Dr. Liora Vex adjusted her oxygen mask, scanning the luminous fog of the Black Expanse\u2014a vast, gravity-defying dust cloud orbiting a dead star. Her research vessel, Radian, floated weightlessly as she decoded signals from the cloud\u2019s core. <\/p>\n
Then, it responded.<\/p>\n
The pulses formed patterns\u2014language, thought. It had been watching her, learning. Liora’s heart pounded as she transmitted a greeting. The response came swiftly: **Do not go. You are all that remains.**<\/p>\n
Her breath caught. She was alone, years from any colony. Could this being know something she didn\u2019t? Had disaster struck home?<\/p>\n
She hesitated, then typed: **I must return. There are others.** <\/p>\n
A pause. Then, sorrowful pulses. **No. Stay. Connect.** <\/p>\n
Liora shivered. Was it deception, or had she truly met something kindred\u2014something just as lonely? She stared at the vast, pulsing void and, for the first time, hesitated before setting a course for home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You are all that remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-scifi"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"890","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}