Chapter 5 - The Lost Ship

The journey to the black hole was a scientific marvel in and of itself. Dr. Nyle Amara sat at the command chair of his small exploratory vessel, his eyes fixated on the screens ahead, which displayed the glowing mass of KX-31, the black hole that loomed like a cosmic predator. But it was not the black hole that intrigued him. It was the object just at its edge, a vague shadow picked up by his ship’s sensors—something impossibly massive, lurking just beyond the event horizon. 

 “just as I had thought...” he whispered to himself. His assumptions were all correct; The black hole didn’t function as ideal black hole they knew. It didn’t spaghettify matter as nor dilate time. He activated the external cameras, and there it was—the Epochis. At first, it looked like some sort of asteroid or space debris, but as the ship crept closer, the true scale of it became apparent. His breath caught in his throat as the ship’s scanners adjusted and the object came into clearer view. It was a ship—unlike anything Nyle had ever seen. It wasn’t merely odd; it was confusing. The hull shimmered faintly, an iridescent glow tracing the serpentine coils of its surface. His ship's proximity sensors struggled to make sense of its dimensions. It seemed to twist upon itself, a vast loop that spiraled inward in a never-ending ouroboros. The central body of the ship was the size of a small moon, with long, curling appendages that coiled into each other like a galactic serpent devouring its own tail.

  "This can't be from our time..." Dara spoke into the receiver. The ship’s construction didn’t match any known civilization in human history. The design was far too advanced, yet paradoxically it radiated a sense of being far older than anything created by man.

 “The future?” Dr. Nyle knew he sounded rather stupid than a physicist.

  As his vessel drifted closer, the Epochis responded. Lights flickered to life across the surface, and the ship's runes began to glow, pulsating in time with the nearby black hole. He glanced at the readings again, his hands tightening around the controls as a feeling of dread crept over him. The ship was awake.

  With a cautious breath, he activated his ship’s long-range scanners, focusing on the interior of the massive structure. The scans painted a labyrinth of endless corridors, vast chambers, and what appeared to be a colossal central sphere—a reactor of sorts, but one that emitted readings that were off the charts. Time distortions. Gravitational anomalies. It was as though the laws of physics didn’t apply inside the ship. Nyle's heart raced. This was it—the discovery that could change everything. A ship so close to a black hole, undamaged and dormant for perhaps eons. Could it hold the answers he had been searching for? The key to time travel? His thoughts raced to the project—the Ouroboran Artifact theory he’d been chasing for years. Could this be the fabled civilization that had mastered time itself? His ship's automated systems blared a proximity warning as it drifted closer, almost into the orbit of the Epochis. The black hole's gravity pulled at his small craft. Though very minute, he could still feel the strain on the engines. The Epochis, however, remained eerily still, defying the laws of physics that should have torn it apart long ago. Nyle and Dara brought their ship to a halt, floating just above the surface of the ancient vessel. His mind buzzed with the implications. If this ship held technology that could survive the immense gravitational pull of a black hole or even shut down its gravity, what else might it contain? And, more importantly, who—or what—had built it? He suited up, his hands shaking as he prepared for the most dangerous part of the mission.

 “Ready?” He said over the receiver to Dara.

 “Was born ready” Dara responded, her voice filled with anxiety.

  His fingers hovered over the airlock controls, ready to initiate a spacewalk. But just as his ship aligned with what appeared to be an entry port, a flicker of motion caught his eye. Something shifted within the ship, and the external lights dimmed as though responding to his presence. The Epochis was waiting for him. 

 He didn’t find the Epochis, the Epochis found him!