OLADOKUN_EMMANUEL

In the far future, space is cold, empty, and full of forgotten things.

Elias Thorne is a space scavenger—he travels alone, picking through old wrecks and broken stations. One day, he finds a ship floating near a dead star, where no one should be. Inside, there’s a woman in cryo-sleep. Her name is Maeve Calder, and she’s been missing for 50 years.

She wakes up with no memory of what happened.
The ship’s data is gone.
And something feels... off.

As Elias and Maeve try to figure out what happened, they start to grow close. But strange things start happening—time doesn’t feel right, and they keep hearing things in the ship. Maybe they’re not alone after all.

Now Elias has to choose—leave Maeve behind and save himself, or stay and face whatever’s out there with her. Even if it means they both get lost in the void.

Pulse In The Void

She sat at the small galley table, staring into a cup of synth-tea she hadn't touched. Her fingers traced the rim slowly, over and over. Elias had seen people do that before—grasping for a thought just out of reach.

Elias leaned against the wall, watching her without speaking.

She finally broke the silence. "I dreamed again."

He stepped forward, pulling out the chair across from her. "Same as before?"

She nodded. "Not clear. Just shapes. Voices that don't have faces. Someone was calling my name, but I don't know if they were trying to save me… or warn me."

Elias didn't answer right away. He'd grown used to solitude. Wrecks don't talk back. Cryo-pods don't cry out in their sleep.

Maeve looked up at him suddenly. "You don't have to stay, you know."

"You could leave. Drop me off at a relay station. Get back to scavenging. That's what you do, right?"

She held his gaze for a second longer. Then looked away.

Later, Elias worked in the engineering deck, fixing the backup stabilizer. The ship was barely holding itself together. Power levels flickered like candlelight, and some doors opened too slowly, as if they were remembering how.

He heard footsteps above—soft, uneven.

Maeve was walking again. She explored the ship in slow loops. He knew the pattern now: her trying to remember. Trying to feel something.

Sometimes she would stop and place her hand on the wall, like she was listening. Like the ship had a pulse.

He wiped oil from his fingers and climbed up the access ladder.

The stars outside looked stretched and strange, like they were too close or too far. A dead star hung nearby, dim and heavy in space like a forgotten god.

Maeve stood in front of the glass, arms crossed tightly.

Elias approached slowly. "You okay?"

Then, softly, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"I don't mean dead people floating around with chains. I mean… memories. Left behind. Echoes."

He shrugged. "Space has a way of holding onto things."

Maeve turned to him. "What if this ship remembers? What if something happened here, and it's still playing out? Like a broken record."

"That's just your mind trying to fill in the blanks."

"Maybe." She looked back out the window. "Or maybe we're already part of whatever it is."

That night, the lights flickered again.

Elias woke up to silence, the kind that doesn't feel empty—but full.

He got up, moving through the dark corridors quietly. At the junction near the medbay, he stopped. A light down the hall blinked once… then again.

For a second, just a second, he saw a figure. Pale. Standing at the far end of the corridor. Then the light blinked out, and it was gone.

Then Maeve's voice came softly behind him.

CHAPTER FOUR- Echoes in the Dark