one of Jupiter’s moons, to investigate a strange signal. It had been coming from under the ice for years, repeating every thirteen seconds like a heartbeat. No one knew what it meant. Some thought it was just noise. Others thought it might be a message.

Captain Reyes and his team landed near a long crack in the ice. They set up their base and started drilling. After nearly three days, they finally reached deep enough. At that moment, the signal stopped.

Everything went quiet.

At first, they thought it was just broken equipment. But then the lights on the ship flickered.

When they went outside, they saw something impossible: six figures standing in the distance, still as statues. As they got closer, they realized the truth, each figure looked exactly like someone from the crew.

They were perfect copies.

Reyes saw his double first. It smiled at him in a strange way, like it had just learned how. Without thinking, Reyes pulled his gun and shot it. The copy fell to its knees, and something bright poured from its wound. Not blood, something that looked like stars, glowing and shifting, hissing as it touched the ice.

That night, the ship lost power. Nothing worked. Not the engines, not the doors, not even the lights in some rooms.

Then came the voices.

They weren’t heard through the air. They came through the ship’s speakers, through their radios, even through dreams. The voices sounded like their own. They whispered secrets, old memories, private thoughts. They asked softly, “Let us in.”

The crew started seeing their copies inside the ship. At first, they thought they were imagining things. But soon, one of them found Dr. Imani sitting with her double, calmly talking like old friends. Reyes tried to lock the copy up, but when he came back, only one Imani remained. She said she was the real one.

No one could be sure who was real anymore.

Reyes began locking himself in the control room. He checked the ship’s records, hoping to prove he was the real captain. But the files had changed. The ship didn’t recognize his face or his voice. His access codes stopped working.

Then the rest of the crew began to look at him strangely. As if he was the fake.

Reyes tested his own DNA. The results didn’t make sense. It showed something new mixed in—something not human, something that glowed under the lab light.

Now he’s alone in the cockpit. The glass is cracked, and he can see his reflection. It smiles back at him, but it doesn’t blink. Its smile is too wide. Its eyes too deep.