corrupt cube

The artifact in the chamber was making my thoughts compress, like a solar flare pushing on my mind, thrashing the rest of my consciousness out in an expanding wake of stretched-out thoughts. Mind-numbing rings of light flash on the walls, reflected off the floating cube, but somehow wrong. The other members of the expeditionary team were not faring much better. Andre was talking to things unseen and unheard and Melissa was reciting a litany of almost-prime numbers while slowly extending her hand toward the thing, fingers signing alien shapes. I ... can hear it now. I wish I couldn't.