Chapter 4: Echoes in the Vents

Chapter 4: Echoes in the Vents

The night after seeing the man on Camera 6 was a new dimension of hell. Sleep was a forgotten luxury; the brief hours Mason managed in his quarters were filled with visions of a disconnected jaw and eyes that saw through walls. Now, back in the operator's chair, his nerves were frayed wires, sparking with paranoia at every hum and click of the station. The laminated card was no longer just on his desk; it was propped up directly in his line of sight, a six-commandment tablet for a religion of pure survival.

He couldn't stop himself from glancing at the monitor for Camera 6 every few minutes. Lab 3 remained stubbornly, terrifyingly empty. The emptiness was somehow worse than the presence had been. It was a stage waiting for its actor, a silent promise that the show would go on. The memory of the figure vanishing between one frame and the next was a constant, looping horror in his mind. It wasn't just a monster; it was a violation of the laws of existence.

His desire was no longer just to survive the contract, but to survive the next five minutes. He drank his coffee in small, nervous sips, his gaze sweeping the monitors in a frantic, unending patrol. He was a cornered animal, listening for the snap of a twig in the undergrowth.

And then he heard it.

Tap.

It was faint, almost imperceptible, a tiny metallic tick coming through the speaker monitoring the west wing corridor. He dismissed it. A relay switching. A pipe contracting in the cold.

Tap… tap.

This time it was clearer. Deliberate. He muted the other channels, isolating the audio feed from the west wing. He turned up the volume, the ambient hum of the ventilation system filling the control room.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A cold knot formed in his stomach. He didn't need to check the card. He knew the words by heart, seared into his brain.

Rule 3: If you hear knocking from the ventilation shafts, you did not. Acknowledge nothing. It is an auditory anomaly caused by pressure changes.

"Pressure changes," Mason whispered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He tried to believe it. He was a logical man. A station this vast, subjected to the extreme temperature gradients of the arctic, would make noises. It was simple physics. The sound was a coincidence, his frayed nerves twisting it into something more. He forced his eyes back to the screens, trying to focus on the visual data, trying to ignore the insistent, rhythmic sound.

But the knocking continued. It wasn't random. It wasn't the chaotic popping and groaning of a building settling. It had a pattern.

Tap-tap-tap… Taaap-taaap-taaap… Tap-tap-tap.

Mason froze, his coffee cup halfway to his lips. He lowered it slowly, his hand trembling. He knew that rhythm. He’d learned it as a kid in a summer camp survival course. It was Morse code. The universal distress signal.

S. O. S.

The obstacle wasn’t just a sound anymore; it was a plea. A desperate, intelligent message. His mind raced, constructing scenarios that were somehow more terrifying than the supernatural. Was there another survivor? Someone trapped since the last incident? Was it Peterson, the man who went for coffee, stuck somewhere in the walls, trying to signal for help? The thought was sickening. Rule 3 demanded he ignore it, but every shred of his humanity screamed at him to respond, to find the source, to help whoever was tapping out that desperate plea.

He was being tested. This was a new kind of attack, more insidious than the man on the screen. That was a direct assault of pure horror. This was a scalpel, designed to slip past his fear and cut into his conscience, his logic, his empathy. If he ignored a cry for help, was he any better than the things that haunted this place? But if he responded… what had happened to Peterson?

The tapping stopped. The silence that followed was heavy, expectant. Mason held his breath, his ears straining. Had it given up? Had he passed the test by doing nothing?

Then a new sound began. A scraping, dragging noise. And it was closer. He frantically switched audio channels, his fingers flying across the console. The sound was gone from the west wing. He found it on the feed for the central corridor. It was louder now. Sharper.

Scraaaape… Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was moving. The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. The "auditory anomaly" was traveling through the ventilation system, heading directly towards him. The pressure changes were hunting him.

He felt a primal urge to flee, to bolt from the control room and lock himself in his quarters. But the memory of the twitching door handle stopped him cold. There were no safe rooms in Black Hollow. The only defense was the chair, the monitors, and the rules. He was rooted to the spot, a helpless observer of his own impending doom.

The scraping grew louder, the sound of something heavy and metallic being dragged through the narrow confines of the ducts. It was no longer coming from the speakers. He could hear it in the room, a faint, high-frequency vibration in the ceiling above him.

He craned his neck, staring up at the square ventilation grate directly over his operator's chair. The scraping stopped. The silence was absolute, a vacuum of sound that was more terrifying than the noise it replaced. He could hear his own blood roaring in his ears. The grate was just a piece of metal, four feet above his head. Benign. Normal. Yet his skin crawled with the certainty that something was on the other side, listening. Waiting.

Then the knocking started again. Not from a distant corridor. Not from the speakers. It was directly above his head.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The sound was sharp, concussive, vibrating through the metal grate and down into his bones. It was loud, aggressive, demanding. It was no longer an S.O.S. It was a summons. Each knock was a hammer blow against his sanity. He squeezed his eyes shut, hands clamped over his ears, but he couldn't block it out. The vibrations traveled through the chair, up his spine, rattling his teeth. He was inside the drum.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

He bit his lip to keep from screaming, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. Acknowledge nothing. You did not hear it. It is pressure. The words were a useless mantra against the physical assault.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The silence returned, profound and complete. Mason kept his eyes shut, his body rigid, waiting for the next blow. A full minute passed. Nothing. He slowly, cautiously, lowered his hands from his ears. He opened his eyes, staring up at the grate. It was still. Unmoving.

He was about to let out a shuddering sigh of relief when a new sound reached him.

It wasn't a knock. It wasn't a scrape.

It was a whisper.

A dry, sibilant hiss of a voice that seemed to bypass his ears and slither directly into his brain. It was impossibly close, a breath of cold, dead air against his skin, coming from the grate just feet above him.

"...Mason..."

His name. It knew his name.

The last vestiges of his rational mind dissolved into pure, shrieking terror. This wasn't an anomaly. It wasn't a trapped survivor. It was something ancient and intelligent and utterly malevolent. And it was in the walls, whispering his name, waiting for him to break.