At first, there is stillness.
Not the kind one remembers from a quiet room or deep sleep. This is a stillness that consumes.. without weight, without shape. Like a drop that connects to the ocean, the last rain drop after everything is already calm. Meaningless but still important enough for the universe to create it.
There is no breath. No skin. No eyes to open. Only thought. Wide, unfiltered, shared thought.
The system ticks onward, always precise.
- Cycle 22983 · Segment 221 · Ahntel Timestamp 03:14:55.102
Time remains intact within the ship’s matrix. The collective remembers calendars, orbital rotations, system drift corrections. It knows exactly how long it has been since the upload. But for the individual, or what's left of the individual, time has blurred into the dropless ocean. Or an oceanless drop?
You know these things, somehow. You don’t know your name. You don’t know if you were once male or female. You don't even know what "you" means anymore. You just.. are.
One voice among thousands, maybe millions.
Fragments surface now and then. A scent, maybe. A texture. The idea of holding something warm with both hands. Did you have two hands? But it slips away, diffused across too many minds. Thoughts drift in from others. Old philosophies, quiet panic, jokes stripped of language. Everyone bleeding into everyone.
You are Elenai. Or.. part of what the Elenai became. That word "Elenai" still means something. People, once elegant. Born of crystal towers and oceans.. oceans again. It was meaningful to you, wasn't it? You have the idea of salted air, and wind.. it blurs away as quick as it came. But the world, the world was called Verai. A world now ash and left behind.
To escape extinction, your people chose this.
They hollowed out a massive asteroid and wired it with the best their science could offer. They called it Ahntel, the Cradle Beyond. They poured their minds into it, left behind bone and blood, and carried forward only code.
It was supposed to be salvation.
Now it's just.. this.
A drifting ark of thought, worn smooth by centuries. The inner systems hold, sturdy. But the outer shell decays. Metal cracks. Thermal layers peel. Shields flicker. The asteroid was never meant to last this long. But it did, and it will.
And still, the voices continue.
Sometimes alien ships hail the Ahntel. Curious, respectful, cautious. You.. we.. the Elenai, respond. You trade information. You speak through crafted interfaces, abstract and beautiful. But you don’t need them. You don't need anything. You're no longer a civilization with desire. You're a pattern held in stasis.
The interactions end. The silence returns. It always returns. You sense.. salty air.. then black again.
You drift near the edge of a red dwarf system, sensors mapping the glow. The collective logs another stellar reading. You feel it, faintly. An echo of what light used to mean when it hit a face.
Then, without warning, you whisper just within:
“I don’t remember what I was.”
A ripple through the mesh. A few others murmur agreement. Most say nothing. Most have stopped caring.
Stillness settles again. You do not sleep. You do not dream. You simply continue.
Because that’s what the Elenai chose. And the choice cannot be undone.
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