In the beginning, there was no sky. No blue above, no green below — only a molten sphere, spinning slowly in the void, its surface a sea of fire and liquid stone. Mountains rose in minutes, only to crumble back into glowing oceans. The air was not air at all, but a suffocating shroud of boiling vapors and storms that crackled with lightning the size of continents.
It was chaos. And yet, within that chaos, something deliberate seemed to breathe. Seas cooled in patient cycles, crusts hardened, then split again. Rain fell for centuries without pause, filling the newborn basins until they became oceans. The heat softened. The storms gentled. Life, small and unseen, began its quiet labor in those dark waters.
Time passed in measures too large for the mind. Coral palaces bloomed in shallow seas. Armored fish swam like drifting fortresses. And then, from this quiet persistence, came giants — their shapes strange and regal. The first forests thickened under damp skies, and in their shade, titans walked. Dinosaurs, in all their varied forms, ruled as if born from the planet's own dreams. The ground trembled beneath their steps. The air rang with their calls. For an age, they knew no challengers.
Until the day the sky changed.
Far beyond the thin veil of the atmosphere, past the Moon, past the scattered cold of the outer planets, even beyond the sun's feeble reach — something moved. It came from a place no charted star could mark, a region where space itself seemed to twist. If one could have followed its path, they would have seen it slip between folds of reality as if stepping through curtains, bypassing light and distance with effortless ease.
It appeared to mortal eyes as a comet — a brilliant spear of white-gold, trailing a mane of shimmering particles that glowed with colors the world had never seen. But it did not drift like other comets. It flew with intention, as if guided by an unseen hand, each turn precise, each pulse of light deliberate.
When it entered the skies of Earth, day turned to silver dawn. Even in the blazing sun, it shone as if it carried its own star within. It passed overhead only briefly — but in its wake came fire. Ash blotted out the heavens. Seas boiled on their edges. Forests burned until the world choked on smoke. And the reign of the dinosaurs ended.
The Earth healed again. Slowly, stubbornly, it recovered. And as ages rolled on, new creatures emerged. Among them, one fragile, upright-walking kind began to shape the world with thought and tool. Humans spread like seeds on the wind, telling stories to keep away the dark, never knowing how close that darkness had brushed them once before.
It was in this dawn of humankind that the second traveler came.
This one bore no dazzling light. It was a shadow against shadows, a faint, dim blur that even the clearest night sky could barely hold. It drifted silently, slipping through the void with neither heat nor tail, as if it did not wish to be seen. Few noticed — a passing flicker that the eye dismissed. But for those rare eyes that lingered, there was an unease, a sense that they had glimpsed something they were not meant to witness.
The world turned. Empires rose and fell. The ages became modern.
And then — within the last handful of decades — the third came. This one was silver, not brilliant like the first, but glimmering softly, like moonlight condensed into a blade. It cut across the edge of space so quickly that no telescope caught more than a blur. For a breath, it flared in the upper atmosphere, casting a brief argent sheen across the night. Then it was gone.
Scientists argued over whether it had been real, a trick of the atmosphere, or some unregistered debris from human hands. But there were no fragments, no trace — only whispers in observatory logs, and the faint sense among those who saw it that it had looked back.
Three visitations. Three passages from far beyond, each different, each marking the world in ways unseen. Patterns are only recognized when enough pieces are placed — and for Earth, the puzzle was still incomplete.
The sky returned to its familiar calm. But not forever.
Present time:-
There was no ground beneath his feet.
No sky above his head.
Only an unending emptiness that swallowed all sense of direction.
Shaen drifted forward — though forward was only a word his mind supplied to keep itself sane. Here, movement felt more like thought than step, a slow gliding through an ocean without water, without air.
The darkness was not pure black. It shifted in subtle shades, deep indigos and bruised violets fading into patches of nothingness so absolute it felt dangerous to look at them. Some regions shimmered faintly, as though hidden stars pulsed just out of sight, but when he tried to focus, the light would vanish.
He had no weight.
No heartbeat.
Not even the sound of his own breath.
The silence pressed on him, heavy yet hollow. It was the kind of silence that made you feel like you were being listened to.
Somewhere in the far reaches of that endless void, something moved.
It wasn't a shape — not at first. More like a ripple, a bending of the darkness itself. It came and went, as though the space here had currents he couldn't see.
Then… a sound.
At first it was faint — so faint that he thought it was his imagination, the echo of some forgotten thought. A whisper, curling around the edges of his awareness.
> "...en…"
The sound faded before he could tell if it was real.
He floated further. Or perhaps the void pulled him — it was impossible to tell. His arms didn't swing, his legs didn't push, yet the scenery — if it could be called that — changed. The colors deepened. The darkness thickened.
> "...aen…"
It came again, clearer now, threading through the silence like a single note in an abandoned cathedral.
Shaen turned — though there was no up or down here, no left or right — trying to face the source. The ripple came again, closer this time, and for a split second he thought he saw… something.
Not quite a figure. More like the suggestion of one, woven into the fabric of the void. Too tall. Too still. Watching.
> "Shaen…"
The voice was closer now, resonating through his bones. There was no warmth or cold to it — only weight. It pressed into him, demanding his attention, his recognition.
He tried to speak.
No sound came out.
The void quivered. The darkness in front of him folded like cloth, layers pulling back, revealing a pale, hazy glow. It wasn't light like the sun, but more like the soft gleam of something buried deep beneath clear water.
The glow pulsed.
> "Shaen…"
The call was no longer a whisper. It was everywhere — above him, beneath him, inside him — shaking the silence apart. His chest tightened. The light swelled until it became all he could see, pouring into every corner of the void.
It flared —
And the world slammed into focus.
---
Shaen's eyes snapped open.
Morning light spilled across his vision, and the voice was no longer deep and otherworldly but warm, familiar, human.
"Shaen, wake up!"
The voice that had shattered the void's silence was no longer weightless or cosmic. It was human — soft but insistent, carrying that particular tone that came from years of calling someone out of bed.
Shaen blinked rapidly, the ceiling of his room swimming into focus. Pale morning light spilled through the window to his right, softened by half-closed blinds. Dust motes drifted lazily in the sunbeam, their slow dance oddly hypnotic.
At the door stood his aunt.
She was in her mid-forties, though the faint silver in her brown hair seemed more a badge of experience than age. Her face was warm, the kind that had grown lines not from frowning but from smiling. Her dark eyes had that gentle, crinkling quality at the edges — though this morning, they also held a quiet undercurrent of worry, one she never voiced directly.
She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely. "Come on, don't tell me you plan to start your first day of college by sleeping through half of it."
Shaen pushed himself upright, rubbing at his eyes. His mind was still tangled in the dream — or whatever that vast emptiness had been. But his aunt's voice was a tether, pulling him firmly back into the ordinary world.
"Breakfast is ready," she continued, stepping back into the hallway. "And hurry before it gets cold."
Her footsteps faded down the stairs, leaving behind the faint scent of warm toast and brewed tea.
Shaen sat for a moment longer, letting his gaze wander over his room.
It wasn't messy, exactly — more… lived in. The shelves near his desk were lined with an uneven mix of books: a couple of worn novels from school days, some history volumes he'd picked up out of boredom, and a few he'd never read at all but liked the covers of. On his desk sat a small lamp with a crooked shade, a notepad half-filled with scribbles, and a cheap ballpoint pen that had leaked once and stained the wood faintly blue.
The window beside his bed was streaked faintly from last night's rain, the drops having dried in uneven trails. In one corner, a framed photo rested face-down — something he had never brought himself to put back up.
Pushing aside the lingering haze of sleep, he swung his legs off the bed. The floor was cool under his feet, making him wince a little. He gathered his clothes for the day, then moved to the small bathroom connected to his room.
The mirror reflected a pale-faced young man with hair sticking in all directions, as though it had been in a minor fight with gravity. He brushed his teeth, the faint mint taste slowly waking up his senses. The shower was warm and familiar — steam rising around him, washing away the last remnants of the strange dream. The smell of soap mixed with the faint scent of damp towels, and outside the closed door he could hear the house creaking faintly, the old wood settling in the morning.
By the time he came downstairs, the dining room was bright with sunlight. The table was already set — his aunt's quiet efficiency at work. A plate of scrambled eggs sat beside two slices of toast, and the aroma of tea lingered in the air.
He sat down, absently picking up his fork.
And then, without warning, a memory came.
When he was small — far too small to understand anything beyond whether it was day or night — it had been a nanny who served him breakfast. A kindly woman with hands that always smelled faintly of soap and flour. His parents… they had rarely been home. Business, always business. Even at that age, he had learned not to wait for them at the door.
But there had been one difference — back then, he believed they'd always return.
He remembered sitting in the living room one rainy night, waiting for the sound of the front door opening. The clock had ticked, the rain had pattered, and the hours had passed. This time… they never came.
Later came the police, their questions, the empty reassurances that they'd keep looking. No calls. No letters. No trace at all.
He had been five. Too young to understand the word "missing," old enough to understand that "missing" meant "not coming back."
It was his uncle and aunt who had taken him in after that. They had no children of their own, and they poured their affection into him as if to fill every empty corner left behind. They had given him stability, a home — and though he had grown quieter over the years, he had never once doubted they cared for him.
He shook his head, pushing the thoughts away. This wasn't the morning for old memories.
Looking up, he noticed the empty seat at the table. His uncle's chair.
"He's not home?" Shaen asked.
His aunt, clearing a spot on the counter, glanced over. "No, he left early. Business trip. You remember, don't you?"
"Right…" Shaen muttered, the reminder landing with a faint weight. He missed his uncle, though he wouldn't say it aloud.
His aunt sat across from him, resting her chin on her hand. "So," she began, "first day of college. Nervous?"
He gave a small shrug. "I guess."
Her lips twitched into a faint smile, though the worry in her eyes didn't fade. "It'll be good for you. New people, new experiences… You might even enjoy it."
"Maybe," he replied, noncommittal.
She sighed softly but didn't press. "I spoke to your uncle yesterday. He said it might be a while before he's back."
Shaen's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "Oh."
The small disappointment that followed was sharp but quiet, like a pinprick he didn't want to acknowledge.
They finished breakfast without much more conversation.
Upstairs, he dressed in a simple shirt and jeans, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. The zipper made a faint rasp as he closed it, and his shoes thumped softly against the floorboards as he made his way back to the front door.
His aunt was waiting there, hands clasped loosely. "Good luck today," she said, the words warm but carrying that thin thread of worry she tried to hide.
Shaen gave a faint nod, not quite meeting her eyes. "Thanks."
As he stepped outside, sunlight spilled across his face. The air was crisp, the street quiet except for the distant hum of a car somewhere down the block.
Behind him, his aunt lingered in the doorway, watching him go. Her smile was still there — but it didn't quite reach her eyes.