Chapter 1
The night sky had never been this loud.
Not with sound—no. It was silent as always. But to Alya Rahman, it felt like the stars were screaming.
She stood on the rooftop of her apartment building, her fingers wrapped tightly around the cold metal railing. The city below her glowed in soft yellows and whites, cars moving like slow streams of light. Everything felt normal.
Too normal.
Alya lifted her telescope and adjusted the lens, focusing on a cluster of stars she had been watching for weeks.
“There it is…” she whispered.
Three stars blinked.
Pause.
Two more.
Then one.
Her breath caught.
“That’s not random.”
At first, she thought it was just her imagination. Stars twinkled all the time—everyone knew that. But not like this. Not in patterns. Not repeating the same sequence every night at exactly 11:17 PM.
She grabbed her notebook from the ground, flipping through pages filled with messy sketches and numbers.
3 - 2 - 1
3 - 2 - 1
3 - 2 - 1
Every single night.
“This is a code,” she said, her voice barely steady.
Alya looked up again. The stars flickered once more, slower this time.
3…
2…
1…
Then darkness.
Not complete darkness—the city still glowed—but that part of the sky… it went empty.
Her heart started racing.
Stars don’t disappear.
“Okay. Okay, think,” she muttered, pacing. “Maybe clouds—no, there are no clouds. Satellites? No. That’s not how satellites move.”
She turned back to the telescope.
The stars were back.
Exactly where they had been.
Like nothing happened.
Alya stepped back slowly.
“That’s not possible…”
A sudden gust of wind swept across the rooftop, sending her notebook pages flipping wildly. She rushed to grab them, but one page tore loose and flew toward the edge.
“Hey—!”
She ran and caught it just before it slipped over.
Her eyes froze on the page.
The numbers had changed.
3 - 2 - 1 was scratched out.
Under it, written in shaky handwriting—her handwriting—were new numbers:
7 - 4 - 9
Alya’s stomach dropped.
“I didn’t write that…”
She knew she didn’t.
She would remember.
Right?
Her gaze slowly lifted back to the sky.
The same group of stars blinked again.
This time, not 3-2-1.
Seven times.
Pause.
Four.
Pause.
Nine.
Her hands started trembling.
“They’re… copying me.”
Or worse.
“They’re talking to me.”
Alya took a step back, then another.
“No. No, this is crazy. Stars don’t send messages. That’s not real.”
But deep down, she knew something was wrong.
Because the pattern had changed after she wrote it down.
Not before.
A sudden buzzing sound broke the silence.
Her phone.
She quickly pulled it out. A message notification flashed on the screen.
Unknown Number.
Her chest tightened.
Slowly, she opened it.
The message had only three words.
“WE SEE YOU.”
Alya’s breath stopped.
The wind died completely.
The city lights flickered for just a second.
And above her—
The stars blinked all at once.
