Rick’s question echoed in our small research room, interrupting my focus on analyzing the latest collected data. I glanced up to find him, a curious smile playing on his lips.
“Yeah, man,” he continued, “And to think that animals of that size can camouflage so well…” He returned to making his notes, realizing he wouldn’t get a response from me. I wanted to contradict his intuition.
“So we need to be extra careful out there, huh? I heard these creatures hunt humans.”
As a wildlife researcher, my life had been a succession of expeditions in search of answers about the mysteries of the planet’s most remote regions. Most of the time had been spent as a researcher in the Amazon Rainforest, in Brazil. The flora and fauna were fantastic, but after having a severe case of dysentery and getting dengue fever for the third time, I thought it might be good to be in a place with fewer insects, or at least fewer mosquitoes. The Arctic, one of the coldest places on Earth, became my ideal choice, and now, it’s been three months since the view from our base window has been an endless white expanse.
Our routine at the base was meticulously planned and sensitive, with each action measured to ensure our safety and efficiency. Given the unstable solar cycles, we relied on the weather to carry out our tasks. Ever heard of the polar night? Well, we were just a few days away from that event and racing against time, both to prepare ourselves and to conduct the necessary data collections. We were here to document animal sightings, a sort of mass migration of walruses at the wrong time of year.
On that particular day, we had decided to head to a location marked by small red dots moving rapidly northward on the heat map (which prompted Rick’s initial comment). Equipped with our thermal suits and some emergency supplies, we set off from the base towards the vast icy desert, riding our snowmobile. The white dunes were blinding; it was almost impossible to look at them, forcing us to wear sunglasses. We rode for about 10 minutes until Rick, who was driving, slowed down.
“Everything okay there?” I asked him, my voice muffled by the high collar of the suit.
“Yeah… I think we have a problem,” he replied, extending his hand, the black glove pointing ahead to an unpleasant scene.
Several walrus carcasses, massive males, marked with deep wounds and signs of fierce struggle. We approached slowly; it was still possible to see some stragglers walking a few kilometers ahead. What had happened? We got off the vehicle to analyze.
“Hmmm,” Rick murmured, looking at the hole in one of them, which made it possible to see some internal organs. “It wasn’t a fight between them… we can rule out territorial or mating disputes.” He pointed to another body further ahead, with the same type of wound. “They were attacked by something; it drove the herd away. These ones here tried to fight against the threat.”
He began to photograph the corpses.
“Man, these are the biggest walruses we’ve seen since we got here,” I replied. “Are you saying something dared to attack?”
Rick stopped taking photos. We stared at each other in silence. The wind whistled, strong as ever, lifting the pieces of skin around the animals’ wounds. Both of us knew that only one thing could have done that. A large, aggressive animal, the biggest land predator… Something we couldn’t capture with our equipment. I sensed his unease, and without saying a word, we got back on the snowmobile.
“Yeah, pretty useful information you gave us earlier today,” I commented to him as Rick accelerated, kicking up a small spray of snow behind us.
“We’re lucky it had a hefty meal earlier today; these creatures can run as fast as a vehicle like ours.”
I felt fear at the thought. A nearly one-ton animal running alongside us, ready to devour us. I shuddered.
“Rick… Do you think it could still be around?” My gaze scanned the snowy mountains.
“Well, it’s possible, but I don’t think it’ll come near us. They’re quite shy, solitary, you know? After filling their bellies, they probably go take a nap or something. I just hope we’re not dealing with a mother bear and her cubs…”
I’ve heard countless stories of brown bears when I worked in temperate forests. I’ve even seen a corpse victim of a mother bear… It’s not a pretty sight, and I believe it’s far from the way I’d want to die…
We returned to the base with our hearts still racing and minds filled with concerns. As we shut off the snowmobile engines, the sound of Arctic silence enveloped our thoughts, but it was an unsettling silence, laden with the possibility of imminent danger.
“We can’t just stand still, for the sake of our research and even our lives,” I said, removing my helmet. “If a polar bear, or whatever it may be, is nearby, we can’t let it go unnoticed.”
Rick nodded, sharing my urgency. “Let’s set up some motion cameras around the base, so we’ll have a better view of what’s happening around us. See who we’re dealing with.”
We entered the base, and while he grabbed the necessary equipment, I took charge of preparing the bear repellents, carefully mixing some of the chemical compounds. I’ve used some of these in other cases; they’re usually effective with Brown Bears; let’s see if this albino monster flees from it too.
“This should keep any wild beast away from here,” I commented hopefully as we began to spread the repellents around the base.
“Let’s scatter some bait,” suggested Rick. “If we can lure it away from here, we’ll have more time to prepare.”
It was actually a great idea. We walked a few meters to one of the nearby ice edges of the base. Rick carefully took out a few kilograms of raw meat we had taken from the walruses and placed it at one end. I took out an ice saw and broke the connection between that part and the “mainland,” pushing it away with my foot.
As we watched the ice and the meat drift apart, our conversations were punctuated by the sound of the wind howling, a constant reminder of the relentless nature surrounding us.
“We’ve done what we can,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as Rick. “Now it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing if our precautions will be enough.”
He nodded, but there was tension in his eyes that I recognized as the same one I felt within myself. No matter how prepared we were, facing an unknown predator in a hostile environment was a challenge neither of us had faced before. As night fell over the base and the stars shimmered in the icy sky, accompanied by the faint blue glow of a weak aurora borealis, we settled into our research room, closely monitoring the motion cameras and keeping the only weapon we had at the ready.
See, polar bears have an extremely thick layer of fur, and beneath the skin, another layer of fat. Even our rifle would serve, with luck, as a nuisance for it to back off. It was like throwing a stone.
Despite all our precautions, a sense of unease persisted, a feeling that something was lurking beyond the walls of the base, waiting to reveal its face when we least expected it. It was like… feeling watched, but more raw, more primal. Have you ever felt that way? Like you were being observed, but by something non-human? I assure you, it’s ten times worse…
The days unfolded into an anxious and tiresome routine at the base. We alternated sleep shifts to maintain a constant vigil over the motion cameras, waiting for any sign of suspicious activity. The sensors would occasionally trigger, but only revealed the usual inhabitants of the region: seals, some Arctic foxes, and, occasionally, false alarms.
With no major developments, our outings from the base were reduced to the bare minimum, and time spent outdoors was limited to the essential. The tension seemed to ease as we approached the eve of the polar night, believing that perhaps the polar bear had migrated to another region or entered early hibernation, explaining its attack on such large animals. On the eve of the polar night, we decided to undertake one last expedition to gather additional data on the walrus behavior, this time more confident and less concerned about the predator’s presence. Equipped with the heat detector and some essential supplies, as before, we set off from the base towards another group of walruses we had detected earlier.
We maintained a safe distance, watching with fascination as some females and calves played near the icy coastline. I took meticulous notes in my notebook, recording every movement and interaction, while Rick did the same. I glanced over at his, which read something like:
“Observations made during today’s expedition indicate an anomalous migration of walruses in this Arctic region. The individuals observed exhibited unusual behaviors, possibly indicative of a response to external stimuli, such as the presence of predators or changes in environmental conditions.”
I looked to where he was looking. While I got distracted by the calves and females, Rick was watching the few males in the group; they were alert, tension visible in their muscles, and their restlessness.
After a few hours of observation, we decided it was time to head back to the base and start preparing our findings for analysis.
“Shall we go?” Rick asked.
“Sure, I just—” I stopped when I saw a mother feeding her calf; it was the perfect picture to adorn the cover of the journal where we would publish the results. “You go ahead,” I said, nodding towards the scene. He understood and began to walk towards the vehicle.
When I finally turned to join Rick, I realized he was standing still, motionless.
“Rick? What’s happened?” I asked, my voice coming out in a tense whisper.
He didn’t respond immediately, just raised a trembling hand, pointing in the opposite direction. I followed his gaze, and what I saw chilled me to the core. On the distant horizon, partially obscured by a snow dune, the massive head of a polar bear emerged, fixing us with its black eyes as dark as night. A sensation of overwhelming terror gripped me as I realized the magnitude of the creature before us. I had never seen such a large polar bear; its monstrous bulk stood out against the icy backdrop. It took a step, and its paw… Oh God… it was monstrous! Just that one step made the ground feel like it was trembling. If it wasn’t a 3-meter specimen, it was very close.
For what felt like endless five minutes, we remained paralyzed, caught in an agonizing standoff with the Arctic’s supreme predator. Then, without warning, the bear turned and began to walk in the opposite direction, its imposing presence gradually fading into the vastness of the frozen tundra.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rick finally muttered, his voice trembling with the intensity of the moment. “We don’t know if it might change its mind.”
With one last glance at the empty horizon, I turned to follow Rick back to the relative safety of the base, with the unsettling feeling that we had narrowly escaped the terrible fate that awaited us in the clutches of the polar bear.
As the polar night approached, darkness began to intensify, enveloping the base in a cloak of deep shadows. Our circadian rhythm became confused, struggling to adjust to the constant Arctic darkness, where the sun never rose, and the nights seemed to stretch on for eternity. The cold increased, penetrating our bones and freezing our thoughts as we clung to our blankets and portable heaters. Even inside the heated base, we could feel the glacial touch of winter, a constant reminder of human frailty.
Then the unexpected happened. An external problem, a malfunction in one of the generators. The temperature dropped severely; it must have been no more than 2 degrees Celsius inside the base now…
The situation demanded that someone go out to perform urgent repairs.
“Look… I don’t want to sound like a coward or anything,” I whispered, “But I’m not suited for such low temperatures.” My jaw trembled involuntarily… but I also lied… I was afraid.
Rick rolled his eyes. He knew, to some extent, it was true. He had been there before, at least on two other expeditions, and had bravely volunteered for the task (as if there were any other option), while I remained at the base, monitoring him through the radio to warn when the repair had been successful.
“Rick, be careful out there,” I murmured, my voice full of concern.
He nodded solemnly, grabbing the rifle and slinging the strap around his body.
I watched him through the security cameras, seeing him move through the darkness like a fleeting shadow. My heart pounded with anxiety as I awaited his return, my hands trembling as I firmly held the radio.
“It seems the problem is related to the power cable,” Rick reported, his voice echoing static through the radio. “I’ll try to fix it as soon as possible.”
I watched him work, a sense of helplessness settling in my mind. If something happened to him, whether it be an animal or even the cold itself, what should I do? Then, suddenly, a scream tore through the silence, echoing through the radio with terrifying intensity.
“Damn it, Nate, open the door quickly, and get ready to close it!” Rick’s voice was filled with panic, his cries echoing in the confines of the base as I rushed to the entrance door, my heart hammering in my chest. I heard it through the radio and then through the echo, a gunshot. Then another, and another.
“Shit, Nate, Open the door! I can’t stop this thing!”
I looked at the heat panel; I already knew what I would see, but I wanted to risk the chance of it being something else… My heart sank when I saw only Rick’s heat signature, running desperately towards the base. Ice formed in my veins as I realized what was happening.
“Rick, I’m opening the door!” I shouted, my hands trembling as I pressed the controls, the door slowly lifting to let him in. I could hear his heavy breathing and hurried footsteps approaching the base, while the cries of desperation continued to echo on the radio. I knew there was no time to lose.
As soon as Rick entered the base, panting and trembling, I pressed the button to close the door, but what was chasing him was closer than I had imagined. The creature emerged into view, its imposing presence filling the room with a shiver of horror.It was a bear, gigantic and terrifying, its black eyes shining with deadly intensity as it approached slowly. Rick and I shrank against the wall, powerless before the approaching beast. Its steps were heavy, each one seeming to resonate like thunder in the cold air. Fear consumed us as we waited for the inevitable confrontation with the apex predator, the top of the food chain, knowing we were completely at the mercy of its deadly claws.The creature drew nearer and nearer as the garage door descended slowly, creating a barrier between us and the imminent danger. Rick and I exchanged tense glances, knowing our only hope was to keep the door closed until the creature gave up or help arrived.
But then, just when we thought we might be safe, when the door was almost fully sealed, the bear’s colossal paw penetrated the small gap beneath it, exerting overwhelming pressure as it began to lift it slowly. My heart sank in despair as I weakly pressed the descent button. That door must have weighed at least a ton of lead, what the hell was that bear?Rick pulled out the rifle and fired a few more shots, but the shots only seemed to enrage the beast further, which roared loudly and furiously, not even a trace of blood visible on it. Our fate seemed sealed as the door began to rise under the creature’s relentless power.
“Rick, we need to get out of here now!”
I shouted above the deafening roar of the bear, my heart pounding with desperation in my chest as I looked around for an escape route.
“To the other section of the base, quickly!” Rick yelled in response, his voice trembling with fear as he fired one last time in the direction of the beast before turning and running toward the internal door of the base.We ran desperately, our feet pounding on the frozen ground as we heard the sound of metal being twisted and the furious roars of the bear echoing behind us.
We reached the internal door of the base, pushing it with all our might before locking ourselves inside, breathing heavily as the sound of the bear reverberated beyond the fragile barrier between us.”Call the central, now!” Rick shouted, his voice echoing with urgency as he rushed to activate the emergency radio. I obeyed him, my hands trembling as I dialed the emergency central number, pleading for help as I explained our desperate situation.As we waited for the central’s response, the tension in the room was palpable, every passing second feeling like an eternity as we awaited the rescue that might never come. The sound of the bear’s roars echoed through the base, a constant reminder of our precarious situation.
Finally, the response came, a static voice from the radio promising to send help as quickly as possible. We breathed a sigh of relief for a moment, renewed hope as we waited for the rescuers to arrive. Fortunately, a transcontinental ship expedition happened to be passing nearby us at that exact moment, and they would be here in a few minutes. As we anxiously waited, we watched through the monitor the heat signatures rapidly approaching, surrounding the base door in a tactical formation. The mission leader, with a calm and authoritative voice, was heard over the radio, giving precise instructions to his team:
“Attention, men, lethal force authorized,” an extreme measure reflecting the gravity of the situation. Intense and rapid gunfire echoed through the radio, followed by shouts and desperate orders.
“Sir, it’s not working!” one of the men yelled.
Our hearts sank as we realized the shots seemed to have no effect against the creature. One of them screamed over the radio, filled with panic.
“Captain! What do I do? It’s coming toward me.”
“Maintain formation, men!” the voice replied.
In an impulsive and thoughtless act, I did something I never would have imagined doing. I stood up, my eyes fixed on Rick’s rifle lying beside me, paralyzed, his mind spinning with the intensity of the moment. Without hesitation, I grabbed the rifle, my hand trembling with nervousness as I lifted it, the weight of the weapon heavy in my arms.
“What are you doing?” Rick asked, his voice filled with concern as he watched.
I didn’t answer, my eyes fixed on the base door as I approached slowly. I could hear the heavy footsteps of the creature outside, and my heart pounded with a mixture of fear and determination.
When I reached the door, I hesitated for a moment, my trembling finger hovering over the rifle trigger. Then I opened the exit, rushing outside and quickly closing it behind me. The Arctic cold hit me hard, the wind cutting my unprotected face, but I decided to ignore it; I only had eyes for the white beast.
The beast was nearly upon one of the expedition’s men, who trembled helplessly, almost diminutive compared to the size of the animal. Without even thinking about the consequences, I opened fire on the monster, which immediately turned towards me as I shouted,
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?” I bellowed.
I swear I saw anger on its face. It came towards me, and I confess I hadn’t thought about that detail. I continued firing, which still seemed futile as the bullets collided with its skin. Then it rose up threateningly, ready to strike me a fatal blow, when I noticed something: On its belly, a huge mark lay. It ran from its neck to its groin, it looked like a scar but…open? I realigned my aim there.
The sound of the shot echoed through the cold air, followed by a sharp, piercing cry of pain. To everyone’s surprise, the creature took a step back, its imposing presence weakened by the wound. The men kept shooting, and illuminated by the gunfire, I swear to God I had a fleeting glimpse of what seemed to be something moving inside the bear, a dark and terrifying outline, there was something inside the bear, using it… Before I could process what I had seen, the creature turned and fled into the darkness of the tundra, leaving behind a trail of fear and confusion, blood not red but entirely black leaking from its belly as it went.
Rick quickly approached, his eyes filled with concern as he helped me up from the icy ground.
“What happened out there?” He asked, his voice filled with anxiety.
I reflected for a moment, my mind reeling from the impact of what I had seen. I decided not to tell him, I should spare Rick from the thing I saw, just as I spare you, not giving descriptions “of that.”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, my voice trembling slightly. “The creature just… fled. I think it must have had an exposed spot, I guess…”
Rick nodded, his expression tense as he looked out at the dark horizon beyond the base. He knew it wasn’t entirely true, at least not the whole truth, but I believe he also understood it was not something worth knowing. Two hours later, we were aboard the S.S. Polar Star, our items in bags, covered with aluminum and warming ourselves with a thin cup of coffee. We didn’t speak of the bear anymore, an internal pact of silence; all we reported from our expedition were the walruses, their fights, antics, and the corpses found.
“Orcas, right?” I asked Rick, raising an eyebrow.
“Definitely Orcas,” he wrote in the new report we were drafting.
However, something motivated me to write this. That night, still restless, I walked to the bow of the ship, observing the immensity of the ice blocks probing the sea, our monolithic, colossal vessel traversing them. As I gazed towards the horizon, faintly illuminated by the stars and the green light of the Northern Lights now shimmering, I saw the huge white blotch on the ice, still staring at me. Its eyes so black, non-human…and non-animal… It remained there the whole time, its head following our passage. I decided not to alert the others. All I could think about was one thing: What could have killed a polar bear of that size? What could have used its skin? I trembled each time I sought an answer. The thing was definitely cunning.
Polar bears do not emit detectable heat. Rick knew it, I knew it, and certainly…That thing knew it too.