Lost in Silence

[Tenacity]

<<<Location: Unknown Space, Borderworlds>>>
-15 years ago-

The system was cold... dark... full of green mist gently illuminated by a single nearby star. Beyond the corona, little heat penetrated the cloud, and what little did was quickly absorbed by fields of porous rock. Countless numbers of alien organisms drifted through the cloud, from rock to rock, feeding on the matter... slowly breaking the stones down and converting them into gas to expand the nebula. The ecosystem was simple here, but was key in fueling the expansion of the universe.
A soft blue form slides effortlessly through the cloud, illuminated from within like a creature from the bottom of the darkest seas. Here, it is beautiful, the organic artistry of beings long past. The form glides between the rocks, propelled forward by nothing more than a wisp of photons... a stream of light. It's purpose is singular, peaceful... it gazes across the system searching for anything unusual, anything... human. It has repeated this task countless times since it emerged from the hive as a fledling nomad, drifting silently through the void seeking and searching to appease the collective. The thoughts, the emotions, the knowledge of every other one of it's kind echoed within it's mind. All worked as one, all felt as one... if one was injured or killed, all others felt it's pain, it was no different than a human losing his or her own limbs.
Many limbs had been lost to the humans, yet many more were growing. Life, natural or artificial, would always find a way to persevere. Nomads had but three objectives in life... serve the masters, protect their homes, and prosper as a civilization.



The blue being drifted closer to the sun, basking in it's corona, soaking up it's energy and relishing it's warmth. The tiny, amoeba-like alien organisms floating through space clung to the nomad, cleaning it of buildup from the nebula and hitching a quick ride to new asteroids.

As the being began to drift further from the sun to explore the darker reaches of the system, a painful scream echoed through it's mind. The collective spoke...

***Panic!***
***Humans... killing us***
***Light Dims***

It's mind was filled with the bloody screams of millions of nomads dying all at once. The pain of it was unbearable, energy surged within it's body as the telepathic link to the collective overloaded.

Black... everything went black.





-Same location, present day-

Blurred... blurred vision, out of focus. Green, white, yellow... black... green again, soft light... black once more.
Slowly the surroundings came into focus, fading in and out of darkness. Lightning erupted in the cloud around him, striking his body back to life, replenishing it's energy. A storm... electrical storm... flashing, burning, quenching thirst for life.
Where... He looked around, scanning the environment with his mind. Pain... there was still pain, much pain... and confusion.

Silence enveloped him, clouded his mind. Why is it silent? Where are the voices? Memories... dissapeared... they were no longer, his mind was blank. He knew nothing, heard nothing, where was he? what was he?

Slowly, as the surroundings came into focus, glimpses of past memory began to flash at him. It was slow at first, vague... he could not understand what he was thinking, what he saw within his own mind. What does it mean? What are the voices? Why are they silent? Where have they gone?

Gone... yes... the voices were there once, he could remember that, but the voices were silent... gone. They were audible no longer. But why?

Confusion and panic set in. These were unfamiliar emotions, he did not recognize them but he knew what they were. The sensation was odd... it was fear, when he did not know what fear was. The surroundings... they were vaguely familiar... the rocks, the green, the yellow, the white, the darkness, the organisms that clung to his self as if grasping a peice of wood in the open sea.

Slowly he started to move forward. It was difficult, like trying to walk with legs that would not move. Ever so slowly he gained pace, regaining feeling in his "legs", re-learning how to create the light that allowed him to move. He was weak, his energy depleted... all he had was what had been given by the lightning, the storm.

He turned towards the light, towards the warm, glowing star. The heat and light of it would help heal him... yes, he remembered this, the warmth of basking in a corona... but why? why bask... to heal? yes, heal... replenish... recover.

As he drew closer to the star, he felt his strength returning, he felt energized. It's warmth was absorbed by his glowing blue skin, it was collected and held inside as an internal light, illuminating him for all to behold.

He sat in the corona of the star for hours, slowly rebuilding himself. Cells raced about, repairing the damage... the damage in his mind... what was it called? the nueral network? Yes... the collective... but it was not there. Where was it? why were the voices silent? Alone... he was alone... lost... panic set in once again. He began to move away from the sun, at the speed of fear and confusion. Somewhere... a tunnel... a tunnel of light... where? There!

Emerging from the green mist before him was the swirling vortex of a jump hole, a tunnel to somewhere... where? He could not remember where this tunnel would take him to, but he knew it would take him. He drifted forward, gliding into the gravitational well of the vortex until it pulled him in.

Light! He was surrounded by light, a tunnel of light stretching beyond comprehension. He was fond of the tunnels... he felt at home there, barreling through the darkest abyss on a chariot of pure light. The light ended abruptly, leaving him in cold, dark space once again. Stars... many stars... much warmth in the distance... three stars circling one another in a dance millenia in the making...

He struggled to speak, to make his own voice to the collective, to ask the others why they were silent. The speech was difficult to make, difficult to send. His mind was still damaged, but repaired enough to form the weakest voice, the smallest images.



No answer, only silence. Painful silence.
He sensed others, but where? what? They were not like him. They were flesh within steel, like organisms in asteroids. They did not speak, they did not respond to his call. Could they hear him? He did not know.
Slowly he began to move again, towards the suns. Must bask... must heal... must replenish... must learn...

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