The silence was deafening, stretching far and thin over every surface of the cabin, filling every available crevice, until nothing was untouched. The moments since the alarms had abruptly stopped felt like eons, the only marker of time being the intake and exhalation of the artificial oxygen in the spaceship cabin. The blood pounded in my ears, another marker of time, though inaccurate, as it beat in a rapid, staccato tempo.

Something was wrong.

The alarms had stopped as soon as they had started, a few moments of pure chaos quickly coming to a screeching halt. These alarms, though, were the kind that when tripped, they were supposed to keep sounding until the issue was resolved.

When the logs were checked, it was listed as “Issue 1406847, spatial anomaly detected,” with an evidence listing of “gravitational pull.” Spatial anomalies were uncommon enough. But evidence listings were even rarer. It meant that there was a reason for the alarm. It wasn’t a fluke of the machines, it wasn’t a mistake of any sort. It was a real threat, with tangible evidence.

And it was on the outside of the vessel, lurking behind the windows. Staring from the black abyss, watching me from the pincushion of space, floating amidst the stars that shone like silver pins.There was nothing truly there though, nothing visible to the naked eye at least. There was no explanation. I could just feel it as one can feel someone creeping up behind them. I whipped my head around, back and forth, desperately searching for something, anything. It had been years of working on my own, the lone astronaut turned data collector, but to have eyes on the back of my head was something rather unfamiliar. It was an uneasy feeling, one of being watched constantly. And yet there was no tangible evidence of this “spatial anomaly,” nothing other than the issue listed by the sensors. Nothing but my intuition and this feeling of being observed.

As safe as I felt inside my vessel, I suddenly began to feel like an animal inside a cage, a specimen inside a tank, being watched, observed. 

I closed out the logs and shut my eyes tight, so it was pitch black, no light whatsoever. I took a few calming breaths, trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling. Being alone in space was alienating. It could mess with your mind if you weren’t careful. That was all this was. “You’re overreacting, nothing is wrong,” I repeated it to myself like a mantra, hoping, praying, that the more I heard it, the more sure I would sound. The more I would believe it. The more it would be fact rather than fantasy. But even the repetition didn't change my mind, didn’t make my voice sound confident, didn’t hide the waver of my voice or the tremor of my hands.

I opened my eyes and had to blink a few times. Something wasn’t right. Opening my eyes was like I had never opened them at all. The lights were off, minus a few emergency lights that washed the cabin in a pale orange glow. I looked around, letting my eyes adjust, feeling uneasy. Clicking a button on the inside of my wrist, I felt my helmet come up and over my head, locking in place with a breath of artificial air. My suit was quickly adapting, turning into one prepared for the dangers of space. The cold, oxygenless vacuum. 

And just in the nick of time too. I could hear it as the life support systems turned off. There was no more continuous hum of the ventilation system, there was no more whirring of the machines keeping me alive in this tin can. It was quiet. Quieter than it had ever been.

The kind of silence that would drive you insane if you let it. The kind of silence that was deafening.

I began to float, the gravity generators had failed with the life support, and now, I was weightless. But I felt like I couldn’t move. As I slowly bounced around the control room, I didn’t dare move a muscle. Something was watching in the shadows, waiting.

It was in the cabin.

I couldn’t tell you how I knew. Call it intuition. But this anomaly that was stalking me, it was in the room with me. I could feel it watching me, observing my movements. I tried to play as dead as I possibly could, but I was sure this beast could hear my pounding heart and ragged breathing as I tried to not let fear get the best of me. 

And then I felt it. 

A slight tug of the spacesuit, a miniscule pull. It felt like gravity, but slower. Like when the gravity generators come to life and instead of floating, you’re standing and able to walk around. But slower, much slower, and in the wrong direction.

I wracked my brain as to what could be causing this. My training wouldn’t do me any good if I couldn’t utilize it right now. I thought about the gravitational pull of large objects, but knew that that wasn’t the case. Was it a black hole? Couldn’t be, I wouldn’t feel watched. A large planet has a gravitational pull but it wouldn’t be inside the spaceship. There were anomalies though, with a wide range of abilities. And then it hit me, the pieces sliding into place.

Dark matter. 

This was a dark matter spatial anomaly.

Dark matter was spread through the universe, and was the reason that the stars were still spinning and that everything was still moving. It was spread out, so the gravitational effects were weaker. When concentrated though, as this anomaly seemed to be, they could move objects. Objects including me.

My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to come to other conclusions. It could be another type of anomaly, after all, no one really had any clue as to how many anomalies there are in space. It could be a fluke. The machines could be acting up, the sensors tripped over nothing. 

Or I could be going insane. I had been stationed in this vessel for years, alone. The lone data collector, sent to the outer corners of the universe. I had been excited for this job. The change to be in space, amongst the stars I looked at as a child. Learning more about life forms and the expansion of the universe. Just my thoughts and the noises I would soon grow used to. The whirring of the machines, the hum of the electronics, my movements and rustling around as I repeated the same routine day in and day out. I had been warned before taking on this project that there were risks. I would be alone, and if disaster struck, no one would be close enough to help me. I would be on my own to solve my own problems. My life was in my own hands. I was warned that my mental state would deteriorate, that I might eventually begin to see and hear things.

Maybe this was it. Maybe I was snapping. Maybe this was the beginning of the end. Maybe this was my imagination. Or a fluke, a mistake. Or both. Maybe this was normal and a simple fix and I was just overreacting. There were a million reasons as to why this could be happening. 

But that’s when I saw it. The anomaly. The thing. Dark matter isn’t visible to the naked eye, I would never be able to see it. But there is something called the lensing effect. Light curves around mass and results in what looks like an expansion of the object. Like when there’s a drop of water on some object and it looks bigger than what it is. I could see it, an odd shaped mass hovering in front of one of the emergency lights. It shifted and changed, almost gelatinous, a soft orange blob floating through the cabin. “Features are soft, fluid, gelatinous, color seems to be clear or rather invisible to the eye,” I took note, my training wired in me, something second nature rather than a thought process.  Watching it float aimlessly through the cabin was almost hypnotic as it moved slowly, a continuously changing entity. It seemed innocent enough, a little blob floating through the atmosphere created by the cabin. I started to slowly move, inching closer to this creature. I was a hands-on learner, collecting data in every possible way I could. Maybe this would be an incredible opportunity. I ventured closer, watching it gently bounce around.

Then it stopped moving. Completely. No movement due to gravity. It just froze. And all the soft, rounded edges that had drawn me in, were suddenly sharp. Spines erupted across all surfaces of this odd anomaly.

And then it lunged straight for me. With a ferocity and speed that I had never attributed to an anomaly of any kind, it dove after me. I dog paddled my way through the cabin, reaching and grabbing for anything rooted to the ground that I could. Propelling myself along, I pushed against chairs and anything I was able to. They might not go very far, but they might at least buy me a little bit of time.

I made my way as quickly as I could over to the wall with the exit door and pounded on the emergency button. This would alert any nearby vessels to my location and open any doors inside the vessel. This one slid open and I dove through. I could feel myself blanching, the color draining from my face. The only way I had been able to see this thing was because of the emergency lights in the cabin.

There were none in the hallway.

I could hear it coming for me, pushing through the debris of the control room, searching. I didn’t hesitate. 

I entered the hallway. I moved as slowly and carefully as I could, trying not to make any sounds or sudden movement. I couldn’t tell what this anomaly could do. Could it see? Could it hear? Could it just sense me? “This would make great data,” I thought absentmindedly as I floated through the hallway, pushing myself along the wall.

A soft thud tapped where my hand was, coming from the outside of the vessel. The metal reverberated, the vibrations running through the length of the hallway. I froze, heart in my throat, waiting for any other movement.

In an explosion of movement and sound, I was thrown against the wall. I could see the metal shrapnel floating around me, the hallway wall, right where I had my hand, was blown apart. All the stars twinkled in the abyss, little pinpricks of light against the otherwise dark backdrop. I knew I was safe, my suit adequately equipped for the vacuum of space. But I had never felt more vulnerable.

Something that had always brought me comfort as a child suddenly felt so cold. Maybe that was the irony of growing up, things change and get colder and harsher. 

Too stunned to move, I just floated around what was left of the hallway, waiting. I couldn’t hear anything, save for the ringing of my ears and my rapid breathing as I tried to regain control. I had no idea where those anomalies were. There was no good way to tell, with no concentrated light source that would reveal them, a la the lensing effect.

Pieces of shrapnel were being pulled away from me at an alarming rate. The same pull I had felt when standing in the cabin, but stronger. Much stronger and far more vicious. And directed at me. The items around me were zipping away at alarming rates, and I could feel the pull, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was pulling these items away like a predatory creature might when it’s hungry. Quickly and directed in one area, persistent and voracious. This anomaly was pulling away the metal Like it wanted the shrapnel, like it wanted me.

And then I realized the anomaly’s intentions.

It was hungry and on the hunt. I was once the predator, but now I was prey.

We had done research on any known anomalies in space. The anomalies all had the same pattern. They would aimlessly float, sucking in the nutrients they need, generally small items. They were sentient but docile. And while we knew there were other anomalies out there, we figured this unknown class was docile as well, the patterns shown by the data consistent and accurate enough to assume a continuation of the sequence. We were wrong. This unknown class was not always docile, I was realizing. We had never had any idea that they would hunt us. That a species that once felt so indestructible would now be so vulnerable. We thought we were the alphas, the unconquerable, but even the mighty must fall.

The gravitational pull got stronger, all the pieces of metal being pulled away from my grasp as the anomaly got closer. I flailed and grabbed, prayed and hoped. There has to be some way out of this, there has to be. I reached and grabbed, feeling the wreckage of my vessel get further and further away. I could see the carnage. The entire vessel was torn apart, metal floating in space. I could see the wires and electronics I had used. None of the data backed up, all of it lost to the destruction. A small part of me wanted to go back and save it, mourned for the loss of the information that had taken me years to collect. But the larger part of me was more worried about my survival. I wasn’t alone. The destruction was too great for just one being. There was no way that just one anomaly could have done that. 

The anomalies we researched moved alone, reproducing by something similar to binary fission, a division of the organism into two other organisms. But I wasn’t dealing with a docile, self-reproducing anomaly, this was completely new territory. This was an anomaly of an unknown class, one that didn’t follow the norms of the other anomalies, one that was sentient and vicious. But one that never could have caused such destruction on its own. There had never been just one dark matter anomaly. 

These anomalies hunt in packs, and I was the hunted.

Something slammed into my face plate, knocking my head backwards, the glass shattering into a spiderweb of cracked glass, as alarms erupted in my ears, warning of impending doom as the pressure began to fail. One final blow was delivered and my whole head was exposed, the vacuum of space cold against my face.

I knew through training that one was supposed to exhale if ever caught in space without a spacesuit. I opened my mouth to scream, to exhale, to buy myself a little time, in hopes my rescuers would come. No one was coming though. I was all alone.

No one can hear you scream in space anyway.