The Echo of Tomorrow

The Vanguard was drifting on the edge of a dying star system, its engines quiet, its crew restless. Captain Lyra Valen stood in the observation deck, staring out into the void. She hadn’t spoken to anyone for hours, her eyes fixed on the slowly collapsing star that loomed in the distance.

“Still no word from the survey team?” Lieutenant Kara Lee asked, stepping beside her. She glanced at the console in the corner of the room, where the last comms signal had faded into nothingness.

Lyra shook her head. “Nothing. It’s like they vanished off the face of the galaxy.”

Kara’s brow furrowed. “But they were supposed to report in two days ago. Something’s not right.”

Lyra turned her gaze toward her. “You don’t think… they found something?”

Kara bit her lip, the idea hanging in the air like a heavy mist. “If they did, they didn’t leave any clues. No distress signal, no warning. Just silence.”

Lyra let out a long breath. The team had been sent to investigate anomalies around the collapsing star, to map out the strange energy readings they’d received, but it was becoming more and more clear that something had gone horribly wrong. She tried to push the nagging feeling in the back of her mind. But it wasn’t easy.

Then, without warning, the comms panel flickered to life with a sharp burst of static. Both women turned toward the sound. Lyra’s pulse quickened.

“Receiving a signal,” Kara said, her voice a mix of surprise and relief. “It’s coming from the system’s outer rim.”

Lyra grabbed the nearby controls. “Patch it through.”

The static cleared, and a voice—a voice she didn’t recognize—crackled through the speakers.

“Captain Valen…”

Lyra froze, her breath caught in her throat. The voice was faint, distorted, but unmistakable.

“Who’s this?” she demanded. “Identify yourself.”

There was a long pause before the voice returned, slow and measured, as though it were struggling to speak.

“Lyra… it’s… it’s me…”

Lyra’s hand shook as she held onto the console. “No… No, this isn’t possible.”

“Listen carefully… we don’t have much time…” the voice continued. “The team… we… we’ve found it. The anomaly. It’s not just a rift, Captain. It’s a… doorway. A doorway to somewhere else, somewhere… far beyond anything we could imagine.”

“Where are you?” Lyra asked, her heart pounding in her chest.

“We’re… we’re here… but we aren’t. We’re… stuck, Captain. Trapped between places. Between realities. The doorway… it’s not just a passage. It’s a prison.”

Lyra’s mind raced, the implications of the message terrifying. “What happened? What did you see?”

The voice seemed to waver for a moment, as if the speaker was struggling to hold onto their sanity. “I saw… something. Something… coming through. I… I don’t know how to explain it. But it was us, Captain. Or… a version of us. Different, twisted. We’re all here… but we’re not the same. Something else has taken us. Something older. Something that—“

The voice broke off, replaced by a surge of static.

“Can you hear me?” Lyra shouted, desperately trying to maintain the connection. “Respond! Please!”

But the only reply was an eerie silence, like the very space around them had swallowed the voice whole. The comms panel flickered once more before going dark.

Kara stepped forward, her face pale. “What was that, Captain?”

Lyra’s gaze remained locked on the now-black screen. Her throat tightened as the weight of the message sank in.

“They’ve found something, Kara. Something that shouldn’t be here. And whatever it is… it’s waiting.”

Before Kara could respond, the ship’s systems emitted a loud, warning beep. A new signal, weak but unmistakable, was coming from the same location—where the survey team had vanished.

Lyra’s hands were steady as she entered the coordinates. “Prepare the shuttle. We’re going in.”

“But Captain…” Kara hesitated, her voice trembling. “You heard them. They said it was a doorway. What if—”

“What if it’s worse than we imagined?” Lyra finished, her gaze hardening. “We won’t know until we go there.”

The air in the room felt colder now, heavier. Lyra felt it, the pull of the unknown, of something ancient and vast, beckoning them. She didn’t know what they’d find when they arrived at the anomaly, but the words of the last transmission echoed in her mind:

We’re all here… but we’re not the same.

And that thought would not leave her as she stepped into the shuttle, leading her crew toward the edge of reality itself.

As the shuttle descended into the swirling depths of the anomaly, Lyra could feel the weight of the universe pressing in on them. The signal that had once been a voice now felt like a whisper from the edge of time—waiting for them to answer.

The doorway was open, and they were walking through it.