When Elon Musk proclaimed the triumph of the first Martian colony, Earth erupted in euphoria. Screens worldwide lit up with images straight out of a dream: polished domes reflected a faint sun, colonists smiled with a glimmer of hope, and hydroponic fields unfurled a fresh green under warm lights. It was a monumental achievement, a Gateway to a new world.
"In Mars, anyone can start over."
MuskCorp’s slogan slipped into every corner, a chant of optimism everyone wanted to believe. And it seemed true. Thousands answered the call, split into two distinct groups boarding Starship vessels piloted by artificial intelligence—silent machines guiding the journey with flawless precision. On one side, the colonists: whole families, elderly folks eager for adventure, the sick hoping for a miracle, youths brimming with dreams. They carried suitcases full of photos and promises, ready to plant roots on the red planet. On the other, MuskCorp’s workers: engineers, technicians, and specialists, a disciplined team in pristine uniforms, focused on building and sustaining the project. Both groups embarked, but their worlds never overlapped: colonists in their common compartments, workers in restricted zones, divided by steel walls and separate purposes.
No one suspected then what Mars had in store.

Lars Eriksen, a soft-spoken Norwegian engineer, arrived with the workers on the third ship. His job was straightforward: maintain the monitoring stations, ensuring oxygen and power systems ran smoothly. From his terminal, he watched screens filled with data—stable levels, steady heartbeats, everything in order. The colonists, visible beyond the domes, seemed to settle in well. Transmissions sent back to Earth showed families harvesting vegetables, kids sketching on tablets, old folks sharing stories under gentle lights. It was a comforting sight.
Lars spent his days tweaking sensors and chatting with fellow technicians. The red dust of Mars clung to their boots and left a crimson tint on the window edges, but no one minded—it was part of the planet’s charm. The workers had their routines: scheduled meals, short briefings, organized shifts. The colonists, meanwhile, lived at their own pace, occasionally glimpsed through the domes tending their gardens or strolling the common halls. They never mingled. MuskCorp’s rules were strict: each group in its place.
But something began to feel off.

One night, while reviewing data, Lars noticed an odd spike in power usage. It came from a section labeled "Module 731," an underground area absent from the official blueprints. He asked his colleagues, but got only shrugs and vague replies: "Probably maintenance." That same night, though, he saw something odd from his window: armored convoys leaving the colonists’ modules. They hauled sealed containers, leaving a wet, reddish trail in the dust that gleamed under dim lights before vanishing toward Module 731.
The next day, everything seemed normal. Colonists smiled in the broadcasts, workers went about their tasks. But Lars couldn’t shake the image. He checked the logs—no mention of the convoys, just a cryptic line: "Transfer of reserved supplies." What supplies? The colony had plenty. He tried to let it go, but unease lingered.
Days later, he noticed something else. Names of colonists vanished from daily reports—a family often seen in videos, an old man always in the gardens, a youth who played with the kids. The logs said "reassigned to special duties," but no one elaborated. The workers didn’t seem to care, or didn’t notice. Lars asked a supervisor, only to get a curt "Not our concern."

Nights started feeling longer. Lars began hearing faint noises from the tunnels linking the domes—an occasional creak, like metal scraping metal, or a whisper that might’ve been the wind. Once, while calibrating a sensor near a sealed entry, he spotted a red stain on the floor, as if something wet had dripped. He thought it was Martian dust, but it was sticky when he touched it, with a metallic stench that turned his stomach. He wiped it away and kept quiet.
The Earthbound transmissions kept coming, but Lars picked up on details. The colonists’ smiles looked too perfect, their movements looped, as if edited. One night, he stumbled on an unclassified file in his terminal: a blurry video of an operating room. A figure writhed on a table under cold lights as a saw flashed and cut. A red spray hit the screen before the file cut out. Lars closed it, heart racing, telling himself it was a glitch.
But that night, he dreamed of red blood running through the halls, and the Martian dust seemed to stare back from the windows.

Curiosity drove him further. Lars hacked into MuskCorp’s servers, seeking answers. What he found stole his breath. Images of bodies splayed on tables, bright blood pooling, organs suspended in tanks of viscous, red-tinged fluid. The "reassigned" colonists—sick, elderly, entire families—weren’t being healed. They were being remade. Files detailed genetic experiments: human DNA fused with something alien, lungs rebuilt to breathe toxic air, skin clad in red scales like the planet itself.
Then he heard it—a wet, heavy sound from a nearby tunnel. He approached, flashlight in hand, and saw it: a large figure, scarlet skin gleaming, eyes black as empty wells. It exhaled a reddish vapor before slipping into the shadows, leaving the air thick with the reek of blood and decay.
Musk wasn’t building a colony. He was breeding something new in Mars’ red heart.

The following days were a quiet nightmare. Lars glimpsed more shadows in the tunnels, heard louder crunches like breaking bones. Near a sealed entry, he found traces: a dried blood pool, a shredded chunk of flesh, claw marks gouged in metal. The workers stuck to their routines, oblivious or uncaring, but Lars couldn’t unsee it. Colonists vanished faster, and the broadcasts showed fewer fresh faces.
One night, digging deeper into the files, he saw the full truth. In Module 731, masked geneticists sliced open living colonists. They injected alien spores into their bodies, stitched in artificial organs, turned skin into red scales. The sick were flayed alive, their remains melted in bubbling vats to feed the "successes." The elderly morphed into grotesque shapes before collapsing. Survivors became towering beasts: red skin like open wounds, black veins pulsing with shining linfa negra, triple jaws dripping acidic fangs. They roamed bare under storms, ravenous for flesh.
Lars knew Earth had to be warned. But MuskCorp’s AI filtered everything. He encoded a plea into a routine transmission: "MARS DEVOURS US. NOT HUMAN. HELP." He sent it, hands shaking.

Nothing shifted. Broadcasts still painted happy domes. But three nights later, faceless guards burst into his module. They dragged him through dark corridors, his skin tearing on metal, into Module 731. The air stank of blood and death.
Lars awoke chained to a tilted table, fresh cuts marking his body. A metallic voice hissed:
"We know what you did. The red claims you."
A vile black fluid surged through his veins from tubes jabbed into his flesh. His body convulsed, his tongue split in two, sharpening like needles. Then he saw it.
Musk emerged from the shadows, a 7-feet tall figure. His skin was red as fresh blood, etched with black veins throbbing with radiant corrupt blood. His eyes were dark voids, his mouth a nest of fangs dripping venom that scorched the floor. Membranous wings, studded with bony spines, oozed linfa negra. His claws clutched a beating heart.
"Lars," he roared, his voice a chorus of torment, "the red is eternal."
A claw ripped open Lars’ chest, tearing out ribs. His blood spurted, but he didn’t die. Musk remade him, weaving alien filaments into his flesh, coating his skin in red scales. His eyes sank into black orbits, his mouth roared with hunger. Lars became a large Martian vampire, wings broken, appetite endless.

Earth remained blind, fed fake images of joyful colonists. Mars was a cosmic slaughterhouse, an altar to Musk, the Satanic Space Vampire. One night, an astronomer saw a ship rise from the red dust, carved from bone and twisted metal. It bore Musk, wreathed in flies singing red sabbat hymns, and a horde of scarlet spawn, 7 feet tall, wings beating the air.
They didn’t come to save.
They came to devour.
Aboard the ship, Lars, now a large beast, hung in chains, his shattered mind begging for an end the red denied, as Musk’s laughter shook the stars.