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

Elias had always thought silence was peaceful.

But the silence now—after the loop—felt heavy.

The ship no longer whispered. The walls no longer pulsed. It was just metal and emptiness, and beyond the viewport, the dead star glowed with a distant, fading pulse.

Maeve stood at the controls, her fingers hovering above the console, uncertain.

"No reset countdown," she said. "No interference. We're free."

Elias leaned against the wall, watching her. "So why do you look like someone just pulled the floor out from under you?"

She turned. "Because I don't know what I am without it."

They spent the next day scanning what remained of the ship's data archives. Most files had been overwritten or corrupted by decades of looping. But fragments remained—audio logs, research notes, personal journals. A picture began to form.

Maeve Calder hadn't just been a scientist.

She had volunteered to become part of the loop itself. Her mind, her memories, her self had been grafted into the system—a human anchor for long-term deep space monitoring.

What they were watching for was never fully explained.

Just this phrase, repeated across several entries:

"Signals from beyond charted time."

Elias stared at the line for a long time.

"This wasn't just a science project," he muttered. "This was a warning system."

Maeve sat down beside him. Her expression was drawn, haunted. "And I think I'm still connected to it."

She sat alone in the ship's common bay, listening.

Not for footsteps. Not for whispers.

But for something deeper—like a hum just below hearing, tugging on her mind.

She closed her eyes and concentrated.

A low tone, not mechanical. Not human.

A thought, not in words but in meaning:

Maeve gasped and clutched her chest.

Behind her, Elias rushed in. "Maeve?"

She looked up, eyes wide with fear. "It's not over."

The next morning, the dead star pulsed again.

But this time, it left a mark—a trail of light bending through space like a crack in a pane of glass.

Elias stared through the viewport. "That's not just light."

Maeve touched the glass. "It's a signal. Something's coming."

He looked at her, his voice low. "Coming for us?"

Because somewhere deep inside her, part of the ship was still listening.

And something else was listening back.

Chapter Eight - Echo Drift