You can't outrun what doesn't die.
The survivors of a lost world have found a new home. But the horror they fled refuses to stay buried. With ghostly voices whispering from the void and an ancient terror stirring in the dark, they must fight to keep history from repeating itself—before another world falls. As their ship crash-lands on Earth, Silas and his crew soon realize that something unnatural has followed them across the cosmos. The dead whisper in the shadows, and the echoes of their past sins claw at their minds. Are they doomed to relive the same nightmare, or can they break the cycle before it consumes them? With time running out and danger closing in, they must uncover the truth about this new world before the screams of the dead become a deafening roar.
William was running.
The ground beneath him was soft and wet, sucking at his boots with each desperate step. Around him, the world twisted in grotesque shapes—trees that bled red sap, rocks that pulsed like beating hearts. The air reeked of decay, a stench so thick it burned his nostrils. The buzzing was everywhere, a relentless hum that crawled inside his skull and echoed through his bones.
He turned a corner, his lungs burning and his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. Ahead, a little girl stood in a clearing, with her back to him. Her yellow dress was torn and splattered with blood. Her curls bounced as she swayed from side to side.
“Don’t move, little girl!” he called out desperately.
She didn’t turn around.
Then the buzzing grew louder. His heart pounded even harder as a dark cloud gathered in front of her, a living, writhing storm of wings and legs, with mandibles clicking like bone on stone. The swarm rolled closer, devouring everything in its path—trees stripped to splinters, the ground turned to rot.
“Run!” William shouted.
Slowly, she faced him, and what he saw shook him to his core, making his skin crawl and his blood run cold.
Her eyes were hollow. Insects poured from her mouth, writhing black things that scuttled over her chin and into her ears. She reached for him, fingers twitching, nails crusted with blood.
“Help me!”
William raised his gun. The trigger was heavy, a huge weight that pulled at his soul.
“Please…” Her voice broke into a whisper as more insects surged from her throat, filling her scream.
The swarm lunged forward and he fired.
The blast echoed through the night like thunder.
A second later, she dropped to the ground. Her body twitched for a brief moment then went still.
The ground shuddered. From her stomach, something moved. The insects boiled up, seething from her broken flesh, their eyes glittering with a horrible, wicked light. They twisted together, a black mass writhing to form a shape, then into a face.
A face he knew. Clause’s face.
It grinned. “You’ll never save them all,” he screeched.
The swarm exploded toward him, a million deadly mandibles snapping hungrily.
