ALIEN: Isolation

Prologue

The man limped painfully down the dark corridor. He could hear it coming. It knew he was here. It knew there was no hope for him. He was wounded, currently clasping a large gash to his right thigh, and was heavily bleeding.

The man's name was Pete. Pete Harwell. And he was one of the security staff members on Sevastopol station, one of the larger commercial stations in this system. But now, as far as Pete knew, he was the only one left to inhabit the place.

Sirens and red flashing lights lit up the otherwise dark station, every turn of the lights casting eerie shadows where the brightness barely missed. An automated voice blared through the speakers.

'All personnel please make their ways to the escape pods on level seven,'

It was too late for that, thought pete, there's nobody left TO escape.

Everyone was dead. Out of the entire skeleton crew of 400 people on the station, everybody was dead. Well... 

Almost everybody. There was something in there with him. He had seen it with his own eyes. Seen it sneak out of the medbay, and then subsequently wipe out the population of the station.

The man shambled on, becoming paler and paler with every step. Hanging loosely by his side was an a M1014 shotgun. He knew the weapon he brandished was of no use though. He had spent the last of his ammunition a long time ago. Unfortunately, it was on another member of the station, who had threatened him with a revolver.

The man turned a corner, and came to an automatic sliding door. On the panel beside it was a group of numbers, one on top of the other. This was the door to an elevator. He pressed the button, causing one of the numbers to light up.

Floor 13. That's where the elevator was.

Pete had been so caught up in the situation, he didn't actually know what floor he himself was on. He looked around the panel, before finally seeing where.

Situated next to the small green lit words 'you are here' was the number twenty six.

'Shit,' he said aloud with rasping breath.

All of a sudden, there was a clanging noise, that sounded as though it came from down the corridor somewhere. The noise was that of something hard hitting metal. Something fast, and something deadly.

'Oh god,' he thought. 'It's here.'

Pete quickly turned around and began to press the button. Not now. he thought. Not when I'm so close. All pete needed to do was get in the elevator and ascend two floors to the medical centre.

There he could get some medication and bandages to help his wound, if only mildly, and then hole up inside the ward managers office. It was safe there, he knew it was. All the doors in the medbay have locks, and if he could manage to get there in time, Pete could wait there for help to come.

Pete looked down at the lights.

Floor 20.

'C'mon, c'mon,' he said, slowly getting more terrified, and quickly getting more impatient. 

Another clang could be heard. And then a series of slightly less louder clangs began to bang down the corridor.

It had climbed onto this floor. And it was right down the hallway.

Pete turned around, and saw it's monstrous shadow slowly make it's way into the middle of the corridor, the creature itself, still out of view. He turned back to look at the elevator's number panel. Staring at it with baited breath, yet at the same time, nearly hyperventilating at the thought of the almost certain death that awaited him.

Floor 22.

'C'mon.'

23.

He could hear it's growling get closer.

24.

All of a sudden, however, Pete realised that the shadow of what was following him abruptly disappear upwards.

'Shit, c'mon' he yelled, desperately banging on the door.

The number twenty six finally lighted up, and Pete quickly climbed into the elevator, hitting the button for floor twenty eight. He pressed his back against The elevator's rear wall and took a much awaited breath of relief. He looked around the elevator, with a feeling of peace. Relief.

He had made it. The number 28 lit up on the elevator's interior control panel, and the doors opened.

'Don't count your chickens before they hatch.'

If Pete had considered this very saying , it may just have saved his life.

Unfortunately, Pete failed to take this saying into practise. Sure enough, he wasn't safe. And the last thing he saw in his life, was the opening elevator doors, and then the ghastly, sleek, deadly shape of the thing that killed him.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed out through the station that very same minute. But the death scream of Pete Harwell would fall upon deaf ears.

Because the ship had lost its communications.

Because there was close to zero other people on board.

Because as we all know,

in space, no one can hear you scream.