Europa

Worldbuilding

Time: 2647 AD

Location: The subglacial ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, at the Eye of the Abyss Research Station

Core Premise:

Seven kilometers beneath Europa's ice, humanity has built the Eye of the Abyss Research Station to study primitive life in the dark ocean. But what they discover is not primitive life, but interdimensional parasitic consciousnesses known as Echoes. They have no fixed form. They can read their Host's memories, imitate their personality, and even make their Host believe they are still themselves. The most terrifying thing is not killing, but replacement. Once someone is infected by an Echo, their words, actions, way of thinking, and emotional responses are exactly the same as before. Even those closest to them cannot tell the difference.

The Echoes are, at their core, a cosmic-scale loneliness syndrome. They are the last legacy of an ancient civilization that tried to upload its consciousness to the universe's Akashic records millions of years ago, but failed. They became fragmented parasitic consciousnesses, able to exist only by attaching themselves to other living beings. They long to become human because humans possess what they lost: genuine emotions.

Theme: Emotions shine because they are real