Field Observation Log – Research Habitat OS-7, Outer Solar Segment
" Anomalous signal detected. Archive reference: Delta-79-Theta "
" Frequency: 46.88. Analog. Unregistered "
" Source unknown "
The OS-7 habitat drifted at the edge of solar light—stationary in an orbit nobody cared to chart anymore.
Most days passed in automated silence.
Sensors scanned the dark, combing for echoes of failed stars, fractured comets, and pulses from systems that died long before names were invented for them.
She didn't expect much from tonight's scans.
Most signals were nothing more than cosmic leftovers.
Others were too broken to mean anything.
But then, through a narrow and neglected slice of frequency, came something wrong.
A voice.
Cracked. Fragmented.
Struggling to exist across layers of static.
" If someone's listening to this... well, first of all, I'm sorry... "
She froze.
Her back straightened in the observation chair.
Fingers paused mid-command.
For a moment, the entire room seemed to listen with her.
She killed the automated scanner and isolated the frequency.
It wasn't registered.
Not in any archive, not on any known military band, not in any colonial survey log.
Not a rescue call.
Not a test pattern.
Just… a man's voice.
And it was talking to someone.
Not shouting. Not begging.
Just speaking—softly, like a conversation meant only for one pair of ears.
---
She played the clip again. Then again.
And slowly, the fragments stitched themselves into something clearer:
" Day 687.
Still here.
Still me. "
His tone wasn't desperate.
It wasn't hopeful either.
It was something in between.
The voice of a man who had stopped expecting to be heard, but kept speaking anyway—because it was the only way to leave something behind.
She ran a signal decay analysis.
The results made no sense.
"Temporal inconsistency detected "
" Origin unreachable "
" Metadata not found "
She stared at the lines of corrupted data until her vision blurred.
Her breath fogged lightly inside the visor of her lab helmet—one she hadn't bothered to take off since the shift began.
It was cold. But not because of the room.
---
She hit record.
" Log entry. Anomalous voice transmission. Human. Male. Analog "
" Emotional tone suggests prolonged isolation. Possibly from a derelict station "
But even as she spoke, the words felt… fake.
Distant.
Because this wasn't just a scientific curiosity.
There was something in the voice.
Something that stirred in the long pauses between syllables.
A quiet that filled the room more completely than any machine ever could.
She didn't know where it came from.
Or how.
But she knew, the moment she heard it,
that someone real had once spoken those words.
And maybe, just maybe…
was still speaking them.
---
She sat back.
Let the waveform on screen quiet to a slow, flickering pulse.
Then, almost involuntarily, she replayed the final part of the message.
" I'm not asking to be saved.
I just... don't want to be erased "
Her hands gripped the sides of her chair.
Her eyes stayed closed long after the voice stopped.
She would come back tomorrow. And the day after.
Not because she had to.
But because she wanted to.
Because somehow, out in the dark,
past the dust of collapsed worlds and forgotten maps,
someone was still trying to be heard.