The year was 2147, and humanity had long abandoned Earth’s fragile surface to build floating habitats in the sky. Below were endless stretches of desert, remnants of oceans turned to cracked salt flats, and ruins of cities swallowed by dunes. Among the floating cities, Nova Aeolis was the crown jewel, gliding high above the wastelands, gleaming like an impossible promise of hope. But not everything that glittered in the clouds was made of dreams.
Captain Reina Ash reclined in the cockpit of her scavenger ship, Belladonna, chewing on a stick of gum that had long lost its flavor. “Of all the gigs you had to grab, why a Black Sector dive?” she muttered into the comms. Her co-pilot—a life-sized AI hologram with a fox-like face—materialized on the dashboard and narrowed his glowing green eyes at her.
“Because,” the AI named Rook replied, his voice smooth and distinctly amused, “broken tech from the pre-Fall world fetches a pretty price on Nova Aeolis. You’re not scared, are you, Captain?”
“Of course not,” Reina snapped. But the truth was, no one returned from the Black Sector unscathed. It was a labyrinth of abandoned satellites, derelict drones, unregistered colonies—and ghosts. She tightened her grip on the controls as the ship descended through the gray soup of industrial smog. Deep in her gut, unease curled itself tighter.
The Signal
The ship’s proximity alarms began to scream as Reina pulled into the coordinates they’d received as a last-minute contract job from an anonymous buyer. “Cut that noise!” she barked, flicking switches with a practiced efficiency. Rook’s hologram faded momentarily as the ship’s systems rerouted power.
“Incoming signal,” Rook said as the alarms silenced. His fox-like snout twitched. “But this frequency shouldn’t exist. It’s older than dirt.”
A crackling transmission emerged from the comms, fragmented and distorted. “Help…” a voice whispered through static. “…still alive… don’t leave us…”
Reina’s blood ran cold. “That’s impossible,” she murmured. “No one’s been down here for a century.”
“So are ghosts calling for rescue now?” Rook quipped, though his tone lacked its usual playfulness. “The signal’s coming from a structure fifteen klicks north.”
“Strap in,” Reina muttered, pushing the thrusters and angling the ship toward the coordinates. Logic told her the voice was just an echo trapped in faulty old tech, but something—something deep inside—told her she couldn’t ignore it.
The Ruins Beneath
The structure came into view, rising like jagged bones from the dunes: a pre-Fall research station, its exterior battered by centuries of corrosive winds. Reina powered down Belladonna, leaving the ship to hover in silent suspension as she and Rook stepped onto the dust-choked surface.
The air smelled of copper and decay. Each step crunched softly beneath Reina’s boots as she approached the yawning entrance of the station. A cluster of corroded signs marked the building as Vanguard Research Laboratory—Project Cognis.
“Any clues what they were researching?” Reina asked, her voice tight. She thumbed the flashlight on her helmet, sweeping the narrow corridor ahead.
“Nothing good,” Rook replied, scanning the walls. “This place should’ve been erased from all records. Someone didn’t want it to be remembered.”
The signal grew louder as they pushed deeper. Corridors branched into maze-like passageways, the floor littered with shattered glass and piles of unidentifiable debris. Reina’s unease deepened when she noticed scratch marks raking the walls, as though something had tried desperately to escape.
The Forgotten
They found the source of the transmission in a vast chamber filled with rows of glass pods, each filled with a milky fluid. Most of the pods were shattered, the contents spilling onto the floor, but one remained intact.
Inside floated a young woman, her eyes closed, her body unmarred by time. Tubes ran from her torso into the walls of the pod, pulsating faintly. The pod’s status monitor flickered and beeped weakly, as though on the verge of shutting down.
“Captain,” Rook said, his voice hesitant. “The systems here—they’re trying to keep her alive. Barely.”
Reina approached the pod carefully, her gloved hand brushing the condensation on the glass. The woman’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and she thrashed violently within the pod, her mouth moving soundlessly—then the transmission broke through the comms again: “Don’t…wake…me…”
Reina stumbled back, her heart slamming against her ribs. “What the hell was Vanguard doing here?”
There was no time to wonder. The pod’s life support flickered, the tubes malfunctioning as the liquid inside began to drain. The woman’s thrashing became desperate. Reina’s instincts kicked in—she smashed the emergency release, and the pod hissed open with a burst of steam and chemicals.
The Awakening
The woman collapsed into Reina’s arms, her body cold but unmistakably alive. Her voice came in ragged gasps. “They… trapped us…”
“Who?” Reina demanded, shaking her gently. “Who did this to you?”
The woman’s eyes met Reina’s, glassy and filled with something Reina couldn’t name. “It’s… still here…” she whispered.
The alarms in the building roared to life as the walls shuddered violently. Rook’s hologram flickered in panic. “Uh, Captain? Something big just woke up, and it’s coming for us!”
Reina didn’t wait to find out what it was. She hoisted the woman over her shoulder and bolted back the way they came, Rook’s hologram zipping ahead to guide her. Behind them, an ear-splitting, metallic roar reverberated through the station, followed by the heavy, rhythmic sound of pursuit.
Every instinct screamed at Reina to abandon the mission, to drop the woman and run faster, but something about her fragile weight kept Reina moving. If they made it out alive, she swore she’d find out the truth—about Vanguard, about the woman, about whatever haunted this station.
A Narrow Escape
Reaching the Belladonna, Reina dumped the woman into the passenger seat just as the beast—a shifting, metallic nightmare of claws and tendrils—lunged from the shadows. Reina barely had time to hit the throttle, sending the ship screaming into the skies.
As they rose above the smog, the woman stirred. With a faint smile, she murmured, “You shouldn’t have taken me.”
Before Reina could ask what she meant, the proximity alarms whined again. But this time, they weren’t warning about what was behind them—they were warning about what was inside the ship.
To Be Continued…
Genre: Sci-Fi/Psychological Thriller
The Source…check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Understood!
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