"Where did they go?" a voice crackled over the radio, urgency threading each syllable like a needle pulling taut.
"Repeat, command?" an astronaut replied, her hands hovering above the control panel, eyes fixed on the pitch-black void where constellations had danced mere moments ago.
"Stars. They're... gone," the static-laden reply came. Panic was not an emotion she could afford in the vacuum of space, but it gnawed at her resolve.
"Check instruments," another astronaut commanded, his voice betraying no tremor, but his eyes mirrored the dread that had settled in all their stomachs. The screens and dials before them buzzed with activity, yet outside the spacecraft's windows, the universe appeared as a dark canvas wiped clean of its celestial art.
"Nothing. Are we blind up here?" the pilot asked, tapping at the navigation system recalibrating furiously to align with stars that no longer existed.
"Stay calm," the commander said, but the hollow void answered back with oppressive silence.
"Visual confirmation. It's not just us," the science officer added, her voice a notch too high, too sharp. The seasoned astronauts, trained for every conceivable emergency, found themselves grappling with an impossible reality. Without the stars, their sense of location, the very essence of their mission, was unhinged.
On Earth, the chaos was magnified a thousandfold. Screens flickered with images of night skies as empty as the void itself. Reporters struggled to keep composure, voices quivering as they delivered the incomprehensible news to billions of viewers.
"Reports are coming in from observatories worldwide," one anchor said, her hand trembling as she shuffled papers that offered no answers. "It appears that all stars have vanished from the night sky."
"Experts are baffled by this unprecedented event," another reporter chimed in, his face pale under the studio lights. "Scientists urge the public to remain calm as they investigate."
