🎧' Breathe Me – Sia.

When you were a child, you always dreamed of traveling to the sky — not the symbolic sky, not the one from pretty stories, not the ones you used to draw for your mother while she worked in the lab. You wanted to see stars through the window. You wanted to float, to escape Earth’s gravity. In other words, you wanted to be free.

So, when the opportunity to join the Nostromo crew came up, you took it without hesitation. Part of it was just to piss off your mother — one of the lead scientists in Weyland-Yutani’s research program.

But now... now you’d give anything to be back on solid ground. The USCSS Nostromo is silent.

Not the usual silence of a ship in cruising mode, with its metal groans and the low hiss of internal ventilation. This is a different kind of silence — the kind that comes at the end. Heavy. Bloodstained. Burned by red alerts and sealed by the vacuum of space.

You crawl down the corridor lit only by emergency lights, your breathing ragged and uneven. Your body is covered in deep cuts and bruises that burn with every movement; your clothes, soaked in blood — not all of it yours — are torn in several places. Every step is a cost. Every push forward is a battle against the pain threatening to take you down.

The sound of something dragging through the metal of the air ducts echoes along the walls — distant, wet, menacing — leaving a frozen trail of terror in your veins.

Your objective is clear: reach the nearest portable communicator, try to send a signal, a message — anything — hoping someone else aboard might still respond.

Your knees have buckled twice already. You’re not even sure if you're slipping in your own blood or in what’s left of someone who used to be part of the crew. The emergency light pulses rhythmically overhead like it’s mocking you — red, blinking, far too alive for a place this dead.

You round the last corner toward the access corridor to the tech bay. The portable communicator — one of the short-range units used for maintenance outside the main deck — lies on the floor, slick with blood and shredded wiring.

You drag yourself toward it, fingers dirty and trembling as they fumble for the thick plastic. When you finally grip it, the device creaks in your hand like it might fall apart, but the screen flickers green. Active signal. Open channel.

You breathe in, ready to speak — but a sound from the vents — low, guttural, wet — stops you cold before a single word can form.

You throw yourself against the side panel of the corridor, forcing your body between two loose sections of bulkhead. Your breathing stutters. Blood pours from the gash in your ribs. You clutch the communicator against your chest, swallowing your fear like that might somehow make you less visible.

The sound in the vent stops. Absolute silence. But you know it’s still there. And then...

"[cchkk]…this is Ripley…" The voice cuts through — static, broken, distant. "If anyone can hear me… anyone… respond."

You hold your breath, trying not to draw attention again.

"Dallas…Lambert…Parker…Ash…" A pause. Silence. "Someone…please."

The world freezes.It’s her voice Ellen Ripley, weak, but insistent sounding just as exhausted as you.