The Star That Ate the Sky

1.

One hundred and ninety days into deep space, past the point where clocks become decoration and Tuesday could be Thursday could be the heat death of the universe, the knock comes.

Not the shriek of micrometeorites. Not the whale-song groan of expanding metal. A knock.

Three raps. Measured. Polite.

The sound travels through titanium and composite like a dinner invitation written in bone.

I push off from the wall, lungs suddenly too small for the recycled air that tastes of aluminum and old sweat and something else, something like copper pennies left too long in a mouth. Through the porthole, no bigger than a dinner plate, a figure tumbles in slow motion against the black. Silver suit catching our anemic light like a dying fish. The tether, a severed umbilical, whips behind him in zero-G ballet.

Ramirez.

Standard-issue EVA suit. Serial number RC-4451. The same suit hanging in storage bay three, dry as moon dust. Gold visor reflecting nothing back at nothing. His gloved hand finds purchase on the hull, pulls himself to face me. Inside the helmet, darkness thick as motor oil.

Static births his voice through the comms: "It's me. Open up."

My hand hovers over the airlock controls. The override panel glows patient green.

Three more knocks. Harder. The vibration travels through my molars.

"Marsh. Come on. It's cold out here."

But space isn't cold. Not the way we understand cold. It's the absence of temperature. The absence of everything.

And Ramirez never calls me Marsh.

2.

Ramirez floats beside me. Inside. Breathing our air.

Has been for the last ten minutes.

His skin has the color of old milk, that translucent quality you see in cave fish. Blue veins mapping territories under the surface. Pupils dilated despite the harsh fluorescents that make everything look like a crime scene. His hands shake.

"That's not me," he says. Each word drops like a stone into oil. "I've been here. With you. The whole time."

I switch to his suit diagnostics, the connection still active, still transmitting. The numbers cascade down my screen in real-time: Heart rate: 92 bpm. O2 saturation: 98%. Cortisol: 847.3 ng/mL. Core temp: 98.6°F.

I look at inside Ramirez's readings. Heart rate: 92 bpm. O2 saturation: 98%. Cortisol: 847.3 ng/mL. Core temp: 98.6°F.

Not similar. Not close. Identical. Like looking at the same man through two different cameras. Or the same thing wearing two different men.

The numbers pulse in perfect synchronization. Two hearts beating as one. Even their breath cycles match: inhale for 3.7 seconds, hold for 1.2, exhale for 4.3. Like they're running on the same operating system.

"Please." The outside voice cracks, raw as stripped wire. "Something's out here with me. It cut my line. It's been watching us, Marsh. Through the portholes."

His fingers splay against the reinforced glass, five pale starfish desperate for purchase. Under the gloves, I can see his fingernails. They look black. Or maybe that's just the light.

The helmet lamp stutters, throwing shadows across the inside of his visor. Still can't see his face. Just the suggestion of features. Like looking at someone underwater. Like looking at someone through skin.

A drop of something dark runs down the inside of his helmet. Could be condensation. Could be sweat.

Could be something else.

Inside Ramirez grabs my wrist. His palm is ice through the fabric. The kind of cold that burns, that makes you want to check if your skin came off with it.

"Don't open that door." His fingers find my pulse. Press. "Feel that? I'm real. I'm warm. I'm here."

His grip tightens. I feel my pulse trapped between his fingers, rabbit-quick.

Outside Ramirez tilts his head. The gesture is perfectly human. Perfectly Ramirez. The way he tilts it when he's solving engineering problems.

"Check the logs, Marsh. Check when I went outside. Thirty minutes ago. Standard maintenance on the solar array. You watched me suit up."

The memory slides in sideways. Did I watch him? The suiting station is just ten meters away. I would have heard the pumps. The hiss of the seal.

Wouldn't I?

3.

Another knock.

BANG.

This one punches through the hull like a fist through drywall, vibrates in my chest cavity, sets my teeth singing in frequencies that shouldn't exist. The whole station rings like a struck bell. Something in the walls answers back, a sympathetic vibration that sounds almost like laughter.

I dive into the logs. External cameras, mission recordings, every breadcrumb of data we've generated in our floating coffin. My fingers dance across displays, pulling up timestamp after timestamp. The screens paint my face blue-white, corpse colors.

Nothing.

No EVA logged. No airlock cycle. No pressure drop. No missing oxygen from the reserves. According to every system on this ship, Ramirez never left. Never suited up. Never stepped outside.

But.

But.

There's something else. A gap. Seventeen minutes of footage missing from external camera four. Like time hiccupped. Like reality blinked.

Inside Ramirez leans over my shoulder. His breath smells like recycled protein and something sweet. Something rotting.

"See? I never left."

Outside Ramirez pounds again. The glass spiderwebs. Just hairline. Just enough to make my sphincter clench.

"The logs are wrong. Something's in the system. It's been deleting things. Changing things. Making you forget."

He presses closer to the glass. Finally, through the visor, I catch a glimpse of his face.

It's Ramirez. Perfect. Down to the childhood scar on his chin.

Except his eyes. His eyes are black. Not the iris. Everything. Like someone poured ink into the sockets.

No. Wait. The helmet light flickers. They're normal. Brown. Bloodshot from the recycled air.

I blink. They're black again.

I switch to thermal imaging.

The display floods with data, painting the world in fever-dream colors. The station glows warm orange, arterial heat bleeding through the hull. My body, a sunset. Inside Ramirez, the same—98.6°F of human normal.

Outside Ramirez is a hole.

Not cold. Not even absolute zero.

He's absence. A wound in the fabric of temperature itself. The scanner can't even assign him a value. Just returns ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.

Inside Ramirez sees my face. Sees what I'm seeing.

"Told you," he whispers. His hand finds my shoulder. Squeezes. "That thing. It's not human."

4.

I cut the external comms with a flick. The silence feels like held breath. Like the moment before a car accident when you can see it coming but can't stop it.

Turn to inside Ramirez. Study the familiar angles of his face, the scar above his left eyebrow from a bar fight in Houston, the way his nose breaks slightly left, the constellation of burst capillaries on his cheeks from that time the pressure system failed.

"Tell me something only you would know."

No pause. No calculation. His response flows like rehearsed lines: "The Orion Nebula. Fourth night out. We killed every system, even life support for five minutes, just to see it burn purple and gold through the viewport. You said it was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen. I said second most. My daughter's face was first."

The memory slides into place, warm and perfect. Every detail confirmed. The way the nebula looked like God's thumbprint. The way we both cried a little, blamed it on the air mixture.

"Remember what else?" He continues, leaning forward. "You told me about Sarah. How she left you. How she said you loved space more than her. How she was right."

My throat closes. I did tell him that. Drunk on contraband whiskey I'd smuggled in a mouthwash bottle.

But.

My finger hovers over the comm switch. Hesitates. Activates.

"Tell me something only you would know."

Silence stretches like pulled taffy. I can hear him breathing through the radio. Wet. Labored. Like he's drowning in his own helmet.

Then outside Ramirez speaks. Same cadence. Same words. The Orion Nebula. The powered-down ship. His daughter's face. Even the detail about Sarah. A perfect photocopy of truth.

Then he adds: "But here's what he won't tell you. After, when you were asleep, I went back to the porthole. Looked at that nebula. And I saw something looking back. Something vast. Something hungry. It followed us, Marsh. It's been following us since."

My blood crystallizes.

Inside Ramirez's grip tightens on my shoulder. His nails dig in through the fabric. When did his nails get so long?

"He's lying."

Outside Ramirez continues: "Check my neck. The real me. There should be a mark. A bruise. From when it tried to take me the first time. Three days ago. You remember. I said I hit my head on the bulkhead. But that's not what happened."

I turn to inside Ramirez. He's smiling. That easy smile from a thousand shared meals.

"Go ahead. Check."

He tilts his head back. Exposes his throat.

There's a bruise there. Purple-black. Shaped like fingers. Like something tried to strangle him. Or like something crawled out.

5.

Outside Ramirez begins to scream.

He pounds the airlock. BANG. BANG. BANG.

But the rhythm's wrong. Too many impacts for two fists. Like he's grown extra arms. Or like there's something else out there with him, helping him knock.

The reinforced steel groans. I hear it, the whisper of molecular bonds beginning to fail. Hairline fractures spreading like infected veins. The station's hull is rated for micrometeorite impacts, for the violence of space.

Not for this.

Inside Ramirez hasn't moved. Still smiling. But his face is changing. Subtle. The kind of change you feel more than see. His features shifting millimeter by millimeter. Like something underneath is adjusting itself. Getting comfortable.

"You know what's funny?" His voice has gone smooth as aged whiskey. All the panic evaporated. "Space madness. That's what they'll call it. When they find us. Or what's left of us."

His hand is still on my shoulder. I look down.

His fingernails have grown. They curve in directions that shouldn't exist, following geometries that make my eyes water. Yellow-thick. The cuticles weep something clear that isn't quite blood, isn't quite anything I have a name for.

The veins in his wrist squirm. Like earthworms drowning in formaldehyde, pushing up against the skin, trying to escape. Or trying to get deeper. The skin bubbles. Stretches. Something underneath wants out. Or wants further in.

"The thing about humans," inside Ramirez says, conversational as Sunday dinner, "is you're so fragile. So many little systems that need to work just right. Temperature. Pressure. Oxygen. So many ways to break."

Outside Ramirez has stopped screaming. He's laughing now. Or sobbing. The sounds are interchangeable through the static.

I jerk away from inside Ramirez.

He lets me go. Easy. His smile widens. It starts normal, the same grin from shared jokes about mission control's shit coffee. Then it keeps going. Wider. The corners of his mouth climbing toward his ears like they're looking for an exit. I hear something crack. Mandible. Maxilla. The bones of joy rearranging themselves.

There are too many teeth. Rows of them. Like a shark. Like something that needs to bite through hulls.

"Oops," he says. The word comes out wrong, filtered through all those teeth. "Showing too much?"

His face snaps back to normal. Perfect Ramirez. My friend of three years. My mission partner. The man whose daughter's birthday is next week.

"Better?"

6.

Outside Ramirez goes quiet.

The laughing cuts off clean. A guillotine through sound.

Nothing but our recycled breathing and the tick of cooling metal. The station's bones settling. Or adjusting. Or growing.

Through the static, I hear him inhale. Wet. Ragged. Like pulling air through blood and broken tissue.

Then, soft as a mother's promise: "He's inside, isn't he?"

The question hangs there, inevitable as gravity.

"He got in while you were sleeping. Three days ago. Maybe four. Time gets funny out here. In the dark. In the place between spaces." A pause. "Check your neck, Marsh. Check for the marks."

My hand moves without permission. Fingers find my throat. Search the skin.

There.

A bruise. Tender. Fresh. Shaped like fingers. Like something tried to strangle me.

Or like something crawled in.

"Check the food supplies," outside Ramirez continues. "Check how much you've been eating. You've been so hungry lately, haven't you?"

My stomach clenches. Because I have been hungrier. Waking up at strange hours, ravenous. Finding empty food packets I don't remember opening. The stores depleting faster than they should.

Inside Ramirez watches me process this. His head tilts. Bird-like. The angle wrong by degrees that matter.

"Don't listen to it, Marsh. It's trying to confuse you. Make you doubt what's real."

But his skin. His skin is moving. Subtle. Like there are things underneath. Swimming just below the surface. I can see them when I don't look directly. In my peripheral vision, his face is a mass of writhing.

"Choose carefully," outside Ramirez says. "One of us is your friend. One of us is something else. Something that's been drifting out here since before humans drew constellations. Something that's learned to wear faces like masks."

He presses against the glass. The cracks spread.

"But here's the thing, Marsh. The real horror? We both think we're Ramirez. We both have his memories. His feelings. His love for his daughter. One of us is wrong. One of us is a thing pretending so perfectly, it's fooled itself."

Inside Ramirez laughs. It sounds genuine. Sounds exactly like Ramirez's laugh.

"Classic. It's trying to make you think I don't know what I am."

He steps closer. Close enough that I can see my reflection in his pupils. Except the reflection is wrong. In it, I'm screaming.

7.

The proximity alarm screams: OXYGEN LEVELS CRITICAL

I hear it then. The whisper of escaping air. A seal has failed. Or been opened. Or been eaten through. Our breathing is bleeding into space, and space is bleeding back.

Inside Ramirez smiles at his reflection in the porthole.

Not at me. At the glass. Like he sees someone else standing there. Someone behind me. Someone who's been behind me this whole time.

"You ever wonder," he says, conversational as discussing weather that doesn't exist out here, "what happens when you run out of air? The real physics of it? First, the hypoxia makes you giddy. Then comes the confusion. Then you start seeing things that aren't there."

His tongue runs across his teeth. Still too many. They gleam like surgical instruments.

"Or maybe you stop seeing things that are."

Outside Ramirez slams both palms against the glass. The impact rings like a church bell. Like a dinner bell. Like something calling something else to feed.

"You need to run."

But we're in a metal box, 500 million miles from home. There's nowhere to run except deeper into the ship. Deeper into the dark. Deeper into whatever's been living in here with us.

With me.

I look at the oxygen meter. The numbers fall like a countdown to something worse than suffocation. But there's something wrong with the display. The numbers don't make sense. We're losing air too fast. Like there are three of us breathing now.

Inside Ramirez starts to hum.

It's a lullaby. The one my mother sang when I was sick. When I was scared. When the monsters under the bed got too loud.

One I've never told anyone about.

Ever.

Outside Ramirez starts humming too.

The same lullaby.

In harmony.

Two voices. Two Ramirezes. Two versions of something that might have been my friend once. Or might never have been human at all.

The lights flicker. In the darkness between, I see them both clearly.

Inside Ramirez, his face is splitting. Gently. Like a flower blooming. Inside the petals of his face, something wet gleams. Something with its own eyes. Watching. Waiting. Patient as space itself.

Outside Ramirez, his suit is moving. Bulging. Like he's not alone in there. Like something is wearing him. Has been wearing him. The whole time.

The lights come back.

They're both normal. Both Ramirez. Both looking at me with the same concerned expression.

"Marsh," they say in unison. "You need to make a choice."

The oxygen meter hits critical. Alarms shriek. The station's death rattle.

I look at the airlock controls. Then at the emergency vent that would blow us all into space.

My hand hovers between them.

In the reflection of the console screen, I see my own face.

There's something wrong with my eyes.

They're black. Not the iris. Everything.

Like someone poured ink into the sockets.

Both Ramirezes smile. The same smile. Proud. Like a parent watching their child take first steps.

"There you are," they say. "We've been waiting for you to wake up."

I look down at my hands.

My fingernails are growing.

Wrong.

In the porthole, in the perfect black of space, something vast watches. Something that's been watching since we left Earth. Something that's been waiting much longer than that.

Epilogue

Mission Control receives the final transmission 293 days later.

Video feed shows the interior of the station. Clean. Organized. Perfect.

Three figures float in frame. Ramirez. Marsh. And Ramirez.

All three are smiling.

All three wave at the camera.

"Everything's fine," they say in unison. "Everything's perfect out here. Send more."