Chapter 10: The Northern Exit

Chapter 10: The Northern Exit

The image on Camera 6 burned behind Mason’s eyes, a permanent afterimage of horror. His own face, stretched into that impossibly wide, teeth-filled smile. His own lips, forming the words that were a death sentence and a job description all in one: I… am… coming… to… relieve… you.

The control room, once his only sanctuary, now felt like a coffin he had willingly locked himself inside. The hundred silent monitors were a hundred tombstones. He was paralyzed, not by fear, but by a chilling, absolute certainty. The thing on the screen wasn't just coming to the control room. It was coming to the end of his shift. It was going to walk out of this station as him.

He was staring at the static-filled screen of Camera 6, his mind a howling void, when a loud, electronic BZZZZT jolted him back to reality. It was the 8:00 a.m. buzzer. The end of his shift.

His relief had arrived.

The mundane, everyday sound was the most terrifying thing he had ever heard. It was a starting pistol for a race he was already losing. In his mind’s eye, he saw the doppelganger on the screen check a non-existent watch. He imagined it turning, stepping out of the frame, and beginning its calm, measured walk through the station’s corridors to take his place.

Pure, primal instinct took over. The part of his brain that calculated odds and processed logic shut down, replaced by the ancient, animalistic imperative to run.

He launched himself from the chair, stumbling, his legs weak and uncoordinated. He didn't grab his jacket. He didn't grab the logbook. He just ran. He slammed the button to retract the security bolts and threw the door open, plunging into the sterile white hallway.

His lungs burned as he sprinted, his boots slapping against the polished floor. The station, once a confusing labyrinth, was now a known entity, a gauntlet he had to run. Every corridor held a ghost, every corner a memory of terror. He flew past the hallway monitored by Camera 14, his eyes fixed forward, refusing to even glance at the door where the handle had once twitched with such malevolent energy. He refused to give it his attention, his validation.

He pounded down the main artery of the station, the ceiling grates of the ventilation system flashing overhead. He braced himself for the whisper, for the sound of scraping, for his name to be hissed from the darkness above. But there was only the sound of his own ragged gasps for air and the frantic thudding of his heart. The silence was a new kind of menace. It meant they weren't trying to distract him anymore. The final play was already in motion. The hunter was on the move.

The thought of the doppelganger spurred him on, a phantom at his heels. Was it walking calmly, certain of its victory? Or was it skittering through the vents like the arachnid horror, a storm of fractured limbs and stolen identity? He didn't know which was worse.

He had to get to the surface helipad. It was his only way out. He visualized the station layout in his mind, the map a frantic blur of blue lines. The path to the helipad was long, circuitous, winding through the eastern wing and up three levels. A five-minute run, at least. He didn’t know if he had five minutes.

And then, he remembered. His hand instinctively went to his pocket, to the smooth, worn plastic of the laminated card. He didn't need to pull it out. He had memorized its every bloody word, its every cryptic command. And one rule, the only one he had never encountered, flashed in his mind.

Rule 6: The Northern Exit is not an exit.

As he rounded a corner, he saw the sign for it, stark black letters on a white plaque: NORTHERN EXIT – SUB-LEVEL B. According to the station map, it was a service corridor, a straight shot that bypassed the main ascent and opened directly onto the surface, just yards from the helipad. It would cut his run down to less than a minute.

A shortcut.

He skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. The Northern Exit is not an exit. What did that even mean? It was a door, leading outside. How could it not be an exit? All the other rules, as insane as they were, had an internal, defensive logic. Don't move, so they can't see you. Don't answer, so they can't find you. Count the hums, to ensure the shield is up. But this? This was just a statement. A contradiction.

Maybe it was a trick. A lie from Ellis and the faceless consortium to keep desperate operators from just walking off the job. Maybe "not an exit" meant "not an authorized exit." His desperate, panicked mind latched onto the idea. In this place, lies were layered on top of half-truths. Why should he trust this final, nonsensical rule when the prize was his life? The long way was a death sentence, a guaranteed interception by the thing wearing his face. The shortcut was a risk, but it was a chance.

He made his choice. He pivoted and sprinted down the side corridor towards the Northern Exit, the sixth rule screaming in his mind like a disregarded alarm.

The corridor was shorter than the others, and colder. It ended in a single, heavy, pressure-sealed door, much like the one to the generator room, but with no window. A simple, red-painted wheel was set in its center. This was it. Freedom was just on the other side.

He reached out, his hands trembling, and grabbed the cold, smooth metal of the wheel. He began to turn it. The mechanism was stiff, groaning in the silence.

And then he heard it.

A frantic, muffled pounding from the other side of the door.

"Help! Somebody, help me! Is anyone there?"

Mason froze, his hands still on the wheel. He recognized the voice instantly. He heard it every time he spoke, every time he thought.

It was his own.

The voice was ragged with panic, filled with a desperate, sobbing terror that mirrored his own perfectly. "Please, you have to let me in! I got locked out! The power cycled and the door sealed behind me!"

A cold dread, deeper and more profound than anything he had felt before, washed over him. He stood motionless, listening to his own voice plead for its life from the other side of a door in the middle of the arctic.

"The relief pilot is coming," the voice cried, the words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush. "He won't see me out here! The blizzard is too thick! You have to open the door! Please! The other one… the thing from the camera… it's in there with you! It's going to take my place! It's going to take our life!"

It was the perfect trap. It wasn't just a mimicry of his voice; it was a mimicry of his exact situation, his deepest, most immediate fear. It was using the absolute truth of the horror to sell its lie. For a terrifying, schizophrenic second, he wondered: what if it was real? What if, in some impossible twist of physics, he was the copy, and the real Mason Carter was trapped outside, freezing to death?

His hands tightened on the wheel. The instinct to help, to save himself, was overwhelming.

But then, the lessons of the past week, paid for in blood and sanity, roared to the surface. The mimicry. The perfect, lying copy of Ellis’s voice on the radio, designed to exploit his compassion. The seductive, knowing whisper in the generator room, designed to exploit his love for his sister. And now this. The final test. A perfect copy of his own voice, designed to exploit his instinct for self-preservation.

They had studied him. They had dissected him. And they had presented him with a perfect mirror of his own desperation.

He realized the true meaning of the rule. The Northern Exit is not an exit. It wasn't a warning about the door itself. It was a warning about what waited on the other side. It was a trap for the mind. Opening that door wasn't an escape; it was an acceptance. It was a final, willing act of surrender, validating the copy, inviting the replacement in. You couldn’t save yourself by opening the door. You could only lose yourself.

The pounding on the door grew more frantic, the voice more hysterical. "Don't leave me out here! MASON, DON'T YOU LEAVE ME!"

With a choked sob, Mason let go of the wheel. He took a step back, then another. He turned his back on his own pleading voice. He turned his back on the shortcut. He turned his back on the final, perfect temptation of Black Hollow Station.

He ran. He sprinted back down the cold corridor and took the long way around, choosing the path of certainty over the lure of a quick escape. He had been tested on his fear, his compassion, and his love. And now he had been tested on his very identity, and he had not failed. He had passed the final, unspoken test. As he pounded up the stairs to the surface level, the sound of his own voice screaming for help from behind the Northern Exit finally faded into the hum of the station, an echo of the man he had refused to become.