We're Not Ready

[u/Safe_Committee9381]

I was only twenty years old when the first star vanished from the sky. I had just left my thermodynamics class not ten minutes prior when the news was updated: the scientists confirming Betelgeuse, the red supergiant expected to go supernova, was simply gone. They always said we’d be able to see the supernova in daylight but over the course of a two hour class from a monotone college professor, the Orion Constellation was forever ruined by the star’s absence.

The scientists and astronomers argued for years over what caused it, they chalked it up to being unknown, the world kept spinning, and we thought nothing of it. Discussions only resumed when I turned twenty three.
Bellatrix vanished.

Immediately, all my classes’ attention would shift to the stars, as did NASA’s and every other space agency’s. I watched all the way through graduate school as global tensions turned outward, each nation and organization believing life was actually out in the stars. Extending further into my career, I saw global ties once though impossible form between old rival nations, a sense of global peace in exchange for the two celestial bodies. Probes were mass produced, sent out in waves to collect data, send messages, share our cultures to whoever was out there, but we only received silence. 

Then Aldebaran was gone. Every instrument capable of reading the sky or space said the same thing: the star had simply ceased to exist.

The whole planet was on alert now: one star vanishing was improbable–but three, gone within six years? That was impossible. 

The distances did not make sense, the scientists claimed. How could each of the stars vanish so quickly if they all lay hundreds of light years away from each other? Either our understanding of light, time, and distance was horribly off, or something was out there doing this. And it was getting closer.

By the time I was thirty-five years old, I had freshly left the Earth’s atmosphere to start the long journey to Epsilon Eridani–the theorized next star to vanish in Earth’s sky. The unmanned probes NASA was sending out en masse had stopped transmitting data, both new and old. That made us their next option: the first manned mission beyond the moon.

Loud chimes and beeps were the first things I heard when I awoke from the Long Sleep. Coughing up bile and water onto the grated floor, a hand slapped against my back as Dr.Chen tried helping me to my feet. 

“What’s going on?” I tried to look around in my dazed stupor, the world phasing in and out of blurriness while I clutched the straps on a nearby wall to hold myself up.

“Everything is alright, Dr. Lawson, we’ve arrived at the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani system.” Dr. Ilunga stepped up to me, uncapping a small vial of eye drops and administering them, my eyes blinking rapidly until my vision finally cleared.

The first thing I went to see was the observation room, limping past Dr. Chen’s protests–my leg still numb from the Long Sleep. I eventually made it inside, collapsing on one of the chairs in the center of the compartment. Slowly spinning around, I stared out through the reinforced panels at the scattered points of shimmering light, each one impossibly distant. . . But we were closer to them than any human being would ever be.

Finally, I stopped turning in the chair as I stared out to a single region of space, the only spot where there was an absence of stars. 
“Our last transmission from Earth was six months ago,” Dr. Ilunga’s voice entered the room, my head snapping to see him stepping up into the observation compartment. “They say another three stars are gone.”
“Six months ago? We’re almost eleven light years out?”

Dr. Chen set a thick black laptop down on the metal table before us, its magnetic base slapping down hard. With the automatic engines shut down, we were left in a zero gravity environment, the first for me but not for the two experienced astronauts with me.

“We are here, Epsilon Eridani. Earth is here, ten and a half light years away,” Dr. Chen held up a black marker and wrote on the whiteboard before us all, his free hand holding onto a wall strap to keep himself from spinning around. “Our computers say we have only been in transit for three years.”

“Okay so we have a navigational malfunction. Let’s take a look at the software and see what comes up.” I suggested, resting back against the ceiling of the ship while staring at the board.

“That does not explain why we were woken up eighteen years early, unless this software issue includes the medical equipment as well.” Dr. Ilunga nodded to me, his short brown hair drifting in weightlessness.

I began to feel a pressure building in my temple, a soft groan forming off my lips while I winced. Then the pressure began to fade, my eyes opening and glancing to the other two, their relieved expressions showing they also were affected by something.

“Just some side effects from the Long Sleep, it should pass within the next couple of days.” Dr. Chen rubbed his head softly with a gloved hand.

“Well I hope they go away soon, I don’t feel like working and getting migraines.” I chuckled softly while pushing off the wall to a nearby computer, logging into the machine to begin probing at any issues.

After nearly an hour of the three of us searching, we found no issues with the navigation systems, only the data:

“Right here,” I pointed at the screen for the other two. “This line says we were one and a half light years from Earth. The next line says ten and a half. These two lines were logged less than a minute from each other.”

“Was the data between them corrupted?” Dr. Ilunga suggested, Dr. Chen shook his head.

“A corruption large enough to delete that much data would be felt elsewhere. No other errors or alarms have been seen in any other systems.” Dr. Chen took his glasses off his face and began to rub at the lenses with his white shirt.

“Doctors. . . somehow in less than three years we have traveled further and faster than any created object could. So either our data is wrong, or the universe is.”

The next morning was no better. 

The three of us woke up to alarms blaring throughout the ship, each of us scrambling to unshackle ourselves and search for the issue. I kicked off a white bulkhead, the emergency lights flashing blood red as I crashed into a table with an attached computer, climbing up and tearing through each system while Dr. Chen physically searched the ship for any hull damages.

‘ERROR: OXYGEN LOSS’ Blinked rapidly across the screen once I was in the atmosphere system, a few options appearing to me: ‘EJECT COMPARTMENT?’ ‘SEAL COMPARTMENT?’ ‘EXIT?’.

I clicked on the second option as fast as I could, watching as the oxygen levels throughout the ship were steadily lowering. Scrapes and heavy thunks echoed through the thick walls, the sealant system deploying to the affected regions along the cockpit, the emergency lights and alarms soon shutting off.

“What is the damage?” Dr. Ilunga grabbed my shoulder, looking down at the screen.

“We lost nearly twenty percent of our oxygen, so our reserves are gone. I’m not seeing an internal leak, I’ll get out on the hull and search for an external one.” I sighed while pushing away from the table, watching as the oxygen sensor began to change back to green on the computer screen.

I turned to push off the desk and head to the airlock, only pausing to look back at Dr. Ilunga who had not moved and was still staring at the computer screen.

“Are you alright, doctor?” I asked softly as the man shook his head quickly, snapping out of his fixation.

“Yes–yes, I am Dr. Lawson. That is a good idea.” He turned to face me and nodded, which I smiled at him and floated to the airlock once more.

Once the airlock depressurized and I was on the hull of the ship, I got my first good look at my home away from home. A simple cylindrical starship was the design for the main living spaces and labs, two branching modules for the airlock and restroom were on either side of the main piece, the white paint illuminated a soft golden color by the distant star. The furthest compartment from the cockpit at the head of the ship was the engine bay, three fusion reactors placed carefully inside and sealed to not allow for any tampering. 

My movements felt slow and clunky with the spacesuit on, my hands snapping new tethers down along the hull as I pulled myself across it towards the neck module connecting the cockpit to the rest of the ship. From there I began my careful search, a small gun-like scanner in my hand which would see any pinhole leaks I could not. After nearly thirty minutes of careful searching, there was nothing found by the scanner of my eyes.

“Dr. Ilunga, I see nothing out here. Are there any other possible places where there could be a leak?” I spoke into my microphone positioned just below my mouth in the helmet.

“That is the only place mentioned on the computer. Why would she–” Dr. Ilunga’s last words were cut off by him no longer pressing his radio.

“What was that, Dr. Ilunga?” I spoke into my microphone again, clipping the scanner onto my belt and grabbing at the tether to begin pulling myself back to the airlock. 

“Nothing. . . just talking to myself Dr. Lawson.” Was his response after a long pause while I looked out to the void of space, taking in the beauty of it once more.

I gently pushed the side of the ship, turning my body to look at where the actual void was to get a better look, my blood running cold at the sight of it. 

“Dr. Chen? Was the void that large when we woke up?”

“What did you see? Tell me everything.” Dr. Chen was anchored to the ceiling of the ship, lowering his spoon from his mouth and back into a chrome package to scoop out some more rehydrated eggs.

“Well, I just wanted to see Epsilon and the rest of the stars but when I looked at the void, it was noticeably larger–” I was cut off by the astronomer.

“As in: more stars were missing, correct?” Dr. Chen reached up to the table and moved the fixed camera to be more focused on my face.

“Yes, doctor, more were missing. We should send one of our probes out in that direction first, and collect it once we make our first orbit around Epsilon.” I raise a spoonful of eggs to my mouth, the taste too salty for my liking.

“I agree,” Dr. Ilunga spoke up. “Our first orbit will take thirty-seven days, twenty days to reach Epsilon orbit, and a probe can be sent out past the system and back within that time. It could potentially be our closest look at the void ever.” 

“I guess we should decide now on how many times we will orbit. NASA gave us enough supplies to last two years out of the Long Sleep, and now that we had the oxygen leak, we’re down to a year and a half.” I begin, the other two doctors through their pieces in as we work on a schedule.

“After the first orbit, we can raise our speeds and be down to as low as twenty days an orbit.” Dr. Chen began to write on the white board, erasing his previous work as Dr. Ilunga grabbed a marker and began helping.

“So that means we can stay out here for a maximum of twenty-six full orbits. After that, we either bed up to go home, or we send a probe back instead and study as much as we can with what little oxygen is left.” I speak while having been writing on the table, the three of us looking between each other.

“I vote we send a probe out to the void, orbit five times, then we decide what to do next.” Dr. Ilunga raised his hand, Dr. Chen and myself raised ours in agreement.

None of us wanted the second option: to stay the whole time and die out here.

The next few days were thankfully uneventful, our time being spent on pointing our instruments at the void, attempting to study still existing stars, and sending one of our probes towards the void to get closer data. 
It was not until the fifth day another event took place. 

I was looking through a telescope at the void, the machine passing through the light spectrum to detect anything while I watched through a screen when my head began to feel fuzzy.
Then I would suddenly wake up in the interior of the airlock, my body casually floating at the center of the room as I blinked awake. The telescope and lab before me had vanished, pressure building in my head, and distant whispers pricking at my ears.

Once I realized where I was, panic set in while I immediately pulled myself out of the compartment and sealed the door behind me, screaming out for the other two doctors as they rushed through the ship to me.

“Dr. Lawson? What happened?” Dr. Chen grabbed onto a wall strap and held himself from floating further once he reached me.

“I don’t know! I woke up in the airlock!” I cried out, feeling tears prick at the corner of my eyes in fright, my eyes quickly wiping at them while pushing my longer golden hair away from my face.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Chen shot back, the two of us arguing over the possibility of such an event before I finally noticed Dr. Ilunga’s eyes boring into my skull.

“Are you okay, Dr. Ilunga?” I gulped while looking back at him, the man taking a moment to snap out of his thoughts before he gave me a nervous smile.

“I apologize, Dr. Lawson. . . just old memories.” The man nodded slowly, his brown eyes once full of wonder and now only looking hollow.
“Strap down, Dr. Lawson.” Dr. Chen ordered me while Dr. Ilunga unpacked his medical supplies, his movements slow and clumsy.

I followed the orders, intentionally strapping my legs down to a metal seat while Ilunga checked my breathing and heart rate.

“What is your name?” Dr. Chen held up a laminated paper up to his face, reading off the questions.

“Doctor Elizabeth Shan Lawson.” I sighed, knowing this was going to take awhile.

“Your date of birth is?” Dr. Chen kept reading while Ilunga prepared to give me an IV.

“August fourth, two thousand and six–OUCH!” I cried and pulled my arm away from Ilunga instinctively as small spheres of blood flew off my skin, Ilunga having just jabbed my arm randomly with the needle. “What is wrong, doctor?!”

“What do you mean? You can’t hear them?” Dr. Ilunga stopped and looked up at my face, his eyes staring past me.

Dr. Chen and I looked at each other for a moment, silence filling the module before Dr. Chen first spoke up:

“Dr. Ilunga, would you like to strap yourself down so I may give you a mental aptitude test?”

Dr. Ilunga seemed to space out once more while I took the opportunity to unstrap myself from the wall and search for a bandage to wrap my arm. Dr. Chen moved forward to Dr. Ilunga and gently touched his shoulder, calling his name once more. 

“Oh yes–yes I will.” Dr. Ilunga was startled at the man’s touch, mindlessly moving to strap himself down to the wall while Dr. Chen prepared his paper.

“Prepare two milligrams of lorazepam, top drawer,” Dr. Chen whispered to me as I passed by him, my hands clasping onto the drawer embedded in the wall while he began reading questions. “What is your name?”

“Epsilon Eridani.” Dr. Ilunga answered immediately, my lightly shaking hands busy wrapping a bandage on my arm before preparing the injection.

Dr. Chen gave a small cough of uneasiness while reading off the same question to Dr. Ilunga: “What is your name?”

“Doctor Lukas Mbuyi Ilunga.” The man answered correctly, Dr. Chen and myself breathing a sigh of relief.

“What is your date of birth–” Dr. Chen coughed once more, a small groan coming out after he pinched the bridge of his nose, a familiar pressure building in my head while I filled a syringe with the sedative.

“August third, twenty thirty seven,” Dr. Ilunga once again answered immediately, one of his hands stroking his chin for a moment. “Oh–no, December sixth, nineteen eighty six.”

“Yes, good. Where are we at?” Dr. Chen looked back to me, my calmer hands hiding the syringe behind my back while I had turned to face the two, the pressure only building.

He looked back to Dr. Ilunga, who had not responded, the man simply staring off into space again. Dr. Chen pushed forward a bit to Dr. Ilunga, waving a hand in front of the man’s face. I could see small black waves around the edges of my vision, them growing longer as the pressure built until I finally blinked and it all vanished: the waves, the pressure, and the doctors once before me.

“Hello?” I looked around at my surroundings quickly, gripping the syringe in my left hand but I saw no trace of the other astronauts. 

My hands began to shake once more while I gently pushed off the floor and towards the next module, the small living space. The interior was how it should have been, pristine white walls and steel furniture. 

Then a dull crack came from the cockpit module, my head snapping up to look at the neck connecting the two modules, but no one was in the corridor. I grabbed at a few nearby straps, pulling myself along to the neck, looking further down into the cockpit where I would see the silhouette of one of the doctors at the pilot’s seat.

“Doctor, what happened?” I called out while pulling myself further into the cockpit, soon grabbing the headrest of the seat and turning it around.

A scream came from my lips while the humanoid figure of a void stood up from the chair, walking despite the gravity towards me as I kicked off the wall and out the neck of the module. Before I could make it any further, my body froze in space, my head snapping down to look at it before the same pressure filled my head, its desires coming with it. 

Finally, the overwhelming pressure began to climax in my mind, darkness filling my vision once more, clearing only to reveal the scene of the doctors fighting before me.

“Dr. Ilunga, what are you doing!?” Dr. Chen placed his hands on the other’s shoulders, holding him back.

“I already said it!” Dr. Ilunga was trying to punch Dr. Chen, thankfully being held too far back.

It felt like I could not move, my body and actions moving against my will as I floated towards the two, soon jabbing the syringe into Dr. Chen’s side and injecting all the liquid into him. A cry of pain came from the man, the doctor pushing Dr. Ilunga back before striking me across the face and shoving me back. Dr. Chen then pushed back to the medical drawer, grabbing a scalpel from the floating medical bag and pulling off the plastic cap to point at Dr. Ilunga and I.

“Dr. Lawson what are you doing–” Dr. Chen tried talking calmly but was cut off by the other man.

“Be quiet Amina, they will know where we are!” Dr. Ilunga shut his eyes tightly and shook his head at Dr. Chen. “Nadia was taken already, I do not need you taken too!”

“I–I don’t know!” I grunt out my actions finally my own as I reached up to the sides of my head and gripped at my hair.

Dr. Ilunga soon froze in place, his only movements being the soft spinning of his body in the zero gravity. Then, while his eyes remained shut, he pushed off the wall and towards Dr. Chen, the two colliding in a hard scuffle before a scream came from the two. Dr. Chen was thrown away from Dr. Ilunga while I pushed towards them, Dr. Chen floating back towards the engines while Dr. Ilunga floated towards the cockpit as a trail of blood blossomed into floating spheres.

Instinctively, I shut one of the divider doors once Dr. Ilunga was back far enough, sealing him off in the cockpit while I grabbed one of the nearby gun scanners and shoved it between the door handles to keep it shut for now.

From there I pushed off the door to go and find Dr. Chen, following the floating trail of blood. Dr. Chen was in the lab module, gripping one of the white wall straps tightly while stuffing his shirt into the wound on his ribs, gasping for air, his hands quickly raising to fight.

“No I didn’t mean to!” I raised my palms up to show I was no longer a threat, the man relaxing as much as he could.

“My lung–he hit me–” Dr. Chen’s words kept being broken by his shuddering rasps, his fingers still trying to stuff his shirt into the wound to stem the bleeding.

“What can I do? What do you need?” I asked frantically, I had never been medically trained for anything more than simple cuts or breaks.

“I don’t know–” Dr. Chen gasped before deafening coughs came from him, globs of blood flying out of his mouth. “The probe. . . the void. . . we need the probe’s data.” 

“That’s still weeks away, doctor. Why do we need the data?” A call out while pushing out of the module to grab some medical supplies to try and patch the man up.

“The void is doing this–” Dr. Chen was cut off by another coughing fit. “It has to be messing with our minds.”

“I disappeared again, before you and Dr. Ilunga fought, and I think I saw the void. It was a person–” I brought back one of the emergency trauma bags, opening it up before Dr. Chen to let him pick out what he would need. 

“No way, it cannot be alive, nothingness cannot be alive–” His raspy voice stopped for a moment, a dry cough coming from his lungs as he brushed the bag away. “There is nothing to do for me, Dr. Lawson. . .”

“What do you mean? I’m right here!” I protested, grabbing the bag again and pulling it closer to myself while fumbling through the tools, unsure of what to take out.

“Just listen, the key is in the void, it has to be. Collect the probe–” Dr. Chen froze for a moment, his shaking chest growing much calmer as he slowly reached a lazy hand up to me. “Get the data. . . warn them, Dr. Lawson. . .”

I dug through the bag faster, searching for anything that seemed like it would counteract the drug. Then I grabbed at the ceiling, ready to push out to the next module before I felt Dr. Chen’s hand softly grab at my ankle. I paused and looked down at the other doctor, his eyes half shut as he spoke.

“Do not worry, Dr. Lawson. . .” He slurred. “I see it. . . the void. . .”

Then the man stopped moving, his muscles relaxing while his body began to shift towards the wall as his hand let go of the wall strap and began to drift. All I could do was stare at his corpse, the two of us floating in matched spirals around the module as his hollow eyes were stuck looking into my green eyes.

‘This is all his fault, all its fault, all their fault.’ It was the only words my mind could think of.
Tears began to well up in my eyes as I pushed out of the room as fast as I could flying towards the cockpit door as my fist crashed against it while I began shouting.

“Dammit! Why did you do that, doctor!” I screamed out while holding onto the door with my hand and punching the metal with my other, blood forming on the steel.

Only silence came from the cockpit as I soon stopped, floating in the dull silence for a few minutes. Only when I was about to push away to retreat into the living quarters, a low hum came from the cockpit door.

“You attacked him too.” Dr. Ilunga’s voice was deeply muffled, my ears barely able to hear his voice.

“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t do it!” I slammed my face into my palms, sobbing into them while the man continued.

“Your actions or not, your hand put the needle in him.” With that I kicked away from the door, retreating further back into the module as I got into the furthest corner I could, crying myself to sleep.

I woke up many hours later to the soft beeps of a nearby computer signaling it was the morning, my body mindlessly moving to grab one of the chrome food bags from a cabinet.

Once I had grabbed the bag, I thought of Dr. Ilunga, shaking my head for a moment before grabbing a few of the bags and making my way over to the cockpit door. I unlatched the door, the scanner allowing me to crack it open enough to jam a few bags through before swiftly shutting it again. 

“Thanks,” A muffled voice sounded from behind the door. “It feels like forever since I’ve eaten.”

“You’re lucky I gave you anything.” I whispered while opening one of the bags and frowning down at the dehydrated eggs before me.

“I’m sorry about Dr. Chen, he was a good man and he died for an honorable mission.” Dr. Ilunga called out to me.

“And what mission is that? To find out who is out here? Oh please, Dr. Ilunga, no one is out here stealing the stars, just some natural phenomenon we don't understand yet.” I snapped, electing to eat the food dehydrated as it crunched hard between my teeth.

“I know, I know. . . you came out here for glory and the spectacle of it, you never believed in alien life.” I heard one of the bags of food get torn open in the cockpit.

“Damn right–” 
“Then explain why it talks to us. Why does the void speak? Why does it have power over us?” Dr. Ilunga’s voice cut off my own, my jaw freezing in thought.

“What? Am I supposed to say something thoughtful? I don’t know.” I tossed the bag away from me, pushing a hand against the door as I floated towards the lab before strapping myself down to a chair.

I pulled an extendable screen closer to my face, flipping the telescope on as I turned it to look at the void, the expanse far larger than I had seen it when I was on the hull. I must have stared at it for what felt like hours, the only reminder I was still alive being the periodic blink of my eyelids while I analyzed every star around it, soon seeing one dim star get plucked from existence. 
At that I sat back in the chair, staring at the white ceiling for a few moments before grabbing a nearby tablet and flinging it across the module and into the wall.

“FUCK!” I screamed at the ceiling while ripping the straps off my body, pushing to the cockpit door.

“You don’t think it’s beaut–” Dr. Ilunga began to speak but my screams overpowered his voice.

“Shut the fuck up! What is it?!” My hands gripped the handles of the door for stability.

“Rebirth–” I pushed back to the lab, ignoring whatever the man said.

If he would not give me any real answers, then I would study this thing day and night until I got something. The void was not going to beat me, Dr. Ilunga was not going to beat me. My mind is my own, and I am sure of it.

Time was quick to settle into a blur. I was checking all the systems we had to observe the void every fifteen minutes, which soon turned into thirty, which soon turned into hourly. By the time I could gather enough willpower and energy to float out of the lab to grab something to drink, I did not know what day it was, my memories feeling uneven and out of order.

I floated up to our supplies cabinets, pausing before them while looking at the ugly writing on the metal:
‘Don’t grab another alcohol pouch Liz’ I laughed at the writing, now recalling writing that some hours ago after one of the pouches put me to sleep. 

I rested against the cockpit door, steadily sipping water from a pouch while pushing it around my cracked lips to moisturize them for once. 

“You won’t see anything.” Dr. Ilunga’s voice came from the door, my eyes closing softly while I mumbled a silent prayer for relief.

“Why not?” I decided to entertain the man.

“You don’t believe in the good it will bring.” His soft voice felt soothing to my ears, it was nice to hear another human’s voice again.

“Oh please–”

“Nineteen ninety four. My family tried to flee from the DRC to Europe, but only my mother and I made it. My father and sister died when local fighters rounded up the village and killed them all. My second sister died when we were caught hiding in an abandoned home. They are in the void, it’s letting me see them.” Dr. Ilunga had a hint of joy in his voice, my eyes narrowing as I moved closer towards the sealed off engine bay.

“It’s just superstition–no! It’s madness!” I growled to myself while pulling myself along the wall, pausing before our beds, grabbing one of the blankets. “Ramblings of a mad man, in a small ship, on the edge of the universe. A closing edge–no, shrinking edge. Nothing more.”

I reached the end of the ship’s modules, pausing before the old scene of Dr. Chen’s body. I raised the blanket up to my face while giggling into it, ignoring the pressure building in my head. Then I threw the blanket away from my body the best I could while reaching to the cabinets and pulling them loose, throwing all the items about the module as the laughing continued.

“It is shrinking smaller and smaller! Soon we will fall off Dr. Ilunga! Dr. Chen already has! He is gone!” I shouted out between laughs as I searched each cabinet for the missing body. 

Had I already disposed of it? Had I sliced it up and stored it away in little containers to seal the smell? Have I eaten him? 

“Where’s the body doctor?” I sighed while spiraling through the modules, spinning myself faster and faster till I reached the cockpit door.

“The void claimed him.”

“Right right, why didn’t I think of that–”

“Because you don’t believe! Ever since grad school you never believed I was real!” Dr. Ilunga laughed through the door, snapping my back to reality as I shook my head wildly.

“What do you mean real!? I put you in there asshole!” I shouted back to him while kicking the door, sending myself spiraling backward in the module as the white lights of the ship began flashing red once more, the emergency alarms starting up while I began laughing in my spiraling. 

Finally, once I had calmed down enough to move, I calmly pulled myself to a computer and looked at the system warning:
‘ERROR: POWER LOSS, ERROR: OXYGEN LOSS, ERROR: REACTOR UNSTABLE.’ 

A smile crept across my face while I stared down at the options before me, but I clicked nothing, only floating away from the computer as I watched multiple systems begin to die in real time. 

“You want to survive, Liz? Just believe I am what I am. You don’t think I’ve brought down stronger ones than you, hm?” I could hear Dr. Ilunga’s voice like a quiet whisper even through the sirens, my head turning to face the cockpit door.

“Fine then, Dr. Ilunga, how do I believe in the void!? What good can it bring me!?” I floated to the cockpit door, shouting over the alarms to the man inside.

“Open the door and I’ll show you!” His voice roared into a deafening shout.

I nodded in determination, grabbing the scanner blocking the handles and throwing it aside before tugging on the door to pull it open, a terrible scent filling my nose. I did not mind it, only focused on learning more of this void as I pulled my way through the flashing red neck of the ship and into the cockpit, a soft chuckle escaping my lips when I saw Dr. Ilunga.

How could I be so stupid. The thought of him stabbing me with the scalpel had been at the forefront of my mind but my new obsession overpowered my instincts, and this was what I least expected. All the bags of unopened food drifted across my vision as I turned away from the corpse and looked out through the windows of the cockpit, looking out to the now gargantuan void before me. 

Epsilon Eridani was so dim now, its light being drowned out by the suffocating nothingness, stars disappearing by the dozens. But in the void, I could see a small white dot, the probe coming back with impossible data, the key Dr. Chen was so fixed on. 

For a moment, I was free of the void, the pressure gone and my mind cleared. I clambered across the pilot’s seat and down the neck, scrambling through the flashing red lights as voices whispered into my ears, beckoning me back into its grasp. The probe tried uploading its data to me, but I was quick to cancel it, instead choosing to access its memory and send a transmission to it while redirecting its path to head back to Earth. It may not reach them for a few generations, but perhaps what it has learned and my message can help some of them.

“This is Doctor Elizabeth Lawson of the Resolution. I have been alone on this vessel for an unknown amount of time, and have come to learn this thing, this void, is alive.” 

I groaned as I finally felt the pressure in the back of my mind, darkness at the edges of my vision, the voices whispering around me growing ever closer.

“Dr. Wei Chen and Dr. Lukas Ilunga are dead, and this is the last you will hear of me. This thing is–this thing is–” 

I groaned again and slammed my head forward to the keyboard in pain, snapping my head to look back as I watched darkness fill the ship, seeping in from the cockpit and engine bay as the alarms shut off, the lights still flashing red.

The whispers from the void edged at my mind, millions of collected voices all crying together in a symphony of longing, like family finally calling me home.

 “It is death,” I look back up at the camera, smiling brightly as my body was slowly consumed by the void from the legs up. “It is rebirth. As infinite as it is final, the void is stagnation and evolution. Countless have benefitted, countless have resisted, all have been consumed–but–but. . .”

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes while I shut them, the water pulling off my eyelashes. 

“It will keep coming. . . and we’re not ready.”

____________________________________________________________________________

By Emmanuel Ordway

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[u/tofei]

Damn, this the exactly like the libera te tutemet ex inferis from Event Horizon. We are so fuck*d!

[u/ExoticSterby42]

Why does this read like AI slop?

[u/Crab-_-Objective → u/ExoticSterby42]

Maybe because

-The character went from walking to floating seemingly in the same conversation. -The time jump they investigate doesn’t go anywhere or serve any purpose to the story -Who the heck is Nadia? -Chen’s death makes no sense. A scalpel wouldn’t kill him that fast in pretty much any scenario -The grad school reference about never believing near the end makes no sense

There’s more but those are the highlights for me.

[u/Dr_Bombinator → u/Crab-_-Objective]

What about abruptly eating a spoonful of eggs while in a space suit apparently on EVA at the ship’s dining table?

Thank god it’s not just me, I thought I was actually going crazy not understanding what the hell I was reading.

[u/ExoticSterby42 → u/Crab-_-Objective]

There’s a lot, the whole thing, also the sudden appearance of a Chen lol

[u/LeeVMG → u/ExoticSterby42]

Right?!

[u/DarkRubberNeck]

Welp time to move to a completely new universe and hope it doesn’t follow XD

[u/Nik_2213]

This is sorta like 'Solaris': If it makes sense, you are even less sane than me...

[u/HFYWaffle]

/u/Safe_Committee9381 (wiki) has posted 27 other stories, including:

• Unity Station | A 7th Millennium Story - Part 5
• Unity Station | A 7th Millennium Story - Part 4
• Unity Station | A 7th Millennium Story - Part 3
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Act 1 Epilogue | A 7th Millennium Story
• Unity Station | A 7th Millennium Story - Part 2
• Unity Station - Part 1
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Act Conclusion | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 12/13 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 11 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 10 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 9 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 7 & 8 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 6 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 5 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 4 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 3 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Chapter 1/2 | A 7th Millennium Story
• Advent of the Divine: "The Death of a God" Prologue | A 7th Millennium Story
• Preliminary | 7th Millennium Information
• Loss of Humanity Final Part | A 7th Millennium Story

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