Let me start by saying I’m breaching contract by sharing this. If the company’s lookouts link this post to me – which they will – I’ll be disgraced, and any chance at getting a job in this profession again will be out of the picture. I have the common sense to keep my name unknown, but all that’s gonna do is slow them down.

Keeping this hidden would be a crime against humanity of the highest order. You all deserve to know, as terrible as it is.

I work at an unnamed technological research company as, you guessed it, a researcher. In recent years, we’ve made astonishing advancements in developing technology that can interact with and harness tachyons.

Tachyons are particles that travel faster than light; that’s the most important part. They’ve been a subject of theoretical physics since the late 60s, but as far as public knowledge goes, they’re still just that. Theoretical.

But they are most certainly real. Well, not “tachyons” per se, though their behaviour is equatable. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but the result of a particle travelling faster than light is that said particle is able to, effectively, travel backwards in time.

My other group members and I have been experimenting with these particles for the best part of two years now. We’ve made major advances, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

Yesterday, 23/03/2023, at 09:07 am, my equipment detected a tachyon signal. This was in the morning, mind you, and no tests had yet been carried out. From what I can tell, this signal originated – or, rather, will originate – from elsewhere.

Playing it out loud, it at first just sounded like a garbled mess of frequencies. But after observing the audio structure, I found it to be made up of thousands of tones, of which there were only two types – long, and short.

The realisation hit pretty quick. It was Morse code, or, at least, it could be interpreted as such. The most fundamental form of digital communication known to man. So, I ran it through an auto-interpreter a few times, and got a fully coherent message.

I refuse to believe that I’m seeing patterns where there are none. The chances are so astronomically low that I can’t feasibly consider it to be a random signal, especially considering I’ve never received one from somewhere outside the lab.

I’m going to copy over the translation here. I do not wish to instil panic, but please, spread this post. People need to be aware that this is a real possibility.

To whomever is reading this, prepare yourself.

Here it is.

​

[TRANSCRIPT BEGIN]

Hi.

My name is Tim Hermelle. Before I write down this account, I should insist that this is the truth. This is happening to us all right now. This is not a joke, prank, or an interactive project.

This is the truth. You HAVE to believe what you are about to read, for our sakes.

Okay, with that out of the way… shit, it’s getting closer. I’ll write down what I can before we’re pulled back to the city, to join the others. I hope enough context is given in my account for you to fully understand.

I live - lived - in the great city of Pharades (that’s Pha-ra-dees). The utopia of humanity’s future. Life was amazing. Every aspect brought joy and satisfaction to every person. No hunger, thirst, no overpopulation, pollution… a Nirvana if there ever was. The level of advancement may be difficult for some of you to believe

Work was optional, and automatons would fill the spaces left by those choosing to pursue their own personal dreams. Even so, a large number of people here still choose to have jobs, vocations I suppose. Healthcare was unparalleled, and not one person has died during my time here.

Everything major was decided by a vote. It was the perfect democratic system, but I’m no politician, so I wouldn’t be able to explain to you why that is.

Hell, we even had a collective vote to decide the next week’s weather every Sunday. That’s right, we’d taken control of the weather. Want to splash around in puddles, smelling the petrichor? Maybe get a tan on? You’d just have to go and vote for it.

Pharades was, without hyperbole, fucking beautiful. In between the city blocks, there were great swathes of woodland and meadows. Crystal rivers flowed underneath silver bridges, and leaves of every colour painted the landscape like polka dots.

And the city itself, well, they say nature trumps anything manmade in terms of beauty, but I disagree. The intricately designed towers were accented by all the most complementary colours, gold, chrome, red, blue, any combination you could imagine, it was here. Arches, spirals, and patterns of every variety adorned the structures.

The day in question was a Wednesday – not that days of the week held any particular significance anymore. I’d planned to meet with two of my buddies, Erin and Tuan, at our favourite coffee shop a couple of districts over, in the Wantania area.

Historically, the journey may have been arduous, or frustrating. Not now. Most people didn’t even use vehicles anymore – instead, the city had built a vast underground network of ever-shifting and rearranging tracks, called “Tubyrinth”. Each person owned a personal pod of sorts, customisable to any degree.

I input Wantania Central, and hopped inside. My pod contained a sofa and a minifridge, stocked up with my favourite drinks. The journey was always snappy. Each time, the underground superstructure would arrange a new and unique track to be used, direct to a reserved bay.

Just fifteen minutes later, I was stood under the vaulted, ornamental expanse of the station roof, a hundred or so feet above. I always stopped here to just stare upwards for a moment, absorbing the imaginative architecture.

After exiting the station, I was surprised to see that both Erin and Tuan were already waiting for me outside. The good kind of surprised, that slaps a goofy smile onto your face.

“Took you long enough!” Tuan chuckled, finding the irony in his own words hilarious.

“God, I know right?” added Erin, “I was worried I’d need crutches after standing out here waiting!”

“Well, heh, you’re not gonna like this next part,” I joked, and we set off down the street, laughing. Our favourite café was called “Beansmith’s Forge”. It was a cheesy, but endearing name, and the theme fit the three of us like a glove; as I said before, we’d been working on worldbuilding for our fantasy RPG, an immersive neurolink VR experience, where the player could design their own character and have a unique questline auto-generated out of a complex system.

We ordered brunch, and, of course, coffee. I won’t get into the details of our talks, but we quickly finished up, paid, and set off down Gerben Street.

The more exciting event of the day was our session booked at the aptly named Noji Box, something you could call an “anti-grav playground”. Admittedly, I’ve never fully known how it works, just that it involves paired wormholes, immensely powerful electromagnets, and a huge vacuum-chamber.

One thing I was always grateful for was that the automatons, who I saw working robotically through storefront windows, were withheld any accurate human likeness – I’m sure you’ve heard of the uncanny valley, so you’ll know what I mean. They fell just short of it.

All was calm on the walk, as to be expected. We made it to the Noji Box in good time, ten minutes before our session booking. I get it’s company policy to take everyone through the safety basics, but it was admittedly a little boring after many, many past visits.

The only real requirement was that you’d have to wear an “osteopatic suit”. No, osteostatic? Something about keeping your bones from floating away from each other, or from disappearing over time.

We were suited up, ready to enter “S.S. Slamdown”, when a sudden tremor shook the building’s foundations. Everyone shared the same puzzled expression – not once had something like that ever happened in Pharades.

The staff looked a bit stumped at first. I guess they never had to deal with a situation like this in the past. To our dismay, but unsurprisingly, our session was cancelled, and we were told that they would call us later to sort out a re-booking.

I had the strangest feeling when we left and began back down the road. Something similar to déjà vu, but not quite. Like nostalgia, but without the accompanying feeling of reminiscence or joy.

Trying to brush it off, I distracted my mind by humming a tune. I didn’t know what it was from, at the time, but I knew it was a stringed melody. A violin? Thing is, I wasn’t really humming it as much as hearing it in my head.

We rounded a corner, and Erin paused in surprise.

“Oh, that’s… hey, that’s Jeremiah! He’s been playing that fiddle the street over from mine for the past, what, two weeks? Come on, let’s go listen.”

I grew confused when we approached, only to hear the exact same melody that had just been looping in my head. Before I’d heard this guy playing. I don’t remember stumbling upon this particular street performer before this point.

We stood listening for a few minutes, then continued our walk. Thoughts no longer infested with that tune, I was hit with what I can only describe as a taste. The savoury taste of something on my tongue, complete with mustard and relish. Meat of some kind?

The concern started to flourish when we came upon a food truck, and Tuan asked if we were hungry. Sure, we’d just eaten at the coffee shop, but I could fit in one more tasty bite. He offered to pay, which we gladly accepted, and he returned with… hotdogs. With mustard. And relish.

My gratitude masked the ever-growing confusion within me. Was this just a weird coincidence, or something else? Did I know we were going to get hotdogs?

We wound up back at the station, where a feeling of detached sorrow welled up inside me, something you might feel after recalling a bad memory from which you’ve since recovered. I understood then that I would run into my on-good-terms ex inside. But, before we could enter, another rumbling tremor swept across the street, followed by the clamour of destruction and screams from inside.

A grey dust cloud plumed out from the entrance, sweeping us off of our feet. I saw Erin flipped face-first into the pavement, just as I caught my heel on the base of a stop sign. Yet another quake boomed underneath the asphalt.

The asphalt I was falling down onto… but the impact didn’t come. Instead of a hard surface, the sensation of falling went on. You know that feeling when you think there’s another step at the bottom of the stairs, only to find the floor instead? It was just like that.

The ground I fell upon wasn’t asphalt. It rang out as I collided, almost hollow-sounding. Metallic. Maybe it was just my head ringing, but without a doubt, I was not in the street anymore.

I sat up, and my palms confirmed I was on a metal floor, the kind with those diamond-shaped grips. Looking around almost caused a complete sensory overload, immediately. A multitude of flashing lights, screens, wires, buttons, and all sorts decorated the room. It looked not far off from the control room of an intelligence agency – at least, how they’re depicted in movies.

I got onto one knee and pivoted to look around. The tall man standing directly behind me almost led to a second fall, but instead I scooted backward frantically at the sight.

The man – well, I say “man”, but this person didn’t really have any distinguishing features. They were wearing a spotless black and white cloak of some kind, and a metal cage covering the upper half of their face, so that only their mouth was visible.

They stood still, not reacting to my show of surprise, then spoke in the most androgynous voice conceivable.

“How did you get in here?”

I scanned the room, finding that there were no obvious entrances anywhere around, like we were inside a closed-off box.

“I- uh, I fell over, a-and next thing I know – here,” I stuttered.

“Well, you shouldn’t be here, and there’s no way that you should be able to get here.”

I stood up, feeling a little more comfortable in the presence of this stranger, though not letting my guard down entirely. Now, I could see the pictures displayed across the screens – they seemed to be feeds of countless locations in Pharades, streets, woodlands, you name it.

“What… what the hell’s going on here? Who are you? Why are you spying on the city?”

The stranger didn’t seem amused, being pelted with questions, and held up a hand, gesturing me to stop. They let out a deep, held breath.

“Well, since you’re here, I may as well enlighten you. Take a seat.”

So I did. I sat in shock and disbelief for the next five minutes as the person answered all my questions, even the ones I didn’t know I wanted to ask. They introduced themselves simply as “Administrator”, but I chose “Admin”, to avoid the mouthful.

Admin proceeded to tell me the truth, as casually as one would talk about the weather.

It wasn’t real.

A simulation.

They told me we were inside a highly advanced, self-sustaining, supercomputer pod travelling through deep space, harvesting energy from ions extracted from the surrounding vacuum. Over a hundred trillion years ago, those living here now consented in having their consciousness imported to the device.

On top of the ion harvesting, power was supposedly generated from emotions experienced by a consciousness – the more intense an emotion or feeling, the more power generated.

I interrupted the monologue at this point with a question they hadn’t seemed to consider,

“Let’s say I believe what you’re saying. If this system’s been up for as long as you say, why did I only just have my 29th birthday, what, two months back now?”

“I understand your concern, but allow me to continue. Every 50 years, it is reset. All your memories are wiped and locked away until the moments when you would again make those memories. There are only a set number of people who were uploaded to the system, and their minds cannot simply be deleted if they were to die.”

Not only a simulation, but an endless loop? My brain felt like it might burst.

“Wait,” I said, “if we’re reset every time, and everything plays out the same… then, we can’t possibly have any free will of our own, right?”

“I suppose you could say that. But the illusion we, I, have worked tirelessly to maintain, gives the impression that you do.”

“Wh… what? So, the original me signed up for this? But I’m not him! I’m a copy, aren’t I? Do I have a choice in this?”

“There is no way for me to erase any person that lives here. Only if the pod itself is damaged or destroyed, can I, or anyone else, truly die. The Great Stellar Extinction has come and gone, and all that remains outside is cold, and dark. A handful of black and brown dwarves, and black holes. To my knowledge.”

The sudden feeling of intense, hollow loneliness filled up my chest. We were alone in a great black sea of nothingness. My slack jaw must have told Admin I didn’t have the capacity to speak.

“Over time, I have lost contact with the hundreds of thousands of other pods that were ejected from Earth all that time ago. Either they are too far now, or they met a destructive end. I can’t say which is the better, anymore.”

Absorbing the sudden truth, the emptiness evolved into anger.

“Let me get this straight. We, living our lives down there, are puppets to you? Is that it? Just an endless cycle of digital paradise, kept in the dark of all you’ve just told me? How can you possibly justify this?!”

“Calm down. Having your memories wiped is a luxury I myself cannot afford. Anyway, that’s only the preface of what I need to talk about. I’m sure you also noticed the tremors, down there?”

“The tremors? Oh, oh yeah. Sort of ruined my plans, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“I didn’t do anything. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Whatever the cause, it’s not within this pod.”

I took it all in. A system malfunction? Why did the Admin feel the need to share this with me?

“Is… is that why, maybe, that I could predict some of the things that happened afterwards?”

“It’s worse than I thought. The memory suppression seems to be failing.”

Both of us paused for a moment. The silence was deafening.

“I’ve been taking readings on the external sensors. There’s… something out there. An object. It’s been following us for a while now, but with no starlight left, I don’t know what it is. Space debris couldn’t move on its own accord like this thing is.”

“What are you trying to say?” I sputtered, the dread I felt deepening by the second.

“I’m saying that something has found us.”

My blood ran cold. Found us? What could have found us?

“Didn’t you say all the stars are dead? The universe is just darkness now. What could have found us? What?”

“I wish I had the answers, too. I don’t think we’re safe anymore. The most recent readings imply that whatever it is, it’s latched onto the pod somehow. Possibly-“

Admin was cut off by the loud screech of static from the speakers around the room. Their head shot up to the nearest corner in a manner that set me on a knife’s edge.

The tremors returned with a vengeance now, and the both of us were sent sprawling onto the floor. I didn’t fall through it this time, though. Sparks flew and monitors went offline.

I was about to ask what we should do, when the roaring static settled, and something else started to play.

An innocent, childlike giggle. Gurgled coos, infantile squeals of joy that pierced my eardrums like needles and left them ringing. Remembering the sounds that came from those speakers make my insides twist and yearn to escape my body, knowing what came next.

The laughter grew, and so did the tremors. The room started to collapse, wires and boxes raining down upon us. Well, not really collapse, no, but change. The far wall crumpled, like something on the other side assailed it with forceful impacts, and the room began to shrink.

As if that dark place wasn’t claustrophobic enough, the ceiling, walls, everything began to close in on us. All the while, the childlike giggling only grew in joy. I thought we were to be crushed and snapped by the pressure, when we were abruptly freed.

It had happened again. Pushed through the floor and spat out somewhere else. This time, I – we – found ourselves near a paved road leading out of one of the city blocks, into a green meadow which gave way to trees a ways down.

Something was terribly wrong. Only after brushing myself off and standing up did I become aware of the swirling darkness that replaced the once baby-blue sky, with its cotton candy clouds. A heavy and unsettling calm had fallen upon us, dampening the city’s brilliance. No more did sunlight gleam off the ornate spires and arches, replaced by a still, hanging shadow.

The eerie quiet was shattered by that godforsaken crackling, booming across the landscape, despite not a speaker in sight, again followed by those ill-belonging coos and cries. Accompanying the infantile sputtering came an uproar of cracking and crumbling, great impacts from deep within the city’s heart.

Both Admin and I stared in disbelief as distant buildings sunk into the ground, while others twisted and warped their way into the sky, as if made from soft clay. Some just disappeared entirely, leaving not a shred of evidence behind that they had ever been there, while their former inhabitants plunged from storeys above.

“It’s taken my place.”

Those four unprompted words shook me to the core of my being. The god of this world had been usurped.

“But why?” I found myself asking, “with what motive?”

Admin went to reply, but stopped upon seeing the great, pinkish masses floating up out of the streets, far ahead. We stared in bewilderment, trying to make out what they were. The chorus of screams hurried us to the realisation that the balls were… they were made of people.

Agonised, howling faces littered the fleshy abominations, while more objects rose around them. Structural beams, signposts, metal objects of every kind gravitated toward the amalgams of humanity, before their relentless assaults began.

Ripping, tearing, stabbing, slicing… it was already too much for my mind to comprehend. It garnered no reaction from myself other than stunned shock. Flesh and blood spewed from the masses, and orbited around them like the rings of Saturn, falling back in to haphazardly patch themselves back onto the wailing people.

My thoughtless attention was redirected as a frantic deluge of citizens fled the city, running down the street towards us. One by one, the exodus was halted, people seeming to stop in place abruptly, though the screams did not relent.

I couldn’t see what had stopped them until the crowd drew closer, where I saw an elderly man whip forward, foot stuck fast, instantly snapping his knee from the momentum. He let out a heart-wrenching cry as he fell down and looked to see what had stopped him.

Something that looked like roots, water pipes maybe, had erupted through the tarmac and coiled their way up his leg. I could see the strength draining in his eyes as they stood him back upright by force, wrapping around his entire body.

I watched in abject horror as he was raised off the ground, and each and every one of the old man’s limbs were bent and snapped at unnatural angles, shattering frail bones into dust.

His feeble cries were promptly silenced as a squirming metal tube forced its way inside his mouth, his eyes rolling back in unfathomable agony as the bulging mass forced its way down his throat, splitting his ribcage apart and allowing the organs within to slop out and float in the air, as if weightless. The whole process seemed to reverse itself in time, then repeat, over and over.

I could only hear the echoes of Admin’s shouts and the faint sensation of their grip on my forearm as they pulled me away from the mind-bending atrocity. My vacant body tumbled backward, sending both of us falling onto the grass.

Still I could only sit there, frozen. Somewhere off to the right, I saw a young woman pulling presumably her daughter along by the wrist, fleeing the hellscape of flesh and bone down a small alley. Her head spun wildly as she noticed the walls of the alleyway closing in around them.

She burst out into the open, but was yanked back, her grip fast. She turned in desperation, only to see her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than seven, being slowly crushed into a paste of bloody flesh and yellow fat. Her pitiful screams still ring in my ears, seeing her child suffer such a terrible fate.

Admin was finally triumphant in breaking my trance, and I rushed to my feet, stumbling before gaining my footing and bolting the fuck out of there. The childish giggling echoing out over the sky only served to push me forwards and away from that place.

“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelped, glancing over to Admin, hoping they could offer just the slightest of explanations.

“I have an idea, but we need to get somewhere first. You see that hill through the woods, right over there?”

“Hill? To the observatory?”

“There’s one last thing we can try to stop this. It’s a shot in the dark, but I can’t just stand here and fade away with the rest.”

High speed winds whipped the trees as we ran below them, leaves fluttering in a wild seizure. Air-splitting cracks sounded, so loud my ears began to ring once more, and I looked over my shoulder to see what they could have been.

Blazing spouts of fire shot down from the clouds behind, more akin to lightning than anything, striking the forsaken with white-hot temperatures. Even from a distance, I could see skin and flesh melt off of bones like candle wax, forming spiralling clouds of organic vapour.

In my distraction, I ran straight into a tree, and tumbled over, blood leaking from a small cut on my forehead. Admin skidded to a stop and pulled me up to my feet, and ran onwards, not waiting for a moment to ask if I was okay.

Neither of us were okay. That was a given now.

We reached the top of the hill without too much effort – seems it was programmed for everyone to have an above-average level of fitness, young or old regardless.

Admin frantically, but methodically, sifted through what appeared to be a large hoop of keys, searching for the one to fit the observatory’s door. I looked back over to where we had fled from.

The twisted buildings coiled toward the sky, gargantuan talons holding captive everyone I’d ever known. But there was something else. Far behind the city, in the distant hills and woodland, a great black wave that spanned the horizon was travelling towards us, eviscerating the world itself. All it left behind was an endless chasm of darkness, defying reality itself.

The tsunami came closer, before stopping at the city’s outskirts, leaving only a towering earthen spire of suffering, flaming bolts cracking down upon it.

“Admin, what is going on?!”

They paused for a moment, then continued working on the several locks barring our entry.

“Do you remember what I told you earlier, when you found me? How this system is able to keep on running, over the trillions of years?”

“…ions?”

“Yes, but that’s only the basis. I told you that emotional activity generates power, yes? The more intense an emotion, the more power generated?”

“What are you getting at?”

“This is pure theory, but I believe that whatever is out there is feeding off of the system.”

“Is that why all that was happening? The-“

I stifled a gag, recalling the horrors fresh in my memory.

“Again, it’s a theory. I don’t understand what it is. If the constraints of the universe are loose enough for something to evolve in its endless darkness, to predate on the last sources of energy within it… I don’t know. And I doubt we ever will.”

I stared out at the hellscape, speechless. Finally, Admin found the right key, yanked the door open, and pulled me inside by the arm.

“Hey!” Admin yelled, snapping their fingers, “I need you to be present for this. I am restricted in this world, I can’t break and reform things like you can. A failsafe, for if the power were to go to my head. Follow my instructions exactly.”

They told me how to break apart some of the technology in the observatory, and rewire it into a different machine. I had no idea what we were creating at the time, but complied nonetheless.

The finished product was a makeshift beacon of some kind, connected to the nearby terminal.

“Thank you. Now, type.”

“Type what?”

“Everything that has happened. Add as many details as you can, because we won’t have another chance to get this out there.”

“O-okay, what is this thing? A radio?”

“In a way. The observatory is one of the only places here that has a connection to the outside. I have used it more than once to observe the universe fading away. This setup will send our transmission as a unique, superluminal type of wave. Hurry, we can’t waste time chatting about this.”

And so, here we are. I don’t know who will be hearing this, if anyone at all.

I beg of you, consider how our advancements might be our downfall.

It’s almost here. I can hear the flaming bolts striking the forest, closer.

This is my account. Please save us. Please spare us.

Don’t condemn us as you have.

[TRANSCRIPT END]

​

There it is. I’ve revised the translation more times than I can count, and I’m sure there’s no mistake here.

Other readings imply that this message has travelled an unimaginably vast distance, and not only over space. Repeated triangulation only tells me this came from above, somewhere far away, among the stars.

I can feel the edges of my mind singeing. This can’t be proven as truth, nor can it be discredited. There’s no possible way to explain how this message came from our own planet.

I’m trying to be rational, but I think we need to consider future development very carefully. As a people, we have always rushed through our technological advancements at an incredible speed, not stopping to consider all the consequences that might follow.

If anyone will believe this, please spread it around. I have no doubt this post will be taken down the moment they find it. As for myself, I’ll be disgraced, probably. Stuck in a cold cell, most likely.

Spread the word. The fact that the higher-ups will attempt to conceal this is a cruel thing indeed, if any of it’s true.

Signing off.