Alone: Sci-Fi Short on DUST Echoes Rod Serling’s Legacy

Alone is a haunting 5-minute sci-fi short that feels tailor-made for a shadowy Rod Serling intro—cigarette in hand, eyes twinkling with ominous delight. Found on the DUST YouTube channel—a haven for visionary science fiction—this compact tale pulses with emotional weight and existential dread. DUST isn’t just a platform; it’s a collective of storytellers probing the unknown, pushing past the boundaries of time, space, and human perception. Alone by Nicholas Acosta is the latest release from Dust. I think I found a new addiction.

The story unfolds in the icy stillness of space, in the aftermath of an unexplained catastrophe at a Mars research station. Astronaut Alex Harper awakens alone in a failing escape pod, drifting beyond the reach of rescue, her oxygen supply dwindling by the minute. Just as isolation threatens to swallow her whole, a faint, broken transmission cuts through the static—a crewmate may still be alive. But the message carries something else, something inexplicable, lurking in the silence between words.

What begins as a desperate bid for survival slowly unravels into something far stranger. Harper isn’t just running out of air—she’s drifting toward a revelation no one was meant to encounter. This eerie, beautifully crafted short blurs the line between science fiction and cosmic horror, reminding us that the scariest thing in deep space might not be dying… but discovering we’re not alone.