I had been awake for… hours? Days? The line between them blurred out there, in the void. Time wasn’t slipping away—it was unravelling, thread by thread, like the fabric of reality itself was coming apart. I kept track, of course—precision is key in this line of work. But there were moments when it felt like the stars outside were not just distant, but detached, drifting away from everything we once knew. It wasn’t just the loneliness of deep space. It was something deeper, something wrong. I told myself it was just me, but no… it wasn’t just me. It was the universe itself.
The Signal persisted, always there. A low pulse, distant yet close, like a heartbeat in the dark. It had grown stronger, more insistent over the last few cycles. It wasn’t always there—not like it is now. Back then, it was just a faint hum, barely perceptible over the static. But now it follows me, whispers to me, digging into the edges of my mind. I try to tell myself it’s the isolation amplifying it. But it’s not just the isolation. It’s more than that. It feels deliberate, like the Signal is alive, watching me, drawing me toward something I’m not ready to face. But I keep following it.
I’ve been running scans regularly, keeping track of time-space fluctuations, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The Syndicate’s reach is wide, but not wide enough to touch me out here. Not yet. Even so, I’ve been careful. Careful ever since that first encounter. Kara hasn’t let it go easily, not that I blame her. She calls it my ‘grand exit,’ the day we escaped Syndicate forces on the outer rim. But there was bitterness in her voice when she said it, a sharpness that cut deep. She remembers the fire, the smell of burning metal, the close call that nearly ended everything. That was when we realised this wasn’t just about exploration anymore. This was war. Cold, calculated, ruthless war.
Kara’s voice broke through the comm the other day. ‘We’re running low on fuel again,’ she said, frustration barely hidden in her tone. ‘We’ll need to dock somewhere soon. Unless you plan to run this bird on cosmic dust and dreams?’
I hadn’t answered straight away. I was too focused on the console, watching the steady rhythm of the Signal’s transmission. It was like a heartbeat then, slow, deliberate, almost mocking. I wondered if it had always been there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment. I thought back to the first time we heard it—five years ago, during the Horizons mission. We thought it was just another anomaly, another piece of cosmic noise to study and quantify. We were wrong.
The Horizons was supposed to be the pinnacle of the Galactic Consortium’s achievements, a ship built for exploration, for discovery. But it became a tomb. The mission that started as a search for knowledge quickly spiralled into something far more dangerous. The artefact we found wasn’t just ancient—it was alive, feeding off the very energy of the galaxy. And we brought it aboard. That’s when the Signal changed. It wasn’t just noise anymore. It became a pattern, intricate and deliberate. It started to speak. Not in words, but in something deeper, something primal.
Kara noticed it first. ‘You’ve been staring at that thing for hours,’ she said, her voice laced with that dry humour she used when she was worried. ‘It’s not going to start speaking English just because you stare at it hard enough.’ She always knew when something was off, had that instinct for danger. I hadn’t looked up, but I could feel her eyes on me, watching, waiting. Kara had always been able to read me, even when I couldn’t read myself.
We were parked outside the gravitational well of some dying world, its sun barely holding on, a husk of a planet orbiting a star that was all but gone. The ship floated there, silent, as I pored over the data, ignoring the growing knot of tension in my gut. I should have known better. I should have listened to her.
But I didn’t. We extracted the artefact, and everything changed. The Signal grew stronger, louder, more insistent. And I followed it. I had no choice. It had become more than just another mission—it had become my obsession. I thought I could control it, that I could figure out what it wanted. But it wasn’t about control. It was never about control. The Signal wasn’t just a transmission—it was a warning.
Kara interrupted my thoughts again. ‘We need to dock soon,’ she said, and there was a note of fear in her voice, one she tried to hide but couldn’t. I hadn’t answered right away. I was too focused, too drawn in by the Signal. It was calling to me, and I couldn’t look away.
The Syndicate was closing in, and they wanted the Signal just as badly. They thought they could harness it, use it to bend time and space to their will. But they didn’t understand it, not like I did. They thought it was just another piece of tech, another weapon. Idiots. The Signal was alive, and it was feeding on something far darker than they could imagine.
Kara entered the cockpit, arms crossed, her silhouette framed by the dim glow of the consoles. Her expression was hard, but there was something else beneath it—concern, maybe even fear. ‘You’re pushing yourself too far again,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ve been out here for too long. We need supplies. And sleep. You especially.’
I had glanced at her, and for the first time in days, I saw the exhaustion etched on her face. She was right. We were both running on fumes. But I couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when we were so close. ‘You don’t understand what’s at stake here,’ I had said, sharper than I intended. She didn’t respond, but I could see the cracks forming in her trust. She believed in me, but I was pushing her to the limit.
‘We’ll stop when it’s safe,’ I repeated, softer this time. ‘Not before.’
The truth was, I wasn’t sure we’d ever be safe again. The Signal had changed something—inside me, inside the universe. The Syndicate wanted it, but they weren’t the real threat. The real threat was something older, something beyond the edges of the galaxy, beyond the edges of time. I could feel it, pulsing beneath the surface of reality, waiting to break through.
Kara left the cockpit, and I was alone again. Alone with the Signal. Alone with the knowledge that the universe was coming apart at the seams. I could see it in the distortions, in the way space twisted around us. The unravelling had started, and we were right in the middle of it.
I had promised Kara we’d dock soon, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. Not anymore. The Signal wasn’t just calling to me—it was calling to all of us. And the closer we got, the more I realised that time wasn’t on our side. We were running out of it, faster than I could comprehend.
This isn’t just about exploration. This isn’t even about survival. It’s about understanding. And I’m not sure we ever will.
End Log.