Tertium Organum - The Threshold Between Evolution and the Abyss
"A universe that can
be created with a blink
of an eye can also be
destroyed with the
same movement."
~ Nicola Yoon
⛧⛧⛧
The silence was heavy. Inside the Orion, a gigantic ship designed for long-distance exploration missions, the systems worked with almost supernatural precision, propelling the crew toward a journey to an unknown world.
The mission seemed simple by the standards of the year 2500: unravel the origin of a mysterious alien code, deciphered from the lost transmission of a probe, Kepler-89, which had vanished without a trace 50 years earlier.
In the command room, Commander Caio Tagliaferri watched the illuminated panel. In front of him, the vast space abyss stretched out, formless, soundless, only the black void cloaked by billions of points of light.
"How much longer until arrival?" Caio asked, without taking his eyes off the emptiness ahead.
"Six hours, Commander," replied John, the co-pilot, in a firm voice.
"Alright. If anything goes wrong, I want everyone ready. We can't underestimate what we’ll find."
On the other side of the control room, Lisa Harker, the mission's linguistics expert and medic, tightly gripped the crucifix around her neck. Her mind was absorbed in the complex languages of the codes that had been transmitted. All of it felt surreal, and she still questioned how they could be so certain this would be the key to human evolution.
Estevão, the pilot, glanced over at her.
"Lisa, you're still lost in thought. Haven't figured anything out yet?" he asked, forcing a smile.
She sighed.
"If I could... The languages here are a hybrid of everything we know. They toy with the concept of semantic constructs... The 'Tertium Organum'... it's something that transcends our understanding. It could be a dictionary or... a key to something far worse." Lisa shivered.
Caio frowned.
"Worse how?"
"Like it's a trap," Lisa whispered, hesitantly.
The mission’s scientist, Sebastian Wolf, overheard the conversation from a distance and approached.
"We all know what's awaiting us. If it really is the Tertium Organum... Well, we're here to learn, not to fear."
Wolf was a pragmatic man, a genius in his field, but his gaze was disturbingly cold. He firmly believed that humanity needed something greater, something that would lift them out of evolutionary mediocrity. The Tertium Organum, a promise of transcendence, was the pinnacle of his research.
⛧⛧⛧
Six hours later, the Orion decelerated, hovering in orbit over an unknown planet, circling a black hole that consumed all light around it. The sight was surreal: the planet had a greenish-gray glow, an alien desolation. But there was something more, a cyclopean structure rising from the surface.
"We’re ready to descend," said Estevão.
Caio nodded.
"Ground team, get ready."
Everyone checked their spacesuits, helmets, and oxygen cylinders before putting them on. Everything was set.
The descent was tense.
The team, consisting of Caio, Lisa, Wolf, Estevão, and engineer Ronnie Trevor, disembarked to explore the ruins that stretched ahead, like an alien puzzle. As they advanced, the air grew dense, almost palpable, and a strange sensation of being watched surrounded them.
The ruins were covered in symbols, the same ones Lisa had seen in the Kepler-89 transmission. She approached a wall covered in shimmering runes.
"This doesn’t make sense..." she murmured.
Ronnie, standing beside her, looked at her curiously.
"What is it?"
"The symbols... They... change. They’re alive." Lisa touched the cold stone with her gloved hand. Her fingers trembled as she felt an unsettling vibration run through her hand.
Wolf, observing the scene, approached with interest. The gleam in his eyes betrayed his fascination.
"This is incredible. They seem to respond to human touch."
"Or study us," Lisa whispered, taking a step back, trying to hide the discomfort she felt.
Then, from the center of the ruins, something moved. A black, distorted silhouette, almost intangible. It had no defined shape, but its edges pulsed with a sickly energy. The thing slowly advanced, emitting a guttural sound that reverberated through the ground.
"What the hell is that?" Estevão stepped back, drawing his weapon.
Caio looked at him, trying to remain calm.
"Don’t shoot. It could be the answer we came for."
"Commander, this doesn’t look like an answer. This looks... like something out of a nightmare," Estevão replied, eyes fixed on the entity.
Lisa, however, felt a strange connection to that presence.
"It’s trying... to communicate," she said, her eyes locked on the entity. "The Tertium Organum... is this. It’s not a code. It’s a being, or a superior intelligence that transcends time and space. We are the codes, and they are deciphering us."
Wolf took a step forward, without hesitation, fascinated by the creature that seemed to float toward them.
"Imagine, Caio! This is what we were searching for! They are evolution, the key to the next level!"
"Or they are our destruction," Ronnie murmured, noticing something the others hadn’t yet. The ground beneath them started to deform, as if it were part of the entity itself.
"We need to get out of here, now!" he shouted, pulling Wolf back.
The thing advanced, its shapes growing more erratic and horrifying. The air around them distorted, and they could all feel reality bending. Disturbing visions began to flood their minds. Each of them faced something deep, primordial — their greatest fears, buried traumas, unspeakable horrors.
For Caio, it was the eternal void, the abyss. He saw the end of humanity, its inevitable extinction. For Lisa, it was madness; symbols that devoured her, consumed her mind, distorted her memories and emotions until she no longer knew who she was. For Wolf, it was pure revelation: the knowledge he sought was a lie, a trap that would lead him to complete annihilation.
"This is a cycle. We’re not evolving... we’re repeating," Lisa murmured, her eyes vacant as her lips trembled.
The entity emitted a high-pitched sound, and the gravity around them seemed to fail. Estevão fell to his knees, eyes wide in terror.
"No... no... this can’t be real!"
Caio tried to reach his crew, but his hand momentarily disappeared in the air, as if reality itself was faltering.
"We have to get out! Now!" he yelled.
They ran back to the ship, but the Orion seemed different, as if it were just a shadow of what it once was. When they finally managed to get aboard, everything was silent. John, who had stayed in control of the ship, was paralyzed, his eyes wide open, lifeless. Beside him, Sebastian Wolf, the last to board, watched the scene with an enigmatic smile.
"Don’t you see?" he murmured. "We’ve already crossed the threshold. The Tertium Organum... is us."
The rest of the crew stared at him in shock.
"What are you saying?" Caio asked, trying to understand what was happening.
Wolf chuckled softly, a laugh that echoed through the walls of the Orion.
"Knowledge, Caio... It’s a curse. This mission wasn’t about discovering our evolution. It was to destroy us. We were drawn into the abyss, and now... there’s no way back."
The horror unfolded, and the truth began to weigh on each of them. They were beyond time, beyond space...
The Orion was no longer a ship, but a fragment of the very madness they had awakened.