🛰️ The Last Command

T-minus 30 hours since comms were severed.

The International Space Station floated silently above the Earth, a fragile shell cradling two lives in orbit — one American, one Russian — each now more alone than they’d ever imagined.

Commander Alex Monroe pressed his gloved hand to the viewport, his eyes tracing the dim outlines of a dying planet below. The blues and greens once vibrant had dulled beneath a cloud of smoke. Cities no longer sparkled. Silence had replaced the comforting static of Mission Control. He hadn't heard from Houston since the warning came through:

“Monroe, maintain vigilance. If Roscosmos relays any suspicious behavior, you are authorized to act. Repeat: you are authorized to eliminate Cosmonaut Sergei Ivanov. This is your last command.”

Across the station, Sergei sat with his hands trembling in his lap, clutching a tiny photograph of his daughter. He, too, had received a final directive. His message was just as cryptic, just as chilling.

“Comrade Ivanov, the American is no longer to be trusted. The chain of command now ends with you. Eliminate Monroe. Survive.”

Neither man spoke of it. Yet both knew.

T-minus 28 hours.

Monroe floated through the Harmony module, pretending to inventory supplies. His real focus was on Sergei’s position, movements, and hands. A wrench left out. A sealed container that wasn’t sealed yesterday. Small details now felt like threats.

Sergei, meanwhile, drifted through the Columbus module, trying not to look over his shoulder. He stared at the Earth below and whispered a prayer in Russian. Not for his country — not anymore — but for his daughter, Anna. Would she be alive when — if — he returned?

What had become of their homes? Were the cities bombed, or was this a bluff in orbit?

T-minus 24 hours.

Sleep was no longer restful. Dreams came in flashes. Screams without voices. Fire rolling over landscapes. And in the station, whispers. At first, each man believed it was in his mind.

Then came the flickers.

Lights dimmed when no one was near them. Monitors blinked with unreadable characters. An old transmission from 2006 suddenly played on a screen in the Destiny lab, on loop: a training simulation both men had never seen.

It showed a third astronaut — neither American nor Russian — wandering the ISS. Alone. Bleeding. Laughing.

Alex and Sergei hadn’t spoken in nearly two days.

Now, they needed to.

T-minus 20 hours.

“Do you believe your message was real?” Alex finally asked, his voice cautious but open.

Sergei exhaled, shaky. “I don’t know. Do you believe yours?”

They stared at each other, heavy with exhaustion and dread.

“What if we were set up?” Sergei whispered. “What if this... is part of something larger?”

Alex nodded slowly. “Or nothing at all. Just fear. Just chaos.”

They decided — tentatively — to search the communication logs. Side by side, watching each other's hands closely, they dove into the system.

But what they found unsettled them more: no record of the messages they’d received.

No transmission logs. No file history. Just empty space where evidence should have been.

T-minus 18 hours.

Now, something had changed.

The whispers were louder. The air tasted different — stale, coppery. Alex smelled something burning, but there was no fire. Sergei claimed to hear Anna’s voice calling to him through the vents.

They were unraveling.

Or were they?

“Something is here with us,” Sergei murmured. “This station... it remembers.”

Alex looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... I don’t think we’re the first,” Sergei replied. “I think others came before. I think they didn’t make it.”

Alex scoffed. “You’re saying this place is haunted?”

Sergei didn’t laugh. “You saw the simulation, didn’t you?”

T-minus 12 hours.

That night, the station dimmed entirely. Emergency power only. Monitors blacked out.

Then came the message.

Not through comms. Not on a screen. But etched into the condensation on the viewing window in Node 3.

“Only one of you will return.”

The message faded as they stood before it, breathless. And yet both had seen it. Both knew it hadn’t come from either of them.

They decided to disable the kill switches each had rigged in case of attack. They sat side by side in silence, staring into the darkness of the Earth below.

T-minus 6 hours.

“I used to think space was freedom,” Alex said. “But it’s just another kind of prison when you're alone.”

Sergei smiled weakly. “On Earth, we have wars. In space, we bring our wars with us.”

They drank recycled coffee and shared memories. About Anna. About Monroe’s late brother, a soldier lost to another war. It felt human — too human for the silence that surrounded them.

T-minus 3 hours.

Alex woke with a start.

Sergei was gone.

He checked the modules one by one — life support, lab, storage.

Finally, he found him in the airlock, suit partially on.

“What are you doing?” Alex shouted.

Sergei turned, his face pale. “I had to know if the whispers were real.”

“Don’t do this, Sergei. We’re not enemies.”

Sergei’s hands trembled. “I’m tired, Alex. I need to know if anything is left out there.”

He opened the outer hatch.

Nothing came.

Just stars.

T-minus 1 hour.

They sat together again, now quiet. The countdown to their food and oxygen supply depletion ticked lower. A final ping arrived from Earth — or so it claimed.

“One of you has been compromised. Choose.”

Alex deleted it without hesitation.

“Some things aren’t worth believing,” he said.

Sergei nodded. “We choose peace. Even if the world below burns.”

Launch complete.

They recorded their final message together, a joint log for whoever might one day retrieve it.

“We came here to explore. We leave behind only silence and the echo of a choice: not to destroy, but to endure.”

👁 Final Note from the Author:

We often imagine horror as monsters, claws, and gore. But the deepest horror is isolation. It's the fear that your mind may no longer be your own. That your enemy might be your friend. That you may never know the truth — only the silence left behind.