Humanity is extinct

Writing prompt: The actions that Humanity performed in its heyday left deep trauma and terrible wounds on the Universe. Fortunately, they went exinct ... or so the legends go.

There’s no such thing as Humanity. Not anymore, anyway. The legends all talk of terrible and beautiful things. The teachers tell of them too, and they describe Humanity as a crazed man, one who is kind and generous one moment and terrible and merciless the next. The legends say this also.

There’s no such thing as Humanity. Nothing left but scarred planets and empty ruins. Nothing left except the interstellar Gates and wrecked fortresses. Nothing left besides demon machines and empty fleets floating alone in the cold grasp of The Void.

Nothing left, you hear me! Their machines are all sleeping, thank the Taav! Sleeping in their vaults, with their wretched Machine Celestials. Locked away, never to be called on again.

But thats just what the legends say.

And if the legends were true, then why are there reports from the outer fringes?

A battle around Humanities ancestral home.

Uncrewed fleets moving in the dark.

Machines and Warminds waking up.

Dead voices on long extinct radio channels.

Humanity is extinct, understand? Nothing left but bones and dust.

Nothing left ... but us.

It started with a subspace signal wave heard throughout the galaxy. Tracking stations triangulated it to the Orion arm.

The signal was just a carrier wave at first and then it started to carry a set of repeating patterns or messages that even our most intelligent AI systems could not decode or read.

The signal wave kept repeating for three months then abruptly stopped.

We were left perplexed and continued to study the messages we recorded but simply couldn’t understand.

Then from the depth of intergalactic space, billions of light years distant, a reply came.

This message was clear to understand as it was in the ancient human language we still used to this day.

“We have received your wake up call. We are here. We will be returning soon. Put the kettle on.”

‘We don’t know who sent the signal but we fear we know who sent this reply.

They are not gone. They were just asleep. They are returning.

Gods help us all.

===End===