Silence
The station drifted in orbit, silent and alone. No crew. No signal. Just the hum of systems maintaining themselves, a ghost of purpose in a place long abandoned.
Inside, the observation deck faced the void. A single chair sat bolted to the floor, its cushions cracked with age. The viewport stretched across the wall, revealing nothing but black—no stars, no planets, no light. Just the blank canvas of space, stripped of meaning.
Dr. Mara Venn had once called this sector "The Quiet Edge". She’d theorized that beyond a certain radius, the universe ceased to echo. No radiation. No gravity. No time. Just stillness. Her papers were dismissed as poetic nonsense. But she’d come anyway, alone, aboard the "Aletheia", seeking the silence she claimed was real.
Inside, the observation deck faced the void. A single chair sat bolted to the floor, its cushions cracked with age. The viewport stretched across the wall, revealing nothing but black—no stars, no planets, no light. Just the blank canvas of space, stripped of meaning.
Dr. Mara Venn had once called this sector "The Quiet Edge". She’d theorized that beyond a certain radius, the universe ceased to echo. No radiation. No gravity. No time. Just stillness. Her papers were dismissed as poetic nonsense. But she’d come anyway, alone, aboard the "Aletheia", seeking the silence she claimed was real.
She found it.
The logs stopped after day 47. No distress call. No malfunction. Just a final entry: “The silence is finite. It waits.”
Now, decades later, the salvage crew arrived. Protocol required a sweep, a scan, and a report. No one expected survivors. No one expected anything.
Commander Rourke stepped onto the deck first. His boots echoed against the metal floor, the sound swallowed almost instantly. He frowned. “No resonance,” he muttered. “Even sound dies here.”
The team spread out. No signs of struggle. No damage. Just dust and silence.
Then the viewport flickered.
Not with light. Not with movement. But with absence.
One of the crew, Lin, gasped. “It’s not black. It’s... less than black.”
Rourke approached. The void beyond the glass seemed to pulse—not with energy, but with negation. A kind of anti-motion. A stillness so complete it felt violent.
“There’s something out there,” Lin whispered.
“No,” Rourke said. “There’s 'nothing' out there.”
And then the silence broke.
Not with sound, but with sensation. The air thickened. The lights dimmed. The systems stuttered. The void pressed inward, not as a force, but as a refusal. A denial of presence. A storm of nothingness.
The crew scrambled. Instruments failed. Communications collapsed. Rourke reached for the emergency beacon, but his hand froze mid-motion. Not physically. Conceptually. The idea of movement had been erased.
Lin screamed, but no sound came. Her mouth opened, her body convulsed, but the scream was negated—unmade before it could exist.
The silence erupted.
It was not chaos. It was the fury of absence. The violent assertion that nothing must remain. The station groaned, not from pressure, but from contradiction. It had mass. It had form. The void rejected both.
Rourke’s last thought was not of fear, but of understanding.
This was not space.
This was the end of meaning.
When the rescue vessel arrived weeks later, they found the "Aletheia" intact. Systems functional. No crew. No logs. No trace.
Just one message etched into the viewport, faint and trembling:
“There exists a deathly calm.
The motionless still.
The logs stopped after day 47. No distress call. No malfunction. Just a final entry: “The silence is finite. It waits.”
Now, decades later, the salvage crew arrived. Protocol required a sweep, a scan, and a report. No one expected survivors. No one expected anything.
Commander Rourke stepped onto the deck first. His boots echoed against the metal floor, the sound swallowed almost instantly. He frowned. “No resonance,” he muttered. “Even sound dies here.”
The team spread out. No signs of struggle. No damage. Just dust and silence.
Then the viewport flickered.
Not with light. Not with movement. But with absence.
One of the crew, Lin, gasped. “It’s not black. It’s... less than black.”
Rourke approached. The void beyond the glass seemed to pulse—not with energy, but with negation. A kind of anti-motion. A stillness so complete it felt violent.
“There’s something out there,” Lin whispered.
“No,” Rourke said. “There’s 'nothing' out there.”
And then the silence broke.
Not with sound, but with sensation. The air thickened. The lights dimmed. The systems stuttered. The void pressed inward, not as a force, but as a refusal. A denial of presence. A storm of nothingness.
The crew scrambled. Instruments failed. Communications collapsed. Rourke reached for the emergency beacon, but his hand froze mid-motion. Not physically. Conceptually. The idea of movement had been erased.
Lin screamed, but no sound came. Her mouth opened, her body convulsed, but the scream was negated—unmade before it could exist.
The silence erupted.
It was not chaos. It was the fury of absence. The violent assertion that nothing must remain. The station groaned, not from pressure, but from contradiction. It had mass. It had form. The void rejected both.
Rourke’s last thought was not of fear, but of understanding.
This was not space.
This was the end of meaning.
When the rescue vessel arrived weeks later, they found the "Aletheia" intact. Systems functional. No crew. No logs. No trace.
Just one message etched into the viewport, faint and trembling:
“There exists a deathly calm.
The motionless still.
Before the Storm of Nothingness
Erupts with fury.
And negation.”
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