"Takashi, do you copy?!" Fiona's voice crackled through the intercom again, laced with static and panic.
Takashi's gloved hands tightened around the controls of his thruster pack. He floated alone in the cold void—no planets, no ships, no stations—just endless, empty space. The stars shimmered faintly in the far distance, scattered too thinly to offer comfort.
It was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made your heartbeat feel like thunder.
Then—something shifted.
Up ahead, the stars began to vanish. Not flicker. Vanish. One by one, they winked out behind a crawling black shape. A slow, slithering shadow crept across the cosmos, too massive to comprehend. It moved with dreadful grace, like a creature that had never once been prey.
This was no ship.
A pair of bioluminescent eyes flared open in the dark.
Takashi froze. His breath caught. "Fiona…" he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I see something."
