Interstellar: Exploring The Cosmos With My Anomaly System
Chapter 75: What’s wrong

Chapter 75: What’s wrong

"Takashi, do you copy?!" Fiona’s voice crackled through the intercom again, laced with static and panic.

Takashi’s gloved hands tightened around the controls of his thruster pack. He floated alone in the cold void—no planets, no ships, no stations—just endless, empty space. The stars shimmered faintly in the far distance, scattered too thinly to offer comfort.

It was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made your heartbeat feel like thunder.

Then—something shifted.

Up ahead, the stars began to vanish. Not flicker. Vanish. One by one, they winked out behind a crawling black shape. A slow, slithering shadow crept across the cosmos, too massive to comprehend. It moved with dreadful grace, like a creature that had never once been prey.

This was no ship.

A pair of bioluminescent eyes flared open in the dark.

Takashi froze. His breath caught. "Fiona..." he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I see something."

From the abyss, the thing emerged—its form long and serpentine, plated with jagged armor like obsidian scales, each one shining dully in the starlight. Tendrils sprouted from its head, writhing like the arms of a dying star. And then its mouth opened—not like a jaw, but like a blooming flower of flesh, petal-like layers peeling back to reveal rows upon rows of rotating, needle-thin teeth.

It moved like a ghost through vacuum, silent and slow, as if savoring the fear it spread.

"Takashi, what’s happening?! Respond!" Fiona shouted.

But he couldn’t speak. The creature had locked onto him. And it struck—not clumsily, not in rage, but with terrifying precision. Its tendrils reached through the dark and wrapped around his mech like coils of a great serpent, constricting inch by inch.

"Shit, shit!" Takashi cursed. His HUD screamed warnings at him in flashing red. Alarms blared in his ears. The creature’s rough, dry hide dragged across his mech’s hull with a sound like grinding glass.

His hand shot toward the emergency thruster panel. He slammed the ignition button without hesitation.

Beams of pure light burst from the mech’s engines, roaring to life and propelling them downward into the black. The creature shrieked—a deep, bone-rattling vibration that echoed through the cockpit like the growl of some ancient god.

[Warning. Fuel Low.]

"Takashi—!" Fiona’s voice cut in through the speaker.

"I know!" he roared, slamming his fist against the controls in a desperate attempt to do something.

From the mech’s core, a pulse of stored energy exploded outward, a shockwave designed to break enemy grapples. It hit the creature dead-on. The tendrils recoiled. The thing’s body twisted in the dark, writhing in agony, retreating just enough for the mech to break free.

Takashi’s mech spun out of control, flipping end over end, the stars streaking past his view. Every stabilizer screamed in protest. The world was spinning, spiraling, he gritted his teeth his eyes closing as to stop from feeling nautious, before cutting the thrusters entirely.

The rotation slowed. The stars steadied. The mech drifted once more in eerie silence.

Takashi let out a shaky breath, chest heaving. His body trembled in the pilot seat, sweat pooling beneath his helmet. He could barely hear over the blood pounding in his ears.

He panted heavily as he searched the area around him, the feeling of something else, something that’s not quiet done made his skin crawled to attention.

In the distance, the creature slipped back into the dark. It didn’t retreat—it waited. Watching. Calculating.

[Fuel Critical.]

The warning repeated like a countdown to death.

Takashi wiped his face with the back of his glove, the salt of sweat stinging his eyes. His fingers hovered over the console, desperate for options that no longer existed. There were no reinforcements. No backup. Just a dying machine and a predator that knew he was trapped.

And then the stars around him began to vanish again.

He turned, already knowing.

Too late.

The creature didn’t lunge this time. It descended—slow and deliberate, coiling around the mech with monstrous patience. It wasn’t a strike. It was execution. The HUD flickered under the sheer mass pressing against the metal.

Takashi tried the thrusters again. Nothing. Dead.

"Come on, come on..." he muttered.

"I’m calling it here!" Fiona’s voice rang through his helmet. She sounded close to panic. "Shut it down, now!"

"Not yet!" Takashi barked. His voice cracked with desperation as he slammed the thruster controls one last time.

No response.

The power failed. The HUD dimmed. The cockpit groaned. Then—

Snap.

And everything stopped.

The stars disappeared. The alarms died. The serpent dissolved into nothing.

Takashi blinked.

The simulated canopy of the cockpit unraveled into a grid of blue holographic lines. The monster was gone, replaced by an empty testing chamber. The mech’s restraints unlatched, and with a hiss, the front of the rig lifted open.

He stumbled out onto the metal platform, drenched in sweat, legs unsteady.

The simulation room was sterile and cold. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. No monsters here—just the ghosts of them, clinging to his skin.

"Shit!" he growled, slamming a gloved hand on the nearest wall. His fingers trembled. His eyes burned from the strain. "Why the hell did you pull me?!"

His voice echoed in the chamber. A speaker on the far wall crackled to life.

"You were about to be crushed alive," Fiona’s voice replied calmly, though there was tension behind her words.

"It’s just a simulation," he spat, panting, "It can’t kill me."

"Our sims are designed to be as close to real as possible. That thing would’ve triggered full pain feedback through your neural rig. It feels like dying."

"I don’t care!" he roared, slamming his fist again.

Silence.

His hands dropped to his knees. His breath came in ragged gasps.

"I have to beat it," he muttered. "I need to beat it."

From the control room, Fiona watched him through a glass pane. Her stern expression softened.

She didn’t turn the mic back on this time.

Instead, she whispered quietly to herself, just out of reach.

"...What happened to you, Takashi?"