In a small alcove beyond the marked corridor, Rotham stumbled upon a sealed storage hatch. Its surface was scratched and covered in layers of dust, but the embedded access panel still glowed faintly.
He knelt and wiped away years of neglect before activating it.
The screen flickered to life, revealing a list of encrypted audio logs — labeled simply as Echo Logs. Their timestamps dated back over a hundred years, before the station had gone dark.
Rotham hesitated, then selected the first file.
Static hissed through the speakers before a voice emerged — low, urgent, but strangely familiar.
"If anyone finds this… know that what lies here is not just technology. It is a memory. A warning. They called it the Naris Protocol. It's more than a signal — it's a key."
Rotham froze. The voice… it was his own.
But it wasn't him. Not yet.
A shiver ran down his spine as fragmented images flickered behind his eyelids — places he'd never been, people he'd never met, yet somehow… memories.
The station's secrets were awakening.
And Rotham was no longer just an outsider. He was part of the echo.