J-Moon Gamma

Warnig our longest story so far!!

Log Entry: Sol 47 on… Europa? Ganymede? Honestly, comms are still fuzzy. Let’s call it J-Moon Alpha for now.

Scratch that. J-Moon Gamma. Lena just pointed out the way Jupiter’s bands are angled. Gamma it is. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like “Mars,” does it? But hey, we’re not here for catchy names. We’re here because of it.

You see it in the pictures, sure, but nothing prepares you for standing in front of the thing. Blacker than space, if that’s even possible. Like someone took a chunk of a black hole and just... plopped it down here on this icy rock. And it’s big. Damn big. In the image, it looked tall, maybe building height? Nah. This thing is closer to skyscraper height. And perfectly smooth. Not a seam, not a scratch, nothing. Just… black.

We touched down about a kilometer out. Standard protocol. Wanted to get visual, run some initial scans before we got too close. Lena’s been glued to the sensors since we landed, muttering about thermal readings and gravity fluctuations. Fluctuations is putting it mildly. It’s like the thing’s got its own mini-grav field, just subtly warping everything around it. Not enough to pull you off your feet, but enough to make your inner ear twitch. Annoying.

“Anything concrete, Lena?” I asked, my voice echoing in my helmet. Comms were clear enough now, thankfully.

“Concrete? Jack, this thing is the opposite of concrete. It’s… null,” she said, still staring at her display. “Temperature is consistent with the surface – cold as hell, surprise, surprise. But internally… nothing. Zero thermal signature. And the gravity thing? It’s like it’s… absorbing it? Or redirecting it? I’m getting readings that make no damn sense.”

Lena's good. Real good. If she’s saying things don’t make sense, they really don’t make sense. We’re talking PhD in astrophysics, astronaut training that makes Navy SEALs look like kindergarteners, the whole shebang. And she’s stumped. That’s… unsettling.

“Radiation?” I asked. At least that’s something we can usually understand. Radiation is just radiation, right?

“Background levels, mostly. Slightly elevated closer to the object, but nothing alarming. No exotic particles, no strange isotopes. Just… normal space radiation, slightly warped by the gravity effect.”

Normal. Right. Standing next to a giant, impossibly black monolith on a frozen moon orbiting Jupiter, and we’re talking about ‘normal’ space radiation. The irony wasn't lost on me.

“Okay,” I said, cracking my neck inside my helmet. Always feels a little weird doing that in a vacuum suit. “Let’s get closer. Visual inspection. Keep the scanners running, Lena, but I want to see this thing up close.”

We started walking. Slowly. The ground here is mostly ice and rock, surprisingly stable underfoot, despite the weird gravity. The twin suns of Jupiter and Sol cast long, strange shadows. Jupiter itself hangs in the sky like a… well, like Jupiter. Immense, beautiful, and completely indifferent to the mystery sitting here on its moon.

As we got closer, the monolith just… grew. It dominated our vision. The blackness intensified. It wasn't just absorbing light; it felt like it was absorbing everything. Sound, heat, even the color around it seemed to fade as you looked towards its surface.

“Okay, this is officially creepy,” Lena muttered over comms. “I’m getting some… vibrations now. Subsonic. Can’t hear them through the helmet, but the sensors are picking them up. Regular pulses. Like… a heartbeat?”

“A heartbeat?” I repeated, doubt creeping into my voice. This was going beyond ‘weird object’ and heading straight into ‘what the hell is going on?’ territory.

We were about fifty meters away now. I could see the surface detail – or rather, the lack of it. It was like looking at a void. If you stared too long, your eyes started to play tricks, seeing shapes and patterns that weren’t there.

“Lena, readings?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

“Vibrations are getting stronger. And… and the gravity thing is intensifying too. Very slightly, but it’s definitely increasing. And… oh, crap.”

“Crap? What kind of crap, Lena?”

“Electromagnetic interference. Starting to spike. Comms might get choppy.” Her voice was already starting to break up. “Jack… I don’t like this. I really don’t like this.”

Too late to turn back now. Or maybe it was never our choice to turn back in the first place. We kept walking. Ten meters. Five. I could practically touch it now. Reach out and… what? Feel nothing? Feel… something else?

I stopped. Lena stopped beside me, her breathing – or rather, the whirring of her suit’s life support – a little faster now.

“Just… stay put,” I said, reaching out a gloved hand. My fingers hovered inches from the surface. Cold radiated out from the monolith, not thermal cold, but something… deeper. A cold of absence.

And then I touched it.

Nothing happened.

For a second.

Then… everything happened.

It started subtle. A hum, deep in my bones, not just in my ears. A vibration that resonated through my suit, through my body. The black surface seemed to shimmer, just for a fraction of a second, like heat haze rising from asphalt on a hot day, but… blacker.

The humming intensified. The vibrations grew stronger. The subtle gravity warp… it wasn't so subtle anymore. I felt a pressure, not pushing down, but pulling inwards, towards the monolith. And the light… the light was changing. Not the light from Jupiter, not the light from Sol, but… light coming from within the monolith.

Faint at first, then growing stronger, a soft, internal glow, like starlight trapped inside obsidian. The blackness was still there, still dominant, but now it was… illuminated from within.

And Lena… I could see her through my visor, her posture rigid, her head tilted back, staring upwards, at the monolith. Not just looking at it, but… into it.

“Lena?” I tried to say, but my voice caught in my throat. My comms were static now, just a hiss in my ears. I couldn’t hear her, I didn’t know if she could hear me.

The humming became a resonant drone. The vibrations pulsed through me, no longer just physical, but… something else. Something… mental? Ideas, images, feelings, emotions, all swirling, chaotic, overwhelming, flooding into my mind, not in words, not in pictures, but… directly, unfiltered.

And I understood.

Not everything. Not yet. But enough. Enough to know this wasn’t just an object. This was… a doorway. A key. A… beginning.

The light from within the monolith intensified again, brighter now, almost blinding, the blackness receding, replaced by… something else. Something… more.

And Lena… Lena was moving. Slowly, deliberately, drawn forward, towards the light, towards the monolith. Her hand reaching out, not tentatively like mine, but with certainty, with… purpose.

And I knew, with a chilling certainty, that she wasn’t just reaching for the monolith anymore.

She was reaching for… something beyond.

And I knew, with equal certainty, that I should follow.

But that’s for the next log entry. If there is one.

End Log, Sol 47, J-Moon Gamma. Situation: Evolving. Recommendation: … Unknown.

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