《Mirror Station 07396》 Lost Inky darkness. Hello? No voice. Hello? No sound. H...This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. No sight, no sound, no voice, no smell, no touch. ... Nothing. Help
Sirens sounded on Mirror Station 07396. People ran from one computer to another, frantically searching for the source and location of the glitch. A ship was gone. There had been a brief power outage as it was incoming, and now it was lost. The light wasn¡¯t simply somewhere in space, or back at the originating station. Mirror Station 06391 reported a successful transfer, with nothing returned. Light packets were supposed to reflect back if there was a problem at the receiving station. This hadn¡¯t happened. The mirror hadn¡¯t reflected; it had eaten the light. No one knew how. Five people were lost. Everyone on Mirror Station 07396 panicked. Not because somehow losing five souls was bad, but because unless they understood how, it might happen again. The station was unusable until the problem was resolved. And until then, they were stranded in space with no way home. Missing Hello? In a perfectly dark room, human eyes will see electrical flashes created by their own cells. Help. There was no light, so they had no eyes. Hello. In a perfectly soundless room, human ears begin to ring.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Help. There was no ringing, so they had no ears. Hello
Mirror Station 07396 ran a full diagnostic check. The station had 495 humans, 36 cats, 9 dogs, and 57 fish aboard. As well as 21,965 individual plants to help with oxygen production. Until the light packet was found, none of them could leave. Before setting up interplanetary mirror stations, governments and companies had spent decades making sure nothing could go wrong. If a car breaks down on a street, this is an inconvenience. If a boat sinks at sea, there¡¯s a chance of rescue. If an airplane falls from the sky, this is tragic but it does not affect the next plane to fly. But if a mirror broke, billions of people would be cut off. Hundreds, thousands of people could die. More than that, if one broke that meant more could follow. Faith in the mirrors would shatter like, well, a mirror. Yes, a ship vanishing was incredibly improbable. A near-impossible glitch in one of millions of processes with redundancies upon redundancies to ensure the safety of everyone involved. And yet it had happened. And no one knew how. Gone Help. No sight, no sound, no smell, no touch, no taste. Help. The act of sighing is relaxing. It gets all the carbon dioxide out of a human¡¯s lungs, allowing fresh air to fill them. It causes muscle relaxation, which when combined with oxygen makes the brain produce calming chemicals. Help. Screaming in frustration has a similar effect. It removes all air from lungs, allowing fresh air in. It is physically exhausting, meaning muscles are forced to relax afterwards. It also hurts, meaning there¡¯s a physical pain to focus on instead of an emotional pain.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Help. With no lungs, it is impossible to scream. Therefore, there is no distraction from the stress of not knowing what was happening. Help
Item 1: Mirror Station 07396 accepted a light packet transfer from Mirror Station 06391. Item 2: Mirror Station 06391 sent the light packet. The sending process took 1.4 seconds, and the light traveled through space for 47 minutes, 12 seconds, and 53 milliseconds. Item 3: Mirror Station 07396 lost main power due to a solar flare. Item 4: Backup generators activated 0.03 seconds after power was lost. Item 5: The light packet should have arrived 0.01 seconds after main power was lost. Item 6: Mirrors reflect light. That is what mirrors have done since the first human polished a piece of copper and saw their face. Mirrors. Reflect. Light. They have to. It¡¯s science. It¡¯s an unbreakable law of the universe. Mirrors have to reflect light, or it isn¡¯t a mirror. If there is light to reflect, a mirror will reflect it. ¡­ Item 7: The mirror on Mirror Station 07396 failed to reflect light. ¡­ Item 8: ????????????? Absent Please. In some countries, a human is legally dead when their heart has stopped beating. In others, being legally dead requires there to be no electrical activity in the brain. A few require both, and most have a ¡°after X minutes¡± clause added on. Help. But with no sensory input, with no heartbeat, with seemingly no brain, how does a person know they¡¯re alive? Is the act of thinking enough to prove they¡¯re still alive? No afterlife has been scientifically proven to exist, what if it was this? Just a mind with no input, forever?You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Please help
The light packet must be elsewhere. That was the only explanation. It¡¯s scientifically impossible for light to vanish. It scatters, or joins other light, but it can¡¯t simply turn into darkness. The question now was: where did the light go? Mirror Station 06391 checked and re-checked their calibration, both electronically and physically. Humans and computers agreed their light cannon was facing Mirror Station 07396¡¯s mirror. Mirror Station 07396 checked and re-checked their calibration. Humans and computers agreed their mirror was directly facing Mirror Station 06391¡¯s light cannon. Light could not have bounced off without being seen, at least in part, by their mirror¡¯s sensors. And yet, no light had been seen. Nothing had been caught. Mirror stations around the system were turning their sensors towards Mirror Station 07396, trying to find any stray light. There wasn¡¯t any. This was, in every way, impossible. So how had it happened? Misplaced Help. At the bottom of oceans, there live amorphous blobs of flesh and teeth. They survive in pressure high enough to crush bone, and look through eyes that never see the light of a star. Help. If one of these creatures were to be sent up to where whales swim, how would they react to the difference in pressure? Would it feel like flying? Would they rejoice in the ease of movement? Or would their skin and muscles scream as the water that once held them together now gave no support? Help.Stolen novel; please report. Would they marvel at the blue of the ocean? Stare in awe at the variety of color that exists in the universe? Or would their eyes burn as light suddenly forced its way into an organ never meant to receive so much information? ... But even at the bottom of the ocean, in numbingly cold waters with no way to see what¡¯s around them, the creatures know they are not alone. Hello?
The solar flare. The one that caused Mirror Station 07396 to lose power. Could it have caught the light? Taken it somehow? Could the light of the star have eaten the light packet just before it reached the mirror? The mirror hadn¡¯t even received a tiny fraction of light. Not even enough to register that a packet was incoming. The sensors were active after the power came back on, but there was nothing to sense. There were 1.4 seconds¡¯ worth of light out in the universe somewhere. Was it mixed in with the star¡¯s light? If so, it was gone forever. There was no way to retrieve light from one of the brightest things in the universe. As scientists searched, one by one they resigned and admitted the solar flare had most likely taken the packet. Castaway Hello? All touch is, in a way, pain. Nerve endings receive information and convey it to the brain, which causes muscles to react accordingly. Hello? Some humans can¡¯t feel pain. All they feel is pressure, but there is never an automatic negative reaction to any touch. This causes severe problems. Hello? On the other side of the spectrum, humans who have lost limbs sometimes feel pain in that limb. Their brain cannot comprehend a lack of something it¡¯d had for so many years, and insists something must still be there.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ... Fear itself can cause pain, unrelated to any physical touch. Goosebumps, the tensing of muscles, clenching hands and teeth so tight they crack: all a result of fear. And with no body, only a mind detached from all else, fear can cause a human to feel pain as if their whole body were present. I know you¡¯re there
No one liked the possibility that a solar flare had eaten the reflected light packet. Humans on Mirror Station 07396 didn¡¯t like being so close to a star that could stop their only way home. Scientists didn¡¯t like a station being so close to a star that had taken light. Scientists didn¡¯t like that they hadn¡¯t considered solar flares a threat when placing mirror stations. Governments didn¡¯t like the idea of moving mirror stations to be in safer locations. That would take time, money, and probably the construction of a few more extremely expensive stations. Humans on planets didn¡¯t like the thought that a light packet had gone missing, no matter the cause or solution. And the families of the five missing people didn¡¯t like that their relatives were lost forever. No one was happy. Unknown Please. Humans are social animals. Even the most anti-social, introverted human at times feels the need for a conversation. Perhaps just once a year, but they do need to see other humans. Hello? Humans that move to foreign countries almost universally seek out other humans who speak their language. If they have nothing else in common, speaking their language to another fluent speaker is a mental relief. Hearing their language for the first time after more than nine months can cause some to shed tears, even if the conversation is with a stranger on the topic of the weather. I know you¡¯re there.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Some humans learn languages easily. Most do not. Either way, a human in a land where no one speaks their native language will learn to communicate. If they do not, they are less than human. Allinllachu?
Solar flares are about as predictable as earthquakes. That is to say, they aren¡¯t predictable at all. Yes, there are some signs immediately preceding an earthquake or solar flare, but after thousands of years science hasn¡¯t progressed past ¡°we expect a big one every 11-ish years¡±. Scientists have resigned themselves to this. Average humans have not. For a while humans focused on stopping the effects of both earthquakes and solar flares. Flares in 1859 and 2025 caused mass confusion and panic as technological devices failed globally, while the widening of the San Andreas Fault in 1906 and 2034 had effects felt all over the Pacific Ocean in the form of tidal waves and increased volcanic activity. The mid- to late-2000¡¯s saw a great increase in mechanical and architectural safety. But humans still can¡¯t predict these events. Giant mirrors out in space aren¡¯t affected by earthquakes, and humans believed they weren¡¯t going to be affected by solar flares. Scientists had done enough research to, they believed, avoid all problems related to them. Finding out they were wrong was upsetting. Finding out their error had cost five lives was terrifying. Invisible Hello? First impressions are important. Quite often it is the only impression. Humans know this, and some use it to their advantage. Allinllachu? Love at first sight is a first impression. It is, in fact, not love. It is a combination of sight, smell, and sound that makes a human¡¯s brain demand they get as close as possible to this new human and spend as much time with them as they can manage. It can grow into love, but it¡¯s simply an instant, extreme infatuation. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Where are you? There is also a ¡°hate at first sight¡±. A reaction some humans have to other people that, for no reason they can explain, makes them want to never be in the same room as this other human again. They call it things like a ¡°vibe¡± or ¡°aura¡±, because to them there is no logical explanation. It¡¯s just that looking at the new human triggers their fight or flight response. Kaypi.
The mirror stations had to be moved. That was all there was to it. They had to be out of reach of solar flares. A group of people was assigned to watch the star. The light packet was, if science worked correctly, lost forever, but sometimes science did not work correctly. Light packets were made of light, but they weren¡¯t aimless. They had direction, purpose. A packet had never been lost before, so no one knew what it would do. Stars are bright. The light they emit can blind any human. Any light aimed at one will pale and dissipate long before reaching it. But like a candle on a sunny day, the light packet might still be detectable. Somehow. Maybe. Hopefully. Dissipated Can you help? Time is not real. Humans have millions of words in thousands of languages to describe time and periods of time, and yet it technically does not exist. Yanapasunki? ¡°Time¡± is the nonspatial continuum by which human brains track occurrences. And yet, by and large, humans are quite bad at it. This is why they invented hundreds of different devices to track ¡°time¡± for them. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Please help me. On Earth, humans use the sun to judge time. Because of this, humans who don¡¯t see the sun for long periods of time lose all sense of not only hour, but day and month as well. ¡°Time¡± becomes meaningless to them, as it truly is. Mana
One day after the light packet was lost, the scientists declared it truly gone forever. The governments waited a full week; mostly to say they gave it their all. This also gave them time to move all the mirror stations to safer locations, so they could say the issue was already resolved. The group assigned to watching the star was reassigned after two weeks. After three weeks, funerals were held. The galaxy mourned, but was happy to know this tragedy could never be repeated. Life, as it does, went on. The incident was forgotten. Forsaken Where am I? ¡°Life¡± is a concept that¡¯s impossible to define. Philosophers and scientists have worked for centuries to figure out when something is ¡°alive¡±, but it¡¯s too complicated a question. What am I? ¡°Souls¡± are another impossible concept. Religions almost universally agree they exist, but science hasn¡¯t been able to find one. Just as it hasn¡¯t been able to define life. Do both exist, or neither? How am I here?This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Most animals do not believe they are alive. Belief implies something can be doubted. Birds do not believe the sun will rise, wolves do not believe snow is cold, and caterpillars do not believe they can grow wings. Those things do not require belief, just as being alive does not require belief. They¡¯re just simple truths. And yet humans believe. Manam yachanichu.
On occasion humans would look at the star and wonder if the light packet was inside. Not just inside, but inside as a whole. The answer, obviously, was no. That¡¯s not how light works. Mirror Station 07396, as well as all other stations close enough to stars, received new equipment specifically designed to watch for solar flares. Two humans were assigned to watch the equipment, and report anything odd. Thinking nothing could go wrong, they spent most of their time playing games on the equipment monitors. Things did not happen quickly in stars, so they had a timer set to remind them every half-hour to minimize their games and check. After a week, the timer was set to every three hours. And after four weeks, the humans were content to check twice a day. Wayward Who are you? Humans have a nearly supernatural ability to adjust to new circumstances. They settle into a ¡°new normal¡± with relative ease, and after a short time find it difficult to remember how they spent their days before this. ?uqa. Boredom often follows. No matter how stressful the actual transition was, or how difficult they found the new circumstances, once they¡¯ve repeated something enough times it becomes boring.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. What are you? If they don¡¯t get bored, they become stressed to the point of death. Either a human will acclimatize to their new circumstances, or they will completely break. There is no middle ground. Kanchi
War began. Not for any particular reason, just prejudice and greed. Mirror Station 07396 was halfway between two planets. Those planets mutually decided the other should not exist. People on the station were constantly bribed to accept and send packets without logging them, or notifying the final recipient. Some bribes were taken; most were not. The station, like all other stations, received an upgrade to defenses. Mirror Station 06391 was attacked and its mirror was cracked. No one knew what a cracked mirror would do to light packets. Everyone suspected it would be bad. Strayed Can I leave? Humans have a phrase: the grass is always greener on the other side. Riy, kallpachakuy. It means, no matter how good a person¡¯s life and situation is, they always dream for something better. Or at least what they perceive to be better. No human is ever perfectly happy and content with their circumstances. They long for more. What if I fail? The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. This longing has caused humans to do everything from cross oceans with no promise of finding home again, to trudging through jungles knowing it¡¯s likely they¡¯ll be robbed and murdered before ever reaching their goal. Humans risk literal death rather than learn to be content with where they are. And rather than think this insanity, other humans nod and debate doing the same. Wa?unki.
A peace treaty was written. It had to be physically signed by the leaders of both planets. To get the treaty from one planet to another, it had to go from Mirror Station 06391 to Mirror Station 07396. With their mirror still cracked, no one quite knew if this was possible. Mirror Station 06391 sent the light packet. Mirror Station 07396 received two packets. They were identical. The treaty was signed, and the war was all but forgotten as big companies hired every scientist alive to figure out how this had happened. If they could figure out how to take one thing and duplicate it endlessly simply by bouncing it between cracked mirrors, there was so much money to be made. Also food shortages would be a thing of the past, and there¡¯d never be a lack of warm clothes in winter, but no one cared about that. There was money to be made! Forgotten All right. Humans breathe a highly corrosive gas known as oxygen. By itself, oxygen can rust most metals, and cause most proteins to decay at an alarming rate. It¡¯s a miracle humans survive at all. Here I go. Possibly because humans survive in an atmosphere that seems designed to destroy everything, they tend to enjoy doing things with a high risk of death. For decades, their main mode of transportation was in the top ten causes of death. They consider jumping off bridges and drinking lethal amounts of alcohol ¡°fun¡±. In fact, an increased risk of death made their enjoyment of it increase in turn.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Good-bye. For every one human who would look at a situation and say ¡°that¡¯s stupid, I could die¡±, ten humans would immediately volunteer to go first. But if there was any sort of reward, even an imaginary one, keeping humans from trying it is practically impossible. Tupananchikkama
Mirror splitting was not cloning. Nothing had to be grown, and nothing was taken from a questionable source. If a human was split, they were truly identical in every single way, with no ¡°original¡± and therefore no ¡°lesser¡±. Psychologists loved the new questions raised by there suddenly being two of one person. Religions tried to pretend most of the questions raised did not exist. Governments tried to ban splitting, gave up, and spent a frantic week inventing new laws to regulate it. The main issue was, once cracked mirrors became more and more available, it wasn¡¯t particularly expensive to split a human. Most companies that made some sort of product had a dozen or so mirrors, and in most cities there was a place willing to rent theirs out by the hour when their regular employees had gone home for the night. And then came the question: was splitting oneself for the purpose of a death battle legal? Astray That did not work. Along with their seeming lack of fear of death, humans are also insanely determined. With surprisingly little reason, and no chance of success, humans will repeatedly attempt something an insane number of times. Mana. If given immortality, many fear humanity might find a way to break the laws of the universe itself. They¡¯ve already managed to bend them beyond reason. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. What should I try next? The alarming part is, none of this determination stems from intelligence. None of it comes from reason. Knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they cannot possibly succeed, will only drive a human to try harder. . . .
Everything had to be banned. All of it. Governments put a flat ban on mirror splitting humans. This made some people happy, but more people were annoyed. Some doctors, for instance, had been promoting mirror splitting before a dangerous operation in case something went wrong. And high-risk jobs, such as mining, were being done by one well-trained person who had split. There were uses to training one person then splitting them to do that job multiple times, or in multiple places. But then there were the underground death fights and splitting bordellos. The benefits of mirror splitting did not outweigh the moral ambiguity of what humans were doing with themselves. Most religions supported the governments in the ban, meaning humans had to choose between God and Country or Fun and Capitalism. Another war broke out. Depleted What if I try... Humanity¡¯s insanity is only helped by its imagination. If you give a hundred humans one wooden block each, several will try spinning it, several will try carving it, several will try breaking things with it, some will ask what type of wood it is, a dozen will try setting it on fire, and at least one will try to swallow it. Imataq kunan? Since the first human figured out how to hold things with its thumb, the species has been obsessed with art. They find it near-impossible to look at the universe around them and not change it to be either more beautiful or amusing. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Ok, hear me out... A human placed in a vacuum will figure out how to nearly die, how to find beauty in the vacuum, and (more likely than not) how to draw a phallus on it. Manchay
The war ended when governments agreed to remove their mirror splitting bans. They implemented new bans, but these were lax. Everyone was happy. On Mirror Station 07396, a new sport called ¡°star trawling¡± was invented. Two humans would put on space suits, split themselves, tie a rope around their waists, and see who could get closest to the star without dying. With two of them still safely in the station, there was no risk of permanent death. The sport quickly caught on, and soon all the mirror stations had a trawler team. Within weeks it was being televised, with brands using it for promotion. Working on a mirror station was now a privileged position, instead of a good out-of-the-way place to put lazy people with no career goals. Life went on. Hopeless What was that? Everyone knows the saying ¡°in space, no one can hear you scream¡±. This is because space is a vacuum. With no solid patch of atoms and molecules to go through, sound waves simply dissipate. Ima? This is a good thing. If sound traveled through space, the constant roar of stars would deafen all living creatures.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I thought I heard... Stars are not vacuums. They create sound. And if someone were to stand on a star, anyone listening would be able to hear them scream in the brief seconds before they died. Uyarirqanki?
Mirror Station 07396 hosted the First Annual All-Station Star Trawl Competition. It was watched by trillions of humans across the galaxy. Dozens of athletes arrived, all ready to jump into the star. They were treated like celebrities; given all the luxuries the station could provide. And then, one by one, they lept to their deaths. The sounds of their screams as they burst into flame was recorded and used in advertising. The burnt ends of the rope that held them sold for insane amounts at auction. The mirror-split version of them that did not die received free therapy for the next six months. It was truly an event to remember. Invisible Something keeps touching the star. Humans have five senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. They use all five of those at once to interact with the world around them. It¡¯s like a fly... But that¡¯s wrong. Humans have seven senses. The five mentioned above, vestibular, and proprioception. From the length of the words, one can presume scientists figured them out long after the English language was invented. I¡¯m gonna catch it.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! But that¡¯s also wrong. Humans really have twenty-one senses. Hunger and thirst are among them, as well as itch, pain, time, and magnetoreception. These are all necessary for the average human to survive, although some survive quite well without them. Here it comes! But that¡¯s also wrong. It¡¯s possible there are twenty-six senses humans possess, or thirty-three, or fifty, or¡­ Kusirikuy
The last athlete to jump out of Mirror Station 07396 got to 1,024,409 miles from the star¡¯s surface before bursting into flame. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. As his charred corpse was hanging there, waiting for the rope to burn away, a solar flare shot out and touched it. It began to glow. The fire found the rope, and traveled up it at an impossible speed. Alarmed, the inhabitants of Mirror Station 07396 cut the rope. It slowly floated away as the fire grew closer. Finally, someone noticed something odd. The fire wasn¡¯t burning the rope. They realized it wasn¡¯t fire. It was light. Alone Hello? Hope is a strange thing. It can be the force that allows a human to survive nearly anything, but misplaced hope will drive them to completely destroy themselves. It can be a lifeline just as often as a rope for hanging. Hello? Hope does not need to be based on logic or reason. It doesn¡¯t have to be a concrete idea. A human will cling to the hope of ¡°things will get better¡± just as strongly as the hope of ¡°the noon bell will ring soon¡±.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I¡¯m alone... Losing hope usually leaves a human with nothing. No emotion. All their previous emotions had been forced into this ¡°hope¡±, and the realization that what they hoped for would never come leaves them empty. They no longer have energy to experience emotions with. Everything is simply gone. ...again
The light on the rope seemed to be alive. Or at least, it wasn¡¯t acting as light ought. It slowly moved from one end of the rope to the other and back. The scientists on Mirror Station 07396 decided to take a risk. They waited until the light was at the far end of the rope, then took the near end and touched it to the mirror. Mirrors reflect light. If there was any information to be gained from this light, their mirror would see it and record it. The light slowly traveled down the rope. It stopped mere inches away from the mirror. Remembering What... Deja-vu is the feeling that someone has experienced this before. ¡°This¡± could be as simple as a smell, or as complicated as a whole conversation. Some humans believe it is a result of multiple timelines or dimensions leaking into our subconscious. I know this. Quite often it occurs simply because memories aren¡¯t perfect, and the person experiencing it has smelled that flower before but can¡¯t place where or when. Occasionally the feeling will pop up because a conversation was held in a dream, or they suspected so strongly a person would say this that their mind recorded it as a memory.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. It¡¯s a mirror. Of course, it is possible that the feeling is a result of supernatural or psychic influences. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, after all. No one exists who can explain every strange thing humans experience. How do I interact with a mirror?
The light touched the mirror. It slid off the rope, moving more like syrup than light. The sensors on the mirror came to life, registering it as a packet. The computers activated, doing whatever complicated thing they were supposed to do with light packets. The device that turned light to solid objects shimmered, creating something. It was human. An adult human, in an old uniform, who had apparently forgotten how to breathe. Everyone on Mirror Station 07396 panicked as this new human collapsed. Found Hello? ... Hello? ... Hi? Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ... ... ... ¡°Hello?¡±
The light packet had been lost for 40 years, 5 months, and 16 days. It had been lost so long, no one remembered it had ever existed. So many things had happened between that frantic day and the present that finding information about it was nearly impossible. No one knew this human¡¯s name. They didn¡¯t know where they were from or how old they were. Five souls had been lost. Was this one of them, or all of them combined? How had they survived? Had they been conscious inside the star? If so, what was it like? Everyone had questions. Some serious, some suspicious, and some silly. They would have to wait until the human felt well enough to answer. In the meantime, Mirror Station 07396 celebrated. Recovering something thought gone forever is always cause for rejoicing.