Far across the void, in a region of space left uncharted by every known galactic empire, a singularity pulsed once—then again, like a heartbeat buried in shadow. Deep within that pulse, an entity stirred. Not living. Not machine. Something that once observed the rise of the first stars.
Back within the Archive, Nam staggered back from the interface. His eyes burned with visions—not just knowledge, but emotion, legacy, warning.
Lan caught him. "Nam! What did you see?"
"A presence. Watching us. Something ancient—older than the Archive. It... it knows we're here."
The Archive trembled slightly, like a living thing under pressure.
Then, data burst across the chamber—maps, names, fragments of civilizations erased from existence. At the center, a name in a tongue never spoken aloud by humans:
K'Tal-H'reth.
Nam whispered it. Lan shivered.
The Archive's voice returned, quieter now. "The signal has been heard."
Suddenly, an image materialized in the center of the room: a massive structure drifting in the void. Dark. Silent. Half-organic, half-mechanical. At its core: a pulsing sphere of Dark Matter—held together by impossible architecture.
Lan recognized it instantly.
"That's not a ship. That's a prison."
Nam nodded slowly. "And something inside it... is waking up."
The Archive shifted once more. Pathways opened, leading deeper. But they were no longer alone. A presence was following them. Not physically—but through code, through gravity, through memory. Whatever K'Tal-H'reth was, it had been dormant. Until now.
Suddenly, Lan's comm-link crackled. A signal was coming through—from Sector Zero.
"Command to Nam and Lan. We've detected a system-wide anomaly. A new gravitational pulse is warping local space-time. Our instruments can't identify the source."
Nam responded, voice calm but urgent. "Lock down the station. Prepare for potential contact. We've... awakened something."
Silence.
Then the voice on the other end whispered:
"Understood. God help us all."
As they moved deeper into the Archive, lights began flickering in patterns—a countdown. But to what? Activation? Arrival?
Lan turned to Nam. "We need to finish the Protocol."
Nam stared ahead, jaw tight. "We're not just explorers anymore."
"No," she agreed. "We're the warning."
They entered the final chamber—at its center, a device unlike anything they'd seen. An orb of crystallized void-energy, spinning in place, whispering in forgotten tongues.
Lan approached carefully, placing her hand on it. Visions struck her—an empire of stars collapsing in seconds, a species screaming into the silence as their sun was swallowed whole, a warning carved into the bones of a moon: Do not let it out.
She stepped back. "This isn't a prison."
Nam nodded grimly. "It's a vault. And we just opened the lock."