For this week’s What Do You See prompt from Sadje, I am going to try my hand at writing something I rarely write: science fiction. The photo Sadje gave us to work with, from Sean Pierce @ Unsplash, was a little dark, at least on my iPhone, so I lightened it up a tad so I could see what it was. I hope that didn’t break any rules. So here we go. And if you’re a science fiction fan, don’t be too hard on me, as Sci-Fi is not in my wheelhouse.

The eclipse came exactly when the Archives predicted it would — three thousand years to the day since the last one painted the sky in copper and ash.

Kaël stood among the ruins, her feet planted in dust that had once been a thriving plaza. The tufa spires rose before her like the fingers of a buried giant, each one hollowed and weathered by centuries of wind. Their silhouettes resembled a procession frozen mid-march. Now known as the Pillars of Veyl, the colonists who’d first come to this world had called this place the Cathedral, though no gods were ever worshipped here. Only memories.

The blood moon hung heavy above the broken columns, its light turning everything the color of old iron. Kaël checked her scanner again, though she already knew what it would say. The signal was strongest here, had been growing stronger with each passing hour as the moon climbed toward totality.

“You shouldn’t have come alone,” said a voice behind her.

She didn’t turn. “Yet you followed me anyway, Arini.”

Her partner emerged from behind one of the larger pillars, atmospheric suit reflecting the russet moonlight. “Because you’re predictable. Also stubborn. Mostly stubborn.”

“The Council said no excavation permits for another decade.”

“The Council is afraid of what you might find.”

Kaël finally looked at Arini. “Aren’t you?”

Before Arini could answer, the ground beneath them hummed — a low vibration that traveled up through their boots and into their bones. The pillars began to glow from within, faint at first, then brighter, lines of blue-white light tracing ancient patterns through the stone.

“Kaël…” Arini’s voice was tight with wonder and fear.

The air between the columns shimmered. Not from heat distortion. From something else. Something that made Kaël’s teeth ache and her scanner scream warnings she couldn’t read fast enough to understand.

And then she saw them.

Figures made of light and memory, walking through the plaza as it had been before the cataclysm. Thousands of them, living their last moments over and over again, preserved somehow in the stone itself. A civilization’s final day, captured and held like insects in amber.

The blood moon reached its apex.

One of the figures turned toward Kaël. It actually turned, actually saw her. It raised a hand. Its mouth moved, forming words in a language dead for millennia.

But Kaël’s translator, struggling with the interference, caught one word clearly:

“Witness.”

The light faded. The figures dissolved. The pillars went dark again, just weathered stone against a darkening sky.

Arini grabbed Kaël’s arm. “Did you…?

“Record everything,” Kaël whispered, her hands shaking as she clutched her equipment. “Yes. Every sensor, every reading. The Council was wrong. This isn’t a tomb.”

“Then what is it?”

Kaël looked up at the fading eclipse, at the ruins that suddenly seemed less dead than sleeping.

“A warning. Or a message. Either way, we have three thousand years to figure out which before it happens again.”

The moon continued its slow return to silver, leaving them alone among the silent pillars.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​