AlexB @MrAlexKidd

Every split second stretched into an eternity. The great chain of time had grown leaden, almost ceasing to turn. The air was alive—thick, charged, humming with electric intensity, as though invisible currents braided the space between heartbeats. It might have been nothing more than exhaustion and the mind’s desperate tricks, yet there they were: countless tiny luminous shapes, like amoebas of light, drifting and darting all around us. Barely visible, they moved with impossible grace, wit, and intention. Each flicker carried character. Their paths wove into patterns, as if they recognized one another, as if they shared some ancient, secret language. They danced. They played. Delicate gleams spinning, tumbling, chasing one another in joyous synchrony—tiny celebrants in the midst of carnage, turning a slaughter-field into a festival no one else could see. And then everything simply stopped. No blades rose. No bodies fell. The world held its breath, suspended between one heartbeat and the next, while the small bright beings continued their merry, indifferent revels.

The ship’s interior swallowed sound, enveloping him in a silence that was almost tangible. Illian’s sharp ears strained, catching only the faint whisper of his own footfalls, their echoes quickly absorbed into the void. Could it be that even the Leviathan’s hermits had succumbed to the gravity of the Sui Generis? The idea lingered, though he struggled to accept it. The locals were bound to this vessel by fervent rituals; it was difficult to imagine anything that might compel them to abandon their sacred refuge, forsaking the Leviathan during a mass pilgrimage. Yet as Illian ventured deeper, the silence grew even more profound, as if the ship itself held its breath, lifeless and hollow.

The river crossing buzzed with thrill and excitement. The water’s cool friction against our skin was a sweet relief, cutting through the oppressive heat and stifling air. Silence before the storm, I thought, but kept it to myself—why unsettle the walkers over something beyond their control? Besides, we knew so little of this place that claiming a storm was certain felt reckless. Yet my gut churned with a quiet certainty: trouble was brewing.

The answer wasn’t simple. The game dangled endless promises—joy, meaning, belonging—too seductive to resist. To reject it was to court isolation, at least at first. It was also perilous. The machine wouldn’t release you willingly; it thrived on our participation. We were its fuel, the batteries powering a grim, ancient engine that drove us to commit atrocities, forgetting our shared essence—mere fragments of the same earth. We had no business tormenting one another.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, head tilted back as if in meditation. Thin cables snaked from her temples, plugged into a jury-rigged console that hummed with a life of its own. Her chest rose and fell, slow and steady, but her skin was pale, almost translucent, veins glowing faintly beneath the surface. Not dead. Not alive, either. Something in between—a sleeper caught in a dream she couldn’t escape.

The answer wasn’t simple. The game dangled endless promises—joy, meaning, belonging—too seductive to resist. To reject it was to court isolation, at least at first. It was also perilous. The machine wouldn’t release you willingly; it thrived on our participation. We were its fuel, the batteries powering a grim, ancient engine that drove us to commit atrocities, forgetting our shared essence—mere fragments of the same earth. We had no business tormenting one another.

A bitter smirk twisted my lips. I was getting old—seventy-three, if the years still meant anything. The “juices” kept me ticking, a trade-off for immortality no one could refuse. But I felt obsolete, a fading echo in a world that didn’t need me.

For a moment, everyone stood still, their heads tilted back to the sky. Thousands upon thousands of birds swirled above, each one a silhouette against the dark grey expanse. All were black. What initially appeared as chaotic, soon transformed into a marvelously organized, hyper-massive flock. With a swift, almost choreographed motion, they moved away, leaving the sky empty once more. The engineer, as if sensing my awe, called out to me, pointing in the direction where the great black blot had just vanished. The mystery was solved.

Clouds of dust rose from the ground, swirling around the mirror like a legion of war horses galloping through the air.

And so we marched. A fragile thread of walkers drawn forward into the vast unknown. Duty and anticipation pressed against one another inside us—weighty responsibility braided together with an unexpected, almost reckless freedom. The demand to explore and record everything was immense, almost crushing; yet the knowledge that no one had ever done this before offered its own strange mercy.

Humanity had chased replicas—terraforming projects, virtual paradises, gene-edited utopias—only to discover that every imposed symmetry bred its own entropy. The more perfect the garden, the more vicious the weeds that grew in secret.

No entrance announced itself. No doors. Only the slow, hypnotic gyre of shells, each rotation a question phrased in mathematics older than galaxies.

Wondering whether the others shared these visions felt pointless; they must. Each morning their eyes gave it away—glazed, distant, still half-lost in whatever country the night had opened inside them. A few tried to speak of it, but the words stumbled and died on their tongues. How do you describe the indescribable?

The Veil wasn’t alone. The Terran Covenant, a rival faction, revered Earth as a divine cradle, insisting the colony’s purpose was to preserve humanity’s birthplace, not abandon it. They controlled the quantum ansible, the only link to Earth’s fractured governments, relaying increasingly erratic messages: resource demands, threats of war, pleas for evacuation. The Covenant preached salvation through loyalty to Earth, but their sermons grew desperate as Earth’s nations stockpiled warheads.

Once, our hope burned radiant as a newborn sun. Then day surrendered to an endless night, and shadows fell across the golden hush of memories we thought no darkness could unmake.

The Leviathan had become a refuge for the lost and the wandering—a home for nomads, drifters, and seekers. Its inhabitants were a mix of humans, sentient machines, and the occasional disfigured mutant, apathetic and trapped in their own malaise. The ship was a beacon of forgotten knowledge, and that, more than anything, drew people in. For many, it wasn’t just a destination—it became their final stop. Once inside, few ever left. It held power, secrets, and perhaps, answers. Illian had studied the Leviathan for years, but he had never set foot inside. This would be his first chance, and he had already resolved not to waste it.

The Leviathan had become a refuge for the lost and the wandering—a home for nomads, drifters, and seekers. Its inhabitants were a mix of humans, sentient machines, and the occasional disfigured mutant, apathetic and trapped in their own malaise. The ship was a beacon of forgotten knowledge, and that, more than anything, drew people in. For many, it wasn’t just a destination—it became their final stop. Once inside, few ever left. It held power, secrets, and perhaps, answers. Illian had studied the Leviathan for years, but he had never set foot inside. This would be his first chance, and he had already resolved not to waste it.

A frantic storm broke over the Valley, lashing the ridges and drowning the low paths in sudden water. That was the night we met our seventh walker.He was bald, nameless, skin pale as old bone beneath the rain. He said he had been walking for a long time—how long, he could no longer recall. The beginning had slipped from memory like a stone dropped into deep current. He spoke little. So did we. No one pressed the matter.What drew every eye were the tattoos: a dense web of fine lines that encircled arms, torso, neck, and legs in quiet, unhurried spirals. They seemed less inscribed than revealed—as though the Valley itself had drawn them there over centuries, and the man merely carried the map.

He hesitated with an answer. Perhaps, he was thinking about the dosage of truth he’s ready to give out, or he struggled to understand what happened just as much as we all did.

With this clarified sight came revelations previously unimaginable: fragments once felt only dimly—hints in emotion, in fleeting intuition—now connected into coherent patterns. Feelings overlapped with images; purposes and meanings emerged where before there had been only vague silhouettes.