The corridor ahead was darker than the others, the lights flickering in uneven rhythms that made the shadows dance along the seamless walls. Kael's boots landed softly on the floor as he stepped forward, each footfall echoing back like a quiet reminder that they were alone. Or supposed to be.
Sera walked beside him, her hand hovering near her belt where she had tucked one of the small sealant canisters, ready to use it as a bludgeon if necessary. Her eyes never stopped scanning, catching every slight shift in the gloom, every flicker of the dim light panels that lined the corridor's ceiling.
Kael felt the keycard in his pocket, the faint glow of its chip pulsing against his leg. It felt like a heartbeat, quiet but steady, reminding him that they were moving toward something. Something that felt bigger than either of them.
"How far do you think this station goes?" Sera asked, her voice low, almost blending with the hum of the hidden machinery behind the walls.
Kael shook his head. "Far enough that they needed a map to find their way around."
"Do you think it's all empty?"
"No," Kael said, thinking of the shadows in the projection, the distant clatter and growl that still echoed in his mind. "I don't."
They reached a junction where the corridor split into three different paths, each marked by a faint light strip above the entryway. One glowed a soft green, another a steady blue, and the last pulsed with a slow, unsettling red.
Kael pulled the keycard out, watching as its chip pulsed in response to the lights, glowing brighter as he turned toward the blue-lit corridor.
"Looks like that's our way," he said.
Sera nodded, but her gaze flicked toward the red-lit corridor, her jaw tightening. "I don't like leaving that behind us."
"We'll come back," Kael said, though he wasn't sure if it was a promise he could keep.
They turned down the blue corridor, the air growing colder as they moved. The walls here were lined with panels displaying slow-moving streams of data, glyphs and shapes shifting in an organized dance that made Kael's head ache if he looked at them too long.
"Do you understand any of that?" Sera asked.
Kael squinted at the lines, the shapes almost forming into something he could recognize before slipping away. "Not yet."
They reached a sealed door, marked with a single glowing line down its center. Kael lifted the keycard, and the line brightened, scanning the card with a soft blue beam before splitting open with a hiss.
Beyond was a small control room, circular like the last, but filled with consoles and panels, each glowing with soft lights and slow streams of data. The air felt stale here, heavy with the scent of dust and metal.
In the center of the room stood a raised platform, and above it, a single projector cast an image into the air—a rotating globe marked with thousands of points of light.
Sera stepped forward, her eyes wide. "Is that Earth?"
Kael looked closer. The globe was cracked in places, scarred with lines of deep canyons and darkened oceans that pulsed with strange lights.
"It was," Kael said quietly.
They stood there, the image of the fractured world turning slowly above them, the silence pressing down around them like a weight.
A panel near the projector blinked, and Kael approached, reaching out to touch the surface. The screen responded instantly, glyphs rearranging themselves into a new pattern before displaying a single word in clear, crisp letters.
SIGNAL DETECTED
Sera moved closer, peering over his shoulder. "What does that mean?"
Kael pressed another button, and the image shifted, zooming in on one of the glowing points orbiting the cracked Earth. It pulsed softly, a green glow that flickered every few seconds.
"It means we're not the only ones awake," Kael said.
The panel shifted again, displaying a wave pattern moving slowly across the screen, accompanied by a soft, rhythmic pulse that seemed to vibrate in Kael's chest.
"It's a distress signal," he said, recognizing the pattern even if he didn't know how he knew it.
"From where?" Sera asked.
Kael pointed to the pulsing dot on the projection. "Another station. Not far from here."
Sera crossed her arms, her gaze locked on the signal. "We can't be the only ones receiving it."
Kael nodded. "We're not."
He pressed another control, and the panel displayed a list of connections, each marked with a status.
NODE 03: OFFLINE NODE 05: OFFLINE NODE 09: OFFLINE NODE 17: ACTIVE NODE 21: SIGNAL RECEIVED
"We're Node Seventeen," Kael said, scanning the list. "The signal's coming from Node Twenty-One."
Sera tapped the screen, her brow furrowed. "What about these others? All offline?"
Kael nodded, though the sight of so many dead nodes made his chest tighten. "Looks like it."
"Or they don't want to answer," Sera added quietly.
Kael didn't respond. The thought that others were alive but choosing silence was almost worse than the idea that they were gone.
The projector flickered, and the image shifted again, displaying a corridor—similar to the one they were in, but darker, lit only by the occasional flicker of a dying light. Shapes moved in the shadows, slow and deliberate, their outlines blurred by the poor quality of the feed.
Kael leaned in, squinting, trying to make out the details.
"What are those?" Sera whispered.
Kael couldn't answer. The shapes moved like people, but their movements were wrong, too fluid, too silent. One turned toward the camera, and for a brief moment, Kael saw the glint of metal where an eye should have been, before the feed cut out with a soft pop.
The projector returned to the image of the cracked Earth, rotating slowly as if nothing had happened.
Kael stepped back, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "We need to get to Node Twenty-One."
Sera stared at him. "Are you crazy? We don't even know how to get off this station, let alone get to another one."
Kael turned to her, his jaw set. "They're calling for help."
"We don't even know who they are."
"It doesn't matter," Kael said. "We're here. We're awake. We have to do something."
Sera's eyes narrowed, but after a moment, she nodded. "Fine. But we do it carefully."
Kael nodded, turning back to the panel, studying the data. There had to be a way to reach the other node, a way to cross the darkness between stations.
As he scanned the information, his fingers moved over the controls, accessing menus and systems he didn't know he remembered. The station's layout unfolded before him, a web of corridors, chambers, and sealed gates.
There, near the outer edge, a hangar. A single craft listed as docked, its status blinking amber.
Kael pointed. "There. We can use that."
Sera followed his finger, her lips pressing into a thin line. "You think you can fly it?"
Kael's hand tightened on the console. "I don't know. But I think I can try."
The room fell silent again, the hum of the machinery around them filling the space as they stood before the projection of the fractured world.
Kael took a breath, steadying himself. They had a direction now, a purpose beyond wandering empty corridors. The signal was calling to them, and Kael couldn't ignore it.
"Let's go," he said.
Sera nodded, and together, they turned back toward the corridor, the projector's light flickering behind them as they stepped into the darkness once more, the pulsing signal guiding them forward.