The newcomers eyed them with open doubt, but Xuan stepped forward, cutting through the hesitation.
“You’re saying all this, but how do we know any of it is actually true? Got anything to prove you aren’t just making it up? Like the gear you bought, or some crazy strength?”
Jie let out a dry, humorless scoff.
“You think horror movies are a walk in the park? Nine-and-a-half deaths out of ten doesn’t even cover it. Anyone who’s made it through twenty runs could probably punch straight through solid steel.”
Xuan shook his head.
“No, you misunderstand. I’m not trying to insult you. If we’re going to work together without constantly watching our backs, we need to clear the air.” He glanced toward Zero and Kampa.
Alexandra leaned back against the bulkhead, her arms crossed, choosing to keep her mouth shut.
She had zero intention of telling a room full of strangers she’d met three minutes ago what she could actually do.
Let Jie and Zha handle the talking.
Instead, she looked around the room while the conversation continued.
The metal walls, machinery, cramped layout, and constant vibration beneath her feet were all things she’d already experienced during the transfer, but this was different.
She wasn’t standing in God’s Dimension anymore.
There was no cavern surrounding them, no God sphere hanging overhead, and no easy way back.
Somewhere beyond the hull was open space, and the realization still felt completely fucking ridiculous.
I should’ve brought a camera.
She could have taken pictures.
Something to show her family and friends when she got back, assuming she ever got back.
Actually, they’d probably think I was bullshitting them.
She caught her reflection in a dark section of the wall and almost laughed.
They wouldn’t even recognize me.
Between the new body, the height, the blonde hair, and those ridiculous green eyes, she looked like someone had taken Himiko Toga and stretched her out.
Yeah.
That would go over well.
She turned away from the reflection, still trying not to smile.
I wanted to be an actress, and somehow I ended up inside a movie anyway.
Just not as an actress.
Zha stepped forward, unholstering his Desert Eagle.
“No real secret. Every horror movie you survive gets you a flat thousand reward points. On top of that, God gives us optional missions. Complete one, and you get extra points and a bonus reward. Check your watches.”
Alexandra raised her wrist, checking the current mission prompt on her black metallic band:
[Main Mission: Kill the Alien. Reward: 1,000 Points.]
[Constraint: Stay within 5,000 meters of the Nostromo’s main crew. Exceeding limit results in immediate deletion.]
“As for Alexandra,” Zha added, gesturing vaguely toward her, “she’s taken a completely different path. I’m not going around listing our full kit to strangers, but we’ve got the tools to handle ourselves.”
Alexandra caught Zha’s eye and gave a subtle, appreciative nod.
He kept the details locked down, and she certainly wasn’t going to start filling in the blanks.
Kampa crossed his arms, studying Zha and Jie for a moment.
“Mercenary, lead gunner. Call me Kampa. Honestly, I’d rather you were all lying, because this place is a mess.”
“No name. Call me Zero. Assassin. I do long-range precision work, though this setup doesn’t give me much room to use my skills, and there aren’t any sniper rifles here anyway.”
Alexandra watched Zero and Kampa for a moment after they finished introducing themselves.
She knew those two.
More importantly, she knew they were supposed to survive.
That was strangely comforting, right up until she remembered there were sixteen people in this movie instead of the seven they’d had in Resident Evil.
The comfort disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived.
Jie laughed out loud.
“Well, you weren’t kidding. The five of us made it through the last horror movie. I’ve survived four runs. The other four have survived one. Still, we dropped the ball on not stocking up on some heavy guns with limited ammo. Those disposable weapons are cheap enough; we should’ve grabbed some.”
Lan chimed in with the rest of the breakdown, explaining to the newcomers how God brought everyone back, what rewards looked like, and how the point system worked.
Alexandra watched the newcomers’ expressions while Lan explained God, reward points, and what happened after a successful horror movie.
She remembered how absurd the whole thing had sounded when she’d first heard it, except she hadn’t even known whether any of it was real yet.
Watching these people hear it for the first time made the memory feel strangely distant.
This is going to be a hell of a thing to wake up to.
As Lan finished, a small smile touched her lips.
Apparently, she’d just earned the hundred points for explaining the rules.
Lan glanced toward the doorway after Six vanished from her thoughts.
“Hey, hot stuff.” Alexandra looked over.
“What?” “So you dropped the android.” “Yeah. She doesn’t deal well with acid.” Lan’s eyebrows lifted.
“What do you mean?” Alexandra paused.
Shit.
“I mean…” She quickly searched for something that wouldn’t sound insane.
“I review most of the horror movies I watch. After hearing Jie explain how the difficulty keeps increasing, I figured the next one could be anything. Ghosts, curses, aliens, whatever. Six is great, but if we’re dealing with something that can melt her, she’d be more useful somewhere else.”
Stupid.
Think before you talk.
Lan watched her for another second, then smiled.
“Cute.” Alexandra’s face warmed.
“What’s cute about that?” “You care about the synthetic.” Alexandra glanced toward the others.
“Don’t they?” “I think it makes sense. Weird, but still.” Lan’s smile widened, but before she could say anything else, the heavy pneumatic hiss of the main door drowned out the room.
The thick steel slab slid slowly into the bulkhead, revealing an empty, dimly lit corridor.
“Showtime.”
The door began to open, and Alexandra felt the tension in the room change almost immediately.
She knew this part—the empty corridor, the waiting, everyone expecting something to come through the doorway.
Jie yanked his sidearm, snapping the barrel toward the open doorway.
Minutes dragged by.
Nothing moved out there.
Just as the tension started to ease, the two middle-aged white-collar workers walked past the threshold—the man clutching a briefcase, the woman adjusting the strap of her leather handbag.
Zha lunged forward, his voice sharp.
“Don’t just wander out there! This is your first horror movie—you’re way softer than we are, and you’ve got zero gear. If anyone’s scouting, it’s us.”
Zero offered a cold sneer from the corner.
“You really think they’re walking out there to scout?”
Before anyone could stop them, the young man and woman followed right behind the middle-aged pair, trailing the three street punks who had already bolted down the hall.
As the middle-aged man walked past Alexandra, his eyes dropped to the skin-tight tactical suit, the sword hilt over her shoulder, and the dual holsters strapped to her thighs.
He paused, giving her a long, disbelieving look.
“Seriously?” he muttered, shaking his head.
The woman beside him snorted.
“Apparently the production budget went straight to costumes. Look at her—she thinks she’s at Comic-Con.”
The young man flirting with his partner laughed, gesturing toward Zha.
“Right? Treating us like idiots with a scripted haunted house and a bunch of actors. Calling himself a professional killer? If he’s a sniper, I’m an astronaut…”
Alexandra watched them head for the corridor and immediately recognized the attitude.
She remembered their denial, the disbelief, the way they treated the whole setup like a cheap reality show stunt.
Oh, no.
She knew where this was going.
She had watched these people die on a screen before, but standing ten feet away from them made it entirely different.
Come on, you idiots.
Don’t do this.
Alexandra pushed away from the wall.
“Hey!” The group kept walking.
“Wait!” The middle-aged woman glanced back over her shoulder, rolled her eyes, and kept going.
Alexandra took two quick steps toward the doorway.
“Seriously, don’t go wandering out there by yourselves. We don’t know what’s out there.” The man laughed.
“Save the act for someone else.” They disappeared around the corner.
Alexandra stopped at the doorway, staring after them.
She could have grabbed them.
She could have physically dragged them back if she’d wanted to.
Would that have been the right move?
She didn’t know.
She’d spent the whole last stretch of time wondering what would happen if she interfered with events that were supposed to happen.
God had already changed the number of people—sixteen instead of seven.
So what happened if she changed something else?
Her eyes lingered on the empty corridor.
She could’ve stopped them.
That was the part that bothered her.
She’d had the chance, and she’d let them go.
When the dust settled, only four newcomers were left in the room: Xuan, Kampa, Zero, and a sharp-eyed kid who had been hanging back quietly.
“Hold on—is letting them walk off smart? Doesn’t that just give the thing more bodies?” Zha asked, frowning.
Alexandra rubbed her forehead.
“I tried to stop them. They didn’t listen.” She glanced toward the corridor.
“And dragging them back by force wouldn’t have worked anyway. There are sixteen of us on this ship. More people means more eyes, more places to search, more chances to find it before it finds us.”
The quiet kid cautiously stepped closer to the group.
“Can… can I stick with you guys? This is insane, but staying with people who actually know the rules is my only shot. Name’s Li Shuaixi. Fresh out of college, no real job yet, but I’ve spent way too much time reading horror fiction, creepypastas, and mythology.”
Zha exchanged a look with Jie, then reached out a hand.
“Welcome aboard. Can’t promise you’ll survive, but we don’t ditch our own.” Unless they become a liability.
Jie slid his sidearm back into his holster with a sharp click.
“So what’s the play? We can’t just sit in this tin can waiting.”
“Information,” Lan and Xuan said at the exact same time.
Alexandra looked from Lan to Xuan as they spoke together.
Lan naturally took to organizing the situation, while Xuan seemed more comfortable examining whatever problem she put in front of him.
They actually made a pretty good pair for this.
They glanced at each other.
Xuan waved a hand.
“I’m better at analyzing the problem than organizing everyone.” If this guy lacks confidence, we’re all dead.
Lan tapped her temple, smiling.
“I’m a writer, so plotting comes naturally—though someone better check my math if I go off the rails. Alexandra, you’re the one who reads too much speculative fiction; chime in if the logic breaks.”
Alexandra gave Lan a sideways look.
She knew enough about horror movies to recognize when something was following a familiar pattern, but that didn’t make her a tactician.
She’d never studied weapons, military history, or squad tactics.
She’d just read a ridiculous amount of fiction.
Apparently that counted for something now.
“Spare me,” Alexandra said, crossing her arms.
“I read tropes for fun, not military manuals. If I had the cheat codes for this place, we wouldn’t be wearing standard-issue gear. I’m useful when something needs blowing up. The rest of you can handle the planning.”
“So,” Lan said smoothly, stepping closer while the rest of the group started checking their weapons, “what about you?”
Alexandra raised an eyebrow.
“What about me?”
“You ask plenty of questions about everyone else,” Lan smirked.
“What do you care about?”
Alexandra looked Lan straight in the face.
“So, Lan, what do you care about?”
Lan’s smirk widened.
“Well, you can find out if we survive this movie. The date’s on me.”
Alexandra blinked.
Lan’s smile lingered for a second before she turned back toward the room.
“Then you’ll know.”
“Fine. Let’s look at the board,” Lan continued smoothly, stepping into the center of the group.
“From what we checked before dropping in, Alien is pretty straightforward. One monster. Compared to the Resident Evil outbreak, it’s actually tamer—both are sci-fi horror with rules we understand. The only catch is that there are sixteen of us instead of seven. Something clearly changed, and the difficulty went up with it.”
Xuan nodded.
“Like the Hive. If we compare the monster’s speed and lethality against our headcount, we’re fine as long as we keep control of the fight. The real question is how much the story changed.”
“Information,” Lan repeated.
“We need to see what’s different. Movies don’t tell you exactly how fast it moves or how much damage it can take. We have to run into it so we know what we know before we try to put it down.”
Zha looked to Xuan, who gave a quiet nod.
Zero and Kampa said nothing.
Zha tightened his grip on his sidearm and squared his shoulders.
“Then that’s the plan. We sweep the ship, find out what changed, and deal with it. Jie’s got infinite ammo, Zero and Kampa can cover our sightlines and flank, and if my energy holds up, I’ll take point in close quarters.”