The darkness had learned every pattern, anticipated every move, and in the command deck, the science officer realized she was no longer in control; lights flickered despite full power, doors shuddered violently as if testing their integrity, and the shadows pressed closer, rippling like liquid black, moving independently of gravity or walls. She tried the emergency communications array, hoping to send a distress call, but the signal returned distorted, warping her own voice, mocking her, carrying the sound of footsteps behind her even though the corridor beyond the viewport remained empty. Fear became tangible, pressing on her chest, constricting her lungs, and she understood fully that the entity did not need to see them to dominate them—it thrived on awareness, on the terror that pulsed through every heartbeat, every rapid breath. She activated the final purge protocol, venting oxygen and cutting power to the station in a desperate attempt to starve the presence, but the shadows did not retreat; instead, they writhed faster, darker, thicker, feeding on the chaos and amplifying her panic. The pulsing signal became deafening, synchronized perfectly with her own racing pulse, and she realized in horror that this was its apex, the moment when her fear, amplified by isolation and hopelessness, had become a weapon for it. With a last, trembling motion, she sealed the command deck hatch, trying to hold herself in a pocket of light, but the edges of darkness crept over every surface, curling like tendrils, climbing walls, spilling across the floor, and she felt the cold brush of something intangible against her skin, something that was aware, patient, and utterly alien. In that final instant, she understood that survival was impossible, containment futile, resistance meaningless; the entity had already rewritten the rules of reality within Astra-9, bending the station to its will, consuming everything but leaving a living memory of terror, and as her vision blurred, the last sound she heard was the pulse of the signal echoing perfectly with her final heartbeat, a living reminder that some darknesses were eternal, patient, and hungry beyond comprehension.