The Wails of Cocytus

The wind never stopped on 52 Cocytus b. It howled through the frozen canyons, shrieked across the barren ice plains, and battered the weathered structures of Outpost Epsilon with a relentless, unceasing fury. The settlers had long since stopped calling it "wind"—it was the planet’s voice, an eternal wailing that sounded like the lamentations of the damned. 

Mason Holt stood by the reinforced observation window, watching the blizzard swirl outside. Beyond the perimeter floodlights, nothing existed but the white abyss. The ice, the snow, the endless storm—unchanging, unyielding. The planet had earned its name well. 

"You're staring again," came a voice behind him. 

He turned to see Dr. Aria Voss, her arms crossed, a data tablet in hand. Her hazel eyes, sharp even in the dim light, studied him. Mason smirked. 

"Just thinking," he said. 

"You think too much," she replied. "We’ve got work to do." 

Mason sighed and tore his gaze away from the storm. "Right. What’s on the agenda?" 

"Power core diagnostics. The secondary fusion reactor’s acting up. Again." 

Mason groaned. "I swear, this place is cursed." 

"Cocytus isn’t cursed," Aria said, though even she sounded uncertain. "It’s just... unforgiving." 

The settlers at Outpost Epsilon were among the few left on Cocytus. Once, it had been a promising mining colony. A wealth of frozen resources lay beneath the surface—methane lakes, subglacial minerals, ancient deposits left by some long-extinct cosmic event. But the relentless storms, the bitter cold, and the psychological toll had driven most off-world. The few who remained were scientists, engineers, and the hopelessly stubborn. 

Mason and Aria fell into all three categories. 

They made their way through the steel corridors of the station, past others huddled around heaters or buried in data screens. The hum of machinery was the only thing keeping them from complete silence. If the generators failed, Outpost Epsilon would freeze in hours. 

They reached the reactor bay, and Mason ran a hand over the cold metal casing. It was sweating from the temperature difference—a rare sight. 

Aria tapped at her console. "Power fluctuations are getting worse. If we don’t stabilize it, we could be looking at a full-scale shutdown." 

Mason grabbed a wrench and got to work. The task was mind-numbing, but it kept him from thinking too hard about the things that lurked at the edge of his mind. The whispers. The sounds beneath the wind. 

He paused. There it was again. A voice—just on the periphery of hearing. 

"...Mason..." 

His blood turned to ice, colder than the planet outside. He turned sharply, but Aria was still bent over the console, oblivious. 

The sound wasn't coming from her. 

He swallowed hard and forced himself back to work. 

The Forgotten Ones 

The power core stabilized—at least for now. Mason and Aria made their way to the mess hall, a bleak room with dull lighting and ration packs. 

"You ever wonder why we’re still here?" Mason asked as they ate. 

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Are you getting existential again?" 

"I mean it. There’s easier postings. Hell, One Nation Earth has got to have openings on Europa—plenty of ice, but at least the sun shines once in a while." 

Aria smirked. "You’d miss this place." 

He gave a half-laugh. "Maybe. But wouldn’t you rather be somewhere where the sky isn’t a death sentence?" 

Her smirk faded. "We all have our reasons." 

That was the unspoken rule of Cocytus—no one was here by accident. Some ran from debts, others from ghosts of their own making. The outpost had become a haven for those who couldn’t face the rest of the universe. 

The lights flickered. 

Mason stiffened. "That’s not normal." 

The emergency klaxon blared. 

Aria was already moving. "Let’s go!" 

They raced down the corridors as the station shuddered. Systems flickered in and out. The wind outside rose in pitch, a keening wail that made Mason’s skin crawl. 

"Something’s interfering with the reactor!" Aria shouted. "It’s fluctuating—something’s drawing massive power!" 

They reached the reactor bay—and froze. 

The air shimmered. 

At first, Mason thought it was a hallucination. But Aria saw it too. 

A shape stood in the reactor chamber. 

It was tall, its form shifting like heat haze. It had no face, only an impression of features, as though reality refused to solidify it completely. 

The wailing outside intensified. 

Mason grabbed Aria’s arm. "We need to get out of here!" 

The figure turned toward them. 

A voice—layered, hollow—filled the room. 

"You do not belong." 

Aria’s console exploded in a shower of sparks. She yelped and staggered back. Mason pulled her away as the reactor pulsed wildly. 

"This world is ours." 

Mason’s breath came in ragged gasps. "What... are you?" 

"We are the Forgotten." 

The temperature plummeted. Frost spread along the walls. The station groaned as metal constricted under the cold. 

"You trespass on a grave." 

Mason grabbed Aria, dragging her away as the reactor overloaded. They barely made it through the security door before the chamber imploded—not in fire, but in a void of absolute cold. 

The wind outside screamed. 

The voices of the damned rose with it. 

Run 

The station was dying. 

Corridors iced over in seconds. Lights shattered from the sudden drop in temperature. The outpost's AI blared evacuation orders, but there was nowhere to go. 

The wind pressed against the walls, shaking the station like a beast trying to get in. 

Mason and Aria stumbled into the command center, hands numb, breath misting. The others were already there—Dr. Elson, Vikram, Kara—all staring at the monitors in horror. 

Outside, figures moved in the storm. 

They were not human. 

They walked without effort against the gale, their forms flickering in and out of existence. 

"We need to launch the emergency beacon," Elson said, voice trembling. "If we don't—" 

The power failed. 

Darkness swallowed them. 

Mason felt his heart hammer in his chest. The wind howled, but beneath it—whispers. 

"You do not belong." 

A single floodlight outside flickered on. 

A face—pale, frozen, watching. 

Mason’s breath caught. He recognized it. 

It was one of the miners from six years ago. One of the first expeditions, lost to the ice. 

Except he hadn’t aged. His eyes were pits of endless black. 

"This world is ours."

The wind screamed—and the station collapsed. 

Aftermath

The distress beacon from Outpost Epsilon activated 72 hours later. 

When the rescue team arrived, they found only ruins—twisted steel, shattered domes, and ice-covered bodies frozen in expressions of terror. One lone survivor, Commander Grace Liu, was nothing but an empty husk of her former self, driven to the brink of irrevocable madness—laughing, but smiling no more, as a great Gothic poet once wrote so many eons ago.

The wind howled ceaselessly. 

The storm never ended. 

The planet had reclaimed its own.