EMI

ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴇɴᴄᴏᴜɴᴛᴇʀ ɪ

Year 560,237,475.

In the deep dark blue, find your path

Until then, see yourself eons past

To hold existence in your palms, and witness eternity in a second.

Anchor yourself to reality, as time folds into nothingness beneath your eyes.

...

...

...

On a faraway patch of the void, deep into the dark, a lone vessel travels uncharted space, its path set to follow wherever the interstellar wind took it.

The stars glimmer faintly in the void of dark, the ship, no more than a few tens of meters in size, slices through the low-energy environment, like a ship through dark seas.

The ship in itself was dark. devoid of any orifice, somewhat designed for a long, long voyage.

But inside was a different story.

Inside was a simple hub, designed for one being, and whoever lived in it seems well adapted to this reality they have set in.

A few monitors line what seems to be the upper deck, technology from a past now long gone, but somehow kept alive.

Everything was silent, say for the faint hum of the engines, and the beeping of various different machinery, and a click of a switch.

??? : "Hmm, this stellar medium is weirdly dense today." he switches different levers and presses an assortment of buttons, occasionally working on the console beside him whilst what looked like pesto laid arrest on his lap.

??? : "Interesting... we might be onto something here..." some of the screens on his array of monitors flashes red, clearly something was going on, and it seemed like his vessel had detected something.

The sensors were not wrong, his screening systems were reading above levels he has not seen in millennia, simply a small percentage of what he was receiving would be been enough to signify something Anomalous.

but this was just, beyond that.

??? : What in tarnation... he types on his console further, setting the pesto aside as its momentarily forgotten, his systems suddenly blare red, the VOX system abruptly announcing:

❖ : "Warning, unknown mass detected, size estimation is to be projected at approximately 2.35 Octillion Kilograms."

Somethings wrong.

He scrams for the cockpit, bolting through the cramped space to get there.

When he does arrive, he immediately settles into the seat, immediately trying to stabilize the ship with a panicked yet organized sequence of level flips and the quick typing on his console, just to make sure his vessel doesn't get ripped apart.

He takes a few seconds to breathe, before putting on the seatbelt properly, and breathing deeply to muster the courage to actually look through the viewport.

He does look through

But the sight is unnerving.

??? : "What the....." the words die on his lips as the vessel's light reflects back onto his very eyes, the readings were not wrong, indeed, but what was in front of him, that was what surprised him, speechless.

In front of him lies rows, upon rows of faceless structures, clean and dark, with no visible design, say for the negative space that seemed to separate them into distinct cubes of different shapes, held to by some unknown force.

??? : "What the f-fuck.... what the.....wh... what am i looking at.... h-how...." the structures seemed to morph into other cubes, as if they were completely detached from the reality he resided in, they looked ancient, but something deep inside him told that those structures were not unmanned, and it seemed to give off a feeling he could not understand.

Either way, he anchors himself back to Reality, seeing that his vessel was beginning to veer off course, he immediately made the corrections, a flick of switch here, moving his Joystick for a quick adjustment, trying to make normalcy despite his impossible situation.

But then, a single request transmission intercepts his comms system.

His eyes blink slowly, it didn't look like the random data packets stars would accidentally put off, no. it seemed structured, labelled in weird symbols and glyphs that he could not understand, nor wish to.

He responds out of pure confusion, in his mind, it was a structure, definitely an artificial one, but he never expected contact, at least not this quickly. ??? : u-ughh...

His hands carefully tread over his console, clicking enter on the request, unsure of anything at this point.

(beep) His feed registers, the screen to the side of his cockpit rotating to block his gaze, revealing an empty screen, in which also surprised him, because even if the screen revealed nothing (not yet, atleast), it was giving him a video, atleast what seemed like it.

The screen then enters a static mode, for a few long, long seconds, he almost sets it aside in confusion before the screen suddenly reveals a pristine, white room, which contrasts the outside of the structure completely, in all senses.

He blinks a few more times, waiting for something, but nothing happens, the screen remains, until it cuts off to a weird symbol, which like anyone would've guessed, could be the insignia of whatever made that structure.

A single star, probably not a star, the shine of something bright given form, with several rune-like symbols adorned across it in ring formations, like that you would see from a biblically accurate angel, (although, that clearly doesn't relate here)

Several sets of tunes begin to play, like some sort of small introduction, which only confuses him more.

??? : "w-wha....?"

As soon as the tunes finish, a single Voice, bright and weirdly feminine echoes loudly through the built in speaker, muttering unintelligible vocal patterns at him

⚝⚝⚝ : "Etreki Antos Kyoducio Kemai????.... Kyodeco???" The speaker was clearly excited as if they havent had this kind of interaction in a long time.

-To be Continued.