The red dwarf was unremarkable in the grand scheme of the galaxy, its small size, dim light, and remoteness rendering it nearly invisible to all but the most advanced telescopes.

Captain Cyra Arjinsha sat in her chair at the heart of the command center of the Oneiron watching this cosmic ember through the principal viewscreen as though the six years of crossing the gulf of interstellar dark had been but prelude to this singular moment.

The crew of the Oneiron were pilgrims of the void, scribes of the sky, mapping uncharted expanses where no feet—human or otherwise—had trod. Their vessel was a fragile assemblage of steel and circuitry set adrift upon the cosmic sea, baptized by the light of stars unborn when Earth was naught but molten rock. Cyra had led them fearlessly—a woman whose eyes shimmered with a light that mirrored the very stars she pursued. Her demeanor was one of a stern commander, her voice a mixture of grit and determination; but her features were soft, and her smile—a rare but genuine spectacle—radiated warmth.

The mission etched into the Oneiron’s computational marrow was both quest and necessity. Earth—that once abundant mother—had grown weary under the burden of her children. Fields once fertile were now languishing; oceans once teeming with vivacity were being reduced to acidic stew. This wasn’t just Earth’s plight—the strain was palpable across the Solar System’s colonies and beyond. Thus, the vessel’s holy errand was to find new edens among the stars, to seed human life in places where the air could be breathed with minimal alteration, where water could be drunk with only the kiss of purifying flame.

Ziama—the navigator—exuded an air of confidence in her calculations, with skin dark as space and cheekbones and a jawline defined with precision. Her lips—typically set in a determined line—would occasionally break into a smirk, revealing the passion and enthusiasm that fueled her spirit. She was an oracle of algorithms, and she beheld measurements as a soothsayer might behold the entrails of sacrificial fowl.

Keth—the engineer—possessed a presence that was almost intimidating, his muscular physique and rugged features painting a picture of brute strength and raw power. The sheer bulk of his build, coupled with his coarse, work-worn hands, easily earned him the image of a man whose life revolved around the art of physical labor and mechanical mastery. However, beneath his brutish exterior was a gentle essence, and his eyes—often shadowed by his furrowed brow—sparkled with kindness and sincerity. He was a monk to the machine, and he kept the Oneiron’s heart beating, each pulse propelling them deeper into that unending black.

Finally, Loxley—the biologist—with her diminutive proportions and mousy appearance, might easily have been overlooked in a crowd, yet behind the veil of her unassuming shell was a mind ablaze with questions and a spirit inflamed by an insatiable curiosity about the living world. She was a prophet of the microbial and the multicellular, and she waited patiently to descend upon newfound lands and divine the potential for human life to dwell upon soils untouched by the soles of man.

They were but four souls bound by the solemnity of their mission, drifting through the fathomless night—yet within the steel-clad sanctuary of the Oneiron they carried with them the hopes and fears of a species peering over the precipice, teetering between oblivion and salvation, gaze fixed on the stars as though in them lay written the final chapter of the human story.

Cyra glanced over at Ziama, who was busy analyzing photometric data. “Anything?” she asked, the timbre of her voice restrained as if excitement were a trespass upon the sacrament of their journey. Cyra felt the weight of it, the sheer enormity of their quest. It was a privilege—to stand at the fulcrum of history and tip the scales—but at this moment, it felt like a terrible burden.

Ziama’s eyes caught Cyra’s and lingered—a fleeting yet potent exchange that spoke of uncharted territories between them—then flickered to a gleam on the screen, a whisper of data that a less discerning eye might discard as cosmic noise: a small world, teetering at the cusp of the star’s Goldilocks zone where water might lie liquid and atmospheres could cradle the breath of life.
“There it is,” Ziama gasped, her voice barely more than an exhalation.

Cyra leaned in, her eyes fixed on the spectral graphs and figures that rendered this distant world into knowable coordinates. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked, her mask of composure cracking.
Ziama answered. “It’s a planet. It’s small, almost inconspicuous. But it’s there, and at an orbit where life could be . . . plausible.”

For a moment, no one spoke. The very hull of the Oneiron seemed to resonate with the import of Ziama’s words. Plausible—a door ajar in a hallway of locked potentials, a sliver of light in the darkness.

“We must get closer,” Cyra said, her words the weight of command. “Prepare for orbital insertion. This star may yet have a story to tell.”

II

From orbit, the small planet below was a tapestry of muted colors, rugged rocks, and imposing mountains, with an atmosphere that clung to it like a thin négligée, teasing the mysteries that lay underneath. The astral glow of the host red dwarf cast a soft light on the planet’s surface, emphasizing the contours of the landscape and the shadowy recesses of uncharted terrains. The data from the first atmospheric probes began to stream in, a torrent of numbers and readings that would unveil the composition of the air, the presence of water, and the viability of life.

“The gravity is weaker than Earth’s, which is good to confirm but not surprising,” Ziama remarked, her face illuminated by the soft glow of her nav console, the air around her vibrating with excitement and discovery. “There are magnetic fluctuations, signs of geological activity.”

Loxley moved towards the console with a deliberate, almost meditative cadence, her features caught in a chiaroscuro of shadows and the sterile, unforgiving glow that bathed the command center. For her, this moment was a confluence of the rigorously scientific and the deeply, inextricably sacred, a nexus where empirical data and spiritual belief intertwined. She reached in and ran her fingers over the keys, prompting the atmospheric analysis.

The figures scrolled into view:

19% oxygen
79% helium
0.04% carbon dioxide
1.96% argon / trace gasses
atmospheric pressure: 77.3 mb

Ziama looked up, her eyes locking onto Loxley’s. “We could breathe it if we had to,” she said, a sentence laced with possibility and consequence. Here was a world that could welcome them into its folds, a world that could cradle their Earth-born bodies in its alien atmosphere.

Loxley agreed. “The high helium concentration would certainly alter the timbre of our voices. Amplify the higher frequencies,” she added.

Cyra remained composed. “Water?”

“Yes,” Loxley said, nodding, a smile breaking across her face. “The planet has significant bodies of water.”

“Signs of life?” Cyra asked.

“Well, oxygen, CO2, water vapor . . . these are all key gaseous biosignatures,” Loxley replied. “But we’ve barely scratched the surface. There are almost certainly more secrets hidden below.”

Cyra’s eyes fell to the planet on the large viewscreen, her mind flooded with possibilities. “Lox, Ziama . . . let’s prepare to explore.”

III

The descent was a ritual, an ordained plummet through layers of atmosphere hitherto unbreathed. Within the hold of the landing vessel—an offspring of the Oneiron—they sat, pilgrims approaching the threshold of a new sanctuary. The craft touched down with a softness incompatible with the moment’s weight, its landing gear sinking into soil never before touched by human construct.

The hatchway unfurled with a slow, pneumatic sigh, like a metallic blossom wilting open, to reveal a sky that was a dim wash of rust and ash overhead, not quite red, not quite gray, like the memory of a fire long since gone cold. The star—low, bloated, and crimson—hung in the sky like a slowly bleeding wound. It beckoned as it mystified, a canvas awash with the spectral fingerprint of its celestial birth. Yet for all its foreign allure, there was in the air a primordial inkling that clawed at the soul’s periphery—a disquiet unquantifiable yet strikingly manifest.

First to set foot on this new eden was Loxley. Her boot touched ground and she felt it then: a shiver threading through her being, a coldness that had nothing to do with particulate movement or lack thereof. It was a dread crystalline in its clarity yet maddeningly elusive in its source.

Cyra descended next. The planet’s gravity, lighter than Earth’s yet undeniably present, drew her downward as if pulling her into an unspeakable communion with this laconic world. She looked back at the landing vessel, its metal hide glinting in the red dwarf’s light.

Ziama lingered a moment longer within the sanctuary of the ship’s hold, then she too stepped onto the foreign sphere. Her senses were met not with the exaltation of discovery but an emptiness, a hollow in the pit of her stomach as though this world were a negative space in the universe’s grand design.

They stood there, the three of them, on soil that defied their understanding. Around them stretched a terrain of haunting beauty, its sky a masterpiece of celestial artistry. And yet the dread remained, an unvoiced elegy that seemed to emanate from the very land, reverberating through their bones like a lament.

Cyra broke the silence, her subdued voice emanating harshly from the earpieces in their helmets. “We are here to explore, seek out life, and find a new sanctuary.” She swallowed hard. “Let’s do what we came to do.”

As they moved to enact the protocols of exploration—to capture soil and air samples, to unleash drones that would map this world in grids and data points—the dread clung to them. Here on this unnamed world they felt the burden of an unseen scrutiny, questioning their quest, doubting their right to reveal realms so deeply hidden, and in that moment they knew themselves to be both seekers and intruders, simultaneously blessed and cursed in their trespass.

The drones returned bearing samples of a world yet untamed. Loxley stood with analytical equipment in hand, a lone sentinel poring over data, her eyes fixed to a screen illuminated with the arcane language of biology. Patterns emerged, fractured and reconstituted in digitized form, holding within them the cryptic tales of this foreign land.

It was in the water samples that she found them: microbial organisms. They were not cells as one might know them—not the familiar double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. These were other. Organisms with an architecture so vastly different it was as though they had been birthed from the fabric of another universe, their tiny anatomies dancing and morphing with an otherworldly vitality.

Loxley beckoned Cyra with a quiet urgency, her voice barely above a whisper. “Look here, in the water. It’s teeming with . . . I don’t know. They’re not like anything we know. Not from Earth, nor any of the exoplanets we’ve studied.”

Cyra leaned in to observe the cryptic jitter of these entities on Loxley’s viewscreen. Their movements seemed almost purposeful, their forms ethereal and shifting as though trying to communicate in a language of convulsions and spasms.

“This place,” Loxley murmured, her voice trailing off, caught between wonder and disquiet. “It’s alive.”

Cyra felt the weight of responsibility tighten around her. “We tread on the unknown, Lox. This is why we’re here. But with discovery comes caution. We need to understand what we’re dealing with.”

The trio trekked across the fantastic terrain, a barren stretch of land punctuated by sporadic rock formations casting long shadows in the dim light of the red dwarf. Loxley would stoop occasionally to gather samples. Ziama’s gaze swept the horizon, where the silvery sheen of what appeared to be a distant forest called to her. As they drew closer, the delineation between barren land and that uncanny wood became starkly evident. Cyra, ever vigilant, set a steady pace, leading them onward, each step a silent vow to uncover the mysteries of this world while safeguarding the souls entrusted to her command.

Emerging from the bleak plain, they found themselves at the border of the forest. Each tree shimmered with a metallic sheen as though wrought from iron and silver. The trunks, vast and sinewy, twisted skyward, branches spread like the arms of ancient votaries calling to the heavens. The ground beneath their feet crunched with an unnatural resonance and the air carried a faint echo that made the skin prickle.

Loxley stepped forward with an eagerness that betrayed her wonder. “It’s magnificent! But this . . . this metallic wood, it seems contradictory,” she mused aloud, more to herself than to the group.

“You’re the expert, Lox, but it’s my admittedly limited understanding,” Ziama weighed in, “that metals generally have closely packed atoms and high densities, whereas woods are made up of porous cells.”

“Indeed,” Loxley acknowledged, her voice soft, contemplative. “It’s as if we’re being invited to reconsider our definitions, to see beyond the apparent paradoxes and embrace a more . . . holistic understanding of nature’s complexities.”

With a subtle gesture, Loxley beckoned one of the sleek spectrometer drones from its standby proximity. It glided toward the material, its sensors humming softly as the small machine commenced its analysis. Moments later, the air around Loxley vibrated with the silent transmission of data, a stream of information flowing from the drone to her datapad like some digital river of knowledge.

“Analysis shows this . . . metalwood, if we’re to coin a term . . . it’s highly porous at the nanoscale. Such a structure would imbue it with a strength that defies its outward appearance, yet its density remains akin to that of water.”

Cyra let her hand graze the bark of the closest tree. It was cool to the touch, with a resonance that throbbed beneath her gloved fingertips. “We are not just explorers here—we are guests.”

“Ground team,” a voice crackled through their earpieces—Keth, steady and unwavering, from orbit. “The forest extends for many kilometers, but I’ve got eyes on you. If you need extraction or support, simply signal. You’re not alone down there.”

In the bosom of that foreign grove, following some ancient, unspoken compass of curiosity, they ventured deeper into the metallic labyrinth. The susurration of the soft breeze through the foil-leaved trees was peaceful but ceaseless. Shadows lay heavy, with each step revealing ground both firm and alien beneath their boots.

As the peculiar wood thickened, the world seemed to fold in upon itself. The crew felt a sense—subtle yet insistent—of being led. The path wove between the immense trunks in a crooked but conspicuous arrangement. It was Ziama, her eyes always seeking the horizon, who caught the first glimpse of it: the anomaly at the heart of the metalwood forest.

In a clearing dominated by a singular shadow, there stood a monolith. Neither wholly metallic nor completely organic, it rose, solitary and majestic, challenging the very sky it pierced. Its surface, smooth and reflective, bore patterns that danced and shifted—reminiscent of the microbial organisms they’d discovered in the water.

Loxley approached it, her scientific fervor matched only by the reverence with which she beheld the thing. Her fingers reached out tentatively, hovering millimeters from the surface. As she made contact with it, the patterns responded, coiling and reforming beneath her touch. “It’s reactive,” she whispered, awe bookending her statement.

Ziama circled the base, her scanner’s sensor painting the monolith with soft blue light. “It appears to be a construct of purpose,” she murmured, “though what purpose I cannot say.” She placed her hand on its surface, and the patterns illuminated, casting an unearthly glow that shimmered in her eyes. “It’s like it’s communicating,” Ziama exclaimed.

Cyra surveyed their surroundings. The forest seemed to watch them, the metallic trees standing sentinel, their leaves whispering secrets just beyond the cusp of comprehension. “Keth,” she radioed, her voice steely and resolute, “do you have a visual on our position?”

From the Oneiron in orbit, Keth’s voice crackled in response, the vastness of space compressed into a narrow band of frequency. “Affirmative, Captain—though there is some mild-yet-constant interference.”

“Likely due to the forest’s metallicity,” Loxley added, her eyes still transfixed by the towering column of mystery.

Ziama, her gloved palm still clinging to the monolith, spoke with the solemnity of one standing on hallowed ground. “This isn’t just a discovery, Cyra. This is an invitation—a natural bridge between the biological and the fabricated.”

Loxley started, taking a step away. “We don’t know just how natural this actually is.”

“And I’m not sure we’re meant to find out,” Cyra said, keeping her distance from the oddity. “Let’s get back to the ship.”

The crew, having borne witness to the uncanny testament of this alien realm, retreated from the tower’s looming shadow. The journey back to the transport vessel was marked by an unwieldy silence, the mysteries of the monolith echoing in their minds, casting longer shadows than the spire itself. Once aboard, the vessel’s engines ignited, and they rose steadily, leaving the glinting forest and the anomalous mast behind. The embrace of the void was simple, a consummate contrast to the exotic terrain they’d just traversed. Soon, the transport vessel docked with the Oneiron, the prosaic purr of the ship offering a semblance of solace. Within its walls, the crew sought rest, but even in their respite, the samples and data they’d collected whispered of revelations yet to be uncovered.

IV

In the dim recess of the Oneiron’s quarters, away from the pulsing glow of monitors and the ever-present moan of machinery, Cyra and Ziama found themselves in a shared moment of bare-skinned serenity. The weight of the void outside and the mysteries of the alien world they orbited fell away. Here, in this confined space, only the two of them existed. Cyra, with her posture of command now relaxed, traced the contours of Ziama’s dark face, a gesture both exploratory and familiar. They drew together slowly, a gravitation inexorable, the weight of months in the void pushing them into one another’s embrace. Their lips met, a communion of warmth and need, speaking a language older than words, one borne of longing and closeness in the cold reaches of the cosmos.

V

In the Oneiron’s laboratory, bathed in the cold and impartial light of sterility, the quietude was more the quality of a church than a place of science, as though the tools and instruments felt the gravitas of the revelations unfolding. Loxley, surrounded by vials and cell-culture dishes, methodically studied the alien microbes. She isolated them, noting their individual behaviors, their peculiar metabolic processes. They thrived in various environments, replicating at rates that both fascinated and alarmed her. The fluidity of their movements, their very essence, was mesmerizing—a dance of bizarre biology and curious chemistry. She observed their responses to different stimuli: light, heat, electrical impulses. These organisms, it seemed, were remarkably adaptive, showcasing an almost chameleon-like quality, altering their appearance based on the conditions around them. Their resilience hinted at an evolutionary lineage fine-tuned by eons.

It was when she introduced them to terrestrial organic compounds that they revealed their most recondite behavior. They merged and melded, then detached and divided, almost as if engaging in some arcane ritual of exchange. Was it communication? Complex chemistry? Hard to say.
Holding a vial of human skin cells, she introduced a tiny droplet containing the foreign organisms. The alien organisms approached the cells with an almost hesitant curiosity, but soon, an uncanny choreography unfolded. These entities, so mystifying in their morphology, sought entry. They caressed, prodded, and finally permeated the cellular membrane—the human cells utterly powerless before this insidious invasion.

For minutes, Loxley witnessed an unholy union. The human cells, once robust and defined, now harbored the alien intruders, their forms reshaping, contorting. A symbiosis or an occupation, it was difficult to discern—but the transformation was undeniable.

Drawing back, Loxley pondered these newfound implications, her breath ragged. The thin barrier of her protective gloves suddenly felt like an all too fragile defense against an alien world with intentions still unsurmised.

VI

In the hush of the ship’s quarters, with Cyra lying ensconced in the warmth of Ziama’s embrace, sleep carried her far from the sanctuary of the bed they both shared. The dream realm, cruel and distorted, gripped her, thrusting her before the monolithic edifice they had discovered in the metallic forest. Here, in the twisted landscape of nightmare, it stood far more menacingly—an iniquitous obelisk emitting a sickly, revolting pollution that poisoned the air around it. This architecture was neither of metal nor flesh, but something altogether more sinister—a monstrous entity steeped in ancient malevolence. It throbbed hungrily, its rhythm a repugnant mockery of Cyra’s own heartbeat. Each pulse was a summons—a dark siren’s call that grew more insistent, seeking to enmesh her very soul. The monolith, though silent, screamed tales of ancient horrors, of civilizations devoured and worlds annihilated. The air vibrated with a frightening energy as the monolith started to morph before Cyra’s terrified eyes. The structure warped and twisted, its form shifting with an eerie fluidity, revealing a dimension of darkness within its core—an enormous gaping maw, like a black hole, opened before her. The sinister aperture seemed the epitome of a boundless void, an abyss of such profound depth that it was surely capable of swallowing whole galaxies, silencing stars, and extinguishing all the light of the universe. The darkness surged forth, seeking to claim her, and she felt an overwhelming sense of powerless terror so thorough it threatened to shatter her very being.

Cyra awoke with a choked scream, drenched in cold sweat. The haunting specter of the monolith lingered, its shadowy tendrils still caressing the edges of her psyche, leaving a dread that would not be easily shaken.

VII

In the following days, within the confines of the Oneiron, a silent tension began to thread through the vessel’s arteries. The crew—once bound by the singularity of their mission—now bore the mark of an unseen burden, each showing signs of the strain in their own unique way.

Ziama, once the tranquil navigator of the void, was now held captive by a different compass: her own internal arithmetic. She was frequently found at her console in the command center seeking patterns in the data. Every stream of numbers, every graph and data set, held for her a haunting refrain. “How do you not see it?” she’d murmur, her eyes wild and alight with an intensity the others had never before witnessed in her. “The patterns, they’re converging!” Yet her shipmates saw only dissonant, disjointed data.

Meanwhile, in the dimly lit lab, Loxley stood as both scientist and supplicant before the microscope’s altar. The alien microbes, those miniscule invaders from the world below, consumed her every thought. Irresistibly drawn to them, she lost hours watching their idiosyncratic movements with a fanatical devotion. She scribbled frenetic notes, convinced that unraveling the secrets of these organisms would rewrite the foundations of human understanding and herald a new era of scientific discovery.

One evening, in her fervor to better understand their nature, Loxley prepared a new series of tests. In her meticulous process, she failed to notice a single droplet—a veritable ocean of the alien microbes—as it found its way to the outside of a beaker and dribbled down to the surface of her workstation.

Keth visited the lab that day, seeking Loxley’s expertise on an odd reading from the ship’s bio-scanner. Oblivious to the droplet’s escape, he leaned over Loxley’s workstation, his bare skin absorbing the alien essence from the contaminated surface, his bloodstream becoming a highway for the microscopic invaders.

Loxley, adjusting her lab goggles, looked up to greet him. “Keth! Good to see you. What brings you by?”

Keth, pointing toward a handheld device’s display, said, “I’ve been getting strange readings on the ship’s bio-scanner, Lox. I thought you might have some insight.”

Loxley, intrigued, looked over the data. “That’s odd . . . these fluctuations, they resemble the microbes’ bio-signatures. Let me run a few tests.”

As Loxley worked, Keth felt a warmth where, unbeknownst to him, the droplet had permeated his skin—the otherworldly organisms exploring their new environment within him. Oblivious to the ongoing invasion, he watched as Loxley manipulated the instruments with precision.

“Keth,” Loxley said, her analysis complete. “I think we might have a contamination breach.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Keth said.

“No, it’s definitely not,” Loxley affirmed, shaking her head. “We need to initiate a quarantine immediately.”

VIII

Cyra was the first to sense the subtle distortions in the crew’s behavior. Ziama’s whispered monologues to the phantom patterns, Loxley’s obsession with the alien organisms, and Keth’s increasingly distant demeanor—all consolidating into a conflation of fretfulness for Cyra. In the solitude of her quarters, Cyra recorded an urgent message to her superiors, the tone of her voice laden with both insistence and trepidation as she cataloged their unprecedented findings.

“This is a priority one transmission from Captain Cyra Arjinsha, commanding officer of the Niluminal Reconnaissance Vessel Oneiron,” she began, then provided the ship’s identifying call number before proceeding. “We are at present maintaining a stable orbital position around an uncharted exoplanet located in sector seven. This world seems to challenge and defy the foundational principles and understandings we hold regarding astronomical and environmental constructs. The planetary body exhibits anomalous characteristics heretofore unobserved.

“Remarkably, the planet’s terrestrial landscape is dominated by expansive forests characterized by a novel metallic sheen, suggestive of extrinsic craftsmanship. The luminous reflections from the flora indicate a possible intelligent design, as if molded and refined by celestial entities or advanced alien civilizations, raising potential implications for our understanding of extraterrestrial life and cosmic phenomena.

“Furthermore, the presence of a monolithic structure on the planet’s surface has been detected. The origin of its construction remains for the moment an utter mystery. This tower looms with a commanding presence, simultaneously beckoning and repelling, creating an atmosphere of intrigue among the crew.

“Our most alarming discovery lies in the microscopic realm. The encountered microbial lifeforms on this alien world are unlike any previously cataloged species. Their movements and behaviors blur the demarcation between the familiar and the bizarre. Unfortunately, we have experienced an inexplicable containment breach involving the microbes. Standard containment protocols were immediately enacted, but the nature of these entities has made containment challenging. The ship is now under stringent quarantine procedures as we endeavor to contain the microbial outbreak and mitigate the potential spread. Members of my crew are exhibiting unforeseen and concerning alterations—changes that signal potential risks and unknown ramifications. It remains unclear if these changes have been caused by exposure and infection.

“The breach has escalated the seriousness of our situation and intensified the necessity for immediate guidance and support from the Pandect. We are grappling with unknown variables and potential threats, with the safety of the crew and the integrity of the mission hanging in the balance. My resolve is steadfast, but the import of our situation cannot be overstated. I implore expedited directives and assistance as we navigate this precarious scenario and endeavor to safeguard humanity from unforeseen consequences.

“Captain Cyra Arjinsha, Niluminal Reconnaissance Vessel Oneiron, awaiting urgent response.”

IX

Amidst the quiet purr of machinery and the sterile, artificial light of the laboratory, and with the individual crew members still under quarantine, Loxley had begun a new line of experiments. Away from prying eyes, she cultivated a cell-culture dish layered with a gelatinous substrate, nurturing an intricate lattice of fabricated neural cells. It was an environment mimicking the human brain in its basic form, a miniature universe of synapses firing synthetic signals. These delicate frameworks held the potential within them for consciousness—the thaumaturgy of thought, the movement of memories. She peered at them each day, observing their growth with an almost maternal obsession. In this controlled setting, free from the complexities of a full human system, she had created an ideal playground to understand the true nature of the microscopic alien entities.
Then came the day when she introduced the microbes to the neural cells. At first there was a placidity, as though time had paused in anticipation, but slowly, inexorably, the organisms began their pathological process of exploration around the tissue. With a potent swiftness that resembled predation, they enveloped the neurons. The glaringly parasitic embrace was both violent and purposeful. The neurons, those crucibles of human essence, were forcibly held captive, as each alien entity wormed its way into the nucleus of the cells—first binding them, then merging with them, then reshaping them altogether.

The cell-culture dish now throbbed with an alien vitality. As Loxley watched, a chill ran down her spine. The ramifications were clear: This was how they worked, infiltrating the very seat of consciousness, turning the host into an unwitting pawn in a physiological game of dominion. The crew’s altered behaviors suddenly made a perfect sort of sense. Their sudden fixations—Ziama’s frenzied obsession with numbers, Keth’s inexplicable malaise, her own manic preoccupation with her work—were not mere quirks of personality: They were the puppet strings of a malevolent force.

Loxley prepared to alert Cyra of her discovery, her finger hovering over the comms button and her breath still as stone when a siren pierced the air, echoing through the chambers of the ship like a ghostly lament resonating through the ship’s corridors as a message of warning filled every display screen:

critical failure alert
cooling system breach
antimatter drive shutdown initiated

Loxley’s stomach sank. The antimatter drive was the heart of the Oneiron—its lifeline. Without it, they were tethered to this damned planet. She rushed to the nearest console, fingers flying across the screen, seeking a diagnostic, a reason, some semblance of understanding.

A hand grabbed her suddenly and violently by the wrist. It was Keth, who now stood beside her, calm and eerily placid, contrasting sharply with the urgency of the situation. “There’s no mistake in the computer’s claim. The engine is not going to restart.”

Loxley trembled. “Keth, what the hell have you done?”

“The stars have spoken, Lox,” he said, a disconcerting smile playing at the corners of his lips. “They tell of a destiny not out there, amidst the barren, lifeless void . . . but down there, on that extraordinary world.”

“You’re not making any sense, Keth. We need to fix the cooling system and bring the antimatter drive back online!”

His grip tightened and Loxley winced. “The drive is beyond repair, as it should be. We were brought here for a reason. The organisms, the forest, the monolith. They are calling us, Lox . . . binding us to this planet.”

As Keth spoke, Loxley could hear the undercurrent in his voice—the same insidious influence she had witnessed under her microscope: the parasites. They had wormed their way into Keth’s mind and merged with it, twisting his thoughts, reshaping his desires.

“This is not you, Keth,” she whispered.

A stillness ensued, broken with periodicity by the mournful wail of the ship’s alarms. Keth’s grip slackened and his voice returned, softer, almost regretful. “Loxley, don’t you feel it? The pull of this world? Its voice singing in your veins? We’ve been chosen. This is our destiny.”

At a loss for words, Loxley felt a cold dread percolating within her. Stranded in the orbit of a world that held as much mystery as menace, she found herself caught in a web of cosmic intrigue.

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted as Cyra’s voice cut through the comms channel, filled with urgency and command. “Keth? Lox? What the hell is going on?”

Before Loxley could reply, the ship’s computer intoned: “Antimatter containment secure. Engine shutdown successful. Orbital stability maintained.” With that, the resounding alarms ceased.
“Keth!” Cyra’s voice sharpened. “Explain!”

“I have seen the truth, Cyra,” he said, maintaining his grip on Loxley’s wrist. “This world beckons us. The antimatter drive is a chain, enslaving us to our past, our old lives. We are being reborn here, in the crucible of the cosmos.”

Cyra’s silence was palpable, her authority momentarily shaken by the incomprehensible betrayal of one of her own. “This is not the Keth I know,” she said finally.

“No,” he said. “This is Keth as he is meant to be.”

Loxley’s narrowed eyes bore into Keth, trying to pierce through the barriers of transformation that had changed her comrade. She strained in search of any hint of familiarity that may still remain. As their eyes locked, the barest inkling of recognition crossed Keth’s face—a fleeting glimmer—but then it vanished, consumed by a vacant smile that held none of the warmth it once possessed. The glow of the display screens played shadows across his face, his pupils exorbitantly dilated, mirroring the fathomless blackness of space.

With her free hand, Loxley moved to activate the console, to seek aid or perhaps a way to override the damage done—but Keth was faster. In a burst of unprecedented strength and fluidity, he released her wrist and reached up to grasp her head in both hands. A savage roar erupted from his throat as he plunged Loxley’s head violently into the electronic monitor before her. Sparks flew as the monitor shattered and splintered, its luminescent lifeblood oozing from the rupture and sizzling against Loxley’s skin. The surge of electricity met with the saline moisture of her now profusely bleeding dermis to complete its circuit. She convulsed once, twice, then went limp, the light in her eyes extinguished as swiftly as a snuffed candle as the acrid stench of burning fibers and charred flesh filled the laboratory.

Loxley’s lifeless form hung grotesquely against the mangled monitor. For a heartbeat’s length, Keth stood still, observing his handiwork with an almost childlike wonder. The effects of the neural parasite writhed within him, forcing him further away from the man he once was. Yet, deep within, a fragment of the old Keth screamed in horrified agony, trapped and silenced.

He turned slowly to leave the laboratory, moving with a ghoulish grace toward the ship’s command center.

X

In the hollow chamber of the command center, where machinery murmured its unremitting refrain, shadows stretched long and lean over the nav console, the half-light revealing the sharp bones of Ziama’s dark face. It was a room caught between time and oblivion, bound by its own haunting chorus of keys and numbers. She had once been a beacon, her brilliance shining from eyes that dared to stare at the heavens and question the mysteries they concealed. But now, those eyes reflected only the tenebrous depths of space.

The soft mechanical hiss of the command center’s sliding pocket door disrupted Ziama’s concentration, bringing with it the looming specter of Keth. He stood imposingly, large steel crescent wrench in hand—a darkened outline forged in the somber corridor light, his presence flooding the room with a coldness more profound than the void outside their vessel.

“Ziama,” he seethed, his voice a disquieting and upsetting breeze that carried with it the gravity of a brewing storm.

No acknowledgment came from her—only the cadence of her murmurs, the numbers and the strange terms she whispered.

In him was a quiet composure that contrasted sharply with her frantic energy. “They beckon,” he said, his tone ill-boding. “The strings of fate pull taut around us, Ziama. They bind us to this planet. Can you sense our destiny?”

Her disinterest—or perhaps her obliviousness—only served to amplify his insistence. Taking another step, he dared invade her sanctuary. “We have been marked,” he said, reaching out to touch the curve of her shoulder.

A jolt of recognition coursed through her, snapping the trance. Pulling away, she met his eyes. In them, she saw not the friend she once knew, but a stranger, his stare clouded by foreign desires. “Keth, what is happening to us? This . . . this isn’t right.” Her voice trembled, vacillating between revelation and madness.

Keth’s visage bore the marks of the parasites that coursed through him. The once noble lines of his face contorted, a testament to the sinister invaders that held dominion over his senses. Within the hollows of his eyes, the depths seemed infinite—an abyss that stared back with malevolence. Ziama’s fleeting clarity, a glimmer of the woman she once was, grated against Keth’s darkness, and to him, this resurgence of her consciousness—this ember of defiance—was an affront to the grand design he believed they were now part of.

With a swift and ferocious motion, Keth lunged toward Ziama—a savage tempest of force and brutality. They fell together to the deck, their bodies tangling. Ziama struggled against Keth’s enraged intensity and soon she was pinned helplessly like an ensnared animal. Without the grace of forethought or the hesitation of doubt, Keth lifted the wrench above his head and brought it down mercilessly on Ziama’s. The wrench rose and fell, rose and fell—each blow more powerful than the last—as sickening metallic reverberations filled the air with grisly purpose. Gashed skin seeped deep crimson and splintered fragments of tooth and bone and soft gray matter scattered across the shadows until all that remained was a gurgling pulp of lifeless ruin.

XI

Cyra emerged hesitantly from her cabin, violating the sacred quarantine with a whispered apology to no one in particular. Her quarters, nestled between the engine chamber and the crew cabins, exhaled the staleness of isolation into the gloom of the central stern corridor. Her footsteps, solemn and resolved, echoed mournfully through the vessel, the sound a pensive companion in the sobering silence. Moving beyond the crew cabins, she passed the neatly lined restrooms whose doors stood eerily agape, revealing only shadows within. Ahead, the galley—once vibrant with laughter and camaraderie—lay bathed in an unsettling hush, the leftovers of hasty departures scattered amidst the tables and chairs. The cold storage units hummed softly, unmindful of the despair that hovered over the entirety of the ship. A peculiar chill permeated the room, one that was oddly incongruent with the ship’s typically well-regulated internal environment. Cyra hesitated, a shiver snaking down her spine as the uncharacteristic cold kissed her skin. Her eyes flitted toward the ventilation grates near the service duct entrance, half-expecting to see a malfunction indicator or warning light—though there was none. She could almost perceive the silent exhale of the ship, the cool air murmuring tales of desolation through the serpentine pathways of its internal cavities.

With a slow, steadying breath, she stepped forward, the echo of her boots a stark contrast against the cold, silent steel beneath. The main airlock came next, its heavy door sealed. Discarded gear littered the floor, hinting at a frantic ransacking. Cyra choked on her own breath as she surveyed the devastated remnants of the crew’s ExoTrek suits—protective garb that had once allowed them to explore hostile environments, now reduced to shredded heaps of fabric and shattered visors, dispersed sadly across the deck. Amidst the chaos, Cyra’s eyes fell upon the instrument of the suits’ destruction—a utility knife with its blade retracted, discarded on the deck nearby. She seized it for herself, her fingers closing around its heft. Gently, she slid it into the inside breast pocket of her flight suit, feeling the cold metal through the fabric against her skin, then turned to continue on. Her resolve flickered but held, drawing her forward into the dimly lit bow corridor, with the medical bay to portside and the laboratory to starboard, wherein a tragedy hung literally before her eyes: Loxley, dangling lifelessly from a shattered display screen, her body casting grotesque shadows upon the walls. A strangled gasp escaped Cyra’s lips, her eyes widening at the sight of her friend—once vivacious and full of boundless curiosity, now reduced to this macabre spectacle. Her boots brushed against the deck as she approached, the sharp scent of burnt electronics filling her nostrils. Grief, thick and suffocating, wrapped around her, constricting her, as memories of their shared moments flashed before her eyes. Taking a shaky breath, she whispered a goodbye and a promise to find answers, then turned to continue on through the now haunted corridors of the Oneiron.

She arrived at a structural divergence, where the vessel’s backbone split into separate pathways: one ramp descended into a lower deck with the ship’s small hangar bay—which held the landing vessel—while the other coiled upward. Her eyes flickered momentarily toward the descending path, instinctively searching for shadows as her mind played sinister games, then she turned her gaze upward as she began her slow ascent toward the command center.

The pocket door to the command center slid open to reveal an interior bathed in the blue luminescence of myriad screens. In the midst of this ethereal glow lay a figure Cyra recognized, rendered aberrant in its inactivity. Ziama—her form sprawled in a haphazard array on the deck like a marionette discarded in the wake of some terrible, fervid performance. Her limbs were askew, jutting out at unnatural angles that spoke to the violence of her final moments. The brutal instrument of her end—a wrench drenched dark with her essence—lay discarded nearby. Her face—or rather the absence of it—clawed most cruelly at Cyra’s senses. Where once had resided eyes full of wonder and lips that spoke eloquently of mathematics was now a morass of mangled flesh, splintered bone, and dark, congealing blood. It was a countenance unrecognizable, made grotesque not merely by the physical disfiguration but by the sheer incongruity of such barbarity visited upon a being once so full of beauty and intellect. Her features had been erased as thoroughly as if they’d never existed, replaced by a visceral testament to the terrible, nightmarish capacity for one human to obliterate another.

Cyra’s heart thundered against the confines of her ribcage as tears welled and spilled over and tracked down her cheeks in rueful ribbons. A guttural scream—borne of anger, sorrow, and unbridled horror—threatened to tear through her throat, but before it could manifest, a force—nimble and unyielding—struck her from behind. Bright and searing pain blossomed at the base of her skull, racing through her neurons like wildfire. The world spun, the lights of the control panels blurring into streaks as she fell, the artificial gravity asserting its dominance over her weakening constitution. Her hand, guided by instinct more than thought, reached for the epicenter of her agony at the back of her head—it was slick with her own blood. As her vision dimmed, her periphery graying and constricting like a tunnel, she felt the cold bite of a needle pierce her neck, its liquid contents rushing into her bloodstream like a nefarious guest.

Keth loomed over her, his shape rippling and wavering in the throes of her waning consciousness, as if he were a mirage. His eyes were cold, detached—a frigid vacancy, a hollow that mirrored the immensity of space itself. “The time has come,” he whispered, and as he spoke, Cyra felt the last tendrils of her awareness unravel. The words lingered, a spectral refrain in the encroaching darkness, and then even that faded, swallowed up in the ever-deepening shadow that claimed her.

XII

Cyra awoke to a world fractured by jagged shards of light and shadow. Her vision swam into focus, materializing the alien landscape around her—each tree shimmering with that accursed metallic sheen. A dense arboreal ceiling let through only hints of the sky beyond—a darkening canvas that did little to illuminate her circumstance. She felt the uneasy sensation of movement but no contact with the ground. Craning her neck with difficulty, she realized she lay—bound by vinyl straps with metal buckles—upon a grav-gurney, suspended about a meter above the forest floor. Keth walked beside her, his steps imbued with a disquieting serenity. His hands guided the stretcher through the underbrush as if he were a cleric leading a procession—devoted, solemn, unwavering. They were without the sheath of their ExoTrek suits, no helmets to cradle their heads. They were utterly vulnerable to the indifferent embrace of this strange world’s environment. As they moved deeper into the metalwood forest, the ambiance around them seemed to thicken, the air denser, the colors of the flora vibrant and surreal against the backdrop of an ever-darkening sky.

The forest parted, revealing the clearing dominated by the monolith. Its towering presence loomed in the waning light, pulsing with a luminescence that defied earthly definition. The glow seemed almost sentient, casting strange patterns upon the ground as if writing out cryptic messages in a language too ancient for comprehension.

As they approached, the monolith pulled at Cyra’s cognizance—a rush of images cascading through her consciousness like a torrent. Memories surfaced unbidden: shared laughter and tense disagreements, nights of endless conversation and days fueled by the pursuit of dreams unattainable, the inception of a mission borne from desperation and dwindling hope. Each memory, vivid and untamed, vied for attention—a cavalcade of moments from her life in fractured snippets, pulled from her psyche like threads from a tapestry. And yet, as these fragments of her past gushed from her mind, a profound emptiness began to settle within her. It was a hollowing sensation, a growing void where these memories had once resided, as if each recollection, once displayed, was extracted, siphoned away, absorbed by the insatiable appetite of the monolith. With a mounting dread, she realized that these memories might not just be shared but surrendered irrevocably, lost to her but etched into the timeless narrative that the monolith—this ancient, incomprehensible entity—had been crafting since epochs unfathomable. An unwelcome tithe, a sacrificial offering to the cosmic deity before her, she would become a chapter in its everlasting tome, but at the cost of the very experiences that made her who she was. Her essence, her identity—stripped down to ethereal echoes in a monument in opposition to her individuality.

“The monolith was not built by hands nor tools, man nor machine,” said Keth, the timbre of his voice markedly higher in the helium-rich atmosphere—a fact that would have been almost comical given different circumstances. “It’s a living archive—a record etched not in stone or digital bits, but in the very fabric of the cosmos.” He paused, turning to face her. The glow of the monolith played upon his features, casting him in shifting hues. “It feeds on experiences, emotions, memories. It has done so for eons, amassing an archive that transcends time and mortality. And we, Cyra, have been chosen. Selected to become a part of its narrative—a tale written in the ink of human cognition and extraterrestrial symbiosis, a story that will be rendered eternal by our very presence.”

Cyra’s eyes narrowed, the weight of his words pushing against the fog of her thoughts. “A tale of what, Keth? Of betrayal? Of subjugation?” The increased pitch of her own voice served to further disorient her.

Keth’s expression didn’t waver. “Of transformation. Of evolution. The organisms within us, Cyra, they’re not parasites—they’re harbingers of a new existence! A melding of disparate life forms into a single, unified consciousness—an all-knowing entity.”

“At what cost?” She felt a shiver run down her spine. “Our autonomy? Our humanity?”

“The obliteration of the other.” He gestured toward the thing. “Humanity is but a blink in the cosmic timeline. This—this is timeless. This is eternity.”

“And what of those we leave behind? Our mission was to find a sanctuary for humanity, not to lose ourselves.”

“The greater good demands sacrifices, Cyra. Our old world is dying. Even if we return, what future can we offer? This monolith—this entity—promises something beyond the limitations of our flesh: an immortality of experience.”

The monolith towered over them, its pulsing sheen more radiant in the dying light, a megalithic altar upon which the cosmos would enact its silent sacraments. Cyra—bound to the gurney like a feast upon a platter, her faculties clawing back from the murky abyss of sedation—looked upon it and found her mind recoiling not just in awe but in understanding. A grim clarity that cracked through her mind’s fog. It was not a monument to some forgotten deity or a relic from an alien civilization—it was a gaping, voracious maw, its luminosity a ravenous gleam, and they were its feast.

Keth began to unbind her, his fingers moving with the mechanical certitude of practiced ritual, as though directed by unseen strings. The eyes that met hers were flat and distant, bereft of the complexities of human emotion. It was the face of a man possessed—an emissary, a host. “Mnemosyne is prepared to receive us,” he said.

Cyra looked up, her eyes piercing through the settling gloom, locking onto the tower of torment. Mnemosyne? Was that its name? This hive-mind of nihilism? This pillar of oblivion? Keth was undoubtedly right, but not in the way he understood: This entity would receive them, surely, but it would not preserve them—it would utterly consume them. Assimilate them. Digest their memories, their emotions, their very essence, and convert them into whatever fuel sustained its incomprehensible, abominable existence. This then was the parasite’s endgame: Not mere influence, nor puppetry, but total annihilation. A takeover so complete, so irrevocable, that they would be expunged from the continuum of being, leaving behind only vacant husks, void of the fire of consciousness, their individualities atomized and absorbed.

“The time has come,” Keth hissed, looking upon Cyra not as a person but as nothing more than a component in a far grander mechanism. “We shall become eternal.”

“No,” Cyra whispered, finding her voice amidst the rising despair. “We will become extinct.”

Her words seemed to penetrate, to reach some residual flicker of the man Keth once was. He hesitated, the certainty in his eyes yielding for a moment to confusion, perhaps even to fear. It was a slender thread—a wisp of his former self—but it was all she had. She seized upon it, her words a desperate incantation against the dark.

“Keth,” she pleaded. “Remember who you are. Remember why we’re here. Don’t let us be reduced to…”

But her plea fell into silence as the eyes that met hers hardened once again, the momentary flicker extinguished. “Remembering is no longer necessary,” he said. “Mnemosyne will remember for us.”
As he spoke, Cyra knew with a sinking finality that she was truly alone. Whatever remaining vestiges of their shared past—of their kinship and purpose—had been subsumed, leaving behind only a harbinger of annihilation.

Keth turned to observe the looming monolith, its luminescent pulsations casting otherworldly shadows on the darkening landscape. He stood entranced, his lips moving in whispers, his voice barely above the tinny rustling of the metallic leaves of the metalwood forest. He was holding communion with something far beyond the ken of human understanding, a hive-mind that spanned untold epochs—and he was now its willing acolyte.

On the grav-gurney behind him, Cyra lay bound, her senses now hyper-alert. Her eyes darted from Keth to the bulge above her left breast: the utility knife concealed within her flight suit. With each pulsation of the monolith, her memories—her very self—felt as though they were being siphoned away, drawn into the insatiable maw of an entity too vast and ancient to fathom. The terror of it was almost paralyzing.

Almost.

Capitalizing upon Keth’s momentary absorption in his ritual, Cyra acted. Her fingers—trembling but purposeful—reached for her breast pocket. The straps around her arms had been slightly loosened by Keth in his formerly distracted state—a minute oversight, but one that granted her the scant leverage she needed. With a furtive jerk, she freed her right arm, her muscles burning with the effort. Her hand plunged into the pocket and found the cold metal of the utility knife. Retrieving it was a labor of quiet frenzy, a fumbling of fingers and fabric. Once in hand, she flicked the blade open—an audible click thankfully swallowed by the ambient sounds of Keth’s muttered incantations and the ceaseless drone of the alien forest.

Her arm descended upon the straps that held her, the blade slicing through the synthetic fibers as though parting flesh. Once, twice, a third—and she was free. Adrenaline surged through her veins, drowning out the voices that whispered for her to succumb, to accept the unspeakable communion offered by Keth and this contemptible Mnemosyne. Instead, she became a whirlwind of desperate energy. With a fluid motion born of sheer survival instinct, she rolled off the stretcher, her boots finding purchase on the loamy soil of this godforsaken world.
And then she ran.

Cyra’s escaping footfalls resonated like distant drum beats, a cacophonous rhythm that shattered the ethereal communion Keth had forged with the hive-mind. His eyes flickered as human awareness forced its way back into his consciousness. His gaze fell upon the empty stretcher, the severed straps. He looked toward the forest, where the swaying of the metallic foliage bore witness to Cyra’s frantic flight. Something primal stirred within him—a feral urgency that eclipsed the calculated calm his alien-influenced thoughts had imposed. Keth’s muscles tightened, his predatory instincts awakened. He could feel the tug of Mnemosyne, its indignant summons resonating through the fibers of his altered being—a command to retrieve what it perceived as errant data, a wayward node in its ever-expanding network. He broke into a sprint, the ground beneath him a blur of dark soil and gleaming metal, moving with a terrible grace, a fluidity that was no longer entirely his own. The entity within him sharpened his senses, amplifying the distant sounds of Cyra’s footsteps, the rustling of her passage through the metallic underbrush, the ragged tempo of her breaths.

Ahead, the metalwood forest closed in around Cyra, its towering trunks like the bars of a cosmic prison. She ran, her muscles screaming in protest. Each pulse of the monolith behind her felt like a dark star in the fabric of her mind, pulling at her, seeking to draw her back into its eldritch gravity. But she defied it. Even as her legs propelled her forward, she knew she was running not just from Keth, or the monolith, or the parasitic entity that sought to claim them. She was running from the specter of her own obliterated self, from a future where Cyra, Keth, and the very essence of their humanity would be consumed, integrated into the undying narrative of Mnemosyne. It was a fate she rejected with every fiber of her being, with every pounding step through that nightmarish landscape.

In the distance, the unnatural foliage began to thin, the claustrophobic world of the forest giving way to the open expanse that led back to their original landing site. As she breached the clearing, the sudden absence of shadows startled her. About a hundred meters ahead, the Oneiron loomed—an incongruous human artifact thrust into this alien landscape. It was designed for the emptiness of space, optimized for the null pressures of the void. It was not meant for planetary traversal, only equipped for an emergency terrestrial landing—a compromise made for scenarios they’d hoped never to encounter. Keth had obviously performed a forced landing—but now it offered her a haven. With each stride she drew nearer, until at last she clamored aboard, closing the hatch behind her. She quickly made her way to the command center, where she initiated the launch sequence. The old wonted protocols unfolded, screens blooming with data as the engines began their low rumble, then unceremoniously hushed. A message flashed on the displays, dashing her hopes:

insufficient fuel to achieve escape velocity
antimatter drive offline; containment intact
considerable hull damage sustained
immediate action required

She swallowed hard and an icy stillness overcame her. Insufficient. The word seemed to stretch into eternity, marking the distance between hope and ruin.

She could hear the distant hissing of the ship’s hatch. His entry was as smooth as it was inevitable, an incoming tide of darkness. Keth had boarded the vessel.

“The time has come, Cyra,” his voice was soft, chillingly placid as it reverberated through the ship’s comms. “There is no escaping our destiny.”

Cyra paused, the haunting syllables echoing in the enclosed space. She understood then—with a clarity that pierced through the fog of dread—that her options had dwindled to but one unspeakable course: a sacrifice to end all sacrifices, to halt this profane communion.

Her resolve set, Cyra knew she needed to stealthily make her way to the engine chamber. Each step was a pact with fate, a muted drum heralding the coming cataclysm. Keth was somewhere in these steel corridors—a lurking shadow of inhumanity—but she couldn’t afford a moment of fearful hesitation. Not now. With a deft movement, Cyra leveraged herself into the narrow entrance of the service ducts. The metallic confines around her were stifling and cramped, but she maneuvered with a silent, agile grace, her senses heightened to every creak and groan of the ship. The labyrinthine network of ducts was unlit, yet Cyra’s eyes were aflame with determination. Shadows flickered on the edges of her vision, every rustle igniting a spark of paranoia that perhaps Keth was already upon her, but she pushed forward, her breaths shallow and controlled, every muscle tuned to the delicate art of unseen movement.

Cyra froze as she glimpsed motion through a thin slit in a vent, every fiber in her body on high alert. Keth’s sinister silhouette was moving with purpose toward the ship’s command center. A chill ran down Cyra’s spine as she watched him, unseen, her breath caught in her throat. He was a whisper away, and every second she spent observing him was a second lost in her mission to reach the engine room.

Pressing on with renewed urgency, Cyra navigated the intricate web of ductwork with the caution of a prey animal. The metallic clangor of the ship’s inner workings grew louder, guiding her toward her objective. The engine chamber was a sanctum of high-energy physics, its core an altar to impossibilities made real, and within lay the antimatter containment unit—a silent abyss from which no particle could escape. To breach it was to call forth unmitigated annihilation—to invite a fiery erasure that would consume ship and self, man and monolith, in a moment of terrifying and breathtaking splendor.

The pulsating hum of the engine chamber filled Cyra’s ears, its vibrations resonating through the walls of the duct. Carefully, she positioned herself to descend, but despite her best efforts to be silent, her feet landed with a thud on the cold metallic deck. A wave of tension washed over her, and she knew that the sound would likely travel through the steel corridors to Keth’s keen ears. The game of cat and mouse had reached a critical juncture, and Cyra, with her heart pounding in her chest, prepared herself for the confrontation she knew was inevitable as she approached the containment interface. Her fingers hovered over the controls, trembling not from hesitation but from a profound understanding of the act she was about to commit.

The room dimmed as Keth invaded the engine chamber, his form filling the entryway like a herald of doom. His eyes found hers, and for a moment, the cosmos contracted until nothing else existed—just the two of them, bound by history, duty, and the unyielding darkness within.

“You must stop this madness, Cyra,” he said, his voice suffused with an otherworldly serenity.

“That is one hell of a thing for you to say to me,” Cyra remarked.

He smiled wickedly. “We have been chosen. Mnemosyne beckons us to join the eternal fold.”

Cyra lunged for the controls. Keth, propelled by the ferocity of his corrupted will, was upon her in an instant. The utility blade she wielded sliced through the air, grazing Keth’s arm, spraying a warm stream of claret across the control panel. He roared—not in pain but in a fury that transcended physicality and echoed through the chamber. Cyra, sensing an opening, thrust the knife forward in a fluid arc, aiming for Keth’s midsection—but he was agile, catching her wrist in a vice-like grip, forcing her to drop the blade.

Keth, eyes wild, launched a furious flurry of strikes that Cyra narrowly evaded. She responded with a fleet-footed kick, her boot landing square in Keth’s chest and sending him stumbling back. For a split second, she saw vulnerability in his eyes—a momentary falter in the façade of the possessed.
Seizing the opportunity, she picked up the utility knife and lunged at him again, wielding the blade with a deadly precision borne of desperation. With a swift slice, Cyra managed to land a gash on Keth’s thigh. He let out a guttural wail, momentarily off balance. Cyra capitalized on this, pouncing for the containment controls—but Keth was far from defeated. He lurched forward, slamming her into the bulkhead. The impact left her dazed, her vision swimming.

With Cyra struggling to focus, Keth’s determination surged anew. Eyes gleaming with an unholy light, he leapt at her, grappling for the blade in her hand. With a vicious twist, he managed to wrench the utility knife from her grasp and into his own. Cyra, pinned against the metallic wall, could see the triumph in his face. He drew the blade back, and in an abrupt, brutal motion, drove the blade deep into Cyra’s stomach. She felt a searing pain as it pierced her flesh and a strangled gasp escaped her lips as Keth, with an expression of unrelenting malice, drew the blade upward, tearing through muscle and sinew. The world blurred at the edges of her perception as fiery and consuming pain blossomed from the wound.

As darkness encroached upon her vision, Cyra gathered the last ounces of her strength, and with a sudden burst of tenacity, she delivered a vicious headbutt directly to Keth’s nose, dazing him just long enough to reach out and slam her palm onto the control panel beside her. An alarm howled in discordant harmony, and a mechanical voice cut through the chaos:

“Catastrophic antimatter containment breach initiated. Awaiting commanding officer’s confirmation to proceed.”

Keth looked at Cyra, his eyes widening with a precipitous lucidity, a final glimpse of the man he once was.

Cyra—her breathing labored, her eyes heavy—mustered her final utterance: “Confirmed.”

XIII

The antimatter containment field collapsed, unraveling the delicate dance of particles and antiparticles held at bay by the careful constraints of technology. In the heartbeat between existence and obliteration, an unnatural hush enveloped the confines of the Oneiron, as though the fabric of the cosmos stilled in apprehension of the impending cataclysm. In a maelstrom of unrestrained energy, a blinding, iridescent flash ignited in the ship’s core, radiating outward with indiscriminate violence. The silence was rent asunder, replaced by a din of destruction as the seething light consumed all in its path, obliterating matter, rending the very bonds of atoms. The explosion was a fleeting monument to annihilation, its crescendo reaching the farthest corners of the alien world before the echoes of its fury could even register in the realm of sound. The tempest of energy was so instantaneous, so all-encompassing, that Cyra, ensconced at the very heart of the conflagration, was swallowed by the brilliance before the sensation of heat or the roar of destruction could even graze the precipice of her consciousness.

XIV

In the secluded chamber where decisions of cosmic consequence took form, an austere assembly of Pandect officials bore witness to the echoes of a distant, alien menace. Shadows stretched across the floor, contours of apprehension, as a holographic screen spilled luminous threads of constellations pointing toward a particular star—an unremarkable red dwarf—embroiled in controversy.

Admiral Hayes—whose stern countenance possessed the imprint of a thousand celestial quandaries—addressed the gathering with a voice that reverberated with the gravity of their charge. “We have received Captain Arjinsha’s transmission—and since the surge of energy we’ve detected from the Oneiron’s last known coordinates could only have come from an antimatter containment breach, it was very likely her final transmission.” Hayes paused for a moment to scan the room, then continued. “The evidence is irrefutable. The alien presence within that distant world is not only unknown but harbors dangers untold.”

Commander Okino, a seasoned voyager of the cosmic wilderness, nodded with gravitas. “The Admiral speaks the truth. It would be pertinent to declare the boundary of that star’s influence forbidden; no ship, no soul of humanity should dare to traverse its cursed vicinity.”

The assembly—a conclave of the experienced and the wise—voiced their consensus.

General Warren, his demeanor chiseled by the trials of conflict and victory, leaned forward with conviction. “Our sacred duty commands us to fortify our boundaries, to stand as sentinels against the unknown. The coordinates of this accursed star should be expunged from our maps, its celestial light rendered unreachable.”

In the shadowed recesses of the room, a figure observed the unfolding deliberation with eyes that harbored avaricious calculation. General Kavanagh, cloaked in the shadows of his clandestine aspirations, listened, his face a mask of impassivity, his mind a labyrinth of untrodden paths. When he broke his silence, his voice was a subtle whisper of ambition. “Prudence dictates erasure, forbidding exploration of the star, yet . . . have we not pondered the possibilities?”

Admiral Hayes, her eyes sharpened blades, confronted his insinuation. “Possibilities, General? The Oneiron may very well have fallen victim to unknown entities of malevolent potency.”

A gleam, akin to the glint of unseen treasures, sparked within Kavanagh’s eyes. “Malevolent they may be . . . yet imbued with unparalleled power. To harness such force is to balance the celestial scales, to claim dominion amongst the stars.”

Commander Delany, his voice a rumble of ancestral duty, countered. “Dominion? We tread the cosmos as explorers, as protectors. We are not destined to be conquerors, Kavanagh.”

Kavanagh, undaunted, retorted with veiled audacity, “Such destiny is not embraced with a heart confined by timidity.”

“Enough!” thundered General Warren. “We are the shields of humanity, the custodians of its sanctuary. Exploitation may have been a road frequented in the past, but it is a path we shall explore no longer.”

“Protection requires power, General,” Kavanagh said, his gaze unyielding, his thoughts a morass of unfolding schemes. “The universe is incomprehensibly vast, and characterized far more completely by the unknown than by the known. If we are to be the protectors of mankind, we must be prepared.”