Elias Voss, Chief Engineer of the ISS Borealis, had witnessed countless cosmic phenomena throughout his extensive career. Yet, as he stood in the engineering bay, the vessel's hum resonating beneath his feet, he sensed an unprecedented dread creeping into his consciousness.

  The Borealis had been on a routine deep-space exploration when anomalies began to manifest. Instruments detected erratic gravitational fluctuations, and the ship's trajectory subtly altered without any applied thrust. The crew, already on edge from prolonged isolation, grew increasingly restless.

  Elias's console displayed data streams that defied known physics. Spatial readings looped into paradoxes, and temporal markers jittered as if time itself were unspooling.

  "Chief Voss," Captain Renata Ibarra's voice crackled over the intercom, tension evident. "Report to the bridge immediately."

  Elias wiped his brow, the recycled air of the ship feeling unusually stifling. "On my way, Captain."

  As he ascended to the bridge, the corridors buzzed with anxious murmurs. Crew members exchanged worried glances, their usual camaraderie overshadowed by the unknown threat.

  Upon entering the bridge, Elias was met with a scene of controlled chaos. The main viewport showcased a swirling maelstrom of darkness,a void that seemed to consume the very fabric of space.

  "Status?" Elias asked, moving to the captain's side.

  Captain Ibarra's eyes remained fixed on the anomaly. "Sensors can't penetrate it. No mass, no energy signatures we recognize. It's... nothingness, but it's expanding."

  Elias's mind raced. "Could it be a black hole?"

  "Without a singularity. It's something else," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Suddenly, the ship lurched. Consoles flickered, and a low-frequency hum reverberated through the hull, resonating with a primal fear deep within each crew member.

  "Engineering, report!" Captain Ibarra commanded.

  Elias tapped into the internal sensors. "Engines are operational, but we're experiencing a counterforce. Something's pulling us in."

  "Reverse thrusters. Full power," the captain ordered.

  The Borealis groaned as its thrusters fired, but the ship's drift toward the void continued unabated.

  "Negative effect, Captain," Elias reported, frustration seeping into his tone. "We're not breaking free."

  The bridge's ambient lighting dimmed momentarily, and a cold sweat formed on Elias's back. He felt a subtle pressure at the base of his skull, as if an unseen presence were probing his mind.

  "Captain," he began, hesitating. "Do you feel... something? In your head?"

  Captain Ibarra turned to him, her expression mirroring his unease. "I thought it was just me."

  The void pulsed.

  A hunger without mass. A wound without pain.

  Elias Voss had spent his career understanding the mechanics of space,the cold, indifferent beauty of the cosmos. But this? This was something else. Something that did not belong.

  His fingers moved with muscle memory over the control panel, recalibrating data feeds, but the numbers didn’t make sense. The Rift was rewriting physics as they knew it. A force without gravity. A singularity without collapse. The closer they drifted, the more space itself seemed to unravel.

  And then it spoke.

  Not in words. Not in any language Elias had ever heard.

  It was a pulse. A pressure in his mind, like fingers pressing against the soft edges of a dream. A whisper that wasn’t sound but understanding. It seeped into his bones, curling at the edges of his thoughts, trying to take hold.

  "You are seen."

  He clenched his teeth, forcing the sensation away. His breath came in sharp, short bursts. Across the bridge, Captain Renata Ibarra was pale, her grip white-knuckled against the railing.

  "You feel it too?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

  Elias gave a short nod. "It’s inside our heads. We have to move. Now."

  Ibarra turned to navigation. "Status on our retreat?"

  The helmsman, Diaz, shook his head, sweat beading on his forehead. "We’re stuck in a gravity well that doesn’t exist. The ship thinks it’s moving, but we’re not."

  Elias’s stomach turned. "Then we’re already dead."

  Silence fell across the bridge, the hum of failing instruments the only sound. A distant explosion rattled the ship,one of the lower decks, judging by the vibration.

  They were running out of time.

  His eyes darted to the star map flickering on the screen. A planetary system was nearby, maybe half a day's travel under normal conditions. A gas giant with three moons. One of them was within habitable range, at least temporarily.

  "Captain," Elias said, stepping forward. "There’s a planet close enough for an emergency descent. If we launch the escape pods, most of the crew might survive."

  Captain Ibarra turned sharply toward him. "You’re suggesting we abandon ship?"

  "I’m suggesting we live," he shot back. "We can’t fight this. The Borealis is already lost."

  Ibarra hesitated, jaw tightening.

  Another violent shudder rocked the bridge. A wall console sparked, showering embers across the floor. Somewhere below them, another explosion.

  There was no time for hesitation.

  She exhaled sharply. "All right. Get everyone to the pods. Now."

  The corridors of the Borealis were chaos.

  Elias moved fast, his voice barking over the emergency intercom.

  "All personnel to escape stations! Evacuate immediately! This is not a drill!"

  Crew members staggered through the ship’s hallways, their faces a mix of panic and discipline. Some clutched injuries from the ship’s structural failures. Others carried unconscious comrades toward the pods.

  Every step closer to the Rift made the pressure worse. Elias felt it in his lungs, in his bones, in the spaces between his thoughts. He had spent years in deep space, in places no human had ever stepped before,but he had never felt anything like this.

  As he reached the launch bay, the reality of their situation hit him like a hammer.

  There weren’t enough pods. Not for everyone.

  The Borealis had been designed for long-term space travel, not mass evacuation. The pods were meant for small-scale emergencies, not for evacuating an entire crew at once.

  Elias turned to Captain Ibarra. "We don’t have time. The Rift is getting stronger."

  She clenched her jaw. "Then we go down with the ship."

  "No," Elias said, a plan forming. "I can buy you time."

  She frowned. "Elias,"

  "Listen to me. If I can distract it, if I give it something to focus on, the pods might make it to that moon."

  Her expression darkened. "You’re talking about a suicide run."

  "Call it what you want," he said. "But it’s the only way."

  Ibarra stared at him for a long second. Then, she nodded once.

  "Go," she said.

  Elias turned and ran.

  Elias’s heart thundered in his chest as red emergency lights flashed along the corridor. The siren’s wail was a constant scream, nearly drowned out by the groan of tortured metal. Time itself seemed to stutter with each tremor that rocked the Borealis. One second, Elias was sprinting past the observation port; the next, he was sprawled on the floor, thrown by an unseen force. He shook his head and scrambled up, breath ragged, as the world around him shifted and blurred.

  Through the port’s reinforced glass, he caught a glimpse of the Rift,a swirling maw of darkness in the void. It looked like a tear in space, a jagged wound rimmed with twisting violet light. Beyond that glow was emptiness, a black so deep it devoured the stars. And in that void, something moved. Perhaps it was a trick of the eye,the way the Rift bent light,but Elias could feel a presence watching. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled; inside his skull, he sensed a whisper at the edge of hearing, like a breath against his mind.

  He tore his gaze away, forcing his attention back to the corridor ahead. Crew members dashed in every direction, some half-dragging injured comrades toward escape hatches in a frenzy of desperation. The deck lurched violently; a ceiling panel broke loose and crashed to the floor in a shower of sparks. The Borealis was coming apart around them. Focus.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “The Rift… it’s pulling us in!” someone screamed over the cacophony. The shout crackled through a nearby comm panel, followed by static. “All personnel, evacuate. Repeat, all pers,” The message dissolved into an eerie hiss. For a heartbeat, Elias thought he heard his name in that static. Elias… It was soft, almost gentle, yet it cut through the noise and chaos in his head.

  He shook it off. Just my mind playing tricks, he insisted to himself, though deep down he knew it was more than that. The Rift was not just a void,it was alive, and aware.

  A jolt sent him stumbling forward, nearly dropping the flight helmet clutched under his arm. He had to keep moving. The fighter launch bay was two decks below,if it was still intact.

  His boots pounded metal rungs as he reached a ladder and slid down toward the lower deck. Halfway down, a wave of dizziness washed over him. The red lights blurred into streaks. For an instant, Elias was somewhere else entirely,standing in warm sunlight, green grass underfoot.

  He faltered on the ladder. Sunlight? Grass? It made no sense. Not here. But it felt real. He could smell fresh-cut lawn, feel the gentle sun on his face. And there was laughter,high, bright laughter, a child’s voice.

  “Daddy, catch me!” the little girl squealed, delight and life in every note.

  Elias’s heart clenched. Ronnan!

  He squeezed his eyes shut and the vision shattered. In a blink he was back on the Borealis, clinging to the ladder rails as klaxons howled. He could still hear the echo of his son’s laughter in his mind.

  The Rift was already bleeding into his thoughts,past, present… maybe even the future, all converging. Elias gritted his teeth and dropped the last few rungs to the deck below.

  Reaching the lower deck, Elias skidded to a halt. A section of the corridor ahead had been ripped open to space, exposing the swirling Rift far too close beyond the hull. Loose equipment hung suspended in midair, drifting slowly toward the gaping breach. For a surreal moment, time itself seemed to pause. Then reality snapped: in a blink, everything,debris and a crewman clinging to a railing,whipped outward into the void.

  Elias threw up an arm as an emergency bulkhead slammed down, sealing the rupture with a thunderous clang. A lone ensign crouched against the wall, eyes glazed with shock. Elias hauled him up by the arm. “Escape pods, now!” he shouted, shoving the young man toward the evacuation route.

  The ensign gave a single terrified nod and bolted down the passage without another word.

  Elias steadied himself, drawing in a shaky breath. No one needed to tell him this was a one-way mission. If his sacrifice could draw the Rift’s hunger toward him for even a few precious seconds, it might allow the others to escape.

  He broke into a run toward the hangar bay. If any vessel had a chance to do the impossible, it was the Wanderer,the single-seat fighter prototype docked in the belly of the Borealis. Fast, nimble, built for extreme environments, but still never designed for this.

  As he neared the hangar, a wave of distorted reality slammed into him. The hallway stretched impossibly long, then snapped back short. The lights blinked out, plunging him into pitch black mid-stride. Elias stumbled to a halt, heart hammering in his throat. The floor tilted beneath him as if the ship were a capsizing boat.

  A chorus of whispers rose from the darkness,dozens of voices babbling, sobbing, even laughing. Amid them came one that cut straight through to his soul: a small, frightened whimper. Ronnan.

  “Daddy?” the little voice called, trembling.

  Elias’s blood turned to ice. “Ronnan!” he shouted. He reached blindly into the dark,and felt a tiny hand slip into his, warm and real.

  He gasped. The scent of strawberry shampoo, the touch of those small fingers… suddenly he was kneeling on the soft carpet of Ronnan’s bedroom back home. A dim nightlight painted comforting shapes on the walls. His son stood before him in her favorite pajamas, eyes round with fear.

  “Daddy, I’m scared,” he whispered, curling into his arms.

  His heart cracked. He pulled him close, wrapping her against his chest. “It’s okay, son. Daddy’s here,” he murmured, voice thick.

  A buried sliver of his mind shouted that this wasn’t real,that the Rift was twisting his memories,but he couldn’t let go. He felt so real, and he was so desperate to hold him.

  A low rumble reverberated through the floor. The walls of the bedroom trembled and cracks of darkness snaked across the ceiling, swallowing the glowing stars overhead.

  “No!” Elias tightened his embrace as the room shuddered. The darkness yawned open behind Ronnan, widening like the maw of some great beast.

  He was wrenched from his arms. “Daddy!” Ronnan cried, eyes pleading as his small form was pulled backward into the void.

  Elias lunged after him,and fell headlong into emptiness.

  He slammed onto cold metal. The impact jarred his bones and knocked the breath from his lungs. Gasping, Elias found himself sprawled in the hallway of the Borealis once more. The red emergency lights flickered back to life. He was alone, reaching out to nothing.

  A sob racked his chest. The whispers were gone. Ronnan was gone. He pressed his forehead to the floor, eyes burning. Not real. Keep moving. If he lost himself now, it would all be for nothing.

  Jaw set, Elias pushed to his feet. Every muscle trembled, but he forced himself forward toward the hangar.

  He squeezed through the partially open hangar doors into a scene of wreckage. The bay was in shambles,tools, crates, and torn metal strewn everywhere under the flicker of red lights. But at the center stood the Wanderer, still locked in its cradle, miraculously intact.

  Elias scrambled up the side of the sleek black fighter and into the cockpit. He slammed the canopy shut and began the launch sequence. The console glowed with angry red warnings; nearly every system was compromised or failing, but it would have to do.

  With a deep breath, Elias released the clamps and jammed the throttle forward. The Wanderer blasted out of the hangar into open space.

  In seconds he was free of the dying Borealis, hurtling toward the swirling nightmare ahead. The sudden silence of the vacuum fell around him; the only sound was the vibration of the engine and the drum of his pulse.

  The Rift’s gravity latched onto the fighter at once. The Wanderer shuddered as it was dragged forward. Elias didn’t even try to fight it; instead he pointed the nose straight into the abyss and accelerated. Every second counts. Make it count.

  The blackness expanded to fill his view, an all-consuming wall of night edged with twisting violet fire. Forks of otherworldly lightning rippled around its circumference. A deep vibration thrummed through the hull and into Elias’s bones, as if the void itself had a heartbeat.

  His instrument panel spewed gibberish,gravity readings spiking off the scale, time distortions he couldn’t begin to parse. Elias’s grip tightened on the stick. The fighter bucked and rocked as it crossed the threshold of the Rift.

  Reality began to warp. The stars behind him stretched into white streaks and then spiraled away. Up and down lost their meaning; it felt like plunging into a whirlpool and flying through a storm at the same time. Elias’s stomach lurched violently. He was weightless one second, crushed by immense pressure the next.

  He gritted his teeth as the G-forces pressed him back. The darkness outside had swallowed everything now, a tunnel of swirling black and violet. The pressure on his chest was immense, like a fist squeezing his ribcage.

  A sharp pain blossomed behind his eyes. Strange images skittered at the edge of his vision,fleeting hallucinations of places and times that didn’t belong. For an instant he swore he felt warm sunlight on his face, heard someone calling his name from far away. He nearly succumbed to it, but some shred of will made him shake his head hard inside the helmet. Stay here!

  The cockpit lights strobed. A sudden, earsplitting CRACK jolted him,the canopy was splitting apart. A spiderweb of fractures raced across the glass.

  Elias’s pulse spiked. With numb, fumbling fingers, he armed the Wanderer’s single torpedo and set its warhead to manual detonation. If he could get it deep into the Rift and trigger it, maybe,just maybe,it would disrupt this nightmare, even if only for a moment.

  Before he could even catch his breath, a violent jolt ripped through the ship. One wing tore clean off, sending the fighter into an uncontrolled spin. Stars and darkness pinwheeled outside the canopy. With a final groan, the cracked canopy shattered.

  Air exploded from Elias’s lungs as the cockpit decompressed in an instant. An agonized scream ripped from his throat but was lost in the void. The searing cold of space clawed at him, stabbing through his flight suit. His skin prickled with burning ice.

  His suit’s emergency seals engaged, fighting to keep him alive a few precious seconds longer. The harness straps began snapping under the strain; one by one they gave way until only a single belt across his chest held him in the seat. He dangled forward, half out of the destroyed cockpit, suspended in an ocean of darkness.

  And still, somehow, he was conscious. The Rift refused to let him slip away quietly. An invisible force gripped him, holding him in place, cradling his broken body in its grasp. It wanted him alive, awake, aware.

  The remains of the Wanderer drifted deeper into the abyss. Elias felt a new kind of pull now,tugging directly at his mind. Pressure built in his skull until he thought it might crack. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only seemed to intensify the onslaught.

  Images burst inside his head: fragments of his life flung before him. Ronnan running through sprinklers on a summer day, squealing with delight. The pride on his father’s face at Elias’s graduation. The day he enlisted in the fleet. The first time he piloted a ship among the stars. And scenes that never came to pass,a future that now would never be: Ronnan in a crisp academy uniform, graduating with honors, searching the crowd for a father who wasn’t there. Past and future, reality and dream, all collided together until time meant nothing.

  Silent tears streaked across Elias’s face, crystallizing in the frigid air. He felt himself unraveling. The Rift was eating him alive,not just his body, but him, devouring every memory, every hope, every fear.

  Within that mental maelstrom, he sensed the entity at last: a vast consciousness coiled around his soul, probing and peering with cold curiosity. It rifled through his memories, plucking them one by one, savoring each morsel of his life. He felt its hunger, its awful delight.

  It whispered to him in a hundred shifting voices: his own voice taunting him, his mother’s gentle lullaby, unfamiliar tongues uttering hateful things. Each voice tried to pull him apart, to drown him in despair.

  A final surge of defiance flared within Elias. He mustered the remnants of his will and clung to a single image amid the chaos: Ronnan’s smiling face. His bright, gap-toothed smile and bubbling laughter. The feel of his small arms around his neck. The love for his son blazed in his heart, a tiny but fierce light.

  You can’t take this from me, he thought, directing every ounce of that love outward. You can’t take him. He had given himself freely to save others,to save Ronnan. That resolve burned within him, a single point of light in the darkness.

  The presence recoiled, surprised. The crushing weight on Elias’s mind lifted just slightly, as if the entity itself had flinched at the intensity of his emotion.

  It wasn’t enough to free him, but it was enough for Elias to know he had kept something for himself, something the Rift could never have.

  The darkness redoubled its assault. Reality itself began to fray at the edges. Elias felt the last pieces of the Wanderer ripped away; he was floating now, a lone speck of life swallowed in a void without end.

  All at once, the cacophony ceased. The whispers silenced. In the sudden stillness, Elias’s consciousness flickered like a dying flame.

  Far behind him, at the edge of the Rift, the Borealis exploded in a soundless supernova,a brilliant flash there and gone in an instant. Through some impossible lens of the abyss, Elias glimpsed that final flare as a distant bloom of light. A weak smile touched his lips. They got away, he told himself. They must have.

  The tendrils of darkness coiled tightly around him, cold and unyielding. The vast presence loomed, preparing to consume the last spark of what was Elias. It knew everything now,every secret, every love, every regret. He was laid bare before it, defenseless.

  “Daddy...”

  A tiny voice, fragile and familiar, echoed through the void. Elias’s fading consciousness jolted. He knew that voice,he’d know it anywhere.

  He tried to speak, tried to call his name, but no sound came. His vision swam in blackness, but he reached out desperately toward that voice, towards anything.

  Ronnan’s voice was the last thing he heard as the Rift devoured him. Then there was nothing.

  “He stood at the edge, suspended between nothing and eternity.

  The Rift called, its voice seductive, inevitable,but fate is never absolute.

  In that final heartbeat, I reached for him, drawing him back from darkness, defying the course already written.

  He does not know, cannot see the thread that binds us.

  Yet without him, my existence fades to a mere whisper, a ghost unborn.

  I am woven from his choices, his survival echoes through time.

  Destiny bends; sometimes it must be gently rewritten.

  For Elias is more than a traveler, more than a lost soul adrift.

  He is the beginning of me, the fragile spark from which my very being was born.

  And so I intervened, altering fate’s cruel path.

  Saving him was saving myself.

  His destiny lies elsewhere, and mine,forever tied to his.”