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

The hallway stretched ahead like a throat — narrow, curved, pulsing with that dull red glow. The symbol behind them still burned in Maeve's mind, even after they turned the corner.

She didn't speak. Neither did Elias.

The ship wasn't just damaged. It was aware.

Each step felt heavier now, like the metal under their boots remembered everyone who'd walked it before — and judged them for it.

"Where are we going?" Maeve finally asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Elias checked the emergency map on his wrist. "Toward the memory core. If this ship has answers, that's where they'll be."

Maeve looked around. "It feels like it's been waiting."

They passed through an observation bay, its glass windows smeared from the inside. Starfields blinked outside, but in the reflection, Maeve thought she saw shapes behind them — just out of reach.

The whispers had stopped, but the silence they left was worse.

At last, they reached the door to the core room. It was sealed shut, but someone — or something — had carved those same symbols all across its surface.

"They're changing again," Maeve whispered, tracing one with her glove. "Evolving."

Elias forced the door open with a hiss of steam and fractured metal.

Inside, it was colder than anywhere else on the ship.

The room pulsed with blue-white light, coming from a massive orb suspended in the air by thick cables. It looked like a brain — not biological, but alien. Mechanical and ancient. Liquid data streamed inside it like veins, flashing with flickers of memory.

A swirl of images burst through the air — fragments. A woman's face. A burning city. Cryo-pods lined in rows. Then… her own eyes. Reflected in the glass.

"I've seen this before," she breathed.

Elias stared at the images. "Is it reading you?"

"No," Maeve said. "It's remembering me."

She reached out slowly — and the moment her fingers touched the field around the orb, everything changed.

Suddenly, she wasn't in the core room anymore.

She was younger. Hooked to a machine. Scientists talking around her, but no sound came from their mouths. One of them leaned close — a woman in black gloves — and said something.

Only one word broke through the fog:

Elias caught her before she fell. "Maeve? What did you see?"

"I think… I wasn't just put in cryo to survive. I was put there to forget."

"Itself. This ship. This place. And what I am."

Chapter Eleven: The Listening Ship