The mission was supposed to be a triumph. You and three other women had trained for years, the proud pioneers of the “New Women’s Space Program.” No men, no compromises—just skill, precision, and discipline. The launch went perfectly, and the silence of space wrapped around your ship like a blanket. Beyond the Milky Way, the stars seemed sharper, cleaner, almost alive. That was when the anomaly appeared.

A swirling lattice of color hung in the void, invisible until you were already inside it. Instruments screamed warnings, panels blinked red, but it was too late. The “energy field” was unlike anything Earth science could describe: high-density radiation, particles entangling in ways that broke equations. It wasn’t just exposure—it was a transformation. The field wasn’t burning you; it was adding mass to you.

It began as heaviness. Your arms dragged when you lifted them, your legs felt sluggish. Then the suits tightened. Dr. Xu was the first to panic, her helmet fogging with frantic breath as she clawed at her torso. Flesh was swelling beneath the layers, her muscles buried under sudden padding. You touched your own stomach and felt it push against your hand, thicker, heavier, soft.

The others shouted—radio chatter overlapping—as the truth sank in: the field was converting ambient energy into matter, rewriting biology. The cabin shrank by the hour, every seatbelt straining, every panel pressing against knees, chests, then faces. Dr. Vega tried to calculate the rate, her voice trembling, “We’re doubling every twelve hours—this isn’t survivable.”

Hunger gnawed at you all despite rationing. The field demanded more, pulling calories, warping metabolism. Packs of food vanished into expanding bodies, mouths watering as if the field itself forced it down. The cabin smelled of sweat, fear, and growing flesh pressed too close together.

By day three, the cockpit was a cage. Dr. Xu’s sobs turned into silence as her form took up half the cabin, her bulk pressing against controls, her limbs folded into impossible angles. The ship groaned—bolts straining, glass quivering. Vega and Morales tried to reposition her mass, but their own arms trembled under new weight. You could barely lift your head, fat pooling along your neck, cheeks pressing the visor, your suit seams cutting into you.

Every motion was a negotiation. One wrong push, and the cabin would collapse like a vise. The field pulsed, almost sentient, wrapping invisible fingers around your bodies, urging expansion. You tried to reach out to the others, to reassure them, but the space between your limbs had grown, each touch a battle against your own bulk.

The instruments showed a countdown you hadn’t programmed: the reactor’s limit. If expansion continued, the pressure would rupture the hull. Vega whispered prayers in Spanish, Morales tried to laugh but it broke into a choking cry. You felt your heart strain, each beat harder than the last, lungs struggling to draw air under the weight of your bodies.

Outside, the stars bent and shimmered as though the universe itself was pressing against the ship. One more pulse from the field and it would all be over, hull or human alike. Yet inside, amidst the growing terror, a small thought persisted: you had survived this long, and survival demanded cunning, not panic. Somehow, you would have to find a way to reverse it, to outlast the field’s hunger, before the Aster Flux claimed everything you were.