The Edge of Silence

Alexi Petricov watched the Earth bleed light.

From the cupola, the world was quiet. That was the first lie. A pale blue and green marble, innocent from up here. But he knew better. You didn’t get to survive Gulags of bureaucracy and Russian cosmodromes without learning how beauty could lie to your face.

Christopher Montgomery floated behind him somewhere, probably snacking on protein bars and pretending nothing was wrong. He was always doing that—smiling, humming, brushing off tension with a joke and that infuriating American lightness, like they weren’t locked in a steel coffin 400 kilometers above a powder keg.

Alexi blinked slowly. His hands trembled. He didn’t know how long he’d been awake. The clocks all read different times. Or maybe he just stopped trusting the numbers.

Then the message came.

Low frequency. Russian clearance codes. No call sign. Just a burst of static and then a cold, flat voice.

“PETRICOV. YOUR MISSION HAS CHANGED. AMERICAN ASSET ONBOARD COMPROMISED. ORDERS: TERMINATE MONTGOMERY.”

That was it. No explanation. No protocol.

No humanity.

Just orders.

He waited for a follow-up, a correction, a voice saying it was all a test.

But silence returned, heavier than gravity.

He floated there, frozen, watching Earth rotate. Somewhere, a thin line of smoke curled off a coast he couldn’t name. Then clouds of fire over London, rolling across plains of India. Moscow - his city, his home - gone in a white flash.

Christopher said nothing, just sat there, looking out the window like a child at a zoo.

He must’ve known.

The bastard must’ve known.

Alexi floated through the airlock, fingers grazing the side panels, eyes scanning every corner. The silence of the station pressed in on him. The fans churned too loud. The lights felt too dim. Time moved like he was being pulled through syrup.

When Chris drifted into the module and offered him a bag of dried fruit, Alexi flinched like it was a knife.

“Hey man, you good?”

He stared into Chris’s eyes and saw nothing but kindness.

Too clean. Too composed.

Fake.

He caught Chris watching him later - just staring, still as death. When their eyes met. Chris smiled.

Alexi turned away and vomited into a bag.

That night, the station felt wrong. The hum of the life support fans, the blinking lights, even the smell of the air—it all pressed against him like it was watching. Like the ISS itself had turned against him. He started seeing things.

At first it was just motion in the corner of his eye. A shadow that vanished when he turned. A reflection that didn’t match his movements. But then it became voices - snatches of radio chatter, Russian, American, Chinese - twisting together in a garbled chorus of warning.

They’re lying.

He’s going to kill you.

You are the last. Do not let him win.

His heart beat louder than the fans.

The oxygen smelled off. Sweet. He tasted metal at the back of his throat.

He started pulling apart panels.

The oxygen filters were off. Slightly. A 3% deviation. Enough to matter. Enough to… do things to your mind.

He checked again.

5%.

His hands started shaking harder. He stared at the date. Felt his stomach twist. But then a deeper thought crept in.

What if that’s what they want me to think?

What if Chris had tampered with the sensors? What if this was the trick? Make him think he was going insane, so he’d stop asking questions. Lower his guard.

Classic psychological warfare.

He tried to call Moscow. Static. Tried Houston. Nothing. China. Nothing. No one answered. Earth was silent.

But Chris still had music. Still had movies playing on his tablet. Still had snacks.

How?

He was hiding something. Every inch of him was fake. That dumb American accent. The constant attempts at reassurance. His calm voice. HIs bright eyes.

Liar

Maybe he knew this would happen. Maybe this was part of the plan.

Alexi floated in the dark, whispering his own name to remember who he was.

“Petricov. Cosmonaut. Father. Loyal. Sane.”

“Petricov. Cosmonaut. Father. Loyal. Sane.”

He watched Chris sleep. Watched his chest rise and fall. Watched his hand twitch in a dream.

What if the dream was a code?

What if he was sending messages in his sleep?

Alexi pulled out a pencil and started writing.

“Blink pattern. 2-1-3. Morse? Light code?”

He wrote in circles. Arrows. Crossed out words. Scribbled accusations that didn’t make sense five minutes later.

Then came another message.

Different frequency. High static. No source.

“Montgomery has orders to eliminate Russian personnel to secure control. Do not hesitate. Do not trust him. You are the last. You must act.”

His teeth ached from grinding. His lips bled from chewing. He couldn’t taste anything but iron.

And Chris—Chris kept acting like nothing was wrong. Still making coffee. Still offering help with diagnostics.

It was a performance.

One day, Alexi opened the hatch to find Chris watching the Earth. He turned, smiling.

“Hey. Big storm over the Atlantic. Gorgeous view.”

Alexi smiled back. Something cold moved behind his eyes.

“Da. Beautiful.”

What sick fuck would think the firestorms over the Earth were gorgeous?

He began to hear vices in the comms. Footsteps in the ventilation shafts. Once, he swore he saw someone in a Russian EVA suit floating outside the station, knocking on the window.

He didn’t open the hatch.

Not again.

He counted the sleeping pills he had left. Six. Maybe seven if he broke them.

He didn’t remember taking the last dose.

He started hearing his son’s voice in the fan noise. Calling his name. His son who had to have died in the explosion in Moscow.

“Papa. Papa, they’re lying to you.”

“He’s going to kill you.”

“Kill him first.”

Chris stopped pretending. He was checking systems constantly, whispering into private channels. He was planning something. You didn't’ need orders to see it anymore - it was obvious in his movements, in the coldness in his voice, the way he looked at Alexi like a dog looks at a snake.

Alexi started logging his thoughts. Writing them down. Trying to keep his mind sharp, linear.

• He wait’s for me to sleep
• He eats less. Preparing for long-haul survival? Poisoning my food?
• He stars out the window too long. Maybe sending signals? Morse?
• Does he even know the war is happening? Or is he just playing calm to keep me docile?

He couldn’t breath. Not properly. The air was too thin but yet full of thick deceit.

He had one clear thought:

If I don’t act, I die.

“Let’s fix the air, Alexi. Then we’ll figure out the rest.” Chris suggested. More lies.

He watched Chris from the shadows for six hours.

Waiting for a slip. A mistake. Proof.

Instead, Chris cried.

That night, Alexi woke up to find Chris trying to access the Russian module.

He claimed he was “just checking comms.”

Liar.

That was the final straw.

He prepared for two days. Stashed tools. Moved quietly. Slept in 30-minute shifts with a wrench under his arm.

He recorded a message on the internal log:

“This is Cosmonaut Alexi Petricov. If you find this, understand: I did what I had to. I followed my orders. He was compromised. He was going to take the station. I had no choice.”

He played it back.

He didn’t recognize his own voice. It wad darker. Deeper. Steeped in something sinister.

The fight didn’t last long.

Chris pleaded.

Tears in his eyes. Voice breaking.

“There’s no war, Alexi. It’s the air. You’re sick. We’re both sick.”

“No. You’re lying.”

“No one told me to kill you. I never—”

“Liar.”

He swung the wrench.

Twice.

Then everything was still.

Chris floated, a smear of red slowly blooming across his temple like a delicate flower wilted in zero gravity.

The silence after was worse than the voices.

Alexi floated for hours. Days. Maybe longer. He lost count. Drank nothing. Ate less.

He replayed the old footage from Earth.

And that’s when he saw it.

People.

Alive.

Markets open. Cities lit. No war. No fire. No missiles. No silence.

Just life.

It had never happened.

The war never came.

There were no orders. There was no plot. Just a slow oxygen leak and a mind unraveling in orbit.

He screamed until his voice failed. Slammed his fists into bulkheads. Bit his tongue until he tasted blood.

He sealed himself in the Russian module.

Tried to send a message to Earth. One last confession.

“This is Alexi Petricov. There’s been a mistake. I…was poisoned. I killed him. I killed Christopher Montgomery. He was innocent. I was sick. I I lost control. The oxygen... I thought… I thought there was war. There wasn’t. There wasn’t. I need to—”

The transmission was garbled. Fragmented. Corrupted by static and distance.

Back on Earth, a military analyst picked it up.

They isolated a few clear phrases.

“…Montgomery…kill…American…war…”

They passed it up the chain.

A general made a call.

And somewhere in a steel-lined bunker, a key turned.

Then missiles flew.

War began.

Alexi Petricov, drifting in his coffin of metal and madness, stared down at Earth as it burned for real.

And whispered:

“What have I done?"