The Astral Void was a graveyard ,kind the universe tried to forget.
Kael Mercer stood in the Leviathan's observation bay, watching the dead stars drift like frozen sparks in a sea of black. It was too quiet, even for deep space.
The kind of quiet that made instincts sharpen and memories claw their way back to the surface. The ship's engines hummed in an uneven rhythm, a reminder that the Void didn't welcome visitors. Kael kept his hands behind his back, posture rigid, eyes fixed on the shifting darkness outside.
He'd flown through asteroid fields, magnetic storms, and warzones that burned for weeks, but nothing unsettled him like the Astral Void. It felt alive. A place that whispered instead of echoed, breathing instead of drifting. A place that remembered him. His comm crackled. Riven's voice came through, tight and controlled. "Captain, you should come to the command deck. Now." Kael didn'thesitate.
He turned, boots striking the metal floor with deliberate precision.
The corridor lights flickered,cutting in and out in a steady pattern that didn't match any electrical issue he knew. Something was affecting the ship. Something outside their line of sight.
As he moved through the dim hall, that whisper returned soft, faint, threading into the space behind his thoughts. You came back. Kael's jaw tightened,but he didn't react outwardly. He'd learned long ago that acknowledging the Void only made it hungrier.
The command deck doors slid open. Riven stood beside the main holo-table, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold.
The rest of the crew avoided looking at the screen. Fear hung over the room like static electricity. Riven swallowed. "Sir… we've been followed." Kael stepped closer. "Show me." Riven enlarged the projection. A swirling black sphere appeared̶shifting, pulsing, dissolving at the edges like melted shadow reforming itself. It didn't move like a ship. It didn't drift like debris. It watched. Kael leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Magnify again." The image sharpened.
A face flickered inside the sphere̶stretched, pale, screaming without sound. Then it vanished. The crew recoiled. Riven whispered,
"What the hell is that?" Kael exhaled slowly. "An Echo." Riven shook his head. "Those stories aren't real.
They can't be." "They're real enough," Kael said. "I've seen one before." Before Riven could respond, the lights snapped off complete darkness swallowing the deck. Someone gasped. Someone else muttered a prayer under their breath. The darkness felt heavy, almost textured, as if the Void outside had seeped into the ship to claim it piece by piece. Then a whisper slid through the speakers. "Kael Mercer."
Riven's eyes widened in the glow of emergency lights flickering on. "Sir… it knows your name." Of course it did. The Void always remembered its survivors. The holo-screen shifted again. The sphere warped,flattening into something narrow, tall, pulsing with slow, deliberate rhythm. A doorway. Thin. Unstable.
Rising like a jagged tear in space. The crew stared, horrified. Riven stepped back. "Captain… it wants us to enter." "No," Kael said. "It wants me." The room fell silent. The Void had only ever called to one person and let them leave alive. Kael had never told the crew exactly what happened during the Astral Rift War, only that he survived and no one else did. Not his battalion. Not his commanding officer. Not his sister.
The whisper came again̶softer this time. Female. Familiar enough to freeze Kael in place. "Kael… help me." Riven's head snapped toward him. "Sir… tell me that's not̶" "It isn't real." Kael forced
the words out. "The Void feeds on memory." But the tremor in his voice betrayed him. He knew that voice.
He'd memorized it before she died, before the Rift swallowed her whole while he stood helpless on the other side. He had buried the sound of her screams years ago, or at least he thought he had.
Hearing her again didn't break him. It awakened something he thought he'd killed. Kael turned sharply. "Seal the ship. Full lockout.
No one approaches that doorway." The Echo pulsed, and the lights dimmed again. Kael felt the old fear the kind he never admitted existed̶creeping under his skin. Riven stepped closer. "Captain…
what's the plan?" Kael stared at the doorway, letting the fear burn, letting it sharpen him. When he finally spoke, his voice was ice. "We close it. From the inside." Riven inhaled sharply. "No one comes back from the Void." Kael looked at him, eyes colder than the stars outside. "I did." The doorway widened.
And with it, the Void whispered like it was welcoming home its favorite son.