Subnautica: Echoes

Chapter 6: The Sacrificial Lamb

Like a decrepit house abandoned for centuries, the halls of the lava facility creaked. Vacant corridors groaned and mirrored each footstep, each breath. The luminescent green light crept along the walls and slid through the labyrinthine patterns, dispersing the shadows that had lain there for a dozen lifetimes.

"Are you sure Marguerit will be okay back there?" Samuel asked, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "It doesn't feel right leaving her."

"She's survived way worse than waiting," Cassidy replied. "Besides, it was her idea to wait."

"She promised to call if there are any problems," Lyra assured him, tapping her nail on the PDA attached to her arm.

"And you trust her enough not to run off and leave us here?" Samuel challenged. "Or contact Alterra to tell them where we are?"

"I do." Lyra patted his shoulder as she passed him and jogged up the ramp to the central reservation. Tubes and wiring poked into the tank where a deceased creature lay contorted in on itself. It died helpless. Trapped and alone. She hunched down to get a better look at the specimen, pinpointing the lines where brutal hands had cut and sliced with precision, but not with sympathy. A sorrow prickled within her heart as she stared at the poor little soul.

"My child," the voice lamented, emanating in the deepest reaches of her mind. "Taken from me by savages. Carved up for the vultures to study."

Whooshes of colour rushed past Lyra and she tumbled back onto the grate. Centaur-like beings galloped by her and left a river of lilac and blood red sparkles in their wake. Alarms blared somewhere in the distance, and the stark warning to evacuate looped over it. A creature leapt over her in their haste to flee, their horned head swaying and the lights within their frame shifting from a neon purple to a distressed crimson.

"Monsters. All they knew was to dissect, never to show compassion or to ask for what they desired. They almost took everything. Their ignorance killed them."

Lyra's chest heaved with each panicked breath. Why was she seeing these things? How was she seeing these things? Sturdy arms lifted her and the strange creatures vanished, the trails of sparkling red floating away.

"What happened?" Cassidy inquired, letting go of the woman once she was upright again. "I heard a bang, and when I turned around, you were on the floor."

"I snagged my foot on the grating as I tried to get up," Lyra responded.

"Never had you down as the clumsy type, but as long as you're not hurt..."

Lyra nodded and rubbed her palms down her legs to free them of the scratchy dust. "We should move on. I don't think we'll find much more in here."

The building held a plethora of artefacts and rooms, entire halls crowded with relics and eggs from the creatures that called 4546B home. They spent some time examining them and comparing them to the Alterra archives, and made notes of their own as they ventured deeper into the planet's tumultuous history. Everywhere they went, the green glow followed, igniting in the structural framing and guiding them through the forsaken facility.

Stepping into a darkened chamber, Lyra halted and awaited the neon green shimmer. The place remained shadowed but for the rectangle of water in the centre. Overhead, the ceiling sloped and blocks hung above the pool, reflecting the white sheen.

"I wonder what's down there," Samuel said, leaning forwards to peek into the clear depths.

"Only one way to find out." Lyra hooked her rebreather mask over her face and secured the latches. "If there is anything dangerous down there, come straight back up."