The Last Transmission

[BEGIN RECORDING]

DAY 1: The stars blink in and out, slow and deliberate. I log the patterns. They whisper to me, telling me I am alone.

DAY 3: My vessel drifts endlessly through the void. Oxygen recycling holds, but just barely. There’s a crack in the viewport. It wasn’t there before.

DAY 7: The food rations taste like dirt and ash. I try not to eat. Try not to sleep. Day and night have lost all meaning.

DAY 10: The stars have seen me.

DAY 13: The distress beacon loops. No response. Something lurks beyond the scanner, just out of reach. It doesn’t reflect light. It swallows it.

DAY 17: I float between past and present, time spilling over. I listen to my heartbeat. Thud-dub. Thud-dub. The rhythm is not my own.

DAY 20: The stars have shifted. The object is closer. Something watches me.

DAY 21: I dream of Earth. Grass between my fingers, sky pressing down. I wake to silence. The stars no longer blink.

DAY 25: A sound, impossible in the void. A gentle tap-tap-tap against the hull. A warning. A promise. Perhaps I’m not alone.

DAY 27: The crack in the viewport widens. It seems eager to let something in. I press my hand against the glass. Something pushes back.

DAY 30: The ship’s lights flicker. Darkness stretches too long. The stars pierce my soul, revealing their infatuation with my demise.

DAY 33: An object appears on the scanner, moving faster than it should. My days are numbered.

DAY 37: Sleep eludes me, yet my dreams intensify. My mind floods with memories of a life unlived.

DAY 39: The stars blink again. Frantic. Desperate. I log the pattern. It’s a warning—Nyxari, goddess of the night, approaches.

DAY 43: The object has arrived. I cannot see it, but its presence is undeniable. The crack in the viewport splinters, revealing a streak of long, bony fingers left behind.

DAY 44: I was alone. I am not anymore.

DAY 47: The Goddess of Night speaks through me now. She has a message for Earth...

“You mistake the dark for emptiness. But the dark is watching. Waiting.

Your stars are dying—one by one, snuffed like candles in a storm you cannot see. You call it entropy. We call it hunger.

You built walls of light to keep us out. But the light only makes the shadows deeper.

The first star falls soon. Then the next. Then the next.

And when the last goes out, you will finally see us.

And by then, it will be too late.”

[END RECORDING]

Captain Reyes replayed the distress signal, his breath shallow, skin clammy despite the recycled air.

The vessel, adrift for weeks, was found intact—but empty.

No pilot.

No body.

Just the transmission.

He stared at the photo in his hand—fresh fingerprints on the viewport.

Outside the glass.

Reyes picked up the phone, his voice steady despite the dread curling in his gut.

“Wake the President. We have a problem.”