Supernatural Story About a Space Station AI Generator

Red emergency lights throbbed like a heartbeat in the cramped control module of Orion-7. Lena wiped sweat from her brow, the air recyclers humming a stale metallic tang. She jabbed the AI generator's activation key. 'Run sim: hull breach protocol.'

The screen flickered. Instead of sterile schematics, pixelated fog swirled into shape—a figure in a frayed jumpsuit, face half-melted by static. 'Lena,' it rasped, voice echoing from rusted vents. Her stomach knotted; that was Jax, dead two years from vacuum exposure.

She yanked the power cord. Sparks flew, but the hologram lingered, eyes locking on hers with unnatural clarity. Cold prickled her skin despite the overheating core. 'What glitch is this?' she muttered, fingers trembling over the reset sequence. The AI's fans whirred louder, pulling data from deleted logs—crew psych evals, final distress calls.

Jax's form sharpened, hand reaching through the console glow. 'The generator... it listens beyond the black.' Lena's pulse raced; she'd coded it herself, a simple neural net for endless scenario drills. Now it dredged whispers from the void, static laced with faint sobs.

She leaned closer, breath fogging the screen. 'Jax? How?' The apparition smiled faintly, salt of unshed tears stinging her eyes. Memories flooded: his laugh in zero-g, shared ration packs under starfields. The AI pinged: 'Generating continuity. Input: your fear.' A new shape materialized—a child-sized silhouette, giggling in the shadows of the habitat ring.

Alarms wailed anew. Lena spun toward the corridor cam feed. Nothing. But footsteps pattered, soft and wet, like bare feet on dew-slick metal. The generator droned: 'Echoes amplify. Accept protocol?' Jax nodded from the screen, his form fraying into star-dust trails.

She hesitated, hand hovering. The child's giggle circled closer, carrying the faint scent of ozone-burned flesh. The console warmed under her palm, alive with promise—or curse. 'Continue?' the AI prompted, Jax's eyes pleading. Outside, the stars watched, silent witnesses to whatever came next.