Captain Richard Hayes drifted alone in the vast emptiness of space, his once-proud starship now a ghostly silhouette against the backdrop of distant stars. It had been weeks since the catastrophic malfunction that had left him stranded, the rest of his crew lost to the cold, unfeeling void. Now, there was only silence, broken by the faint hum of the ship's life support systems and the soft beep of failing systems.

It began on a Tuesday, a day like any other. People shuffled through their routines, unaware that their lives were about to change forever. That night, as the sun dipped below the horizon, a peculiar sensation settled over the world, like the hush before a storm. When darkness fell, a collective restlessness gripped humanity.

Captain Jonathan Elliot stared out of the small viewport of the ISS-Mars Mark IV, the vast expanse of space stretching endlessly before him. It had been six months since the crew left Earth's orbit, and the solitude was beginning to weigh heavily on him. The isolation, combined with the never-ending black void outside, was a stark reminder of just how far he was from home.

The spacecraft Odyssey drifted silently through the void, a speck of humanity amid the endless black. Inside, the crew went about their duties, maintaining the vessel as it journeyed toward the distant star system. Commander Harris, a seasoned astronaut, had seen countless missions, but something about this one felt off.

The ship plummeted through the thick atmosphere, shaking violently. Flames licked at the windows, and the cabin filled with acrid smoke. Alarms blared, but the screams of the crew drowned them out. As the craft slammed into the alien surface, metal crumpled and darkness took hold.

The UNS Vanguard descended through the atmosphere of Theta-9, a world shrouded in perpetual twilight. Captain Aaron Thorne watched the swirling, ash-gray clouds from the bridge, a sense of unease gnawing at him. The planet was the site of the ill-fated UNS Explorer mission, lost without a trace two years ago. Now, a faint distress signal had lured the Vanguard to this desolate place.

The crew of the UNS Odyssey stared in silence as the barren planet loomed larger in their viewport. Captain Mara Ruiz couldn’t shake the cold dread that had settled in her gut since they received the distress signal—a garbled, nearly incoherent message from the UNS Horizon, a mission that had been declared lost five years ago.

Commander Elena Kovalenko floated in the black, her spacecraft a shattered wreck drifting through the endless void. The explosion had come without warning, a silent burst that ripped her vessel apart and sent her spiraling away from her crew, her tether severed. Alone, she could only watch as the remnants of the mission faded into the distance.

The silence of space was absolute. Lieutenant Adrian Grant drifted through the dark void, his damaged spacecraft a tomb of twisted metal and flickering lights. The mission to explore the distant nebula had gone disastrously wrong.