Ksjk-002 4k -

The probe began to unfold. It was beautiful and horrible, like a mechanical orchid blooming in reverse. Segments that should have been solid warped into impossible geometries. The 4K lenses swiveled as one, focusing on the airlock door.

“We’re shutting you down,” I said, reaching for the emergency purge.

The vibration changed. It felt like a question.

Choi laughed nervously. “Primary function? It was a cartography drone. Map asteroids and gas clouds.” KSJK-002 4K

KSJK-002 Resolution: 4K (Full Spatial & Spectral Capture) Status: ACTIVE – DO NOT APPROACH

The moment we powered the unit, every screen on the Magellan flickered. Then the 4K camera array on the probe’s housing spun to life—seven lenses, each the size of a coin, all of them focusing on me .

The red light blinked on.

The dead probe’s camera twitched. Just once.

“It’s just a diagnostic sweep,” my engineer, Choi, muttered. “It’s old. Probably glitchy.”

It showed me, standing right where I was. But in the video, my eyes were different. Empty. Swallowed by a perfect, mirror-smooth black. And my mouth was moving, forming words I never said: The probe began to unfold

Then my comm unit flickered. A file appeared. A single 4K video, timestamped now . I opened it, against every instinct.

I exhaled. Looked at the dead, smoking husk of the probe.

Then it spoke. Not in a voice—through a subsonic vibration in the deck plates. The 4K lenses swiveled as one, focusing on the airlock door

The lights went out. Emergency reds kicked in. And then the probe did something no cartography drone should be able to do. It began to record —but not light. Not sound. It recorded the quantum states of every particle in the cargo bay. My particles. Choi’s. The steel. The oxygen.

The probe wasn’t a mapper of space.