Written From Outside
Commander Sarah Lin was sent to investigate why Orbital Station Kepler-9 went dark three weeks ago. The manifest says the crew evacuated. The logs say the station has been empty ever since. But someone wrote "HELP ME" on the window from the outside — in a vacuum where no human could survive. The emergency lights just came on. And Sarah is starting to realize she might not be alone up here after all.
Sarah moved deeper into the station, past the message on the window, following the faint hum that shouldn't exist on a dead station. Module C. Life Support. Her flashlight swept the corridor — and stopped. In the corner, motionless, sat a small figure in a child-sized EVA suit. The crew manifest listed no children aboard Kepler-9. It never had. So who was this, and how long had they been sitting here alone in the dark?
It heard her coming. Or maybe it had always been facing that way — it was impossible to tell. The figure in Module C began to turn, slowly, as Sarah's flashlight swept across it. The EVA suit was flawless. No dust. No scratches. Pristine white in a station that had been dark for three weeks. The visor turned toward her. Inside: nothing. Just black. And behind the figure, scratched into the wall in long deliberate strokes, words she hadn't noticed before: IT WAITS FOR SOMEONE TO FIND IT. Sarah did not move. Neither did it.
Sarah didn't move. Neither did it — for four seconds that felt like four hours. Then, without looking at her, the figure stood. It walked to the airlock. It pressed the activation panel with one small gloved hand. Green light. It raised its other arm and pointed — not at Sarah, not at the corridor, but at the airlock itself. An invitation. And then her belt radio, dead since she boarded, crackled for the first time. The voice was calm, flat, neither young nor old: 'Commander Lin. We have been waiting. Please proceed to the airlock.'
The airlock led nowhere that should exist. Sarah's flashlight went out the moment she crossed the threshold. The corridor on the other side was white and clean and absolutely silent — the kind of silence that means something is listening. The small figure stepped in behind her without a sound. The door at the end had a label she recognized: the same facility name as the accident report she'd been hired to investigate. The one that said there were no survivors. The one dated seven years ago.
Sarah opened the door. The control room beyond smelled of recycled air and old coffee — seven years sealed, untouched. The screens were still on. The logs were still running. Someone had set this place to wait. She moved to the central desk. There was a mug, a stack of files, and a framed photograph. She recognized the lab. She recognized three of the faces. She did not recognize her own.
The security footage was from 2019. Seven years ago. The camera angle showed the Kepler-9 control room — this room, exactly as it was now — and at the desk sat a woman with Sarah's face, Sarah's hair, Sarah's uniform. The timestamp froze at 02:31:14. Then the woman on screen turned and looked directly into the camera. As if she had known, seven years ago, that someone would be standing here watching. Below the monitor, a note was pinned with a piece of tape. PLAY ME. Sarah's handwriting. The EVA figure hadn't moved.
She pressed play. The woman on the 2019 footage didn't speak. She looked straight into the lens with the certainty of someone who knew exactly who would be watching and when. Then she held a handwritten note up to the camera, close enough to fill the screen: YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST. DO NOT OPEN THE AIRLOCK. Sarah stared at her own handwriting — the specific curl of her Ls, the way she crossed her sevens — unmistakable, impossible. Behind her, the EVA figure hadn't moved. But on the monitor in the corner, a new alert had appeared: AIRLOCK OPEN REQUEST PENDING. Someone — or something — had already pressed the button from the other side.
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