01: Escaping the torment.

"Cough, cough..."

'What a terrible weather' Eyad could not stop his internal grumbling about the harsh climate in which he was.

He was one of the men who formed a scientific expedition assembled after a NASA satellite spotted anomalies in Antarctic polynya. The mission's goal was to explore and study these changes.

4 days after the start of the trip, a strong snow storm that wasn't expected blew and lasted for days, it was so strong that it didn't even allowed vision to exceed for a few meters, and it was accompanied by strong winds that made the walk much harder, especially with the equipments that they were carrying on their backs.

Eyad was the one who suffered the most from the difficulty of the weather here, and this was due to several reasons, the most important of which was that he grew up in a north African country, where the region's temperature is moderate to hot there, and the rainfall is weak, not to mention the snow.

This storm, which was not predicted by the meteorologists, caused the division of the original expedition group, so the Eyad group consisted of only 6 individuals.

In fact, the weather news error is not very shocking, despite the rarity of this case, because the South Pole is not normal as other geographical areas.

"We've been walking for days, are we close?" Eyad's voice could be barely conveyed to others ears due to the screeching of wind.

"I think we're getting close. This is the 9th day. We should arrive soon, I think. I'm not sure, but we don't have a choice anyway. the helicopter can't go deep in this geographical area because of the magnetic field" Joseon replied, who, like the rest of his colleagues, was walking with difficulty that every one of his steps was digging deep into the snow "Just be careful while walking, the size of the polynya is almost equal to a small country"

Now that they had strayed from their original path, Johnson, who had been leading them due to age and experience, hoped to take them to one of the centers or headquarters that NASA had built underground in the Antarctic in previous expeditions. These places were equipped with long-term supplies, as well it contained special communication devices.

"We'll run out of food soon even after we've slaughtered the last of the sled dogs, don't forget that most of the supplies and equipment are lost with the other members, so I hope you're right" Brad reminded him of their current dire situation.

Anthony commented with impatience "I hope so.. or else we shall starve to death, that if we didn't froze alive befor--"

His voice cut out as if it was being muffled by a remote control.

The reason was that he, like most of his companions, had heard a slight sound.

It was like the sound of ice breaking.

He held his breath and turned to see what was going on.

There he was dumbfounded by the appearance of something emerging very quickly from under the ice that had broken..

A huge creature with wet gray silky fur, large nose, with gray hairs emerging from its cheeks near its nostrils, and black eyes showing a strange and paradoxical kind of sympathy.

It was a huge seal, with unnatural size, bigger that anything he had seen before.

This seal opened its large mouth and pounced on the body of Edward, one of the men at the back of the group, and closed its huge mouth as if it was a guillotine.

The lower half of Edward's body fell to the ground in a shocking sight.

The throat of this huge creature moved as a sign of chewing and then swallowing the other half.

The bodies and minds of the rest of the five stiffened as they watched the seal's mouth stained with blood, as if it had come out of a horror movie.

It all happened so fast, it was too quick for them to react or try to save their colleague.

Eyad was the first to regain his focus, and after a huge amount of adrenaline was pumped into him, he threw his bag that was weighing him down and ran desperately for his life.

Three of the remaining four, when they saw Eyad run away, barely recovered too from the horrific shock. And the expressions of the fear and panic began to appear on their faces.

Unconsciously, they threw away what they were carrying and ran following Eyad.

As for the fourth person, he remained standing where he was, like if his soul had left his body.

Unfortunately, life is not kind to the faint of heart.

During the three's racing with the death, they were able to hear the sounds of chomping and bones breaking behind them.

Yet they could only run away, tears and snot coming down.

They couldn't even turn around and take a look.

***

After they ran away a few hundred meters, they were surprised to see Eyad, who was ahead of them, strangely stuck in the ground.

It is hard to describe it.. He wasn't sinking or falling, it was as if his leg was stuck under the ground with no hole to justify it.

And in the next second, he suddenly disappeared in front of them as if he had been swallowed up by the earth.

It was a strange scene, like a glitch in a game (NoClip).

Here came another wave of shock and terror that was pushed into their hearts.

They subconsciously stopped running trying to analyze what they saw worried of meeting the same fate.

"What's happen--" Johnson interrupted in a familiar voice.

The sound of ice breaking again.

But this time it was coming from more than one place.

The three miserables quickly turned back in disbelief.

Their hearts began to beat violently.

A few milliseconds passed until four huge seals jumped out from under the ice at a speed not befitting their size.

***

Eyad slowly opened his eyes to a continuous humming sound and a stink smell filling the place

'..'

'What happened..!?'

His eyes caught a strange place resembling the office hall, a place that had nothing to do with the frozen hell he was in before he blacked out.

'What is this place.. Is this the life after death?'

The young man was seeing a lot of rooms and wide corridors with high ceilings, which were consistent and covered with yellow wallpaper, while the floor was a damp carpet of the same color, and the ceiling had office lights and surveillance cameras.

It turned out later that the lights and cams were the source of the incessant buzzing that he heard.