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

Like the walls had crept closer while they weren't looking. The orb pulsed slower, dimmer, as if it had given up a secret it wasn't meant to share.

Elias paced near the control terminal, trying to make sense of what Maeve had just said.

"You were part of a project?" he asked. "What kind of project puts someone in cryo and wipes their memory?"

Maeve was still on the floor, her hands trembling. She didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the orb, watching the flickers of memory dance like sparks in a storm.

"I don't know," she whispered. "But it wasn't to save me. It was to hide me."

Elias knelt beside her. "From what?"

She finally turned to him. "What if it wasn't from something? What if it was from myself?"

They accessed the control terminal. The interface was fragmented, corrupted, but some logs remained. Elias ran them through the ship's translator.

The words appeared in broken bursts:

> Subject-27: Neuro-link established. Synchronization unstable.

Memory suppression protocol initiated.

Ship-bound consciousness interface incomplete.

Initiating cryo-storage for fail-safe recovery…

Elias stared at the screen. "Subject-27. That's you."

The ship creaked around them. That same pressure returned — not physical, but heavy. Like an awareness slowly turning toward them.

"You were meant to sync with this ship," Elias said. "To become part of it."

"No," Maeve whispered. "Not part of it. Control it."

Elias stepped back. "You were supposed to be the pilot?"

She nodded slowly. "More than that. They didn't just want a navigator. They wanted someone the ship would obey. Someone it would bond to."

Elias looked around the core. "But it didn't work. It rejected you?"

Suddenly, a new voice filled the room — calm, feminine, echoing from the ship's broken systems:

"MAEVE CALDER. BOND SEQUENCE RESUMING."

The orb unraveled, strands of light reaching toward her like fingers.

Elias raised his weapon. "We have to shut it down!"

"No," Maeve said. "I have to see it through."

He turned to her. "You don't even know what you'll become!"

She looked at him, steady now. No fear.

"If I don't face this, we'll never understand what's coming. This ship… whatever it was built for… it wasn't just exploration."

The whispers returned — louder than ever.

> Project Maeve. Designed to guide. Designed to bind.

She stepped forward and touched the light again.

This time, it didn't throw her away.

In the space between memory and machine, she saw everything.

A fleet of ships with no pilots, just neural engines waiting for hosts.

She saw herself — younger, lost, afraid — agreeing to become part of something "greater," something that could survive long after humanity forgot its name.

The others died. She was the last.

They locked her away in cryo, sealed the ship, and sent it drifting… unfinished.

Back in the core room, Maeve collapsed.

Elias caught her, heart pounding. "Maeve?"

They glowed faintly with the ship's light.

"I remember," she said. "Everything."

Chapter Twelve: Project Maeve