Tiny Horror

The creature didn't rush the base. It drifted.

For hours, the crew watched the monitors as the obsidian sphere circled the perimeter. It moved with a slow, rolling grace, its soft filaments occasionally brushing against the radiator fins. Every time it touched the metal, the base’s internal sensors spiked, but nothing broke.

"It’s not attacking," Miller whispered, standing by the command deck’s viewport. "Marcus, look. It just touched the secondary oxygen line. It didn't sever it. It just... felt it."

They began to see it in their peripheral vision. Because the sphere absorbed ninety-nine percent of light, it was a smudge of "nothingness" moving past the window, a hole in the stars.

"It's right there," Kaito gasped. A single, shimmering filament brushed against the quartz. It didn't strike the glass; it moved over the surface with a shivering intensity, reading the microscopic imperfections in the polish.

"It knows we're here," Chen whispered.

The sphere rolled into full view, stopping directly in front of the window. It hung perfectly still. Thousands of soft filaments oriented themselves toward the glass, swaying in a hypnotic, mindless rhythm.

"It's staring at us," Miller whispered.

The tale continues...