Echoes of the Void

Chapter One: The Awakening

A sharp hiss filled the air as the med bay’s ventilation system cycled, the sterile scent of disinfectant clinging to everything. The soft hum of the ship’s life support system was the only other sound.

Cal Harper blinked against the blinding overhead lights, his body sluggish, as if his muscles had forgotten how to move. His head throbbed with a dull, persistent pain. He wasn’t alone — around him, the rest of the crew stirred.

“Where…?” Isla Raines’ voice cracked, and she coughed, her hand going to her throat as if trying to clear something lodged there.

Cal forced himself upright on the med bay cot, his pulse quickening. Last he remembered, they had been mining on Asteroid 419-Delta, collecting valuable trithium ore for the Olympex Corporation. Then… nothing.

His eyes darted around the room. Five other crewmates — Isla, Renko, Carter, Malik, and Vega — shifted uneasily on their cots, all dressed in standard-issue gray jumpsuits. Confusion hung thick in the air.

“Why are we in the med bay?” Malik’s voice was rough, his dark eyes scanning the room. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, testing his balance.

Carter ran a hand through his shaved head, staring at the medical monitors that beeped softly beside them. “I… I don’t remember coming here.”

Vega, their comms officer, reached for the console embedded in the wall and tapped at the screen. She paled. “Guys… the ship’s logs say it’s May 14th.”

Cal felt a cold weight settle in his gut. “That’s not possible. The last thing I remember was — ”

“March 9th,” Isla finished, her expression dark. “We’re missing two months.”

Silence thickened between them. No one wanted to say it, but they were all thinking the same thing.

Something had happened to them. Something bad.

And they had no idea what.

Chapter Two: The Investigation

The Prospector was a reliable vessel, built for endurance rather than comfort. As they moved through its corridors, the usual hum of the ship’s engines provided an eerie backdrop. Everything looked normal, but something felt off.

Cal and Isla headed to the bridge while the others spread out to check the rest of the ship. Vega took her place at the comms station, fingers flying over the controls as she tried to recover any missing data.

“There should be security footage,” Isla said, her brow furrowed. “A two-month gap in memory? There has to be something on record.”

Vega pulled up the logs, scrolling through lines of code. Then, suddenly, she froze.

“What is it?” Cal asked.

Vega swallowed hard. “The security feeds have been wiped. There’s a huge data corruption between March 10th and today. No logs, no reports, nothing.”

Cal’s stomach turned. That wasn’t something that happened by accident. Someone — or something — had erased their tracks.

Isla clenched her fists. “Then we check the ship itself.”

Chapter Three: The Evidence

Carter and Renko met them outside the engineering bay, their faces pale.

“You need to see this,” Carter muttered, leading them inside.

The room was a mess — scattered tools, open panels, and most unsettling of all, six empty vacuum-sealed body bags lined up on the floor.

A chill ran down Cal’s spine. “Those aren’t supposed to be here.”

Renko turned, his expression grim. “We checked the ship’s registry. Each one of these was logged full on March 11th.”

The implications settled over them like a thick fog.

“We died,” Isla said, her voice barely above a whisper.

No one contradicted her.

Chapter Four: The Horror Unfolds

Determined to uncover the truth, they ran a full diagnostic of the ship’s systems. The findings were… disturbing.

The ship had detected a catastrophic hull breach on March 10th, right after an unscheduled docking event with an unknown vessel. The breach should have been fatal. Oxygen depletion, decompression — there was no way they should be standing here now.

“We should be dead,” Malik muttered, running a hand down his face. “But we’re not.”

Vega hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

She brought up a deep-space transmission log — one that had been sent from the Prospector two days ago.

A garbled voice played over the speakers, distorted and barely human.

“All crew lost. Mission failure. Vessel compromised. Do not recover. Do not — ”

The transmission cut out.

A heavy silence fell.

“That message came from this ship,” Vega whispered.

Renko exhaled sharply. “Which means… we sent a distress call after we were dead.”

Chapter Five: The Truth in Blood

With growing unease, they retraced their final recorded actions before the memory blackout. They ended up in the cargo bay.

And that’s where they found it.

A large, black crate sat in the center of the bay, its surface covered in deep, jagged scratches. The crate hadn’t been part of their original cargo manifest.

“Was this what we were mining?” Carter asked, stepping closer.

“No,” Isla said, staring at it with something close to dread. “We never brought anything like this on board.”

Malik tapped at the crate’s security panel. The system denied access, locked under an unknown authorization code.

Then the crate moved.

A scraping sound echoed through the room, like nails on metal. The breath hitched in Cal’s throat.

“…Did you see that?” Isla whispered.

Before anyone could respond, the ship’s emergency lights flickered. A low, vibrating hum resonated from the crate, growing in intensity. The air itself felt wrong — too thick, too charged.

Then, the memory hit.

Like a dam breaking, visions flooded Cal’s mind — fragments of horror buried deep within his subconscious.

March 10th. The unknown vessel. They had brought something aboard. And then — death.

Their deaths.

They had suffocated, their bodies twisted in agony as something unseen moved through the ship, warping the walls with its presence. It had taken them one by one, filling their minds with unspeakable terror before silencing them.

And then…

It had brought them back.

Cal staggered, gasping for breath as the memory left him. The others were reeling, too, the same realization dawning on their faces.

“We’re not supposed to be alive,” Isla murmured. “We’re not alive.”

A sickening dread settled in Cal’s bones.

Whatever was inside that crate… it had resurrected them. But why?

The crate shuddered again. The metal groaned, buckling outward.

Then the emergency sirens blared.

CONTAINMENT FAILURE IMMINENT.

The ship trembled. The lights flickered violently.

And then, from within the crate, something answered.

A sound — low, guttural, wrong.

And the last thing they heard before the darkness swallowed them was their own voices screaming.