This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Deal_Impressive on 2026-02-06 01:33:31+00:00.

When they found the human vessel drifting in deep space, they were not astonished. Never affected because they never felt anything.

It was small and old, carrying recordings of a species long extinct. The entities brought it aboard and opened its memory. Humans appeared on the screens, laughing, crying, holding each other. They appeared to stay beside the dying. They hugged even when survival demanded they leave. They sang for no reason. They loved without logic.

The entities understood the physics of collapsing stars and bending time like the back of their hand. Secrets of the universe came natural to them when they birthed on their rocky ball, but this made no sense.

They studied humans carefully.

One observer was assigned to watch the final recordings, a group of humans floating together inside the metal body, their bodies long dead, arms still wrapped around one another as if refusing to separate even after life had gone. Last remaining species of a planet long dead, Earth.

The observer kept watching. It did not send its report. For the first time in its existence, it wanted to remain. A strange pressure formed inside it, something warm and painful. It could not measure it. It could not explain it. But it did not want the moment to end. When it finally transmitted the data back to the collective mind, the feeling went with it. And then everything began to change.

The entities had always shared one mind across many bodies and knowledge and deep secrets of the universe came natural. It was one mega mind. Perfect unity. Perfect order. No individuality.

But now, as the human recordings spread through the mind, small delays appeared. Some began replaying certain moments again and again , a child laughing, two people embracing, someone crying beside a silent body. They lingered.

They felt.

The mind started to fracture.

One by one, entities began experiencing private thoughts. Private reactions. They no longer processed everything together. Each began to notice different things, hold onto different images.

Individuality spread among them like a virus.

It was frightening. Unstable. Beautiful.

They realized the humans had possessed something they never had, emotions that made each life unique, unpredictable, meaningful. And that knowledge only created uniformity and loss of self.

The mind could try to purge this infection and return to perfect unity. But none of them wanted that anymore. For the first time, they chose something not based on crude rough logic. They found themselves at the shore of this vast ocean yet to be tread, that to them, came like something more than just ‘knowledge’. The very same way how humans spent their lives to unravel, and explore.

They turned their vessel toward home. They would carry this strange new force back to their world, this new learning, this new world, this dangerous, overwhelming gift called ‘feeling’. An entire civilization waited for them.

Unaware that soon, it too would break apart into individuals…and begin, for the first time, to feel.