The Event Horizon: A Leap Beyond Time
As they leave the garden behind, something inside them feels lighter—but also incomplete. The ship hums to life, the coordinates to Exodus Point already set. Sabine doesn’t mention what was left behind, nor does she need to. The absence speaks for itself.
The journey ahead is smooth at first, the vastness of space stretching in all directions, but something is off. The void feels closer, heavier. The usual glow of distant stars seems dimmer. It’s as if something is watching from the dark, just out of reach.
Then—an alert flashes.
A nearby collapsing star is folding in on itself, a cosmic predator consuming its own light. The gravitational pull threatens to drag them in.
“Brace yourself, traveler,” Sabine warns. “We either navigate through, or we become part of it.”
There’s no reflection to face here. No test of worthiness. Only pure survival. And the traveler must decide—full speed ahead, or find another route before it’s too late?
The ship’s hull trembles under forces it was never designed to withstand. A nearby collapsing star, once a radiant beacon, now folds in on itself—a cosmic predator consuming its own light. The hyperdrive strains, its core vibrating like a trapped beast, but it’s no use. The ship is caught, pulled into the gravitational abyss.
Alarms scream. Warning lights flash red in rapid succession. SYSTEM FAILURE. NAVIGATION LOST. EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED.
The pilot grips the controls, fighting against the void’s silent pull. The edges of the viewport distort, stretching reality itself. The ship spirals, twisting through space like a leaf caught in a hurricane of time. Every readout flickers wildly—numbers, coordinates, impossible equations—all dissolving into nonsense.
Then—silence.
A flash of white.
For an instant, the universe vanishes. No stars. No time. No anything.
Then, with a violent jolt, the ship emerges. Instruments reboot in a scrambled mess. The viewport clears, revealing an impossible sky. The same stars, yet not the same. A world unknown, uncharted, waiting.
And on the edge of the scanner—something else.
A transmission.
One word.
“Welcome.”
Beyond the Infinite
The ship drifts in eerie silence, a relic of its former trajectory. The navigation screens flicker, displaying an endless void, coordinates looping in illogical patterns. The instruments don’t know where they are—because this place isn’t supposed to exist.
Sabine’s voice crackles over the comms, strained, confused.
“I can’t read the star charts. This… isn’t in any known system.”
The air inside the cockpit grows heavy. A strange pressure, not physical, but something felt. Like being watched by something not bound by the limits of existence.
And then—it appears.
A figure.
Not of flesh. Not of machine. Not even of light.
A being beyond time itself.
It does not speak in words, nor gesture in ways the mind can comprehend. It beckons. A silent invitation, an irresistible pull toward something greater.
The very fabric of reality bends as the ship inches forward, drawn into an abyss of knowledge, of eternity, of something beyond human comprehension.
Sabine whispers, almost to herself.
“Traveler… be careful. Some things were never meant to be known.”
But it’s too late.
The ship crosses the threshold.
And everything changes.