Containment

Rick Shepherd built walls for a reason.

After what he did during his military service, he learned to keep people at a distance. Emotion is liability. Connection is weakness. So when he accepts a six-month assignment at an isolated Antarctic facility-no contact, no questions, just daily procedures for something kept in the cells below-it feels like escape.

He isn't prepared for what isolation actually does to a person.

The silence. The routine. The slow erosion of every defense he spent years constructing. Rick finds himself reaching for connection in ways he swore he never would. Needing it. Craving it. Willing to ignore the warning signs just to feel less alone.

The journals he discovers suggest others felt the same way. They all followed the same pattern. They all made the same mistakes.

None of them finished their six months.

Some doors, once opened, can't be closed again.