The Planet That Banned Time

The Planet That Banned Time

In 2413, Earth was drowning in time. Not time in the way philosophers spoke of it—as a flowing river or a ticking metronome—but as an unbearable burden. Cities collapsed under the weight of unrecorded years, people aged in moments of despair, and memory became both weapon and curse. Humanity, once obsessed with progress, had become prisoners of their own timeline.

Then came Orris.

Orris wasn’t a myth. It was a planet that blinked into sensor range during the Vortex Sweep of Sector G-9. It orbited no star, emitted no gravitational echo, and yet, it was there.

The first unmanned probe sent to Orris returned with data that stunned Earth’s scientists. The laws of physics held, but time on Orris was — static. Atomic decay halted. Light moved but never aged. Biological cells didn’t regenerate, because they never decayed. A paradox: a living, vibrant world where time stood perfectly still.

The term used was Chrono-Vacuum.

Earth reacted as it always did: with hunger.

The First Landing

Mission Chrono-1 consisted of ten elite scientists and soldiers, each equipped with neural stabilizers and chrono-field dampeners. They touched down on Orris at 0500 GMT, and never transmitted back.

No screams. No static. Just silence.

So Earth sent another team. Then another. When Mission Chrono-5 returned with half its crew and no coherent memories, Orris became a global obsession.

The survivors described things that didn't make sense:

"The sky blinked. Not stars. Just absence. Then we saw versions of ourselves. But younger. Then older. But it wasn’t time travel. It was like the planet showed us our potential without time. Like it read our memories and spit them out."

They had no chronological record of how long they'd been there.

Project Aeon: The Human Simulation of Time

Dr. Eliah Voss, a cognitive physicist, theorized that humans were psychologically incapable of surviving in a timeless dimension. So, Earth built Project Aeon: an AI-based neural construct that would simulate time perception inside each traveler’s brain while on Orris.

The next mission included Aeon-linked implants. It worked. Or so they thought.

Inside the simulation, humans could sleep, eat, age — believe time was passing. But Orris didn’t follow. No cause, no effect.

Then the dreams began.

The Girl Who Remembered Nothing

Among the new settlers was a child born during the mission: Mira. Unlike adults, Mira had no Earth-time memory. She grew — but did not age. Her body remained five years old, but her mind expanded beyond measure.

She began drawing strange shapes in the soil. Fractals. Maps to stars that didn’t exist. Equations that predated mathematics.

One night, she whispered to her mother:

"Time never left this place. It was never invited."

Then she stopped speaking entirely.

The Awakening

On day 100 (or what Earth measured as such), the settlers began to lose track of reality. Their simulated memories began to conflict. One man swore he had built a house the day before — yet no one remembered it. Another remembered burying his wife. But she was alive, standing before him.

Project Aeon had failed. Orris was rewriting their minds.

That’s when Mira disappeared.

They found her by the Hollow Cliffs, standing before a structure that had not been there the day before. It pulsed. Organic. Metallic. A heart and a mind.

And above it, for the first time in Orris’ history, a star appeared.

The Truth of Orris

Mira spoke again, but not in words. Through everyone’s minds. A voice without vibration. Thought without noise:

"You brought time here. You tried to cage eternity. But you were never meant to stay. Orris was never lost in time. It was protecting you from it."

The settlers saw it now: Orris wasn’t timeless because it was broken.

It was timeless because it chose to be.

A defense system. A sanctuary. A memory vault of the universe before time.

Evacuation and Silence

Earth recalled its people. Mira stayed behind.

Her body would never grow. Her mind would never stop. She became Orris’ first guardian in millennia.

And Earth? Earth forgot.

They erased Orris from records. Declared the mission a failure. Burned the tapes.

But every so often, astronomers see a single star blink in the void of Sector G-9.

Just one.

As if time itself had remembered how to shimmer.