It was already past 10 p.m. when I found myself still locked away in the old library at St. Augustine University. The silence of the place was oddly comforting, like being wrapped in an ancient blanket of secrets. I was working on my thesis about Cold War communications—an obscure topic, but something about codes and frequencies had always fascinated me.
As I browsed through the dusty archive section in the basement, I pulled out a thick file labeled “CLASSIFIED – 1985” tucked between outdated encyclopedias. It wasn’t supposed to be there. The university had long since sealed off those government-donated documents. My curiosity got the better of me. I sat down, flipped through the first few pages, and saw a name—Dr. Elias Mathewson—circled in red ink. My heart skipped a beat. That was my grandfather. The one who disappeared in 1985 without a trace.
Suddenly, I heard voices. Muffled, but close.
I stood up, instinctively stepping back behind a tall bookshelf. The voices came from the other side of the wall—maybe a hidden office or an old maintenance tunnel?
“You should’ve destroyed those files,” one voice said sharply.
“I tried. But someone moved the Mathewson folder again,” another replied.
“I don’t care. If his granddaughter finds out what he uncovered—about the transmission from 1985—it’s over.”
A heavy pause.
“She’s getting too close.”
My breath caught in my throat. They were talking about me.
I tiptoed toward the back wall, pressing my ear against the cold concrete. I could barely make out the words, but every syllable burned into my memory.
“It wasn’t Russian. It wasn’t even terrestrial. He figured out the transmission was a language—structured, intelligent. That’s why we took him.”
A slam. A file dropped.
“You kept him locked up in some black-site facility for forty years?”
“He’s still there. Older. But not broken. He keeps drawing the same pattern.”
Another voice whispered, almost like a warning: “And now his bloodline is trying to finish what he started.”
I stumbled back and knocked over a stack of books. The voices stopped.
I bolted. Up the stairs. Out the door. Into the freezing night air.
—
Back in my dorm, I locked the door and sat in the dark, heart pounding. It felt impossible. My grandfather had been declared dead. My mother never spoke of him without tears. But if what I heard was true… he was alive. Somewhere.
At 3:17 a.m., I received a message on Signal, an encrypted app I rarely used.
Unknown Contact:
Stop looking.
You’re not safe.
Before I could respond, the message disappeared.
The next morning, a small envelope was slipped under my door. No address. No sender. Inside was a faded photo of a man in a cell, with a number “42-B” printed on his shirt.
On the back:
"He remembers you. Follow the stars."
I skipped all my classes that day. I needed answers.
Using the information from the classified file I’d seen, I tracked a code scribbled in the corner: “STN-ALPHA 42°N 88°W.” It led to an old, decommissioned satellite station near an abandoned military zone in Illinois.
I rented a car. Drove through cornfields and silence for hours.
When I reached the coordinates, I found what looked like a collapsed dome—graffiti on the side, half-covered by ivy. But the entrance wasn’t locked.
Inside, dust clung to everything. Old computers. Broken monitors. Thick layers of silence.
I found a trapdoor beneath a rusted desk.
Climbing down a creaky metal ladder, I descended into a narrow hallway—lined with power cables, humming with energy far too alive for a building supposedly shut down in 1991.
Then I saw him.
A small room. A glass window. A man with white hair, deep-set eyes, and frail shoulders—staring at a wall filled with sketches of constellations, maps, and a language I couldn’t read.
He looked at me. Not with fear. But recognition.
I pressed my hand against the glass.
He stood slowly, walked toward me, and mouthed a single word.
“Lyra.”
The star system.
It wasn’t just about a signal. It was a message. A message meant for us.
Before I could do anything more, alarms blared. Footsteps echoed.
I turned and ran, retracing my steps, barely escaping before the corridor sealed itself shut.
Back in my car, I wept. He was alive. But still a prisoner.
And now, I had a mission.
—
I changed my thesis. I published an article online under a pseudonym, decoding parts of the transmission based on his notes. The pattern was real. The message wasn’t a threat. It was a greeting. A bridge.
Now, others are listening too. Quietly, in secret corners of the internet, we’re building a network. A resistance. A hope.
All because I overheard something I wasn’t meant to.
Or maybe… I was.
Or maybe… I was.
React
