The Veil of the Cosmic Harbinger
Shaylin plodded across the ancient stone pathway, her leather sandals slapping softly against the age-worn remnants of the city’s former grandeur. The warm hues of dusk painted the sky above Atlantis—a city whispered about for millennia, its golden spires now crumbling into the embrace of the encroaching sea. Her braided hair cascaded down her back in dark rivulets, adorned with silver clasps that jingled softly with each step. She wore a sleeveless tunic of teal linen intricately embroidered with geometric patterns, a sash tied securely at her waist. Her eyes, sharp and amber like the glow of a predator in the night, scanned the air with curiosity mingled with unease.
The crowd had gathered in the city's plaza, a coliseum of ivory and gold with concentric tiers that spiraled into the heavens. Merchants abandoned their wares, children ceased their games, and the wind carried an unnatural stillness. All eyes were fixed upwards, where thick clouds roiled like ink spilled into water. A bright silver tear appeared in the heavens—a crack in reality itself. A low thrum vibrated the stones beneath Shaylin’s feet, causing the closest amphora to shatter.
Next to her, her mentor, Lysandros, a weathered man draped in a flowing robe of deep cerulean, whispered, “It is as the stars foretold. The Harbinger comes.” His voice was both reverent and drenched in dread.
“You mean to say it’s real?” Shaylin whispered back, her hand instinctively brushing the taut leather strap of her satchel, which contained her translation tablet and ceremonial dagger.
“You doubt the stars' wisdom, girl?” he chided, though his trembling hands betrayed his own apprehensions. Atlantis had always charted the movements of celestial bodies with obsessive dedication. Their priests had long prophesied that a day would come when an emissary from beyond the stars would descend, bringing either untold enlightenment—or apocalyptic ruin.
The Arrival
The tear in the sky widened, and from its luminous depths emerged a craft unlike anything Atlantean artisans could have imagined. It was sleek, geometric, crescent-shaped, and glinting as if made from liquid light. No smoke, no fire—just otherworldly silence as it descended to the plaza's center.
Shaylin fought the primal urge to flee. Instead, she ducked behind a weathered pillar, peeking cautiously as metallic ripples coursed through the craft’s surface. A portal opened in its side, spilling blinding white light onto the mosaic floor of the plaza. From within emerged a figure—humanoid, yes, but impossibly tall and wrapped in armor that shimmered like dancing starlight. Its face was obscured behind a smooth, featureless mask.
Gasps rippled through the plaza. The Harbinger raised an elongated limb, holding a translucent sphere that pulsated softly, dimming and brightening in rhythmic patterns. The alien being turned its head slowly, scanning the Atlanteans like an apex predator surveying prey.
Shaylin spared a glance at Lysandros, whose face had turned as pale as salt. The older man kept murmuring fragments of chants and prayers under his breath. “It came too soon,” he said, clutching the brooch pinned to his chest—an engraved likeness of the three moons that orbited Atlantis.
“What does it want?” Shaylin asked, though she doubted even the city’s wisest scholars could answer.
The Translator's Gamble
Ignoring Lysandros’ protests, Shaylin stepped forward, emboldened by a stubborn streak that had earned her both accolades and ire throughout her life. As the only linguist in Atlantis who had studied the celestial runes, she couldn’t let anyone else botch this monumental moment of first contact. Her body was taut with tension, her fists clenched beside her hips, but her voice rang with practiced authority.
“O great traveler!” she called in the Atlantean tongue. “We welcome you to our realm with open hearts. Tell us, what is your purpose?”
The Harbinger paused, its faceless mask tilting down toward her. The translucent sphere it held began to pulse faster, emitting a low, resonant hum that rattled her very thoughts. The pulses appeared to form a pattern—a language? She quickly retrieved a wax slate from her satchel and began sketching, her fingers trembling as she decoded in real time.
Her forehead dampened with sweat as she worked. “It… it says it seeks knowledge of our ‘echoes.’ It asks about our… transmissions?”
Lysandros, having inched closer, hissed, “Echoes? This is nonsense! What does it mean?”
Shaylin frowned, her eyes daring to meet the Harbinger’s featureless void of a face. “I think it’s referring to the temples’ chantings—the music we broadcast into the heavens. It must’ve found them.”
The Harbinger raised the sphere again, and this time, it projected a vivid image into the air. The hologram rippled with clarity—it showed Atlantis as charted by the stars, but something was wrong. In its depiction, the oceans rose until they swallowed entire quadrants of the city, sparing only the soaring temples and the observatory pinnacle.
The crowd stirred uneasily, the interpretation glaringly obvious: judgment loomed, and its source wasn’t divine—it was extraterrestrial.
The Choice
“Atlantis has aimed its gaze too far,” Lysandros muttered bitterly. “We should never have sent those infernal melodies skyward.”
“We were seeking kinship!” Shaylin retorted, though her voice faltered under the weight of the holographic omen. Turning back to the Harbinger, she raised both hands. “If we’ve erred, grant us the chance to amend it! Do not condemn us without trial!”
The alien’s sphere made another low hum, settling into a steady rhythm that echoed the beating of a drum—or a heart. Slowly, the Harbinger extended the sphere towards Shaylin, its motion deliberate and otherworldly.
Lysandros grabbed her arm, fear pulling taut his weathered face. “Don’t accept it! You know not what it will do!”
Shaylin hesitated but broke free of his grip. She approached the alien’s gift with trepidation. The moment her hand brushed the surface of the sphere, her mind erupted with a flood of visions—vast galaxies, dying stars, languages that wove themselves into math and light. She gasped, left trembling on her knees as the sphere floated back to its bearer.
The Parting
The Harbinger withdrew to its ship, and as silently as it had arrived, the craft ascended into the sky, leaving the Atlanteans stupefied in its wake. Shaylin sat on the ground, clutching her temples, her amber eyes brimming with ancient sorrow and newfound understanding.
“What did you see?” Lysandros asked, his gruffness faltering as he gazed at her pale, haunted face.
After a long silence, she whispered, “They’re not coming back, not now. Not ever. We’re… unworthy.”
Lysandros looked almost relieved, though the consequences lingered unspoken—Atlantis would be left to face its rising seas alone. And Shaylin, the harbinger of this knowledge, would grapple with questions no one dared to ask aloud: Was contact truly worth the price?
As the sun set, shimmering light illuminating the distant ocean, the city of Atlantis stood more silent than ever before, the weight of the cosmos pressing heavily on all their souls.
Genre: Historical Science Fiction
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Why Sending Messages to Extraterrestrials Could Be Risky: Insights from the Dark Forest Hypothesis
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