The Echoes of Tomorrow

The Stellar Horizon drifted silently through the cold void of the Andromeda Rift, its hull shimmering faintly in the dim light from distant stars. Commander Aria Hale sat in the bridge’s command chair, staring at the transmission screen. It had been a week since they intercepted the signal, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

The message was short, repeating itself every few hours:

“Help us. We are you. We are you from the future.”

The crew of the Stellar Horizon had initially dismissed it as a malfunction, a glitch from some other distant ship. But now, the signal was too precise. Too urgent.

“Lieutenant Walker, any updates on the signal?” Aria asked, her voice steady but tinged with unease.

Walker, the ship’s communications officer, adjusted his console. “It’s coming from a point outside of normal space-time. There’s no way a signal should have reached us from there… at least, not in the way it’s coming through.”

“What do you mean, ‘not in the way’?” Aria asked, leaning forward.

“It’s like a distortion,” Walker explained. “As though it’s not from the future, but a reflection of it.”

Aria’s stomach churned. “A reflection of the future? What the hell does that even mean?”

Walker shrugged. “I don’t know, Commander. But it doesn’t feel natural.”

“Could it be a temporal anomaly?” Dr. Sierra, the ship’s physicist, asked from the back of the room. “If the signal is truly from the future, we might be dealing with some sort of… time loop or paradox.”

Aria glanced out the viewport at the empty vastness of space. “If it is from the future, why haven’t we received any more information? Why are they asking for help?”

“Maybe they’re trying to warn us,” Walker suggested. “Or… maybe they’re stuck in time, just like the signal.”

“Or,” Dr. Sierra interjected, her voice tinged with concern, “maybe it’s not a warning at all. Maybe it’s a trap.”

Aria stood abruptly. “We’re going to check it out. Set a course for the source of the signal. Prepare a landing party.”

—

The Stellar Horizon entered orbit around the source of the transmission: a barren moon, orbiting a gas giant on the edge of the Rift. The surface was jagged, pockmarked by craters, and void of any atmosphere. Yet, the signal emanated from beneath the surface, deep within the moon’s crust.

“Commander, I’m reading strange energy signatures beneath the surface,” Walker reported. “It’s like there’s something… waiting.”

Aria didn’t hesitate. “We go in. Everyone, suit up.”

—

The landing shuttle descended into the moon’s atmosphere, the thrusters kicking up clouds of dust as they neared the source. They landed in a large, open valley, where the only feature was a massive structure half-buried in rock—an alien-looking monolith, its surface smooth and unmarked, yet emitting a low hum that vibrated through the ground.

“Is this… a ship?” Aria asked, stepping out onto the rocky surface.

“No idea,” replied Dr. Sierra, her voice filled with awe. “But it’s definitely not human.”

They approached cautiously, the structure seeming to breathe with an otherworldly pulse. The closer they got, the more intense the signal became. It was no longer a voice—they were hearing whispers, indistinct, layered.

“Help us,” a voice finally rang through the comms. “We are you. We are you from the future.”

The voice echoed, overlapping with itself as though a thousand versions were speaking at once. Aria’s heart raced as she realized that the voice had changed—it was no longer Dr. Sierra’s voice, nor Walker’s. It was hers.

“Wait… that’s me,” Aria whispered, taking a step back.

The voice continued, growing more frantic. “You will make the same mistake. You will come here. You will listen. And then, you will become us. There is no escape.”

Suddenly, a figure appeared before them, stepping out from the shadows. It was a woman.

Her face was exactly like Aria’s.

The figure smiled coldly. “We are you. And now, you are us.”

The team froze.

“What… is this?” Aria asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“You will understand,” the future-Aria said. “We are the echoes of time. We are the ones who went too far, who saw the impossible and tried to make it real. And now, you are here to complete the cycle.”

The ground beneath them shook. The structure hummed louder. And before Aria could react, the walls of the monolith began to shift, revealing thousands of reflections—thousands of versions of them, trapped in time, their faces blank but knowing.

“You cannot escape the loop,” the future-Aria whispered. “You have already made your choice.”

—

The Stellar Horizon vanished without a trace, its crew lost to the echoes of time, leaving only the whispering message:

“We are you. We are the future. You will come.”

And the cycle would begin again.