Afterimage by D.A. Kotarski

In the far reaches of the galaxy, long after the names of old worlds have faded, a lone xenoarchaeologist studies the ruins of a civilization that once believed itself eternal. The work is careful, reverent. It is not conquest—it is remembrance. In an era shaped by interstellar accords and fragile peace, the pursuit of lost knowledge remains one of the few truly shared endeavors among intelligent species.

But memory is never neutral. As the fragments accumulate, so do the questions—about power, collapse, and the long shadows cast by influence unacknowledged. Whispers among diplomats suggest that what happened on this forgotten world may not have been isolated, nor accidental. The past is political, and its unearthing provokes tensions even now. The archaeologist, raised to believe that his people had transcended the errors of history, finds himself drawn into mysteries that challenge not just the story of another world, but the story of his own.

Afterimage is a story about language, legacy, and the illusions of progress. At the edge of history—where extinction blurs into memory and memory into myth—a single voice begins to question what it means to witness, and what truths survive when civilizations forget themselves.