. Well, no use delaying it now. *Subject is shaking his head.* We were out on a regular work detail. There were ten of us, four guards and six workers. As usual, they didn’t tell us much about what we were going into. We had heard rumors, though, rumors of something new. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the mining crew before ours. They - they hadn’t made it back out. This was nothing new though, as rumors were commonly circulated among the guards and prisoners. Most of them were usually made up to scare people, so I didn’t pay much attention to them. I guess you can see how well that turned out for me. The expedition started out fairly normally. We entered our descent pods, and we started going down into the asteroid. I did notice, however, that we were descending much lower than usual. Normally we head down to about 600ish meters below the surface, but this time we went quite a bit lower. I think it was about 950 meters, almost a kilometer. I didn’t even know that we could go that deep. When we got to our platform, the doors opened to complete darkness, which was quite unusual. There’s normally some kind of staging area before the tunnel entrances, but I guess the previous group hadn’t - or couldn’t set that up yet. Our briefing cards said we were to head to tunnel L-32, but there were only a handful of tunnels, probably because we were one of the first ones at that level. Some of the older, shallower levels have tunnels all the way around the descent shaft. This one only had three or four, right in front of us. We found the right entrance marker, and headed in. One of the guys in my squad, Rob, had the idea to drop chem lights behind us, just in case. We were in a yet unmapped network, so if the tunnel branched, we’d know which way to go. We were making pretty slow progress, mainly because the tunnel was pretty narrow in some sections, as it hadn’t been widened and refined by hundreds of mining crews, like some of the shallower routes. It took us almost an hour until we reached the first obstacle. There was a pile of rocks blocking off the passage, a cave in probably caused by the asteroid shifting and settling in the earth. Not a problem, we had blasting equipment with us anyways, so it didn’t take long to clear out the route ahead of us. When it was clear, we continued on through the tunnel, until we reached something . . . strange. At first glance, it appeared to be the end of the tunnel where the last group had gotten to before returning, but upon closer inspection we noticed a small hole in the bottom left of the wall, large enough for a man to crawl through on his belly. This was peculiar because mining crews were only sent out with blasting equipment, pickaxes, and an automated jackhammer, none of which would be able to create the vent-sized tunnel we saw. Rob, being the daredevil he was, volunteered to head in to check out where it went. We tied a rope around his leg so we could pull him out if he got stuck, and Rob got on his belly and crawled down the passageway. As we waited for Rob to report back, I looked around at the tunnel around us, and that’s when I saw it. Jammed in a little indent in the rock, out of the way of our lights, was what looked suspiciously like a human foot. Or what was left of it. It was cut off right below the ankle, covered in blood, and with three toes missing. I could even see what appeared to be a scrap of leather on it - the tattered remains of a boot. At that moment, I knew something was horribly wrong. I pointed the foot out to the other guys, and they crowded around me trying to take a look. In their eagerness to get a better look at my discovery, no one was watching the rope, the rope that Rob was attached to. By the time we looked back, the rope was gone. We shouted down the tunnel, but there was no response. Suddenly, there was a shuffling sound coming from the hole. We shouted again, but still, no confirmation that whatever was making that noise was Rob. The sound got louder, getting closer, and we all stood in fear, awaiting whatever was going to emerge from the tunnel. The shuffling was creeping ever closer, closer, closer . . . and then it stopped. We all stood for a moment, waiting for it to start again, but it didn’t. I told the others to get behind me, then took out my penlight and crouched down at the level of the tunnel. Looking inside, I saw nothing at first. Then I clicked on the light. Lying there, not 4 feet away, was Rob. Or, at least, a gruesome approximation of Rob’s face. His skin was pulled to tight across his features, and his mouth was stretched in a too-wide grin. I leaped back with a shout of fear, stumbling back into the other guard behind me. The shuffling started again, but faster this time, and more frantic. The Rob-thing’s face emerged from the tunnel, followed by the rest of its body. It almost looked like Rob, almost, but I knew immediately that whatever that *thing* was, it was not the man I knew. It stood there, hunched over, staring at us with that horrible grin. We were all too scared to move, and we stared at it just as it stared at us, stuck in a stalemate. It all fell apart when one of the workers lost his nerve and tried to run. Just like that, the stalemate was broken, and the thing that was once Rob rushed forwards. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen anything like it. Before I could even react, the thing had pounced on the man next to me. It bit down on his throat, and I heard his agonized scream reach a ringing peak, then gurgle to a stop. Luckily for all of us, one of the miners had more presence of mind than any of us, and he slammed the spike of a pickaxe into the side of the thing’s skull. I - I can’t get the image of what was once my friend lying on the floor. *Subject is cradling his head in his hands.* INTERVIEWER: If you killed it, then why did the facility need to be shut down? \[REDACTED\]: Killed it? Oh no, we didn’t kill it at all. Not even close. Whatever’s down there, it wears the bodies of its victims. We watched this black sludge flow from Rob’s body to the poor guy who got his throat ripped out. I swear to you, that man was dead. I swear it on my life. But he moved! I saw it with my own eyes. And I know they saw it too. That’s why we all started running back down the tunnel towards the descent shaft. We managed to blow the tunnel behind us and cause a cave-in, but the falling rocks killed another three guys. We had to leave them behind, but I don’t regret it. Not one bit. If I stayed, I wouldn’t be talking to ya now, I can tell you that. I’m sure of it. They would have turned me too. Although maybe I should’ve stayed. Perhaps that would have bought the facility more time. Cause what followed us up the shaft, it - it wasn’t human. Not anymore.