The Forgotten Signal

A soft hum of electricity filled the control room of Station Orion, a small communications outpost floating quietly above the Earth’s atmosphere. For most people, it was an unimportant dot on the map — but for Ayaan Malik, it was home, duty, and purpose.

Ayaan had worked the night shift for three years, listening to the silent cosmos while the rest of the crew slept. Most nights were the same: adjust antennas, log transmissions, monitor satellite feeds… nothing exciting.

But at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, everything changed.

Ayaan noticed a blinking red indicator on the console — something he had never seen before. A signal. Not from Earth. Not from any known satellite. A completely unknown frequency.

At first, he thought it was an error.

He ran diagnostics. Everything was clean.

He replayed the audio, expecting static.

But what he heard chilled him to the bone.

A whisper.

A voice layered with distortion, almost like it had travelled light-years through storms of cosmic dust:

“Ayaan… help us.”

He froze. His name. In a transmission from space. Impossible.

Ayaan immediately saved the file and ran it through spectral analysis. The waveform was unlike anything he had seen before… shifting in patterns that didn’t match any human language, yet somehow forming something readable.

He played it again.

“Ayaan… don’t let them find us.”

His heart pounded. Who was “them”? And how did someone — or something — know his name?

A message appeared on the station’s central screen: Unidentified vessel approaching.

Ayaan jumped to the window.

In the blackness outside, a faint glimmer of light slowly grew brighter. Not a star. Not a satellite. Something moving with intent.

A spaceship.

A cold realization washed over him:

The message wasn’t asking for help from someone far away — it was warning him. The voice wasn’t coming towards him… it was being chased.

The station shook violently.

Alarms blared. Red lights flashed.

Ayaan grabbed the comms panel and tried broadcasting to Earth. “This is Station Orion! Unknown craft sighted, possibly hostile! Requesting immediate—”

Static swallowed his words.

The unknown vessel was jamming every signal.

The lights flickered. Systems began shutting down one by one.

Then the voice returned — louder, urgent:

“Ayaan. They’re here.”

The station’s hull groaned as something latched onto it from outside, like giant claws digging into metal.

Ayaan backed away from the door as it started glowing — something was cutting through it.

He pressed a shaking hand against the console. “What do you want from me?”

The answer came instantly.

“You were chosen… because you listen.”

The door burst open with a blinding flash.

A figure stepped through — covered in metallic armor, tall and alien, its eyes glowing like cold stars. It spoke in a voice that vibrated through the room:

“We have found the one who received the signal.”

Ayaan stumbled backward. “I didn’t… I didn’t ask for it!”

The creature raised a device shaped like a spiraled core of energy.

“You carry information that belongs to us.”

Ayaan realized the signal hadn’t been a warning.

It had been a transfer.

The voice had put something inside the message. And Ayaan had played it twice — enough for it to imprint into the station’s system… and into his own neural pattern.

His mind now held something the aliens wanted.

Something valuable.

Maybe even dangerous.

The creature stepped closer.

Ayaan made a decision.

If they wanted the information… they’d have to destroy the station to get it.

He slammed his palm onto the emergency release.

The station’s power core destabilized instantly.

A loud rumble shook the walls.

The alien roared, realizing too late what he’d done.

Ayaan whispered to himself:

“Some messages… should remain forgotten.”

The station exploded in a burst of blinding white light — the final message Ayaan sent to anyone who might be listening.

Epilogue

Three days later, debris from Station Orion rained through Earth’s atmosphere.

Among the fragments recovered by international space agencies was a small, half-burnt transmitter.

It had only one message stored.

A whisper:

“He saved us.”