EPISODE 2 — THE DARK FREQUENCY
377 Words
The alarms stopped, but the silence that followed was worse.
Rae drifted through the narrow corridor, her magnetic boots clacking softly against the metal plates. The ship’s lights flickered in a slow, dying pulse—like a heartbeat fading out. Behind her, Captain Idris and Dr. Nalo studied the readings on their wrist displays.
“Still nothing?” Rae asked.
“No life-forms,” Dr. Nalo replied, his voice trembling in a way he tried to hide. “But there’s… something else. A frequency. Low. Very low. Below human hearing range.”
“A signal?” Idris asked.
Nalo shook his head. “Not a signal. More like… breathing.”
A cold wave slid down Rae’s spine.
They reached the observation deck, where the black void of space pressed against the glass like a silent ocean. The station—Helix Relay 9—floated ahead of them, half-lit, half-dead. Its metal frame bent unnaturally, as if something had gripped it from the outside and squeezed.
Rae tapped the comms.
“Helix Control, this is the starship Astraeus. We’re preparing for docking. Please respond.”
Static answered.
Then a whisper rode through the static—long, slow, and impossibly deep.
“…va…oid…”
Idris froze. “Did it just—say something?”
“No,” Nalo said. His eyes widened. “That wasn’t communication. It was echolocation. Something scanned us.”
The whisper came again. Louder. Closer.
“…I…see…you…”
The deck lights shut off.
Total darkness swallowed them.
Then a single red emergency light blinked on, staining the ship in blood-colored shadows. In the corner of the deck, a shadow moved—slowly unfolding itself like a creature waking from sleep.
It was tall.
It was thin.
Its limbs stretched in ways that defied structure or bone.
The creature pressed its head to the glass, its face hidden by darkness. But its eyes—two glowing voids—burned through the window as if looking straight into Rae’s soul.
Dr. Nalo whispered, “That… thing wasn’t on the ship before.”
The creature turned its head slowly, its eyes locking onto them.
And then—
It smiled.
A smile far too wide for anything that should exist between the stars.
The glass began to crack.
- Writer
