Orbit of Mercury. Captain Manuel's vessel.
Outside the hull—an endless abyss. Space doesn't just fall silent—it presses. This silence is heavy, like a stone slab on your chest, dense and devouring. The Scythian, guided by its onboard intelligence Emma, glides slowly through Mercury's orbit, like an ancient shadow etched across black velvet.
On the bridge, only half-light.
The blinking indicators pulse rhythmically, like the heartbeat of the ship itself. Time has lost its grip here. Pulse slows. Thought stretches into stillness.
Pietro and Maria sit side by side, eyes closed. Their bodies are still, serene—but inside, a storm churns. A whirlwind of thought. A flicker of something more. They meditate. Listening. Not just to themselves—but to something beyond.
Darkness.
Weightlessness.
Not a sound.
Space holds its breath—and so do they.
"God Hanaris," Pietro whispers, his voice trembling like the dream-speech of a sleeping man. "Why are we adrift in darkness and silence...?"
No answer comes in words.
It vibrates instead—through skin, through bone. Like music not heard with ears but felt in the blood. The response is inside him. A thought that doesn't arrive—it awakens.
It isn't necessary.
Picture any place you'd rather be—and you will be there.
Pietro draws a deeper breath. His face softens.
Any place...
He imagines it.
A city. Streets bathed in golden morning light. People moving—not as hurried ghosts, but as vibrant, feeling souls. The scent of coffee in the air. Laughter. A dog barking on some distant corner.
Everything blindingly real.
He opens his eyes.
And he is standing in the street.
Sunlight warms his face. Beneath his feet—cracked asphalt, weathered like time itself has walked here. People pass by. A man laughing into a commlink. A girl nodding to a courier-bot. Everything alive.
But...
Something's wrong.
The perfection is too clean.
Not a scrap of trash. Not a crooked sign. The people smile—but their joy is off-key, too precise, too... calculated. Not a city.
A construct.
"How do you like the setting?" says a voice. Familiar. Quiet. Everywhere at once.
Pietro spins around.
A man stands beside him—middle-aged, with a gaze that pierces like light through glass. His face is ageless. Neither young nor old. Neither kind nor cruel. He doesn't seem human. He's something worn into flesh.
This is Hanaris.
"It's... incredible," Pietro stammers, eyes wide. "It feels so real…"
"More real than you think," Hanaris replies. His voice is smooth as polished obsidian, yet inside it echo whispers of civilizations long fallen. "It's not an illusion. It's your projection. Your consciousness builds the world. I give it shape. We are co-authors of reality."
Co-authors…?
Then I'm not just a visitor. I'm a part of him?
Or maybe—he's a part of me.
But if I can create beauty...
Why do I so often choose darkness?
Pietro's eyes scan the passersby. Their smiles, once warm, now unsettle him. They seem... manufactured. Scripted.
If this is my doing—what's broken in me?
His heart tightens.
Beneath this sunlit heaven, he senses the void.
And Hanaris is not just a god.
He is the architect.
Of a paradise.
Or a prison.
And at that moment, Pietro understands—this is only the beginning.
He looks at Hanaris, thoughtful.
This city. Its light. Its scents. The illusion of movement, of air, of time—all real, but not real. A mirage stitched from memory and will.
But one question claws toward the surface.
A hunger he can't suppress.
She would understand. She would see the cracks.
Where are you, Maria...?
"Can I see Maria here?" he asks, voice shaking. Not just a question—a prayer. A longing so deep it might break him.
He summons her.
Her voice.
Her smile.
The touch that once stopped time itself.
And she—appears.
Not with trumpets. Not in light.
She's simply there. Beside him. As if she'd been there all along.
Maria flinches. Her eyes fly open wide. She spins, scanning the street, the faces, the sky—like she's trapped in someone else's simulation.
"Where am I...?" she whispers. Her voice trembles. Panic flickers just beneath. "Pietro? Is that you? Is this... real?"
Pietro smiles. The light on his face could only be born of salvation. He steps forward—slowly. As if afraid even a breath might shatter her.
"It's really me," he says, voice unsteady with joy. "We're inside... a mind. Inside Therma. There are no laws of time here. Only thought."
Maria steps closer, but her eyes remain guarded.
Is this a trap?
A dream?
A trick in code?
Her gaze sharpens. Like a scanner. Searching for flaws. For betrayal.
"A mind... whose?" she asks, her voice faint—like breath in sleep. "Ours? Or someone else's game?"
"Maybe both," Pietro says, after a pause. "But the feelings we have... they're real. Even if the city isn't."
She looks at him.
Long.
Quiet.
And then—something shifts in her eyes.
Warmth returns.
Like belief leaking through the cracks of doubt.
Like dawn pushing through the broken windows of an old cathedral.
"Then... hold me," she says softly, "until it disappears."
He wraps his arms around her.
Tight.
Trembling.
And for the first time in what feels like forever—even in a world built of thought—it feels real.
"How... how did we get here?" she asks, her voice fragile, close to a whisper. Panic hasn't claimed her yet—but it's pacing nearby. Her breath catches. She looks at Pietro as if his eyes are the last anchor holding her in this slipping world.
Then—Hanaris speaks.
Not loud. Not demanding.
But the voice is everywhere. Inside. Outside. In the marrow of bones.
Omnipresent.
"In your world, chaos reigns," he says. "Here, you may find order. But to understand where you are, you must first ask why you are here."
Pietro slowly turns.
He looks down the street.
At the faces moving past them.
And then it hits him.
They aren't breathing.
Their movements are perfect. Too perfect. Synchronized. Geometric.
A dance of machines—not of people.
"Everything around us... is something I imagined," he murmurs, as if testing the taste of his own words. His eyes go blank for a moment—like someone who's stared too long at a machine and glimpsed its truth. "I thought it... and we arrived."
Maria freezes.
Then—suddenly—she laughs.
Lightly. Honestly.
Like a child given a box that just might hold magic.
"That's amazing!" Her voice rings out, bright and real. "So we can change locations? Build our own places?"
Pietro nods, but his gaze has already drifted elsewhere. Past the city. Past the pavement. Beyond the sky. Into the place where meaning begins.
If I created this...
What else could I create?
Could I summon what I fear most?
And if the god merely amplifies the projection—
What happens when I lose control?
Suddenly—someone appears beside them.
No sound.
No warning.
But the presence is gravitational. Like a star bending space.
The voice is gentle. But it carries the weight of inevitability.
"Yes," says the stranger. "You can create something shared—if you willingly unite your minds."
"Focus. Think. If the other receives your thought... the merge will begin."
Maria looks at Pietro.
Their eyes lock.
And the world—stops.
He's with me.
I'm not alone.
If I fall, he'll catch me. If he slips, I'll hold on.
Pietro nods. No words.
But everything in his gaze says:
Try.
I'm with you.
She closes her eyes.
Breath slows. Not even an inhale. Just stillness.
The quiet before the storm.
In her mind—Pietro.
But not as a face. Not even a form.
As a feeling.
Warm. Pulling. Like her heart is reaching out, calling his name in a language older than words.
She doesn't think. Doesn't analyze.
She moves toward him—not with thought, but with soul.
And then—
Flash.
Like a lightning bolt detonating inside her.
A rush of heat.
Of memory.
Thoughts.
Lives.
The sound of streets.
Fears she buried even from herself.
Images of Pietro—smiling, weeping, dying, praying, fighting.
Too much. Too fast.
She's drowning in it.
Her mind stretched across a thousand lifetimes.
Then—an impulse.
Sharp. Irresistible.
Tears her out of Therma.
Like a thread ripped from cloth by a blade.
She gasps—eyes snapping open.
She's back.
The common room.
The Scythian.
Steel. Lights. Gentle hum of artificial gravity.
Silence.
Reality slaps her across the face.
Next to her—Pietro.
Pale. Sweat beads on his temples.
His eyes... like an android who's just returned from beyond the veil.
He looks at her.
As if seeing her for the first time.
In his gaze—wonder, fear, awe.
"That…" he breathes, voice trembling. "That was... incredible."
Maria says nothing.
Her eyes are hollow. Like someone standing on the shore after the storm has pulled away everything she thought was hers.
But it's more than fear.
It's a shattering.
Like her identity has cracked open—and something else is inside.
She whips her head around.
Scanning.
Seats. Console. The hum of the ship.
Too real.
Too perfect.
But what if this—too—is a trap?
What if the Scythian, Manuel, the war itself... are just scenery?
A simulation spun by Hanaris?
And I'm just a pawn in a divine game?
Her hand grips the armrest.
Cold. Metal.
Real?
The silence stretches.
Each second—an eternity.
No answers.
Only questions.
Only the echo of that merge.
"That was... an interesting experience," Pietro says at last, like someone surfacing from a deep dive with lungs half-full of water. His voice is fragile. As if every word might shatter the illusion.
"Yes..." Maria answers.
But her tone is distant.
She's looking at him—but through him. Past him.
Her eyes hold no fear.
Not anymore.
Only the realization:
This world is not what it seems.
Reality is treacherous.
And perhaps—the true enemy.
"It's interesting," she says again, voice slightly shaking. "But there's so much we don't understand yet."
Pietro nods silently.
And in that nod—weariness. Resignation. A kind of hopeless acceptance.
We've crossed a threshold.
And now... there's no going back.
He meets her gaze again.
Tries to hold on.
To the last real thing he still believes in.
"I agree," he says.
He straightens.
His face hardens. A shadow of steel beneath his eyes.
"There's a lot we need to figure out."
Maria stays quiet.
But her eyes are already far away.
Beyond the viewport.
Beyond orbit.
Beyond the weave of space itself.
Where chaos and order entwine—
in a pattern not yet born.