We measure our steps as quietly as we can, following our compass, edging closer to where the Lighthouse rises. More comes into focus as our eyes adjust, but I almost prefer the blur and darkness.

Little shadows stand on the floor around our feet, peeking out through the dust. They’re statues, I realise, once I get the lenses dialled in close enough, barely taller than me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were rearranging themselves when we look away, suddenly still when we sweep by them again.

Just nerves. I haven’t hunted in a long time.

And this place isn’t helping. I’ve never been so deep in Open Waters.

A little shiver creeps in through my feet. We turn, weapon tight to our shoulder. “What was that?” I whisper.

A window opens in one corner, tracing out a little map of all that we’ve seen so far. A red spot pulses in the distance, marking the source of a tremor in the stone beneath us. Short and soft, but there nonetheless. A footstep.

“Give me full immersion. All of it.”

The Juno hesitates. Are you sure? asks the display.

I almost chuckle at that. “No,” I say, but I blink past it anyway.

The shell gives me a moment to breathe. My ports still hurt, but that’s what I get for leaving them a couple of years.

“Go,” I say, before I have time to change my mind.

The jacks die under me. I tick and shudder as they roll through a reset, but there aren’t any filters this time. The Juno gives me something to hold onto as I lose the feeling in my legs.

And then as they come alive.

The ground is there beneath my feet. Soft dust mixed with some kind of crystalline gravel that makes my soles ache. I can feel the gentle vibration that courses through everything in this place; the endless wind that grinds against the surface above.

And then comes the cold.

I howl into my helmet.

The Juno pulls back, tries to throttle the feed.

“No!” I have to force it through my teeth. “No,” more clearly this time. “Wait.”

This isn’t real, I tell myself. I know it isn’t.

Breathe in, breathe out.

This isn’t real.

I imagine my feet. They’re right here, inside a pair of thick, frostproof socks covered by soft inner shoes, inside a pressurised suit, inside steel-shod boots. They sit in a cockpit, within our hull, behind armour and insulation and more armour after that. I imagine every layer, rolling through them in my head, and cocooning myself in the middle of it all. I have to force my body to disbelieve. I’m out of practice.