The Star That Ate the Sky

1.

One hundred and ninety days into deep space, past the point where time means anything, the knock comes.

Not a meteor impact. Not the groan of metal under pressure. A knock.

Three sharp raps. Deliberate. Human.

I float to the porthole, breath tight in my chest. Outside, a figure drifts against the black, tether snapped, suit glinting silver in the station’s weak light. Ramirez.

Same standard-issue EVA suit. Same gold visor, a warped mirror of endless nothing.

His voice crackles through the comms, a whisper buried in static.

"It’s me. Open up."

2.

Ramirez is inside. Right next to me.

Pale. Trembling. His breath too fast, too shallow.

“That’s not me,” he whispers.

I check his suit biometrics. Heart rate 92 bpm. Oxygen levels steady. DNA signature matches our mission logs. No anomalies. No radiation exposure.

The same as the man outside.

"Please," the voice over comms pleads, rising to a raw edge. "Something’s out here. It took my tether. You have to let me in."

Outside Ramirez floats against the airlock, fingers splayed against the reinforced glass. The helmet light flickers, casting shadows inside his visor. I can’t see his face.

Inside Ramirez grips my wrist, his fingers like ice.

“Don’t.”

3.

Another knock.

Harder this time.

The kind that rattles bone, that you feel in your molars.

I check the mission logs. The external cameras. Every readout, every timestamp. Nothing.

No recorded EVA. No airlock depressurization. No missing oxygen. Ramirez never left the ship.

But the thing outside—it knows.

Knows our safety protocols. Knows the comms codes. Knows our mission. Knows our names.

I switch to thermal scan.

The thing outside isn’t just cold.

It’s colder than space.

4.

I kill the comms. Turn to Ramirez. The one inside.

“Tell me something only you would know.”

No hesitation. “The Orion Nebula. Fourth night out. We turned off all systems just to watch it glow. We said it was the most beautiful thing we’d ever seen.”

I remember. I was there.

But so was he.

I unmute comms. My throat dry. “Tell me something only you would know.”

A beat of silence. Then, outside Ramirez speaks.

Same words. Same phrasing. Same pauses.

Then he adds:

“And after, you whispered: ‘We were never meant to leave Earth.’”

A fist of ice clenches in my stomach.

Because I never said that out loud.

5.

The outside Ramirez begins screaming.

Not words. Just raw, jagged noise.

The kind that shreds vocal cords.

He hammers on the airlock, each impact rattling through the station. Metal groans, the sound of stress fractures forming. Not the strength of a man in zero-G. Something else.

Something wrong.

Inside Ramirez grips my shoulder, his fingers digging into the fabric of my suit. Too hard. Too tight.

“It’s lying.”

His voice is calm, steady. Too steady.

But his hands—his hands feel wrong.

I look down.

His nails are too long. Not just untrimmed. Growing. Twisting.

The veins in his wrist move, writhing under the skin like trapped worms.

I yank away.

And inside Ramirez—the one standing right next to me—smiles.

6.

Outside Ramirez stops.

The screaming cuts off like a severed nerve.

Silence.

Then, over comms, his breathing slows. A ragged inhale. A shuddering exhale.

Then, a whisper.

"He got inside, didn’t he?"

7.

Ramirez—inside Ramirez—smiles.

Not at me.

At the reflection in the porthole.

Like he’s looking at someone standing right behind me.

A warning chime cuts through the silence.

OXYGEN LEVELS CRITICAL.

The ship exhales. A soft, steady hiss.

Air leaking.

Inside Ramirez tilts his head, his grin widening.

Outside Ramirez slams his palm against the glass. "You need to run."

But there's nowhere to go.