Silent Planet Salvage

The year is 2347. Humanity, scattered across the star systems like shimmering dust, has stumbled upon a cosmic secret. It's not a weapon, not a cure, not even a resource – it's…Silence. You are Aris Thorne, a Salvage Runner. Not the heroic kind, mind you. More the desperate-to-pay-rent kind. Your rust-bucket ship, the "Serendipity's Folly," barely holds itself together, held together more by stubborn hope and duct tape than actual engineering. You scrape by, pulling derelict freighters from asteroid fields and selling their scrap for a pittance. Life is hard, predictable, and…loud. The hum of your ship, the crackle of comms, the constant thrum of civilization reaching even the furthest corners of explored space. Until today. You picked up a garbled distress signal, faint as a whisper across the void. It originated from a newly discovered planet, designated LX-422. The signal spoke of something…missing. Something vital. Something you can now feel, a growing unease that crawls under your skin. You ignored it, of course. Distress signals are rarely worth the hassle. But the credits are drying up, and rent is due. So, against your better judgment, you set a course for LX-422. As you approach, the familiar cacophony of space begins to…fade. The engines seem quieter, the stars less vibrant. A chilling, unnatural silence begins to seep into your bones. Landing on LX-422 feels like stepping onto the edge of the universe. The atmosphere is breathable, but heavy, thick with an unnatural stillness. The plants are…wrong. Twisted, silent, almost petrified in place. And the air itself vibrates with an absence, a profound and unsettling lack of sound. The distress signal led you to a research station, long abandoned. The doors are sealed, the lights are off, and the only sound is the faint echo of your own breath in the vacuum of silence. Inside, you suspect, lies the answer to the missing element, the secret of this world's unnerving quiet. But what you'll find might be something that was better left lost. Something that threatens not just you, but all of humanity. Something that craves the very sound of existence. Welcome, Aris Thorne, to the Silent Planet. Your survival depends on understanding what was lost, and why it needs to remain that way. Now, go. And try not to make a sound.