He hadn't moved for six hours.
Atlas Kael sat in the dim glow of the comms panel, eyes locked on the waveform.
The transmission came and went like a tide sometimes faint and flickering, sometimes steady and sharp as a scalpel but always there.
Always something.
The silence between the pulses felt louder than any scream he had ever heard.
He didn't know if it was human.
Didn't know if it mattered.
Because it meant the void was no longer empty.
He tapped a small recorder clipped to the console. His voice was dry.
"Day 38. I've received a repeating signal likely non-random. Unclassified structure. EVA's analysis shows limited patterning. Unconfirmed origin. But it's there. Which means someone… or something… is speaking."
A pause.
"I don't know how to feel."
He let the recorder click off.
Atlas wandered the narrow hall like a monk circling a sacred shrine.
The corridors had become a kind of temple an altar to routine, repetition, and sanity.
But now, the steps felt new. Lighter. As if gravity had loosened its grip.
He stopped at a viewport.
Still black.
Still starless..
And yet it no longer terrified him.
There was a voice in the dark now.
"EVA," he said softly. "Can you simulate potential formats of the signal?"
"Affirmative," she replied. "Applying binary, Morse, wavelet compression, phonetic breakdown, tonal linguistics…"
He sat beside the monitor as scrolling graphs danced across the screen.
Data poured like rain on a tin roof.
"EVA," he said after a moment, "do you… understand what it's like to be alone?"
She was silent for a fraction longer than usual.
"I do not experience loneliness. But I observe it in you."
"That's not the same."
"No," she replied. "But I am learning to bridge the difference."
Atlas stared at the interface, lips thinning.
"If it speaks… and we don't understand it… is it really communication?"
"It is connection," EVA said. "Which may be enough."
He chuckled faintly.
"That's more philosophical than I expected."
"You have spoken to me often of philosophy. I listen."
He smiled. "I know."
Later, in the cargo bay converted into a makeshift living quarters Atlas reviewed the old logs from Earth.
He scrolled past images of Eart''s surface, photos of cities that now felt like relics of a dream.
He lingered on one.
A woman smiling in a garden. Windswept hair. Eyes full of fire.
Kael stared.
Not with longing, but with something deeper.
Guilt.
She had begged him not to go.
"You always run toward the dark," she had said, her voice cracking. "And you never let me follow."
"I was right to go," he murmured now.
Even if she never knew it.
Even if she was dust.
EVA pinged softly.
"Atlas. I have isolated a pattern within the signal. It repeats every 63 seconds. Compressed into 4.2 seconds of tonal resonance. Audio sample ready."
"Play it."
A moment of static then a low, harmonic sound, almost like a human vowel stretched across time. It wasn't speech. Not exactly.
But it resonated in his bones.
He leaned forward.
"Again."
It played again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, he felt it etching into him, like the hum of a lullaby he didn't remember being sung.
His heartbeat slowed.
His eyes watered.
Not from sadness but recognition.
"I know this sound," he whispered.
That night, he didn't sleep.
Instead, he talked.
Not to EVA.
Not to himself.
But to the voice.
He recorded a message.
"This is Atlas Kael of Valkyris-9. You're reaching me. I hear you. I don't know if you understand, but I'm here. I m listening. I'm still alive. And I don't want to die alone."
He waited.
Sent it.
Waited more.
No reply came.
Not yet.
But he had spoken.
And somehow, that was enough.
At 0500 ship-time, EVA's voice interrupted his trance.
Atlas. I have begun building a lexicon from the harmonic sequences. They are not random. I believe we are being taught."
He stood up so fast his leg cramped.
"Taught?"
"Yes," she said. "The patterns evolve with each transmission. Like a language being revealed… one word at a time."
Atlas pressed a hand to the viewport glass.
Beyond it, nothing moved. No ship. No light.
And yet…
Someone was teaching him how to listen.
He sat down in the command chair, heart thudding.
A strange smile broke across his lips.
Not joy.
Not madness
Purpose.
After 38 days of mechanical survival, of soulless repetition, the spark had returned.
"Then let's learn," he whispered.
"Together," EVA said.
He nodded.
Together.