He was the only one who stepped out.
No, Kael realized, the smile creeping across his own face. That wasn't right.
Kael’s mission was simple: retrieve the black box from the research hub at the colony’s center. The colony, designated Hermes-9, had gone silent eleven months ago. No distress call. No explosion. Just… silence. Three thousand people had lived here. Miners, engineers, families. Now, the prefab buildings squatted like rows of tombstones, their windows dark, their doors yawning open.
And on the colony’s central terminal, a new line of text appeared. nighthawk22 - isolation midi
And he was humming a tune. A low, rhythmic, four-note sequence.
It was sitting against a streetlamp, perfectly preserved by the toxic air. A woman in a technician's uniform. Her eyes were open. They weren’t clouded or blank. They were alert . And she was smiling. A wide, serene, deeply wrong smile. There was no wound, no sign of struggle. She looked like someone who had died of pure, unbothered peace.
Not the hum of the ship. Not the hum of life support. The hum was inside his helmet, a low, throbbing sine wave that seemed to sync with his heartbeat. It was the sound of a world without noise. The sound of Isolation . He was the only one who stepped out
He checked his geo-scanner. A blinking dot pulsed two klicks east. He started walking.
Kael’s hand drifted to the sidearm at his hip. He didn't draw it, but he felt the cold plastic of the grip. He took a wide arc around her.
He forced his hand still.
The second hour, he found the first body.
A single line of text, repeated over and over, scrolling up the monitor:
He fell hard, skidding across the vitrified earth. The black box clattered away. He lay there, gasping, as the hum softened. It became gentle. Lulling. Kael’s mission was simple: retrieve the black box
Kael’s lips moved, but no sound came out. The officer leaned closer.
The black box was in the central server room. He found it easily, a hardened data cylinder nestled in a cradle of sparking wires. As he reached for it, he saw the terminal screen.