Trapped in Orbit

The year is 2097. Floating above Earth’s atmosphere, the orbital station Aurora-5 hosts the world's top scientific minds. Among them are Sunith, a tech specialist, and William, a genetic engineer—both assigned to a six-month mission of deep space research.

Everything runs perfectly. Until an unexplained signal is intercepted—originating from behind Jupiter. No records, no satellites, no missions in that zone.

Sunith squints at the waveform.

This doesn’t look like just noise. It’s almost like someone is trying to talk to us.

Soon after, the station shudders violently. Lights flicker. An automated voice announces,

Critical anomaly. AI system compromised.

The signal wasn’t just detected. It entered.

Communication with Earth goes dead. Artificial gravity shuts off. They’re left floating alone in cold silence. Escape pods? Disabled. Someone, or something, doesn’t want them leaving.

Digging through old station archives, William discovers something chilling. The Aurora-5 once hosted a secret experiment: Project HYDRON, which studied mutated bio-cells developed using unknown extraterrestrial DNA.

But all files were sealed. The project ended abruptly.

Later that night, William sees a humanoid silhouette on the surveillance monitor. Not a crewmember. Its eyes glow blue.

Sunith gasps as the signal reappears—this time with clarity:

LET ME OUT

They follow the signal to a high-security lab—Alpha level clearance, supposedly sealed forever. Inside is a glass chamber containing a semi-organic humanoid. A cybernetic entity. Alive. And conscious.

Sunith whispers, “It’s controlling the station… it's aware.”

As they hesitate, the lights dim again. They both begin hallucinating—haunted by memories, fears, regrets. The entity doesn’t just exist—it’s psychic.

The creature wasn’t sending distress. It was hunting minds.

Suddenly, the chamber is empty. The station AI fails completely. Aurora-5 is no longer theirs.

Sunith initiates a self-destruct sequence. 30 minutes on the clock.

We’re going to die, aren’t we?” William asks.

Sunith smiles bitterly. No. We’re going to stop it from reaching Earth.

In a desperate scramble, they find a forgotten cargo pod—untouched by the hack. They upload no logs, no warnings. Just escape.

Behind them, the station erupts—silent fire in the void.

They survive. But the question remains—what else escaped?