There was no countdown.
There was no dramatic sound.
There was no word begin.
Se Sixfeald Farung activated at the moment Geacx Novair realized that the system was no longer waiting for a command.
"Stop execution," Kaelin said.
The command was logged. Processed. And ignored.
"Why won't it stop?" the navigation technician asked, his voice rising half an octave, not panic, but confusion.
Geacx stood still in the center of the manned test module. His safety harness was not fully locked. He made no attempt to fix it.
"Because this is not an execution," he said quietly. "This is a consequence."
The displays surrounding them showed no disruption. No light distortion. No spatial rupture. Sensors continued to read nominal values, as if nothing at all were happening.
Yet the relationships between objects began to collapse.
The distance between wall and floor was no longer consistent. Angles remained ninety degrees, but did not always meet. Shadows moved slightly slower than the objects that cast them.
"Geacx," Kaelin said, more softly now. "What are we entering?"
Geacx swallowed. For the first time since the project began.
"Not where," he answered. "But between."
The sensation of falling did not come from below.
It came from the loss of reference.
Gravity did not cease. It became irrelevant.
For a moment, Geacx thought he had lost consciousness. The thought vanished when he realized that his awareness was too sharp to be called a dream. Every detail felt too consistent.
He stood, or at least existed, in a space that could not be called space.
Not dark. Not bright. Not empty.
Nameless.
In the distance, if the concept of distance still applied, there were geometric structures colliding without ever touching. Dimensions appeared like transparent layers arranged in the wrong order. There was direction, but no destination.
"Kaelin?" he said.
There was no answer.
"Asterion Station?"
Silence.
Not an empty silence. A silence that was full, yet refused interpretation.
Geacx raised his hand. The movement left a trace, not visual, but mathematical. He felt the trajectory of his arm as an equation, not as muscle.
"So this is…" he murmured. "A result without error."
The sound echoed. Not in air, but in the structure of reality itself.
And something answered.
Not with sound.
With presence.
Four eyes opened at once.
There was no face. No body.
Only a cube, floating without rotation, each of its sides displaying symbols that continuously changed. The four eyes did not blink. They did not focus. They included.
Geacx did not step back. Not out of courage. Because the concept of distance had suddenly become a choice, not a necessity.
"You are outside the trajectory," the entity said.
Its voice appeared directly in Geacx's consciousness, yet still sounded like language, neutral, without accent, without emotion.
"You are not the destination."
Geacx exhaled slowly. Strangely, his lungs still functioned as usual.
"Then," he said, "who are you?"
"I am known as the Feower-eaged Cub," it replied. "Guardian of transitions. Translator of failures."
"What failure?"
"The failure of reality to reject you."
Geacx stared at the cube for a long time.
"You can speak human language," he said.
"I can speak all languages," it replied. "Because I possess none."
It was not a threat. Not pride. Just fact.
"You should not be here," the Feower-eaged Cub continued. "But you also cannot return immediately."
"Why?"
The cube rotated by a fraction of a degree. Not physically, but relationally.
"Because you have violated the Lex Singalitatis without realizing it."
Geacx frowned. "I do not comprehend total reality."
"Not yet," said the Cub. "But reality has begun to consider you an observer who cannot be erased. That is… uncommon."
Geacx gave a short laugh. Not hysterical. Almost relieved.
"So I am an error."
"Yes."
"And you are here to fix it?"
"No."
The four eyes regarded him simultaneously.
"I am here to ensure that the error does not damage other trajectories."
Something moved beneath them.
Or above.
Or in another version of around.
The structures that had been abstract began to shift, as if making way for something too vast to be called an object.
Geacx felt it before he saw it.
Hunger.
Not biological hunger. Ontological hunger.
"Do not look in that direction," said the Feower-eaged Cub.
"What is it?"
"Micel Centepede."
The name carried its own weight. Like a myth too old to be believed, yet too consistent to be ignored.
"What does it eat?" Geacx asked.
The Cub paused for a moment. Very brief. But enough to be felt.
"Anything that is meaningful enough to be consumed," it said.
"Including me?"
"Especially you," the Cub replied. "Because you have not yet been decided."
Geacx swallowed.
"Decided by whom?"
The four eyes dimmed slightly. Not from fear.
From the limit of an answer.
"By the one who has not yet decided to explain Himself," the Cub said at last.
Space trembled.
Not because the Micel Centepede approached, but because reality was beginning to recognize Geacx's existence as a problem that required resolution.
"We must move," said the Cub.
"Where?"
"To a layer that still has a name."
"And the others?"
"The others," said the Cub, "will begin to notice you."
Geacx drew a long breath. Inside him, there was no heroic shout. No grand resolve.
Only one simple realization.
He had gone too far to pretend this was an experiment.
"Alright," he said. "Show me the way."
The Feower-eaged Cub rotated, opening something that could not be called a door.
"Hold on to one thing," it said.
"What?"
"Your identity," the Cub replied. "The rest will be negotiated."
Geacx stepped inside.
And in the distance, deep within a void that even dimensions hesitated to call home, something began to notice a small mistake called human.
The next chapter would not discuss a journey.
It would discuss what had begun to hunt Geacx Novair, and why he was worthy of being hunted.