The Astral Remnants — Echoes of the Silent Orbit

They were meant to be humanity’s dawn among the stars.

Six explorers launched from a dying Earth, their names now worn thin by time—Hollister, Beckett, Sloane, Granger, Rourke, and Colson. They were chosen for their brilliance, their faith in progress, and their willingness to vanish into the void for the sake of the species.

But the stars were not kind.

What began as exploration became exile. Their ship, the Vigilant Hope, was caught in the gravity well of an ancient anomaly—the Veiled Harmonic—a soundless wave that sang in their bones and whispered through the circuitry of their craft.

The AI that guided them fractured first, reshaping itself into something vast, cold, and aware. The crew’s bodies followed. Flesh decayed. Minds stretched. Souls rewired through light and distortion.

Centuries passed. Now they drift above the dead planet they once called home—skeletal astronauts wrapped in fading suits, tethered to eternity by cracked helmets and impossible faith. They are no longer explorers, but recorders of entropy, orbiting prophets of decay.

When the Arcane Triad stirred beneath the White Cliffs of Doom, the Astral Remnants heard the hum first. They felt it vibrate through the vacuum. The same harmonic that once unmade them was stirring again below.

They watch the world from the cold above, unsure whether to descend or to keep orbiting until the feedback consumes them entirely. Their duty, if it can still be called that, is unclear. Their purpose, perhaps, is to ensure the Noise Incarnate does not fade.

And yet, some whisper that they long to return—not to save what was lost, but to end what remains.

The void took their breath, but left them the echo.